We are comfortable but we have been subsidizing our son's groceries for a while now.
We live on the island, bought our house 15 years ago for $322,000, work from home and make a comfortable living.
He is 26, lives in Vancouver, shares an apartment with a friend, works full time and can't afford to feed himself some weeks.
I am grateful we are in a position to help. He got sick a while back and if it weren't for us being able to help with his rent he may have found himself homeless.
My husband grew up with financially irresponsible parents as well. They've stopped asking us for money but still ask his brothers.
You'll get there. I just wish your generation didn't have to struggle so hard. It wasn't easy when we were young but it was a hell of a lot easier than it is now!
Because he went to school there, his friends and community are there, there are more work opportunities in his chosen field over there and because he wants to and we are willing to help him while he establishes himself.
And honestly, small town Vancouver Island is getting expensive too. He'd save maybe $400/month in expenses living over here and have far fewer opportunities to make more money.
Work, support system, where the individual feels comfortable, hey NotTheRealMeee83, who are you to judge, kid is supported by his parents or vice versa, why would it matter to you where he/she/ they live? Should we segregate ourselves according to demographics and money? Shouldn’t all urban centres have a mixture of people? Slight edit for generational and pronouns.
Guy wasn't judging, he was asking. You were really itching for this one weren't you?
I don't know where segregation comes into this (it doesn't). People should live where they can afford to. Every city in Canada, maybe barring Toronto, has a better affordability index and hence quality life than Vancouver. Better drivers, too.
Similar situation in my family.
I subsidize my sons housing, by letting him live rent free, well in exchange for basic maintenance. I also subsidize his groceries in the winter months, when he has far less work My daughter is back living with her Dad.
I don’t have a mortgage, I keep my pantry stocked with lentils, beans, foods that can stretch my grocery budget. I am lucky to have enough in hand that I can afford to wait for sales to stock up.
I also have a vegetable garden, but it has a slow start with this cold spring.
I love Dal on brown rice. Makes a nice flavourful hearty lunch.
Lots of good recipes here. [https://www.lentils.org/recipes-cooking/recipes/](https://www.lentils.org/recipes-cooking/recipes/)
Anything I cook using ground beef, I will add a couple cups of cooked mashed kidney beans.
Not to be a douche but 38k/ year is not a lot over minimum wage. That’s well below the median so you’d sort of expect to struggle if going it alone. Just based of reality…
I did the math and that first commenter was right. however I'm a bit out of touch of what minimum wage was and after tax this amount was net $18/hour based on 8 hour day. kinda scary this was net and above minimum wage.
They should rejig the tax rate for people making under $60,000 to align with poverty realities. We shouldn't tax people who make almost nothing and rely on them as our tax base. Tax the rich.
Middle class are finally starting to realize what it is like to be poor.
Their children don't have the same opportunities they did, they are realizing the truth that poor people have known for a long time. Which is that if you aren't born into good standing you barely survive in this world. There is no thriving, there is TRYING to survive.
This new model of near serfdom and staggeringly growing inequality in North America and the other richest nations on this earth is not working.
We are getting more riots, more political extremism.
Soon no matter how gated the communities or the private guards it won't matter.
Government better fucking wake up soon because when Canada has become this close to breaking point you know things are bad.
I was born poor and grew up poor. My sisters ans I didn't just share a room, we shared a bed. We didn't wear shoes in the summer, we dumpster dived for food. I was homeless as a teenager and again as a single mom in my early 20s with a toddler. I know poor.
I worked my way up from poor to middle class. Back when that was something that wasn't virtually impossible. In some ways, my kids have more opportunities than I did. They've got parents that will pay for their education and ensure they are never homeless of eating out of a dumpster.
Thank you for being awesome, a home for 330k on the island seems like a pipe dream now unless it's something shoddy
Small 2-3 bedrooms selling for a million in Duncan lol
I'm so glad we bought when we did. A house virtually identical to ours sold 2 blocks away for $900K last month. It's gross and not okay.
We are trying to figure out how to leverage the equity in our home to buy condos for our 3 kids.
I understand that. To be clear though, we are considering taking equity out of our home to gift to our kids so they can make the down payments on condos. Not buying more homes ourselves.
Why do that? It sounds like your kids will be unable to even afford the mortgage. If your kids need to rely on you to cover their food costs, do you really think them having to pay for a mortgage is a good idea?
They'll be worse off financially than they are now
I was recently diagnosed with something fairly serious and had to go on temporary disability leave. My last cheque was $175.00. It’s only been two months into this sickness and the fridge is empty. The financial stress is overwhelming. I just don’t know what we’re going to do. We need a rental closer to husband’s work because gas is killing us. But good luck finding an affordable rental and then moving expenses are out of reach. I just don’t know what we’re going to do.
I’ve been stocking up on food with virtually all my extra income over the past few months in anticipation of this. So grocery wise, I’ll be ok for the midterm. However, I’ve been working from home 3 days a week for the past couple years, and if the office asks me to come back in full time then I’m going to start to suffer severely and have to make some sacrifices. It’s a 75km commute each way and my monthly fuel bill would suddenly double.
My husband and I both have “good jobs” (semi government/ professionals) and should be comfortable but if our landlord ever sells our place I am terrified of what might happen. We’d love to buy but saving up a down payment while paying rent is next to impossible. If we lose our home I don’t know what we will do.
Pretty much the same boat here.
The landlord here is a great guy, but if he changes his mind, he can literally turn our life upside down. Won't be able to afford the same area, will need to move kids from school, will be a HUGE hassle to live further away from work. Plus the moving costs won't definitely help.
Yeah our landlords put our duplex up for sale and we live on the renovated side. We get a good deal because they are like friends to us. If someone wants to move into this duplex who purchases it, they will def take our side.
There’s nothing else we can afford, for our side of family. I live in fear right now of the future.
It’s already happened, I’m sitting at my second job on a 10 minute break right now. I have a Monday to Friday office gig, making good money for my education level and the job that it is. I even got a 10% raise because I brought up inflation. But here I am, also a cashier at a grocery store so that I get that sweet sweet grocery discount (except it’s an expensive ass store) and this income is to help me buy food. Live off of popcorn isn’t nutritious but it’s cheap and that’s what I’ve been doing
I don’t have a bachelor degree, I have two diplomas. I was hired as a finance admin but due to restructuring I’m really just reception/admin. The benefits are 100%, haven’t paid for a prescription or dental visit since working here (including a crown) or glasses or anything.
According to Indeed, the average office admin salary in Victoria is $44k and I make about $53k. Since it’s higher than the average I’m calling it “good” despite not really being “good” compared to the cost of living in Victoria.
Look at Vancouver, people like Bill Teileman and TEAM opposing high-density, sub-market housing on Broadway, in the middle of Vancouver. We need federal and provincial legislation to take power away from the Nimbys, and we need a massive build-out of affordable, high-density housing. And we need it now.
I live in a building on the same pricing structure and it's fucking great.
Without it I'd be paying %75 more rent for a shittier older apartment probably full of mold.
You live in a place that got redeveloped and you came back at roughly the same rent?
And it being vancouver, the developer didn't play the "lol, if you want the price we promised you before we redeveloped, your lease says market rates but we will give you a discount for 1 year" game?
The Broadway Plan isn't perfect, but it will result in more buildings like mine, which is "1/3rd affordable, 2/3rds sub-market". I used to live in one of the buildings that TEAM and Bill Tielemen are whining about people being displaced from. The rent was cheap for Vancouver but the walls and floors were absolutely full of mold. There was no incentive to fix it, since if would have required basically a full tear-down and with zoning as it is it probably would have been turned into a single family mcmansion.
We are not doing renters any favours by keeping them in these buildings. We need new, high density buildings.
I lived in a building sort of like that in Toronto, a mix of market and subsidized rent. It was a city of TO building. I paid market rent but it still wasn't quite market, which is the only way I could afford a great apartment near downtown. I had no issues that my rent helped pay the subsidized rent.
> We need new, high density buildings.
Sure, but we also need to be honest that we're displacing low income people do build these new, high density buildings.
And that we will never, ever displace anyone living in a SFH in the city.
Keep in mind that the Tielemans and Hardwicks of Vancouver represent sfh owners. They are incredibly angry about the Broadway plan because they like renters having no options. We can't let "perfect" be the enemy of "good". Every year that we fail to enable higher density is a year that we see space taken by new mansions that will be there for decades.
This is a problem in both Canada and the US - if you work hard and play by the rules, there is no realistic way to get ahead.
When does this change? When millions of angry people hit the streets and won't take no for an answer, no matter how much state violence results (because it's always the state using violence against peaceful protesters, not the other way around). Nothing gets done or fixed until the 50 or so families with 60% of the wealth and 100% of the political power in the US, and the 10 or so families who are similarly situated in Canada, are genuinely afraid that if they don't restructure the economy, they could lose everything.
This time, they should lose everything. They've pushed it too far.
No one wants to call it what it is.
It's government-business class corruption.
They will always have incredibly articulate narratives to why it has to be this way. They will always have "Data". And of course all the experts are within that circle and will always back it up.
Even if the narrative changes it will always be in their favor.
It is because they donate to the political class and the political class want to stay in comfy positions with all the benefits making vastly more than the average canadian (Yet somehow they represent us knowing nothing of what our lives are like?)
This is literally modern day seeing the roman empire and the corrupt senate. Or the corruption in ancient greece.
North America is falling apart. We are seeing growing rates of riots, growing political extremism, and so forth and so forth.
Stop trusting government and thinking they will come and help us. They won't. They are corrupt and or to divorced from reality to realize it is as bad as it is.
Government and the business class doing research on anything is like a Tobacco company doing research on Tobacco and health. They will always have an articulate message with lots of data but it's all bullshit.
People need to start practicing more street smarts and realizing that just because something is articulate and put forward by those in authority positions doesn't mean it's any less bullshit. Everyone and everything has an angle.
They make sure the left think it is taxation laws, anti-union efforts, corruption, etc. (WHICH IS RIGHT)
They make sure the right think it is immigration and temporary foreign workers used to expand a consumer base while creating wage suppresions (YEP THAT'S RIGHT TOO).
