Our false cost of living crisis?

I have just been reading this over on the ABC website. It has generated some interesting debate.

For me personally, I feel like things like food, utilities etc have been costing more over the past few years. But maybe that is because we have more kids than we did before. And I tend to pay less attention to the financial details of our household income and expenditure than I should. The word "budget" freaks me out a little, actually. But now that we have a bigger family, I need to start paying more attention to where the money actually goes.

There were some good points made for and against whether "cost of living pressures" do in fact exist, or whether it is just that these days, people want to have everything (the big house, the fancy car, the latest phone or computer, designer clothes, or whatever) and they want it right now.

Probably, as for many other things, the truth lies somewhere in between.