How is everyone dealing with their finances in this economy?

[GordonBlue]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

I wouldn’t have ratted you until the shot at people with a different political view so absolutely will be warning the grocery stores now

I haven’t seen any posts not showing empathy . Many good suggestions in here.

I’m not sure what suggestions or more empathy you expect from a message board ? No one here is responsible for your situation (I Hope /assume)

It’s a harsh reality but if you can not afford to pay your bills / sustain your life on your current income and can’t cut back there is only one option. You need more income . Unfortunently that is the only solution. I’m not saying that it is easy to do . But coming in here and lambasting people who are trying to be constructive (or apparently are right leaning) because you have it worse isn’t helping anything - yourself included

doesn't matter.
any response from me is coming more from emotion than anything else and it's hard to focus on what I'm really trying to say and be rational about it. and instead everything is coming out.

guess Cams attitude triggered me more than any of the other posts.

dealing with stuff is hard and I'm not as strong as I'd have hoped.

[PepsiFree]

While it probably sucks to hear that there are some middle/upper-middle class people doing fine all things consider, just remember that there are people who make what you make in a year… in a day.

And there are a whole lot of people above them and below them that are just as much part of the problem.

Keep your eyes on the target.

[Paulie Walnuts]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

While it probably sucks to hear that there are some middle/upper-middle class people doing fine all things consider, just remember that there are people who make what you make in a year… in a day.

And there are a whole lot of people above them and below them that are just as much part of the problem.

Keep your eyes on the target.

Who are we going after? I have my shovel ready.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Paulie Walnuts

Kind of strange that Canada feels like a scary place to be at the moment, with no fix in sight especially with the garbage UCP running our province into the toilet.

Everywhere that has the internet feels like that right now.

[photon]

I agree on the generational housing.. waaay back when we bought our house before the initial big real estate increase in Calgary I purposely bought one with a walkout that we could put a legal suite in just in case.

One of the few things I've planned that worked out as suited it a few years ago and my parents live there now. They're not intrusive so it's worked great. Probably my only regret is we didn't put in sound deadening between the floors, but funny it's them that watch loud movies that I can hear not the other way around.

I've tried to convince my sister a few times that we should buy a 4plex or more and all live there.

[Calgary14]

^I think this will be more common in the future - a family purchasing a four plex and occupying both sides; enough space and privacy but you also save costs by not having a single detached home. I know if I was in a tight space financially and had family available/interested I would definitely consider it

[albertGQ]

I had a PT job for over 10 years. Worked M-F 9-5 at my FT job and served four times a week (Friday night, Saturday day, Sunday day and Monday night) to get ahead. When I met my now wife and started having kids, it was reduced to just the weekends.

Wife went back to school to be a teacher so the PT income was needed to make ends meet and support the family.

Thank goodness I don't need a PT job anymore as my wife works now (obvioulsy). She has a good pension and I've been doing RSP matching with my employer(s) for the past 15 years. Hopefully we can have a comfortable retirement. 4 young boys take a hit on the savings but the pension and RRSP matching continues

[pylon]

TLDR/broolcorysto incoming but this is my take...


I am one of the fortunate few that this has little or no life changing impact on. In fact the pandemic created a record breaking market conditions for a solid 2 1/2 years for my industry. In fact it's the hardest and longest hours I worked in my life. 8-10 daily at the dealership, and another few every night at home. For 2 solid years. It was financially rewarding, but it sucked, it was eye opening, and it completely red-pilled me.

The first thing that was immediately apparent was how deceptive the stats on Covid were. Car dealerships for the better part stayed open, full tilt boogie, business as usual minus capacity restrictions for a while. Buildings full of middle aged, overweight smokers with bad diets and more comorbidities than you can count. We were coughed on by thousands of people. We dealt with hundreds of anti maskers. And in all of that I know of one car dealer employee in the entire province that died of Covid. One single person. And I can assure you, a large portion of them weren't vaccinated. Many of us caught it, nobody died. There are about 40,000 people working at car dealerships in this province. Where are the hundreds of grocery workers that died? Support should have been given to those at risk, yes. But shuttering the economy globally has had devastating, lasting effects on the world economy, youth education and people's health that will take a generation to fix. Those willing to continue on with life, should have been allowed to at their own risk.

