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Phrase: A roof over your head
The meaning of today’s phrase, a roof over your head, may seem straightforward and require little explanation.
However, English is such a tricky language that students are trained to think everything has an alternate meaning.
Perhaps most of the time, that’s true, but not with this phrase.
To have a roof over your head means to have a place to live.
These days, though, it’s becoming increasingly challenging to afford a roof over your head.
The apartment rental fee is unbelievable in cities such as Boston, San Francisco, Vancouver and Toronto.
If you want to purchase your own home, you almost have to be a multimillionaire to save enough for a down payment and qualify for a loan.
I mean, the prices are astronomical.
It’s not much better here in Japan.
Japanese salaries have been stagnant for decades now.
The average size of a new apartment in Tokyo is around 680 square feet, including the small balcony – if there is one.
The average cost to put a roof over your head in The Big Smoke is around ¥80,000 – ¥120,000 per month.
Now, that may not sound too bad, but if you’re only earning ¥250,000 per month, it will hurt.
That’s one of the main struggles for many people these days – just putting a roof over their heads is eating up most of their earnings, leaving them very little for daily expenses or saving for the future.
So, if you rent, how are you supposed to save for a down payment on a place?
The answer is you can’t without depending on the bank of mom and dad to help you out.
If you want to put a roof over your head and prefer to buy, you’re better off waiting until the next recession.
Prices will surely drop then.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 74.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.