Can someone explain this budget to me??

[StrawberryFields]

Astrid - Bang on with the depends where you started. My parents have about $200Kpa between them, most of it Mum's salary - but they worked damn hard, both of them since they were 15, to get to that point. As a couple in their 50s/60s, I consider them rich, but if they were still raising me and my sisters on that, I doubt I would be calling them rich, possibly comfortable, but not rich. They did so much for us, school fees, doctors, we all got a second hand car on graduation - never anything flash, but that was our one thing to start off with, and they made us work, buy our own food clothes etc etc. They did the right thing by us morally, trying to teach us that nothing comes for free, credit cards are bad etc etc, and then I look at where we're at. I look at my sister, who at 34 has had to move to a rural area and small scale farm her own meat, and vegetables just so her 3 kids can have everything they need to have a life instead of just exist. My other sister at 32, who has a mortgage, and two sons, and a dog and all that, gets her govt benefits, but she had to work her butt off before becoming a SAHM, and her husband is constantly working extra shifts to make sure they can keep that lifestyle up while she's not working.

Then I look at me and DH, we can't get finance for a loan for a home because we have no credit history besides phone bills a personal loan from his car and even though its perfect thats not enough, so we have to waste money on rent - all because our parents did the right thing and taught us to try and budget not borrow. We have my student loan debt of $25K that I have no idea how I'm going to pay off because its near impossible to get a job in my field. We just had to buy a new car because mine blew up and we cant just have a ute when we have 2 babies on the way - at least some money I won meant we could put a down payment on something decent and finance approval was much easier. Then we still have all the usual utilities, phone/internet bills, food bill, petrol, now car repayments (which is our luxury), and medical and health costs, and we somehow manage that for now on $45K, while getting taxed at the highest rate (DH can't claim TFT). At least he has a secure job and his medical is taken care of - which is lucky because mine's like pouring pennies down a sink! I can only imagine how bad a place we might be in if our parents hadn't been tough on us - there's no way we'd be managing right now!

What ****s me is that in 10 years time, my best friend with the actual rich parents who gets everything handed to her on a silver platter will probably have her life in order - hopefully separate from them - and yet still manage to claim something off the government. She does it now - they bought her an apartment in the city (Brissy), bought her a new car and pay for its upkeep, and all she has to do is go to uni, and wait enough tables to get her weekend booze money, all while still getting Centrelink benefits somehow! She hasn't learnt anything, but she'll probably never need to know it anyway since they set her up so good.

Aimee - Its not fair is it? People need to take responsibility and not claim from the government if they don't need it, but they wont, and thats why I think we should have to prove to Centrelink why we need a given payment - show records of how much we pay for basics, necessities for our given family unit, and justify anything that might be borderline luxury, and that it should be based on the amount of money received in the hand from a pay packet - not the amount before tax. I think the government has forgotten that not all people on 'higher incomes' are on them because they need to be to afford to live where they do, or because they have more mouths to feed, and that not all of them live as they do as a result of their income.

I'll be very interested to see if this gets approved to be honest - I'm not getting a positive vibe of the Greens, but that being said it could still go either way.