In July, Tim Abbott left Sydney for a remote property more than 700km from Brisbane.
Now, his workday starts at 5.30am and ends by late afternoon. He spends the day logging pine trees — a skill he picked up when he moved there — accompanied by only two other people.
The work, he says, is more physical and repetitive than the Zoom meetings and quarterly planning sessions he left behind when he quit his digital marketing role in Sydney. And for the next year, until he returns to Sydney, this will be his life.
The town? "It’s as small as you could possibly imagine," he told the Feed. "There's one of everything."
One supermarket, one petrol station, one primary school. But Tim is enjoying the simplicity and the quiet, and the new lifestyle brings one big selling point.
"The money that comes in, normally I'd be like, 'okay, well that's going to bills, that's going to tolls, that's going to petrol, that's going to dinners, groceries, this, that, the other.'"
Tim, 31, moved to inland Queensland and says his living expenses have dropped by 75 per cent. Source: Supplied
Tim is part of a number of Australians who are taking a "financial gap year," relocating, temporarily, to somewhere significantly cheaper to fast-track long-term goals like home ownership.
Despite more than a decade in the workforce and a steady job in digital marketing, Tim was watching his savings and income stagnate.
"I was like, 'if I cut back anything less, I just don't know where it would be from. My car is 13 years old. I don't buy new clothes. I live a very humble existence,'" Tim, who grew up and spent most of his life in Sydney, told The Feed.
After spending $600 a week on rent alone in Sydney, now it's $220 a month in western Queensland.
Abbott estimates that his living costs have dropped by more than 75 per cent, and his income has seen a modest increase.
His goal: to save $100,000 in a year and eventually buy a little, sustainable hobby farm with goats, ducks, a veggie garden. Somewhere warm, quiet, and just out of reach of the city.
"I feel like it's delayed gratification. I feel like instead of missing out, I feel like I'm excited to build something for the future," he says.
"It's the first time in probably pre-COVID that I'm really excited for the future again."
'Regional cities holding onto more people'
KPMG urban economist Terry Rawnsley says the trend of younger Australians moving to regional areas has accelerated since the pandemic — driven by remote work opportunities, housing affordability and changing local economies.
"We’ve always had people shifting around the country for short-term contracts, spending a couple of years in a regional town. So that’s definitely continuous, people churn from the big cities and then back," Rawnsley says.
“While we’ve always seen this, I think those regional cities are probably holding onto more people than they did in the past.”
Trends change depending on the location, he says, but overall, people in their late 20s and early 30s are the big cohort leaving cities like Sydney and Melbourne for "affordability and livability".
The latest Regional Movers Index (RMI), which tracks migration from capital cities to regional areas, found a 10.5 per cent increase in the March quarter of 2025.
This is in line with an overall trend out of Australia’s capitals and into the regions after the onset of the pandemic. Current figures are 20.5 per cent higher than the pre-COVID average level of quarterly migration.
"Housing affordability is going to be more of a barrier going back into the big cities," Rawnsley says.
Along with affordability in the regions, Rawnsley says white-collar workers are increasingly taking advantage of the ability to work remotely.
"Architects, engineers who previously were really tied to the CBDs in Sydney and Melbourne, they’re now able to live and work remotely and dial into those major meetings."
But while rents and mortgages remain significantly cheaper outside the capitals, housing supply in many regional centres has tightened in the past few years with the boom.
"Pre-COVID vacancy rates might’ve been three or 4 per cent … now they’re kind of one and a half, 1 per cent," he says.
Even though some places are churning out housing supply, he says others just aren't.
"While they’ve had this big influx of people, they’ve also brought the big city housing problems with them, and everyone’s trying to work out how do we get more supply coming out of the ground."
Looking forward without financial anxiety
For Sarah Brown, 29, and her partner, Will Ridley, 30, the move from Sydney to Forster wasn’t a leap of faith — it was planned in a spreadsheet.
After the pair bought a property in the NSW mid-north coast town, which they had initially planned to keep as an investment, they decided to move into it for a "financial gap year".
Now, the pair are saving the rent they'd have spent in Sydney, saved on stamp duty with first home buyer assistance, and have cut down on their living expenses. When the year is up, they'll make an assessment based on finances about what they'll do next.
Will and Sarah made the move from Sydney to the coastal NSW town of Forster earlier this year. They say when their "financial gap year" is up, they will reassess their options. Source: Supplied
The move has made them "the most financially secure we’ve ever been," Brown said, describing a new ease in their relationship and more freedom to imagine milestones down the line without financial anxiety.
The trade-offs, though, are real. Friends are a four-hour drive away, and she spends a lot of time shuttling between Forster and Sydney for work, which still requires her to be on location for half of her working days.
But for now, the benefits are outweighing the sacrifices.
"I just wish I could pick all my friends up and dump them here and then I would never leave."
