Canada @lemmy.ca ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ @lemmy.ml 1 yr. ago

51% of Canadians $200 away from not making ends meet

www.bnnbloomberg.ca 51% of Canadians $200 away from not making ends meet: MNP - BNN Bloomberg

A new report from insolvency firm MNP LTD. says more Canadians are facing a deteriorating debt situation, as high costs and elevated interest rates make it harder to pay the bills.

35 comments

First it was an entire paycheck away, and now $200... next level is pretty much only able to survive because their credit card still has room on it.

Pretty grim.
- Just wait until all the people who got their mortgages at 1-2% start coming up for renewal at 6-7% next year.
  
  I signed on a 6.1% variable rate and I'm dreaming of the days when 2.5% was the norm
  
  That might be me. I just hope to all the gods that rates come down before renewal.
  
  Why on earth would anyone sign an ARM when rates were lower than at any previous point in history?
- Wanna hear grim, I'm youngish and I came out of highschool using my credit card to get by.
  
  Thank god my parents are able to sorta support me, cause financial independence is a dream at this point.
  
  I can only imagine the effect this has on my generation expecting this to be the norm
  
  It was that way in the 90's too. It's not a new problem. I didn't have parental support and ended up couch surfing for a few years while putting myself through college, despite working the entire time. It's hard to establish your place in life when you don't have odds stacked in your favor. I couldn't even get a credit card because I was injured without health insurance at 18, which led to medical collections, which meant bad credit and no credit card.
- Reflecting on their current debt situation, more households rate their current situation as much worse than it was one (20%, +2 pts) and five years ago (25%, +3 pts) compared to the previous quarter (20%). Looking into the future, more believe their debt situation will worsen over the next year (18%, +3 pts) and five years from now (16%, +2 pts). Fewer also see any potential for improvement over the next five years (35%, -2 pts).
  
  Emphasis mine.
  
  This is just another self-reporting survey. I want to see actual data. When you cross average household debt with average household income, what does that look like?
  
  We don't need anymore self-reporting studies.
  
  Yeah, self-reporting sucks in most cases. It could be valuable in this case, for example, if the people self-reporting are actually money-smart and not just guessing.
- That's how things are for me right now. If i didn't have a mortgage and access to loan money I'd be living on the street.
- As far as most neoliberals are concerned, people getting wrung for every dollar of their pay check is a good thing.
  
  Every dollar of wealth they have is immediately extracted from them, starting its inevitable march upwards and into the pocket of a billionaire.
These MNP surveys strike me as more a form of advertising their services than a real snapshot into Canadian finances.
- While the promoted surveys no doubt serve advertising purposes, and the corp may cherry-pick what they ask and report per their agenda, I have reasonable trust in the results given that the corp paid for the study, and it was done by a large polling company:
  
  The data was compiled by Ipsos on behalf of MNP LTD between September 5-8, 2023. For this survey, a sample of 2,000 Canadians aged 18 years and over was interviewed. Weighting was then employed to balance demographics to ensure that the sample's composition reflects that of the adult population according to Census data and to provide results intended to approximate the sample universe.
  
  Yes, but ultimately they're measuring how someone feels about their ability to absorb a change in bills, not their actual ability to absorb that change. I think these things are likely very different. So a headline like this doesn't strike me as dire as it sounds.
When I read stats like this I'm reminded of my younger days when I was financially illiterate and didn't keep a functional budget. Credit card was always carrying a balance and I was frequently dipping into my overdraft.
I am certainly more privileged now with a half decent salary, my own house, no kids and enough in the bank keep me afloat through next month without reaching for my savings, but I know for a fact that if I hadn't gotten smarter about my spending I would not be in this position.

What isn't cool, and I'm feeling it also, is how little I'm able to put away for retirement now that the cost of living is so wildly out of control. Basically all of my income is going towards bill payments and necessities, with only a small amount reserved for fun money to keep me sane and nothing left over for when I turn 65 or 80 or whatever retirement age will end up being.
- What isn’t cool, and I’m feeling it also, is how little I’m able to put away for retirement now that the cost of living is so wildly out of control.
  
  This really is the worst part. Like, sure, we might survive until “retirement age”, but then what?
  
  Work 'til you're dead doesn't sound like motivation to keep at this pace.
  
  It wouldn't surprise me if in the near future, people in their middle to late middle age start to get the largest credit card limits they can. Then take a dream vacation for as long as they can, and then down a few bottles of sleeping pills before they are asked to pay it off.
  
  Then their next of kin will have to pay it.
- God even being able to be financially illiterate feels like a privellage at this point
I'd love to see how this plays out geographically, like urban vs rural, by province, etc. I wonder if personal debt is included on Population Census 🤔
- If you follow the first link in the article it will take you the MNP page, frommthere.you can navigate to provincial versions of the report with more details.
200 seems rather high.

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