Life is more than about money
- Thread starter TMNT
- Start date
On that note; we were talking at work the other day about the cost of having Solar Energy installed in your home.
Apparently, only one in ten people currently have it (as reported by John Fain on ABC that morning during an interview with a guy from the Gubbmint)
If it's supposedly so good for the planet, and will save us money longer term, etc, then; WHY? Why are folks not putting it in?
My opinion is the upfront cost - even with rebates to soften the blow; which correlates to what you say, Geoff; most folks don't have even a grand to put together in an emergency.
We see it with car repairs all the time; a big problem, they don't have the money to get it fixed, and/or the car is not worth the repair bill.
Firstly, most people dont really care about the planet, well care enough to pay for it! what about carbon tax, whenever you book a flight online, you had the option to pay an extra $20 to offset your carbon footprint....what a joke. and a study found that in the end in 4000 years the earths temperature would only go down by 0.3C.....gimmick
secondly, most people dont/wont have any significant upfront cost funds available
thirdly, and MOST importantly in my case, apparently it will pay itself off in 5-10-15-20 years, chances are, some new whiz bang technology to supersede it will come out thus being marketed as the latest greatest thing
fourthly, especially with new technologies those cost to benefit calculations dont include, wear and tear, and repairs, I can imagine in 5 years time my system stops working and some technician comes out at $100 per hour and tells me the "magentic induced, Direct input reverse oscillating trigger mechanism has broken down, and it will take 12 weeks to get it in at a cost of $3000 plus labour"
no thanks
Correct.
So, even if you did have the readies, the perceived value doesn't match the outlay.
So, when folks are struggling with the outlay (no $3k available for an emergency), they sure as hell won't cough up for "no-value Solar".
Incidentally; my mechanic (who I was discussing Solar with) is 57, single, lives in a small 2 bed house, and was told he would pay off his system in 6 years - this was the only reason he did it, because he knew he would be still in the same house for at least that time.
He then went on to say that had it been a 10 or 15+ year recoup of funds; he wouldn't have bothered with it.
We haven't bothered with solar because we are still not sure if we will at somepoint upgrade our PPOR or not. I don't want to fork out the outlay so that it's paid off in time for future tenants to benefit from it. We've had people out on a couple of occasions for quotes, but the financials just aren't stacking for us.
Assuming the Solar for your PPoR (or IP) was say: $5k; how many here would have easy access to that $5k and be happy to shell out for it as well?
Keep in mind that we are all here in the fishbowl where the majority of SS'ers are now sub-30, professional and earning massive coin from their PAYE (or contract).
Keep in mind that we are all here in the fishbowl where the majority of SS'ers are now sub-30, professional and earning massive coin from their PAYE (or contract).
The older I get the more I remind myself about the survey they did somewhere in US. The people were in hospice, perhaps in their last year of their life, so they posed a question to them, "What's one thing that you regret in your life?"
The most common answer was, "I worried unnecessarily so much in my life". It wasn't about not having enough money, or family, or whatever, but basically that as we get older we tend to worry too much...
I think there's some truth to that, so when I have those days, I try to think about the people who are about to leave this world and what they said (one day we will leave too, no one will be here forever, right?).
So why do we worry so much?????
The most common answer was, "I worried unnecessarily so much in my life". It wasn't about not having enough money, or family, or whatever, but basically that as we get older we tend to worry too much...
I think there's some truth to that, so when I have those days, I try to think about the people who are about to leave this world and what they said (one day we will leave too, no one will be here forever, right?).
So why do we worry so much?????
The older I get the more I remind myself about the survey they did somewhere in US. The people were in hospice, perhaps in their last year of their life, so they posed a question to them, "What's one thing that you regret in your life?"
The most common answer was, "I worried unnecessarily so much in my life". It wasn't about not having enough money, or family, or whatever, but basically that as we get older we tend to worry too much...
I think there's some truth to that, so when I have those days, I try to think about the people who are about to leave this world and what they said (one day we will leave too, no one will be here forever, right?).
So why do we worry so much?????
Ive heard a differnet variation of that ,
and the response was
"I shouldnt have worked so hard and spent time with my family"
The older I get the more I remind myself about the survey they did somewhere in US. The people were in hospice, perhaps in their last year of their life, so they posed a question to them, "What's one thing that you regret in your life?"
The most common answer was, "I worried unnecessarily so much in my life". It wasn't about not having enough money, or family, or whatever, but basically that as we get older we tend to worry too much...
I think there's some truth to that, so when I have those days, I try to think about the people who are about to leave this world and what they said (one day we will leave too, no one will be here forever, right?).
So why do we worry so much?????
I really don't know why we worry so much, but apparently 80% of what we worry about never happens, even more reason to stress less
Following on from your post, MIW, 2 lovely little 80 year old ladies shared with me this verse from 1 Timothy:
"We brought nothing into the world and we will leave it with nothing. Let us then be content with having food and clothing. Those who strive to be rich fall into temptations and traps. A lot of foolish and harmful ambitions plunge them into ruin and destruction. Indeed the love of money is the root of every evil. Because of this greed, some have wandered away from the faith, bringing on themselves afflictions of every kind."
"We brought nothing into the world and we will leave it with nothing. Let us then be content with having food and clothing. Those who strive to be rich fall into temptations and traps. A lot of foolish and harmful ambitions plunge them into ruin and destruction. Indeed the love of money is the root of every evil. Because of this greed, some have wandered away from the faith, bringing on themselves afflictions of every kind."
I love that--very 'Buddhist' in its approach.
Karma in the Catholic way?
I'm with TMNT on this one, with the talk of solar paint - or in the roofing iron itself.
Also, we could afford solar easily but, with our tendency to move on a regular basis, the chances are we won't be here before it's paid for itself.
We got caught with that before - paid $10k for a system - received two credit invoices - moved for work.
As for stress/worry - I work on the philosophy of "can you fix it? Yes - then no worries - No? - then why worry"
WE can speculate though, how does their retirement look?
It would scare the bejesus out of me, imagine being a year from retirement............ come to think about it, they aren't workin anyway!!!! Retirement would be no different
Carry on!
I move too often for work, but I love renewables and at some point would love to work in the industry.
I personally am really looking forwards to research making batteries more affordable, and also them finding ways to embed solar panels within roofing materials.
The only problem with solar is a bit like Prius batteries... it uses such rare earth metals that sustainability isn't great
I personally am really looking forwards to research making batteries more affordable, and also them finding ways to embed solar panels within roofing materials.
The only problem with solar is a bit like Prius batteries... it uses such rare earth metals that sustainability isn't great
Rare earth isn't rare, there are plenty of them on the planet more than human ever consume.
to process them cheaply and cleanly is another story, the term rare because this ore contain many other elements and hence rare in term of make up
of the metal but there are plenty of them on earth.
We paid about $5000 to have solar put on our latest PPOR. Had never bothered with it before as we were always value-adding and then moving. But those days are over now and with this latest PPOR we don't have any intentions of moving - hence having solar put on. Our electricity bills have now more than halved. It helps that we usually work shiftwork/evenings and have daytime (sunlight) to do the washing, etc . It's also made the whole family (kids especially) aware of conserving household energy use - especially at night. During the day we never seem to use as much electricity as the solar produces. I'm happy with it .
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