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KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES IS EXPENSIVE
Cost of living is … not as bad as we’re told, according to one study. The National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling at the University of Canberra and AMP study lead author Ben Phillips said it’s really bigger lifestyles, not rising costs, that are squeezing budgets. ”I don’t want to say everyone is doing wonderfully well. But there’s been this ‘rising cost of living’ story over the last decade when, really, Australian households are doing better than ever,” Mr Phillips said.
“We’re spending bigger, and on a wider range of goods and services, such as private schools, and we’re spending more on discretionary or luxury items, like restaurants.”
The study found the average household was $224 a week better off in 2009-2010 than in 2003-04.
1. Octomum Nadya Suleman is … going to do porn. She says she would never touch anyone or kiss someone and so has signed a deal with an adult website to perform solo in a ‘self pleasure’ video. Hmmm. She says she needs to do what it takes to support her family of 14 children which includes the octuplets she is famous for.
2. Horror author Stephen King, one of the most prolific and successful authors in the world, has written an op-ed titled ‘Tax me, for fuck’s sake’ aimed at the ongoing American argument the ultra-rich should pay more tax. King says he’s sick of the argument ‘you have money, so just cut a cheque and be done with it’ saying there are some things only the Government can fund.
“And hey, why don’t we get real about this? Most rich folks paying 28 percent taxes do not give out another 28 percent of their income to charity. Most rich folks like to keep their dough. They don’t strip their bank accounts and investment portfolios. They keep them and then pass them on to their children, their children’s children. And what they do give away is—like the monies my wife and I donate—totally at their own discretion. That’s the rich-guy philosophy in a nutshell: don’t tell us how to use our money; we’ll tell you.”
3. Male cheerleaders in the United States have been told to keep gay hand movements to a minimum. Well, that’s what the revised United States All-Star Federation guidelines suggested. “The new USASF rules included an “image etiquette” guideline that [cheerleader Kyle] Gadke, who is gay, hadn’t noticed on his first read-through. Under the header “minimize the negative,” the document said, “Males—minimize exaggerated or theatrical movements.” Yeah, stop being homos and stuff, cheerleaders. How would they enforce that? Is there a scale of theatricality ranging from ‘Pirates of Penzance to Wicked’?
4. Comedian Sacha Baron Coen, famous for his alter egos Borat, Bruno and Ali Gi, arrived in Australia yesterday as a pyjama-clad dictator to promote his latest film ‘The Dictator’. He didn’t skip a beat, asking to be put in touch with embattled, stood-aside speaker Peter Slipper. “I’ve come to find Mr Slipper,” he said. “The Slipper! Slippery Pete! What is his number? I need to hire him.”
5. The Reserve Bank Australia yesterday cut official interest rates by 50 basis points to 3.75%. But will the banks pass it on? There’s a thought and at the time of hitting publish, we’ve not heard a peep from the Big Four. The Bank of Queensland passed on 0.35.
6. Oh, it’s about that time again. Time for some Labor Party leadership speculation, which happens about every three months or so these days. Is Bill Shorten going to challenge the PM? Kevin Rudd? All of them say ‘of course not’. For now.
Comments
104 Comments so far
When my husband and I started our business 12 years ago we were earning the same per beast as we are now. That is 180 cents a kilo for our bullocks. That price has not changed since the 1970′s. Wheat is still at 70′s prices at $200 a tonne. Costs have gone up for us so much so that we won’t grow it anymore. We can’t make anything from it once you take out the cost of chemical for minumum till farming.
There is no way to increase prices to keep up with inflation and costs of producing as we are price takers and we can only hope that when we sell the market is up a few cents.
“Stuff” is getting cheaper. TV’s, home appliances, ipods most electrical items are getting easier to come by in a flooded market due to the boom in China. We can have everything we like in shiny new products. But food is becoming more and more expensive even without GST on fresh veges. Power is atrocious and never stops rising, even though our infrastructure is crumbling. I have never had as many power problems and blackouts as we do now. We have solar panels and this helps a tiny fraction, but the power rises anyway. We try to use as little as possible and I know most people live in darkness as they simply cannot afford to turn on a light or heater in winter.
I do think that people do buy more than we used to, but appliances lasted 20 years before you needed to replace them. Now, you are lucky to get 5 years.
I fixed a very old washing machine because it is a well made appliance. It cost me a bit, but I know that it may last me another 10 years being a well constructed unit.
Everything is made in China and nothing is as well made now. It is all about turnover and disposable items that buying quality clothing is hard to come by too.
This lack of foresight by us is killing our country and making everything expensive. We don’t manufacture anything anymore, we don’t own anything anymore. I don’t know where it will all end, I do think wars will be fought over water and food in the future – very depressing.
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The challenges that farmers face in this day and age are simply extraordinary. The fact that prices for things such as meat, milk etc have been going up for years but the farmers are still getting paid the same as they always have is appalling. The supermarket duopoly in this country plays a large part in that and the ACCC has been toothless. Consumers also contribute to this, perhaps understandably. For example, when the supermarkets dropped the prices of their own brand milk and people started to switch to those brands, the ability of independent suppliers to compete was nil – the only reason the supermarkets can do this is because they are backed by billions coming in from pokies and petrol and alcohol and all the other interests they have. They will wipe out the competition, with the assistance of consumers (who understandably are trying to get the best value for their money) and then we will be in a much worse position than before – where there is little competition, leaving them to raise prices on staples as much as they want. Anyway, rant over.
Happymum, thank you for doing what you do – farmers have an incredibly important role in this country and their devaluing will be to our detriment. Food security is, as you rightly point out, going to be a massive issue and at some point we’re going to have to wake up to the fact that, when all is said and done, we can’t feed our families on coal seam gas.
