The cost of living in Australia- HOW MUCH??

"OK, so you want to go back to university - that's fine. But why Australia?" my Dad was asking, nearly two years ago. Inexplicably, the theme from Family Fortunes ran through my head as background music while I considered my choice of quick fire answers. Was it:

(a) "why not?" - the enigmatic reply

(b) "it's got better weather" - the chav answer

(c) "the laid back lifstyle" - largely based on the holiday I'd just come back from

(d) "the cost of living's cheaper" - the uninformed response

(e) "I need a change and I wanna spend more time with Dave" - the truth.

I opted for a combination of (c) and (d), and steered clear of (e) for more credibility. At that point a big Family Fortune "EH URR" (not there) warning noise should have gone off in my head: Like a lot of poms, I really did think living in oz for two years was going to be cheaper than blighty. Doh!

So it was with growing dismay that after arriving, all excited and optimistic, I soon found out the truth: Which is that with only a population of 21 million, Australia's consumer market is small so there aren't many companies competing for your attention. So they don't feel the need to bring their prices down. Ever.

The first rip off I encountered was shelling out $300 for a second hand bed. Back then this amounted to about £120. At my first opportunity of seeing it in proper daylight (after I'd paid for it of course), this bed revealed some very dodgy looking stains on the mattress. Ugghh! As soon as possible, this mattress was booted out into the street for the annual big rubbish collection so we could replace it with a new one. Which cost $1000 - approx £500. Interestingly, within half an hour of putting the old mattress out in the street, it was snapped up. Presumably by someone in a knackered old ute. Clearly we weren't the only ones feeling the pain of buying household essentials in Australia.

Books and DVDs are outrageously priced down in this part of the world, which hurts if you're a student trying to buy textbooks. On average I have had to pay about $120 (£60) per new book, which I have to buy three of for each of my four semesters. It's cheaper to buy them from Amazon UK and have them sent here. Recently, I have been using textbookexchange.com.au for buying and selling used books. This has saved me a lot of money but the prices of second hand books are still astronomical. It is possible to buy and sell the same book for the same price using this website however, so I guess it amounts to a free book.

And don't even get me started on banks. For the equivalent of a current account, you have to pay for the privilege (about $5 a month), you don't earn any interest, you will be charged for using another bank's ATM and charged for ordering a cheque book. There are one or two international banks, such as HSBC, who are now dipping their toe in the Australian market, hopefully about to bring some sanity into this financial world of con artists.

Other unexpected expensive surprises include broadband (ADSL2 only really available in the cities), healthcare (no NHS AND no paid maternity leave!), used cars (in Queensland where they last forever), shoes (unless you go to a shop smelling unnervingly of rubber), household furniture (unless you can get to one of five Ikeas in the whole of Australia - one in each state except NT and Tas) and ALL, and I mean ALL, appliances (see blog entry for Nov 2007).

It's not all bad though. Reasonable prices can be found in high street clothes shops. This is because the clothes are made in China and will shrink or fall apart in a wash temperature warmer than a penguin's arse (Australia has those too).

So, after all this whinging, I suppose the burning question is: Would I have abandoned going to Australia if I'd have been warned about all this beforehand? Would I have stayed in Blighty to attempt a change in career and life experiences??

"EH URR".

Banking in Australia

Oh god, banking in Australia.

Right, so in the UK we pretty much all have VISA debit thingies on our bank cards and when we go shopping these days all you do is give the card to the cashier and type in your PIN number, yes? Now, if you try to use your debit card in Australia you will have to treat it as a credit card and put your autograph on a slip of paper the old fashioned way.

There is a sort of chip and pin style of system available in Australia known as EFTPOS which is common to all Australian bank cards. This is OK although it doesn't have your account number and sort code details on it for security reasons which means you will have to hunt around for it should the need arise. But the biggest drawback is if you are trying to buy something or guarantee a booking over the phone or internet, say for a hotel room, plane ticket or something you bought on Ebay!! In this case your EFTPOS is useless -a bit like those Electron things you used to get on Barclays Bank cards. So you need a VISA or Mastercard to be able to buy/book these things.

When Diver Dave and I opened a joint account for household stuff, we discovered that you can get a VISA debit card if you ask nicely but they don't like combining it with your ordinary EFTPOS card like you would get in the UK. You pretty much have to go down on your knees for one of those but it is possible, so the nice Westpac lady said.

Another unwelcome surprise is the fact that not only do the banks profit from the interest on 'looking after' your money, but they do not give you any interest on a cheque (current) account AND they charge you a monthly amount for the privilege. Presumably, they spend all their profit on ATMs (cash machines) since on any given stretch of street in a highly populated area there can be a line of them representing all the high street banks. This is because none of the banks have reciprocal arrangements with their competitors and as such you will be charged a fee if you use the wrong ATM.

The best thing I did before I left Blighty was to open a bank account with a well known UK high street bank, ending in '..wide' (!) which does not charge commission on overseas transactions such as VISA and ATM withdrawals. This has served me very well in Australia when my EFTPOS is no good, although I have yet to find out what their rate of exchange is!