DOES HOME OWNERSHIP MAKE YOU HAPPY?
Australia is experiencing ever increasing inflation with no end in sight. The cost of food, fuel, insurance, electricity and consumer goods rises every week. Home owners with mortgages are experiencing regular increases in their repayments and most are feeling the pinch. The cost of living continues to rise. ( Mortgage stress is considered to be making repayments greater than 25% of the homeowner’s post tax income. It is estimated more than 30% of West Australians with mortgages are already in this position)
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This poses the question: Does home ownership make you happy? A leading psychologist in New Zealand, Professor Robert MacCullioch, an expert on Money and Well Being refers to the cognitive bias, the ‘Endowment Effect’ which claims human beings place more value on the things they own.
The article also claims that people who own their own homes are richer and this results in greater happiness. This is because people feel they have control of their money. Home ownership also means you move less often and children perform better at school. Other research claims areas where home ownership is high have better schools and children achieve better outcomes. They also have greater access to services within their community. There’s references to higher social status, better mental health, financial security and independence, as well as less crime in areas of high home ownership.
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This is supported by research both internationally and in New Zealand which consistently supports the belief that home owners are more satisfied with their lives. Some studies cite psychological security ( the home is a safe haven), privacy, equity in the home, choice about where you live, a sense of belonging and being part of a community as important components of home ownership.
So what about countries where renting is more common? Countries such as Germany where more than 50% of people rent have laws that protect the renter, obligations about maintaining the properties and long leases. Traditionally most people rented rather than purchasing their own homes as a result of the substantial deposit required to get a mortgage. Culturally, renting was accepted as a way of life. Due to the shortage of housing stock in Germany anyone wanting to buy their own home would more commonly buy land and build a house. Similar situations exist throughout Switzerland and France.
HOUSEHOLD THINGS
Are you building or renovating your kitchen? I’d like to suggest you place the rubbish bin in a pullout ‘drawer’ below the area where most food preparation will occur. Then you can just pull it out and clean the cutting board or bench top by wiping everything straight into the bin.
This terrible photo of the slide out rubbish bin shows how easily I can swipe rubbish into the bin from the bench top where I do most of the food preparation. I know I should make compost from fruit and vegetable scraps but past experiences make it plain compost is not my forté.
I frequently make sourdough bread. This time I added caraway seeds to the dough and sprinkled some on top before the loaf went into the oven. Lovely flavour. I’ll do that again.
Our greengrocer is full of many different types of apples at the moment. I bought too many for us to eat raw so I stewed some and made tarts and an apple pie. Disappeared quickly.
Now that we have two or three different bins for different sorts of rubbish I use spatulas to clean jars and tins as clean as possible before washing them to go into recycling. Some things can be swished out with hot water and added to whatever you’re cooking or the soup pot.
Thought I’d try a supermarket brand of baked beans having read a few articles saying these items are the same as brand name products. I am sure some are, but not the baked beans I bought. Never mind, they went into the pot of minestrone and tasted wonderful after mixing with everything else.
Minestrone with home brand baked beans. I had to dilute it with more stock as it just got thicker and thicker. Three days of slightly different soup depending on what I added to use up or just dilute it!
Made cheese and sweetcorn muffins to have with the soup. The leftover corn went into the soup, too. Recipe I used (here).
Today is WORLD CHOCOLATE DAY. Well, that’s easy to celebrate!