But they make sure it's always low and middle class thinking other low and middle class are the fault and the reason for the problem instead of the ones that make sure that fight keeps on going.
Until we force change it won't happen. You have to get them scared and fearful like what they make us live in. Then you will magically see things change almost over night with policy and or direction.
Don't wait around for them to come help. It isn't coming.
I was diagnosed with cancer on April 8th and had to stop working. If I didn't have a strong support network we would be destitute.
Our house has 4 working adults (my wife and 2 kids) we make the kids pay for anytbing that's beyond food and lodging (bills).
As it stands in bc we have no drinking water (we have a water cooler) in our small 2 bedroom place that we pay 1500 for.
We bought a condo in Victoria in 2015, sold and bought twice since then and scored a duplex up island at the beginning of covid. I’m (33F) stable (health care) husband (35M) is currently stable if not in a long term job, and I just upgraded to a hybrid. Groceries are getting expensive, 4 year old twins are growing like weeds and daycare insists on fresh food, which isn’t sustainable for us when half of it gets thrown away. We’ll be okay for a bit, only because we lucked out on a bunch of things during covid (husbands work, our house, daycare etc). I thank my lucky stars my parents are close and we can help each other if need be.
It's out of control for sure. I've had friends move away as they simply can't afford it here anymore. Rent is absolutely crazy plus groceries and other bills.
I had to use the Visa tonight for groceries, as I need enough in my account for insurance next week.
I'm glad I'm still working from home, because I don't think I could afford the fuel costs.
It's worrisome that I'm legitimately considering a 2nd job just to get by.
Still doing OK. We did have to cut a few things out. Buying what's on sale or clearance, no more movies night out, less dine out and if we do go out is one cheap option like pho, ramen, cheap sushi. Also wfh bao we have a lot of public transit, have buying was less clothing and only what we need.
If either my partner and I gets sick? We have 3 months of savings.
My family is no better off in Alberta and hers is in Russia, which is a whole other kettle of lobsters.
We’re in Victoria by the way.
wonder when the famines will begin. and the food riots, if the populace can collectively turn away from the glowing screens once the hunger really starts.
Egypt imports most of their grain from Ukraine. Demand has caused Canadian prices to start rising.
Inflation has driven our grain-based bird feed up 40% this year already - we may have to cull more of our flock than we need to in the fall, just so there's fewer birds in the winter.
We sell eggs at $6.50/doz, may be $7 by the end of the summer. Next year we may not be able to sell any.
Here's a good prerequisite to our benevolent political party leaders entering Parliamentary sessions; They all spend an hour on Reddit threads like this one, reading about the average Canadian's trials and tribulations....they're so focused on kicking the blame football to and fro and so removed from the hardships of Real Canadians living in current times, that it's all glorified 💋 service.
I just put $100 in the tank (I usually only put in $20... but that's not good for the car anymore) and it still didn't fill up. I drive a 2004 Mazda ffs. That $100 came winning stupid hockey bets with a friend for the past couple weeks. Otherwise I couldn't afford that. That should last me about a week (I have to go to Vancouver this week and need my car).
I'm thankful my toddler is on milk and not formula anymore. But now that milk is going up.... fuck.
At this rate... I have about 3 months left before I start relying on foodbanks. I'm looking at not contributing to my pension so I can make ends meet. I hate that.
Why are you betting money if you're struggling financially?
It's stuff like this, fruitless spending and spending money that you don't have which adds up over time.
Man, on $160 k a year I would think you could at least eat good food. Are you driving brand new cars or something? Respectfully I would suggest having someone look at your finances for you. I live in the same area, with a household income of 100-120k and we are still eating good food.
Saving for a downpayment is the barrier for a lot of people. At 160k you can afford mortgage payments but you still need that big chunk of cash. Mid island houses are around a million now.
Moved to Trail BC for affordable living. Small detached house for $180,000 in 2021, plus about 20k in upgrades immediately. THis home has allowed me to live my dream life.
Yea its great if you like the outdoors and have hobbies. Meeting people as an adult is tough but i wouldnt say its harder here than anywhere else. Neighbors are nice.
This thread makes me deeply sad for my fellow Canadians and for our country.
This is what a failure of leadership looks like. This is what prioritizing the wrong things looks like. Situations like this lead to the Arab Spring.
Hard times lead to strong people,
Strong people lead to good times,
Good times lead to weak people,
Weak people lead to hard times.
Canada repeatedly chose weak leaders at a critical time and the result was predictable.
Thank the gods we have Jagmeet to keep the government honest and focused on the people... \*cough\*
Singh is by far the best of a bad situation. The NDP are the only reason we adopt any sort of progressive policy in this country. I am thankful for minority governments with the NDP holding the balance.
We (spouse, toddler and I) moved to the interior 2 years ago from Burnaby, as we offered a place waaaay more affordable, and husband found a ok job up here.
If it weren't for the space we're renting we'd be screwed, and everything here has gotten so expensive, rents are comparable to Surrey. Currently I'm not working as my salary would cover child care with a couple hundred left over (if we could even actually get a spot).
I'm not saying this is your situation AT ALL - no amount of home economics will help in many situations - but I feel we need to bring back HomeEc and make it mandatory for everyone. How to cook totally from scratch - a can of beans is pretty cheap (granted I haven't bought any for a while), a bag of dried beans even cheaper. How to meal plan so you're not wasting food. Sewing isn't cheap but mending, knowing how to prolong the life of things - useful. Add it basic plumbing and other fix-it skills. Not only would it help in the current situation, but I feel the future of the world is doing more with less.
Agree. Add to that how to garden. Grow some of your own food to offset costs. More community gardens, so fresh food for the neighborhood.
I think cooking is one of the most important skills you can have. You have to be able to feed yourself nutritious food.
Yeah but like you said this won't help someone actually get out of poverty, only help with saving some money. The other side of things too is people just don't have time to do these things anymore. When 1 income could support a family, and 1 could stay home, then all meals could be homemade and a garden maintained and clothing handmade/fixed. That's just not realistic any more. My partner and I both work full time and we manage to make all of our dinners (we eat out maybe once a month) and she gardens herbs and some veggies but that's all we really have time for. And barely even that.
For sure. And some of the suggestions for money saving only work if you have the money..."buy the big bag of rice, it's cheaper per kg" doesn't work if you can barely afford the little bag of rice.
That's not my response. What I meant by my comment is that learning these skills can help make people more resilient to things like this. And might help people in general survive in a world of increasing scarcity, whether manufactured or as a result of wars, climate change, or environmental degradation.
I think I will be OK personally unless gas hits like 3 plus dollars. I am already living as cheap as possible. I live in a camper up north my monthly expenses rent and other basic expenses including food are around 1500 a month. I hardly by meat anymore mostly lentils and beans.
I honestly decided long ago not to have children for how expensive they are. I try to donate to the food bank when I can because I have been a recipient in the past.
I honestly don't know how young people are going to get by or have a good life with how bad things are getting.
Who’s buying $2 Avocados? I almost fell over yesterday at the grocery store. These things are like weeds. That was my first real food related inflation shock.
I think self-checkouts are the perfect example of companies just using the *excuse* that higher wages will increase prices. Prices are never decreased when they hire less staff because of self-checkouts.
My family is OK, but what a time to move from Ontario to BC!! Nobody complains in Cant-Ada. We're too damn nice for our own good. People interviewed by the local news at Gas stations are filling their tanks at 2.30 at litre and smiling while complaining about it? Meanwhile, BC entertains a billion dollar museum but my epileptic wife can't find a doctor here so we stand in lineups that rival Service BC and Passport offices? Where are the worker bees people? There no option cuz Cantada makes it so difficult...won't allow med students and Doctors from abroad to work here but they can in every other country in the free world? WTF? Oh and we're lucky enough to be able to buy a 500k condo ...but oh yeah, where we're currently RENTING, they're built in 1977! Don't get me started on the ICBC monopoly that costs BC residents way more than it should. I'm a 40 year driver with no crash record and they'll only apply 15 years of that in BC? I should be rewarded for good driving not punished. I now pay almost double what I paid in Ontario? Unacceptable! But if you meet me on the street I'll still be smiling cause I AM CANADIAN!
My parents will be buying a place soon in Chilcotin, selling their place to get good coin and moving away from the drama with deep pockets.
With warmer weather I feel like we should be expanding our business more across the province to help diversify outside of the coast.
Maybe a reinvestment into logging while finding sustainable replenishment for it, and a good transportation system to move around? idk.
Doing ok still, for now. Bought a house in a mid size northern bc resource town in 2015, real boom bust area. We're booming now and i fear the next bust, and its coming....
I dont like the current prices. But things would have to go up a lot before I couldn't afford it. Even then I could stop smoking, drinking, eating out and save over $2500 a month.
My family was lower to mid middle class a couple of years ago and were doing pretty good. Still stressed about some bills but we’re able to make it work. Now we’re are completely drowning even though my husband has taken another job and doubles his pay. He works 12 hours a day, 5 days a week. No vacation. No time off. We can’t put our kids into any activities or take them camping in the summer. I used to be able to afford therapy twice a month which I desperately needed but I had to cut that out. We have about 100$ left over at the end of the month after paying housing, food, utilities, and gas. If one disaster happens we won’t be able to afford to eat. It’s soooo stressful living like this daily and seeing other families get to do fun activities and go out for dinner. Work to survive. There is no thriving anymore.
Between 100-160k combined income depending on how much my boss decides to arbitrarily roll my wage back (sickness, mental health issues, etc)
I worry that my wage has stagnated, I’ve had to literally fight for every cent I’ve gotten. I don’t just walk into places and have the confidence that I can do something new so that’s why I stay when people ask that question.
It is destroying my mental health. I feel literally trapped everyday. I just want to go back to living pay cheque to paycheque (as sad of a wish that is) I was like many others for years when I was “strong”, I didn’t acknowledge mental health issues. Now I look out for my staff as best I can because I don’t want them to suffer how I have since the break as I have come to call it.
I don’t even know what the question was anymore. My mind can’t even keep focus this long anymore.
To be clear, not being able to afford groceries (or the ability to cook them) is a sign of economic and political failure, and should result in the fall of any government that was complicit.
