text: The Houseless Problem S. A. Tawks ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I had a home but it wasn't a house. It was an apartment I shared with four others. One of these others was my significant other. We had a pretty great life together. But one day I realised how it could be even better. If we had more money, we could have more stuff and do more things. Stuff like the latest gadgets, clothes and accessories. Things like amazing holidays and memorable experiences. Stuff and things that would make everyone else stop and think, 'hey, they must have a pretty good life.' So what was step number one? What was the biggest money drain I could transform into a money pool? Rent. 'Rent's dead money,' say all the experts. The best strategy is to save as much as you can for a mortgage deposit and then chip away at the mortgage bit by bit until you completely own the property. I knew the biggest hurdle would be the stage where my significant other and I were both saving for the deposit and giving away that 'dead money' every week. But I had faith in us to make it through the challenge and be proud first home buyers. Then there'd be more stuff to be had and more things to do. I set our savings goal at 33% of our fortnightly pay. This was money we'd deposit straight away into a high interest savings account. The next step was to open a term deposit once three months had passed and transfer what we had saved into this, incentivising us not to touch the funds. Everything went according to plan and the cash was locked into the term deposit by the end of month number three. Month four came around and that's when I had a great idea. "What about this," is how I began my proposition to my significant other. "Instead of buying a house, let's buy a townhouse." She said she really wanted a yard and a big place to hold parties. I laid out my thoughts to make her see the benefit of my idea and I knew she wouldn’t have an argument. If we bought a townhouse, the mortgage deposit and subsequent interest and principal repayments would be smaller. We'd also have enough money for the deposit sooner and solve the problem of that dead money we were throwing away every week. I figured we'd have a good deposit for a modest townhouse by the eighteenth month of our savings plan. Six months in, I had another idea. It was more of a realisation. My significant other went to stay with her parents for a week because an aunt had passed away. I didn't do much that week besides work. I didn't do much and this resulted in not spending much. If my significant other and I could spend as little as possible, we'd have enough for the deposit sooner than planned. Eating in, biking or walking instead of using petrol, limiting electricity usage, staying in instead of going out...the list of possibilities was endless. I sold all these difficult, boring and time-consuming strategies to my significant other by telling her it was a small sacrifice now for a better future. Nine months down was when my roommates began to get on my nerves. It became obvious to me that they were all wasteful leeches. They'd leave all the lights on in the apartment, eat the food I'd bought, ask me to spot them cash - a fiver or a tenner - and never pay me back. It all became too much when we went out one night for dinner. We were a group of ten at an Italian restaurant. My budget and taste met at the equilibrium of spaghetti bolognese and I was kind of happy to pay the eighteen dollars for the meal. I didn't have any entrees, wines or desserts like the others because I couldn't justify it. When my significant other asked for a third wine, I told her to maybe rethink her purchase and was given a foul look. 'Whatever. Waste your money,' I thought about her actions and the actions of my other eight friends. Then came the bill and one joker suggested we split it. A few backed his suggestion and then it became the consensus. When the bill of $922.35 was passed into my hand, I couldn't hold my tongue. "Whoa, wait a second. We're all happy to pay ninety-two dollars and twenty-three and a half cents?" "We'll round it down to twenty-three cents," said the same joker who had suggested splitting the bill. "I only had the spaghetti and tap water. Eighteen dollars," I pointed out. "Please don't do this," my significant other whispered. Now it was my turn to give her a foul look. Then I announced to the table, "I'm not paying five times the price of what I ate." Eventually, after standing my ground, the others agreed to remove my $18 and split $904.35 nine ways. What a bunch of idiots, I thought. A month later my significant other sat me down and told me we needed to talk. She told me our lifestyle was suffocating her and I argued that we were more than halfway to our target. Eight more months and we'd have our townhouse and be able to buy more things and do more stuff. Then she said our lifestyle wasn't the only problem. Our relationship was also a problem. I was sad about our relationship ending but what really depressed me was seeing her half vanish from the term deposit the next time we could touch it without incurring a fee. I moved out of the apartment because my significant other became one of the other guy's significant others pretty speedily and I could no longer live with those wasteful leeches. I moved in with my parents because they said I could stay there rent free for six months. The time would allow me to save enough on my own for a deposit to buy a townhouse. I'd have to pay for mortgage insurance but it was the price I had to pay to avoid that dead money. I also thought I could stall and save for a few extra months if I made my folks feel bad about deciding to charge me rent. A forgettable but fiscally responsible six months went by and I had enough to buy my place if I was happy to throw mortgage insurance on top of a property's price. I didn't feel happy about this. I'd grown accustomed to looking at the large sum steadily growing in my term deposit. I thought if I could stay another year at my parents' place, rent free, I'd have enough for a deposit plus a nice bit of my savings left over. My dad brought up paying rent one night over dinner when I'd been living there eight months. I told him my plan was to buy my own place in a month and this saved me a month of forking out dead money. When he began to grow tired of my stalling, he questioned if I was actually serious about buying my own place. I was feeling a bit down that day and the way he delivered the question pushed all the right buttons to produce a reaction. "Of course I'm serious!" I snapped. "I wouldn't have pushed my leech-girlfriend and leech-friends away if I wasn't serious about buying a place. And I wouldn't be living like such a minimalist!" My father looked at me like I was a stranger and changed topics to calm me down. Four days later my leech-parents and my old leech-friends staged an intervention for me. They told me they were all worried about me and the consensus was I should see a doctor to make sure I wasn't suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. All of this pushed ten times the amount of buttons my dad had a few days before and I unloaded on them. They were telling me I was crazy so I told them they were all crazy and why. I called my ex crazy because she wanted to have a bunch of stuff and do a bunch of things now but didn't realise she could have had so much more stuff and could have been doing so many more things if she'd exercised some patience and stuck to our plan. I told one of my friends he was insane because he bought a new car every two years and traded the other one in at a greatly depreciated price. I told another friend she was a mad woman because she funded her overseas holidays with personal loans. I told a couple they were lunatics for paying double the rent for a place allowing them to be twenty minutes closer to work. I called my parents delusional because they wanted me to pay dead money for a room that would be empty if I wasn't there. Then I called them all wasteful leeches and stormed out of the house. That was five years ago. Today I'm between homeless shelters or out on the street. I came up with the ultimate strategy a few years back. I took a severance package, sold everything I had and put it all in a term deposit. I now have absolutely no expenses and if I search and beg really hard, sometimes I can scrounge up to fifteen-hundred dollars in a month. Of course, this all goes into my term deposit when the opportunity comes up monthly to invest more and push the snowball again. It's not the best life but, oh boy, my future is going to be great. I'll keep pushing and growing my snowball for a few more years yet. I'll stop growing my wealth when the time is right. Then I'll have a great house I can call my own and I’ll have so much stuff and be doing so many things. I'll make all the wasteful leeches stop and think, ‘hey, he must have a pretty good life.