I have recently taken on a rental property, paying $620 p/w for a 2 bedroom granny flat in Gold Coast QLD with my son. This is 57% of my fortnightly wage! Add to that massive rises in shopping, power, petrol… and everything else!!!

Since Covid everything has gone up except wages. The cost of living is astronomical

It causes extreme stress.

It is impacting each stages of life. Especially too keep up with increasing food-groceries and rent-bills. I can’t even look at anything else than essential items in coles, woolies.

I am a very savvy shopper. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t buy my clothes from a thrift store, or went to a movie, or out for dinner. I live alone with my dog, but any extra money goes into my bill account, for car insurance, home insurance, registration etc etc and with prices going up on food and fuel, I’m just treading water. I have just changed departments and now I don’t get penalty rates and my hours have dropped. I hope I can still scrape by.

I had to sacrifice non-essential activities such as going to theme parks because of their expensive ticketing and pricing, and I had to make that a rare date occasion. I must note that the iconic two litre milk bottle in Coles now costs up to $6 than the previous fixed $2, three times as much!

I go without just go work to pay bills. And because of the cost of living my wages don’t even pay them.

Rarely dine out, hardly go sightseeing and minimise the use of aircon to restrict power bills to minimum.

I can’t pay for my bills, when I pay, I am let with little money that I can’t even serve up to the next fortnight.

My rent is increased every year that much more, like sky-rocket than my salary. Can’t afford to pay any extra costs like car insurance and electricity bill at moment.

I’m a single parent, I’m struggling financially to make ends meet and living pay check to pay check weekly. I have no savings for a rainy day and have no extra money to even begin to save for that. I’ve had to cut out food budget right down to 150 a week and that barely covers the essentials at times, we have had to cut back on meat intake and dairy just to ensure we can eat 3 main meals still plus the school snacks which we have to make at home as too expensive to buy. The prices of everything has gone up so much that even fuel, I only fill to 1/4 of a tank, to half if im lucky on a good week. There really isn’t any spare money for weekend fun with my child, let alone trying to afford to buy basic necessities such as new school shoes, clothing etc. Things have been so tough financially and I’m even considering trying to get a 2nd job that I can do from home as I have to work within school care and school hours but we desperately need to increase our funds to survive. Never have I ever felt so stressed about what bill to pay or how to put food on the table.

Sacrifice we make when your budget is not enough for the week.
Can not afford groceries,doctors is going up their fees,petrol goes up.
When you pay everything you left with $50 only 2 items or 3 for that money now winter is approaching no heater, sometimes no hot water. At work you do everything and expecting to do everything as a cleaner and they don’t give you any courtesy or respect because you got a brown skin you are in low pecking order.
I take pride in my work and very proud when you are thorough and in order but sometimes management team expecting too much of you to clean and be a doormat to everyone.

At the moment for the last 18 months I have been placing all my deficits (around $400/week) on Credit Cards and or making real sacrifices of not having whatever it is that we can afford to not have, and even filtering used cooking oil to save on expenses.

Me and my family have suffered immensely from the interest rate hikes. I live with my family and I pay a pretty decent rent from what I’ve heard. But because of the pressure from cost of living, my family is always arguing about money and whether or not the rent should be raised. It’s making me not want to live with my family, I feel like I’m burdening them with the amount of money they spend on me.

Most of my wages go on rent and bills I’ve had to halve repayments just to have money for fuel to get to work and it’s hard to save while rent keeps on increasing.

Some weeks left over money is not even possible as that little left over has to pay or get put away for a bill or trying to save for a home deposit but that little savings always gets hacked into to pay for something and then we have to start from scratch saving again.

Also we don’t get to have money to see specialist doctors for my husband or myself so we have to go without or wait long periods to save if nothing comes up in the mean time.

When looking for places to rent. The real estate agents take 30% of your wages. I work full time and the agents say I don’t earn enough money to have a rental.

I’m unable to save I live week to week. I spend my time looking for specials. i dread the bills coming in because it’s difficult to cover them.

.It really makes a impact on my family with fuel and food going up its not enough to go through

I am having trouble being able to afford to move out of my parents house.