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You have got it all in a nutshell what I am trying to say.
Thankyou for your kind words of support. I don’t want to be all “poor farmers” every time I comment about our situation. Because there is a lot of people who like to stick the whingeing farmer tag on when we stand up and complain about these things.
You are absolutely right about CSG too. I can go on and on for years about how terrible this environmental raping is.
We can’t eat coal and we can’t drink gas.
The gas is the worse of the two though.
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The old saying (native American?) “only when the last tree is cut down (etc) will you realise that you can’t eat money” is so true here. I wish (in my fantasy world) that we could bypass the big buyers like supermarkets and have a lot more food co ops to buy from.
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I bought a punet of cherry tomatoes the other week for 89c. I looked at it and thought of the ground that was tilled, seeds sown, plants nurtured, tomatoes picked, packed, transported by truck to a market, then again to a distribution centre and then again to the actual supermarket, where it was then unloaded from the truck, put on the shelf, where I finally picked it up and took it to the checkout where I paid for it. There is no way that all the costs involved from farm to plate were factored into that. It was so cheap I actually felt guilty buying it.
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Without wanting to turn this all political, I really hope that Christine Milne manages to engage the farmers so that there is a federal viable alternative to the major parties. The Nationals no longer represent the farmers and haven’t done for a long time – their coupling with the Libs has meant selling out on the interests of the farmers. On the issues of deregulation, food security, CSG and mining generally, they have been close enough to silent.
As much as I despise the man, Katter has it right on deregulation (and CSG) and interestingly enough, he is on the same page as the Greens about this. Katter probably sees it from representing his constituents (which he is actually very good at) and the Greens see it from the longer-term, more-than-just-an-electoral-cycle perspective.
This country is going to find itself in enormous trouble in the not too distant future if we continue to pass policy which sells our farming land to overseas interests and to mining companies, which sends our farmers broke and which rewards big business at the expense of 6th, 7th, 8th generation farming families.
I really hope that changes are made before it is too late but I suspect, at least of the issues of deregulation and competition, as well as CSG, it is rather like shutting the gate after the horse has bolted.
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Hi, just wondering what happened to my comment from earlier this morning? I was the second person to comment and wrote a reply to John James. I don’t think I was breaking any comment rules?
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Hello! We haven’t deleted anything from this post this morning and can’t see your comment in our spam folders either … it may have been eaten by the Internet?
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I wouldn’t be surprised. I seem to be having one of those days where I probably should have stayed in bed. Thanks for your reply.
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I wondered what happened to that too…I promise, I had nothing to do with it disappearing…
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I am so sick of the ‘cost of living’ argument
1. Yes – resources like food and water are getting more expensive. But who thinks that a planet with limited resources should continuously provide cheap resources? Who thinks they need to use the same amount of said resources as prices go up?
2. You might have a smaller house – well, doesn’t it make SENSE that you should? There are more people now = less space for everyone. In addition to which, the encroaching of suburbs into natural habitats has massively impacted the number of (for example) koalas. I say we should squash ourselves in where we can.
3. Throw away society – hello! I never had new clothes when I was little. NEVER.
We are all massive consumers – whether we are eating more meat than we need to, using more electricity, buying more clothes, more techno gadgets, driving when we could walk or public transport, having ‘spare’ bedrooms, or ‘second bathrooms’, overseas travel (hell, even Australian hotels are expensive), an overfull cosmetics bag (or drawer, or cupboard) or looking into our stuffed wardrobes and saying “I have nothing to wear!”.
In my opinion everyone needs to feel less ENTITLED. Living costs money.
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“You might have a smaller house ”
No, people have been saying they *don’t* have smaller houses.
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actually you can see comments below of people complaining that their parents (baby boomers) had larger houses, more cars, etc. than they can hope to afford.
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Those comments were in response to a comment that if you compare yourself to what your parents had when you were a child, then you’ll see yourself as better off. The people below aren’t “complaining”, they (including myself) and stating that this isn’t true in their own situation.
I agree – we should have smaller houses. We should have less consumable items. We should be careful of using unrenewable resources. But should we also find ourselves struggling to pay a mortgage on two incomes where our parents could manage on one? Not because we’re having overseas holidays and iPads and new clothes. I certainly don’t live like that. I can’t afford to.
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We also have a very high standard of living, comparatively speaking. Having lived in a couple of third world countries, we are very fortunate to have been born into (and moved to) a country that provides us with opportunities to become educated, remain healthy, have housing, receive some money if we are unemployed. Perhaps you are right on the entitlement thing – perhaps we need to feel more grateful for what we do have, rather than entitled to have what someone else has, something that we believe will make us happier.
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It’s really hard to find a ‘small’ house that’s affordable and close to the city. Lots of young families would be very happy with a daggy 3br post war cottage, but even the simplest ones within 10km of a CBD cost big, big dollars – because of the land value. Developers in outer areas are building houses they want to sell – big ones. Moving to rural centres isn’t an option for lots of people. Whichever way you cut it, housing takes a bigger percentage of a family’s income than ever before.
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Never mind a house – I just want an apartment, 1 or 2 bedrooms, but almost all apartments are in the high-demand, high-price areas.
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What is with this whole ‘cant find affordable living close to the city’ thing I am always hearing people go on about? Why the need to live 10km’s from the city?
I work in Sydney CBD. I live southwest in an older home which my husband and I have renovated, we have a huge yard (larger than normal block because it is an older house which were built on larger blocks), a small mortgage and I travel 3 hours a day – 1.5 hours door to door.
Sure – I would love to live in the city but I dont want to be a slave to a huge mortgage. it is not the end of the world to live outside of the city and I dont understand why people complain about not being able to afford to.
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That’s great it works for you but if I had to commute for 3 hours a day I would never see my kids.
