Newly-released figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) suggest that the average household spends $1236 a week. Where does that money go?
According to the ABS Household Expenditure on Goods and Services review, which covers the 12 months to June 2010, housing is our biggest item of expenditure, covering 18 per cent of total expenditure, followed by food and non-alcoholic beverages (17 per cent) and transport (16 per cent). Collectively, those three items cover half our budget.
Before you start complaining about how expensive life is, consider this: gross household income is up 50 per cent compared to the last similar study for 2003-04. But one notable random stat: pay TV costs are up 95 per cent since 2004.
bleh
Tuesday, September 6, 2011 at 4:10 PMHow dare they ‘sugge’ that I spend that much!! :P
Lauren
Tuesday, September 6, 2011 at 4:19 PMHousing is 18% of total expenditure? These people obviously haven’t talked to me – I’m spending over half my income on rent alone!
I’m sure I can’t be the only one. Mind you, my partner’s + my income per week isn’t the above mentioned $1236 a week…
Tegzilla
Friday, September 9, 2011 at 1:35 PMYeah, about 45% here. Sucks!
poltak
Tuesday, September 6, 2011 at 5:00 PM$200 for transport per week??? That seems a little crazy for my household…
Adrian
Tuesday, September 6, 2011 at 7:17 PMI suppose when you average out the costs of purchasing and maintaining a car over time… could come to $200/week.
Jason
Tuesday, September 6, 2011 at 5:11 PMMy wife and I spend about 20% of our income on housing, we’ve bought a place. My parents were spending less than 5%.
Everyone is different.
Tegzilla
Friday, September 9, 2011 at 1:35 PMNo way, really?
John Cox
Tuesday, September 6, 2011 at 6:30 PMLies, damn lies, and statistics.
Remember the “average” number of children per family is 1.65
I know nobody who has this many kids…
Jason
Tuesday, September 6, 2011 at 8:37 PMSo, it appears that the “average” household in Australia spends more on Tobacco products than the new horribly fearsome and ruinous carbon tax will cost. I can see what all the fuss is about now.
harry
Tuesday, September 6, 2011 at 8:45 PMthis is funny timing. i was speaking to a bank today about reducing my mortgage payments for a couple of months as my wife is recently out of work.
after getting the third degree and providing all my expense details i was lectured for 10 minutes about how my expenses were much higher than the standard australian on my income.
funny thing is, according to these stats, i’m pretty much spot on the average for my income bracket.
potts
Wednesday, September 7, 2011 at 9:44 AMI’m not sure if I should be worried or not, but my household doesn’t even make that much in a week, let alone spend it… or have I mastered living on the cheap?
Karan
Wednesday, September 7, 2011 at 12:20 PMThat’s the issue of looking at “average” – the link provides the following to show the range:
“In 2009-10, households in the lowest gross income quintile (the lowest 20% of households when ranked according to gross income) spent on average $559 (152% of their gross household income) on goods and services per week, compared to $2,160 (55% of their gross household income) spent by households in the highest gross income quintile. This difference in expenditure is partly a consequence of household size: households in the lowest quintile contain on average 1.5 persons, compared to 3.4 persons in households in the highest quintile. Lone person households make up 63% of households in the lowest quintile.”
RedWolfz0r
Wednesday, September 7, 2011 at 6:49 PMAverage expenditure would most likely exceed average income, as a significant proportion of the population are retired or on benefits.