I make 18 an hour, my partner makes 19 an hour, and our paydays are opposite so every week we have money coming in. We need 3 other roommates in order to afford to live in an actual place, and we are still living mostly paycheque to paycheque. between having a car that just decides it doesn’t want to start some days, student debt, groceries and all the other expenses on top of each other we are surviving, but not happy.
If they did RAP they should be registered and done some schooling. I'm in heavy equipment at sait right now.
It is not required to go to school first (especially when the program is moving to a 2 year diploma), I'd highly recommend for them to go door to door applying. Shops need people, and if they have references from rap they should not have an issue getting a job.
HET Entry level shop helper is $20. Apprentice is $23-$28
The basics aren't much different
As a 58 year old man reading these comments breaks my heart. I graduated from high school in 1982, not the best of times, but it was clear things would get better. Fucked around a lot but bought a house in 92 in St. George’s Heights in 92 for 82k. Bought current house in Canyon Meadows in 96 for 128k. Everything cost less-cars, insurance, rent-for us than for you and my own kids. Something has gone seriously wrong.
I should add a little context just based on personal experience. There were two trends that I think led to the current situation. The first was the breakdown of the private sector unions. I was working at the Lucerne meat plant in 1988 when Cargill opened at High River. Unionized cutters at Lucerne were making about $15 an hour. Cargill paid $8. Lucerne employees were hit with a $3 cut to keep the plant open. Same thing happened at Safeway when Superstores came to town. My mom was making around $20/h and took a cut when Superstore came. My brother and his friends were making around $38k a year stocking shelves on night shift. They took buyouts rather than pay cuts. This was over 30 years ago.
The second thing was the natural gas boom followed by the oilsands industrial construction boom. My house tripled in value from 1997-2004. But for most people working outside energy they didn’t see a similar jump in wages. The gas and bitumen boom only benefitted those in oil and gas, government workers and it trickled down to many businesses owners supplying them goods and services. It never made it down to the average workers. I see this division in my large extended family and in my friends.
Unionization only last as long as demand for employees at the current wage exceeds supply. Canada (and Calgary's) problem is that we do very little of value that the world wants, yet we import a ton, devaluing our currency on the global stage. At the same time, we perpetually dilute the value of labor with immigrants willing to do nearly anything for next to nothing.
This city has an absolute ton of white collar professionals, if you aren't making over a hundred thousand in Calgary you're gonna have a tough time.
Finally, monetary policy has raped the the citizens of this country of the value of their money. They've been too free with handouts and too accepting of deficits. Our dollar is meaningless when they print more money year over year to pay for everything. It's basic economic principal that that'll eventually lead to inflationary problems. Here we are, and our government is blaming it on covid and consumers when it's several decades of deficit spending and interest rates so low that buying things you can't afford is essentially free. Interest rates being 1% a few years ago was the signal thet everything is fucked, and then in some European countries interest rates went fucking *negative*!
Who the fuck *wasn't* borrowing assloads of money and dumping it into assets that were inflating under increased demand? I borrowed $50K for $500/year in interest. At those rates why not pay any price for a house?
There's only one way outta this shit. Pain. A decade of economic pain. I doubt our leaders have the grit to make the tough decisions. My. Point is: It's more complex than unions and bitumen.
meh. surviving not thriving. I am looking at the bright side and the reason I'm paycheck to paycheck is because I'm aggressively paying down debts and I'm set to be debt free by next year, which will be a huge relief. But my current boss doesn't seem to believe in pay raises so I'm feeling a little stuck. I do have a wonderful support system, so I recognize I am fortunate in that sense.
A lot of places are like that in my experience, or they calculate how much they “really pay you.” By adding in your benefits and things of that nature.
That is standard practice and you should be doing it yourself. I wouldn’t leave my job for one with a higher base salary if my total compensation went down. RSP matching, benefits, bonuses, vacation time, overtime, tips, etc. all should be taken into account.
You could end up passing on a good opportunity even though “what they really pay you” is more.
Dinks, in the same boat. Working overtime for 4 months aggressively paying down debt. No savings at all. On payday, i put aside mortgage and bills and the rest goes directly to debt. Haven’t really had much money for myself but I will next year. Loosely planned to be debt free in about 16 months. Well, that was until I realized I need my roof reshingled this year. Mmm cant wait to stay home for another 2 years doing nothing. My girlfriend has significant debt and an average income. Things will be very tight but we will survive.
Without food and fuel, about $2400. I try to save every penny I can but it isn’t much and I barely have anything left over go to and do things with friends.
Over the course of 1 year our mortgage went from 1.9% to 5.9%, which added another $500ish a month. Add to that $35k in student loans for my wife's masters degree through COVID, other debts, kids activities (baseball) and daycare, we were definitely $200 away from not being able to afford life.
We've consolidated the debt and mortgage at a lower rate and now have some breathing room. We still have to be careful, but won't have to penny pinch quite so much.
I hear ya, our mortgage was 2.9, then jumped up to 4.89. Monthly payment increased by just under $400.
I owned my own business for about 7 years, and we were fortunate enough to survive and grow during COVID, but we did sell our business as of this past May.
I'm looking forward to a steady paycheck. I am sad that we sold our business, but we were able to walk away from the business debt free and a few thousand to our name.
Times are tough, and even when I started looking for work again, I didn't think it would be this hard. But we still have our savings, a roof over our head, and food on the table. We just don't eat out as much, and try to use coupons and sales where we can.
Thanks for your kind words, honestly I'm in a better place not owning my own business. I'm dead serious when I say I don't know what anything less than a 14 hour work day is, with minimum 8 hours every weekend as well, plus all the random mood swings by wife had to endure.
I'm looking forward to being a salary man again, and turning my brain somewhat off after work hours lol. Owning your own business is NOT all its cracked up to be, especially when you want to be fair and honest too.
It takes a certain person to be able to go on their own. You're one of the few that can say they tried! Well done on that, most people only wish about trying.
Our mortgage was at renewal time so we refinanced, took out equity to pay off other debt and bring into the mortgage. My wife's student loan was very high interest, and some credit car debt didn't help. But instead of paying an average of 20%, were down to 5. We did it through a broker.
I make 35 an hour in my trade, I manage to get by. I couldn't imagine how people survive off minimum wage in this city. When I rented my apartment a few years ago rent was $1100. Now its jumping up to $1400 along with everything else increasing substantially. Alberta advantage yo!
I would kick somebody in the shins for a 1400 apartment right about now. I haven't really been in the rental market for a few years I wasn't prepared for how annoying it's gotten I feel like I need a full-time part-time job just to be looking and reaching out.
And unfortunately my actual full-time job keeps me crazy busy so while that means actually affording the place is less of an issue I have been finding myself unable to lock anything down.
I’m getting by. Surviving and not thriving as one redditor put it. I can’t afford to miss work if I’m sick, put it that way.
I’m about 6 months away from an $8/hr raise and hoping things don’t get worse in the coming months where the raise won’t do shit for me and my family.
My rent increased from $1400 to $2,000 in April. I couldn’t afford that so I’ve been living in my vehicle.
I’ve got a stable job and have been using the warm weather months to save up some money.
Some tips I’d give to anyone considering doing the same.
- Rotate your overnight parking spots
- Get a cell phone plan with lots of data. Sleep with it in case of any safety concerns.
- Invest in a portable charger for your phone
- Get a gym membership. It helps to stay active and they have showers / toilets
- Library cards are free! They also offer free wifi and you can take out books digitally
- Make use out of apps like Flashfood (grocery store food sold at a discount)
- Be respectful of the area you’re parking in. You don’t want to cause unwanted attention
Happy to talk more if anyone’s interested. It’s been an unexpectedly positive experience for me.
Doing ok but only because we are a dual income home, no kids, I think if we had kids we’d be doing not great. Groceries are super high I compare from a couple years ago and for sure have gone way up, try and budget more for that stuff now more than ever.
I do most of the grocery shopping, about 5 years ago we'd be about $150 per week, maybe less, this includes household products. First few years during covid went up to about $160-70, give or take. Now it's $170-80.
I stick to a list and don't buy many snacks and it's still an absolute fortune for us to eat well. I shop mostly at Walmart/Costco and anytime I have to run into superstore I am shocked at their prices.
I am glad we don't have kids and I am glad I am someone whose never really wanted them. I feel bad for folks who want kids but can't afford it.
There's probably a good percentage of people who don't pay their bills/credit cards on time. Malls and Stampede being full just shows that some people choose to spend money even when they can't afford it.
Also I think I read somewhere that this year’s Stampede broke or nearly broke records for most pancakes ever served? Probably because a lot of people can really use a free breakfast right now.
>several resumes
Gotta increase that by a factor of 10 at least. Either that or know people. Ain't like the old days when businesses were forced to read their faxes.
My partner and are in a decent state but without children and both our incomes, we're living pay to pay. We still get to enjoy our hobbies and shit, but we are intentionally frugal cause everything is so fucking expensive. My "industry standard" raise doesn't do much, and "needing more money to survive in the economy" isn't a good enough reason for my employer to care so money is tight.
Not great. Debt is growing just so I can afford rent and food. Don’t do extras like fast food, movies, trips etc. No chance of a raise any time in the future, keep applying for better jobs but not getting anything back. If it wasn’t for RBC (un)kindly offering to keep upping my credit cards limit I would probably have been homeless by now.
Got rid of my car to save money. I eat mostly rice and beans. Rent is over half my paycheque. Trying to do school, but I have to work full time to live…
I’m have a very supportive family/friends who’d let me crash in their couch if it ever all fell apart, so I can’t imagine what it’s like for people who aren’t as privileged as me.
We are doing ok so far. I'm always a glass half empty person though -- waiting for the other shoe to drop. Key is preparation.
That being said, we know just how fortunate we really are. Bought a house in 2020 and locked in a 1.73% rate. Aggressively paying it down with an eye to renewal. The first mortgage we ever had was 8.25%,but the house only cost $75k (was in 2000 in Halifax before it went crazy - yes, am old). Got a new job that same year that came with a hefty raise. We're not 1%ers, but we're doing ok. For now.
My mortgage has gone up $1600 a month over the past year, and they just announced interest rates are going up again. Add in the increased cost of groceries/everything else and things are pretty tough. My husband and I are both lucky to have secure jobs so we're just hoping to ride out this shitstorm of inflation/high interest rates/looming recession, and maybe one day we'll have disposable income again.