Secondly. CERB was the most abused thing I have ever seen in my entire life. By the end of the program, people were upping massive down payments with printed, inflation driving funds to buy overpriced cars they had no business buying. TV's, Xbox's, saving for dream vacations... that's where a large portion went. People living in their parents basements with no bills now had disposable income and willing co-signers in their parents. Self employed people were dipping into it too and going on with business as usual under the table.... and being paid largely with CERB funds. It created a massive underground economy. And the scammers, they just transitioned into the EI program after. You want uncontrollable inflation? Start handing out money to people who never had any to begin with and wouldn't have noticed any change in lifestyle without that money. Worse yet, give contracted gig workers and self employed people a 2k raise for 6 months.

Thirdly. Anyone who is buying into the utter horsesh*t narrative that the Liberals are spouting about the carbon tax is dreaming. The cost is passed onto Every. Single. Thing. You. Buy. What do you think it costs to heat a 50 year old 20,000 square foot car dealership with giant doors opening and closing all winter? Our gas bill has more than doubled since natural gas spiked, then add to that the carbon tax came about. What does that do to our labor rate in the shop? The amount I can discount a car? We operate on a net profit model. And every penny counts. What about the 'free' full tank of gas you get with your car? What about the cost to ship parts... entire cars? Every single business that exists dealing hard goods is being forced to charge more for everything they sell. And it's crippling businesses and citizens alike.

Altruism and recording breaking immigration has destroyed the dream of pretty much anyone under 35 without rich parents from owning a home. It's heartbreaking. And I feel for anyone being shafted by these brain dead immigration policies. I have a crappy 2 bedroom condo I am renting for $2100, and the first 5 applicants could not provide any references, credit history or job letter as they are new to Canada. And some are trying to offer money above my asking rate to ignore those facts. One showing the guy was commenting on how two of the closets and the storage room would make excellent bedrooms for kids.... in an 18+ building. That's how rents get driven out of control. We need to make immigrating to this country extremely difficult until such time as the people that live here.... especially young adults, can actually catch up and get ahead. These are the people paying taxes, that come from families that paid hundreds in thousands in taxes, and they are being ignored, and laid to waste only to be mocked with false promises from this asinine Liberal government. The solution? They are now being conditioned to the idea of state designed, mobile homes as an alternative. Let's just call that what it is. Or build 4 plexes and row housing in suburbs destroying peoples lifelong investments when we have more land than we know what to do with.

Pandora's box has been opened. We are being and many already are conditioned to $8 eggs, $1.80 gas, non-stop inflation, crippling interest rates, and we're never going back even if some magic event happens. Sobey's knows you gotta eat, and they've determined that you'll pay 4 bucks for a head of lettuce. If the carbon tax goes away, you think you're going to realize the full savings on your next tank of gas? Not a chance, you'll get a fraction, they know you gotta get to work.

And that, is capitalism, capitalizing on a socialist experiment imposed by Canada and many other countries abroad that printed money. As it should. It was enabled by the governments policies and there's no getting the toothpaste back in the tube. This is the penalty for knee jerk reactions by led by socialist policy in fear of a really bad flu that didn't even come close to living up to it's advertised lethality. I empathize with anyone struggling in this now. But as the saying goes for a huge portion.... "You voted for this."

Anyone who's still fiddling their bean about the Marxist Socialist Utopia being talked about, and taught about in Universities across the world, this is your warning at what even dipping your toe into the Socialist waters for even a year can do to a country's economy and your quality of life. Thankfully, the polls are showing that people are finally starting to get it. But I won't believe it when I actually see it next October.

[PepsiFree]

“Unchecked capitalism took advantage of the slightest hint of socialism, therefore, socialism is the problem.”

And I didn’t even need an essay for it.

[BlackArcher101]

Yikes

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Altruism is the root of all our problems. That’s certainly a take.