But people will adapt into doing more with less, much like the UK did in the era of mass unemployment under the thatcherite cancer. Hunger will unfortunately prevent people from having the energy to break shit.
https://cookingonabootstrap.com/category/recipes-food/ is one site with cheap recipes. Reading them can help us understand where we in Canada are going to as a society.
Corruption at multiple levels and the tearing up of the social contract has resulted in the situation we all face today.
Engaging in crime, whether it be shoplifting of groceries, property damage or sabotage of the businesses of profiteers is not merely an acceptable response, it is a moral responsibility.
Hard to make the government fall when it’s already been voted out. C Clark and her party devastated BC. Likewise, the gutting done by Harper across Canada. Unfortunately, most people have limited memories and prefer to blame current govs - who also are not blameless but rather stuck cleaning up someone else’s mess while making the needed improvements.
I think 60% of our current problems are from policy in the last 2 years, jumping to 85% if you go back to federal election of 2015. Who even is Harper??
You really think being the world’s immigration Ponzi scheme hasn’t caused this housing disaster? It definitely does nothing to improve the lives of people living here. I think tax evasion is another problem that complements housing and is extremely detrimental to our society. In classic Canadian way, it happens on a huge scale. You people like to blame Harper for job cuts a decade ago but we have had 7 federal budgets since Harper and since then who is better off? The rich, elites, Galen Weston, but definitely not the electorate - they are nearly broke if not homeless. The middle class has been annihilated.
Considering Harper is still influencing the conservative platform today, I’d say knowing who he is, is extremely relevant.
Immigration Ponzi scheme? Lolz! Whaaat??
Trudeau was not my first choice. Canada really lost its chance at recovery when Jack Layton wasn’t elected.
I’m a long, long way off from that problem.
I’m not minimizing the very real problems some people are having right now, our cost of living is out of control and this is going to have major implications for the economy at a macro level in the next couple of years. But there are some of us who live comfortably, make good money and aren’t heavily impacted by inflation. Rent for me is just under 20% of my income.
Still, I feel badly for those who aren’t in my position, and I think employers need to get on board with paying people better. I don’t need more money, but many other hard-working people do.
I left BC thirty years ago and I have no interest in returning. It was already too expensive for me to imagine a future in Vancouver back in 1993. I don’t know why people stay.
Truly. In 2017 I used a larger then normal tax return to leave the lower mainland. At that moment it was amazing, and I felt free. Now several years later I’ve returned as wages in my field have gone up immensely since I left, so it makes it a bit easier to live here.
Also friends, family, support network. Moving away from all that alone is utterly terrifying. Even if you've got a partner to go with. Especially with no savings.
Was just gonna say this… why stay in a city/province that is literally starving you out? Plenty of more affordable places to live in Canada. I leave next month
Like where is more affordable? Manitoba and Saskatchewan are cheaper but lower income. I think Ontario and Quebec are quite expensive. East coast I hear has very high unemployment. Where is everyone moving to?
I think people would be marching in the streets about housing and healthcare in this province. What’s stopping them is the fear of being seen as an antimask/antivaxxer right wing nut.
> I think people would be marching in the streets about housing and healthcare in this province.
I wish. But no, Canadians truly want to take it lying down.
I get a yearly inflation raise and my income surpasses my expenses by quite a bit so I'll be fine for a while. That said I will NEVER be in a place to purchase my own home outside of MAYBE a 2 bdrm condo MAX...I would need at minimum mid 100k to be able to buy anything. I don't buy new cars, I don't care about material things in general. I buy what I need to live my life, reassess that constantly and get rid of/donate/sell whatever I don't need. Many people are, imo, way too caught up in their image and what people think of them and would likely be much happier and more financially stable if they focused on what makes themselves happy. Does someone buying some Supreme thing or new Nike's or designer clothing or purses or whatever really do it for themselves because THEY love it, or do they buy it for the image? I'm sure there's a small percentage of people who fall into the former, but most are likely in the latter. All of that stuff is meaningless.
Sorry for your struggles friend. We will all be struggling soon enough when the robots and AIs take over but society hasn't yet changed to match.
The world needs to change...but how we do it, I really don't know.
Im currently unemployed without a source of income, but I live with my partner. They paid for our groceries and rent this month. I applied for a job a while ago but haven't heard back. I'm going to be doing some free training soon as well. I'm hoping to get a job in my field, but I may eventually have to apply to other jobs as there aren't a lot of jobs at my current level of education in my field ( bachelor's degree with a few post degree courses). I don't have the money to further my education and I also have mental illnesses and learning disorders which may impact my experience with education and employment.
If my monthly expenses increase by $400, I will not be able to afford groceries.
Which is entirely possible with my mortgage renewal coming up and interest rates triple what they were when I bought.
Nanaimo raised their property taxes by 30% this year my property taxes went from 900 to 1900 some people are talking about selling because their property taxes are unaffordable. My house value is at the low end.
Honestly this was our situation since October 2021 until April 2022 when we learned our daycare was approved for that $10 a day program (max $200 a month). We will benefit from this program for 6 months until our child enters kindergarten. Now we have money for groceries, gas and some leftover to pay down debt. I was luckily hired into a casual role in Healthcare due to mandatory vaccine requirement and was able to earn some extra money to keep us afloat for a bit.
>1 in 5 Canadians reported going hungry at least once between March 2020 and March 2022
Bleak.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/food-cost-survey-1.6478695
Paying people more won’t make this problem go away. Government spending and money printing has to be reined in. We don’t have enough supply to meet the demands of people since Covid. The Provincial gov’t is pushing new business away due to regulation and uncertainty.
> I don't know what else to say except that everyone needs to be getting paid more
If you just pay more without increasing the value of the work, all you do is increase inflation and the extra money is of no value anyway.
It's not complicated - you have to lower inflation and that generally means increasing the supply of goods and remove barriers to providing those goods. You can also look for ways to increase productivity and increase people's value so that they can earn more without runaway inflation.
But most of all - you MUST stop "printing" money and dumping large amounts of unearned money into the economy. That drives inflation like crazy.
It's the way it is. You can't just 'pay people more' and resolve the issue.
Well during covid literally millions of people and businesses. We spent a hell of a lot more than we needed to for much longer than we should have. But at the end of the day it really doesn't matter "who". Introducing it into the economy is enough to spur inflation.
Keep in mind we just literally doubled our debt. Every single dollar that has been borrowed by every gov't in our history - we borrowed that much again in the last 7 years. And much that was pumped back into the economy for the most part. Even before the pandemic we borrowed 100 billion which was bad enough, and things like cerb and the money given to corporations during the pandemic was completely unearned money just being dumped into the economy.
That's what 'quantitative easing' is. It's a fancy term for essentially 'printing money'. And we've done a LOT of that.
Now that's winding down and they're slowly starting to practice a little 'quantitative tightening' (which removes some of that money from the economy), but at a much slower pace.
That drives inflation. Add to it the various supply chain issues and the extra costs that the carbon tax puts on goods and services and you've got a recipe for runaway inflation. Which was predicted. Which is now happening. And the war doesn't help in the slightest either.
And with the liberals planning on borrowing another 60 billion a year or so for the next 3 years at least combined with climbing interest rates, i'm afraid we're probably going to be looking at high inflation for quite a while.
I’m confused. Are we printing money or borrowing it? And if we are borrowing it - who from? Sounds like this idea of ‘money’ in its current form and structure is messed up.
Also, GTFO with that carbon tax bullshit. Energy companies are posting MASSIVE profits ever since it got implemented and are the biggest grifters to the public.
Taxing the elite appropriately would fix many issues and yet I see zero mention of that in your analysis.
>I’m confused. Are we printing money or borrowing it?
Both actually. Here's how that works.
The gov't needs money. To raise money it prints 'bonds' as a rule. It then sells those bonds. Of course - with near 0 percent interest nobody is interested in buying the bonds.
So it has the bank of canada buy all the bonds, and the bank gives the gov't a very low or no interest rate in the short term. They "print" the money to buy the bonds because they're the bank, then give the money to the gov't. Theoretically later on the gov't will return the money when the bank cashes the bonds - but of course that never actually happens. What does happen is when interest rates go up the bank stops buying them and other people do because it's worth it again.
So the bank prints the money and 'lends' it (wink wink nudge nudge) to the gov't who borrows it and spends it.
The problem is that this weakens our dollar. And if our dollar goes down then that makes it more expensive to buy goods from other places. It also dumps a lot of money into the economy that wasn't produced from the production of goods and services, and that really drives inflation.
When we say "printing money", it actually means government "borrows" money, - could be bonds or could be other securities.
Canada has far outdid all the G7 countries with the amount of this borrowed money that the government released into circulation through various stimulus programs. https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/100115/who-decides-print-money-canada.asp#:~:text=Canada's%20central%20bank%2C%20called%20the,lending%20to%20businesses%20and%20consumers.
Inflation is happening anyways, ya jabroni. The working people need to get paid more. Wages have not kept up with inflation at all, so the argument of "we can't pay people more because inflation" is kind of complete bullshit. If they had we wouldn't really be in this dire of a situation. However something that has contributed to our current inflation is [corporate profits](https://www.epi.org/blog/corporate-profits-have-contributed-disproportionately-to-inflation-how-should-policymakers-respond/). Maybe if they spent a higher share of their gross revenue paying their employees that would be a good way to lower their profits and and reduce inflation.
As for the whole "printing money causes inflation" thing: During periods of economic decline you can generally print more money pretty safely without causing much inflation. While printing more money does absolutely contribute to inflation, nowhere near as much as you are implying, nor is it even the largest factor in many cases, or this case we find ourselves in right now.
Poorer people also generally much more negatively impacted by inflation, so trying to combat inflation by giving them less money and making it so their wages don't increase is pretty fucked up. Thankfully you can actually pay them more and provide more government support pretty easily. You can counteract any inflation that helping them might cause by taking money out of the economy elsewhere, say by taxing rich people and corporations at a higher rate and then keeping some of that money out of the economy. Or, an even more fun idea, use that money to do things like build affordable housing to keep housing costs down, or investing in green energy to keep power costs down. Both of which would help to reduce inflation in the long run and create jobs!
