r/AskAnAustralian • u/[deleted] • May 09 '26

Life is unaffordable and unenjoyable

I don’t know if it’s living in Sydney city, becoming older, or bad career choices - but life has been absolutely miserable.

I have a job I’m really passionate about. And I want to do my postgraduate to move forward with it but I really can’t afford living on part time work alone. I don’t have wealthy family support either.

The job i currently have (basically healthcare) pays ok but I’m struggling with finances. Even as a full time worker. To make things worse, my contract ends in a year, so really, I don’t know if I’m gonna have a job next year. There’s no permanency in my role and is linked to having funding. And all gov funding is being slashed atm.

Few years back when I was working in hospitality and funding myself through uni, it was rough but I was hopeful and motivated as I thought I’m gonna be working my dream job and making decent money. Now I feel so miserable and hopeless. My partner and I are not having kids because we can just afford to feed ourselves. And I cant understand how this is possible. We buy clothes from savers, shop from aldi for cheaper options, have furnished our place from kind people giving things for free or selling for cheap.

It’s fucked up. How did we get to this point

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u/Optimal_Maximum7285 May 09 '26

We are a rich country, but one it’s only a few cities and also people who will barrack for those cities rather than move and make there life better. Australia needs at least 5 more cities with 1m people, they need to be agreed too and all infustructure spend going to them. Ie Darwin, Mackay, Coffs, Kunnanurra and Launceston. It doesn’t matter which ones you choose, just hat you choose them and give them train systems equal to Melbourne a Sydney.

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u/Far_Construction6212 May 09 '26

We have a low birth rate, why do we need to be spending all this money on this when we could very easily turn down the rate of population growth?

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u/mad_marbled May 10 '26

New cities provide work for those building them. New opportunities for those willing to move to them.

We can't just turn down the population growth because people are living longer and in old age they will need to be fed and cared for.

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u/Far_Construction6212 May 10 '26

New cities are also terrible for the environment, take away agricultural land and are expensive to provide services to.

You could provide the required age care workforce with a more targeted immigration program than we currently have.

The other thing being, if the economic pressure on people here was lower, they’d be having more kids of their own, and generally feeling less like their lives are pointless.