Aussies spending up on fun

AUSSIE households are spending a sizeable share of their budget on having fun, a payments analysis has found.

Commonwealth Bank data shows that recreation such as travel and entertainment snares 17.2 per cent of our spending, excluding rent and mortgages.

Food eats through 22.7 per cent, while transport takes 10.9 per cent.

After basic essentials such as food, clothes and shelter, recreation boasted the next largest share of spend.

CBA chief economist Michael Blythe said this suggested households were in a “relatively comfortable position”.

Yet overall satisfaction levels had “tracked sideway” since early last year, the bank’s household satisfaction index found.

“Australian households tend to be of the ‘glass half full’ variety when assessing their level of satisfaction,” Mr Blythe said.

“The general message from the traditional economic indicators (of) income, wealth and spending is that the average Australian household is travelling quite well.

“But … many households think they have missed out.”

Mr Blythe said a range of factors such as work-life balance, education and the environment were just as important as “hard-edged financials” when judging satisfaction.

“Areas with low satisfaction scores include civic engagement, environment and education, so policies targeting improvement in those areas would help.”

On average, households had a gross income of almost $90,000 a year and paid $14,500 tax.

They held an $274,000 in assets.

Excluding rent and mortgage payments, about $57,000 was spent annually with cards and cash.

CBA’s spend share analysis was based on 2.5 million households. average