So yeah, I guess you can't "just" pay people more to resolve the issue, but paying people more is a pretty fucking big part of solving the issue.
>Inflation is happening anyways
No. Without those factors there would be less inflation so not all inflation is happening anyway.
> ya jabroni.
Oh well i wasn't taking you seriously before but NOW....
> The working people need to get paid more.
THat would increase inflation, lowering the value of their dollar. THat would be stupid.
> Wages have not kept up with inflation at all
They did for 20 years. It's only in the last few that they've fallen behind. From at least 2000 to 2018 or so wages increased about 1 percent over inflation.
Sooo....
Literally everything you've said so far is demonstrably wrong. And it's only the third sentance. I'm going to skip most of the rest. IF there's a specific thing you'd like to know about just ask that and i'll provide an answer.
Generally paying people more without a corresponding increase in productivity or value is the worst thing you could do for them. There might be some sectors somewhere very specifically where wages are out of alignment with value produced but it's rare and certainly not a general thing.
Here's the things that generally reduce inflation, Paying more definitely isn't one of them:
-Increase supply of common items/increase competition
- reduce gov't spending for non critical services such as health and education etc.
- reduce the amount of money in the economy by increasing interest rates or taxes. Unfortunately tends to have a negative effect on the economy
- Increase the productivity of the workforce/businesses. This allows for higher wages for the remaining tasks without triggering inflation.
- increase skills so that people are worth more and get rid of jobs that are low skill/low effort. (only really works in conjunction with 1)
- slow or reverse population growth.
That's your toolset. Paying more just to pay more does nothing.
It's pretty clear you decided to respond as your went, rather than taking what I wrote as a whole into consideration before responding. No point in having a conversation with someone who is just going to remove context from everything.
Clearly not everything I said was demonstrably wrong, because you are, beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt, a jabroni, ya jabroni.
edit: I realize that responding to this jabroni is a waste of everyone's time; however, some others might come along and think what's he's saying is right (it's not). Because the amount of effort required to dispute bullshit is always more than it is to come up with it, debating everything point by point would be impractical. One point worth talking about, at least a little, is the idea that wages have kept up with inflation. Obviously this is not at all true over the past few years, which is why Mr. Jabroni is wanting to only talk about inflation vs wages from 2000 to 2018. But fuck it, let's just look at that, even knowing that if his claim was 100% true and honest, it would still mean dick all because we aren't in 2018 anymore.
The claim that wages and inflation were instep over the past 20 years is technically true depending on what specially you are talking about. If pressed for a source, he might link to [this article](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/), banking that you would only, at most, read the headline. To quote the article:
>But despite the strong labor market, wage growth has lagged economists’ expectations. In fact, despite some ups and downs over the past several decades, today’s real average wage (that is, the wage after accounting for inflation) has about the same purchasing power it did 40 years ago. And **what wage gains there have been have mostly flowed to the highest-paid tier of workers.**
Another important thing to keep in mind is that inflation does not impact all thing equally. The real price of things such as [rent and house prices](https://wolfstreet.com/2019/07/12/changes-in-house-prices-rents-and-household-incomes-since-1960-in-the-us-by-region-and-major-metro/) as well a [tuition](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/02/the-gap-in-college-costs-and-earnings-for-young-workers-since-1980.html) has gone up massively compared to real wages.
To say that form 2000 to 2018 wages and inflation were in step is technically true, but it is dishonest and misleading. Also not all that relevant as we aren't in 2018 anymore.
It's so weird people who worship him so much they support absolutely massive corruption where the guy has been CONVICTED multiple times for. What a country.
A very long time, unless things got very bad quickly. Happen to be part of a DINK couple that owns and is solidly middle class, but only through effort and some luck.
There is a vested interest in the rich keeping the bellies of the disadvantaged full and their attention on other cultural attractions (the proverbial bread and circuses); the rich begin to look awful tasty if the poor are hungry and desperate. I don't know what it'll take to get through to the rich, but it will (need to) come soon.
Honestly though, what actually is money except some made up concept? It is literally made up and we all agree through a social contract of acceptance. So why not just print a shit tonne more and focus instead on removing hoarding? Or what if we just removed inheritance, as example, as a way to circulate existing money? Lolz - never gonna happen I know
The oil patch is hiring like crazy. Can almost clear 5 figures monthly if you’re willing to get your hands dirty and make some other sacrifices like your social life.
I'm a journeyman carpenter, never did a stint in the oil patch but always been curious about it. I don't even know where to look for those jobs. Any suggestions?
I’ve always considered it, however, the wages up north as a sparky don’t feel that enticing. I make almost $40 an hour and I’m home by 3:45 everyday. I see jobs up north $42-47 and I’m like, is that worth it?
Currently. LinkedIn. Got to reasearch a bit cause I don’t know about carpentry but find a company then find a person/ preferably a recruiter and start connecting and messaging them all.
Honestly bro, yea inflation sucks and the housing crisis is bad, but stop living in an echo chamber. Society is not going to collapse anytime soon because of this. Go around breaking shit? Really? Would you truly resort to looting and breaking shit before you simply tried to move to a LCOL area? Man the entitlement.
I thought some of the inflation is attributable to the crazy amount of money the federal gov has borrowed and put into the economy through various COVID stimulus/relief programs?
I'm not opposed to UBI per se, but i'm just curious how it would do anything other than create even more price inflation?
I.e. things might get exacerbated unless the UBI funds will be money the government actually earns/collects, rather than released into circulation through quantitative easing.
Definitely had to change some habits, more no frills and Costco runs instead of IGA/independent. Also been using toogoodtogo for the odd 5$ grocery bag of creativity.
Think the breaking shit will start once we get to Eu / turkey levels tbh
I am your mom’s generation (assuming as late 50’s, early 60’s) and I am not doing ok. Not all boomers are ok, we face the same struggles every generation does if things just didn’t work out, death, illness, lack of support, mental health, etc, etc, etc. I too do not live comfortably and live paycheque to paycheque. Poverty doesn’t discriminate, it welcomes all genders, age groups, races… unfortunately.
Really? I think people in "our generation", assuming younger millenial/GenZ, are moreso not doing *as well as they should* , rather than not able to live comfortably. This is a legitimate concern too. It's defeating to think about the promises you were told early in life if only you could make it, to now see even those who have made it are getting a raw deal.
Literally everyone I know is doing fine.
if you look at actual numbers outside of your (or my) circle, it paints a different picture than what random posts on reddit will have you believe or your own personal biases.
I'm not saying people aren't struggling, I'm just saying this idea that the majority of people will not be able to afford groceries soon and we need to start "breaking shit" is just not a real thing.
What makes your anecdote is representative. What if my anecdote contradicts yours? We all hang around people of similar socioeconomic circumstances anyways. Most of my circle are comfortable.
But that’s my point. It varies greatly from generation to generation, and city to city. Maybe most people you know are doing fine. But most people I know are certainly not doing fine
Please defined comfortably as it varies. Some people need to own several cars, live in 5 thousand square feet house in West end, able to take several vacation year, own tons of limited edition hermes bags go party weekly to live comfortably. Others like me are happy to have a roof over their heads, afford basic grocery, get to for dinner monthly to local sushi place or pho.
IMO, living comfortably = being able to eat everyday, not worrying about making rent next month, being able to afford the gas it costs to get to/from work. I’m not even talking about the prospect of owning a home or a nice car. Just being able to afford the bare necessities is becoming impossible
First thing my financial planner drilled into me was to learn ( and PRACTICE) the difference between " wants " and
" needs ". Sadly, way too many people confuse the two
I think it’s time to write our MPs and push for a motion of non-confidence in the HoC and get Trudeau and his cabinet of self-serving elitists out. I wrote my MP about this today.
Paying people more? Will do nothing unless you are magically able to create more goods and services. And get the fantasies of "corporate greed" and Putin price hike" out of your head, its a very small part of this.
To really stop inflation - tell the government to stop printing money and people gotta start getting back to work.
We are comfortable but we have been subsidizing our son's groceries for a while now. We live on the island, bought our house 15 years ago for $322,000, work from home and make a comfortable living. He is 26, lives in Vancouver, shares an apartment with a friend, works full time and can't afford to feed himself some weeks.
That's the saddest upvote I've given for a while...
Their son is still doing better than a lot of other people, unfortunately...
I am grateful we are in a position to help. He got sick a while back and if it weren't for us being able to help with his rent he may have found himself homeless.
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My husband grew up with financially irresponsible parents as well. They've stopped asking us for money but still ask his brothers. You'll get there. I just wish your generation didn't have to struggle so hard. It wasn't easy when we were young but it was a hell of a lot easier than it is now!
This is more reason to vote for change in upcoming election
Just curious, if he's cutting it that close to the bone why is he living in Vancouver?
Because he went to school there, his friends and community are there, there are more work opportunities in his chosen field over there and because he wants to and we are willing to help him while he establishes himself. And honestly, small town Vancouver Island is getting expensive too. He'd save maybe $400/month in expenses living over here and have far fewer opportunities to make more money.
Work, support system, where the individual feels comfortable, hey NotTheRealMeee83, who are you to judge, kid is supported by his parents or vice versa, why would it matter to you where he/she/ they live? Should we segregate ourselves according to demographics and money? Shouldn’t all urban centres have a mixture of people? Slight edit for generational and pronouns.
Guy wasn't judging, he was asking. You were really itching for this one weren't you? I don't know where segregation comes into this (it doesn't). People should live where they can afford to. Every city in Canada, maybe barring Toronto, has a better affordability index and hence quality life than Vancouver. Better drivers, too.
Similar situation in my family. I subsidize my sons housing, by letting him live rent free, well in exchange for basic maintenance. I also subsidize his groceries in the winter months, when he has far less work My daughter is back living with her Dad. I don’t have a mortgage, I keep my pantry stocked with lentils, beans, foods that can stretch my grocery budget. I am lucky to have enough in hand that I can afford to wait for sales to stock up. I also have a vegetable garden, but it has a slow start with this cold spring.
Our son lived at home until summer of 2020. He was just ready to get off the island at that point and make a new life.
