Saving the Old Fashioned Way

For three months, it was just like the 80s.

Back in the second quarter of this year – April, May and June – when the pandemic lockdown was at its height, many of us became big time savers again. Back in the 80s, people in this province were the biggest savers in the country – setting aside about 24-percent of our pay checks. Over the years, that focus eroded until not so long ago our savings were actually negative – we were spending more than we took in.

But, when the lockdown happened, we reverted to our old ways because our spending choices were limited with restaurants, entertainment venues and travel all but shut down.

New figures from StatsCan show our savings rate hit a record 27-percent in the second quarter of this year as we accumulated money while waiting for a chance to spend it. By the third quarter, as things opened up, we did the same with our wallets and savings fell to less than 15% in Q3 of the year …but over that six month period a funny thing happened: our personal net worth went up.