1. I'm Australian and depending on what city you live in you'd be damn lucky to find a place as "cheap" as $500 a month! In one of our major cities Sydney rental prices are between $250 and $500 A WEEK!!!!!! and that's not CBD, it's one of the more uh... rough areas where alot of the um... not so nice people tend to live... if you wanted to live in Sydney City itself you're looking at between $600 and $2500 a week (HOLY HELL! I have never had such a high paying job that I could afford a property that cost $2500 a week to rent :S :S :S)
2. Job within walking distance.... most people can't afford to be that choosy. Not every suburb has big businesses just down the street and I know for a fact that the shops that are in my suburb are all very small and i've NEVER seen them hiring. I've been here for 10 years and those last 10 years it's always been the same people working there and whenever i ask if there is a vacancy the answer is always the same. No.
3. I can't really comment on this one as that's not a bill I have to look at
4. Gas? I assume that's petrol? I have a small car. I only ever feed it $20. That's a fortnight of driving around depending on how much I drive it. Unless I left my car at home and caught the bus there is no way $20 would ever last in my car a month and my car mostly sits in the carport. Even public transport is more expensive than that. The busses here $4 will get you to your destination and it will cost another $4 to get home.
5. Internet is a necessity, payTV people can live without. I think $100 a month is a bit generous... then again I have a free pay TV offer at the moment and once that expires that goes to $110 a month (ouch!)
6. In Australia $28 a week for groceries? AHAHAHAHHA Yeah right, not around here. With your $4 a day I could get a loaf of bread and 2L of milk. What an awesome diet... or maybe just eat a uni student diet and live off noodles...
7. Who the heck needs to buy new clothes monthly?? I certainly don't I'd rather put this into the 8th
8. $2 a day in spending... in Australia that don't buy much. Not even a 600ml bottle of coke...
9. on unemployment benefits it's very hard to save any money.
Basically $35 a day for a family is completely unreasonable. While I understand there is this whole go get work push... that's easier said than done. I've been looking for work for ages now. There is nothing wrong with me at all but the city I live in has one of the highest unemployment rates and no matter how hard I try and how keen I am I always seem to be unsuccessful and when I ask why it's always the same answer "We picked someone with at least 2 years past experience" Alot of single mothers and women who had children at young ages will have this exact same barrier i do. If it were easy to get a job don't you think more people would be working?? not everyone is unemployed and living off benefits by choice