Are you REALLY a middle income household?

[Jakabella]

According to that we are low income earners.... still cant get any help from CL or govt though! Never mind we scrape through....

[lilima]

Based on that, we are high income. we are semi rural, so transport costs are huge for us, plus I am a student as well as working part-time. So we use more income on transport to work etc.

[RainbowBrite]

I am below the 1st quintile
So I supposed we are classed very low income but on saying that we do alright, eat well, clothes, nice rented house, electronics ect.
It is hard at times, but what is on paper does not always accurately represent how you live.
We all live to our means.

[JLeigh29]

Interesting, thanks Marydean.

I so agree RainbowBrite! It's all about how you choose to spend your money and what you value. A few friends were talking recently and I was amazed that some of them spend $100-$200 a week on alcohol and ciggies (and that's with only their partners drinking and smoking). And a couple admitted to spending upwards of $50 a week on chips, chocolate, lollies and soft drinks. Add in the expensive mobile phones, DVD's/music etc and it's no wonder they just scrape by. I guess if we spent that much a week on all that stuff we wouldn't be able to afford our monthly takeaway or meal out, or our couple of week-long holidays.

[Glamourcide]

Eep, our family is in between the first and second quintiles! We live in a mining boom town so costs are just going up and up, and DH works on the fringes of industry (he's in a manual labouring job that relies on the industry that's around, but not where the money is, itms? He's on approximately half the income that friends who are working for the big companies earn) so there are times when we definitely feel the pinch, as our income stays static while living costs and 'luxury' items just keep getting more expensive. However, we are lucky to own a house (on 'half a mortgage' as we inherited) and two cars, and we're both smokers, I'm a borderline shopping addict, there are many areas in which we could be making our money work a lot better for us. That being said, we live quite comfortably on what we have and it doesn't affect us much to be considered 'low-income' because we are able to live within our means and save a bit each week
Interesting info, thanks for posting! Was a bit of a strain on my non-math-oriented brain, but it's interesting to see where we are compared to other households We're not doing too badly for being so far from 'middle income'!

[AnyDream]

I am below the 1st quintile
So I supposed we are classed very low income but on saying that we do alright, eat well, clothes, nice rented house, electronics ect.
It is hard at times, but what is on paper does not always accurately represent how you live.
We all live to our means.

That is so true, and in fact the level of income is less closely tied to experiences of financial hardship than you would imagine. I remember reading something a few months ago where they excluded the lowest income earners because it would skew the results. Either because some of those very low income earners don't need an "income" because they are living on accumulated wealth (eg self-funded retiree with lots of assets) and other low income earners have very low expenses (because they have good access to very cheap housing, medical, or they have access to very good support from family members etc). By the same token, people in higher income brackets also experience financial hardship (although usually for shorter periods and to a smaller proportion). It just goes to show you can't judge from the outside.

[RainbowBrite]

That is so true, and in fact the level of income is less closely tied to experiences of financial hardship than you would imagine. I remember reading something a few months ago where they excluded the lowest income earners because it would skew the results. Either because some of those very low income earners don't need an "income" because they are living on accumulated wealth (eg self-funded retiree with lots of assets) and other low income earners have very low expenses (because they have good access to very cheap housing, medical, or they have access to very good support from family members etc). By the same token, people in higher income brackets also experience financial hardship (although usually for shorter periods and to a smaller proportion). It just goes to show you can't judge from the outside.

I agree with you, but sometimes living ok on a really low income just comes down to good budgeting and being very frugal

[wysiwyg]

Interesting - I always think we are middle income but we actually come out as low 10th at the moment while I am not working, when I go part time in a year might scrape into middle, and if I went back fulltime would get towards top of middle, but we can only afford to be low income because we were previously middle income/perhaps high as was pre-kids.

[Mildez]

Low income here also

[fionas]

We're bang in the middle on one income. I feel very lucky that we have no mortgage/rent but we deliberately did that (sold up and moved from Melbourne) so that I could have a career break/change after DD2. If I was working we'd be in a high income bracket but we'd also have a mortgage.

I'm surprised that they don't take mortgage/rent into account as it's such a determinant of your overall financial position.

[Astrolady]

Yeah another low income family here too. Nothing that I didn't already know LOL.