RBA
Your parents’ variable home loan repayment jumps a month after an RBA announcement. The RBA most likely…
raised interest rates / increased the cash rate.
Your mate says their savings account started paying more interest lately. A common reason is…
interest rates increased.
Your regular $6 bubble tea is now $7. You’re seeing…
prices rising / inflation.
You buy a $11 item at the shop and someone says ‘about a dollar of that is tax.’ That tax is…
GST.
A major oil price jump makes petrol and deliveries more expensive in Australia. A likely result is…
prices rise / inflation pressure increases.
A café owner says: ‘Fewer customers are buying extras lately, and people keep talking about mortgage stress.’ One likely reason is…
interest rates have risen / loan repayments went up.
After multiple rate rises, a family switches from eating out twice a week to once a fortnight. That’s an example of…
cutting discretionary spending / reducing non-essential spending.
A supermarket price rises because trucking fuel costs went up. That’s an example of…
higher costs being passed on / cost pressures pushing prices up.
You get your first payslip and it’s less than you expected because tax was taken out already. That’s…
tax withheld from wages / PAYG withholding in plain language.
A global shipping disruption delays products arriving and reduces supply. In shops, you often see…
shortages and higher prices / fewer goods and price increases.
A student wants to buy a used car on finance. The lender now approves a smaller loan than last year for the same income. Most likely…
interest rates are higher / borrowing costs increased.
A retailer starts running constant discounts because shoppers aren’t buying as much. This suggests…
demand has fallen / people are spending less.
People rush to buy concert tickets and they sell out instantly; prices for resales explode. That price surge is driven mostly by…
high demand / lots of buyers chasing limited supply.
Your wage goes up a bit, but you feel like you’re not much better off because you’re paying a higher share in tax. This is often talked about as…
moving into a higher tax bracket / bracket creep if they know it.
If the Australian dollar falls, imported items like phones and some clothing often become…
more expensive.
Lots of people are saving more and spending less after rate rises. What effect is the RBA usually trying to create?
slow spending / cool inflation / reduce price growth.
A person with a big mortgage feels rate rises way more than someone renting a room with no debt. This difference is because…
they have a variable loan / they’re more exposed to interest-rate changes.
A big category like rent rises across the country, making ‘overall cost of living’ feel worse even if some items get cheaper. This shows…
some key expenses drive the overall inflation feeling / essentials matter more.
A government raises tax on cigarettes or vapes to reduce use. The goal is…
make it more expensive to discourage buying / reduce consumption.
A major overseas central bank raises rates a lot, and investors move money there for better returns. One possible effect in Australia is…
pressure on the AUD / higher borrowing costs globally / Australia may face pressure to keep rates competitive.
A business delays opening a second store because ‘the loan isn’t worth it anymore.’ The economic lever that changed is…
borrowing costs / interest rates / the cost of credit.
Two friends earn the same, but one is struggling because their loan is variable and the other fixed. The big difference is…
fixed vs variable interest rate / repayments changing vs locked in.
Prices stop rising as fast as last year, but they’re still rising. This means…
inflation is slowing, not reversing / prices are still increasing but at a slower rate.
The government cuts income tax to try to boost spending in shops. They’re hoping people will…
have more take-home pay and spend more / increase demand.
A drought reduces harvests. Food prices rise even if people aren’t buying extra food. That price rise is mostly because…
lower supply / supply shock in plain language.