roaringmouse

According to the latest cost of living survey, Sydney is ranked 7th most expensive city to live in the world, and Melbourne 8th. Both those cities, as well as Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane are more expensive than places like London, New York, Hong Kong and Berlin.

No surprises there, eh?

spartacus

"Exchange rates have been the greatest influence for the Australian cost of living, with the Australian dollar seeing its value relative to the US dollar double in a decade, although local price inflation, especially last year, has also played a part," Mr Copestake said.

fish.01

Exchange rates play a massive part. These surveys do not take wages into account at all and articles are totally misleading when they say they compare cost of living.

Almost totally worthless as a cost of living ranking.

mikelincs

It's the cost of bananas that does that..

carolinephillips

I thought it was lettuce?

Seriously, we find it more expensive here, especially now the carbon tax and medical health levies are going to put prices up. The medicare refunds don't keep pace with what the doctors etc are charging- had 2 consults, physio and an MRI scan this week- out of pocket by over $300. Now my neurologist tells me I might have to have a very expensive medicine for my nerve pain. i said I couldn't afford it, so he has given me a free sample to try for 10 days to see if it helps. I'm hoping it doesn't. Looks like I'll just have to get used to the pain.
MEH.

fish.01

Might as well use a banana index...it would be just as accurate as this survey.

furbacchione

And it's only going to get a lot worse. typical capitalism is intelligent greed. Australia took the intelligence out of it.

Damson

Nothing sensible to add (no change there then!) as living in the UK but good luck and hope you find a cheap solution.

chris955

We have seen a massive increase in the COL in Australia in the last 10 years and things will get worse. Of course for some wages have kept pace but for many others they haven't. There are also more utilities rises soon and the carbon tax could have implications for many families. All in all Australia isn't the cheap country it used to be.

asprilla

I find it hard to believe that living in adelaide is more costly than living in new york or hong kong...

Margaret3

Is it my imagination or is food a bit cheaper these days?. But electricity will soon be a luxury item:

chris955

It's your imagination some stuff seems to have leveled out but generally appears to only be going one way...up.

Margaret3

I must just be getting better at the supermarket shop than i used to be.

lonndongeek

What a load of bollocks!

Doing a straight conversion with the current exchange rate I'm on a lower salary than when we left the UK 4.5 years ago yet we have a 3 bedroom house (Adelaide hills) 2 cars and a nicely comfortable lifestyle.

We had no chance of buying a house in London and it wasn't worth owning a car.

Yes lettuces may be more expensive (good reason not to eat rabbit food) but overall our personal experience (sorry, no random surveys) is that financially we're much better off in Adelaide than we were in London.

Cheers

LG

Damson

Not living in Oz, but from what I gather from friends, forum etc, that to save money you need to go out of town to markets and steer away from supermarkets as much as poss and convenience food is very expensive. Also, buy in bulk and freeze (bit like anywhere I guess).