It is hard to tell if this is progress but a couple years ago one-third of Canadians said they were within $200 a month of not being able to cover their regular expenses
Now we are hearing from Statistics Canada that one-in-four Canadians could not cover an unexpected $500 expenditure.
Either way, Canadians are feeling the pinch of making ends meet – especially these days with consumer inflation running at higher levels and interest rates on the rise which is making housing more expensive.
The StatsCan survey also carries some interesting regional breakdowns. People in Atlantic Canada and the Prairies reporting it is harder to cover monthly expenses than it was a year ago.
But this is being offset a bit by the fact that they are having the best time with housing as the cost of home ownership or rents are more stable in these regions. That is unlike BC and Ontario where a growing number of people are actually having to move to other parts of Canada because they cannot keep up with rent or the cost of owning their home.