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What about low-income people though? If costs keep going up and up it’s going to hit the poorest members of society very hard.
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I made a comment here a while back about how affluenza has impacted on how we believe we need bigger and better, sometimes when we cant really afford it. I’m sure we all know people who always complain about having no money yet they are working crazy hours and running themselves into the ground always tired and never have any quality time, just so they can pay for the big mortgage and the luxury cars they believe they have to have.
My grandmothers family home was for sale near my house and out of curiosity my mum and I went and had a look at the open house. It was a tiny little single fronted house but my grandma and her 12 siblings grew up there, it would have been very squashy but they coped. Anyway, a young couple lived there and they obviously had 1 one child (1 cot) and the agent said they were upgrading. Mum commented how its funny times have changed, the young couple with 1 child obviously felt they needed more room but the original owners of the house lived there with 13 children and elderly parents moved in at one stage too and while I’m sure they needed more space never considered it a priority.
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Things are expensive and no wonder so many people are overweight. Crap food is cheaper than healthy food. I took my kids to the movies in the holidays and they had McDonalds for lunch afterwards, a meal deal was around $5 . I went to the sandwich bar next door. My chicken and salad sandwich was $11.
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But you could make a healthy meal at home for much cheaper. Especially if you don’t use meat.
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Sure Karen, but it was a school holiday treat. I’m not begrudging the cost just observing the price difference between junk food and healthy food.
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I don’t think McDonalds is cheap. Maybe for kids, but a filling meal for an adult will set you back $10-15. I can get a much better quality meal from a cafe for that.
I’ve been eating rubbish for the past two weeks, both takeaway and supermarket bought, and my food bill has more than quadrupled, even though I’ve actually been eating less than normal (skipping meals). About 90% of my supermarket buys were on special too. I have no idea how anyone can afford to eat junk food all the time.
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I gone back to buying my meat from my local butcher rather than the supermarket and that is so much cheaper too, and better quality.
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Re the cost of living: it’s all so fucked up. Things we don’t need (TVs, iDevices, Coke) are getting cheaper. Things we do need (electricity, water, fresh food) are getting more expensive. You can buy a DVD player at Aldi for less than a kilo of lamb cutlets. It frightens me.
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Totally agree. I buy homebrand everything, but do buy a lot of fresh fruit & veg. I don’t buy a heap of overly processed/ packaged stuff, though a few bits and pieces for kindy do get thrown in my shopping basket. Yet I am constantly depressed when I walk past the biscuit/ chips aisle, where there are constantly sales that mean that buying the processed crap is cheaper than my fresh fruit and veg. A packet of biscuits is regularly cheaper than my bag of apples at my local Woolies. It is madness.
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The cost of living one is an interesting point. I do think that a lot of people have vastly inflated expectations about what their lifestyle ‘should’ be. Since becoming a single mother I’ve cut out a lot of the extras – coffees out (make my own), going out for dinner, takeaways, and have made the slow cooker my friend. When you cook big batches and freeze them you can eat pretty well on the cheap. It blows my mind to see how much people spend without thinking on big nights out, takeaway 3 times a week, and a few coffees/ work lunches a week too. In my early 20′s I did this too, and could blow through an enormous amount of cash without even remembering where it had gone. My Nanna likes to remind me that at my age (30), they rarely went out for dinner, and hardly ever drank.
I’m no wowser, and I’m all for enjoying life, but I do think there’s a lot of mindless consumption that quickly inflates the cost of living. Add to that a credit card culture and a mindset that says you “must” have a certain car/ brands of clothing etc and I think we can have really warped perceptions of what a ‘decent’ standard of living is. I enjoy my life, I don’t think I’m at all deprived (and I must admit I do go out for meals with parents occasionally and don’t pay!), but I’ve cut out a HUGE amount of spending on discretionary stuff, and consequently am managing to live, and even save, on a much smaller income than I had 5 years ago..
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I take my hat off to you, elixr. It’s now considered that things like a microwave, broadband and mobile phones are ‘essential’. My niece thinks my kids must be ‘poor’ because we don’t have FOXTEL. Ha! That said, it’s still much more of a battle to own even a simple house within cooee of the city on one income than it was in the 60s and 70s. Maybe people have given up and think, ‘what the hell, I might as well get that home cinema because I’m never going to own, you know, a home?’ I don’t know the answers but it troubles me what is ahead for our kids.
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There are expenses we never had while growing up which are considered “essential ” these days. Like mobile phones and the likes. Eight years ago I used to be horrified when working with the graduates at work. They were all routinely spending two – three hundred dollars monthly on their mobile phones. That was an “expense” which simply didn’t exist for us at the same age.
Eight years on both of our kids now have mobile phones. Again it’s not a necessity, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t extremely convenient.
On the other hand, we’re not into replacing them every two years either. I had my first phone for 10 years, hope to do the same again.
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I have to question your apostrophe in ‘Keeping up with the Jones”.
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Yeah, isn’t it Joneses?
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That’s what I thought.
I’m a nerd.
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Ha, it is. Fixing!
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Jones is a bitch of a name to apostrophise. If I were Helen Fielding I would have called my book Bridget Smith’s Diary.
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For my own situation, I get tired of hearing the blame on consumers for prices rising.
I know that some part of it is true. There are people in society who definitely live at or above their means. I’d love to know how they do it, because sure as hell we can’t.
When my husband and I were still in Perth, we were both full time teachers. We bought a house four years ago, in a not-so-nice suburb (much smaller than the houses both of us grew up in). We’ve never bought new cars (we both had a car because our jobs rely on us having our own transport). We don’t buy brand name anything. We only bought new furniture when we moved in to our new place, because our bed was about 11 years old and dying. Our couch was the one my parents bought before I was born. All our whitegoods were old and left in the house form the previous owner.
