If you’ve recently bought a new car or furniture, have a big holiday on the horizon, or are eating out a bit more, welcome to the club. After years of squirrelling money away, households are finally coming out of hibernation.

We know some – especially affluent Australians with heaps already stashed away and no big home loan to worry about – breezed their way through the cost-of-living crisis. Some even spent more or became richer thanks to higher interest rates on their savings.

Households are finally regaining their mojo.Credit: Matt Davidson

But for others – including many mortgage holders and lower-income Australians – the years since the COVID-19 pandemic have been all about sacrifice: cutting back spending and trying to keep up with home loan repayments and bills.

That seems to be changing according to the latest national accounts figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Those numbers show real gross domestic product – a measure of the economy’s production of goods and services (and equally a measure of spending and income) – grew by 0.6 per cent over the three months to the end of June. That took growth over the year to June to 1.8 per cent

That’s not to say the economy is roaring. Generally, a healthy growth rate for a developed economy such as Australia is 2 per cent to 3 per cent a year. But it’s a sign things are finally looking up for many Australians and that they don’t mind loosening their purse strings a little.

It’s not just older or richer Australians starting to enjoy themselves a little more. Younger and lower-income households – which scrimped the most over the past few years – are finally regaining their mojo.

The biggest contributor to economic growth – or weakness – is always households. Spending by households accounts for more than half of Australia’s GDP, so when they’re having a good time, generally speaking, so is the economy.

In the three months to June, household consumption spending grew nearly 1 per cent, contributing 0.4 percentage points, or two-thirds, of the country’s economic........

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