I'm definitely being unreasonable! Comparing lives with Australians!

[teulie]

Watched a lot of Love Island Australia and MAFS Australia this year and follow a lot of the people from it now. Seeing all their stories all year and today for NYE, the sunshine, the beaches, the groups of girls all just having the best time being young in such a beautiful country with the best sort of lifestyle and it makes me feel sad!

I'm in my late twenties married with two kids, boring job, normal family life style but I look and think god could I of done that? Could life of been like that?

One of my old friends is currently in Australia so I'm seeing their insta stories all day everyday and it's made the pining worse than ever, I've never even been there and I find myself just wishing I could do life again and be born there

I have never been to or lived in Australia so can't comment either way.

I wouldn't just trust anything I see on social media if I were you. However if you wanted to make changes to your life, you could always do so!
As an aside, a family, two children and a job by one's early 30s is what many people aspire to. You have done well for yourself.

Never been to Australia but I’d be put off living anywhere that’s such a long way from anywhere else. We are so fortunate where we are in the U.K. in that we are so close to so many different countries / cultures / cities. Sounds to me like you’re a bit bored with your life, which is normal when kids are young, the 9-5 drudgery. You can change your life though, if you want something else then go out and find it. And remember Instagram isn’t reality. The sun might shine a lot but that doesn’t mean life is perfect

Why not start one then? Since you feel so strongly about it.

Or you? Since you brought the subject of British racism up?

Not saying I won't mind...

I was replying to one poster - not you - who seems to think Australia is terrible because they had one storm while they were there.

You do realise Australia is rather a large country, and doesn't all experience the same weather??

It was you who said you were keen to post articles about British racism, not me.

I've met Australians who think everything is more expensive in the UK.... And English people who think everything is more expensive in Australia.

They can't both be right!

I think a generation or so ago an English person could sell a house in the UK and buy a really big hoise/swimming Poole in Australia as the pound was doing so well. I do t think that's the case now

Okay, but for now I’m getting back to the subject of this thread and anything I choose to post about it.

My mum retired out there, I visited, it's hot, can be humid, dusty, very few nice places, they have
Towns and cities but not much in between, no quaint villages or country pubs. Going walking is dangerous due to everything that can kill you, including in the sea. I found a lot of racism, and was shocked that in local pubs they'd have topless bar staff sometimes (this was 20 years ago so hope that's a thing of the past). It really is expensive too. When we flew to the other side of the country it took 6 hours ... its huge and there's a lot of nothing

I know you were not responding to me as that was my first post on the thread. My point remains that regardless of the current weather in the UK, Australian weather is far more extreme.

And why the unnecessary aggressive comment to the previous poster and now to me about whether I realise Australia is a large country? Of course I realise this. 🤷‍♀️. It is a large country that is prone to severe weather incidents all over, but not necessarily everywhere at the same time.

Some posters say Oz is cheaper than the UK, but the majority say it's way more expensive.

So is it dearer or cheaper?

Is anyone able to provide price comparison examples? And what's the average wage in Australia? What's it here, something like £30k?

I’m sure there are nutjobs who raise spiders here in the UK. If people can smuggle drugs, they can smuggle spiders

From what I can gather...

Housing and actual food more expensive in Australia. (but houses are bigger in Australia so a bit of a paradox)
Fuel cheaper in Australia (but bigger distances?!)
Trains/buses cheaper in Australia within a city.

But Australian friend thinks everything is expensive here in England... So no idea what they're looking at - maybe it's because you spend more on holiday either way??

Wages are higher in Australia in a lot of industries even accounting for the exchange rate.

So you found it to be a different country and climate to your own? Also, I would like to point out that there are plenty of native Australian animals that are not venomous and/or poisonous and/or want to kill you.

@IamMini and my mother was born in 1932, we're a British and European mix, and I have never once heard anything of the British nostalgia from anyone. We're Australian and have been all her adult life.

Good pies apparently.

I'm wading through to hear more about the pies!

So a random (probably inaccurate) Google suggests that the average salary is about a third higher in Australia. So although things may be more expensive they have the money to weather that?

That last part is important. Land is the heart of the problem. That land has either been passed down through generations of people who are incredibly wealthy and well connected, or sold to multinationals. Both will fight their corner with the kind of money and influence it's very hard for ordinary people to rally against.

I think it's the same in the UK - large rich organisations buying up land they can cover in trees or windfarms or 'rewild' to offset their carbon footprint. Impossible for an ordinary person to compete.

Cheers Sausage.

So it might seem expensive to a UK tourist, but for Australians not so much as it countered by the higher wages.

I think so, but then some things are waaaay cheaper, like car insurance.

I remember driving a shit box fiesta in the uk 8 years ago and third party insurance was nearly $2500 third party (car cost 500) here I drive a 40000 car and pay 1000 fully comp.

water rates are about $200 a year (100 gbp) and I pay $100 a month for electricity. Although my bills tend to be lower than comparable size families (British mentality of walking round the house twelve times a day turning everything off!!)In the uk my utility bills were crippling.

I feel like my wages here go much further than the uk. As a social worker and a single parent there I really struggled to make ends meet. Here I can save money and don’t worry about paying the bills.

that said whe I was paying rent two years ago it was $600 per week, around 40% of my take home pay and the rent situation has worsened. But I think a similar percentage of my pay in the uk went on rent too ….

I think you should look at all the extra taxes, levies, higher costs of petrol, food, power (esp in summer when you need air conditioning), public transport, everything. We found that our money looked better here in Aus, but went further in UK. A good example of this is the cost of alcohol (I know it’s not a necessary item) but we have a tax of $100 + per litre. Wine Equalisation Tax (WET) is currently 29% and going up this year. I don’t smoke, so this doesn’t affect me, but we have the most expensive cigarettes in the world,(65%) which as a healthcare practitioner I have no problem with. Toll roads every bloody where. 86.4% of us live in urban areas, so very hard to avoid. Water insanely expensive.

that said whe I was paying rent two years ago it was $600 per week

What’s your rent like now?

We know a family who moved there, they absolutely love it. They’re very wealthy. They have mentioned people can be racist - mostly taxi drivers apparently.

My SIL is Australian. Moved here 15 years ago. She face times her family frequently but has never gone back since moving here. Every creature in Australia wants to kill you.