She knows that much of the money she hoards might one day have to be used to clear the family's loss on the house. My husband and I often talk about what we'd do if it wasn't for this debt. A new car, a bigger house, another child . . . But it can't be helped. Until we shake off this debt, we're stuck.
Deflation means accepting that things have to get worse to get better.
Like Alice, she sees the solution to her problems in terms of restoring a sense of proportion to a confused world. It may sound as if I have an inferiority complex, but it feels as if Japan is not worth what it was. That's not necessarily a bad thing. My hope is that our children will have different expectations, that they will value things differently. We have to teach them that price isn't everything.