Dual income professional couple, Sydney, two kids, feel like we’re doing everything right but can’t save and will never own a home. What are we missing?
Throwaway for obvious reasons.
Husband (34, GP registrar transitioning to private practice) and I (35, work in tech) are based in Sydney. Two kids, both under 4. The younger one has multiple food allergies (dairy, soy, gluten) which adds real cost to the groceries bill. We own an investment property interstate which generates rental income and we rent in Sydney ourselves.
On paper our income looks comfortable, but some months we’re barely ahead and we’re starting to wonder if buying a home in Sydney is just completely out of reach for us. We didn’t buy 5 to 10 years ago when we probably should have, and now we’re watching the goalposts move every year while we try to save. Looking for real feedback, not “earn more.”
We both work a condensed four-day week, so we each cover one full weekday of childcare at home, with longer hours the other four days. The kids are in daycare three days a week. It works, but it is a lot of moving parts.
MONTHLY INCOME (approximate, net after tax):
Partner 1 (tech): ~$16,500
Partner 2 (GP registrar): ~$5,600 (increasing significantly in August, moving to a billings-based private practice role)
Rental income (investment property): ~$3,800
Total: ~$25,900/month net
MONTHLY FIXED COSTS:
Rent (Sydney): $5,850, and we have just been hit with a $200/week increase from August taking it to ~$6,700. We are genuinely contemplating moving but it is complicated. I work from home full time so we need at least 3 bedrooms. We want to stay close to the grandparents who are a critical part of our childcare setup. The nearest suburbs where rent drops meaningfully are about 30 minutes further out, and that extra commute plus the distance from grandparents would probably cost us more in stress and lost childcare support than the rent saving is worth.
Mortgage (investment property): $6,627
Childcare (two kids, 3 days/week each): $3,631 (increasing to $4,366 in July as CCS changes with husband’s income increasing)
Private health insurance: $689
Utilities (electricity, gas, internet, water): ~$460
Subscriptions (Netflix, Spotify, streaming etc): ~$142
Fixed costs subtotal: ~$17,400
MONTHLY VARIABLE SPENDING (recent actuals, not what we budget):
Groceries (main shop): $900
Groceries (mid-week top-ups): $475
Partner 2 work lunches (near work, supermarket): $270
Eating out and takeaway: $460. We are both exhausted, both on compressed working weeks, two kids under 4 one of whom requires entirely separate allergy-safe meal prep every single night. We know it is high but it is genuinely hard to cook from scratch every night when you are running on empty.
Cafes and coffee: $190
Petrol (2 cars): $430
Tolls: $340
Kids activities and misc: $400
Home help (mother’s helper, 2 x 2hr shifts per week): $866
House cleaning (fortnightly, $150/visit): $300
Hair and beauty: $320 (lumpy, quarterly colour cycle)
Medicines and pharmacy: $240 (higher than average due to allergy prescriptions)
Doctors, dentist, specialists: $350 (lumpy)
Clothing: $250
Gifts: $200
Personal spending money (each): $150
Misc: $400
Variable subtotal: ~$7,500
Total monthly spend: ~$24,900 Monthly surplus: ~$1,000 on a normal month
On top of that we are building ~$5,500/month in combined superannuation contributions which we do not count in the above.
What is coming from August:
Partner 2 income increases to ~$15,600/month net (private billings-based GP, conservative estimate)
Rent increases by $867/month
Childcare increases by another $735/month
Net position from August improves significantly, which is why we are not in crisis. But right now we are treading water and it is frustrating.
The house buying situation: This is the part that really gets to us. We have an investment property interstate that has some equity, and we are trying to save a deposit for a Sydney home. But the numbers are brutal. Anything liveable in a suburb that works for us (near grandparents, space for two kids, room for me to work from home) is well over $1.5 million. We need a significant deposit. We are saving as hard as we can but every time we get close to a number it feels like the market has moved again. We genuinely feel like people who bought 5 to 10 years ago won the game and the rest of us are just locked out. Is that actually true or are we missing something?
What I think the spending problems are:
Eating out and takeaway. Two exhausted parents on compressed weeks, two kids, one with complex allergies requiring separate meal prep every night. This is as much a mental load problem as a budget problem. We have tried cutting it and it lasts about two weeks before someone cracks.
Mid-week grocery top-up shops. We place the main online order mid-week instead of Sunday, so we constantly run short and do 6 to 8 small top-up runs. A Sunday order would fix this but it has not stuck as a habit yet.
Home help. The 2 x 2hr shifts per week keep the household functioning. With a dairy/soy/gluten-free baby, all meals have to be cooked from scratch with no shortcuts.
House cleaning at $150/fortnight. Feels like a lot but neither of us has bandwidth left at the end of a compressed working week.
The rent increase from August. Moving would save money on paper but losing proximity to grandparents as part of our childcare structure would genuinely cost more than the rent saving.
Questions for the community:
Is there anything in our spending that jumps out as obviously cuttable that we are not seeing?
For the eating out and takeaway, has anyone with young kids and demanding jobs actually fixed this long-term, or does it just become part of the budget until the kids are older?
Is $150/fortnight for cleaning reasonable for Sydney in 2026?
Any advice on managing a food-allergy household budget? Gluten-free bread alone is $20/loaf and we need it for home and daycare. It is unavoidable.
On the rent situation, has anyone faced the choice between moving to save money versus staying for proximity to family support? How did you think through it?
On the Sydney property market, are we actually screwed if we did not buy earlier, or is there a realistic path for people in our situation?
We track everything meticulously every week. Is there a point where tracking stops being useful and you just need to accept some categories are what they are and build the budget around reality rather than aspiration?
Not looking for “cut the cleaner” or “you earn enough, stop worrying.” Genuinely trying to understand what a realistic budget looks like for a household like ours in Sydney right now, and whether buying a home here is still achievable or whether we should just accept it is not going to happen.