It’s ANZAC Day, and time to pause and reflect on the sacrifices made by our forebears.

Hardly the time to be thinking about money. But due to a set of circumstances last week that saw my bank balance drained to close to zero — something that hasn’t happened in quite some time — I have been thinking about money. There are times, when I look at my household finances, that I ponder the wisdom of having taken on a mortgage. Then I read the reports about how the house prices in my suburb (and in all the areas nearby) are going through the stratosphere, and feel a little better about it.

“Bentleigh and East Bentleigh continued on their extraordinary way with strong competition fuelled by buyers forced out of more expensive inner and bayside areas.” — Age 19 Feb 2007

And when I listen to the sound of my wondrous dishwasher doing its work for me, and I feel a lot better about it. I love my dishwasher. And my house.

But it’s undeniably true that the mortgage has made an impact on the money flows. Recently I looked through my spending for the first three months of this year, and as you can see from the graph below, the house certainly does dominate.

(Trust me, you don’t want to know how many actual dollars that big blue tower represents.)