“You’ve just got to look at the statistics, it’s been a very, very hard year. Business has been down. People are worrying about their money, they’re much fussier. Electricity, water, phone, petrol, interest rates, they’ve all gone up.

“If you add all that up, when someone is on a fixed income, they can’t keep spending. There’s not a lot of cash around. A lot of people are paying by credit card.”

“There has been a quite drastic change,” she said. “In the old days, if you had a good job you had a good life. Now you’re just working to survive.

THE Borsellino Brothers, who run a fruit shop in Sydney’s inner west, don’t need complicated economic modelling to tell them people are spending less.

For three decades, their shop has been been known for its cheerful atmosphere and good quality cheap fruit and vegetables, attracting a large and loyal clientele. But this year, times have changed.

“It has been the hardest winter I’ve seen in 34 years,” owner Steve Borsellino said.

“You’ve just got to look at the statistics, it’s been a very, very hard year. Business has been down. People are worrying about their money, they’re much fussier. Electricity, water, phone, petrol, interest rates, they’ve all gone up.

“If you add all that up, when someone is on a fixed income, they can’t keep spending. There’s not a lot of cash around. A lot of people are paying by credit card.”

Mr Borsellino said that people used to travel from neighbouring suburbs to come to his store, but the price of petrol was having an impact.

“The reverse of that is local people are using us more than ever, because they don’t have to worry about petrol,” he said.

Alala Chiara, 34, who was shopping yesterday with her daughter Lulu and niece Jasmin, said everything was costing more and, like many other families, she had cut things back to basics and was living an essentially simple life.

“There has been a quite drastic change,” she said. “In the old days, if you had a good job you had a good life. Now you’re just working to survive.

“Everything costs more, but your wages don’t go up. You are making the same amount go even further.” Ms Chiara, who works at a childcare centre, said it was obvious how hard parents using the centre were working just to pay the mortgage.

Home ownership was no longer possible except for couples with two incomes, she added.

“Every family is in the same situation, particularly around here,” she said.

Credit: John Stapleton