I have a cousin, she and hubby used to live in Pt Hedland For 40 years, he had his own tradie business. About 5 years ago they moved to Perth, and he chucked in his own business, and now works for a mining company.
He just does maintenance around the town, like a local handyman, and brings in $200,000, plus the benefits that most in the mining industry receive. He FIFO, like most. They cannot believe their good fortune, or how lucky they are. He just turned 60. When he is home they spend most of their time at Rottnest on their boat.
Their daughter works for one of the biggest miners. She earns 500k pa, and just bought herself, what her mum describes as a small modest house near Perth CBD.
I don't know a great deal about them, except they paid off the house years ago, they used to spend a lot of time travelling, and I suspect they are big consumers.
I doubt they have a lot stashed away for retirement, and will probably look for the pension when they get to pension age. I might be wrong. I will try to sus her out in the next few weeks. They have both worked hard when they were younger, but it appears to me to have been easy street for a very long time.
They have 4 children, who are all on good wages in excess of 200k pa. Living in WA seems to be like living in another universe, compared to life over here in the east.
