First, write down on paper the kind of house you want with the required number of rooms and toilets. Consider the yard size, the suburb where you wish to live, commute time, and any other amenities you fancy.

Second, light that list on fire, collect the ashes in a coffee tin, scatter them over the ocean or a golf course, or save them for a craft project.

Third, with your homing necessities in mind, divide the number of rooms you want by two, replace the yard with an alfresco outdoor dining area, locate the suburb nobody wants to live in, triple your commute time, and forget about amenities because those parks you want for your kids to play at are hot spots for meth dealing and the toilets there are perfect for getting high.

Fourth, determine your budget and financial readiness. Assess your financial situation, including your savings, income, and expenses. Determine how much you can afford to spend on a house, including mortgage payments, stamp duty, insurance, and maintenance costs. Pat yourself on the back because you’ll easily be able to afford a sizeable down-payment as you’ve followed the sound boomer advice and don’t buy avo-toast or cups of coffee at the café. The last time you saw an avocado was in 2020, and the last cup of coffee you had at a café was the one you snuck in from home.

Fifth, contact a mortgage lender for pre-approval and let the banking cartel irresponsibly offer you a larger mortgage than you can afford.

Six, house hunt in that undesirable neighbourhood you identified in step three. Realise that the only house you can afford, even with the extra cash the banks tried convincing you to borrow, is on a plot that’s been subdivided so many times Zeno is scratching his head.

Seven, find a house you like; get outbid.

Eight, find another house you like; get outbid.

Nine, repeat steps seven and eight as often as possible until you abandon all hope; you’ve been house-blocked by investors who don’t need the home in which to live.

Ten, discover a moderately priced villa while searching a real estate app. Over-analyse it. Convince yourself it’ll do. Contact the agent. Dream about home ownership. Read the agent’s text and discover you’re house-blocked again because it’s a Boomer-only retirement village.

Eleven, drown your sorrows in beer. Wait. You can’t afford beer; the government increased the taxes on it, and combined with inflation, you’re priced out of the beer market. Maybe you have a friend who can spare some bathtub gin…?

Twelve, settle on renting for another year.

Thirteen, your landlord raises rent by 25 per cent because the RBA raised interest rates because the feds made the cost of money in Australia during and lockdown equal to zero, and the landlord borrowed more than he could afford and is trying to pass his suffering on to others. Take comfort in knowing your neighbour has the same rate hike issue with his landlord not due to any bad financial decisions, but simply because the landlord wants ‘market rate’ on the property he paid off two decades ago.

Fourteen, your landlord gives you a notice to vacate because you want the leaking tap fixed in a timely manner and you want the roaches that scurry from the toilet walls when you turn on the lights dead.

Fifteen, contact your local government official asking for help. Propose reasonable solutions. Know these solutions will stand to financial hurt your local government official because all her super is in the 10 properties she owns. Receive a generic tone-deaf letter from the government that doesn’t even address your concern.

Sixteen, take the ashes you saved from step two. Find a privileged Boomer living in your area. The kind of boomer who believes the younger generations can’t enter the housing market because they are lazy and entitled while at the same time boasts about the 18 per cent interest rate when he purchased his first of many houses at the same time ignoring the reality that the dollar was stronger when he purchased his first home, home ownership was seen as a universal good for Australians, wage stagnation wasn’t a thing, and a mortgage could be paid off in 20 years on one income. Leave the coffee tin of ashes on their doorstep.

Seventeen, go find a good café and buy some avo-toast and a cup of coffee. Because, cutting out these items from your life the past three years hasn’t amounted to the saving the Boomers promised.

Eighteen, begin at step one again in six months.