{"id":328708,"date":"2025-12-05T05:02:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T05:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/328708\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T05:02:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T05:02:12","slug":"hard-to-keep-going-aussie-couple-ends-business-amid-cost-of-living-crunch-claiming-no-support-from-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/328708\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Hard to keep going’: Aussie couple ends business amid cost of living crunch, claiming ‘no support’ from government"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sydney building company Living Timber Co<\/a> shut their doors after 10 years of business due to the cost of living crunch, as demands from customers for cheaper quotes made it \u201chard to keep going\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Penrith-based company specialised in making custom bespoke coffee tables, dining tables and bathroom vanities, with residential clients making up 95 per cent of its customer base.<\/p>\n

Dean Boyd and his wife Frances made the decision to end their business at the end of November due to not enough work coming through over the past year.<\/p>\n

\u201cResidential work ended up being about 4 per cent of our sales because we had to shift to the more commercial side of things,\u201d Mr Boyd told news.com.au.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just weren\u2019t getting work in the door. When we did, people were trying to talk down on price, which we just couldn\u2019t do, or just flat-out say it\u2019s too expensive, they could get a $500 table from Ikea.\u201d<\/p>\n

On top of the changing demands of customers and having to cut his staff from seven to two, Mr Boyd felt no support from the Morrison and now Albanese government.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Scott Morrison was (PM), we had a round table with Australian manufacturers that went nowhere, once the new government took over, it got worse,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no support there or help from anybody. It\u2019s hard to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just this year the couple celebrated what was their 10-year anniversary of being in business.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you for being part of our story, for choosing locally made, sustainably crafted, and beautifully personal furniture. Here\u2019s to the next chapter, and many more years of creating pieces that feel like home,\u201d the post from June read.<\/p>\n

The closure of Living Timber Co comes as peak policy and advocacy body Business NSW released its Business Conditions Survey (BCS) this week.<\/p>\n

The study, conducted from November 2 to 17, revealed customers are spending less, looking for discounts, and delaying invoice payments compared to 2024.<\/p>\n

The timing isn\u2019t ideal for Australians who are faced with a tough financial outlook for the festive season.<\/p>\n

This week the Reserve Bank of Australia kept rates on hold due to a surge in inflation.<\/p>\n

The country\u2019s national inflation rate rose from 3.6 per cent to 3.8 per cent in the 12 months to October.<\/p>\n

ANZ\u2019s head of Australian economics Adam Boyton said the latest inflation spike has effectively killed its previous forecast of rate relief<\/a> in February.<\/p>\n

“We no longer see one final rate cut from the RBA in the first half of 2026, given recent inflation pressures,” Mr Boyton said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sydney building company Living Timber Co shut their doors after 10 years of business due to the cost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[8932,64,63,99,11758,184194,164,5465,184195,16284],"class_list":["post-328708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-albanese","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-construction","tag-dean-boyd","tag-economy","tag-inflation","tag-living-timber-co","tag-penrith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}