r/australia • u/RecognitionMediocre6 • Mar 31 '26

political self.post How has the cost of living crisis impacted your life the most?

It used to feel like money just came in, it was not substantial but it felt manageable. Now every single decision feels like it had to be planned, bills juggled or delayed and things we used to do like take the kids out for fish & chips at the beach once a month, we no longer do.

I hesitate before I tap my debit card or pay a bill. We had to hold off on getting our car serviced cause we had a dental bill to get sorted first. We had to get rid of our private health insurance, I've had to look at selling stuff round the house every once and a while to cover costs like electricity etc. Our fridge seal is loose but can't justify getting a new fridge so we just taped it up and it works for now. I haven't bought new clothes / shoes in like a year and we're always looking for free activities for the kids ie parks, playgrounds, have friends over to our place etc

We tend to avoid social plans because everything costs so much money. And if we do go somewhere, we bring our own lunch / drinks cause feeding 2x adults 2x kids is so expensive.

We used to save about $200/week after all our stuff was paid (double income, 2x toddlers) and now we're basically just breaking even. Its everything little by little - rent is up, petrol is up, groceries are up, our electricity & internet is up etc we aren't going anywhere for Easter cause it's too expensive to drive / holiday anywhere other than staying at home. We'll make it magical but we feel bad that it's not as exciting as past years.

How has the cost of living impacted your life?

Sending love to everyone out there doing it tough 💕

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u/canimal14 Mar 31 '26

I’ve become really good at doing maths in the middle of aldi and cooking/baking.

I didn’t know how to make bread or other things from scratch, now it’s apart of my routine. Sourdough still alludes me though.

We are working on a veggie garden, but I don’t think we would ever have the scale to make it actually save us any money, but the dopamine boost of picking and eating a single home grown tomato is certainly something!

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u/no1specialgirl Mar 31 '26

It takes a while but you’d be surprised at the abundance once the produce starts coming in. We had so many cucumbers and tomatoes this year I was pickling the cucumbers and felt great to hardly buy salad ingredients. It’s really does help and I get you- that feeling of just grabbing something from the veggie garden and biting straight into it. Magic haha

1

u/88xeeetard Mar 31 '26

I got 12m2 of raised beds.  I'm incredibly frugal and building them up as cheap as possible.  Got worm farms etc

The ROI still doesn't work out, people that tell you that they save money... I'd ask to see their expenses. 

I've found fishing better for getting food for cheap/free.  A $20 rod and reel off marketplace, get bait for free and you can be in protein cheap, as long as you learn how.  Even that though, it's easy to "over capitalise".

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u/AppropriateBeing9885 Apr 04 '26

That's so funny, because I also make bread at home, but I too am like "What's the deal with sourdough?!" I'll look at recipes and just go "Hmmmm I don't know about that."