Financial & Travel Musings

It’s not always as obvious a choice as you might think.

For instance, a few years ago it seemed likely that I would be going to work in Brussels for a few years. Now you might think that since it was “a few years” that clearly renting was the way to go and so it would have been normally. However, two things made this not quite so simple. At the time, apartment rental would have been something like $1500 a month, buying something like $2000 ie little difference in price. Not only that but the expenses allowance alone for the job was such that it would have been possible to have a house almost paid for over the three year contract ie essentially that $1500 a month rental would instead have been “in the bank”.

That said apartments for rent are generally cheaper and more plentiful than places to buy. They’re probably the way to go for a temporary move but do take into account your own financial circumstances.

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One of the things that everyone knows is that life insurance gets more expensive as you get older. It’s bound to, isn’t it? After all, each year that you get older, that’s one more year closer to booking your funeral, isn’t it?

Except that what “everyone knows” isn’t always correct and it isn’t in this case. Consider the extreme example: say you bought life insurance in advance for your child that kicked in the day of their birth. That would actually be quite expensive as there are heaps of things that can go wrong in a pregnancy and lots of things that can go wrong in the early years too. Thus insurance for the very young can be more expensive than those a little older.

Similar effects continue on throughout ones life. Thus we expect that car insurance will be more expensive for young drivers than older ones. A large part of that is down to the reckless attitude of some young drivers but there’s also the greater experience of older ones once they get over the reckless years. Also as you get older clearly you’re going to pass by the various childhood diseases. Less obviously, there’s an element of what’s effectively luck: older people get to that age partly because of sheer luck over the years.

Thus a life insurance lead needs to consider just what your life situation is to get the best value. Sometimes it’s far from obvious!

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Whilst kitchens should be homely, the bathroom is the place to be going ultra-modern or at least experimenting with that kind of look.

Thus when we’ve been looking around the relatively traditional styles for our upcoming new kitchen, it’s a different set of stores that we’ve been looking at for the new look bathroom. Places with things like glass tiles, strange looking plumbing and the like.

Believe me, our bathroom really needs a face lift!

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