Wagga households have a long road to recovery ahead of them, as Australia braces itself for a technical recession amid gloomy GDP figures.
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Wagga superannuant Daphne Carswell saw her retirement savings take a substantial hammering in the early stages of lockdown, but says her superannuation has slowly begun to reverse its downward trajectory.
"It's improved a little, but not a lot. I can't say I'm doing a dance around the kitchen," Mrs Carswell said.
"That's how the world works: as soon as there's a problem everything descends very quickly, but when it comes to ascending it sure takes time."
However Mrs Carswell says she now sees "light at the end of the tunnel", especially as restrictions begin to lift and business reopen their doors.
In other news
Navigate financial planner Gavin Lamb said the prospect of a technical recession did not always reflect the reality for people's investments, with the stock market actually growing despite the glum GDP figures.
However Mr Lamb said the continued recovery depended entirely on whether or not there would be a second wave of infections worldwide, which would once again bring the Australian economy to a standstill.
"I'm cautiously optimistic that we may have seen the worst of the market activity, totally hinging on a global second wave," Mr Lamb said.
"The markets are a lot more optimistic about a recovery, and if you can expect if there's no second wave the markets will be proven correct and things will start to repair."
However Mr Lamb said it would be unwise to discount the possibility of a global second wave, especially given the state of places like America where the situation continues to be volatile.
Closer to home Mr Lamb said Wagga had barely experienced a first wave let alone a second wave, and that a technical recession was more of an indication of past performance than future.
"What does a technical recession mean for us? Not a great deal unless you're one of those really unlucky people that's been directly affected by a job loss or a significant impact on your business," Mr Lamb said.
"Markets generally overreact on good and overreact on bad, so they overshoot in both directions. The true answer is usually somewhere in between of those extremes of opinion."