We only buy technology as necessary (laptop for school). I desperately want a few items (tablet computer, etc), but I have never been able to have the spare cash to buy something just because I want it. We don’t go to fancy restaurants ever. We have never been on a real holiday (I don’t count studying in the US as a holiday – now we’re poorer than ever!)
It’s depressing. I’m nearly 30. I’d like to not feel like this for the rest of my life, and I feel like we’ve worked so hard to constantly be breaking even.
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I’m with you Rach.
Bored of being told my lavish lifestyle is the result of inflation. Getting into the property market after the boom sucks up a lot of two professional incomes. Throw in child care and things like health insurance and it adds up.
I know plenty (most?) of people who have two good incomes and a good mortgage and there is none of the plasma screen/ipad consumerism/upgrading that is supposed to be going on.
I’m a late adaptor with technology. My iphone is a work one and with my kindle I wait until they have been out a few years and then buy them second hand on ebay. We got our first ipod about a year ago (and I still don’t think its better than CDs)
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The cost of living will naturally rise when you don’t live within your means. However, many external influences will affect your cash flow even if you aren’t a victim of blatant consumerism.
You would expect that the case would be, the more you use….the more you pay. Speaking for myself, I’ve been using far less water and electricity than I would have in the past. Prices just keep going up.
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“The cost of living will naturally rise when you don’t live within your means.”
The costs also rise when our means rise, even if we live within them. Think of all the mining towns where rents etc have gone through the roof – which messes up the people who live in those towns but don’t earn mining salaries.
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Have to feel sorry for Octomum. How can she ever dig herself out of the hole she has found herself in.
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She didnt “find it”.
She dug it herself and put herself happily (to being with) in it.
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That’s true, but she’s certainly in an impossible situation now.
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She cant exactly send the children back. She has to do what she can to survive.
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Our solution to the cost of living is leaving the country.
We are taxed disproportionately to what we earn.
(imo) Public schools are are second rate to Private Schools.
The cost of power is outrageous and the cost of food is governed by two market bullies.
We’ll come back when our kids are raised. We are lucky enough to have this option.
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So where are you going?
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I also dislike this ‘taxed disproportionately’ argument.
Where are you moving with better tax rates for you?
I would suspect it is a country that doesn’t have a lot of the amenities that Australia has.
Taxes are the cost of living in a certain country – and with Australia being one of the best places to live, you should understand why it would cost a certain amount to live here.
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It is true. I used to lament the sheer amount of tax coming out of each pay packet. It seemed so much!
But now we are in the US, I realise just how good Australians have it. There is no Medicare. Health care is prohibitively expensive, as is all types of insurance. No baby bonus/CCB/Family Tax/etc. Roads are in a terrible state. Schools are crowded and not serving to eliminate class divide. Maternity leave is a joke.The arts are almost entirely privately funded. Only the rich can afford a good college education.
We grumble about the way our tax dollars seem to be spent, but at least they are, for the most part, given back to us, in ways most people wouldn’t even realise because they don’t know what it’s like not to have those things.
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Stephen Kings comments are so interesting to me right now. The rich in the US pay roughly the same percentage of income tax as the middle income earners i.e. around 10%.
Mr W’s brother is studying over there at the moment and was telling me of an argument that he had with some American students in a class about raising the tax rate for the higher income earners.
These students were children of wealthy Republican families. Their arguments included:
1. Higher tax discourages innovation, America is the most innovative country in the world, we INVENTED THE IPHONE (to counter, Mr W’s brother says “well, an Australian invented the Gardasil vaccine, so probs better invention than the iPhone and tax rates didn’t stop that”)
2. Eventually, America will and should have a 0% tax rate, and people will just “build roads and have schools if they want them”
and the best of all
3. While Mr W’s brother was arguing how ludicrous those arguments were and how Australia has a much better system – “It is suspicious that you know so much about America and American politics, WE DON’T KNOW THAT MUCH ABOUT AUSTRALIA, we don’t even know how your government works”. YES.
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re #3 – facepalm.
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I live in the US atm…totally YES to #3.
Most don’t even know what our currency is (‘Is it the pound?’). Or who our ‘president’ is. (Their words, not mine.)
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I was is the US last year and when shopping the assistant asked where I was from. I said Australia and mentioned how good our dollar was at the moment for shopping to which she replied “I heard the Euro was doing well” umm actually Australia isn’t part of Europe!
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Bahaha, I told someone here I was from Australia, and they said, “Oh, you must speak German.”
It wasn’t until they left that I realised they misinterpreted Australia to be Austria. Because they are totally the same!
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People like that are the reason for the t-shirt I saw in a souvenir shop in central Vienna a couple of years ago: “Austria – we don’t have kangaroos”.
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Like!!
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I talked to a shop assistant in NYC who wasn’t aware of the fact that Aussies had gone to Afghanistan and Iraq alongside US forces. She’s aware now.
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Amercian’s don’t even know where Canada is, (its that funny country that sits at the top of the USA guys) so asking them about Australian politics and our tax system is a discussion going nowhere. I have lost count of the times I have been asked ‘Australia, that’s right near Italy yeah?’ or ‘you have kangaroos there on the main street right?’ So narrow. Only focused on what goes on over there… no wonder their foreign policy stinks!
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I also do not understand Argument One. Are people who pay higher tax going to stop having great ideas?
Lucky Mr W’s brother didn’t mention Medicare (“socialised medicine” as the Americans call it) he probably would have been lynched!!
