2 days ago
Young Aussie makes the ultimate sacrifice after coming to a profound realisation about city life: 'Not what I wanted'
A young Aussie has revealed how he gave up his white-collar job and moved to the country to save more money and get ahead of the cost-of-living crisis.
Tim Abbott, 31, ditched Sydney last month to move to regional Queensland to work in a drive-in drive-out tree lopping role 700km north-west of Brisbane.
Mr Abbott used to work in digital marketing, but gave up on the idea after realising how expensive life had become for him while living in the city.
'The biggest reason was I couldn't stomach paying nearly $40,000 a year for a room in a share house anymore,' he wrote on Instagram.
'I could afford Sydney, just not the life I want for myself.'
The Regional Movers Index recently found that Sydney and Melbourne are the most popular cities for Aussies to leave behind in favour of a regional lifestyle.
According to the index, around 25 per cent more people are moving out of Australia's cities to regional and rural areas than are making the move in the other direction.
Mr Abbott plans to save $100,000 over the next 12 months simply by avoiding the big city costs.
Straight away, he saved $600 a week in rent by moving in with a friend after leaving Sydney's Eastern Suburbs.
Mr Abbott made the move after realising the sky-high cost of living in Sydney meant he'd never break into the property market.
Even after buying his own one-bedroom apartment, he couldn't afford the strata fees or the cost of renovations.
'I was earning good money in Sydney, but the lifestyle is so comes in, money goes out,' he told Yahoo Finance.
Now, Mr Abbott lives on a farm about 30 minutes from the nearest town, which has a population of just 500 people, and he's enjoying life rent-free with his mate.
He couldn't believe how much money he was saving living in the middle of nowhere.
'It has just been a game-changer for my money that's coming in,' he said. 'Last month, I only spent $220.'
Mr Abbott reckons he'll be able to save $100,000 in a year, thanks to a dramatic drop in living costs and a 15 per cent pay rise at his new job driving a skidder, a heavy vehicle used in logging.
He said the remoteness of his new home was a major advantage, acting as a money-saving tool.
'The money that you've got coming in, you've got nowhere to spend it. It's forced savings, really, because you don't get your pay and then go blow it on a Saturday night,' he said.
Although Mr Abbott admits his move has been 'quite extreme,' he says it doesn't have to be for people to save money.
'Regional and rural towns are really looking for teachers, doctors, and skilled workers because their populations are so small,' he told Yahoo Finance.
'If anyone else is thinking about doing this, or working remotely for a year, I couldn't recommend it more highly.'
He believes it would take between five to ten years of city living to save what he will in just 12 months in the bush.
'To be able to really fast-track and accelerate that is really exciting,' he said.
A recent Finder study found that one in eight people surveyed had moved away from a capital city in the past three years to save money, and a further 1.5million are expected to relocate somewhere cheaper by 2028.
