Making ends meet is getting tougher for more people in Saskatchewan.
A report from the insolvency team at MNP suggest 43-percent of this province’s residents are within $200 a month of falling short of meeting their needs and obligations.
That cohort has grown by 10-percent since the first quarter of the year. That means an unexpected expense can push them into the red, a shortfall usually funded with debt.
Those are the ones feeling the crunch most acutely but the rest of us are feeling it as well. The firm has developed what it calls its Consumer Debt Index showing the average family in the province has seen their cushion between revenue and expense contract: it is now $750 a month, down from just over $1,000 in the last quarter.
This squeeze is causing more people to make a so-called ‘heat or eat’ decision as they either cutback on their utility consumption or eat less. A quarter of the people surveyed said they were cutting utility use while 21-percent said they are eating less to save money.