[shermanator]

It's a good feeling when you no longer have the worst post in the thread. Thanks man!

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

Well there's two options

1. Make more $$
2. Cut spending

Recommendations on how to cut spending seem to be dismissed mostly in this thread

Sooooo.... Make more money is the only other option

Cost cutting is actually the best advice and where people on a message board could make recommendations

I saw early the post about $10K post tax dollars a year on vacations. Well over 20 years thats ~ $500K compounded you would have if investing at a average return vs vacations. Assuming you did that from 30-50 (Ill just assume thats prime earning period and when family vacations)

A person not splurging on $10K a year family vacations during that period now has $500 K that can generate 7% a year which is $35K extra income or rollover into future / requiring less contribution towards future retirement.

I'm not saying thats what anyone should do. It's your money. Spend it how you want. Whatever makes you happy. Just showing the math.

People need to make choices and sacrifices . That is and has always been reality.

Again - There are only 2 options - You will need to make hard choices either way

Cut Costs
Make more Income

(More post tax $$ would also help/be more 'income' but I dont want to turn this into a tax debate)

About that whole make more $$ thing…

[puffnstuff]

Imagine thinking the cons will use capitalism to save us from socialism

[pylon]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

“Unchecked capitalism took advantage of the slightest hint of socialism, therefore, socialism is the problem.”

And I didn’t even need an essay for it.

Capitalism was checked in certain avenues. Cars? The car market absolutely crashed. New and used. Used cars are now cheaper in many instances than they were before Covid. Rebates in the 10's of thousands are back on new. Walk in to a Best Buy right now. The shelves are bursting and they are discounting everything. One of my customers is a GM at Best Buy, and he says it's grim.

Necessities are where we are getting killed. People need homes, they need food, they need gas they have no choice. Socialist policies opened the door for those guys to crush everyone. And they did. The market can still bear it.

It's a chicken or egg scenario at this point. Are the grocery store owners/ceos gigantic asshats for doing what they are doing? Yes and no. Yes their costs have gone up, but double and triple. Absolutely not.

You may say Socialism is the answer? But it is what created the market conditions for this to happen. Free money for anyone with their hand out. Punitive policies that drive the cost of everything up. They are capitalising on it, hence, capitalism, that's how it works.

After all is said and done, I'd still rather pay 8 bucks for a carton of eggs, than continue down this rabbit hole than live under ANY form of Socialism or Communism. The damage is done, and all that can be done is let the wound heal, and hope it doesn't re-open wider and deeper. I'd really prefer future Canadian generations don't have to live in a hellscape economy like Argentina or Venezuela... and soon to come, Brazil. Because our current trajectory has us pointed in that direction.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by pylon

Capitalism was checked in certain avenues. Cars? The car market absolutely crashed. New and used. Used cars are now cheaper in many instances than they were before Covid. Rebates in the 10's of thousands are back on new. Walk in to a Best Buy right now. The shelves are bursting and they are discounting everything. One of my customers is a GM at Best Buy, and he says it's grim.

Necessities are where we are getting killed. People need homes, they need food, they need gas they have no choice. Socialist policies opened the door for those guys to crush everyone. And they did. The market can still bear it.

It's a chicken or egg scenario at this point. Are the grocery store owners/ceos gigantic asshats for doing what they are doing? Yes and no. Yes their costs have gone up, but double and triple. Absolutely not.

You may say Socialism is the answer? But it is what created the market conditions for this to happen. Free money for anyone with their hand out. Punitive policies that drive the cost of everything up. They are capitalising on it, hence, capitalism, that's how it works.

After all is said and done, I'd still rather pay 8 bucks for a carton of eggs, than continue down this rabbit hole than live under ANY form of Socialism or Communism. The damage is done, and all that can be done is let the wound heal, and hope it doesn't re-open wider and deeper. I'd really prefer future Canadian generations don't have to live in a hellscape economy like Argentina or Venezuela... and soon to come, Brazil. Because our current trajectory has us pointed in that direction.

