I’m a millennial truck driver who works 14-hour days, six days a week and I’ve already bought my first home

A millennial lorry driver who works 14 hours a day, six days a week and already owns his own home, has sounded a stark red flag to would-be homeowners, warning young people they have to work for it.

Josh, 33, from New South Wales, was recently able to buy an investment house in Adelaide thanks to a self-directed super fund and his $200,000 annual lorry driver salary.

When he was 24, he built a house in Narellan, about 60km south-west of Sydney, which he plans to sell before retiring to parts of the state before he turns 40.

Josh had only one semester left to finish his studies in economics when he decided to stop studying and quit his job as an accountant to find a way to “make money faster”.

He worked in retail management for several years and received up to four promotions there before deciding that management was “soul sucking.”

Josh was faced with a harsh reality when he and his then-partner separated shortly after buying Narellan’s house, leaving him to take care of the mortgage on his own.

Friends recommended that he start driving trucks, a job that offered him a lot of money and the opportunity to work on his own and on his own terms.

But before that, Josh was forced to work three jobs to pay his mortgage and he warned that earning and saving money wouldn’t always be “comfortable”.

“I went from studying finance to driving a truck,” he told Daily Mail Australia.

“In the past, I would have thought this kind of work was beneath me. You won’t always be comfortable, I had to leave my comfort zone to make money.

A millennial truck driver who works 14 hours a day, six days a week and already owns his own home has sent a stark wake-up call to would-be homeowners, saying if young people want a home, they need to be ready to work to get it.

Josh describes a chaotic month in which he packed and operated machinery in a warehouse and did “random jobs” offered by agencies.

One day, he worked 30 hours straight to maintain his new house.

Josh thinks it all comes down to whether Millennials want housing and financial security or whether they want to go on vacation and enjoy a better work-life balance.

Whatever the goal, he recommends spending plenty of time developing a realistic budget that takes into account all day-to-day costs.

Josh, who is now married, was forced to adjust his work/life balance after his long hours started causing problems in his relationship.

“I worked six days a week, 5:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., to have a good day shopping and buying designer items,” he said.

“A few weeks of overtime was spent on a handbag. But we (him and his wife) were still going to miss each other and get grumpy because we didn’t see each other.

“So we communicated about what we want from life and from each other.”

Josh currently works 60 to 70 hours, six days a week, but plans to reduce his hours to 40 to 50 hours, spread over three to four days a week.

This week Josh and his new girlfriend decided to buy a new house in the New South Wales area. They hope to move in next month and retire in a few years.

The couple plan to spend time working and traveling before pursuing Josh’s dream of growing his own fruits and vegetables and brewing beer.

“Actually, I should be able to pull the plug in a few years,” he said.

Gareth Bryant, an economist at the University of Sydney, said the struggle to buy a home was not a problem between baby boomers and millennials.

According to him, it depended on real estate wealth – on the fact that they already own a property.

Mr Bryant told Daily Mail Australia that even if young people are working an extra job or two and spending less frugally, it is still nearly impossible to save for a meaningful deposit.

Lucky Millennials are those who got into the real estate market early and reaped big rewards or come from a family that owns a property.

Josh currently works 60-70 hours, six days a week, driving trucks, but plans to increase to 40-50 hours three to four days a week (stock image)

Gareth said the majority of young people buying a home in Australia’s competitive property markets have done so with the help of “mom and dad’s bank”.

As a result, Australia has one of the most unequal income-to-wealth ratios in the world.

“Historically, the path to buying a home was to get a job, save some money, buy the house and pay it back in retirement,” Bryant said.

“House prices are now much higher than incomes. In the past, houses cost up to two to three times more than the average income, today it is seven to ten times more.

“If you look at baby boomers, two-thirds had bought a home in their early 30s, but today less than 50 percent of Millennials can afford a home at the same age.”

Mr Bryant said homeownership levels would continue to fall.

“House prices are rising and jobs are increasingly precarious,” he said.

“People are finding ways to advance their legacies through monetary donations and parents who vouch for their children’s home loans.

“It’s a lottery. Some people own this real estate wealth and some don’t, but this isn’t just a generational story of Millennials versus Boomers.

Gareth Bryant, an economist who has done research at the University of Sydney, says the difficulty of buying a home is not a problem between baby boomers and millennials.

In 1984, the median house price in Sydney was $85,900 and the average full-time salary was $19,656. With a mortgage deposit of 20 percent, this meant that the typical single borrower would have had a debt-to-income ratio of 3.5.

In 2023, the median property price in Sydney is $1.334 million and someone with an average full-time salary of $95,581 would have a dangerous debt-to-income ratio of 11.2, even with a mortgage deposit.

This is well above the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority’s “six” threshold for mortgage stress.

Property prices in Sydney are so expensive that a home in Mount Druitt, 50km west of the city, typically costs $819,589, CoreLogic data from July showed, and a borrower with a salary average would be in mortgage stress to pay it off.

A record 387,000 migrants moved to Australia in 2022 and property prices rose again last month in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide, even as the Reserve Bank hiked interest rates 12 times since May 2022.

Outgoing Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Philip Lowe noted this month that the 1.5 per cent increase in new housing lagged behind the 2 per cent pace of population growth in the Australia, one of the highest in the developed world.