First car
Purchase, registration, compulsory third-party insurance and fuel.
SourceMoneySmart (ASIC)
Mountain View row · ages 12 to 21
Purchase, registration, compulsory third-party insurance and fuel.
Share-house rent, a bond and utility connections all need cash up front.
Apprentice wages rise by year of training, with tools and training costs.
HELP debt is indexed each year, and repayments start once income passes the threshold.
Employer super (12% of ordinary earnings) starts building from the first job.
Search these names on the department sites below. Links go to each department's home page.
Figures from published research for the age groups that cover 20–21. Sources often publish wider age groups, so the group shown is the one that includes these ages. They describe groups of people, not any one person. Checked 23 October 2026.
May 2025. Persons. Enrolled in study includes school.
August 2025. Employees only.
Calendar year 2025. Top two scam types by total loss among reports that included a loss. Unreported scams are not counted.
Australian Youth Barometer 2025. A survey of 527 people aged 18 to 24, not an official statistic.
2025 Consumer Payments Survey. Share of payments made using cards.
30 June 2024. Per account, not per person, because many people hold more than one account. Median is the middle account; average is pulled up by large balances.
2019–20 financial year. By age of the household's reference person, as shown in the ABS graph. The ABS page does not say whether the values are averages or medians, so treat them as indicative.
2019–20. Share of all recent first home buyers in this age group (age of the household reference person). It is not the share of the age group who buy.
Census 2021. Share of young adults living in their parents' home.
Census 2021. Share of people in the age group who lived alone.
2024. Births per 1,000 women in the age group.
2022. Share of people in the age group who provide informal care. About 11.9% of all Australians living in households (3.0 million) were carers.
2022. Share of people in the age group with disability. Overall 21.4% of Australians (5.5 million) had disability in 2022.
Dollar figures are in the dollars of the year shown. Average and median are not the same: the median is the middle value. Not financial advice.
Illustrative gross incomes: lower about $50,000, middle about $100,000, higher about $200,000 a year. For ages under 18, read these as household incomes. For retirement ages, read them as lower, middle and higher income and savings. They are examples, not official brackets.
Rent in a share house takes a big slice of pay. A used car may be financed with a high-interest loan, which is worth comparing carefully.
Rent, a car and some savings are all manageable. A first holiday or tools for work can be bought without borrowing.
Early investing, a newer car and a rental in a preferred suburb are all realistic. Super and shares start to compound.