Overview
As affordability becomes the top priority for Australians while the economy buckles under global affairs we have no control over, we're all adapting our savings differently. The methods of saving vary widely, but as costs like groceries, rent and fuel force us to eat into our savings, millions of Australians have targeted one of those major costs by resorting to shared living, as revealed in a new study by Finder.
Finder completed a survey of 1,011 respondents to capture a snapshot of data representative of the wider Australian population, and found that one-fifth of Aussies have started saving by moving in with others in the last 12 months — that's 4.1 million people around the country. However, the majority (33 percent) of those respondents live in Victoria.
Of those surveyed who have given up on bachelor and bachelorette pads, the most common category of roommate is parents or grandparents, with ten percent of respondents moving back home over the last year. That was followed by seven percent of respondents moving in with siblings, four percent with friends and a desperate three percent who turned to moving in with former partners.
Lisa Maree Williams/Getty
Of the respondents who've turned to shared living, 39 percent were Gen Z, and 27 percent were Millennials, showing how the cost-of-living crisis is affecting young people most of all. Finder's Cost of Living Pressure Gauge, which compiles data on pressure from rent, mortgages, savings, debt, credit card repayments and more, is currently sitting in the red at 75 percent pressure.
Taylor Blackburn, a personal finance advisor at Finder, explained that millions of Aussies are staring down uncomfortable living as a salve to housing security, saying, "Between soaring rents, rising interest rates and general cost-of-living pressures, the ability to live alone is slipping out of reach for many."
To be prepared for the expenses we might not see coming, and the general financial wear and tear of the 2020s, Blackburn says to "design your life so you can manage a drought. One surprising expense that sinks you isn't a surprise – it's a design flaw. Maintaining even a modest financial buffer can be the difference between staying in control and being forced into living situations you never imagined."
Lead image: iStock
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