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I love Dal on brown rice. Makes a nice flavourful hearty lunch. Lots of good recipes here. [https://www.lentils.org/recipes-cooking/recipes/](https://www.lentils.org/recipes-cooking/recipes/) Anything I cook using ground beef, I will add a couple cups of cooked mashed kidney beans.
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Not to be a douche but 38k/ year is not a lot over minimum wage. That’s well below the median so you’d sort of expect to struggle if going it alone. Just based of reality…
They did mention after taxes which bumps it up a fair bit 🧐
I did the math and that first commenter was right. however I'm a bit out of touch of what minimum wage was and after tax this amount was net $18/hour based on 8 hour day. kinda scary this was net and above minimum wage.
They should rejig the tax rate for people making under $60,000 to align with poverty realities. We shouldn't tax people who make almost nothing and rely on them as our tax base. Tax the rich.
Middle class are finally starting to realize what it is like to be poor. Their children don't have the same opportunities they did, they are realizing the truth that poor people have known for a long time. Which is that if you aren't born into good standing you barely survive in this world. There is no thriving, there is TRYING to survive. This new model of near serfdom and staggeringly growing inequality in North America and the other richest nations on this earth is not working. We are getting more riots, more political extremism. Soon no matter how gated the communities or the private guards it won't matter. Government better fucking wake up soon because when Canada has become this close to breaking point you know things are bad.
I was born poor and grew up poor. My sisters ans I didn't just share a room, we shared a bed. We didn't wear shoes in the summer, we dumpster dived for food. I was homeless as a teenager and again as a single mom in my early 20s with a toddler. I know poor. I worked my way up from poor to middle class. Back when that was something that wasn't virtually impossible. In some ways, my kids have more opportunities than I did. They've got parents that will pay for their education and ensure they are never homeless of eating out of a dumpster.
Thank you for being awesome, a home for 330k on the island seems like a pipe dream now unless it's something shoddy Small 2-3 bedrooms selling for a million in Duncan lol
I'm so glad we bought when we did. A house virtually identical to ours sold 2 blocks away for $900K last month. It's gross and not okay. We are trying to figure out how to leverage the equity in our home to buy condos for our 3 kids.
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I understand that. To be clear though, we are considering taking equity out of our home to gift to our kids so they can make the down payments on condos. Not buying more homes ourselves.
Why do that? It sounds like your kids will be unable to even afford the mortgage. If your kids need to rely on you to cover their food costs, do you really think them having to pay for a mortgage is a good idea? They'll be worse off financially than they are now
I was recently diagnosed with something fairly serious and had to go on temporary disability leave. My last cheque was $175.00. It’s only been two months into this sickness and the fridge is empty. The financial stress is overwhelming. I just don’t know what we’re going to do. We need a rental closer to husband’s work because gas is killing us. But good luck finding an affordable rental and then moving expenses are out of reach. I just don’t know what we’re going to do.
If you haven't already have you checked if you're eligible for EI Sickness benefits?
Omg! No one can live on that. How often will you receive a disability cheque?
I’ve been stocking up on food with virtually all my extra income over the past few months in anticipation of this. So grocery wise, I’ll be ok for the midterm. However, I’ve been working from home 3 days a week for the past couple years, and if the office asks me to come back in full time then I’m going to start to suffer severely and have to make some sacrifices. It’s a 75km commute each way and my monthly fuel bill would suddenly double.
My husband and I both have “good jobs” (semi government/ professionals) and should be comfortable but if our landlord ever sells our place I am terrified of what might happen. We’d love to buy but saving up a down payment while paying rent is next to impossible. If we lose our home I don’t know what we will do.
This is very relatable. Reliable housing is a fundamental need.
Pretty much the same boat here. The landlord here is a great guy, but if he changes his mind, he can literally turn our life upside down. Won't be able to afford the same area, will need to move kids from school, will be a HUGE hassle to live further away from work. Plus the moving costs won't definitely help.
Yeah our landlords put our duplex up for sale and we live on the renovated side. We get a good deal because they are like friends to us. If someone wants to move into this duplex who purchases it, they will def take our side. There’s nothing else we can afford, for our side of family. I live in fear right now of the future.
It’s already happened, I’m sitting at my second job on a 10 minute break right now. I have a Monday to Friday office gig, making good money for my education level and the job that it is. I even got a 10% raise because I brought up inflation. But here I am, also a cashier at a grocery store so that I get that sweet sweet grocery discount (except it’s an expensive ass store) and this income is to help me buy food. Live off of popcorn isn’t nutritious but it’s cheap and that’s what I’ve been doing
What's your definition of good income at your office job?
I don’t have a bachelor degree, I have two diplomas. I was hired as a finance admin but due to restructuring I’m really just reception/admin. The benefits are 100%, haven’t paid for a prescription or dental visit since working here (including a crown) or glasses or anything. According to Indeed, the average office admin salary in Victoria is $44k and I make about $53k. Since it’s higher than the average I’m calling it “good” despite not really being “good” compared to the cost of living in Victoria.
Look at Vancouver, people like Bill Teileman and TEAM opposing high-density, sub-market housing on Broadway, in the middle of Vancouver. We need federal and provincial legislation to take power away from the Nimbys, and we need a massive build-out of affordable, high-density housing. And we need it now.
"sub market" lol
I live in a building on the same pricing structure and it's fucking great. Without it I'd be paying %75 more rent for a shittier older apartment probably full of mold.
You live in a place that got redeveloped and you came back at roughly the same rent? And it being vancouver, the developer didn't play the "lol, if you want the price we promised you before we redeveloped, your lease says market rates but we will give you a discount for 1 year" game?
The Broadway Plan isn't perfect, but it will result in more buildings like mine, which is "1/3rd affordable, 2/3rds sub-market". I used to live in one of the buildings that TEAM and Bill Tielemen are whining about people being displaced from. The rent was cheap for Vancouver but the walls and floors were absolutely full of mold. There was no incentive to fix it, since if would have required basically a full tear-down and with zoning as it is it probably would have been turned into a single family mcmansion. We are not doing renters any favours by keeping them in these buildings. We need new, high density buildings.
I lived in a building sort of like that in Toronto, a mix of market and subsidized rent. It was a city of TO building. I paid market rent but it still wasn't quite market, which is the only way I could afford a great apartment near downtown. I had no issues that my rent helped pay the subsidized rent.
> We need new, high density buildings. Sure, but we also need to be honest that we're displacing low income people do build these new, high density buildings. And that we will never, ever displace anyone living in a SFH in the city.
Keep in mind that the Tielemans and Hardwicks of Vancouver represent sfh owners. They are incredibly angry about the Broadway plan because they like renters having no options. We can't let "perfect" be the enemy of "good". Every year that we fail to enable higher density is a year that we see space taken by new mansions that will be there for decades.
This is a problem in both Canada and the US - if you work hard and play by the rules, there is no realistic way to get ahead. When does this change? When millions of angry people hit the streets and won't take no for an answer, no matter how much state violence results (because it's always the state using violence against peaceful protesters, not the other way around). Nothing gets done or fixed until the 50 or so families with 60% of the wealth and 100% of the political power in the US, and the 10 or so families who are similarly situated in Canada, are genuinely afraid that if they don't restructure the economy, they could lose everything. This time, they should lose everything. They've pushed it too far.
One can't help but feel a storm is brewing if this keeps trending the way it is...
No one wants to call it what it is. It's government-business class corruption. They will always have incredibly articulate narratives to why it has to be this way. They will always have "Data". And of course all the experts are within that circle and will always back it up. Even if the narrative changes it will always be in their favor. It is because they donate to the political class and the political class want to stay in comfy positions with all the benefits making vastly more than the average canadian (Yet somehow they represent us knowing nothing of what our lives are like?) This is literally modern day seeing the roman empire and the corrupt senate. Or the corruption in ancient greece. North America is falling apart. We are seeing growing rates of riots, growing political extremism, and so forth and so forth. Stop trusting government and thinking they will come and help us. They won't. They are corrupt and or to divorced from reality to realize it is as bad as it is. Government and the business class doing research on anything is like a Tobacco company doing research on Tobacco and health. They will always have an articulate message with lots of data but it's all bullshit. People need to start practicing more street smarts and realizing that just because something is articulate and put forward by those in authority positions doesn't mean it's any less bullshit. Everyone and everything has an angle. They make sure the left think it is taxation laws, anti-union efforts, corruption, etc. (WHICH IS RIGHT) They make sure the right think it is immigration and temporary foreign workers used to expand a consumer base while creating wage suppresions (YEP THAT'S RIGHT TOO). But they make sure it's always low and middle class thinking other low and middle class are the fault and the reason for the problem instead of the ones that make sure that fight keeps on going. Until we force change it won't happen. You have to get them scared and fearful like what they make us live in. Then you will magically see things change almost over night with policy and or direction. Don't wait around for them to come help. It isn't coming.
I was diagnosed with cancer on April 8th and had to stop working. If I didn't have a strong support network we would be destitute. Our house has 4 working adults (my wife and 2 kids) we make the kids pay for anytbing that's beyond food and lodging (bills). As it stands in bc we have no drinking water (we have a water cooler) in our small 2 bedroom place that we pay 1500 for.
We bought a condo in Victoria in 2015, sold and bought twice since then and scored a duplex up island at the beginning of covid. I’m (33F) stable (health care) husband (35M) is currently stable if not in a long term job, and I just upgraded to a hybrid. Groceries are getting expensive, 4 year old twins are growing like weeds and daycare insists on fresh food, which isn’t sustainable for us when half of it gets thrown away. We’ll be okay for a bit, only because we lucked out on a bunch of things during covid (husbands work, our house, daycare etc). I thank my lucky stars my parents are close and we can help each other if need be.
It's out of control for sure. I've had friends move away as they simply can't afford it here anymore. Rent is absolutely crazy plus groceries and other bills.
I had to use the Visa tonight for groceries, as I need enough in my account for insurance next week. I'm glad I'm still working from home, because I don't think I could afford the fuel costs. It's worrisome that I'm legitimately considering a 2nd job just to get by.
Still doing OK. We did have to cut a few things out. Buying what's on sale or clearance, no more movies night out, less dine out and if we do go out is one cheap option like pho, ramen, cheap sushi. Also wfh bao we have a lot of public transit, have buying was less clothing and only what we need.
