The latest household spending data shows discretionary spending continues to strengthen. Picture: NewsWire \/ David Crosling <\/p>\n
Australian households are finding breathing room in their budgets, with the latest data showing an increase in household spending.<\/p>\n
Data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Tuesday shows spending on furnishings and household equipment, clothing, footwear and food have driven a 0.5 per cent household spending rise for June.<\/p>\n
The data shows people are making more discretionary purchases and spending more often.<\/p>\n
The 0.5 per cent bump follows a 1 per cent rise in May and is 4.8 per cent higher than June last year.<\/p>\n
Alcohol and tobacco spending continues to fall, government data shows. Picture: NewsWire \/ Monique Harmer <\/p>\n
\u201cGoods spending rose 1.3 per cent, as households spent more on food, new vehicles, and electronics,\u201d ABS executive Robert Ewing said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMeanwhile, spending on services fell by 0.5 per cent after two months of growth.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople buying more goods drove the overall rise in household spending in June.\u201d<\/p>\n
Looking at the three months to June, discretionary spending volumes (the actual dollar value spent) rose because of a 1.8 per cent increase in recreation and cultural activities, plus a 1.6 per cent rise in cafes and restaurants. The volume increase shows people are going out for dinner less often but spending more.<\/p>\n
Spending on food, vehicles and recreation rose across the country in June. Picture: NewsWire \/ Nikki Short <\/p>\n
This discretionary bump is part of an overall spending volume increase of 0.7 per cent for the June quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cHousehold spending volumes rose for the third consecutive quarter, reflecting a steady improvement in consumer confidence as price pressures eased over the past year,\u201d Mr Ewing said.<\/p>\n
Western Australia was the only state or territory where spending fell. The Northern Territory, NSW and then Tasmania had the largest spending increases over the past year.<\/p>\n
In the NT, the spending increases were driven by health, transport and recreation outlays. In NSW, clothes, shoes, furnishings and food were the largest drivers.<\/p>\n
While people are consistently spending more on food and homewares across the country, alcohol and tobacco spend is falling, the government data shows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The latest household spending data shows discretionary spending continues to strengthen. Picture: NewsWire \/ David Crosling Australian households…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,63,169,42040,99,42037,186,42038,184,185,42039],"class_list":["post-49565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-bureau-of-statistics","tag-australian-households","tag-business","tag-discretionary-spending","tag-finance","tag-household-spending","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-robert-ewing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49565","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=49565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}