I get it. I always found a dishwasher too expensive for what I’d gain from it. Doing dishes manually for one or two adults who are diligent about reuse isn’t that much effort. But after being gifted a second hand one in excellent condition, I am very happy to have it in my home. The running cost is very reasonable. I’m unsure if I would replace it if broken. But for now it is serving me very well.

My partner said that when he’d move in with me, he’d pay his share. His logic is that he’s currently paying a landlord and he’d rather pay me. That way I get more financial room to loan money again (I own my apartment, but have a mortgage), and he’d pay less than current rent, allowing him to expand on a down-payment buffer. Ideally this way we could upgrade to a small house in time, suitability split, and I keep the apartment to rent out or I can sell it.

There is power in combined finances, but you need to take into account what you’d do on your own. That said, I would prefer to be in a situation where I could just let him move in for free, as life is expensive enough already.

But I also believe that it is essential to a good relationship that each carries their reasonable share. I grew up with my mom fully depending on my dad for finances as she was a stay at home mother. I loved she was always there for us, but when my parents grew apart, she really struggled and dealt with a lot of guilt because she couldn’t provide for us as before. This is why I’ve always made sure I could make my own way. My apartment isn’t the greatest but I’m thankful every day I can benefit from ownership.

Single flash of hazards to thank someone is common in Brussels traffic, there are a lot of very selfish drivers on the road who never let anyone merge in. Haven’t seen it outside of here, maybe because people are usually a bit more polite or zipper merging works as it should.

Common in all of Belgium to put hazards on to warn people behind you that there is a traffic jam up ahead. I really like that passing the baton system.

Also single flash of high beams to notify someone you’ve seen them and they can cross or pass where they’d otherwise not have right of way. While you should always be as predictable as possible, sometimes doing it wrong resolves the situation faster for everyone.

I also always raise my hand as a thanks when someone stops to let me use a crossing (I have the right of way as a pedestrian but I still feel like sending people a thank you for observing the rules correctly). Did that when walking in Brussels this morning out of sheer habit, realized that is probably actually pretty unusual for a big city. My small town habits are betraying me.

When I started my career and I worked at small companies, I figured they just didn’t know any better. Now I’m further along in my career I have come to realize that really big companies (as well as government agencies) have the exact same problems except on a much larger scale.