Our Cost of Living In Australia

When people hear about our year long travels with our 2 kids, almost immediately they jump to the conclusion that the trip was very expensive.  More and more, people are slowly coming to the conclusion that the cost of living in Australia is very high.  Without a doubt there was a price tag attached to our trip, yet relative to just staying at home, living day to day life in Australia, just how did it compare??

True to our form while traveling, we’ve endeavoured to track our expenses during the past 158 days since we’ve arrived back home.

Just a few points about our lifestyle:

-we have 2 cars now, although Jim generally just takes his to the train station where he parks it then commutes to work; we’ve only paid the insurance and registration on 1 of the cars so far.

-we’ve rarely eaten out since we’ve been home

-as indicated by our ‘entertainment’ expenses, we don’t go out much, except to the local park and beach

-we have 2 mobile phones, both on a monthly plan with a new phone each

-Maddy attends a public school, although there still are extra costs involved; we do not pay for pre-school for Yasmine

-‘personal’ expenses generally relate to clothing (usually 2^nd hand), hair cuts, etc)

-we think we live and shop very frugally, tending to buy things on special/sale , or second hand if possible. 

Item	Sub totals	Daily Average
Food:  Groceries           Eating Out	$23.49/day $2.62/day $26.1	$26.11
Car:  Maintenance         Insurance/Reg         Petrol	$3.62/day $3.73/day $9.48/day	$16.83
Utilities:  Mobiles (2)                 Internet                 Home phone                 Insurance                Electricity/Gas/Water/other	$4.40 $1.76 $0.58 $4.37 $7.20	$18.31
House:  Interest (mtg)              Garden             Renovations             Furnishings	$17.37 $2.08 $7.94 $8.68	$36.07
Household (toilet paper, stationary, soap, etc)		$3.05
Entertainment		$0.76
School Related (uniform, excursions, levies, etc)		$5.22
Childcare		$1.78*
Hobbies (swim & ballet for both kids)		$7.06
Personal:  Kids:                 Jess:                  Jim:                 Gifts:	$4.62 $3.16 $1.54 $2.77	$12.09
Total Daily Cost		$128.59**

*Childcare costs are for 1 day of childcare a week, expressed as a daily figure.  Childcare is also subsidized by the Australian gov't based on your income.  Our unsubsidized daily rate for childcare is actually $90 per day.

**Total Daily Cost is likely understated as costs are probably 98% accurate due to errors and omissions, but is based on actual figures for our family of 4.

We believe that this TOTAL DAILY COST is conservative and will inevitably go up slightly as the kids take on more hobbies and Jim’s work-related transportation costs increase too. 

Remember what it cost us per day while we were away??  Click here for the breakdown again, but basically it was $66.57 per day for daily expenses, with a total of $124.58 including pre-trip expenses.

Of course the comparison is a bit ‘apples to oranges’, as our figures reflect just living versus being on a holiday!  Interestingly usually ‘being on holidays’ costs more.

More and more we hear people complaining about Australia’s raising cost of living.  We believe that it’s high, and our figures do reflect it.  If we weren’t as frugal, our daily amount would be much more.  But the converse is true too—we could trim the figure more, but then, our standard of living would reflect that too.

Do you have any idea what it costs you to live day to day?  What do you think of our figures?  Tell us in the comments section below!