Why do you say socialist policies created the current situation. Really it’s the natural evolution of capitalism leading to a lack of competition and lack of innovation as companies move to protect market share. We are a land of too big to fail oligopolies and big tech just makes this worse.

[iggy_oi]

I’m reasonably confident that pylon may not actually understand the definition of socialism.

Unless of course he’s suggesting that we abandon funding the police, firefighters, any form of healthcare or the roads that the people who buy cars from him use to drive on. In which case I’ll take that comment back.

[opendoor]

Hey, I have a few minutes, so why not.

Originally Posted by pylon

TLDR/broolcorysto incoming but this is my take...

I am one of the fortunate few that this has little or no life changing impact on. In fact the pandemic created a record breaking market conditions for a solid 2 1/2 years for my industry. In fact it's the hardest and longest hours I worked in my life. 8-10 daily at the dealership, and another few every night at home. For 2 solid years. It was financially rewarding, but it sucked, it was eye opening, and it completely red-pilled me.

The first thing that was immediately apparent was how deceptive the stats on Covid were. Car dealerships for the better part stayed open, full tilt boogie, business as usual minus capacity restrictions for a while. Buildings full of middle aged, overweight smokers with bad diets and more comorbidities than you can count. We were coughed on by thousands of people. We dealt with hundreds of anti maskers. And in all of that I know of one car dealer employee in the entire province that died of Covid. One single person. And I can assure you, a large portion of them weren't vaccinated. Many of us caught it, nobody died. There are about 40,000 people working at car dealerships in this province. Where are the hundreds of grocery workers that died? Support should have been given to those at risk, yes. But shuttering the economy globally has had devastating, lasting effects on the world economy, youth education and people's health that will take a generation to fix. Those willing to continue on with life, should have been allowed to at their own risk.

The stats are not deceptive and they're far more useful than your anecdotes.

And the fact is, there is little to no correlation between economic growth, educational outcomes, etc. and countries/jurisdictions that had stricter mitigation policies. In fact, those things correlate much more heavily with the mortality rate; the more people that died, the more disruptive it tended to be on the economy and peoples' well being. It was a pandemic; there was no magic bullet.

Secondly. CERB was the most abused thing I have ever seen in my entire life. By the end of the program, people were upping massive down payments with printed, inflation driving funds to buy overpriced cars they had no business buying. TV's, Xbox's, saving for dream vacations... that's where a large portion went. People living in their parents basements with no bills now had disposable income and willing co-signers in their parents. Self employed people were dipping into it too and going on with business as usual under the table.... and being paid largely with CERB funds. It created a massive underground economy. And the scammers, they just transitioned into the EI program after. You want uncontrollable inflation? Start handing out money to people who never had any to begin with and wouldn't have noticed any change in lifestyle without that money. Worse yet, give contracted gig workers and self employed people a 2k raise for 6 months.

This at least has some rationality to it, as CERB was inflationary. But you're vastly overstating the effect of a single program. CERB and its follow up programs added about 2% to Canada's money supply. So it had an effect, but if you think it's what drove inflation, you're mistaken. And like any economic policy, it's a matter of tradeoffs. The alternative was people not being able to pay their rent or buy food during a period where they couldn't work. Would that have been better?

Thirdly. Anyone who is buying into the utter horsesh*t narrative that the Liberals are spouting about the carbon tax is dreaming. The cost is passed onto Every. Single. Thing. You. Buy. What do you think it costs to heat a 50 year old 20,000 square foot car dealership with giant doors opening and closing all winter? Our gas bill has more than doubled since natural gas spiked, then add to that the carbon tax came about. What does that do to our labor rate in the shop? The amount I can discount a car? We operate on a net profit model. And every penny counts. What about the 'free' full tank of gas you get with your car? What about the cost to ship parts... entire cars? Every single business that exists dealing hard goods is being forced to charge more for everything they sell. And it's crippling businesses and citizens alike.

Unless businesses are gouging customers by profiteering on the back of a carbon tax (which is probably happening, but that's greed, not the tax driving that), it doesn't have any more impact than we know. We know exactly how much is collected and what % of the GDP that represents and what it contributes to inflation.

