I was absolutely stoked to see I now only have 19k left on my 42k student loan for a Bachelors degree in Psychology (which hung on my wall as I started working in retail the day after graduation). Thank goodness our government made it interest free. Over half way baby!

The interesting thing is, I don't feel particularly hard done by on a day to day basis. I earn bang on 60k a year and my living expenses mean I can quite comfortably save for fun, a house, and enjoy things every week. If I didn't get paid for a month or two I'd be comfortable living on my savings until things got sorted. Plenty don't have that luxury and I am appreciative of that.

But as soon as I look at buying a house, it suddenly looks impossible. Aside from the stress, I need my partner on board with her income otherwise we can't afford the repayments as the average house in our city has shot to an average of $460k, up from $306k in just 2016, and we're the lucky area that's experiencing relatively slow growth!

I'm telling the young lads at my local gym to seriously consider trades and not to be put off by people who look down on Polytech courses - if they want to get into building or plumbing, we sorely need skilled people in those realms. They get told they need a University degree to be employable and to avoid working with your hands - same message I got in high school in 2007. Trades are for labourers and unintelligent people, apparently. Turns out they're plenty bright, earning well and quite often doing something they genuinely enjoy.