Even then, as a single without parental support and years of lower wages/saving due to being on various visas, I still don’t think I can get anywhere close to housing security without being able to save dramatically on rent while working at least 3-4 days a week. Work has intimated that I could work remotely (and they clearly want me to stay on, so keen to be flexible). So in Jan I’m going to seriously float the question to my aunt and uncle about staying there for 3-6 months. It’ll be challenging working fully remotely interstate and living under senior relatives’ roof, but it seems like the only way forward if I want to escape rental hell any time soon. It does feel pointless working towards a deposit when it’s like scrabbling desperately for a ticket to a train hurtling towards an inferno (re: climate change). I’ve accepted I won’t be a homesteader and I’ll be the first to go if society collapses. So this won’t be part of some permaculture self-sufficiency dream. Part of me also just wants to go fuckit and break off, travel for a while… But I also am increasingly wanting a stable home base as I see my parents generation might be gone within ten years, and I don’t want to float forever. Just want some stability before shit hits the fan regardless - without feeling like I need to bust a gut and be shackled to work to make it happen either. Two bedrooms, sunlit and a small garden in a nice enough community - it sounds incompatible with wanting to not be trapped in a mortgage for decades… right? Right? (insert prequel meme)