Working in Australia, can I save money? Depends on your purpose of coming to Australia and your personal consumption habits

For many people who have never been to Australia, the first impression of Australia may be high income and high price level, so even if you travel to Australia to work, you should save about the same amount of money as Taiwan.

But when you ask an old bag who has left Australia, "Can you save money for working in Australia?", you usually get two polar answers: "you can save it" and "you don't have much money."

To get to the bottom of it, it has nothing to do with how much money you make. After all, Australia itself is a high-income country. Could it be because of the high price? It is not entirely true that the so-called high price level refers to the service industry, tickets, etc. from the perspective of Taiwanese, excluding unexpected expenses such as doctor visits, the prices of many commodities are actually lower than those in Taiwan.

Aside from macro factors, the focus of saving money is actually related to the backpackers themselves with micro factors.

The purpose of "working" and "vacation"

Every backpacker has a different purpose in coming to Australia. For backpackers who focus on “part-time work” and their primary goal is to make money, living expenses can be saved, and they can earn more money, even on holidays. Fill up your work schedule.

For those who focus on "vacation" and experience Australian-style life, the focus of this trip to Australia is to broaden their horizons and experience living methods outside Taiwan. For them, making money is second, vacation and travel are the purpose, and part-time work is just to make some money, and they didn't plan to keep the money back to Taiwan.

Of course, there are also backpackers like us who want to "work" and "vacation" (children only choose, I want all of them), in order to achieve the dual goal of saving money while on vacation in Australia, the price is The two-pronged approach of "open source" and "saving expenditure", on the one hand, increases the salary and income, and the expenditure part must be calculated carefully.

Therefore, whether or not you can save money is actually just a "fake issue", because money can be saved as long as you "have a heart", it's just a matter of saving more and saving less. Therefore, depending on the purpose of the working holiday, the first question to consider should be "Do you plan to bring money back?" This is a correct question.

When it is determined that there is money to be saved, it is meaningful to discuss how to increase income and reduce expenditure. According to my observations in Taiwan and Australia,

Whether you save or not get money, although income is related, it is more related to consumption habits.

In particular , there is a significant positive correlation with consumption habits that have long been developed in Taiwan .

Carnival Moonlight Clan

Whether you are in Taiwan or Australia, your friends around you have two different views on money, either the "moonlight people" who spend as much money as they earn, or the "iron roosters" who live frugally.

Working on farms is no exception. There are many "Zhou Guang clan" around (most of Australia adopt a weekly salary system). Obviously, the salary in Australia is much higher than that in Taiwan, but many colleagues still say that they "can't save money" and "have not saved much." money".

Only after enjoying each other's way of life did they realize that their common feature was that they didn't save much money in Taiwan, otherwise they were the Moonlight Clan. Some people even paid their family members or friends for visas and travel expenses in Australia first. Borrow money and pay them back when they are stable in Australia.

Why can't I save money in Taiwan?

"Working hard and earning little money, why do you still have to live with your own life?"

Why can't I save money in Australia?

"Take advantage of the limited time to experience Australian-style life"

No matter which way of saying it is, the consumption of the formula in recent years is obvious, as well as the beliefs and dogmas of these people:

The money is not gone, it just becomes what you like.

In short, this group of people is just copying the spending habits originally developed in Taiwan to Australia .

Therefore, Australia's high income did not allow them to save their money. Instead, they developed the habit of spending as much as they earned in Taiwan, coupled with a lot of mentality of " I can't buy it when I go back to Taiwan, or I can't afford it". For more impulsive consumption, take advantage of the part-time work period to buy enough in Australia at one time.

 If you look at the price level in Australia from the salary level in Taiwan, you will feel that things are expensive in Australia; on the other hand, if you look at the local price from the salary level in Australia, you will feel that things are cheaper than those in Taiwan. The only expensive things are high-end restaurants and doctor visits.

In Taiwan, whether it is 22K, 44K or 88K, different salary levels have their own lifestyles and ways of saving money. The same logic is the same in Australia, but the difference between Taiwan dollar and Australian dollar.

Just like many successful singers, entertainers and athletes, even if one year's salary is equal to my lifetime income, if I don't know how to manage and save money, I will eventually end up going bankrupt.

The amount of money saved has nothing to do with how much money you make, but has a significant positive correlation with consumption habits.

Bringing the consumption habits developed in Taiwan to Australia will not save money because of the high salary, but will increase the original appetite because the money is more abundant.

Save money for a thousand days, use it for a while

Cai Kangyong wrote in his book "The Way of Tsai Kangyong's Speech":

When you were fifteen, you thought swimming was difficult and gave up swimming. When you were eighteen when someone you liked asked you to go swimming, you had to say "I can't."
At the age of 18, you find English difficult and give up English. At the age of 28, there is a great job that requires you to know English. You have to say "I can't."
The more troublesome you are in the early stage of life, the more lazy you are to learn, the more likely you will miss the people and things that make you tempted later on, and miss the new scenery.

The same goes for money. I don’t usually save money, and I don’t do a good job in building financial knowledge. In 2020, when a bunch of people surf the stock market, they will know the feeling of “hate less money when it’s used up”. Some people are even blinded by greed. They only want to make quick money. Without correct financial knowledge, they will magnify the leverage to suppress their wealth and ignore the hidden risks behind ignorance. This behavior is no different from impulsive consumption.