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I’ve mentioned a few times here that I’m in a mothers group on Facebook with a bunch of Americans, and the rubbish they’ve been fed about “Socialised Medicine” is just insane. Some of them are really quite frightened by the concept, because they’ve been fed stuff about having to wait for months on end for x-rays and MRIs and stuff. They’re really terrified of the idea! I remember one conversation where one of them was asking me about what we do for medical care. Well, we can just go to a doctor and hand over a medicare card, and that covers it unless your doc charges above the scheduled fee. But what about an emergency? Um, we just get to the nearest Emergency, and they treat us. What about XRays/scans? Usually you have to make an appointment but it really depends on the practice and the procedure you need done, but not too dramatic. Overinsured and then overcharged, so people NEED to be overinsured to be able to afford healthcare, IMO.
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LOL, so do they think that because we have Medicare, we don’t have quality health care? Because it is government funded, it’s therefore inferior?
When I arrived in America, the customs officer asked me my occupation and she then was surprised I had three weeks off work. I said “we have a statutory entitlement to 4 weeks of annual leave in Australia in full time jobs”, she was gobsmacked!
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They’ve been fed stuff like they’d have to wait months for stuff they need rather than getting treated. I think they’ve been fed images of 3rd world hospitals.
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Wow, don’t talk to them about the NHS in the UK then that would really confuse the issue!
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Neither. I thought it was a ridiculous argument put forward by people who want to keep all their cash to themselves. If I had been in that class I would not have held back about how America’s truley capitalist society is broken and how superior Australia is in every way!
Another “friend” of Mr W’s brother started going off about how lazy the night safe bus (they have a bus that picks uni students up at night and drops them home for free when they’ve been partying there because parts of New Orleans are very unsafe) driver is because he drove past and didn’t pick them up one night. Mr W’s brother said that the guy is working at 4 in the morning and another one will come along soon so have some empathy.
Friend replied “he’s not working hard he’s just a driver”. Mr W’s brother “are you serious, what, you think poor people don’t work hard?”. The friends response was “yes” and that these “poor people” are lazy and can work harder and “be rich” and become something, they’re just too lazy!! Mr W’s brother then decided to walk home rather than wait at a bus stop with this guy!
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I just saw this on facebook;
“Imagine a ladder, in which each rung represents a million dollars of wealth. On this ladder, the typical Australian household is halfway to the first rung. Someone in the top 10 per cent is at least 1½ rungs up. A household in the top 1 per cent is at least 5 rungs up.
Gina Rinehart is 5½ kilometres off the ground.”
Stephen King is up there somewhere with the Gina Rineharts – I think they can afford to pay more tax.
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Actually, I think his point is that he is asking to be taxed more – he makes the point that he can give as much to charity as he likes (and he does make fairly substantial annual contributions) but that some things need to be administered by the State. For example, school funding, roads being built/maintained etc. In order that his money can make its way to where it is needed, he needs to be taxed by the government…but at the moment they seem adverse to raising tax rates for the rich.
The red/blue paradox in the US (http://www.alternet.org/visions/154338/ayn_rand_worshippers_should_face_facts%3A_blue_states_are_the_providers,_red_states_are_the_parasites) on this is really quite interesting – the red (Republican) states are, as a rule, net beneficiaries of taxes…these are the states who are calling for a smaller government, who are already contributing less tax than what they take but want to pay even less. The blue (Democrat) states, as a rule, contribute more tax than what they use.
I have the same argument in Australia with people who oppose higher tax, pay less than me and happily take things like the Baby Bonus. I would like people on my salary and above (in the upper part of the second highest tax bracket) to pay higher taxes, despite the fact that I’ll not be a direct beneficiary of it.
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Australian’s can be just as bad as American’s in terms of arrogantly assuming everyone must know of us.
Yes many American’s are poorly educated about the rest of the world, but realistically we over estimate our importance. We are an island nation on the metaphorical bottom of the world of about 20 million people that is peaceful and stable. Plenty of citizens in more educated countries barely notice us either.
Do other people know a lot about other countries around the world of our size and stature? Walk up to an Australian and ask them what they know about Belgium for example. Most will be pretty blank beyond ‘chocolate’. So why get upset the typical response to ‘Australia’ is ‘kangaroos’?
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Um, I’m not? The point I was making was that this American student tried to argue it was a negative thing that Mr W’s brother knew a lot about America and American politics, because said American student didn’t know about Australia it was therefore “odd” that Mr W’s brother knew a lot about America?
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I have to say I agree with the report stating that bigger lifestyles and not rising costs are responsible for squeezing the budgets of middle class Australians. My grandparents taught me that saving up for what you want means you have time to work out if you really want it, you have the excitement of anticipation and you won’t end up living beyond your means.
My parents often complain about not having enough money which is silly considering they have more money now then they ever had when I was a kid. I guess the difference now is that they have 2 reverse cycle air conditioners which mum uses summer and winter, plasma screen tvs in every room, 3 fridges running and 3 cars and a motorbike that they have to pay rego and insurance on. They also engage in a lot of impulsive spending.
I am not a Scrooge. My husband and I have an iPad (the new one), computer, x box, guitars and amps and a toddler. We drink nice wine and beers. We go on at least 2 holidays a year. We rent a nice place 30 seconds from the beach. We have 2 nice cars (paid cash for both) but I try and walk as many places as possible (saves fuel $$$ and the environment). I should mention that for the last 16 months I have been on maternity leave and we have been living off one income (below $70,000).
Playing with my toddler, walks on the beach, playing my bass and reading books and magazines from the library don’t cost me anything. Because my lifestyle costs so little I have been able to take extended maternity leave to be with my boy and will be able to return to work part time rather than full time. It’s funny that by choosing to spend less I actually get to live the life I want.
