59% live paycheque to paycheque: poll

I'm actually not surprised at this.

Saw a lot of nice new trucks and stuff in Victoria, not much movement in the housing market though.

Seems lots of people are going for the short term goodies, and the debt levels to go with it.
But, somehow, looked falsely good.

What happened to a nation of savers ?

CEOS and stockholders happened to the nation of savers.

Blind consumerism happened to the nation of savers. Bad wages and hate against the unions who fought so hard to try and get the common man his slice of the pie is what happened to the nation of savers.

At the end of the day it's all about the profits in the pockets of corporations and it's sadly rarely about the individual anymore.

Needless to say the blind loyalty of my generation "the millennium generation" may have much to do with the problem. We are often loyal without cause.

No new truck, no short term goodies, just the daily expenses, no credit card debt. Paycheck to paycheck.

A modest 30+year old bungalow, two used vehicles, one used camper, kids in activies, deeper in debt every payday.

And you have the gall to call yourself a conservative. Shame on you. Don't you know that the CEO's and other high earners are suffering. They are a small group, yet pay 50% of all taxes. How is that fair, since they are obviously superior peopele with superior skills. Unions just disturb the natural order of things, trying to get mo money for people who should just be happy to have a job. Bad wages are just for the lazy and uneducated - fuck em. And it's the Christian thing to do to maximize shareholder profits - that's what Jesus would do.

Union pension funds are the largest stockholders in the USA, Canada, and Europe. That's followed by insurance companies that invest to support the life insurance polices many folks use for their retirements, and then after that you have banks that invest to pay interest on the CD's of older savers. I'm sure if you analyzed your own holdings you'd find to your surprise that you are directly or indirectly invested into several funds or stocks. Just want you to know that it isn't just 'rich' people who own stock anymore.



True.



Neither of those issues would have any effect on savings rates. Your linking them is a complete non-sequitor.



Oddly enough, it's blocs of individuals who are driving the markets. You have money in the bank and you want higher interest. The bank is invested in the market and demands higher dividends so they can, in turn pay out higher interest. At the end of the day, our own personal greed has caused our market problems and those problems still have nothing to do with personal rates of savings. You can save your money if you really want to. It's just most people don't want to.

Oh, right, low wages have nothing to do with savings rates. I mean even people on welfare should be expected to put a bit aside for a rainy day. Right now it's sunny, so just live in a cardboard box, that'll let you save.

The desire for instant gratification.

Somewhere in the past generation, society shifted from saving up to buy a new toy to charging it up on a credit card. Nowadays it seems like everyone is buying a new car every 5 years (right after they've paid the 'old' one off), buying giant TVs, going on fancy vacations, you name it. Instead of saving for it, they just charge it up and worry about it later.

Christmas spending is a perfect example. I remember seeing a news article last year that said the average Albertan spent almost $1000 on Christmas! And many people charge that up, they don't pay cash for it all, which means they have a ton of debt after the holidays.

In my family, we draw names and buy a nice gift for one person and $5-10 stocking stuffers for everyone else. We spent maybe $200 (for about 15-20 people) on Christmas last year, and will probably spend the same this year.

It's sad that people don't save, but what can you do - you can't force people to save up for big ticket items.

The desire for instant gratification.

You could have left the rest of your post out and the smart people would have understood.

The only debt I have is a mortgage which will be paid off in the next couple of years. Both vehicles, paid for. Motorbike, paid for. Boat, paid for. ATV, paid for. A lot of those people living paycheck to paycheck got that way because of the first line in Boots post.

If you lived in Vancouver and had to buy a house recently, you wouldn't have those 2 vehicles and toys, and still be living paycheck to paycheck just paying your mortgage. I don't know how some people stay afloat with the mortgage payments they have - any serious rise in mortgage rates and they are outta there.

Actually, yes. I make far less money than many of the people I worked with at Intel or Franklin Templeton and my net worth exceeds theirs by substantial margins despite the fact that many of those folks make 2x and up to 10x what I earned. Wages are irrelevant to savings when we're talking about people who spend it all no matter how much they earn.

When my wife and I were first married I was making a stunning net of $745 per month and we managed to pay the rent on time, pay all the bills on time, get her through school without loans, deal with me having a pretty severe disability, and we still managed to put away at least $100 per month towards the down payment on our house.

Lower income Asians, Eastern Europeans, and Latin Americans have long had higher rates of savings than higher income members of the same groups. Perhaps it is because the lower your income is the more important it is to have something set aside.

But wages have no correlation to savings rates. Culture does. But not wages.

They can always declare personal bankruptcy and walk away from it all (apart from student loan debt).

Not really a bad option if they're knee deep in debt and are still young.





I'm going to have to say Jeff hit the nail on the head with his post. Basically, people have shitty jobs, and if they lose their shitty job they probably won't even find another shitty job, with crap wages, that doesn't pay for basics.

Having lived in Victoria years ago, and bought my first house there. i probably would. I just wouldn't have upgraded as often as I did. Most people could save something every month if they had to, me and my wife took no holidays for years because we were providing for the kids activities and paying down our debts as fast as we could. The idiots living paycheck to paycheck would still take the holidays(on credit) and wonder why they have no savings. Most times you have to sacrifice something to get the savings rolling.

Yes. The delayed gratification posters have a point, but if someone's making shit wages to begin with, it's pretty hard to put anything aside. Hence my continual rants about raising the income of the lowest wage earners.