I have written many articles about the cost of living here in Australia on this website. But a few months ago, I realised I hadn’t written anything about the same subject for my monthly column in Australia and New Zealand magazine. So I decided to put that right, and starting in their “summer issue”, which [...]
Cost of Living – Australia

A story broke out last week across most of the media about how the average Australian household now spends in excess of $100,000 a year. You can see the full article for yourself in the Herald Sun, and if you search for further information, you’ll find many other sources running with the same story. The [...]

Whenever anybody who is moving to Australia asks me what they should or shouldn’t bring with them, I almost always advise them to bring the lot. Beds, furniture, toys, books, bikes, the whole shaboodle; the only exceptions are soiled garden goods, maybe the TV and of course, there’s no need to bring the kitchen sink. [...]

I wrote a post a few years ago, and you can read it by clicking the following link, about Mother’s Day in Australia. You see, Mother’s Day in Australia is on a different day than it is in the UK, so I wanted to check it out. I discovered that only Ireland and Nigeria share [...]

I’m not generally known as a “save the planet” kind of guy, I suspect because of my fierce opposition to the carbon tax. That’s not to say I am against being kind to the environment; I make great efforts to ensure that every single one of my empty beer tinnies and stubbies are placed in [...]

I wrote a post called Cost of Living in Australia: Electricity, almost 3 years ago. Since then electricity prices have soared as you will read in my imaginatively titled post Australia’s Soaring Electricity Prices. In that second post, I explained that prices had increased by 35.8% in Queensland over the last eight years and that [...]

As I was fast forwarding through the adverts the other night, as I do, I was surprised to see a glimpse of a “Dear Fatty” (that’s not me being judgemental, that’s the name of her autobiography) who goes by the name of Dawn French. Surprised because she was advertising “Flybuys”….. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjF4czK1xhw Flybuys is a reward [...]