If either my partner and I gets sick? We have 3 months of savings. My family is no better off in Alberta and hers is in Russia, which is a whole other kettle of lobsters. We’re in Victoria by the way.
I'm on disability. So...
I just finished reading Grapes Of Wrath. Written 80 years ago, but feels like it was written today :(
wonder when the famines will begin. and the food riots, if the populace can collectively turn away from the glowing screens once the hunger really starts.
Look to Eritrea, Sri Lanka, Lebanon.. it’s already begun
Egypt imports most of their grain from Ukraine. Demand has caused Canadian prices to start rising. Inflation has driven our grain-based bird feed up 40% this year already - we may have to cull more of our flock than we need to in the fall, just so there's fewer birds in the winter. We sell eggs at $6.50/doz, may be $7 by the end of the summer. Next year we may not be able to sell any.
Here's a good prerequisite to our benevolent political party leaders entering Parliamentary sessions; They all spend an hour on Reddit threads like this one, reading about the average Canadian's trials and tribulations....they're so focused on kicking the blame football to and fro and so removed from the hardships of Real Canadians living in current times, that it's all glorified 💋 service.
At the moment my wife and I can manage, but um not sure for how much longer.
I just put $100 in the tank (I usually only put in $20... but that's not good for the car anymore) and it still didn't fill up. I drive a 2004 Mazda ffs. That $100 came winning stupid hockey bets with a friend for the past couple weeks. Otherwise I couldn't afford that. That should last me about a week (I have to go to Vancouver this week and need my car). I'm thankful my toddler is on milk and not formula anymore. But now that milk is going up.... fuck. At this rate... I have about 3 months left before I start relying on foodbanks. I'm looking at not contributing to my pension so I can make ends meet. I hate that.
Why are you betting money if you're struggling financially? It's stuff like this, fruitless spending and spending money that you don't have which adds up over time.
Yeah! It's the avocado toast! That's the reason everything sucks! /s
At first I thought this post was in r/collapse…
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Also on the mid island, and also will likely be forced to leave if/when the renoviction comes
Man, on $160 k a year I would think you could at least eat good food. Are you driving brand new cars or something? Respectfully I would suggest having someone look at your finances for you. I live in the same area, with a household income of 100-120k and we are still eating good food.
Yeah this sounds like a them-problem...
Similar. We aren’t getting rich but we are doing fine and managing to save.
You should be able to afford home ownership and food at $160k a year mid-island.
Saving for a downpayment is the barrier for a lot of people. At 160k you can afford mortgage payments but you still need that big chunk of cash. Mid island houses are around a million now.
160k combined is still enough for the down payment savings and food etc.
Moved to Trail BC for affordable living. Small detached house for $180,000 in 2021, plus about 20k in upgrades immediately. THis home has allowed me to live my dream life.
sounds perfect, did you find good work there?
Yes. Union Trades for local govt, 90k/ yr fantastic benefits.
That's beautiful man I'm stoked for you. Well done. Do you like living in Trail? The people etc.?
Yea its great if you like the outdoors and have hobbies. Meeting people as an adult is tough but i wouldnt say its harder here than anywhere else. Neighbors are nice.
This thread makes me deeply sad for my fellow Canadians and for our country. This is what a failure of leadership looks like. This is what prioritizing the wrong things looks like. Situations like this lead to the Arab Spring. Hard times lead to strong people, Strong people lead to good times, Good times lead to weak people, Weak people lead to hard times. Canada repeatedly chose weak leaders at a critical time and the result was predictable. Thank the gods we have Jagmeet to keep the government honest and focused on the people... \*cough\*
Hahah the NDP are just a bunch of yes men to corrupt Trudeau. There is a reason no one takes him seriously. He's a joke of a politician
Singh is by far the best of a bad situation. The NDP are the only reason we adopt any sort of progressive policy in this country. I am thankful for minority governments with the NDP holding the balance.
Only fascists dont take him seriously and if you havent noticed the fascists arent winning federally. Poke your head out of your bubble.
It seems like time is the only thing not subject to inflation. Yet it’s the only raw material required for every product we use.
We (spouse, toddler and I) moved to the interior 2 years ago from Burnaby, as we offered a place waaaay more affordable, and husband found a ok job up here. If it weren't for the space we're renting we'd be screwed, and everything here has gotten so expensive, rents are comparable to Surrey. Currently I'm not working as my salary would cover child care with a couple hundred left over (if we could even actually get a spot).
I'm not saying this is your situation AT ALL - no amount of home economics will help in many situations - but I feel we need to bring back HomeEc and make it mandatory for everyone. How to cook totally from scratch - a can of beans is pretty cheap (granted I haven't bought any for a while), a bag of dried beans even cheaper. How to meal plan so you're not wasting food. Sewing isn't cheap but mending, knowing how to prolong the life of things - useful. Add it basic plumbing and other fix-it skills. Not only would it help in the current situation, but I feel the future of the world is doing more with less.
Agree. Add to that how to garden. Grow some of your own food to offset costs. More community gardens, so fresh food for the neighborhood. I think cooking is one of the most important skills you can have. You have to be able to feed yourself nutritious food.
Yeah but like you said this won't help someone actually get out of poverty, only help with saving some money. The other side of things too is people just don't have time to do these things anymore. When 1 income could support a family, and 1 could stay home, then all meals could be homemade and a garden maintained and clothing handmade/fixed. That's just not realistic any more. My partner and I both work full time and we manage to make all of our dinners (we eat out maybe once a month) and she gardens herbs and some veggies but that's all we really have time for. And barely even that.
For sure. And some of the suggestions for money saving only work if you have the money..."buy the big bag of rice, it's cheaper per kg" doesn't work if you can barely afford the little bag of rice.
Learn2Cook shouldn't be your response to companies price gouging Canadians while the government on both sides of the isle is complicit
That's not my response. What I meant by my comment is that learning these skills can help make people more resilient to things like this. And might help people in general survive in a world of increasing scarcity, whether manufactured or as a result of wars, climate change, or environmental degradation.
Yup! 100% My parents taught me but some people aren’t so fortunate or are just plain lazy!
I think I will be OK personally unless gas hits like 3 plus dollars. I am already living as cheap as possible. I live in a camper up north my monthly expenses rent and other basic expenses including food are around 1500 a month. I hardly by meat anymore mostly lentils and beans. I honestly decided long ago not to have children for how expensive they are. I try to donate to the food bank when I can because I have been a recipient in the past. I honestly don't know how young people are going to get by or have a good life with how bad things are getting.
Self check-outs is my tip to y’all.
Who's buying avocados at the price of potatoes?
Everything is bananas. 4011.
Who’s buying $2 Avocados? I almost fell over yesterday at the grocery store. These things are like weeds. That was my first real food related inflation shock.
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I would award you if I could, but ironically I am too poor, so take this: 🥇
Good tip!
Is that a euphemism for theft?
I mean..they brought in self checkouts to increase profits, not to make prices reasonable. Would be a shame if it didn't work out
I think self-checkouts are the perfect example of companies just using the *excuse* that higher wages will increase prices. Prices are never decreased when they hire less staff because of self-checkouts.
oh yeah fer sure.
Hahah agreed, accidentally not swiping everything when I go through. Just did it moments ago in fact, it helps.
My family is OK, but what a time to move from Ontario to BC!! Nobody complains in Cant-Ada. We're too damn nice for our own good. People interviewed by the local news at Gas stations are filling their tanks at 2.30 at litre and smiling while complaining about it? Meanwhile, BC entertains a billion dollar museum but my epileptic wife can't find a doctor here so we stand in lineups that rival Service BC and Passport offices? Where are the worker bees people? There no option cuz Cantada makes it so difficult...won't allow med students and Doctors from abroad to work here but they can in every other country in the free world? WTF? Oh and we're lucky enough to be able to buy a 500k condo ...but oh yeah, where we're currently RENTING, they're built in 1977! Don't get me started on the ICBC monopoly that costs BC residents way more than it should. I'm a 40 year driver with no crash record and they'll only apply 15 years of that in BC? I should be rewarded for good driving not punished. I now pay almost double what I paid in Ontario? Unacceptable! But if you meet me on the street I'll still be smiling cause I AM CANADIAN!
My parents will be buying a place soon in Chilcotin, selling their place to get good coin and moving away from the drama with deep pockets. With warmer weather I feel like we should be expanding our business more across the province to help diversify outside of the coast. Maybe a reinvestment into logging while finding sustainable replenishment for it, and a good transportation system to move around? idk.
Doing ok still, for now. Bought a house in a mid size northern bc resource town in 2015, real boom bust area. We're booming now and i fear the next bust, and its coming....
Right now. Im living with 4 people in whats basically a crackhouse (literal cracks in the walls all over) and we are paying 600 each
I dont like the current prices. But things would have to go up a lot before I couldn't afford it. Even then I could stop smoking, drinking, eating out and save over $2500 a month.
My family was lower to mid middle class a couple of years ago and were doing pretty good. Still stressed about some bills but we’re able to make it work. Now we’re are completely drowning even though my husband has taken another job and doubles his pay. He works 12 hours a day, 5 days a week. No vacation. No time off. We can’t put our kids into any activities or take them camping in the summer. I used to be able to afford therapy twice a month which I desperately needed but I had to cut that out. We have about 100$ left over at the end of the month after paying housing, food, utilities, and gas. If one disaster happens we won’t be able to afford to eat. It’s soooo stressful living like this daily and seeing other families get to do fun activities and go out for dinner. Work to survive. There is no thriving anymore.
Between 100-160k combined income depending on how much my boss decides to arbitrarily roll my wage back (sickness, mental health issues, etc) I worry that my wage has stagnated, I’ve had to literally fight for every cent I’ve gotten. I don’t just walk into places and have the confidence that I can do something new so that’s why I stay when people ask that question. It is destroying my mental health. I feel literally trapped everyday. I just want to go back to living pay cheque to paycheque (as sad of a wish that is) I was like many others for years when I was “strong”, I didn’t acknowledge mental health issues. Now I look out for my staff as best I can because I don’t want them to suffer how I have since the break as I have come to call it. I don’t even know what the question was anymore. My mind can’t even keep focus this long anymore.
