Very little of my spending is discretionary, so mostly it means I frown at my bank balance and fret a lot more. I don't heat the house over 18 degrees and utilise a hot water bottle.
this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023
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I feel you! We cut most discretionary during Feb 2020 and haven't ramped it back since. We grew accustomed to the emergency lifestyle. Compared to your system, we forego the bottle in favour of 1hr electric blanket to preheat the bed, and set the heater at 14deg. Electric blankets are actually incredible value - we have a power meter (plugs inline with an appliance), and measured each side of the blanket to consume $0.007c (round up to 1 cent) per hour at its lowest setting (at 17c per kwh, our previous contracted rate).
That reminds me, I really need to make consumption labels for our appliances - I've taken all the measurements, but they're still just scrawled on a notebook.
edit: numbers
Posting to add a more quantitative figure for readers, now that I have my notebook in front of me. Each side of our electric blanket, on power setting 1, consumed 0.0229kWh during a 41min testing period. That equates to 0.0559kWh per hour
- eating little to no take out dinners
- skipping lunch (office job in the city)
- cut coffee cold turkey
- fare evade where possible
- avoid CityLink no matter the traffic
- no more retail shopping
I know anecdotally I'm in the majority of my peers doing all or most of the above
Consumer demand must have absolutely cratered, I feel for all those restraunts and cafes that stuck it out through COVID to get smashed again now.
Melbourne especially basically runs on coffee as the great equaliser and distributor of money, when people stop buying that you know shits real.
Yeah nah it's shit. Gone from renting a house to living out of my car due to a redundancy and difficulty finding a decent job. Lost most of my belongings because I've nowhere to keep them T_T
Decent nutritional food is too expensive and proper personal care (medication and hygiene) is too difficult to secure
Oof, sorry to hear that mate, that's rough. If you feel like you're struggling, I've had good experiences with mindspot.org in the past... it's a free mental health service for all aussies. It won't help you with finances obviously but might help you feel a little better about the future.
I appreciate that, thank you ❤️
Luckily we don't spend a lot of money comparative to our income, our habits haven't changed but our discretionary spend and grocery bill has increased a bunch. I can't imagine how others are currently coping with the cost of living.
Trying to do the same as you. Also reducing a bit on electricity usage by turning off the heater when not needed etc, since the price has gone up +30-40%!!
I hear you re: the takeaway food! I work for a small-scale food manufacturing business so it's something I do to give me a break from getting home and cooking for the family. But it has become so expensive! It's something I've definitely cut down on. I can just afford it and definitely count myself as fortunate, but I just baulk at how much things have increased in price. All our family favourite "cheap nights" are no longer cheap.
We've just taken a hit to the larger items - decided to not get a dog this year that we had intended on. Moved travel plans back another 6 months to save up a bit more. Not drinking out at pubs anymore, though that's more due to WFH than inflation.
We thankfully are going alright. But we look at our grocery and eating out bill and shake our heads.
We can’t figure out how people are coping considering the changes in fuel, electricity and food. It is definitely going to impact our long term goals.
For me i've been buying in bulk.
Genuinely, I've been dumpster diving at my local Woolies and have gotten ~$500 RRP in the last three or four weeks worth of food.
My partner and I also never use the heat in the unit we live in, today was under 10 in our bedroom when we woke up.
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