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Completely agree! We also bought our cars for cash, both necessary for work. I’ve recently taken a job with a 20% pay cut but which comes with many non-cash benefits plus, most importantly, a strict no-more-than-38 hour a week culture. I bought a house a few years ago, three bedroom, one bathroom in a nice but inexpensive suburb where we grow fruit, vegetables and have chickens. The house is old and we are renovating it, bit by bit, when we have the money to pay for it. We have one (second hand) TV, a set top box and second hand furniture that we have restored and antiques that we’ve collected from our travels. I think that it has much more character than a house furnished entirely by Harvey Norman and it has all been dead cheap. And we brew our own alcohol.
We have a movie club membership which gives us plenty of free and discounted films, we borrow books from the library, we attend small theatre productions which are cheap, we bush walk and go to the beach. We have dinner parties or BBQs with our friends rather than go to fancy restaurants, mostly because we’re lucky to have friends who are pretty amazing cooks! Our cost is living is fairly sustainable.
This means that we can travel fairly frequently (we have family in the South Pacific and Europe so we usually try to go every year) if we choose to. It also means that we have a good work/life balance, with plenty of free time to enjoy, as we are not having to work more to fund our lifestyles.
My point is that, for many (but not all) people, cost of living pressures can, to an extent, be minimised by lifestyle choices. I suppose you need to figure out what your values are (new appliances, new cars, overseas holidays, paying off a mortgage, going to restaurants, private schooling, buying lots of clothes) and figure out what needs to be sacrificed to enable you to afford to indulge in those. Very few people will be able to afford everything and those that can might find that they’re working so hard to obtain the cash for it that they don’t have the time to enjoy them.
Anyway, bassbassgirl, you sound as though you’ve just about got the balance right!
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Hi Anon. It sounds like you are enjoying the benefits of a less materialistic lifestyle also. We have so much second hand furniture, my dining table belonged to my grandparents (they bought it in the 50′s and there are photos of my dad having his 21st birthday party at it)! My husband and I bought our first new piece of furniture, a tv unit, after we had been together 6 years. Five years later we bought our first new lounge, because I was pregnant and I decided that my bloated uncomfortable body really deserved it. We also got a new coffee table at the same time. That’s it. In our 12 years together they are the only new pieces of furniture we havenbought. Everything else is either passed onto us by family or bought from a second hand shop or eBay.
We have purchased very few toys for our son. We just spent the morning at the park an he spent most of the time dragging a big stick around. His favorite “toys” at home this month are the broom, some boxes, one of my old wallets which has a few old business cards in it, my hairbrush and my empty roll on deodorant container. When I ask him if he wants to do some sweeping he stomps his feet and squeals with delight. Somehow don’t think that will be the case when he’s older
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Funnily enough, a TV unit is the only furniture that we’ve bought brand new as well, though I think the leather couches (eBay) are on their last legs – a five year old boy treating them like a trampoline has obviously taken its toll. My biggest extravagance when I bought the house was proper bedsheets for our bed and the spare bedroom – they set me back over $300 each set but, four years on, they are still as soft as they were they day I bought them.
Oh, and my favourite toy at the moment – an old water bottle with rice and glitter in it, with the lid screwed tight! Works a treat.
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Thans for the water bottle tip, I’m going to try that one!
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The cost of living studies are always frustrating. If you read the linked article you can see it admits that food and utilities all cost more – these are costs no one can avoid.
Meanwhile, it’s the electronics and white goods which have really dropped in price comparatively speaking. These are not the daily purchases.
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While that’s true, it seems to me we upgrade and replace our electronic goods and white-goods more often than we used to.
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There’s a lot of inbuilt redundancy these days in white goods and the likes. Whereas once your washing machine could and would last 20 years or so, these days the average life cycle is 5-8 years. I was furious when my last washing machine died after 5 1/2 years. To repair it was going to cost $50 less than the cost of buying a new washing machine. I bought it originally assuming it would be good for at least 10.
The same applies to the dish washer. We bought a good dishwasher. I was expecting it to last at least 15 years, yet we had to replace all the electronics within it at the 10 year mark. It doesn’t matter if you do spend more, the parts are designed to only last a certain number of cycles. We could have bought a new dishwasher for what it cost us to repair it.
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Agree. We learned about planned obsolescence (ie not making replacement parts after a certain time frame so you have to buy a new one/it’s easier to get a new one than repair) at school 25 years ago in commerce. The time frames have got shorter, no question.
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I’m not sure it’s really changed, I just think the market has been flooded by cheap brands that don’t last. My grandparents always bought the best. That meant they went years without a fridge whilst they saved, but that fridge lasted them 45 years.
Since I moved out of home I’ve only bought the best. That’s meant I had to do without a lot of things whilst I saved, but so far everything I’ve bought is still going strong, almost 20 years later in some cases. I haven’t needed repairs on anything. Some brands do still make products that last.
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But, you’re talking about stuff you bought 20 years ago. I have an old tv from over 20 years ago too, but it isn’t compatible to watch digital tv, for example. A washing machine, or dryer, or fridge though, I would expect to last.
I think it’s most noticeable in cars. People having a new car when young was unheard of 20 years ago. Now it’s not uncommon for young people to have a new car for their first or second car. When I was a kid there were old cars around (because those bad boys were built to LAST) but the cars that are around now don’t, and they get replaced rather than repaired.
Technology, too, keeps moving, so when organisations move forward, they take their clients with them – eg banks pushing people to online banking, or unis doing a LOT online. It makes you have to get in the race and keep up or get trampled.
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I bought my fridge about 19 years ago. My washing machine about 15 years ago, and a dishwasher 9 years ago. As I said, I slowly saved to buy things.
My car is 10 years old, and so far the only repairs have been due to being rear-ended twice. I did a huge amount of research before buying a car, and I went without one for almost a decade whilst I saved.