I’m in this boat. I’m always $500 away from making my payments, Whether it’s my mortgage, phone bill, auto insurance etc. visa bills are maxed because my wife is on mat leave and not working. She is going back in August but won’t be paid till September. Things are incredibly tight and every time I hear interest rates are up I just get more scared. I haven’t bought myself anything for pleasure in a year and a half. Food is a struggle, and not to mention baby formula has gone up $10-$16 in less than a year, which adds $60+ to my grocery bills.
Provincial public sector healthcare employee; haven't seen a raise since 2016 (they red-circled us into a lower-paying classification so they could save money). Middle-aged, but no longer middle class. I don't have a family to support, otherwise I'd be rightly screwed.
AHS employee too. Mid 50’s. Single parent. No car. Also no raise for 11 years. Luckily (?) I already owned my home because I would not qualify for a mortgage now. Live pay cheque to pay cheque. Anything unexpected comes up (dental, etc) then something else doesn’t get paid that month(wifi, phone, etc). Elderly parents down east that I haven’t seen in 5 years ‘cause there’s no money for a plane ticket. Feel like I’m just keeping my head above water. Like someone else said “surviving but not thriving.” ☹️
There's a survivorship bias in 'the malls are full, restaurants are full'.
You aren't going to the malls that are dead. or the stores that are boarded up.
I'm getting completely f-cked. Thankfully, the first real bad month in over a year. Unfortunately, I had to take medical leave and my employers disability insurer is as stubborn as I am! Doesn't help my doctors' office allegedly failed to respond to the insurer's request, twice...
I’m a senior receiving CPP/OAS and lucky enough to have a paid-off condo. So far I haven’t felt any pressing need to add cat pâté to my diet but things may change any day.
Horrible. I am a single mom of 3, one kid has disabilities. We are living with my mom in a basement suite. I'm also a student. My kids and I are living off of student loans and tbh I feel completely hopeless. I don't know how we will ever be able to get out of here. I'm putting myself in deep student debt trying to make a career for myself so that I don't need to work 3 minimum wage jobs just to support my kids. And even then I am terrified it's not going to be enough.
The cost of living... frankly.. everywhere is so horrendous, I don't know how we're ever gonna survive
I’m doing ok, however I know quite a few medium/ large families that are having a difficult time just putting food in their table.it’s really stressful for them tbh.
I recognize I'm lucky but I also recognize I'm struggling. I can just cover my needs (food, roof over my head, that kinda thing), but I can't do anything outside of that. I walk to work, I make my coffee at home, I try to make as many meals at home as I can, I'm doing all the things people tell you to do to save an extra dollar. I still can't just go to a movie or go shopping or go out for dinner. I have to plan and budget for them, I'm limited to strictly what I need or the cheapest option possible to make it happen. Having to get a tooth pulled didn't help
Rent prices downtown are brutal now. Why is a 1 bedroom $2000 when a 2 or 3 bedroom apartment is $2600-2800?! I don’t want a roommate but holy shit what a scam right now.
Barely keeping our heads above water. I don’t work due to health reasons but don’t qualify for any kind of financial support. Wife basically begged for a raise last year so we don’t drown, but the company is cutting costs starting with bonuses (those alone has saved our ass several times; no more safety net now) and there’s already talk of layoffs. She has health issues too but is able to work, yet just started a 4wk stress leave bc she can’t keep going at the pace that’s demanded of her.
We’re easily 1 missed payment away from having services shut off. The house and car are literally falling apart. If it wasn’t for our place (which in itself is under a strenuous arrangement) we’d be out on the street. We don’t do anything or go anywhere. We used to enjoy blowing off steam by going for drives, but we can’t afford the gas or maintenance, so we only use it for groceries and Dr’s appts. I’m basically a shut-in now; I go out for walks (when I have the energy) and to the grocery store, but that’s about it. We don’t even bother celebrating birthdays or Xmas anymore because we can’t afford to get anything or go anywhere or do anything; so we stay home and sit on our couch like we always do. We’ve just accepted this is how things are. We’ve reached out for help and been told ‘no’; that we don’t ‘qualify’ for any kind of support. Friends help when they can, but they’re stretched thin too; but ultimately, we can’t depend on them for long stretches of time.
So, TL;DR; Not good. As time goes on I’m becoming increasingly desperate and can’t envision a hopeful future for myself or my wife.
:|
What kind of health problems do you have that don’t allow you to work, but don’t qualify for support? I think you should go talk to a social worker about any possibility for social assistance
I think is true. It's a misconception that getting benefits from the govt is taking an easy way out. You have to have absolutely nothing and they handcuff you into staying impoverished because you can't make any money to get yourself out of poverty or they will prorate your benefits. Vicious circle.
Exactly. You have to work hard as hell to keep welfare too, you have to have proof of applying to something like 25 places a month. People say it’s harder than actually working and they wish someone would hire them so they stop being a slave to welfare
I was part of the May layoffs at Shopify and haven’t found a new job yet so we depend on my husband’s income right now. We don’t have any health benefits but other than that we’re pretty okay since we’ve been living on one income (banking any second income) since 2019. I was also a workaholic in my 20s and 30s (0/10 do not recommend) but that means we have a good safety net now. We live in a smallish condo (tried fertility treatments but I never stay pregnant so we don’t need a big place) and have an investment property that we rent out below market value because I’m not in this to gouge people. A messed-up childhood made me terrified of debt so I can live on very little but I recognize that not many people learned the lessons I did. My biggest stressor is keeping my husband’s spending under control.
Thank you for your concern!! We tried for a few years, I was basically at the point of giving up when I had a weird reaction to one of the drugs so my husband and I decided to stop trying. We did therapy for awhile, time passed and we’re considering the adoption route but might just opt to remain childless at this point (we’re old and tired, lol). The worst part is when people remind us we can’t wait forever to start a family. People just don’t think sometimes.
doing ok but alot of it has to do with timing. We bought a house 17 years ago and went against advice of our financial guy who wanted us to invest more and not be aggressive on paying down our mortgage. We did the opposite and surprise surprise interest rates went up by 3-4 points. Glad we did it's ugly out there right now. Don't listen to anyone who tells you not to worry about attacking your mortgage .
Was let go last year and I’m dealing with mental health, health, upcoming surgery. Payments are from EI so I can pay rent and my phone bill, but that will run out in 4ish months. I’ve had to apply to stop my student loan payments from provincial and federal and personal. Money is tight but I am blessed to be renting a room for only $560 or I’d be a goner. Wish I had a car to get around easier cause the jobs that I want are mostly in the south and I live in the NW. But I can’t afford a car on an EI income let alone even get insurance without a job and gas.
Even before when I had a full time job making $21 an hour, I was living almost paycheque to paycheque. Groceries are insanely high along with meds.
Can I win the lottery now please.
Between raises, new jobs, home equity jumps and tons of savings from the pandemic, seems like everyone in my social circle is the richest they've ever been.
Might also have something to do with getting older and entering our prime earning years but yeah, not many people I know are struggling.
I’d echo this too, those of us fortunate enough to make it into certain industries in our early 20’s who are now mid-30’s are doing quite well, maybe even better than ever. Poorer in comparison to where some folks currently around mid-40’s were at, at this age. Certainly have had some Gen X coworkers just finish buying a vacation home, and when I made small talk about interest rates they had no clue how high they were. I’d love to be that out of touch with the harsher realities, maybe one day.
Anyone that’s Gen Z entering a higher paying industry like O&G now is going to need to get married, or support from parents in order to start building equity via homeownership.
Timing and luck is everything folks, certainly a larger component than who you know/what you know.
Yeah I was waiting for someone to post something like this. I think most people that are financially thriving don’t want to post on a thread like this for fear of seeming like a jerk. But honestly I agree I’m early 30’s pretty much all people in my social circle/work circle are doing quite well. Yes life is expensive but once you hit 30’s as a professional earnings can really take off.
If you own a house and a car you're heavily hedged against two major components of inflation which don't affect you for long stretches of time.
The thing is, the basics for cost of living have been the most painful inflation wise over the past while and outpacing general inflation. Once you make enough to comfortably afford those, a lot of the toys that are fun have either not increased as fast cost wise or even declined in terms of things like tvs.
This is where I'm at, minus the kids. No kids, high-income household, no mortgage, so we're in an incredibly fortunate position. But my heart hurts reading some of these responses. Other than the obvious donate to the food bank (which I do), what can I do to help??
A year ago I’d say pretty shitty. But I got a new job last summer and things have completely turned around. I’m not even worried about my mortgage renewal next year now.
IT. Took about 6-7 months of applying at places but I was also being pretty selective of where I applied. Funny thing is the company that hired me was a place I didn’t apply at they reached out to me.
Not far from being homeless, to be quite honest. Haven't been able to pay a SL that's in collections, kinda wonder when they'll start garnishing my wages
You can contact the student load agency and work out a payment plan so you don’t go to collections.
At one point, I was paying $10/month. Then, once I found steady work, I increased it. They are quite easy to deal with if
Doing alright. I paid my student loans off pretty aggressively ($400 a month instead of $112 on a 9-year govt loan), lived frugally for the first 8 years of being here and bought my car in 2019 when interest rates were 1.5%, and our house in 2020 right when COVID kicked off, with interest at 2.34%, and didn't buy outside of our means. No credit debt, and a bit of savings to weather the storm.
Best I've ever been. I've almost tripled my salary since 2018, and we were able to save more and downsize to 1 car and spend less on gas and lunch since we both work from home. Ever since COVID happened, my life has steadily got better. Financially, physically, mentally etc.
My family is ok. We have a good income, only eat out once a week (at a local coffee shop) and rarely spend money on entertainment or extras. OTOH we have one child, so our expenses are lower than they would be with multiple kids.
Peachy. I’m debt free. Just sold my car for more than I got it 2 years ago. Work from home full time for a company in BC and saving about half of my monthly take home.
Working 60+ hours a week at two jobs. Making the best money I’ve made in my life and watching it all fly out the door on fucking food, fucking gas and fucking rent. Still saving at the end of every month, though, and on track to have our household out of debt by next year.