If businesses gouge on top of that, that's their prerogative. You even say yourself below, if the carbon tax was removed they wouldn't lower their prices. And yet you still blame a tax.

Altruism and recording breaking immigration has destroyed the dream of pretty much anyone under 35 without rich parents from owning a home. It's heartbreaking. And I feel for anyone being shafted by these brain dead immigration policies. I have a crappy 2 bedroom condo I am renting for $2100, and the first 5 applicants could not provide any references, credit history or job letter as they are new to Canada. And some are trying to offer money above my asking rate to ignore those facts. One showing the guy was commenting on how two of the closets and the storage room would make excellent bedrooms for kids.... in an 18+ building. That's how rents get driven out of control. We need to make immigrating to this country extremely difficult until such time as the people that live here.... especially young adults, can actually catch up and get ahead. These are the people paying taxes, that come from families that paid hundreds in thousands in taxes, and they are being ignored, and laid to waste only to be mocked with false promises from this asinine Liberal government. The solution? They are now being conditioned to the idea of state designed, mobile homes as an alternative. Let's just call that what it is. Or build 4 plexes and row housing in suburbs destroying peoples lifelong investments when we have more land than we know what to do with.

In the last decade, rent has increased 30% on average in Canada, which is right in line with inflation (27%) over that period. It has spiked since 2021 to be sure, but that was after a period of a decade with little increase in rental costs so the long-run average is still totally normal.

As for immigration causing it, the places that have seen the highest spikes in rental costs (Toronto, Vancouver, etc.) have some of the slowest population growth, while places with fast population growth over the last decade like Calgary had flat rents for a very long period of time. Obviously it has an effect, but there's a lot more going on than immigration. And immigration has significant benefits in growing our labor force and ensuring the viability of our tax base in the long term.

Pandora's box has been opened. We are being and many already are conditioned to $8 eggs, $1.80 gas, non-stop inflation, crippling interest rates, and we're never going back even if some magic event happens. Sobey's knows you gotta eat, and they've determined that you'll pay 4 bucks for a head of lettuce. If the carbon tax goes away, you think you're going to realize the full savings on your next tank of gas? Not a chance, you'll get a fraction, they know you gotta get to work.

And that, is capitalism, capitalizing on a socialist experiment imposed by Canada and many other countries abroad that printed money. As it should. It was enabled by the governments policies and there's no getting the toothpaste back in the tube. This is the penalty for knee jerk reactions by led by socialist policy in fear of a really bad flu that didn't even come close to living up to it's advertised lethality. I empathize with anyone struggling in this now. But as the saying goes for a huge portion.... "You voted for this."

Anyone who's still fiddling their bean about the Marxist Socialist Utopia being talked about, and taught about in Universities across the world, this is your warning at what even dipping your toe into the Socialist waters for even a year can do to a country's economy and your quality of life. Thankfully, the polls are showing that people are finally starting to get it. But I won't believe it when I actually see it next October.

So the solution to capitalist exploitation of consumers that's driving up prices is to capitalism harder with fewer regulations? OK...

[Sylvanfan]

Originally Posted by albertGQ

I've been doing RSP matching with my employer(s) for the past 15 years.

In my amateur opinion...that's the one thing people should move heaven and Earth to save if its an option. It's like getting a 75% bonus on your money plus whatever growth you can.

[albertGQ]

Originally Posted by Sylvanfan

In my amateur opinion...that's the one thing people should move heaven and Earth to save if its an option. It's like getting a 75% bonus on your money plus whatever growth you can.

Agreed. At my old job, they matched up to 5% of your salary. I was doing 10% on my own and with their 5%, I saved a total of 15% for the nine years I was there

At my current job, they contribute 5% right off the bat. And then match up to 4% of what I put it. So I'm putting 13% here.

At the end of the day, it won't be as nice of a pension as my wife's teacher pension, but it won't be chopped liver either

So with that, CPP and OAS, I should have a decent retirement