Technically we do. But the cost of living is stupid in this country, and it's just spiralling out of control, and wages are not keeping up sadly.
-Power is a rort, my last powerbill for 3 months was $900, it used to be $500-600 before the state gov't upped the price of power, because they could.
-Rent is out of control here too, the average price where I live, $500/w for a 3 bedroom house isn't uncommon.
-Car registration with insurance runs most around $70-100/mo before other running costs.
-Clothes are a joke of a price for anything that is quality. The pants I wear for work are $80 a pair here, thankfully I can buy them from the USA for $30 a pair, so around $40 shipped. I also just had to buy new boots, that was $200, but I needed quality & comfort, which the $50 pair I bought & promptly returned did not offer.
-Public transport is super expensive (at least where I am.) to get to Brisbane which is maybe 100km away, it'll run me $30-40 depending on the time of day & day for train & bus fare, in a car that is fuel efficient a round trip is around half that in petrol.
-Petrol is also getting stupidly high in price, I paid $1.55/L for 94 octane with 10% ethanol blend the other day.
-Phone/internet can be expensive, we're sort of starting to get that one under control with our "NBN" prices are getting better for better services. But I still pay $160/mo for my internet & mobile. Thankfully I buy my phones outright, otherwise that would be in excess of $200/mo.
Then there's luxuries like cigarettes & alcohol, which are taxed extremely high. Average price for a carton of beer (24 330ml bottles) will be at least $40, and smokes you're paying over $1 per cigarette now from memory.
Then there's other stuff like pet care, I have a dog, so she runs me probably about $60 a month in food & other costs. She eats really well & is looked after well. But even saying that bathing isn't free, now is worming, flea & tick control. But that's maybe $20 in total there. She doesn't get dry food or tinned wet food either, because they're both bad for them & expensive, funnily enough it is cheaper to buy fresh kangaroo meat & fresh veggies..
Over all my job pays alright at $26/hr before any penalty rates. But still i'm casual so, my hours vary, so my pay isn't steady. But it still makes it a challenge to get by sometimes.
Also this government is dumb. They looked at this years ago & deemed it would cost about as much to collect these taxes as it was going to bring in, all I can say is I object to being forced to pay tax on stuff I either cannot buy here at all, or in some cases I would be forced to pay upto 10x as much for locally.
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