Is it just me, or does money feel harder than it used to?
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You earn more than your parents did at your age. You’re doing the “right things.” And yet, at the end of the month, there’s barely anything left. Here’s why, and what you can actually do about it.
There’s a particular kind of financial frustration that’s hard to articulate. You’re employed. You’re capable. By every measure you can think of, you’re doing okay. And yet the money always seems to run out before the month does. You’re not spending recklessly. You’re not buying things you can’t afford. But somehow, it still feels like you’re running in place.
If that sounds familiar, you’re not imagining it. And you’re not alone.
According to recent national research, more than two in five Australians say their financial situation has worsened over the past two years, and two-thirds admit they’re only just scraping by. The cost of living has risen across every household type, and in Canberra, a city built on good salaries and steady employment, families are feeling it too.
Why it feels this way
The maths has genuinely changed.
For most people in their 30s and 40s, the financial picture was supposed to look like this: work hard, earn more, build toward a home, start a family, get ahead. The milestones were clear. The path was worn in.
The problem is that the path was built for a different economy.
Housing is the obvious one. According to Cotality’s Home Value Index, the median dwelling value in Canberra is $890,555 as at June 2026, roughly double what it was a decade ago. A mortgage on that, with a standard 20 per cent deposit, means repayments in the range of $4,300 to $4,500 a month before you’ve bought a single bag of groceries. And for those still renting, median rents are now around $2,500 a month for a one-bedroom apartment. That’s not a lifestyle choice, that’s just where the market is.
Then add childcare. Nationally, long day care fees average around $129 per day, one of the highest in the OECD, and even with the Child Care Subsidy, families with two children in care can still be out of pocket by tens of thousands of dollars a year. Add food prices that have risen materially since 2022. Add energy bills. Add the private school fees, or the school levies, or just the relentless cost of keeping kids in sport and music and activities because that’s what you do.
One reason money feels so hard right now is that the pressure isn’t concentrated in one place. It’s spread across every ordinary part of life, and it all arrives at once.
And here’s the part nobody talks about enough: wages haven’t kept up. Annual wage growth is running at 3.3 per cent nationally, below the rate at which living costs are rising for most households. In real terms, many people are going backwards even while their pay cheques are nominally higher.
The expectation problem
There’s something else going on that’s harder to measure but just as real: expectations have shifted dramatically.
Previous generations defined financial success by a fairly limited set of things: a house, a car, a family holiday once a year. Today, the goalposts have moved. We expect to travel internationally. We expect to eat out regularly. We expect our children to have experiences that we never had. We expect to look the part, the wardrobe, the renovated kitchen, the weekend in the Snowy Mountains.
None of these things are wrong. But they cost money, and we’re often funding them quietly on the side while also managing housing stress, childcare costs, and the ever-present expectation of the next pay rise doing what the last one didn’t.
This isn’t a character flaw. It’s a structural reality dressed up as a personal failure. And recognising that distinction is actually the first step to doing something about it.
What “doing well” can look like
The traditional milestones aren’t gone, but the timeline and the pathway to them look different. Buying a home at 28, like your parents did, isn’t the only version of a good financial life. Doing well in 2026 might look like this: you have an emergency fund that means a broken car doesn’t derail you. You’re not carrying consumer debt you can’t see a way out of. You’re putting something away regularly, even if it’s not a lot. And you have a rough sense of where your money goes.
That’s not settling. That’s a real foundation, and it’s more than most people have.
Five things you can do right now
- Know your number. Not your salary, your actual take-home after tax and super. Then map your fixed costs (rent or mortgage, loan repayments, childcare, insurance, utilities) against that figure. Most people haven’t done this recently and are genuinely surprised. Clarity isn’t comfortable, but it is useful.
- Treat the pay rise differently this time. If you receive a salary increase, consider directing a portion of it, even half, toward debt reduction or savings before it settles into your lifestyle spending. Lifestyle creep is real, and it’s almost impossible to reverse once it’s in. The easiest moment to redirect money is before you’ve decided it’s yours to spend.
- Check your salary sacrifice arrangements. For Canberra public servants in particular, pre-tax salary sacrifice into superannuation reduces your taxable income and builds your retirement balance at the same time. If you haven’t reviewed yours recently, or haven’t set one up, it’s worth a conversation with a financial adviser. The tax efficiency alone can make a meaningful difference.
- Build a buffer and make it work for you. An emergency fund of one to two months of essential expenses changes how financial stress feels. Park it somewhere it earns its keep. Depending on your situation, this could mean an offset account if you have a mortgage, or a high-interest savings account if you don’t, or another option entirely provided the money stays accessible but not sitting idle.
- Review the recurring costs that have crept in. Insurance, subscriptions, banking products, energy providers, loyalty rarely pays. A one-hour review of your monthly direct debits, done once a year, consistently returns more than the effort it costs. If you haven’t done it in the past twelve months, now is a good time.
Money feeling harder isn’t a sign you’re doing something wrong. In many cases, it’s a sign you’re navigating a genuinely more expensive environment with expectations that were set in a different one. The answer isn’t to earn more or spend less in some abstract sense, it’s to be clearer and more intentional about where the money goes, and to make sure the things you’re spending it on are actually the things that matter to you.
Sources
Statistics in this article are sourced from ABS Living Cost Indexes (March 2026), ABS Wage Price Index (March 2026), and MLC/Youi consumer research (2026). Cotality Home Value Index, released 1 June 2026.
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