According to a survey conducted byFinder.com, which compares mortgages, credit cards and loans, roughly 7.3 million Canadians over age 18 have used some form of debt to cover their rising costs of living.
www.thestar.com
How is everyone dealing with inflation? My coping so far includes:
1) Negotiated for a pay raise (obvious option, not possible for many)
2) Canceled Netflix and Prime. The latter will stop me from buying stuff too.
3) Reduced restaurant dining and all takeout. And no in restaurant alcohol.
4) Reduced my driving and motorcycling. Instead enjoying my bicycle more (love my
Breezer Downtown 8). My car must have square tires by now.
5) As for vehicles. As long as reliable, keep them old and paid off. My car is 24 years old, my motorcycle 40 years old. No payments.
6) Paid off all credit card debt (I've always done that), moving any residual to an ultra-low LoC.
7) Stopped buying cafe coffee. My Keurig has a K-cup filter, so no pod expense. Instead I buy bulk coffee and grind it myself.
8) Rarely run the house A/C, and all lights now LEDs and prudently used.
9) Buy almost nothing..... I'm WFM so clothes last forever. Still rocking my Blackberry Key2.
10) Switched from pre-boxed supermarket food to more DIY, bulk ingredients.
11) Buy dividend stocks for long term, don't worry if they drop due to recession. A down market is the time to invest.
12) Stay married, lol. Divorce is a killer for your finances.
Here's me for comparison
1) I left my long time job in mid-2021. Early this year they asked me back due to other people in the same team quitting, and I got a 25% pay raise from over what I had when I left. I would note a big part of the reason I left was I felt I was significantly underpayed, and had very low raises (average of 2%) for about ten straight years, so I think that really only caught me up for the past decade of inflation to where I should have been when I left.
2) Canceled Netflix and Spotify at least for the summer. Spotify of course I can still use in the free mode, and the ads are few and far between, if annoyingly repetitive when they do show up.
3) I rarely ate out or got take out before, so this didn't change much, but I spend even more time carefully reading the fine print on menus now to watch out for surprise add-on costs ($4 to sub out fries for a small caesar salad now), or for "specials" which aren't specials at all (pizza places have been infamous for this for decades but all restaurants do it now). As for groceries, I honestly have not seen much inflation at all in the raw produce and meat that I buy, with only beef and dairy seeming to have really gone up in price but I generally don't buy either of those to begin with aside from an occasional splurge on fancy cheese when it's on sale.
4) I stopped paying for TTC streetcar rides since they stopped inspecting fares.*
5) Don't have a car so this one doesn't apply, though I have cut back on taxi use in favour of the TTC in instances where the TTC can actually get me where I need to go in a reasonable time; essentially going straight in one direction and not traveling "diagonally".
6) I got an LoC open too and moved a small amount of debt there, but I have paid it off now so am once again debt free. Also got the 2% cash back MasterCard from Tangerine! Woo-hoo money back!
7) I don't drink coffee, but I stopped buying Red Bull, which is probably very good for me health wise anyway as I have gone from a can per day to none.
8) A/C is supplied by the building and I guess I pay the electricity to run the fans, but so far the monthly electricity bill is up only about $6/month in the past two years. Quite manageable.
9) I have not made any large purchases recently. One I regret missing out on is a new bedroom set which I see has increased in price 50% since this time in 2020. All furniture costs seem to be way up. I wish I got it back then but I declined as everyone stopped offering the service to enter your home and assemble the bed, nightstand, dresser etc. for you, instead they would dump all of it in boxes at your door, and I did not want to put together a whole bed myself, never mind the other stuff. Not sure if I will buy it this year or not now. I'm going to wait and see if there are boxing day deals.
10) I like to cook myself so buying raw ingredients has always been my thing, but an occasional frozen pizza has gone away since the prices for frozen prepared meals have risen a fair bit (almost now the same as a takeout pizza where ten years ago they were always under half the price).
11) Loaded up on several thousand shares of AGF stock when it dropped down to $6.00 a month ago, offering a sinfully high 6.66% yield.
12) I have stayed renting the same place and wow rent control has been the biggest saver for me, now in my fifth year in the same apartment. The two year government COVID rent freeze on an already low rate has me at $1,787 for a one bedroom in a relatively new apartment building (six years old) in the Corktown area. I just got my lease renewal for the next year and it's for the mandated 1.6%, so it's going up only a tiny bit this time. The identical unit one floor up was listed for rent recently at $2,175. I have a friend who owns an older condo unit (built in the 90's) and is exasperated at the enormous increases to the monthly maintenance fee while I see essentially no monthly rent increase at all.
* I'm joking! Mostly.