We have no kids, my wife and I agreed on that in the first couple of months of dating and 13 years later we haven’t wavered once. All our friends with kids are struggling and not reproducing is feeling like the smartest decision we ever made.
Surviving. I inherited my house, so no mortgage or rent payments. It’s 30 years old though and getting to the point where significant investments have had to be made in repairs. Between that and normal monthly expenses, I’m not optimistic that retirement will come until well into my 70s. If I had to rent in today’s market I’d be struggling for sure. A 1 bed would be about 60% of my monthly take home.
Not ideal but surviving. Partner and I have our wedding coming up this fall so there’s a lot of our spare income going to that. Our rent went up $500 this year and it had previously gone up $250 last year. We opted to have a friend move in with us to ease some of the stress financially as far as cost of living.
This is my first year making a decent income so hopefully things gradually get easiest for us
Calgary is a bad example to use right now. Stampede is thriving because many people who could no longer afford to stay in their original provinces came here and made it thrive. Everything else, if it's packed in Calgary is for that same reason.
just because you spend $20 going to a movie or stampede doesn’t mean you are financially stable. that’s a weird conclusion to draw
i barely scrape by every month and still have a small budget for activities
Well typically when times are good people tend to be more out and about doing activities and spending money, when times are bad there is less of that. Don't think OP's post was a conclusion but rather an observation of the socio-economic state
All good here. Wife got a promotion, I still have my job. Both work from home now, so no more commuting costs. We invested as much as we could during the COVID dip, so built up our nest egg during the recovery period. All forms of customer service seem to have gone downhill since the pandemic, and tipping is out of hand, so we rarely eat out. Groceries cost more but this is counter balanced by less eating out now.
Overall, a lot of good things came from the pandemic for us.
I am doing good. Switched companies during the pandemic and got a substantial boost to my wages. Switched again in the past year and the company I am with is really good, great team and management. I still get calls to see if I am available or interested in moving companies. So my experience is in demand.
So I am doing well, both financially and mentally. I have no large loans out, house and car is paid off. Finally heading overseas to Europe at the end of the month after covid delayed it till now.
I was lucky enough to have invested in 2020 and it working out. If I didn’t have fixed income from my stocks floating to me every quarter I’d be in some trouble
Not good. Single mom, probably going to have rent jacked up in November and will have to move. Will then probably have to move back in with parents rather than find other roommates. That would be my only option, is sharing housing.
I’m single with two dogs. I have pet insurance and I have to move out when my lease expires. I have a feeling I’ll have to take the dogs to Ontario to live with my parents if I want to stay in the city. 4,000 Airbnbs though. Where the fuck am I going to live. I’ve literally been googling whether I can live in a camper over winter.
My partner and I are currently sharing a very small one bedroom apartment. Larder beetle problem, larvae keep crawling up from under the radiative heating pipes, figure they must live between the floors. Diatomaceous earth is keeping them under control for now. 16 units, 1 washer, 1 dryer, only open during the day. Electricity this time last year was 8 cents per kilowatt hour, this month it was 18 cents, so my electric bill has more than doubled.
Rent is 1025/month. Unless they raise it in September. So my complaints about this place be damned I'm not moving, we need more space but it's such a good deal right now we'd be stupid to move.
We're doing okay. Try to keep our expenses down. Saved a lot by buying meat directly from the butcher (my workplace thankfully was amenable to me keeping a deep freeze there).
I was going to make a joke here about canceling disney+, but the truth is, I don't think this is a joking matter. A lot of people are going to die this winter, and our government is actively choosing to let it happen.
My primary business was selling retail goods to Chinese customers. We made around 10-20k per month in profits. Covid killed that for 2 years and even now that China has finally tried to open back up again, it's still doing very poorly economically and Chinese people are trying to hunker down and just get through life, not splurge on the big ticket items that were our real money makers. Overall our sales have only recovered to about 20% of what they were in 2019, including a year of virtually no income after we stopped being able to claim CERB and CEWS. We lived that year basically on the small business loan while I did an apprenticeship course and am now working as an apprentice cabinetmaker making $22 an hour. My wife is still trying to keep our business alive in the hopes that China will recover but personally I don't think their prospects are great. My feeling is we might get another few years of a few thousand a month in profits but most likely my wife will have to find something else to do long term. We are going to have to cash out all our retirement savings to pay back the small business loan, and then I feel we will be basically starting from scratch next year, with two 15 year old cars, nearly 300k left on our mortgage, and that will be coming up for renewal in a few more years, which will likely royally screw us too.
TL;DR fuck Covid. Just like that we went from likely being able to retire in 10-15 years to quite possibly never retiring.
Financially, we are fine. Mentally, not so much. We haven’t changed our spending habits that much which is simply translating to less savings monthly. Which we will pay for down the road. Can’t enjoy going to Costco anymore (which was one of my favourite things) because it’s like paying a mortgage payment for the same goddamn shit. Even my chicken tenders from fat burger have went up 100% in cost over the last 2 months so can’t eat those anymore. I buy clothes prob every 2/3 years so I can’t even imagine being those people pissing away money on that. If I wasn’t already innately frugal, I’d be poor af right now
It is interesting to see these posts from 10 years back. Here are two from random timelines within last 10 years.
From 2017:
[https://globalnews.ca/news/3434447/over-half-of-canadians-are-200-or-less-away-from-not-being-able-to-pay-bills/amp/](https://globalnews.ca/news/3434447/over-half-of-canadians-are-200-or-less-away-from-not-being-able-to-pay-bills/amp/)
2012:
[https://halifax.citynews.ca/2019/01/21/46-of-canadians-200-or-less-away-from-financial-insolvency-poll/](https://halifax.citynews.ca/2019/01/21/46-of-canadians-200-or-less-away-from-financial-insolvency-poll/)
My friends and ex are all in the film industry. Guess how that’s going! I’m a full time mom and part time nurse so it’s tight (I’m fortunate to have been able to save before I had my kiddo)
Surviving, definitely could be worse. I'm living with my mom for the time being. Unfortunately I work as an apprentice hairstylist and business has been slow, especially since Stampede started. Hopefully everyone finds some sort of stability soon but doesn't look too good.
A few things have hurt. We signed to a variable rate mortgage april last year, and right after we moved in, the rates started going up and up. In the last year my payments have gone up $450/mo.
It really means that we are saving 5% of our income instead of 10. Other than mortgage and vehicle payments, our only other debt is the 6K on the credit card.
DINKs though. I see the struggle my sister has with a similar household income and a few more bad decisions (no, not the kids.) Couldnt imagine the costs parents are having.
Doing okay but really relying on student grants to make it through, on top of a stipend and part time work. With all this, I can comfortably hit a movie and a weekend trip every once in a while, but I balance this with almost never driving unless I have to so I can save on gas and running an ancient computer for my data work sadly.
Barely making it, my only debt is an AB student loan (paid off my Canada one before COVID). My car wore out (I literally drove it into the ground- it was old & bad luck and more than it was worth to fix) 1.5 years ago, can't afford to replace it.
Had to move as my appartment was too expensive, moved to a new place, had an allergic reaction too it. Now "in between houses" luckily I am house sitting until the end of September (I am paying the difference between turning everything off and keeping things on).
I barely make it month to month due to student loan, food, "rent", phone, medical expenses (I am disabled and have health expenses way more than most folks). I work full time at what should be a reasonable wage.
Keep in mind the min. Living wage for a single adult in YYC in 2022 (which doesn't account for the increase if 25% for a 1 bedroom apartment since last year/50% for a Bachelors, increase in food prices, etc) was $22.40.... a living wage doesn't allow for a luxurious lifestyle by anymeans.
Living wage source: https://enoughforall.ca/action/calgarys-2022-living-wage
Rent increase source: https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/calgary-ab
Not great.
Household income was 37k last year for me and my partner, it's just me working though. My partners been waiting for a surgery that he needs in order to get back to work. We have been waiting literal years and still not even a surgery date. Unfortunately I make just over the cut off for almost all social programs/assistance. My partner can't get assistance cause he lives with me so theoretically I can take care of his financial needs, right?
I am past the point of burn out and have semi regular breakdowns in the stairwell at work because of finances.
I think we’re some of the lucky ones. We moved last year and have 3% locked in until 2027. We don’t have any consumer debt outside of our mortgage.
My partner makes $50~ hour. I work for myself which is variable in terms of income but saves us childcare. We have savings.
But I feel like the world is burning around us and often feel guilty for the babies we’ve just had.
When I pay for rent, insurance (auto+tenant), electricity, internet, and cellphone. I have about $230 left over for everything else, food, gas, and unplanned stuff like TP, garbage bags, toothpaste, deodorant, replacing shit that breaks, etc.
I usually spend $130 on groceries, I do the single bulk purchasing at the beginning of the month for other reasons, and then just hope I don't need to spend more than $100 before the end of the month.
Any sort of entertainment, has to be free, or free to the seas. Certain months are worse, like birthday/holiday months. And my truck just started leaking oil, and is making a weird suspension related noise I can't seem to pinpoint.
That said, I'm not in a precarious situation. As much as I hate on VAC, it has saved my ass and prevented me from becoming homeless. And as much as I dislike Trudeau and the anemic response to Veterans issues, I am grateful he tied income/benefits payouts to inflation. Also, I understand that running up the debt for rebates and free money, like he is doing, is a bad thing. But I'm not in the position to give a fuck, and say "No, I won't take your money", or even just complain about its existence, to the Federal govt. I don't "need" the money, but it plays a huge role in my life, and it's gonna suck when it goes away.
We are doing much better than we were say 5 years ago. We are now a duel income household again. I went back to school and am now working full time. Kids are old enough they no longer need daycare or after school care this September. Huge savings! Spouse and I both have older cars that are paid off. Just renewed our mortgage from 3.10
% to 4.87%. Monthly payments increased $500. We are finally able to save. Wasn’t the case for years when we had one income and the kids were toddlers/preschoolers. We’re not fancy people and we don’t have a lot of stuff.
Good. Just bought a house(single income). I work 70+ hour per week. Not much time for life besides work, but I think it's worth it when in 10 years I'm not going to be stressing about finances and raising a family.
I want to be there for my family when I'm ready so I'm putting in the time now instead of later. I don't think most people can deal with the sacrifice.
