American living in Tasmania explains Aussie habits

A woman living in Tasmania has outlined some of the key differences she noticed between life in the US and Australia.

An American living in Tasmania has outlined some of the major differences between Australia and her home country.

Ashleigh Fay is a marine biologist who enjoys travelling around Australia and she regularly posts on social media about her experiences as a foreigner.

Her time in Australia has reinforced to her that there are things she thought were normal — but are in fact distinctive to Americans.

“Genuinely I don’t think that I’ll ever stop having random little culture shocks come up,” she said.

Ashleigh Fay lays out some big differences between the US and Australia. Picture: YouTube

Phone bills

First on her list of major differences are phone bills.

She said she was “blown away” by how much cheaper phone bills are in Australia and New Zealand when compared to the US.

“I swear it was definitely well over $US100 last time I lived in the US, just for enough data to get me by for the month. Literally just for one person,” she explained.

“Here in Tas I currently pay like $AU60 a month, and I have over 260g of data and I never use all of it.”

She said she was “shocked” because she expected phone bills to be more expensive in Tasmania because it’s a bit more “rural” and is an “island off an island”.

Wages

Ashleigh said she was reminded, very frequently, of the low wages paid in the US and the higher wages in Australia.

She said she was “grateful” to live in a country that pays workers more than $8 an hour.

“Especially casual rates here, being sometimes upwards of almost $AU30 an hour.

“Another pro of moving to Australia — overall higher wages.”

She is a marine biologist who enjoys travelling around Australia. Picture: YouTube

Ketchup

Ashleigh said people in Australia don’t understand that ketchup and tomato sauce are different.

“My family came over for Christmas last year, and you’d get ketchup with fries or whatever. But then you would taste the ketchup and it was tomato sauce. And they are different, I’ve been fighting people in the TikTok comments.

“Google even confirmed that it’s different, thank you Google, because ketchup has more sugar and it’s a little bit thicker.

“I much prefer ketchup, to the point where I was so upset … that I went to the store and I got a Heinz bottle of ketchup, so thank you Coles for supplying me with my needs.”

Parking brake

She said manual cars are more common in Australia than in the US.

“Even with automatic cars here in Australia, I see everyone using the parking brake.

“I was like, that is so interesting because growing up I was never taught to use the parking brake at all in an automatic car unless you’re parked on a hill of sorts.”

Ashleigh says there are many differences between the US and Australia that some people might not be aware of. Picture: YouTube

Bank transfers

She said she found the way that Aussies freely share their account details and BSB with others surprising.

“In the US I was taught to hold that dear to your heart, do not share that with anyone,” she said.

“But here (Australia) it’s just so casual, it’s just like oh yeah, here are my account details. “There’s literally a thing on my bank app here where it’s like, copy your details and send it to a friend.

“It’s just so chill. I’m more used to it now.”

She explained in the US people commonly use Venmo for bank transfers.

Takeaway breakfast

Ashleigh said takeaway breakfast is “not that much of a thing” in Australia, while it’s big in the US.

“In the US it is so normal to, when you go get your coffee, to get a takeaway breakfast sandwich, to get something on the go.

“Yes cafes here, some of them do have bacon and egg rolls, but that’s it.”

Receipts

The prices on receipts in Australia are often rounded up, while they’re not in the US, she explained.

She said in the US tax is added on top of everything, whereas in Australia the tax is included.

“Everything is rounded here, but in the US it’s like, yeah cool I’ll take your three pennies please. No rounding, I want my three pennies.”