An Aussie family of 10 are struggling to make ends meet despite the father making a salary that puts him in the top 10 per cent of earners.
Don Parkes, a Sydney father with eight children, earns $125,000 a year as a factory manager but his family has still had to cut costs wherever they can.
The family’s budget to house, feed and clothe everyone has been stretched to the limit by Australia’s cost-of-living crisis.
Mr Parkes and his wife, Kirsty, have repeatedly dipped into their savings to get by despite making more than most Australians.
The couple has even been forced to ask their two working teenage sons to chip in for rent and food.
‘It’s hard to imagine that $125,000 a year is a struggle, it doesn’t make sense,’ Mr Parkes told A Current Affair.
His salary is just above the cut-off for the top 10 per cent of earners, who made at least $122,664 in 2023, according to the Wealth Report.
Ms Parkes revealed the family spend about $1,200 on groceries every fortnight despite having swapped to home-brand items to cut down on costs.
Healthy meals are also been off the menu after the family realised fresh fruit, vegetables and meat had become too expensive.
‘We’ve had to substitute the quality now for the quantity because we have so many mouths to feed,’ Ms Parkes said.
‘We can get a family pack from McDonalds… and that’s a better price than trying to buy meat, buy the veggies, buy everything else and cook it at home.’
The couple have had to prioritise what they can afford on their limited budget, including making the tough decision to cut health insurance for the family.
‘Health insurance is not something that’s affordable, it’s not something I could even budget into what we have,’ Ms Parkes said.
‘We need to eat first, we need to clothe the children, we need to pay our bills so they’re the kind of things that get left by the wayside that I would consider more of a luxury.’
A Sydney father-of-eight making $125,000 a year, Don Parkes (pictured), is struggling to keep his family out of economic hardship during Australia’s cost-of-living crisis
The Parkes family (pictured) are struggling to afford healthy food and had to scrap their health insurance as they’re forced to cut costs wherever they can
Ms Parkes has been face-to-face with the other Aussies doing it tough while at the helm of Community Cafe, a charity in south-west Sydney that offers free food and clothing to those in economic hardship.
About 200 people are now coming through the cafe every day as more people struggle financially to make it through the week.
The Parkes family will receive about $800 a year more from Anthony Albanese’s changes to the Stage Three tax cuts.
While this will help them and other lower to middle-class families, Ms Parkes said more had to be done to reduce the cost-of-living.
‘They need to find a way to actually kind of curb that or find some sort of ceiling where they go, ok, enough is enough – how do we do that?’ she said.