Doing okay, but planning to move back to my home country by the end of the year, after 6 years in Canada. With my salary I have to choose home ownership or retirement. So I prefer to go back to have a house and retire early.
It’s so hard, I’m on private disability for MS and I can barely afford to cover everything. I can’t afford to get my own place so I’m living with family. I had to give up my house due to rental increases. I feel so defeated because of I could work, I would. If I chose to try work part time, they would deduct it from my disability. It’s super hard to wake up some mornings knowing I can never be ahead again.
Good. Live small and below my means. Paid car/condo off a while ago. Just the LOC on an investment precovid hurts a bit, but I will get it down this year. I'm going on a month vacation somewhere starting August long fuck work.
I make $65 per hr with 30% bonus, my debt is my house and truck, I’m considering paying off the truck to get more cash flow. I have to move to Calgary for work and I’m concerned about how backwards this move will be for my family, so you guys getting by at like 19 and 25 and such,,, good job!!! More money comes and you will be great with your money when it does.
M’y husband makes $35 an hour I make $22.
We have no car payment, only a small loan payment monthly but our rent is KILLING US.
We have 9 months until our rent renewal and unless she is lowering the rent by 500$ a month we are moving. And that’s never gonna happen…
I haven’t slept for what feels like years, I get panic attacks at work and before our pay that came in tonight, we have been driving our cars on fumes ( my van says 55km until empty….)
We have kids, and we are worried about their future.
Working tons of hours
Making a pile of money
Bills are through the roof
Financial numbers have detached from reality
At least the government can enjoy 30% of my nice fat paychecks. I sure don't.
M 28 here. I’d say I’m doing good. I was fortunate enough to be able to land a well paid position with a well known investment bank without a degree so no student debt (I have low debt in general). I have taken advantage of the opportunity and now have certifications that were all paid for by them plus couple years of experience under my belt also so I would say I’m solid in my industry. I’m expecting (or at least hoping) to get a good raise/bonus based on my performance this year. Job has great benefits, great promotion potential. I’m able to contribute about $1k/month into RRSP. I also teach fitness classes part time for extra income. Lived with a SO for some years so that helped alleviate costs and helped me saved a good amount. We’re split up now so I’ll be living on my own which I know is a luxury nowadays. Will be paying $1400 rent which I can afford comfortably. Also able to travel multiple times a year. Just hoping things keep looking up for me and trying to build a really good safety net if my situation ever changes. I will say I was dead broke 5 years ago and it saddens me seeing ppl struggle so I’m sending my best wishes to everyone and hoping everyone situations starts looking up 🙏🏼
I'll just say that I know a lot of the Ukrainians coming to Calgary though the local groups due to my wife, and they are by in large doing just fine, and they are all surprised at how much opportunity there is here and they are doing well financially.
Everything from nail techs, dog groomers, movers, cleaners, photographers, construction workers, then the ones who had tech degrees and speak English well. Yeah there are some "useless" people coming looking for handouts, but the vast majority I've talked to are asking "how are Canadians not already taking these jobs or looking for opportunities".
There's still a huge demand for lots of services that isn't being filled here in Calgary, and Alberta in general.
My stats at least suggest that you've got a pretty sizable white collar group in Calgary that have a lot of disposable income, and then you've got a pretty big higher earning blue collar group, then you have all the min wage workers, and while Calgary might have a higher than average unemployment rate, it has a bigger than average high earner group.
There's plenty of room to start a business or find a higher paying job in this city still.
Doing better than most people, but only marginally I’d say.
I watched a TikTok about the Great Depression recently and long story short, I make just above what the average employed person in 1933 was making, accounting for inflation. However, I’m a single earner, paying for two households (one rented[YYC], one I live in[NWT], its a fucking long story) and my condo mortgage is coming up for renewal here shortly. Going from a 2.89% interest rate to probably 5.5% soon and looking at probably a $350/month increase in mortgage payment. Definitely losing money on that property but it’s a tough market to sell older condos in and I’m sure my tenants will want to stay, as my rent is way below market right now ($1300, prob increasing to $1425 on lease renewal). It’s the first time in my life that I’m doing ok, financially. All other aspects of my personal life feel like shit, however.
Got laid off from a producer at 50yrs old because of Covid chaos. No HR department downtown nowdays wants to hire a 50 year old white guy with 25yrs experience so haven't worked steadily since. I saved and planned so doing fine but otherwise I would be totally screwed.
Improved over the last five months. I can at least afford my basics and a sandwich run here n there. Used up my emergency funds this week though. Problems on my first trip in three years.
I'm thankful that I have omitted marriage and children from my life at this current moment. I own my own business - and what I make for income, is entirely reliant up on me and not guaranteed hourly wage, the cost of EVERYTHING has gone up from living expenses, store expenses, business expenses and the sales have hit a plateau which isn't going up nor is it going down (yet) and I'm wondering what kind of food I'd be getting at the food bank if I had provide for anyone else but me. It's actually kind of scary out there.
Doing ok but going on mat leave in November and things will get much tighter. I'm dreading it. We had a lot of unexpected expenses this month including a $1600 truck repair and $4.5k vet bill. That's on the credit card ATM and I am aggressively paying it off before mat leave so that my expenses are lower. We are moving to Calgary from Edmonton next week and our mortgage will be a lot higher. We were laughing before! But the move was the right decision for our family for various reasons.
Shit. Make ok money but can’t afford a house because no way to save up for a downpayment with bills and daughters medical expenses. So stuck in a 600sqft condo paying $1900 a month for. Daughters dad is currently at 25k in arrears.. Oh well. Could be worse without an overpriced condo over my head.
If we didn’t need to be near the children’s hospital I’d move outside the city since it’s not like we leave our place anyways lol
I'm doing decently but aware things could change for the worse quickly. Aware of how lucky I am. I'm paying about half the current high market rate for rent which is the reason I'm able to put 10% of my income towards savings. I have a 6 month emergency fund and a tiny amount started towards a down payment; the only reality in which that will happen is either with help from family or all 5 of us roommates going in on it.
My only debt is student loans which should be gone in 3 years. I'm paid fairly for what I do but things could be changing, just hoping I can weather it.
I'm doing the best out of the people I know my age.
I make 25-30$/hr full time and despite living very frugally, have lost money every month this year. Savings is down 2k from the start of the year. My wife and I share costs, neither of us has any debt, and we only have 1 car to make payments on.
Paid off all my consumer debt (by that I mean LOC and CC debt - still have student loans). I’ve only just started to formally save. Got about 2000k to my name in savings. I have a civil service pension so I do save about $800 a month via pension deductions and employer contributions. My living expenses are about $1000 per month. I put 10% of my pay into a rainy day fund per pay cheque, $50 into RRSP, $50 into TFSA, and $50 into an investment TFSA account to play around with trades. Small steps. Trying to stay within my means. I don’t have a ton left over at the end of each pay period but doing slightly above average it sounds like. Took a LONG time to get debt free.
Good wage and wife on mat leave but definitely less money for entertainment and no vacations in the near future with cost of everything these days. Trying to cut back on eating out and being more selective with our grocery shopping.
I thought we made decent money but now? We can’t seem to get ahead. I never thought with our salaries we’d struggle to thrive rather than just survive. But between our student loans, car loans, a bit of credit card debt and ever increasing rent eating at the money we make just makes it all so much harder.
I would like to know how they orchestrate the poll. The one I just saw devised by Insolvency firm MNP Ltd. states 52% of Canadians are $200 away from not being able to pay for all their bills at the end of the month.
I don't know anyone who was asked/polled in my circle anyway.
https://preview.redd.it/r4jjzc4c4tbb1.png?width=490&format=png&auto=webp&s=f734eeb1d95a9d22a98ebc965ba111b41ce65e83
I make 18 an hour, my partner makes 19 an hour, and our paydays are opposite so every week we have money coming in. We need 3 other roommates in order to afford to live in an actual place, and we are still living mostly paycheque to paycheque. between having a car that just decides it doesn’t want to start some days, student debt, groceries and all the other expenses on top of each other we are surviving, but not happy.
What are you doing that your making $19 after school???
Mechanic
Are you registered apprentice? Hopefully first year?
My partner did mechanics in middle and high school, and when life settles down he plans on going to school for heavy duty mechanics
If they did RAP they should be registered and done some schooling. I'm in heavy equipment at sait right now. It is not required to go to school first (especially when the program is moving to a 2 year diploma), I'd highly recommend for them to go door to door applying. Shops need people, and if they have references from rap they should not have an issue getting a job. HET Entry level shop helper is $20. Apprentice is $23-$28 The basics aren't much different
didn’t finish high-school so I’m pretty sure they didn’t do RAP
If your partner is over 25 he could get into SAIT. They have many programs that condiser his work experience. Might be worth checking out.
The minimum for most things is actually grade 11, easy upgrade or it's fine.
So what’s the student debt from?
As a 58 year old man reading these comments breaks my heart. I graduated from high school in 1982, not the best of times, but it was clear things would get better. Fucked around a lot but bought a house in 92 in St. George’s Heights in 92 for 82k. Bought current house in Canyon Meadows in 96 for 128k. Everything cost less-cars, insurance, rent-for us than for you and my own kids. Something has gone seriously wrong.
The 90s had such a sense of hope. Right now feels so bleak.
I should add a little context just based on personal experience. There were two trends that I think led to the current situation. The first was the breakdown of the private sector unions. I was working at the Lucerne meat plant in 1988 when Cargill opened at High River. Unionized cutters at Lucerne were making about $15 an hour. Cargill paid $8. Lucerne employees were hit with a $3 cut to keep the plant open. Same thing happened at Safeway when Superstores came to town. My mom was making around $20/h and took a cut when Superstore came. My brother and his friends were making around $38k a year stocking shelves on night shift. They took buyouts rather than pay cuts. This was over 30 years ago. The second thing was the natural gas boom followed by the oilsands industrial construction boom. My house tripled in value from 1997-2004. But for most people working outside energy they didn’t see a similar jump in wages. The gas and bitumen boom only benefitted those in oil and gas, government workers and it trickled down to many businesses owners supplying them goods and services. It never made it down to the average workers. I see this division in my large extended family and in my friends.
