Money for One: Edition #1
Welcome to the first edition of Money for One, where solo earners share their budgets with us. This will be a monthly part of The Budgette. Thank you for those who offered to participate. If you’re interested in participating, email me at singlebudgette@gmail.com.
Our first Money for One comes from Southern Ontario. They got a recent salary increase and spends their money on travel, their sister and the local food banks and community fridges.
https://buttondown.com/TheBudgette
Age: 52
Pronouns: They/them
Occupation: Computer Technician
Annual gross income: $75,791 (editor’s note: Canadian dollars), it was $61K for the last ten years. I got massive back pay/retro for Bill 124 - Ford not allowing education workers to negotiate raises. This year, I got $13K retro. This year, my whole department also got bumped up into a new pay scale with back pay back to 2015. I haven’t seen this back pay money yet, but my new official annual income is currently $75,791.
Do you have kids or not? No
Amount in RRSPs: 0
Amount in TFSAs: 0
Amount in RESPs: 0
Amount in RDSPs: 0
I don’t believe in investing money. I have been on the shit end of the stick, having to pay high interest on loans because of my single status and lack of ‘equity’ or credit score, so I would never do that to someone else--make interest on the backs of the poor. That violates my value system. You will see below that I have a pension plan through work that is obviously invested but I have no control over that. I choose not to participate in hypercapitalism or investing when I can choose otherwise. But sometimes I don’t have a choice.
Do you have any student loans? Not anymore
Do you have any credit card debt? Yes, somewhere in the neighbourhood of $15K? I have to admit, it scares me so I don’t look at the bills! I just paid off my car loan for the first time in my adult life so I was meaning to chip away at this, but as you will read below, I give my sister over $800 a month now, so paying off credit cards will have to wait. The nine years’ back pay that I’m awaiting totals $58,000 so that seems like a good place to start when that money finally arrives.
How much is your monthly rent or mortgage? $830+ bills and utilities. I’m currently a legacy renter in a house I’ve been renting for 10 years. The minute the landlord sells, I’m fucked. Rents in my city for a one-bedroom apartment START at $1800 a month and I like to have at least two rooms, one for sewing and guests.
How much do you pay a month for groceries? $400-$600 for just myself, $600-900 if you count the others I shop for. I have decided since my big raises, to buy groceries for someone every payday as well as stock my community fridge. I am on Facebook groups like “Recycling Kindness” where usually someone asks for some emergency groceries, and I send them via Instacart (I do have an Instacart+ account, but it occasionally gets locked down as I send to so many different addresses, it looks suspicious). I also often buy my sister groceries. This is usually about $100 twice a month. make sandwiches and buy frozen and canned goods for the fridge and food bank at least weekly, that being in the neighbourhood of $30 a week.
How much do you pay a month for cable or streaming services? $40 for Youtube Premium and Netflix and Amazon Prime
How much do you pay for electricity? $100 a month. You didn’t ask, but heat is also $100 a month. AC in the summer and heat in the winter. I should clarify that that is for the whole house, and my housemate pays half of that, so about $100 total for both bills for me, each month, year round.
Do you pay for health insurance? A minimal amount ($20/mo) comes out for my portion of my benefits. My employer covers the rest.
How much do you pay in insurance a month? $140.22 for car and rental contents insurance.
How much do you spend on travel? This is variable. I like to go on a big road trip about twice a year. Usually I spend about $100 a day on those vacations. This includes gas, food, lodging/camping etc. Annually, I would estimate about $4000? ($1500 in the winter; $2500 in the summer). As I write this on my winter break, though, I have decided not to go away this winter! I was going to go to Prince Edward Island, but my car is making noises, so I have to get that looked at.
What else do you spend on, monthly? For my entire adult life, I have had a car loan. For the last five years, it was $400 per paycheque; over $800 a month. I finally paid it off completely in August, and then almost immediately my sister’s situation deteriorated. She is precariously employed at 53 (women in their 50s are gum on the bottom of the shoe of society and employers) and was having such frequent panic attacks and breakdowns, I offered to give her $400 a pay until her situation subsides.
