In heart wrenching news from Sydney’s Eastern suburbs, Samantha and Marcus Charlesworth say they may need to do the unthinkable and downgrade from a four-bedroom to a three-bedroom chalet on their trip to Aspen this December.
The couple says the drastic decision was necessitated by the Government’s changes to the stage 3 tax cuts, which will mean they will only receive a few thousand extra dollars a year.
In an emotional interview with the Daily Telegraph, the couple – who earn just $880,000 a year between them – said they weren’t even sure how they were going to make ends meet. “We’re living on a shoestring as it is. No one should have to choose between buying a birkin handbag and a third investment property for their children. But that’s what we’re facing if these changes go through,” Samantha said.
She said there was a misconception about what it cost to live in Australia. “We’re not rich by any stretch of the imagination. Once you pay the fees for the gardener and the personal trainer and the yacht mooring, there’s not a lot left to go around. Some months I get the quarterly gas bill for the indoor pool and I think ‘I don’t know how I’m going to pay that’. I mean, I literally don’t know how I’m going to pay it. I don’t know how to use internet billing, I’ve always got my personal assistant to look after that kind of thing”.
Marcus said after not voting Labor for the past 30 years, he would not be voting Labor at the next election. “This Government doesn’t realise how tough it can be. It’s not as if we’re eating caviar every night! That’s only on Tuesdays’.