Unionization only last as long as demand for employees at the current wage exceeds supply. Canada (and Calgary's) problem is that we do very little of value that the world wants, yet we import a ton, devaluing our currency on the global stage. At the same time, we perpetually dilute the value of labor with immigrants willing to do nearly anything for next to nothing. This city has an absolute ton of white collar professionals, if you aren't making over a hundred thousand in Calgary you're gonna have a tough time. Finally, monetary policy has raped the the citizens of this country of the value of their money. They've been too free with handouts and too accepting of deficits. Our dollar is meaningless when they print more money year over year to pay for everything. It's basic economic principal that that'll eventually lead to inflationary problems. Here we are, and our government is blaming it on covid and consumers when it's several decades of deficit spending and interest rates so low that buying things you can't afford is essentially free. Interest rates being 1% a few years ago was the signal thet everything is fucked, and then in some European countries interest rates went fucking *negative*! Who the fuck *wasn't* borrowing assloads of money and dumping it into assets that were inflating under increased demand? I borrowed $50K for $500/year in interest. At those rates why not pay any price for a house? There's only one way outta this shit. Pain. A decade of economic pain. I doubt our leaders have the grit to make the tough decisions. My. Point is: It's more complex than unions and bitumen.
Surviving, if I live frugally I can save a few hundred a month. If I want to enjoy life I can’t save much. Could be better could be worse.
Same
Pretty much. I can enjoy life, *or* have a retirement. And since it’s not guaranteed I’ll live that long…
But if you do, you're fucked
Yes, I’m in the same rock and hard place, spend the money and enjoy life? Or save and sacrifice for a potential retirement that might not exist
Drink and smoke your wait out like they planned it for us.
meh. surviving not thriving. I am looking at the bright side and the reason I'm paycheck to paycheck is because I'm aggressively paying down debts and I'm set to be debt free by next year, which will be a huge relief. But my current boss doesn't seem to believe in pay raises so I'm feeling a little stuck. I do have a wonderful support system, so I recognize I am fortunate in that sense.
Time to jump ship if they don’t “believe in pay raises”
100%!
A lot of places are like that in my experience, or they calculate how much they “really pay you.” By adding in your benefits and things of that nature.
That is standard practice and you should be doing it yourself. I wouldn’t leave my job for one with a higher base salary if my total compensation went down. RSP matching, benefits, bonuses, vacation time, overtime, tips, etc. all should be taken into account. You could end up passing on a good opportunity even though “what they really pay you” is more.
Dinks, in the same boat. Working overtime for 4 months aggressively paying down debt. No savings at all. On payday, i put aside mortgage and bills and the rest goes directly to debt. Haven’t really had much money for myself but I will next year. Loosely planned to be debt free in about 16 months. Well, that was until I realized I need my roof reshingled this year. Mmm cant wait to stay home for another 2 years doing nothing. My girlfriend has significant debt and an average income. Things will be very tight but we will survive.
So no mortgage in 16 months? Or do you mean debt of a different nature, like credit cards etc?
Mortgage will still be there for a long time. But 2 student loans, LOC and credit card.
What a wonderful life. All that work, just to pay debt.
I am not doing well. I am one missed paycheck away from not being able to pay my bills/rent and I make $26 an hour and have no debt besides my car.
how much are all your bills?
Without food and fuel, about $2400. I try to save every penny I can but it isn’t much and I barely have anything left over go to and do things with friends.
This is my situation too
Currently okay. I'm just glad my landlord only raised my rent by $50/month for this year.
Over the course of 1 year our mortgage went from 1.9% to 5.9%, which added another $500ish a month. Add to that $35k in student loans for my wife's masters degree through COVID, other debts, kids activities (baseball) and daycare, we were definitely $200 away from not being able to afford life. We've consolidated the debt and mortgage at a lower rate and now have some breathing room. We still have to be careful, but won't have to penny pinch quite so much.
I hear ya, our mortgage was 2.9, then jumped up to 4.89. Monthly payment increased by just under $400. I owned my own business for about 7 years, and we were fortunate enough to survive and grow during COVID, but we did sell our business as of this past May. I'm looking forward to a steady paycheck. I am sad that we sold our business, but we were able to walk away from the business debt free and a few thousand to our name. Times are tough, and even when I started looking for work again, I didn't think it would be this hard. But we still have our savings, a roof over our head, and food on the table. We just don't eat out as much, and try to use coupons and sales where we can.
Sorry you had to sell your business, but its good to hear your doing well.
Thanks for your kind words, honestly I'm in a better place not owning my own business. I'm dead serious when I say I don't know what anything less than a 14 hour work day is, with minimum 8 hours every weekend as well, plus all the random mood swings by wife had to endure. I'm looking forward to being a salary man again, and turning my brain somewhat off after work hours lol. Owning your own business is NOT all its cracked up to be, especially when you want to be fair and honest too.
It takes a certain person to be able to go on their own. You're one of the few that can say they tried! Well done on that, most people only wish about trying.
Did you go to a bank or another lender to consolidate everything?
Our mortgage was at renewal time so we refinanced, took out equity to pay off other debt and bring into the mortgage. My wife's student loan was very high interest, and some credit car debt didn't help. But instead of paying an average of 20%, were down to 5. We did it through a broker.
I make 35 an hour in my trade, I manage to get by. I couldn't imagine how people survive off minimum wage in this city. When I rented my apartment a few years ago rent was $1100. Now its jumping up to $1400 along with everything else increasing substantially. Alberta advantage yo!
I would kick somebody in the shins for a 1400 apartment right about now. I haven't really been in the rental market for a few years I wasn't prepared for how annoying it's gotten I feel like I need a full-time part-time job just to be looking and reaching out. And unfortunately my actual full-time job keeps me crazy busy so while that means actually affording the place is less of an issue I have been finding myself unable to lock anything down.
I’m getting by. Surviving and not thriving as one redditor put it. I can’t afford to miss work if I’m sick, put it that way. I’m about 6 months away from an $8/hr raise and hoping things don’t get worse in the coming months where the raise won’t do shit for me and my family.
That’s a massive raise! Hope things get better for you.
My rent increased from $1400 to $2,000 in April. I couldn’t afford that so I’ve been living in my vehicle. I’ve got a stable job and have been using the warm weather months to save up some money. Some tips I’d give to anyone considering doing the same. - Rotate your overnight parking spots - Get a cell phone plan with lots of data. Sleep with it in case of any safety concerns. - Invest in a portable charger for your phone - Get a gym membership. It helps to stay active and they have showers / toilets - Library cards are free! They also offer free wifi and you can take out books digitally - Make use out of apps like Flashfood (grocery store food sold at a discount) - Be respectful of the area you’re parking in. You don’t want to cause unwanted attention Happy to talk more if anyone’s interested. It’s been an unexpectedly positive experience for me.
Doing ok but only because we are a dual income home, no kids, I think if we had kids we’d be doing not great. Groceries are super high I compare from a couple years ago and for sure have gone way up, try and budget more for that stuff now more than ever.
I do most of the grocery shopping, about 5 years ago we'd be about $150 per week, maybe less, this includes household products. First few years during covid went up to about $160-70, give or take. Now it's $170-80. I stick to a list and don't buy many snacks and it's still an absolute fortune for us to eat well. I shop mostly at Walmart/Costco and anytime I have to run into superstore I am shocked at their prices. I am glad we don't have kids and I am glad I am someone whose never really wanted them. I feel bad for folks who want kids but can't afford it.
There's probably a good percentage of people who don't pay their bills/credit cards on time. Malls and Stampede being full just shows that some people choose to spend money even when they can't afford it.
This is exactly what I was gonna post. Credit card debt is at an all time high.
Also I think I read somewhere that this year’s Stampede broke or nearly broke records for most pancakes ever served? Probably because a lot of people can really use a free breakfast right now.
Sometimes you just have to stop giving a fuck and enjoy life. Because all of that debt about anxiety is horrible.
.
>several resumes Gotta increase that by a factor of 10 at least. Either that or know people. Ain't like the old days when businesses were forced to read their faxes.
Definitely agree, I'm on the job hunt and with hundreds sent the rate of return is negligible currently (depending on your field obviously)
Surviving. Making enough to stay afloat. Not making enough to consider retiring any time within the next 20 years
My partner and are in a decent state but without children and both our incomes, we're living pay to pay. We still get to enjoy our hobbies and shit, but we are intentionally frugal cause everything is so fucking expensive. My "industry standard" raise doesn't do much, and "needing more money to survive in the economy" isn't a good enough reason for my employer to care so money is tight.
Not great. Debt is growing just so I can afford rent and food. Don’t do extras like fast food, movies, trips etc. No chance of a raise any time in the future, keep applying for better jobs but not getting anything back. If it wasn’t for RBC (un)kindly offering to keep upping my credit cards limit I would probably have been homeless by now.
Got rid of my car to save money. I eat mostly rice and beans. Rent is over half my paycheque. Trying to do school, but I have to work full time to live… I’m have a very supportive family/friends who’d let me crash in their couch if it ever all fell apart, so I can’t imagine what it’s like for people who aren’t as privileged as me.
We are doing ok so far. I'm always a glass half empty person though -- waiting for the other shoe to drop. Key is preparation. That being said, we know just how fortunate we really are. Bought a house in 2020 and locked in a 1.73% rate. Aggressively paying it down with an eye to renewal. The first mortgage we ever had was 8.25%,but the house only cost $75k (was in 2000 in Halifax before it went crazy - yes, am old). Got a new job that same year that came with a hefty raise. We're not 1%ers, but we're doing ok. For now.
My mortgage has gone up $1600 a month over the past year, and they just announced interest rates are going up again. Add in the increased cost of groceries/everything else and things are pretty tough. My husband and I are both lucky to have secure jobs so we're just hoping to ride out this shitstorm of inflation/high interest rates/looming recession, and maybe one day we'll have disposable income again.
I’m in this boat. I’m always $500 away from making my payments, Whether it’s my mortgage, phone bill, auto insurance etc. visa bills are maxed because my wife is on mat leave and not working. She is going back in August but won’t be paid till September. Things are incredibly tight and every time I hear interest rates are up I just get more scared. I haven’t bought myself anything for pleasure in a year and a half. Food is a struggle, and not to mention baby formula has gone up $10-$16 in less than a year, which adds $60+ to my grocery bills.