Because he has financial management in Taiwan, even the travel expenses in Australia were saved by himself during the period of alternative service. Therefore, when I arrived in Australia, I copied the Taiwan concept directly, and the difference was only changed from Taiwan dollar to Australian dollar.

Because of the preliminary understanding of the statutory salary in Australia and the habit of keeping accounts, we can set a clear and practical deposit goal:

Earn "at least" 750 yuan and save 500 yuan every week, of which the weekly living expenses should be within 250 yuan, including food, housing, transportation, telephone, daily necessities, entertainment and other life matters.

In accordance with income, budget, control expenditure, and adjust expenditure flexibly according to the off-peak season of the farm.

Although there is no problem in controlling the budget in this way, I was blinded by the numbers on the books at that time. I only saw money in my eyes, but I ignored that there are many novel things in Australia waiting for me to explore and experience.

It can only be said that I was a slave to money at that time. I wasted my limited time in Australia for the number on the bankbook. It was not until the moment I left Australia that I realized that there were still many things to do, leaving many regrets. (Extended reading: In those years, my unfulfilled dream list in Australia )

Through this working holiday trip to a foreign country, I realized:

Whether it is excessive pursuit of material things, or excessive planning, it should not be too extreme on one side. Just like work-life balance, there is a balance between spending and saving money.

"Just In Time" Pleasures

I still remember that a friend once shared with me his consumption philosophy of instant pleasure:

At the age of 20, I can afford toys that I couldn't afford at 10, and I can't buy back the joy of having toys when I was a child. What's the point?

Just like buying a heavy machine when you are 50 years old, and you don’t have the physical strength to play when you are young, there are some things that you can’t enjoy when you are old, so if your ability allows, you should experience it as young as possible.

Just like the age of working vacation is an iron threshold, after the age, there is no chance for a lifetime.

He would choose to be a "timely" Moonlight Clan, just because of some things, if he missed it, it would be too late, and he even felt regret and sigh. When you are old, you will have the things you want when you are young, and you will not have the joy of being young, just like when you are 20 years old, you can afford toys that you can't afford when you were 10 years old.

Compared with the consumption habit of "work is already hard enough, why do I have to live with myself?", I can more agree with my friends who understand the consumption rule of "timely and timely entertainment".

I will realize the importance of having a good time, and it is only after leaving Australia that I realize that I have brought the habit of "stingy with money" to Australia, and instead gave up the original intention of visiting Australia in order to save money. If you can go back and forth on the same day, you won’t sleep out, if you can drive, you won’t take a car, if you can save, you will save, and if you can, you won’t spend. If you think about it, it will eventually evolve into exploring the attractions near the town, and you will lose the courage and motivation to expand. Just because the cost is out of budget .

But the account is not calculated like this. Life is just an opportunity to work and vacation in Australia. When the time comes, you have to go . The future life can be said to be completely insulated from Australia. travel" rather than "experience life".

So, the money is saved, but Australia is so big that I can't even see a single corner of it. Here are the experiences of those who have come here:

Now that everything has landed, it is necessary to "timely" grasp the limited time and "timely have fun", after all

Life is short, youth is limited, and staying in Australia waits for no one!

Don't wait until the moment I leave the country to realize that I still don't have enough of Australia, and regret not playing seriously in Australia.

If you don't have that Australian time, don't make fun of your own Australian time.

no money slave

Happily Ever After is considered by many older generations as a negative label for young people not to think about their future and escaping from reality. That is because they didn’t have many choices in the early days. On the other hand, in today’s Taiwan, there is no shortage of materials at that time, and naturally there is no way to experience that kind of life.

But like many older generations, saving money for a lifetime, it seems that it is not better to be a prudent iron rooster, giving up many of the joys of life for money.

"Timely pleasure" solves the dilemma of balancing saving and spending. Spend when you need to spend it, just like you have limited time to stay in Macau, and having fun at the right time is because "you can't buy it when you go back to Taiwan, or you can't afford it", or the solution is "buy it when you're old, but you can't afford it". There is no sigh of physical enjoyment”; when you don’t need to spend, save it for financial planning.

When I was in Australia, I often quarreled with my girlfriend because of "extra-budgetary expenses". Looking back now, I think that what my girlfriend said is quite right:

The extra-budgetary spending is only a small amount of money, and it is not a big expense that will not save money at all this month after spending it. Instead of worrying about whether the deposit amount meets the monthly standard, the key should be to live in the moment, tell yourself that " if you miss this year, there will be no next year ", with the mental preparation to return to Taiwan the next year, and don't have any regrets to save money.

The advantage of this is that there is no need to be locked by the monthly budget and control costs, and there is more room for flexible adjustment. Facts have also proved that I have been away from Australia for one year, and I have begun to regret giving up many experiences that are only available in Australia in order to save money .

Thanks to this working holiday in Australia, I also realized that I take money too seriously . When I readjusted to Taiwanese society, I was constantly vigilant not to be blinded by money. There are still many things in the world that money cannot measure. of.

It is good to have money to save; there is nothing to criticize when it is time to have fun. A hundred kinds of rice feed a hundred kinds of people, and I choose

Respect the diversity of society.

Because it's just a different view of money, values, and priorities.