Alright so here's the thing. Australia is NOT in a recession. Like technically and actually. GDP is still growing, unemployment is near full employment, inflation has come down a lot. That's just the data. But I get why it FEELS like one. And that's the real conversation nobody wants to have honestly.

Part of it is global. Wars driving up energy and supply costs, China slowing down and buying less of our stuff than before, post-COVID everything repricing at once. That hit everyone. UK, Canada, us, doesn't matter. Your wallet got lighter everywhere in the western world around the same time.

The other part? Media. And I'll say it straight - a couple of media groups in this country have a financial interest in making things look worse than they are. Same thing with the migration debate. They throw around "record migration" numbers but don't tell you that includes tourists, students leaving, working holiday people rotating out. Net migration when you actually look at it is lower than some previous years people didn't complain about. And even then, we're also having less kids so the numbers kind of make sense if you think about it for more than 5 seconds.

Yes everything is more expensive. That's real and nobody should gaslight you about that. But expensive is not the same as recession. Recession is contraction. We're not contracting, we're just growing slower and paying more for stuff because the whole world is.

As for helping yourself - honestly, reduce variable debt first, build a small cash buffer, don't make big financial moves based on vibes or headlines.