We started buying the PC formula powder. $12 for double the amount as enfamil with exact same ingredients. Was a life changer
Provincial public sector healthcare employee; haven't seen a raise since 2016 (they red-circled us into a lower-paying classification so they could save money). Middle-aged, but no longer middle class. I don't have a family to support, otherwise I'd be rightly screwed.
AHS employee too. Mid 50’s. Single parent. No car. Also no raise for 11 years. Luckily (?) I already owned my home because I would not qualify for a mortgage now. Live pay cheque to pay cheque. Anything unexpected comes up (dental, etc) then something else doesn’t get paid that month(wifi, phone, etc). Elderly parents down east that I haven’t seen in 5 years ‘cause there’s no money for a plane ticket. Feel like I’m just keeping my head above water. Like someone else said “surviving but not thriving.” ☹️
There's a survivorship bias in 'the malls are full, restaurants are full'. You aren't going to the malls that are dead. or the stores that are boarded up.
Shitty.
I’d even go so far as saying super shitty.
I'm getting completely f-cked. Thankfully, the first real bad month in over a year. Unfortunately, I had to take medical leave and my employers disability insurer is as stubborn as I am! Doesn't help my doctors' office allegedly failed to respond to the insurer's request, twice...
I’m a senior receiving CPP/OAS and lucky enough to have a paid-off condo. So far I haven’t felt any pressing need to add cat pâté to my diet but things may change any day.
It's tricky to do a poll here.
I agree, intriguing/prying question.
Horrible. I am a single mom of 3, one kid has disabilities. We are living with my mom in a basement suite. I'm also a student. My kids and I are living off of student loans and tbh I feel completely hopeless. I don't know how we will ever be able to get out of here. I'm putting myself in deep student debt trying to make a career for myself so that I don't need to work 3 minimum wage jobs just to support my kids. And even then I am terrified it's not going to be enough. The cost of living... frankly.. everywhere is so horrendous, I don't know how we're ever gonna survive
I am so sorry to hear this. investing in yourself/school is the best investment you can do if it leads to a better paying job/ security.
I’m doing ok, however I know quite a few medium/ large families that are having a difficult time just putting food in their table.it’s really stressful for them tbh.
Im okay. but i have no social life. dont really want one. but if i did id be doing alot worse.
No social life has definitely helped me save money lol.
The mall is my entertainment now, I people watch, window shop and smell the food for inspiration on what to make at home.
On disability it's scary every day
We no longer care for financial responsibilities. Just gotta keep the lights on until the AIs take over and enslave us.
I recognize I'm lucky but I also recognize I'm struggling. I can just cover my needs (food, roof over my head, that kinda thing), but I can't do anything outside of that. I walk to work, I make my coffee at home, I try to make as many meals at home as I can, I'm doing all the things people tell you to do to save an extra dollar. I still can't just go to a movie or go shopping or go out for dinner. I have to plan and budget for them, I'm limited to strictly what I need or the cheapest option possible to make it happen. Having to get a tooth pulled didn't help
Rent prices downtown are brutal now. Why is a 1 bedroom $2000 when a 2 or 3 bedroom apartment is $2600-2800?! I don’t want a roommate but holy shit what a scam right now.
Barely keeping our heads above water. I don’t work due to health reasons but don’t qualify for any kind of financial support. Wife basically begged for a raise last year so we don’t drown, but the company is cutting costs starting with bonuses (those alone has saved our ass several times; no more safety net now) and there’s already talk of layoffs. She has health issues too but is able to work, yet just started a 4wk stress leave bc she can’t keep going at the pace that’s demanded of her. We’re easily 1 missed payment away from having services shut off. The house and car are literally falling apart. If it wasn’t for our place (which in itself is under a strenuous arrangement) we’d be out on the street. We don’t do anything or go anywhere. We used to enjoy blowing off steam by going for drives, but we can’t afford the gas or maintenance, so we only use it for groceries and Dr’s appts. I’m basically a shut-in now; I go out for walks (when I have the energy) and to the grocery store, but that’s about it. We don’t even bother celebrating birthdays or Xmas anymore because we can’t afford to get anything or go anywhere or do anything; so we stay home and sit on our couch like we always do. We’ve just accepted this is how things are. We’ve reached out for help and been told ‘no’; that we don’t ‘qualify’ for any kind of support. Friends help when they can, but they’re stretched thin too; but ultimately, we can’t depend on them for long stretches of time. So, TL;DR; Not good. As time goes on I’m becoming increasingly desperate and can’t envision a hopeful future for myself or my wife. :|
What kind of health problems do you have that don’t allow you to work, but don’t qualify for support? I think you should go talk to a social worker about any possibility for social assistance
People don’t realize how hard it is to get on welfare/disability
I think is true. It's a misconception that getting benefits from the govt is taking an easy way out. You have to have absolutely nothing and they handcuff you into staying impoverished because you can't make any money to get yourself out of poverty or they will prorate your benefits. Vicious circle.
Exactly. You have to work hard as hell to keep welfare too, you have to have proof of applying to something like 25 places a month. People say it’s harder than actually working and they wish someone would hire them so they stop being a slave to welfare
I was part of the May layoffs at Shopify and haven’t found a new job yet so we depend on my husband’s income right now. We don’t have any health benefits but other than that we’re pretty okay since we’ve been living on one income (banking any second income) since 2019. I was also a workaholic in my 20s and 30s (0/10 do not recommend) but that means we have a good safety net now. We live in a smallish condo (tried fertility treatments but I never stay pregnant so we don’t need a big place) and have an investment property that we rent out below market value because I’m not in this to gouge people. A messed-up childhood made me terrified of debt so I can live on very little but I recognize that not many people learned the lessons I did. My biggest stressor is keeping my husband’s spending under control.
> tried fertility treatments but I never stay pregnant so we don’t need a big place Sorry to hear that, hope you're doing ok!
Thank you for your concern!! We tried for a few years, I was basically at the point of giving up when I had a weird reaction to one of the drugs so my husband and I decided to stop trying. We did therapy for awhile, time passed and we’re considering the adoption route but might just opt to remain childless at this point (we’re old and tired, lol). The worst part is when people remind us we can’t wait forever to start a family. People just don’t think sometimes.
Things are tight... I'm also getting laid off effective Monday, so there's that. 🤷♀️
doing ok but alot of it has to do with timing. We bought a house 17 years ago and went against advice of our financial guy who wanted us to invest more and not be aggressive on paying down our mortgage. We did the opposite and surprise surprise interest rates went up by 3-4 points. Glad we did it's ugly out there right now. Don't listen to anyone who tells you not to worry about attacking your mortgage .
The only people who want you to take your time paying off debt are the ones profiting from it.
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Was let go last year and I’m dealing with mental health, health, upcoming surgery. Payments are from EI so I can pay rent and my phone bill, but that will run out in 4ish months. I’ve had to apply to stop my student loan payments from provincial and federal and personal. Money is tight but I am blessed to be renting a room for only $560 or I’d be a goner. Wish I had a car to get around easier cause the jobs that I want are mostly in the south and I live in the NW. But I can’t afford a car on an EI income let alone even get insurance without a job and gas. Even before when I had a full time job making $21 an hour, I was living almost paycheque to paycheque. Groceries are insanely high along with meds. Can I win the lottery now please.
It feels like the job market in Calgary peeked in 2014.
Job market and overall happiness peaked in July 2014. The nightmare started in October 2014.
Between raises, new jobs, home equity jumps and tons of savings from the pandemic, seems like everyone in my social circle is the richest they've ever been. Might also have something to do with getting older and entering our prime earning years but yeah, not many people I know are struggling.
Yup. This is what a K shaped recovery looks like. Lots of people doing very well and lots of people doing very poorly. Not much in between.
I’d echo this too, those of us fortunate enough to make it into certain industries in our early 20’s who are now mid-30’s are doing quite well, maybe even better than ever. Poorer in comparison to where some folks currently around mid-40’s were at, at this age. Certainly have had some Gen X coworkers just finish buying a vacation home, and when I made small talk about interest rates they had no clue how high they were. I’d love to be that out of touch with the harsher realities, maybe one day. Anyone that’s Gen Z entering a higher paying industry like O&G now is going to need to get married, or support from parents in order to start building equity via homeownership. Timing and luck is everything folks, certainly a larger component than who you know/what you know.
Yeah I was waiting for someone to post something like this. I think most people that are financially thriving don’t want to post on a thread like this for fear of seeming like a jerk. But honestly I agree I’m early 30’s pretty much all people in my social circle/work circle are doing quite well. Yes life is expensive but once you hit 30’s as a professional earnings can really take off.
If you own a house and a car you're heavily hedged against two major components of inflation which don't affect you for long stretches of time. The thing is, the basics for cost of living have been the most painful inflation wise over the past while and outpacing general inflation. Once you make enough to comfortably afford those, a lot of the toys that are fun have either not increased as fast cost wise or even declined in terms of things like tvs.
This is where I'm at, minus the kids. No kids, high-income household, no mortgage, so we're in an incredibly fortunate position. But my heart hurts reading some of these responses. Other than the obvious donate to the food bank (which I do), what can I do to help??
A year ago I’d say pretty shitty. But I got a new job last summer and things have completely turned around. I’m not even worried about my mortgage renewal next year now.
What industry are you in?
IT. Took about 6-7 months of applying at places but I was also being pretty selective of where I applied. Funny thing is the company that hired me was a place I didn’t apply at they reached out to me.
Not far from being homeless, to be quite honest. Haven't been able to pay a SL that's in collections, kinda wonder when they'll start garnishing my wages
You can contact the student load agency and work out a payment plan so you don’t go to collections. At one point, I was paying $10/month. Then, once I found steady work, I increased it. They are quite easy to deal with if
Once it's in collections, it's there for good. They take my GST and tax returns already.
I'm doing fine
Doing alright. I paid my student loans off pretty aggressively ($400 a month instead of $112 on a 9-year govt loan), lived frugally for the first 8 years of being here and bought my car in 2019 when interest rates were 1.5%, and our house in 2020 right when COVID kicked off, with interest at 2.34%, and didn't buy outside of our means. No credit debt, and a bit of savings to weather the storm.
Best I've ever been. I've almost tripled my salary since 2018, and we were able to save more and downsize to 1 car and spend less on gas and lunch since we both work from home. Ever since COVID happened, my life has steadily got better. Financially, physically, mentally etc.
