BendigoBoy

So in terms of cost of living, we're in a peculiar situation, as ours has actually gone down quite dramatically over the last couple of years. We moved out from Melbourne between the final two lockdowns. As much as it was for a bit of garden space, it was also to just be within a ten to fifteen minute drive of pretty much anything we would need access to. Rather than having to drive to work each day from the suburbs, working from home is a major saving as well. So dropping rent/mortgage and commuting costs, this is where our outgoings really started to come down. Plus, it's pretty damned near impossible to go and put solar on an apartment... We grow about 80% of our fruit in the garden, and about 40% of our veg, but we opted to grow mainly the royalty stuff with big ticket prices in the stores: sugar snap peas, parsnips (yes, parsnips), capsicum for the warmer months when the price is up (absolute blessing in winter when it's down to $4 a kilo, mind you). And we can do a fair bit of trade with friends and neighbours for produce that we don't / can't grow ourselves. The solar takes care of all of our heating and power requirements. So, on a monthly basis, breaking it all down over the year: Council rates: $150 Insurance (inc health insurance): $550 Internet & Phone: $125 Streaming subscriptions: $40 Supermarket: $400 Car Rego & Fuel: $100 Gas: $60 Water: $100 Bunnings Supplies for the garden: $200 Round it up to the next hundred and you're looking at around $1800 a month for the two of us. I pay the bills out of my salary, leaving the wife free and clear to indulge her sewing hobby with hers. Even after the bills, and having cut back massively on my hours, it's still leaving a comfortable amount over $6000 a month post-tax in my deposit account. And that's where it's a tale of two countries. With house prices still pushing up, rents going insane, loads of folks being unable to access solar either through apartment living or being in a rental without it, there's a hell of a lot of hardship presently, and I dare say a hell of a lot more to come in the coming years.

Do you know what grammar is?

To be fair, it's the middle of winter. To this day, I still can't get my head around most folk I know here not turning the damned heating on in the winter, though. (Present cost of living crises excepted)

You'll acclimatise. We generally don't get a lot of humidity around the Bay over the summer months, so don't be surprised if you end up throwing a jumper on in 30C heat. Honestly, as long as you keep a brolly or two in the house, have some PROPER winter clothing, and a good rain jacket, you'll be fine. It's the damned storms as we go into December where you get hail the size of golf balls as the summer begins to hit that'll make you roll your eyes the most. Don't worry - if it is still a bit chill, hop in the car up to Bendigo. This place gets like an oven in the summer. It's delicious.

Of course, back when Einstein was a nipper, there also wouldn't have been a gargantuan welfare state. So it's really quite academic.

I've never had an issue with wise, and I wired over well into six figures with them when I migrated (admittedly, that was back in 2016, but no service issues in the years since). Bear in mind that you'll be up against SWIFT charges, poor exchange rates, and the usual kerfuffles of dealing with Retail banks if you decide to go down the transfer via the bank directly route. If you're talking a more substantial sum, it might be worth speaking to a FX dealer - I doubt the banks would refuse allowing your mum to transfer to their business accounts. That said, I'm honestly more shocked than anything that a bank is refusing to allow a transfer to a Wise account at all. Seems a bit protectionist to me, more than "concerns" by the banks: having worked at RBS from 2006 to 2014, the only concerns I ever saw a UK bank have around customers' money was keeping as much of it as they could.

I don't mean this to sound rude or patronising: Can't your mum just open an account with another bank that *will* deal with Wise?

Amazing where some cocks end up when they escape the farmyard.

It's a balancing act, I suppose. Don't get me wrong, those in most need need support, no argument there. Not sure couples earning between $250,000 and $530,000 a year need help with childcare costs when we've got a national debt to bring down. If they do go ahead with these stage 3 tax cuts, my savings are going to the Smith Family. Just hope they do actually scrap the stage 3 cuts before they come in; doubt we'll see it though. Labor rolled over on those the same way they did on their pledge to ditch negative gearing.

Concur with you on juniors; and I think it's an area where strong tech leads really show their value and their worth.

I don't disagree with that. But I do think that proper, meaningful management should be able to detect productivity over activity. So perhaps it's really a failure of management practice if people end up just doing "busy work" rather than being measured by objective, meaningful results and performance measures.

In general, I wouldn't dispute that. It just strikes me, in the main from what I've witnessed and discussed with peers over the last few years, as little more than "managers" wanting to be seen to exercise some control, power and value add where they've probably not actually been adding anything substantial for a few years now. Must be rather emasculating when all those damned professionals just get on and do their bloody jobs even better working from home than when they have you standing watch over their shoulders.

All good; personally, I've given up on the ABC and the wider media in general. It's perpetual "the sky is falling nonsense" because of interest rates normalising recently. Just wanted to clarify and give a little voice to there being at least some fields where the organisations aren't holding all the cards

When it comes to wanting a return to office, I think this very much depends on the field and size of the company. Certainly, in software engineering, myself and a large number of friends and colleagues have made the move out of the capital cities over the course of the pandemic and we've made it abundantly clear that any attempt to force us back to the office is going to result in them having to go to market to find replacements. By the same token, a lot of firms have embraced going fully remote for engineers because it doesn't limit their hiring sphere. I'm very appreciative of the fact that many occupations can't or won't be as accommodating; but it's not as black and white as "Corporate Australia wants to see an end to WFH".

Oh! And just to add, whilst it's still bizarre not having a table in the carriage so I can pop my laptop up, the V-line trains have never been anything but clean and prompt for me between Bendigo and Melbourne.

Bendigo's pretty lively at the moment. We're just finishing up a monumental Ring Cycle at the theatre; the restaurants are as good as ever; Balgownie's still great for a bottle and a bite of lunch at the weekend. The V-Line's now the same price to get from Bendigo to Melbourne as I used to pay for the tram from Caulfield into the CBD. Weather's a bit patchy, but I'm originally from Kilmarnock, mate - so trust me, it's still a massive improvement. Sure, lots of people are struggling with the fact interest rates are slowly getting back to sensible levels. But I hold my tongue on commenting on whether anyone overextended themselves or the intellect of anyone who trusts what a central banker says. Compared to the Central Belt, hopefully you'll find things a dream out here come the Spring