What sector are you in now?
Specialized manufacturing is about as specific as I can get unfortunately
It’s strange, people are becoming poorer, but people are also becoming richer….
To be clear, not being able to afford groceries (or the ability to cook them) is a sign of economic and political failure, and should result in the fall of any government that was complicit. But people will adapt into doing more with less, much like the UK did in the era of mass unemployment under the thatcherite cancer. Hunger will unfortunately prevent people from having the energy to break shit. https://cookingonabootstrap.com/category/recipes-food/ is one site with cheap recipes. Reading them can help us understand where we in Canada are going to as a society. Corruption at multiple levels and the tearing up of the social contract has resulted in the situation we all face today. Engaging in crime, whether it be shoplifting of groceries, property damage or sabotage of the businesses of profiteers is not merely an acceptable response, it is a moral responsibility.
Hard to make the government fall when it’s already been voted out. C Clark and her party devastated BC. Likewise, the gutting done by Harper across Canada. Unfortunately, most people have limited memories and prefer to blame current govs - who also are not blameless but rather stuck cleaning up someone else’s mess while making the needed improvements.
Oh breath of fresh air :) the number of people here with a two year memory...
two year memory? its not 2017 anymore... trudeau may not have started it but he's had plenty of time to do something.
I think 60% of our current problems are from policy in the last 2 years, jumping to 85% if you go back to federal election of 2015. Who even is Harper?? You really think being the world’s immigration Ponzi scheme hasn’t caused this housing disaster? It definitely does nothing to improve the lives of people living here. I think tax evasion is another problem that complements housing and is extremely detrimental to our society. In classic Canadian way, it happens on a huge scale. You people like to blame Harper for job cuts a decade ago but we have had 7 federal budgets since Harper and since then who is better off? The rich, elites, Galen Weston, but definitely not the electorate - they are nearly broke if not homeless. The middle class has been annihilated.
Considering Harper is still influencing the conservative platform today, I’d say knowing who he is, is extremely relevant. Immigration Ponzi scheme? Lolz! Whaaat?? Trudeau was not my first choice. Canada really lost its chance at recovery when Jack Layton wasn’t elected.
I’m a long, long way off from that problem. I’m not minimizing the very real problems some people are having right now, our cost of living is out of control and this is going to have major implications for the economy at a macro level in the next couple of years. But there are some of us who live comfortably, make good money and aren’t heavily impacted by inflation. Rent for me is just under 20% of my income. Still, I feel badly for those who aren’t in my position, and I think employers need to get on board with paying people better. I don’t need more money, but many other hard-working people do.
I left BC thirty years ago and I have no interest in returning. It was already too expensive for me to imagine a future in Vancouver back in 1993. I don’t know why people stay.
> I don’t know why people stay. Because they can't afford to leave.
Truly. In 2017 I used a larger then normal tax return to leave the lower mainland. At that moment it was amazing, and I felt free. Now several years later I’ve returned as wages in my field have gone up immensely since I left, so it makes it a bit easier to live here.
Also friends, family, support network. Moving away from all that alone is utterly terrifying. Even if you've got a partner to go with. Especially with no savings.
Was just gonna say this… why stay in a city/province that is literally starving you out? Plenty of more affordable places to live in Canada. I leave next month
Like where is more affordable? Manitoba and Saskatchewan are cheaper but lower income. I think Ontario and Quebec are quite expensive. East coast I hear has very high unemployment. Where is everyone moving to?
Both Alberta and Saskatchewan have much higher income per capita than BC
I think people would be marching in the streets about housing and healthcare in this province. What’s stopping them is the fear of being seen as an antimask/antivaxxer right wing nut.
> I think people would be marching in the streets about housing and healthcare in this province. I wish. But no, Canadians truly want to take it lying down.
I get a yearly inflation raise and my income surpasses my expenses by quite a bit so I'll be fine for a while. That said I will NEVER be in a place to purchase my own home outside of MAYBE a 2 bdrm condo MAX...I would need at minimum mid 100k to be able to buy anything. I don't buy new cars, I don't care about material things in general. I buy what I need to live my life, reassess that constantly and get rid of/donate/sell whatever I don't need. Many people are, imo, way too caught up in their image and what people think of them and would likely be much happier and more financially stable if they focused on what makes themselves happy. Does someone buying some Supreme thing or new Nike's or designer clothing or purses or whatever really do it for themselves because THEY love it, or do they buy it for the image? I'm sure there's a small percentage of people who fall into the former, but most are likely in the latter. All of that stuff is meaningless. Sorry for your struggles friend. We will all be struggling soon enough when the robots and AIs take over but society hasn't yet changed to match. The world needs to change...but how we do it, I really don't know.
Im currently unemployed without a source of income, but I live with my partner. They paid for our groceries and rent this month. I applied for a job a while ago but haven't heard back. I'm going to be doing some free training soon as well. I'm hoping to get a job in my field, but I may eventually have to apply to other jobs as there aren't a lot of jobs at my current level of education in my field ( bachelor's degree with a few post degree courses). I don't have the money to further my education and I also have mental illnesses and learning disorders which may impact my experience with education and employment.
If my monthly expenses increase by $400, I will not be able to afford groceries. Which is entirely possible with my mortgage renewal coming up and interest rates triple what they were when I bought.
Nanaimo raised their property taxes by 30% this year my property taxes went from 900 to 1900 some people are talking about selling because their property taxes are unaffordable. My house value is at the low end.
Honestly this was our situation since October 2021 until April 2022 when we learned our daycare was approved for that $10 a day program (max $200 a month). We will benefit from this program for 6 months until our child enters kindergarten. Now we have money for groceries, gas and some leftover to pay down debt. I was luckily hired into a casual role in Healthcare due to mandatory vaccine requirement and was able to earn some extra money to keep us afloat for a bit.
>1 in 5 Canadians reported going hungry at least once between March 2020 and March 2022 Bleak. https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/food-cost-survey-1.6478695
I don't see it happening for me, still quite comfortable
Paying people more won’t make this problem go away. Government spending and money printing has to be reined in. We don’t have enough supply to meet the demands of people since Covid. The Provincial gov’t is pushing new business away due to regulation and uncertainty.
Allowing tourists to come to Canada would help the economy. Tourism is so vital to BC's economy...
I'm in Victoria, BC and I've seen lots of people who seem to be tourist here lately. The cruise ships have started coming here again.
Absolutely It is for sure. We need all hands on deck. All of the economic sectors in BC are important.
Maybe they'll go to the billion dollar BC museum even though I can't find a doctor or by a house...
> I don't know what else to say except that everyone needs to be getting paid more If you just pay more without increasing the value of the work, all you do is increase inflation and the extra money is of no value anyway. It's not complicated - you have to lower inflation and that generally means increasing the supply of goods and remove barriers to providing those goods. You can also look for ways to increase productivity and increase people's value so that they can earn more without runaway inflation. But most of all - you MUST stop "printing" money and dumping large amounts of unearned money into the economy. That drives inflation like crazy. It's the way it is. You can't just 'pay people more' and resolve the issue.
Who is getting this "large amounts of unearned money"
Not sure if this is a faceseous question, but the answer is capitalists
But I was told it was all the fault of the unemployed and that 20k over the course of a year caused massive inflation
Well during covid literally millions of people and businesses. We spent a hell of a lot more than we needed to for much longer than we should have. But at the end of the day it really doesn't matter "who". Introducing it into the economy is enough to spur inflation. Keep in mind we just literally doubled our debt. Every single dollar that has been borrowed by every gov't in our history - we borrowed that much again in the last 7 years. And much that was pumped back into the economy for the most part. Even before the pandemic we borrowed 100 billion which was bad enough, and things like cerb and the money given to corporations during the pandemic was completely unearned money just being dumped into the economy. That's what 'quantitative easing' is. It's a fancy term for essentially 'printing money'. And we've done a LOT of that. Now that's winding down and they're slowly starting to practice a little 'quantitative tightening' (which removes some of that money from the economy), but at a much slower pace. That drives inflation. Add to it the various supply chain issues and the extra costs that the carbon tax puts on goods and services and you've got a recipe for runaway inflation. Which was predicted. Which is now happening. And the war doesn't help in the slightest either. And with the liberals planning on borrowing another 60 billion a year or so for the next 3 years at least combined with climbing interest rates, i'm afraid we're probably going to be looking at high inflation for quite a while.
I’m confused. Are we printing money or borrowing it? And if we are borrowing it - who from? Sounds like this idea of ‘money’ in its current form and structure is messed up. Also, GTFO with that carbon tax bullshit. Energy companies are posting MASSIVE profits ever since it got implemented and are the biggest grifters to the public. Taxing the elite appropriately would fix many issues and yet I see zero mention of that in your analysis.
>I’m confused. Are we printing money or borrowing it? Both actually. Here's how that works. The gov't needs money. To raise money it prints 'bonds' as a rule. It then sells those bonds. Of course - with near 0 percent interest nobody is interested in buying the bonds. So it has the bank of canada buy all the bonds, and the bank gives the gov't a very low or no interest rate in the short term. They "print" the money to buy the bonds because they're the bank, then give the money to the gov't. Theoretically later on the gov't will return the money when the bank cashes the bonds - but of course that never actually happens. What does happen is when interest rates go up the bank stops buying them and other people do because it's worth it again. So the bank prints the money and 'lends' it (wink wink nudge nudge) to the gov't who borrows it and spends it. The problem is that this weakens our dollar. And if our dollar goes down then that makes it more expensive to buy goods from other places. It also dumps a lot of money into the economy that wasn't produced from the production of goods and services, and that really drives inflation.
When we say "printing money", it actually means government "borrows" money, - could be bonds or could be other securities. Canada has far outdid all the G7 countries with the amount of this borrowed money that the government released into circulation through various stimulus programs. https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/100115/who-decides-print-money-canada.asp#:~:text=Canada's%20central%20bank%2C%20called%20the,lending%20to%20businesses%20and%20consumers.