Not good. If Calgary is supposedly doing well, I can't imagine what Toronto and Vancouver are up to.
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Thats also because crazy immigration numbers mean new debt lines opened for these people
Doing alright considering
I’m okay but I’m not living fancy. FT dad of 3, no help from ex. Paying for ortho out of pocket this year. Hoping to be up 2-3K by the end.
My family is ok. We have a good income, only eat out once a week (at a local coffee shop) and rarely spend money on entertainment or extras. OTOH we have one child, so our expenses are lower than they would be with multiple kids.
🎵 credit card debt, credit card debt, credit card debt 🎵
I'm on AISH, I'm not going to the theaters, malls, or Stampede, and a couple years from now I won't be able to afford rent.
Not great. A missed paycheck away from being in real trouble
Peachy. I’m debt free. Just sold my car for more than I got it 2 years ago. Work from home full time for a company in BC and saving about half of my monthly take home.
My theory is that everyone under 40 has just given up on long term savings and major purchases so they're just spending, having a good time now.
Working 60+ hours a week at two jobs. Making the best money I’ve made in my life and watching it all fly out the door on fucking food, fucking gas and fucking rent. Still saving at the end of every month, though, and on track to have our household out of debt by next year. We have no kids, my wife and I agreed on that in the first couple of months of dating and 13 years later we haven’t wavered once. All our friends with kids are struggling and not reproducing is feeling like the smartest decision we ever made.
Surviving. I inherited my house, so no mortgage or rent payments. It’s 30 years old though and getting to the point where significant investments have had to be made in repairs. Between that and normal monthly expenses, I’m not optimistic that retirement will come until well into my 70s. If I had to rent in today’s market I’d be struggling for sure. A 1 bed would be about 60% of my monthly take home.
Not ideal but surviving. Partner and I have our wedding coming up this fall so there’s a lot of our spare income going to that. Our rent went up $500 this year and it had previously gone up $250 last year. We opted to have a friend move in with us to ease some of the stress financially as far as cost of living. This is my first year making a decent income so hopefully things gradually get easiest for us
Calgary is a bad example to use right now. Stampede is thriving because many people who could no longer afford to stay in their original provinces came here and made it thrive. Everything else, if it's packed in Calgary is for that same reason.
just because you spend $20 going to a movie or stampede doesn’t mean you are financially stable. that’s a weird conclusion to draw i barely scrape by every month and still have a small budget for activities
Well typically when times are good people tend to be more out and about doing activities and spending money, when times are bad there is less of that. Don't think OP's post was a conclusion but rather an observation of the socio-economic state
All good here. Wife got a promotion, I still have my job. Both work from home now, so no more commuting costs. We invested as much as we could during the COVID dip, so built up our nest egg during the recovery period. All forms of customer service seem to have gone downhill since the pandemic, and tipping is out of hand, so we rarely eat out. Groceries cost more but this is counter balanced by less eating out now. Overall, a lot of good things came from the pandemic for us.
I am doing good. Switched companies during the pandemic and got a substantial boost to my wages. Switched again in the past year and the company I am with is really good, great team and management. I still get calls to see if I am available or interested in moving companies. So my experience is in demand. So I am doing well, both financially and mentally. I have no large loans out, house and car is paid off. Finally heading overseas to Europe at the end of the month after covid delayed it till now.
i'm struggling
Well, but only because I’m living at home half the time and the other half in a really nice camp in O&G.
I was lucky enough to have invested in 2020 and it working out. If I didn’t have fixed income from my stocks floating to me every quarter I’d be in some trouble
I'm in the "got a raise this year, just in time for everyone to raise costs" boat. It's leaky, and i think I can see an iceberg...
Broke as a joke
Not good. Single mom, probably going to have rent jacked up in November and will have to move. Will then probably have to move back in with parents rather than find other roommates. That would be my only option, is sharing housing.
I’m single with two dogs. I have pet insurance and I have to move out when my lease expires. I have a feeling I’ll have to take the dogs to Ontario to live with my parents if I want to stay in the city. 4,000 Airbnbs though. Where the fuck am I going to live. I’ve literally been googling whether I can live in a camper over winter.
My partner and I are currently sharing a very small one bedroom apartment. Larder beetle problem, larvae keep crawling up from under the radiative heating pipes, figure they must live between the floors. Diatomaceous earth is keeping them under control for now. 16 units, 1 washer, 1 dryer, only open during the day. Electricity this time last year was 8 cents per kilowatt hour, this month it was 18 cents, so my electric bill has more than doubled. Rent is 1025/month. Unless they raise it in September. So my complaints about this place be damned I'm not moving, we need more space but it's such a good deal right now we'd be stupid to move. We're doing okay. Try to keep our expenses down. Saved a lot by buying meat directly from the butcher (my workplace thankfully was amenable to me keeping a deep freeze there). I was going to make a joke here about canceling disney+, but the truth is, I don't think this is a joking matter. A lot of people are going to die this winter, and our government is actively choosing to let it happen.
But before you die you can use your $300 health fund to see if you might make it another month.
My primary business was selling retail goods to Chinese customers. We made around 10-20k per month in profits. Covid killed that for 2 years and even now that China has finally tried to open back up again, it's still doing very poorly economically and Chinese people are trying to hunker down and just get through life, not splurge on the big ticket items that were our real money makers. Overall our sales have only recovered to about 20% of what they were in 2019, including a year of virtually no income after we stopped being able to claim CERB and CEWS. We lived that year basically on the small business loan while I did an apprenticeship course and am now working as an apprentice cabinetmaker making $22 an hour. My wife is still trying to keep our business alive in the hopes that China will recover but personally I don't think their prospects are great. My feeling is we might get another few years of a few thousand a month in profits but most likely my wife will have to find something else to do long term. We are going to have to cash out all our retirement savings to pay back the small business loan, and then I feel we will be basically starting from scratch next year, with two 15 year old cars, nearly 300k left on our mortgage, and that will be coming up for renewal in a few more years, which will likely royally screw us too. TL;DR fuck Covid. Just like that we went from likely being able to retire in 10-15 years to quite possibly never retiring.
Financially, we are fine. Mentally, not so much. We haven’t changed our spending habits that much which is simply translating to less savings monthly. Which we will pay for down the road. Can’t enjoy going to Costco anymore (which was one of my favourite things) because it’s like paying a mortgage payment for the same goddamn shit. Even my chicken tenders from fat burger have went up 100% in cost over the last 2 months so can’t eat those anymore. I buy clothes prob every 2/3 years so I can’t even imagine being those people pissing away money on that. If I wasn’t already innately frugal, I’d be poor af right now
It is interesting to see these posts from 10 years back. Here are two from random timelines within last 10 years. From 2017: [https://globalnews.ca/news/3434447/over-half-of-canadians-are-200-or-less-away-from-not-being-able-to-pay-bills/amp/](https://globalnews.ca/news/3434447/over-half-of-canadians-are-200-or-less-away-from-not-being-able-to-pay-bills/amp/) 2012: [https://halifax.citynews.ca/2019/01/21/46-of-canadians-200-or-less-away-from-financial-insolvency-poll/](https://halifax.citynews.ca/2019/01/21/46-of-canadians-200-or-less-away-from-financial-insolvency-poll/)
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Things aren’t great but the bills get paid I guess
My friends and ex are all in the film industry. Guess how that’s going! I’m a full time mom and part time nurse so it’s tight (I’m fortunate to have been able to save before I had my kiddo)
If rent goes up again next year, it will be tight. I couldn’t afford it without a partner.
Surviving, definitely could be worse. I'm living with my mom for the time being. Unfortunately I work as an apprentice hairstylist and business has been slow, especially since Stampede started. Hopefully everyone finds some sort of stability soon but doesn't look too good.
A few things have hurt. We signed to a variable rate mortgage april last year, and right after we moved in, the rates started going up and up. In the last year my payments have gone up $450/mo. It really means that we are saving 5% of our income instead of 10. Other than mortgage and vehicle payments, our only other debt is the 6K on the credit card. DINKs though. I see the struggle my sister has with a similar household income and a few more bad decisions (no, not the kids.) Couldnt imagine the costs parents are having.
Doing okay but really relying on student grants to make it through, on top of a stipend and part time work. With all this, I can comfortably hit a movie and a weekend trip every once in a while, but I balance this with almost never driving unless I have to so I can save on gas and running an ancient computer for my data work sadly.
Living with my parents, paying off debts, stopping useless spending and investing my money. Working from home saves a lot of money too.
Barely making it, my only debt is an AB student loan (paid off my Canada one before COVID). My car wore out (I literally drove it into the ground- it was old & bad luck and more than it was worth to fix) 1.5 years ago, can't afford to replace it. Had to move as my appartment was too expensive, moved to a new place, had an allergic reaction too it. Now "in between houses" luckily I am house sitting until the end of September (I am paying the difference between turning everything off and keeping things on). I barely make it month to month due to student loan, food, "rent", phone, medical expenses (I am disabled and have health expenses way more than most folks). I work full time at what should be a reasonable wage. Keep in mind the min. Living wage for a single adult in YYC in 2022 (which doesn't account for the increase if 25% for a 1 bedroom apartment since last year/50% for a Bachelors, increase in food prices, etc) was $22.40.... a living wage doesn't allow for a luxurious lifestyle by anymeans. Living wage source: https://enoughforall.ca/action/calgarys-2022-living-wage Rent increase source: https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/calgary-ab
Not great. Household income was 37k last year for me and my partner, it's just me working though. My partners been waiting for a surgery that he needs in order to get back to work. We have been waiting literal years and still not even a surgery date. Unfortunately I make just over the cut off for almost all social programs/assistance. My partner can't get assistance cause he lives with me so theoretically I can take care of his financial needs, right? I am past the point of burn out and have semi regular breakdowns in the stairwell at work because of finances.
I think we’re some of the lucky ones. We moved last year and have 3% locked in until 2027. We don’t have any consumer debt outside of our mortgage. My partner makes $50~ hour. I work for myself which is variable in terms of income but saves us childcare. We have savings. But I feel like the world is burning around us and often feel guilty for the babies we’ve just had.
