Affluenza

Households’ $1000-a-week splurge
Caroline Overington, The Australian
12aug05

VAST numbers of Australians are now spending more than $1000 a week on housing, food and clothes — and, increasingly, on new technologies such as mobile telephones, text messaging, the internet and pay-TV.

In some states, spending on such new technologies has increased by 500 per cent in five years.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Household Expenditure Survey, a five-yearly snapshot of the spending habits of Australians, revealed households in 2003-04 spent an average of $883 a week on goods and services, an increase of $182 or 26 per cent since the last survey in 1998-09.

However, many Australians are spending well over $1000 a week. In Canberra, the average was $1052 a week, and in Sydney, it was $1022 a week.

Most of that money still goes on the staples — housing, food and clothes — but the survey found that spending on mobile phones had increased by 183 per cent in the past five years to an average $12.36 a week. By comparison, spending on old-fashioned, fixed-line telephones increased by only 15 per cent to $16.42 a week.

Spending on the internet is up 236 per cent in the nation since 1998-99 to a weekly average of $0.94. In Victoria, it’s up by 445per cent. Also, spending on pay-TV is up by 274 per cent across the nation to $2.69 a week.

Some of the most significant increases over the past five years have been interest payments on mortgages, up 47 per cent to $38.24 a week due to the increasing size of the average mortgage, and education, up 41 per cent to an average $16.32 a week as parents opt to send their children to private rather than government schools.

The cost of childcare has also increased, up 34 per cent to $4.78 a week, as has petrol, up 26 per cent to $29.72 a week.

Some of the survey findings were intuitive. For example, people who receive most of their income as wages spend more than people who rely on government pensions, single people spend less (about $483 a week) than families with dependent children (who spend about $1521 a week) and capital cities cost more to live in (an average of $938 a week) than living in the country (about $789 a week).

The most expensive capital city wasn’t Sydney but Darwin (average household spending, $1080 a week, compared to Sydney’s $1022 a week). However, the differences between Darwin, Canberra and Sydney were not large enough to be significant. Tasmanians spend less per week (about $753) than other Australians.

The survey also provided revealing state comparisons. For example, people in Darwin spend more on alcohol and cigarettes than people in other states, and Queenslanders spend the least on clothes and shoes.

South Australians either don’t like vegetables or have access to a cheap supply. They spend less than $9 a week on them.

Sydneysiders spend more on seafood, and Melbourne women spend more on clothes than other women.

The proportion of income spent on recreation increases with household income, with the rich spending about five times more on sports than the poor.