I was assigned by HR to work from home permanently (my request) so I spend way less on gas, parking, car maintenance or anything else work related that costs money. I couldn't care less about team building taking a hit, not attending corporate social events or other corporate gibberish that tries to get me in the office for no reason other than to be there. I'm certain there is some kind of tax credit the company gets the more people are physically at the location. Don't care. I'm not going. This has been a HUGE source of savings.
I cut down on a lot of entertainment expenses. Would rather host people at my house than go out somewhere. I subscribe to GamePass for my Xbox and do console sharing with a friend instead of buying games outright. I buy a THC 510 vape pen cartridge that lasts me almost 2 months, instead of buying flowered bud that costs way more. Cheap alcohol? Don't give a ####. $16 for a bottle of No Name brand literally called "
Vodka" tastes just fine when mixed and does the trick.
No more cable or streaming services, other than an IPTV subscription which is better and cheaper. Recently renewed my Amazon Prime subscription plan as a student plan and was given a 50% discount, without question. Doing side gigs such as online surveys (Airmiles to pay for gas) and online AI gig work (Mturk, Prolific) that adds a couple hundred dollars a month. Wife does the PC points health app daily for both our PC accounts and that adds PC points to use at Superstore. These all don't pay a ton individually, but it adds up together. At one point last year we were supplementing our income by almost $800/month.
Did some DoorDash and other food deliveries for a bit, but it's now way oversaturated and mostly a waste of time. I'll do Instacart on a random weekend and can get $100 out of it on a good day. We are buying meat in bulk at Costco once per quarter so that weekly supermarket trips are only for basics such as veggies, milk, eggs. Never buy meat outside of those quarterly Costco trips. Swapped my credit card for a cashback card. Use it all the time and pay it off as soon as I get home. That will add up to an extra $1000/year.
I am one of the lucky few who has gotten consistent pay increases since we moved back to Canada a few years ago, we have no kids, dual income and don't buy luxury items any more. I am not going to crap on OP's situation, that is easily many of us, but things like $7 strawberries would no longer be a thing in our household. We have talked about kids in the past, but now the conversation has shifted to why do we need kids in this world of rising costs, political turmoil and a world on the verge of another large war. I couldn't care less about declining populations or Canada needing x amount of people in 30 years. Want people to breed more? Fix this crap.
The government isn't really doing much to step up. They could have kept on the rebates at the pump, energy utilities, and other rebates that "expired", could have marketed it as Danielle saving the day. Instead they decided to reinstate everything all at once. F'ing shooting us in the foot when they have the power to make a difference. Not to mention things like property tax increases. How about freezing that #### for a while, instead of more hands in our pockets? Frustrating to see how Loblaws gouges us all, but the government at all 3 levels has power to do more and they simply don't.
Unethical life pro tip: I have witnessed people stealing food at stores on a more regular occurrences. Last week we saw a lady get busted at the exit door after she slipped something in her purse. The worker was trying to get her to come with him and she simply walked away. I have seen people "forget" they had bags of potatoes or TP at the bottom the cart. Random empty boxes of advil and other packaged items in random spots on store shelves, probably ripped open and contents shoved in their pockets. I am not advocating it, but I will never call someone out for doing what they have to do at one of the large grocery chains to help their situation.
And finally, there is something to say about people shooting themselves in the foot. I am not blind to what is going on with rising inflation and stagnant wages across the board. But since we are all living in this reality, we have to adjust spending accordingly. I know a couple that bought a brand new SUV recently for no other reason than they "needed a car". I tried to argue with them that they are better of buying a used car given their situation, but the wife refused to accept my advice. She makes barely over minimum wage, he makes $22/h. That didn't stop them from buying a new $60k Toyota last month. Plus insurance, they are paying well over $1k/month for a car they can barely afford. I know another guy who bought a brand new Murano for just under $70k, while working as an Amazon driver. Now he has to run his nice new vehicle into the ground doing door dash and other delivery services during evenings and days off. His montly payments and insurance run him $1.7k/month. Seems that if you call these people out in threads like this, you are labelled as unempathetic, but there is something to say for people putting themselves in predicaments like this. Again, I am not blind to what is going on with rising costs and low wages, but what goes through some people's minds to think they need high end expensive items like this when they can't afford it?