Vet technician, 33, is scraping by in a small city Ontario house her parents paid for: ‘It’s a lot of guilt’
Vet technician, 33, is scraping by in a small city Ontario house her parents paid for: ‘It’s a lot of guilt’
She always knew her salary wouldn’t be high but didn’t aspire to be rich. What she didn’t realize was that she would struggle to afford basic things like shelter and food
“It feels like I’ve been working harder and harder and sliding backwards down the scale,” she says.
Making $50k in a small town and still "scraping by" is scary. Maybe I'm just old, but I'd hoped that kind of income would be enough for some kind of comfort.
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Her typical monthly expenses:
- Internet: $135
- Phone bill: $80
- Car repairs: $50
- Car insurance: $184
- Gas: $150
- Groceries: $400
- Eating out: $60
- Coffee/tea: $20
- Alcohol: $40
- Her cats: $350 (food, meds and litter)
- Haircuts/cosmetics: $150
- Apps: $30
Ok, she doesn't have an income problem, she has a spending problem.
The internet + phone bill of over $200 a month is insane! She can negotiate/switch her internet bill to at least half that. And she can switch her cell phone to something like public mobile for 1/4 of what she's paying now.
Car repairs, gas, insurance... if you can bike in your small town, this will save you a fortune. Also, consider switching to CAA's pay-as-you-go insurance, which works incredibly well if you also bike.
Food... way, WAY overspending here. $400 a month could feed a family of four, so that needs to be looked at. And "eating out, coffee, alcohol" should be cut completely if she's struggling.
Her cats... well, pets are a money pit. This will always keep her debt.
Haircuts/cosmetics. I'm not a lady, so I can't say whether this is a typical expense or not, but unless she makes a living based on her appearance, this should be trimmed (no pun intended) to a more reasonable level.
Apps... I'm going to assume these are subscription services totalling $30 a month. Insane. Cut those out unless absolutely necessary.
If someone can help her budget, she could easily be saving $500+ a month with little effort.
$50k for an individual living in a small town should have her living like a queen.
You're missing the point. Someone who does well in school and has a decent job requiring advanced education should not be struggling to make ends meet in a first world country.
Yes, even if she trimmed her expenses (which I agree is possible, though I don't know much about Canada) she would still not be living a "good" life despite being well educated, and fully employed with stable housing. She would be living a safe, healthy and financially functional, but it would not be a sustainable, happy, and enjoyable life, and her savings contributions would be not be enough to give her financial independence without some serious investments.
She would be living a safe, healthy and financially functional, but it would not be a sustainable, happy, and enjoyable life
As somebody living modestly, I'm laughing at this. It seems like people either overestimate how much satisfaction they get from their expenses, or they underestimate the peace of mind that comes from living within your means. I suspect it's mostly the former.
Living modestly isn't the same as trimming off all the fat to prioritise survival and savings above all else (which is what this vet tech would need to do to really make a difference for her financial state)
I'm on a very similar income ($36,000AUD) in a country with similar issues surrounding housing, and a quickly rising cost of living crisis. I'm not sure about her exact area, my cousin's in Edmonton, so that's my main reference point.
I live within my means and other than a student loan, I have no debt. But I also have no property and no real assets beyond the everyday items I need for work (laptop, phone, my bicycle)
It is very comforting and peaceful to live within my means. And I often experience a "simplified joy" in moments where work is calm, my family is happy and I have an afternoon off to take my time and bake this week's meals to keep the grocery budget happy and healthy.
But most of the time work is not calm, work is a major contributor of emotional and physical stress, and taking stress leave isn't quite yet a financial option (until I'm approaching mental health breaking point, which so far so good)
Usually the family isn't happy, I've got chronic health issues, my partner and I both have disabilities, it's vital we maintain chunky emergency funds because our savings disappear quickly when one of us needs to see a specialist (public healthcare in Australia is a mess at the moment) so if we're talking about going to the country for the weekend to have a relaxing holiday we're usually deciding its not worth the petrol, train or accommodation costs when for all we know I could require an urgent doctors appointment tomorrow and we'd wished we'd saved all that money.
We're financially smart in the sense that we are 5-6 big emergencies away from bankruptcy which is so much more than most people in my income bracket. But in our experience we tend to get our emergencies in waves where it's one right after another leading into each other. It's scary.
Fortunately we don't want kids, but if we did, I can't see how we'd do that without majority changes to my income stream.
It's also just exhausting to live on a strict budget all the time. I'm definitely getting fit biking halfway across town 3 times trying to shop at Aldi and veg markets because it's the most affordable grocery option, I'm lucky I'm not time poor, but many people working low wage jobs are. Mentally it's hard keeping track of everything all the time, comparing prices and holding back. It's socially exhausting, having to constantly remind friends that unless it's a free or very low cost outting, we won't be hanging out.
Being out at work and feeling exhausted and headachey and knowing some caffeine would help, but I forgot to pack a zip lock bag of instant coffee, so I'm out of options because that's what's budgeted for. So I finish out my day in pain. Likewise, I had to give up my monthly massages because it was a luxury my budget couldn't bear. It didn't reduce my physical capacity, but it has made my daily pain level higher which makes me less happy.
Small things like that's make me feel tired, frustrated, burnt out and angry that my income is so low.
But then I'll have a moment like today, where I'm harvesting the sunchokes i planted in August, thinking to myself, being poor prompted me to grow these, but having them here to water and watch grow has been so good for my mental health and this is such a rewarding experience.....but I could have also had this experience with money in my pocket.
I was definitely more happy and more comfortable 5 years ago when my same income had a higher buying power so my budget wasn't as tight.
I will never want to live outside my means. But boy howdy the cost of living here means I'm getting close to having to make the real tough decisions (like, do I really need to pay extra for certified allergen free ingredients, or can I gamble on the cheaper brands that "may contain traces of") to avoid blowing my budget.