I was paying that amount for the car for years, anyway. I don’t even notice it’s not there. ALSO this year I got a huge raise that probably encompasses that amount. I was making $61K for about ten years and now I make almost $76K.
Internet is $45 (my half); Phone is $40; Patreon/Youtube support: $25 a month. I get food delivery a lot, Like A LOT. Probably 2-3 times a week, usually about $25 each time
Do you have an pension? Yes, my work pension is insane. It looks like I pay about $600 a month and I think they match it. I have a government defined benefit pension plan and I know how lucky I am. I have a retirement date of 2030 (I’ll be 58 and I’m currently 52). I can smell the freedom. think I will get about $40K a year upon retirement (including a bridge benefit until CPP kicks in).
That is not likely to be enough to live on here, so I’m considering retiring abroad. All of the numbers and calculators are very hard to navigate because of the retro payments that went back five years never mind the NEW retro payment for pay grade bump that will be going back NINE years.
It’s payday, what three buckets are you putting money? I acknowledge that I’m a hoarder. AliExpress/Temu/Amazon are my weaknesses. I have been known to drop $100, many many times on stickers for the schools I work at. I also love camping gear and have champagne tastes for my camping gear. I have been known to drop $700 on a sleeping bag and $500 for a tent. Ahem.
I have two savings accounts, one is at least one month’s rent and the other is variable, but for vacations or emergencies. Each of these have about $2500 in them. It blows my mind that I have that much in savings as it took me years to get it. I’m very proud of myself for doing it. But it’s not even enough for the first and last month’s rent on a new place if or when I have to move and that’s terrifying. Everything is three times more than it used to be.
How do you feel about the financial freedom and challenges that come with being the sole provider for yourself? What aspects feel empowering, and what aspects feel limiting?
I have always considered women who don’t work and rely on a man/partner to support them as prostitution of sorts. I really do. I cannot wrap my brain around people who pool their money, consider it common property, while one works and another doesn’t. That whole line about how being a mother or a homemaker or whatever is work, I offer you this: I have to do all the homemaking. I do it on top of a full time job. No one pays me to take out the garbage, clean the house… To those couples who say “I wash the dishes, he dries” I say, “I wash the dishes AND I dry. And I pay all the bills.”
Only ever one month in my life, when I was living with a boyfriend, did I not work, and he paid my half of the rent that month. He told me to make his lunch to make it up to him, and then screamed at me that I was doing it wrong. I will never forget that. I don’t have sex with or make sandwiches for anyone in exchange for rent.
The empowerment that comes with never having to ever have sex in exchange for a roof over my head cannot be overstated. I feel there are so many people who are either asexual or have lost their sex drive, but live in non-consensual situations because they can’t afford to or are scared to live alone.
Because I’ve always lived alone, except for a boyfriend for a year in the ‘90s and some scattered roommates over the years, I can’t even fathom a world where you pay half the amount and also have the benefit of everything being affordable because you are working with two incomes. For example, say you want to get a swimming pool. Coupled up folks are only responsible for paying for half of that, as presumably the other person will pay their half. That’s a wild concept to me. I have to pay the full price for everything.
What does one week of spending look like?
Here’s my banking for the last ten days. I put almost everything on debit so it’s all here. At the beginning of the month, I pay my car insurance, rent, etc., and just before this list of transactions was all the money that goes to Google or Patreon for the content creators I support.
Index:
RRSP: Registered Retirement Savings Plan
RESP: Registered Education Savings Plan
RDSP: Registered Disability Savings Plan
TFSA: Tax-free Savings Account
This week’s readings:
Finance extends deadline for 2024 charitable donations (Advisor.ca)
For the Canadians, tl;dr, our tax brackets ceilings are rising. Changes to your taxes in 2025: At the pump, at home and on your paycheque (CBC)
New year, new tax measures - what to expect in 2025. (CBC)
Don’t be these people. The worst travelers of 2024. (CNN)
So CEOs have already made your salary and it’s the 2nd of January. (BlogTo)