What the rate rise pain could mean for one Tasmanian family

How are you feeling about another potential rate rise?

Les Slater (LS) - "That's my daughter and that's my grandson. We're just renting."

Carissa Slater (CS) - "But it will probably affect our rent."

LS - "It's going to affect us, yeah, because rent is naturally going to go up."

You're both renting?

CS - "There's a granny flat in the house."

LS - "I'm in the granny flat. She and her partner are in the house."

So is it just the four of you then?

CS - Yeah.

Have you had any contact with your landlords? Have they indicated that rent is going to go up?

LS - "No, not just yet, no. Our lease doesn't run out until January next year. And we've been there for four years."

Is that a conversation you're anticipating?

LS - "Yeah, it's going to happen. I mean they've got to sort of, they can't take the fall for [themselves], naturally."

Rate rises and inflation affect other areas of finance too, are there things you're tightening up on or going without?

LS - "In the shopping, just the last, well, I suppose three or four months we've noticed prices of everything lifting, you know, so yeah, it's likely to develop a little bit there. We'll chunk in for rent, and for groceries and whatnot, so yeah, no, starting to stretch things a little bit. Power, once again, not so bad because I get my pension, so I get a pension to chuck with that, but still."

Yeah, and I suppose we're in winter as well.

LS - "Luckily we've got wood heaters, so they're not going to change, obviously, you got to go out and get your own wood."

You've got a young son to support. How is the rising cost of living affecting you and your son?

CS - "Not so much at the moment, I mean, he's only in kindergarten at the moment but that's three days a week. But I suppose the cost of feeding him is getting extreme and when it's a five year old boy that eats nonstop, yes, it can be difficult. But no, we haven't found things too hard at the moment."

What's your plan for managing rising inflation and cost of living?

LS - "Just got to budget these things"

CS - "We have to live with it, don't we? Because it's just going to continue to happen."

LS - "It's all because of COVID, it's just caused all of this. And it ain't going to get better, it's going to get worse. I feel sorry for a lot of people, there's a lot of people without homes ... we've got a roof over our head."

LS - "Increase the wages."

You're a pensioner, are you finding your pension is enough?

LS - "It's sort of borderline, yeah. I was at a time, but you know, now it's getting to this, borderline. But what can you do? There's nothing I can do about that."

And are you working as well, you and your partner?

CS - "Yeah, so I'm a casual employee doing 37 hours a week, and he's full time doing 42 hours a week. But yeah, the wages do need to go up."

Can I ask you what you both do?

CS - "So he works at Neville Smith Forestry up at Mowbray in the sawmill and I work at IGA."

Do you feel both those job positions are secure?

CS - "He's safe. But yeah, no, it's sort of hard to know what the future holds I guess, work wise ... so unsure as to if I'll have the job again in the next couple of months and then trying to find something else if I don't, so it makes things a little difficult, and I can't really go from working 37 hours a week to living off Centrelink."