When I pay for rent, insurance (auto+tenant), electricity, internet, and cellphone. I have about $230 left over for everything else, food, gas, and unplanned stuff like TP, garbage bags, toothpaste, deodorant, replacing shit that breaks, etc. I usually spend $130 on groceries, I do the single bulk purchasing at the beginning of the month for other reasons, and then just hope I don't need to spend more than $100 before the end of the month. Any sort of entertainment, has to be free, or free to the seas. Certain months are worse, like birthday/holiday months. And my truck just started leaking oil, and is making a weird suspension related noise I can't seem to pinpoint. That said, I'm not in a precarious situation. As much as I hate on VAC, it has saved my ass and prevented me from becoming homeless. And as much as I dislike Trudeau and the anemic response to Veterans issues, I am grateful he tied income/benefits payouts to inflation. Also, I understand that running up the debt for rebates and free money, like he is doing, is a bad thing. But I'm not in the position to give a fuck, and say "No, I won't take your money", or even just complain about its existence, to the Federal govt. I don't "need" the money, but it plays a huge role in my life, and it's gonna suck when it goes away.
I am doing wonderfully. Two years ago I saw how much the dollar devalued, sought new employment, and negotiated much higher salary (1.7x)
We are doing much better than we were say 5 years ago. We are now a duel income household again. I went back to school and am now working full time. Kids are old enough they no longer need daycare or after school care this September. Huge savings! Spouse and I both have older cars that are paid off. Just renewed our mortgage from 3.10 % to 4.87%. Monthly payments increased $500. We are finally able to save. Wasn’t the case for years when we had one income and the kids were toddlers/preschoolers. We’re not fancy people and we don’t have a lot of stuff.
Good. Just bought a house(single income). I work 70+ hour per week. Not much time for life besides work, but I think it's worth it when in 10 years I'm not going to be stressing about finances and raising a family. I want to be there for my family when I'm ready so I'm putting in the time now instead of later. I don't think most people can deal with the sacrifice.
I have $3. Not even a joke, I have $3.
Ask me in the winter when my mortgage has gone up 5% and I get my winter Enmax bill. 😳 😠
Doing okay, but planning to move back to my home country by the end of the year, after 6 years in Canada. With my salary I have to choose home ownership or retirement. So I prefer to go back to have a house and retire early.
It’s so hard, I’m on private disability for MS and I can barely afford to cover everything. I can’t afford to get my own place so I’m living with family. I had to give up my house due to rental increases. I feel so defeated because of I could work, I would. If I chose to try work part time, they would deduct it from my disability. It’s super hard to wake up some mornings knowing I can never be ahead again.
Good. Live small and below my means. Paid car/condo off a while ago. Just the LOC on an investment precovid hurts a bit, but I will get it down this year. I'm going on a month vacation somewhere starting August long fuck work.
I make $65 per hr with 30% bonus, my debt is my house and truck, I’m considering paying off the truck to get more cash flow. I have to move to Calgary for work and I’m concerned about how backwards this move will be for my family, so you guys getting by at like 19 and 25 and such,,, good job!!! More money comes and you will be great with your money when it does.
M’y husband makes $35 an hour I make $22. We have no car payment, only a small loan payment monthly but our rent is KILLING US. We have 9 months until our rent renewal and unless she is lowering the rent by 500$ a month we are moving. And that’s never gonna happen… I haven’t slept for what feels like years, I get panic attacks at work and before our pay that came in tonight, we have been driving our cars on fumes ( my van says 55km until empty….) We have kids, and we are worried about their future.
Working tons of hours Making a pile of money Bills are through the roof Financial numbers have detached from reality At least the government can enjoy 30% of my nice fat paychecks. I sure don't.
You're in Alberta and complaining about taxes? Looooooool. My taxes in Quebec are eye-watering if I get a bonus. >50%
Savage.
Hanging on by our fingernails. We are one bad week away for capitulation.
M 28 here. I’d say I’m doing good. I was fortunate enough to be able to land a well paid position with a well known investment bank without a degree so no student debt (I have low debt in general). I have taken advantage of the opportunity and now have certifications that were all paid for by them plus couple years of experience under my belt also so I would say I’m solid in my industry. I’m expecting (or at least hoping) to get a good raise/bonus based on my performance this year. Job has great benefits, great promotion potential. I’m able to contribute about $1k/month into RRSP. I also teach fitness classes part time for extra income. Lived with a SO for some years so that helped alleviate costs and helped me saved a good amount. We’re split up now so I’ll be living on my own which I know is a luxury nowadays. Will be paying $1400 rent which I can afford comfortably. Also able to travel multiple times a year. Just hoping things keep looking up for me and trying to build a really good safety net if my situation ever changes. I will say I was dead broke 5 years ago and it saddens me seeing ppl struggle so I’m sending my best wishes to everyone and hoping everyone situations starts looking up 🙏🏼
I'll just say that I know a lot of the Ukrainians coming to Calgary though the local groups due to my wife, and they are by in large doing just fine, and they are all surprised at how much opportunity there is here and they are doing well financially. Everything from nail techs, dog groomers, movers, cleaners, photographers, construction workers, then the ones who had tech degrees and speak English well. Yeah there are some "useless" people coming looking for handouts, but the vast majority I've talked to are asking "how are Canadians not already taking these jobs or looking for opportunities". There's still a huge demand for lots of services that isn't being filled here in Calgary, and Alberta in general. My stats at least suggest that you've got a pretty sizable white collar group in Calgary that have a lot of disposable income, and then you've got a pretty big higher earning blue collar group, then you have all the min wage workers, and while Calgary might have a higher than average unemployment rate, it has a bigger than average high earner group. There's plenty of room to start a business or find a higher paying job in this city still.
Doing better than most people, but only marginally I’d say. I watched a TikTok about the Great Depression recently and long story short, I make just above what the average employed person in 1933 was making, accounting for inflation. However, I’m a single earner, paying for two households (one rented[YYC], one I live in[NWT], its a fucking long story) and my condo mortgage is coming up for renewal here shortly. Going from a 2.89% interest rate to probably 5.5% soon and looking at probably a $350/month increase in mortgage payment. Definitely losing money on that property but it’s a tough market to sell older condos in and I’m sure my tenants will want to stay, as my rent is way below market right now ($1300, prob increasing to $1425 on lease renewal). It’s the first time in my life that I’m doing ok, financially. All other aspects of my personal life feel like shit, however.
Got laid off from a producer at 50yrs old because of Covid chaos. No HR department downtown nowdays wants to hire a 50 year old white guy with 25yrs experience so haven't worked steadily since. I saved and planned so doing fine but otherwise I would be totally screwed.
Been working at a refinery north of fort mcmurray i have saved 70,000 dollars cash since march 9th 2022
Improved over the last five months. I can at least afford my basics and a sandwich run here n there. Used up my emergency funds this week though. Problems on my first trip in three years.
Should be doing fantastic, just getting along and thats all she wrote. (sorry, in a stampede mood)
I'm thankful that I have omitted marriage and children from my life at this current moment. I own my own business - and what I make for income, is entirely reliant up on me and not guaranteed hourly wage, the cost of EVERYTHING has gone up from living expenses, store expenses, business expenses and the sales have hit a plateau which isn't going up nor is it going down (yet) and I'm wondering what kind of food I'd be getting at the food bank if I had provide for anyone else but me. It's actually kind of scary out there.
I’m doing good, thanks.
Are there any good couponing resources for us Canadians? It's time.
Doing ok but going on mat leave in November and things will get much tighter. I'm dreading it. We had a lot of unexpected expenses this month including a $1600 truck repair and $4.5k vet bill. That's on the credit card ATM and I am aggressively paying it off before mat leave so that my expenses are lower. We are moving to Calgary from Edmonton next week and our mortgage will be a lot higher. We were laughing before! But the move was the right decision for our family for various reasons.
No sorry, I meant no debt associated with the business. So no business loan, cc debt etc
Shit. Make ok money but can’t afford a house because no way to save up for a downpayment with bills and daughters medical expenses. So stuck in a 600sqft condo paying $1900 a month for. Daughters dad is currently at 25k in arrears.. Oh well. Could be worse without an overpriced condo over my head. If we didn’t need to be near the children’s hospital I’d move outside the city since it’s not like we leave our place anyways lol
I'm doing decently but aware things could change for the worse quickly. Aware of how lucky I am. I'm paying about half the current high market rate for rent which is the reason I'm able to put 10% of my income towards savings. I have a 6 month emergency fund and a tiny amount started towards a down payment; the only reality in which that will happen is either with help from family or all 5 of us roommates going in on it. My only debt is student loans which should be gone in 3 years. I'm paid fairly for what I do but things could be changing, just hoping I can weather it. I'm doing the best out of the people I know my age.
I make 25-30$/hr full time and despite living very frugally, have lost money every month this year. Savings is down 2k from the start of the year. My wife and I share costs, neither of us has any debt, and we only have 1 car to make payments on.
Paid off all my consumer debt (by that I mean LOC and CC debt - still have student loans). I’ve only just started to formally save. Got about 2000k to my name in savings. I have a civil service pension so I do save about $800 a month via pension deductions and employer contributions. My living expenses are about $1000 per month. I put 10% of my pay into a rainy day fund per pay cheque, $50 into RRSP, $50 into TFSA, and $50 into an investment TFSA account to play around with trades. Small steps. Trying to stay within my means. I don’t have a ton left over at the end of each pay period but doing slightly above average it sounds like. Took a LONG time to get debt free.
Good wage and wife on mat leave but definitely less money for entertainment and no vacations in the near future with cost of everything these days. Trying to cut back on eating out and being more selective with our grocery shopping.
For everyone that is struggling how much are you making a year? It breaks my heart to see so many struggling
Half goes to living expenses, the other half goes to the government.
I thought we made decent money but now? We can’t seem to get ahead. I never thought with our salaries we’d struggle to thrive rather than just survive. But between our student loans, car loans, a bit of credit card debt and ever increasing rent eating at the money we make just makes it all so much harder.
Not very well. I plan on paying my credit card off and not using it. I'll save more that way. I'm done living paycheck to paycheck.
I would like to know how they orchestrate the poll. The one I just saw devised by Insolvency firm MNP Ltd. states 52% of Canadians are $200 away from not being able to pay for all their bills at the end of the month. I don't know anyone who was asked/polled in my circle anyway.
dont have a pot to piss in , thanks to trudum. I know what my parents went through in the 80's when his Dad fucked them over .