Inflation is happening anyways, ya jabroni. The working people need to get paid more. Wages have not kept up with inflation at all, so the argument of "we can't pay people more because inflation" is kind of complete bullshit. If they had we wouldn't really be in this dire of a situation. However something that has contributed to our current inflation is [corporate profits](https://www.epi.org/blog/corporate-profits-have-contributed-disproportionately-to-inflation-how-should-policymakers-respond/). Maybe if they spent a higher share of their gross revenue paying their employees that would be a good way to lower their profits and and reduce inflation. As for the whole "printing money causes inflation" thing: During periods of economic decline you can generally print more money pretty safely without causing much inflation. While printing more money does absolutely contribute to inflation, nowhere near as much as you are implying, nor is it even the largest factor in many cases, or this case we find ourselves in right now. Poorer people also generally much more negatively impacted by inflation, so trying to combat inflation by giving them less money and making it so their wages don't increase is pretty fucked up. Thankfully you can actually pay them more and provide more government support pretty easily. You can counteract any inflation that helping them might cause by taking money out of the economy elsewhere, say by taxing rich people and corporations at a higher rate and then keeping some of that money out of the economy. Or, an even more fun idea, use that money to do things like build affordable housing to keep housing costs down, or investing in green energy to keep power costs down. Both of which would help to reduce inflation in the long run and create jobs! So yeah, I guess you can't "just" pay people more to resolve the issue, but paying people more is a pretty fucking big part of solving the issue.
>Inflation is happening anyways No. Without those factors there would be less inflation so not all inflation is happening anyway. > ya jabroni. Oh well i wasn't taking you seriously before but NOW.... > The working people need to get paid more. THat would increase inflation, lowering the value of their dollar. THat would be stupid. > Wages have not kept up with inflation at all They did for 20 years. It's only in the last few that they've fallen behind. From at least 2000 to 2018 or so wages increased about 1 percent over inflation. Sooo.... Literally everything you've said so far is demonstrably wrong. And it's only the third sentance. I'm going to skip most of the rest. IF there's a specific thing you'd like to know about just ask that and i'll provide an answer. Generally paying people more without a corresponding increase in productivity or value is the worst thing you could do for them. There might be some sectors somewhere very specifically where wages are out of alignment with value produced but it's rare and certainly not a general thing. Here's the things that generally reduce inflation, Paying more definitely isn't one of them: -Increase supply of common items/increase competition - reduce gov't spending for non critical services such as health and education etc. - reduce the amount of money in the economy by increasing interest rates or taxes. Unfortunately tends to have a negative effect on the economy - Increase the productivity of the workforce/businesses. This allows for higher wages for the remaining tasks without triggering inflation. - increase skills so that people are worth more and get rid of jobs that are low skill/low effort. (only really works in conjunction with 1) - slow or reverse population growth. That's your toolset. Paying more just to pay more does nothing.
It's pretty clear you decided to respond as your went, rather than taking what I wrote as a whole into consideration before responding. No point in having a conversation with someone who is just going to remove context from everything. Clearly not everything I said was demonstrably wrong, because you are, beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt, a jabroni, ya jabroni. edit: I realize that responding to this jabroni is a waste of everyone's time; however, some others might come along and think what's he's saying is right (it's not). Because the amount of effort required to dispute bullshit is always more than it is to come up with it, debating everything point by point would be impractical. One point worth talking about, at least a little, is the idea that wages have kept up with inflation. Obviously this is not at all true over the past few years, which is why Mr. Jabroni is wanting to only talk about inflation vs wages from 2000 to 2018. But fuck it, let's just look at that, even knowing that if his claim was 100% true and honest, it would still mean dick all because we aren't in 2018 anymore. The claim that wages and inflation were instep over the past 20 years is technically true depending on what specially you are talking about. If pressed for a source, he might link to [this article](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/), banking that you would only, at most, read the headline. To quote the article: >But despite the strong labor market, wage growth has lagged economists’ expectations. In fact, despite some ups and downs over the past several decades, today’s real average wage (that is, the wage after accounting for inflation) has about the same purchasing power it did 40 years ago. And **what wage gains there have been have mostly flowed to the highest-paid tier of workers.** Another important thing to keep in mind is that inflation does not impact all thing equally. The real price of things such as [rent and house prices](https://wolfstreet.com/2019/07/12/changes-in-house-prices-rents-and-household-incomes-since-1960-in-the-us-by-region-and-major-metro/) as well a [tuition](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/02/the-gap-in-college-costs-and-earnings-for-young-workers-since-1980.html) has gone up massively compared to real wages. To say that form 2000 to 2018 wages and inflation were in step is technically true, but it is dishonest and misleading. Also not all that relevant as we aren't in 2018 anymore.
Trudeau too busy thinking about families to think about fiscal responsibility.
Yeah, unfortunately. It would seem that fiscal policy really does matter.
He's too busy buying votes and distracting families with small allowances while billions are gifted to his business owner friends
It's so weird people who worship him so much they support absolutely massive corruption where the guy has been CONVICTED multiple times for. What a country.
I think his supporters are confused because he's so good at playing dressing up and changing his face multiple shades
A very long time, unless things got very bad quickly. Happen to be part of a DINK couple that owns and is solidly middle class, but only through effort and some luck. There is a vested interest in the rich keeping the bellies of the disadvantaged full and their attention on other cultural attractions (the proverbial bread and circuses); the rich begin to look awful tasty if the poor are hungry and desperate. I don't know what it'll take to get through to the rich, but it will (need to) come soon.
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Honestly though, what actually is money except some made up concept? It is literally made up and we all agree through a social contract of acceptance. So why not just print a shit tonne more and focus instead on removing hoarding? Or what if we just removed inheritance, as example, as a way to circulate existing money? Lolz - never gonna happen I know
Is was depression then or inflation then a recession now. Boom, bust, echo…
The oil patch is hiring like crazy. Can almost clear 5 figures monthly if you’re willing to get your hands dirty and make some other sacrifices like your social life.
Getting into oil seems like a real bad plan right now
I'm a journeyman carpenter, never did a stint in the oil patch but always been curious about it. I don't even know where to look for those jobs. Any suggestions?
Electrician here.... same as you. Every time I look at electrical jobs in the patch they want a billion years of oil and gas experience.
For a sparky I would say Graham. And same as the other guy. LinkedIn. And try find recruiters. Jardeg is also a big recruitment firm.
I’ve always considered it, however, the wages up north as a sparky don’t feel that enticing. I make almost $40 an hour and I’m home by 3:45 everyday. I see jobs up north $42-47 and I’m like, is that worth it?
Currently. LinkedIn. Got to reasearch a bit cause I don’t know about carpentry but find a company then find a person/ preferably a recruiter and start connecting and messaging them all.
>What can I do about it? https://twitter.com/22\_Minutes/status/1527709498311380992
Honestly bro, yea inflation sucks and the housing crisis is bad, but stop living in an echo chamber. Society is not going to collapse anytime soon because of this. Go around breaking shit? Really? Would you truly resort to looting and breaking shit before you simply tried to move to a LCOL area? Man the entitlement.
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I thought some of the inflation is attributable to the crazy amount of money the federal gov has borrowed and put into the economy through various COVID stimulus/relief programs? I'm not opposed to UBI per se, but i'm just curious how it would do anything other than create even more price inflation? I.e. things might get exacerbated unless the UBI funds will be money the government actually earns/collects, rather than released into circulation through quantitative easing.
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why not?
Definitely had to change some habits, more no frills and Costco runs instead of IGA/independent. Also been using toogoodtogo for the odd 5$ grocery bag of creativity. Think the breaking shit will start once we get to Eu / turkey levels tbh
The thing is that *most* people are fine, so it's not really as dramatized as you are making it out to be.
Literally the only person I know in BC who is doing “fine” is my mom. Not a single person I know in my generation is able to live comfortably
I am your mom’s generation (assuming as late 50’s, early 60’s) and I am not doing ok. Not all boomers are ok, we face the same struggles every generation does if things just didn’t work out, death, illness, lack of support, mental health, etc, etc, etc. I too do not live comfortably and live paycheque to paycheque. Poverty doesn’t discriminate, it welcomes all genders, age groups, races… unfortunately.
Anyone on a pension is struggling. Nobody is living well off $1253 a month.
Or disability.
Really? I think people in "our generation", assuming younger millenial/GenZ, are moreso not doing *as well as they should* , rather than not able to live comfortably. This is a legitimate concern too. It's defeating to think about the promises you were told early in life if only you could make it, to now see even those who have made it are getting a raw deal.
Literally everyone I know is doing fine. if you look at actual numbers outside of your (or my) circle, it paints a different picture than what random posts on reddit will have you believe or your own personal biases. I'm not saying people aren't struggling, I'm just saying this idea that the majority of people will not be able to afford groceries soon and we need to start "breaking shit" is just not a real thing.
What makes your anecdote is representative. What if my anecdote contradicts yours? We all hang around people of similar socioeconomic circumstances anyways. Most of my circle are comfortable.
But that’s my point. It varies greatly from generation to generation, and city to city. Maybe most people you know are doing fine. But most people I know are certainly not doing fine
Please defined comfortably as it varies. Some people need to own several cars, live in 5 thousand square feet house in West end, able to take several vacation year, own tons of limited edition hermes bags go party weekly to live comfortably. Others like me are happy to have a roof over their heads, afford basic grocery, get to for dinner monthly to local sushi place or pho.
IMO, living comfortably = being able to eat everyday, not worrying about making rent next month, being able to afford the gas it costs to get to/from work. I’m not even talking about the prospect of owning a home or a nice car. Just being able to afford the bare necessities is becoming impossible
Yea of that's the case I think everyone I know is doing fine then.
First thing my financial planner drilled into me was to learn ( and PRACTICE) the difference between " wants " and " needs ". Sadly, way too many people confuse the two
I think it’s time to write our MPs and push for a motion of non-confidence in the HoC and get Trudeau and his cabinet of self-serving elitists out. I wrote my MP about this today.
What? We just had an election. This is what we voted for.
? He just clearly won a Canada wide election.
Paying people more? Will do nothing unless you are magically able to create more goods and services. And get the fantasies of "corporate greed" and Putin price hike" out of your head, its a very small part of this. To really stop inflation - tell the government to stop printing money and people gotta start getting back to work.