The news you didn’t want to hear but were probably expecting anyway - the Reserve Bank Governor, Glenn Stevens, and the board raised the overnight cash rate target to 6.75%, up from 6.5%.

With Australia’s economy in its 16th year of expansion, a jobless rate which is the lowest in three decades and strong demand at a time when oil and other commodity prices are surging worldwide along with effects of Australia’s drought there possibly wasn’t much choice in efforts to keep a lid on inflation.

We are not alone - Australia is not the only country facing rising interest rates due to a growing economy, our friends in China are experiencing growing pains of its own.

China’s demand for our resources has played a large part in our growth as China goes through an industrial revolution although not without economic management and social concerns. In China the interest rate has been raised five times this year to 7.29% in an attempt to curb a hot economy with inflation running at 6.2%. As BBC reports Chinese inflation has been fueled by food prices, with the price of pork and other meats jumping 45% in the year to July.

India, the another fast growing economy, has had nine consecutive rate rise in a row and now at 7.50% which has been successful in driving inflation down from 6.4% in April to 3.1% in October.

Moral of the story? Australia is not alone in managing the pressures of a strong economy - although that probably doesn’t mean much when the bills come each month and for many it be a great time to redo or review the budget……