My personal experience has always suggested that the cost of living "crisis" has been exaggerated. Food prices at the supermarket we frequent have risen nowhere like figures claimed in the media. We buy what we have always bought without having to increase housekeeping.

While the media and pensioner organisations would have us believe that people are starving and shivering in the dark, consumer spending is "incredibly strong" (Australian Financial Review); household spending rose by 2.2% in June and by 6% over the year. All retail spending, in fact, reached a record of $34.7 billion this year.

Rising inflation and higher interest rates are "doing little to defer shoppers"; which is strange, if people are as hard up as the media tells us they are.

Like the government, consumers are not cutting their spending, which would be the expectation if they are really struggling.

The big scare, of course, is surging electricity prices, but a notice from my provider tells me that I will be paying less with the new plan starting in November.

I think that we are being subjected to yet another scare campaign to encourage the idea that we have to rely on Big Government.

I don't think it's in anyone's interest to exaggerate the crisis. And I don't know where you shop, ttbn, but the rise in food prices doesn't seem exaggerated to me. Last month OTR, which had the cheapest milk (excluding lockdowns) raised the price of two 2 litre bottles from $4.49 to $4.99. In the supermarkets, Tip Top bread has risen to $4.90 only a few weeks after rising from $4.40 to $4.70. Meanwhile in ALDI, the price of Australian tinned tomatoes has risen, and the Italian ones have vanished from the shelves!

Personal anecdote isn't a substitute for data. "Figures claimed in the media" are merely the figures determined by the ABS. Unless you are suggesting the ABS is fudging the numbers (and that's a whole other discussion), these figures are a proper reflection of the rising costs for the majority of the country.

Speaking of "personal" and relying on data, if you take control of your personal spending you need not worry about the data - aka progaganda by unknown 'experts' boosted by the media. Most people these days don't budget, don't adjust their spending, don't take a list when shopping, preferring to buy on impulse. You can always 'buy better' so that you don't have to worry about the data and look for handouts from a government that has caused cost increases in the first place.

My 'personal' situation is that I have not been affected by any cost of living 'crisis' or media scaremongering because I run my own life and roll with the punches. I have no sympathy for the whiners who do not.

Personal experience is the only true test of this inflation.

At the start of the Covid scare my lady wanted me to get our food home delivered. I complied. Since then our majority of our domestic shopping has been with the same supermarket chain, home delivered, hence a couple of years invoices to compare.

2 years ago my average shop cost $115 a week, with some weeks purchases inflated a little to reach the $100 which gave reduced delivery costs. Since then I have reduced the number of things I buy due to excessive price rise in pet food, [now bought from the produce store in bulk], & dissatisfaction with the ability of my "personal shopper" to select quality fruit & meat.

My latest invoice is for $158, & the last 4 are all above $140. These invoices show a 30% increase in my household shopping costs over the 2 years.

In my experience it would be damn near impossible to exaggerate the increase in essentials. Sure $40 a week is not going to destroy my budget, but I don't have any repayments to make with the increase in interest rates to make that more difficult.

It is hard to compare eras, I paid 14% interest on the bridging finance when I bought this place before selling my previous, but then I paid probably only 20% of what the place would bring today.Still I think it is a lot harder to balance a budget today.

My local IGA, small country town NSW,yesterday: 2l fullcream milk, $3.10, iceberg lettuce $1.99, neither on special. Beef and lamb still far too expensive, but that predates the rate rises.

If a recent Compass Poll is reliable, 60%:of Australians are convinced that they are victims needing help from Big Brother, leading in turn to the serfdom that politicians of all hues want to put them under. They were given other problems to think about: climate change, health etc, but they only got from 0.3:% to 10% interest.

The exaggration and media scaremongering has successfully taken their minds off other problems that the government wants kept quiet.

Aged welfare should be reduced to pre-pandemic levels. BTW does anyone know how much the old aged pension was in 1664 before the pandemic? Evidence here shows by the comments from some old folk that they are being over paid by us taxpayers!

On the way to do the weekly shopping today, we passed three petrol stations with no $2.20 plus petrol that we were threatened with after the other half if the excise was put back on last week.

Petrol prices are higher than we are used to, and it does affect goods and services, but most of us can do something about it in our private enterprise/market economy by buying less of it, or none at all if we live and work in cities with efficient and plentiful public transport. Prices will not come down if people keep paying them.

Aged welfare alert; BAKED BEANS @ Coles 89c can. Stock up! While the getten' good!