How families are adapting to the growing cost of living
As the year winds down, the summer break is the perfect opportunity to spend quality time with friends and family. Christmas is generally a time when we spend more on travel, gifts, and not to mention delicious food, but this year the cost of this joy and excitement has become more expensive.
The household budget has already been tightened off the back of a year of increasing interest rates and higher cost of living, which has seen families adapt in both conventional and creative ways.
Families are adjusting their spending habits
Our survey of 1,100 families found that the majority of families have changed how much they spend on food-related items in an effort to adapt to the growing cost of living. Almost two-thirds said that they were eating out less while over 60% were more conservative with their regular grocery shop.
Others have chosen to minimise more considerable expenses like travel, with almost half (46.5%) of families deciding to either rearrange or cancel their holiday plans leading up to Christmas.
We also found some families have scaled-down ongoing costs like private health insurance or outright cancelled unnecessary subscriptions like Netflix, Amazon Prime, & Spotify Premium. Many have chosen to increase the number of days they’re working from home to reduce spending on the daily commute and the temptations of buying lunch or takeaway coffees.
Finding innovative ways to add income
Parents that have a spare garage or shed have found that they’ve been able to make money by renting it out on Spacer. The platform allows people to lease out their space, and we’ve seen a secure garage in Bronte, Sydney, being rented out for $780 per month, undercover parking and a storage cage in Kelvin Grove, Brisbane, for $390 per month, and a secure storage unit in Box Hill, Melbourne for $442 per month.
The Volte is another platform that parents, and particularly mums, have been using to earn extra cash by lending designer fashion items that often sit idly in their wardrobes. Renting out cocktail dresses from brands like Chanel has fetched as much as $935 for some parents, and we’ve seen Birkin handbags listed for $1,100 for a 4-day rental period.
We saw that other families are also using gig platforms like Airtasker to earn income from temporary jobs that match their skills and availability. Completing tasks like physical labour or even professional work, parents can earn $150 for one-off jobs like ironing, $200 for bookkeeping, and specialised tasks like website design have starting offers of $400.
Making changes that work for you
The increasing cost of living this year is something we have all felt. While different households have used various methods to soften the impact on their budget, making the right changes for your family depends on what works best for you.
Whatever changes you decide to make, what’s important as we approach the festive season is spending quality time and enjoying the holidays with your family.
About Edstart
Edstart is a leading technology and financial services company providing funding and payment services for education. We offer fee management solutions to schools and flexible payment plans to parents to help make school fees easier to manage.
To see how we can help you, visit our main website.
Find out more
Edstart is a leading technology and financial services company providing funding and payment services for education. We offer fee management solutions to schools and flexible payment plans to parents to help make school fees easier to manage.
To see how we can help you, visit our main website.
Find out more