Life is like a zebra:
Black line / white line / black line / then full ass and tail :)
If you are ready for the latter, you will be able to relate to other things more calmly.

> ALV (goods and services tax)

That's VAT, Value-added Tax in English.

I haven't had to deal with the employment office (knocking wood), yet, but the time may come. My wife was unemployed for about six months after she graduated from university in March seven years ago. Finding a teaching position was next to impossible in Tampere or anywhere near it, which is not surprising given that the place is flooded with students and credentialed teachers competing for positions. 

In the following autumn we had already rented a small apartment in Nastola, a municipality neighboring Lahti in the east where my wife had a part-time teaching position for ten months. We spent the following summer back in our own home in Tampere and she was unemployed again. We moved back to a larger apartment when she got a permanent position after the summer with much better pay. Selling our home in Tampere was a real drag because the market was very quiet in 2014. It took us three years to find a buyer who made a decent offer - none were made at all before the spring of 2017. In the meantime, we had the place rented out for 13 months. It was vacant and in our possession for 21 months with all the fees (except for water) incoming every month. Living in that larger home in Nastola was three moves ago because we wanted and could afford a better place to live in while our own home was rented out in Tampere. Our daughter started school in 2015 and we didn't want to stay in Nastola because the long-term future didn't seem too promising for that place and we wanted to settle in and later buy a home in Lahti. There was one extra move within the same apartment complex before moving into the house that we have lived in for a couple of years now because of renovations. An expensive ordeal. That's all I can say. If the housing market had been normal, we'd have bought a house here already in the summer of 2014, which would've saved us tens of thousands of euros.

I was reading this article on our welfare system the other day. 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/25/the-australian-welfare-system-has-always-been-needlessly-cruel-now-its-punishing-half-the-country?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

I can vouch that it has become the most humiliating and degrading thing to do in recent years. The first time we had to go there for help, wasn't too bad, but still not great. Then last year you just got the feeling that you were some sort of bottom feeder out to try and con them. The more people end up on there, the worse it seems to get...and the economy was already collapsing before all this. 

They've been setting up so many computerised systems, which don't work and no-one seems to know how to get them to work, then you get a strike on your record that you can't remove because you couldn't put your job application evidence through. 

I think you know about my hatred for debt and I am with you on the hesitance that you felt about the registration. But you deserve the help as you have contributed to the country!!

My kids and one surviving sister continue to push me to register for a government pension, but I would rather die before I register for the pittance that they call a pension.

In your case, your family comes first and you simply have to stash your pride, but I think that you know that.

The recovery might be a long way off and you have to grasp any opportunities that you can.

We hope that you will be accepted and you know that you are not a failure, as things happen that are way beyond our control.
It is how you get through it all that makes you a winner.

Hang in there my friend!

> I remember almost 17 years ago when I was in the office for the first time and asked, "so what am I meant to do for food the next three months" and the woman behind the counter literally said, "that is not my problem" and closed the window.

Haha, well... **Wadda generous and empathic poor cold finnish soul eh?**

Ah, just enter and participate in an unique [graphic contest](https://hive.blog/hive-148441/@por500bolos/make-a-meme-with-this-phrase-the-simplest-of-contests-13-hive-1st-prize) for once in the blockchain and forget for a while and make all your hardships fade in a jiffy.  ;D

Any chance you can get dual citizenship because of being married to a Finn?

You reasonably state @tarazkp, what anyone with any real experience in life …
> *”… it took me about 2 years to recover from that 3 month period.”*
>
> *”Debt is a killer …”*
>
> *”… I hate the idea of being on any kind of social service....”*

… knows and yet here we are.  *All over the world* …  In the midst of this “unprecedented” global response to a pandemic, it has been remarkable to me how docilely it appears to have been accepted.  By most …

The corrosive nature of what you are describing seems to be very poorly understood.  And, therefore, seldom talked about, as though somehow if we just don’t acknowledge it, maybe it isn’t real …

We are only in the very early stages, collectively, of finding out how foolish that is …

In the midst of whatever is coming, I hope you and yours get through it relatively okay.  I think you have admirably expressed the right attitude about entering into it at least.

Praying for you my friend
I just want you to know that you are one of the people who keeps me believing in this community and your value can never be measured in monetary terms.
Dont lose sight of the truth that you are a part of the solution to this construct we are all prisoner to. Fight on brother.
Thank you
All the best
Peace

Ugh. I feel you. 

> In the past, I have actively chosen to not take support and preferred to rough it out instead.

I've done this too - I had always worked since I was 14 years old and when I got very ill in 2012/13. I chose *not to take the government assistance that I had build up over the years*. Instead of actually calling in sick I kept on working as best as I could and decided I could 'solve' my illness 'problem' by starting to work as a freelancer (so I could work my own hours and take as many hours as I needed to heal). That very act meant I did give up all my 'rights' for government assistance though, and then two years later I got an accident on top of the illness, which meant I couldn't work as I literally couldn't walk more than couch-toilet for more than a year - but at that point I was 'just a freelancer' without rights to government assistance. 

Looking back at it now I say to people: take the assistance you can get, because there can come another unfortunate accident/event *on top of the one you're currently in* and by then you will regret having been so tough on yourself. I speak from experience :D 

Good luck going through the horrible *hoops* - You're a number to them, but not to me <3

Appreciate your mentality. The debt crisis is real and it has caused an innate shift in the psyche of humans. We have allowed people to profit off of the undisciplined impulses of the masses and bank on the fear and misunderstanding of the system. I have seen countless friends rack up massive debts in their early 20's that have crippled them for decades because they did not truly understand how credit cards work. My entire life I have avoided debt like the plague, because I have seen from the other side exactly what can happen to a person who buries themselves in debt. The safety nets in place are important for those who are truly in need, but often they are abused because of poor choices (usually made naively) that stem from a lack of education and a glorification of predatory practices that have allowed multi-billion dollar industries to be built on debt. Our future depends on more people like yourself sharing your story and your mentality.

Great information