I’ve never had a TV die on me, nor a computer or phone. I do upgrade these things, but that’s my choice. I upgrade my iPhone because new apps are too slow on the older model, but really it still works perfectly for all the things I NEED it to do. I still have the 1st iPhone lying around, and I could still use that today. I upgrade my computer every year, but my mum is using a 10yr old Apple I gave her when I upgraded years ago, and it works fine. Technically there’s nothing she can’t do on that computer that I NEED to do, so the upgrades haven’t been a necessity, they’ve been a luxury.
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Funnily enough, we’ve done the same thing – with limited success.
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“I’ve never had a TV die on me”
Well, I have – twice. The first one after about 6 years & the second one after about 2.5 years.
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It’s true. But the authors also say its a measure of the difference between those price rises and falls. That’s the point they’re making: we’re still spending too much on stuff we don’t need despite price rises where we can’t make cuts (like food).
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On the subject of food affordability, apparently Australian households waste anywhere from $2-5 billion a year on food. (google shows various reports). That’s just *households* not industry and agriculture.
So I find it befuddling that we can afford to waste so much food — despite its increasing expense — and then also buy gadgets, cars, BIIIIIIG Mcmansions, yearly holidays while opining that the cost of living is so oppressive and complaining about both parents in “family households” being “forced” by some unseen dark hand into paid employment.
The inconvenient truth is that if one has the money to afford a computer, an ISP account, can spare the electricity to run said appliances and the spare time to contribute to internet fora with a certain level of literacy, then they are living very well indeed when compared with our nation’s most disadvantaged. But most comfortable Australians with their first world problems do not want to hear that. We prefer to compare ourselves with those who have more rather than those who have less.
Personally I find it amusing that, in this context, people accessing the internet will tart themselves up as social justice victims. It must be a real slap in the face for the many in Australia who suffer from real rather than confected social injustice.
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…oh, and I’d also argue that our average energy consumption is higher than it used to be – utility costs may be rising, but we also use a lot more energy…which doubles the impact…
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I disagree. When I look at the likes of our water bill, 75% of the bill is fixed charges, which means my ability to influence the size of the bill isn’t that great.
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Utility costs are so frustrating as there is very little that can be done about it.
Despite using less electricity this Summer than the previous one, our bill was still $200 higher. Our water consumption has also decreased yet the bill is also more. It feels like a real kick in the teeth sometimes.
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And I don’t know about other states, but as soon as WA had huge price hikes, the little graphs on your bill that compare the cost of your bill to the last one suddenly started showing the comparison in consumption. You know, to hide the evidence that the bills were actually going up despite using the same amount of power/water/gas.
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I’m actually happy about the rising cost of utilities. I’ve always used very little for the sake of the environment, but rising costs seem to be the thing that’s changed everyone I know’s habits. My next door neighbour used to run her split system 24/7 and have 30 minute showers. She knew all about the environmental impact, but she only changed her behavior when it became unaffordable.
It sucks for people who were always using very little, but if rising costs are what it takes to make people conserve our resources then I’m happy to pay.
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I would be less irritated by the rise in Utility costs, if the actual usage comprised of more of the bill, rather than the massive increases in the fixed components which you have to pay if you want to maintain service.
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I’m not really coming to the defence of the utilities providers here but I know, for example, at least part of the increase in the fixed component on electric bills is down to their own infrastructure costs – they need to upgrade their infrastructure to cope with increasing demand, particularly during peak hours. And it makes sense that infrastructure upgrades are funded by everyone.
Having said that, I’m sure there is probably a rising profit margin somewhere as well…
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This would be the same infrastructure which they should have maintained investment in regardless…
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I agree! It blows my mind that so often the people complaining about their power bills are the ones who have aircon running all the time as though they don’t have windows, who have big TVs in every room and watch them separately, who have pool filters running all year, who have badly designed houses with poor insulation.
crazy!
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We have tanks for our water. The town water can be accessed, but we fill that tank with rain water via the overflow on the rain water tank and top up when needed from the tank behind the garage. We haven’t used town water for 7 years. My hubby goes a little made when he sees a bill for the privelige of being connected to town water. It’s quadrupled in recent times.
Our a/c in connected to a 3 phase system, so it doesn’t cost us as much as it could. It’s off at the moment now though.
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My husband and are are no doubt better off than we were a few years ago – but that’s because we have been working our behinds off and have obtained promotions and better jobs!
We dont really worry about keeping up with the Joneses, we do things that make us happy. Eg; we are considering (5 yr plan!) putting in a swimming pool. That would be for our enjoyment, not because anyone else we know has a pool.
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Re The Cost Of Living
I’ve asked these questions before on MM:
Think about the house you grew up in. Think about all the things your parents owned. How big was your house? Did they have 1 car or 2? How many TVs were in your house? How often did they buy a new TV? How often did your parents buy you new clothes or toys?
Now look at your own life now. Is you house bigger than the one you grew up in? How many cars in your household? How many TVs in your home? How many TVs have you bought over the last 10 years? How often do you buy your kids new clothes or toys?
I can’t personally answer the kids questions (I don’t have kids) but I don’t feel as if my lifestyle is more consumerist than my parents – but I suspect I may be in the minority…what about you?
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I grew up in a small house on a relatively large piece of land (half-acre). Five of us in a 3BR house, with one bathroom (& separate toilet). We didn’t have a TV until we got a hand-me-down from my uncle when I was 9; bought our own new one maybe 5 years later. One car for a long time (my father’s company car.
I’m similar to you in being childless, & I’m probably not much more consumerist than my parents were – well, not *that* much more. I don’t have a car. I bought 3 TVs in the space of ten years because the first two broke down. I buy more clothes than when I was in my early 20s, and I know part of that is due to reduced quality.
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I grew up in a 3 bed 1 bath home (4 kids) We had 1 tv and I thought it was Christmas when i got a tape player for my birthday when I was 10 (it only played tapes, no radio)
Our children are growing up in a 4 X 2 with swimming pool. At 11 & 6 they have ipod touches, DSi’s, cameras etc, miss 11 has a laptop. 2 TVs in the house after removed the tvs from the kids rooms (present from the grandparents)
Going through the cupboards the other day I found 1 of those old mini ipods, 2 nanos and 2 of the classic Ipods. leftovers from when my husband and I have upraded over the years. We now have Iphones, Ipads, Ipod touches and laptops.
So yes I would say we are heavy consumers compared to our parents.
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I agree with JJ. I have had times in my life when I have been uber comfortable and uber poor but the things I value the most began in my childhood and have stayed the same throughout.
1. Keeping up with the Jones’s is just plain stupid. They don’t look that happy or content for all the “stuff” they have bought. All the Jones’s I know have forfeited contentment for a constant cycle of stress in working to buy something and then buying it again a year later, buying it again a year later, buying it again a year later. Plus, they don’t get to see their children much because they’re always working.
2. My children never gave a hoot about the Jones’s. They did give a hoot about spending time with me and the time I spent/spend with them has paid off a thousand times more than any time spent with the x-box or lying on a beach in Bali. This pleases me immensely.
3. I love getting the most value for my hard-earned dollars. Constantly replacing things is annoying.
4. I have the same 3 bedroom home that I have had for the last 15 years. It’s a lot like the one I grew up in. I dread the thought of a McMansion that would take all my spare time to maintain. I have much better things to do with my non-work time like being with my family and friends and blabbing on MM.
5. Keeping up with the Jones’s doesn’t pass my deathbed test. When I look back at my life from my deathbed, I really don’t want think that I spent most of my life buying stuff or imagine the Jones’s unhappy, stressed faces telling me that their life was happier than mine because they owned “stuff”. It wasn’t.
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Can I like this comment 100 times?
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See, sometimes this is exactly what makes me feel a bit flat.
When my parents were my age they had 4 kids in private schools, a stay at home mum, a 6 bedroom, 3 living room house in a ‘heritage’ area on 1200sqm, a holiday house an hour away, an annual overseas holiday, 2 brand new european cars.
We have, two professional incomes, a small 3 bed house on a small block, in an average area, two kids and one battered 22 year old car…
In a million years we will never reach the levels of wealth that our boomer parents acquired in the 80s. We didn’t have a lot of the smaller consumables because they didn’t exist (computer games etc) but for many it was an era of enormous disposable income before the 90/91 recession.
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I agree. My parents bought a 3 bedroom house in the early 80s that cost 3 x their combined income. I’m single so straight away I’m at a disadvantage, but even if there were two earning the same wage the same house would cost 10 x that income. Some costs have risen to a point where buying a house it complete out of my reach.
BUT
I don’t feel that day to day costs have increased where I can’t afford it. I work part time and study full time. I am incredibly thankful for Australia’s HECS program which has allowed to me earn 2 degrees (currently doing the 2nd one) and pay it back when I can afford it. My electricity bill hasn’t risen in the five years I’ve lived in my house. I feel like I can control it with what I use – I still have an old tube tellie and that barely uses any electricity.
A couple of years ago I did a year of not buying new clothes. If I NEEDED something I bought it from a second hand store. This broke my habit of buying because I could and now I buy 1 or 2 new items of clothing a year, and usually second hand.
All my furniture in my house is second hand, most came from friends or relatives who were getting rid of it. And far from feeling like I’m living in budget digs I get compliments on my retro style.
I get fresh fruit and veggies delivered by a local green grocer once a fortnight at half the price I would pay from Woolies or Coles – likewise for milk and bread.
Plus I’m able to save enough to visit a friend in England this year, and still be putting some away for the future.
We are led to believe that we deserve everything now and – yes there are some things that we can’t control (see my rant about house prices above) but last year I read a study at uni that showed that the happiest country = Mexico. And I’m betting that they don’t buy a new wardrobe every season and all have the latest iphone.
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I understand that at a personal level, Australia’s current prosperity is not shared equally by all. However, the Australian economy, by world standards, is incredibly strong right now. We are among the richest in the world as a nation (with our average individual wealth), we have amongst the lowest unemployment, we have continuing growth forecast and our ratio of government debt to GDP is amongst the lowest of the OECD countries as well. Really not bad considering the global economic climate. The Credit Suisse 2011 report on global economics, as well as the OECD website, support these assertions.
When my parents were my age, they had four kids in public schooling, a stay at home mum, a small house in a rural area and a second hand car. We took our holidays at the beach, camping. I’m in a very different professional and economic situation to my parents, I can afford the larger house, the new cars, the overseas holidays…if I want. But actually, my childhood was fantastic as it was and the quality of my upbringing and education has enabled me to be happy and successful. I’m sure that your kids will be happy with whatever you can provide them!
Oh, and on the subject of the car – we had a very old, lime green, battered Holden Kingswood with only three seatbelts in the back but four kids. By the time I was 10 or so, I was mortified when my dad would drop me off at school – I’d ask him to drop me off around the block and I always envied the kids whose parents had nice, new cars. I got over it though at the time I remember thinking I would never, ever drive my kids to school in a second hand car…I then went and bought a 30 year old Toyota Corolla (perfect condition, paid cash) so perhaps I’m condemning them to the same burden of embarrassment I had!
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THIS 100%. My parents were lucky during the 80s boom. We had nice cars, a big house, disposable income and annual holidays. Now my husband and I are struggling along just like everyone else.
I’m not saying “Poor me”, but my circumstances are significantly worse off than my parents’ were when I was growing up.
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But who cares if you don’t live the lifestyle your parents did?
You don’t need it?
Why would you care?
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