519-646-2222INTERESTING ROUNDTABLE BUDGET DISCUSSION
Are you earning enough to live on?
This morning in a discussion involving nine professionals, with backgrounds ranging from accounting to lending and investing and small business, it was determined that by their best estimate one or two people living a modest lifestyle in London (ON) would require a take home pay of about $3,600.00.
This is fascinating because according to the Federal Government’s Low Income Cut Off (“LICO”) a couple should be able to live on a mere $2,500.00 per month.
Going further a person living on Canada’s median income would only be bringing home about $1,900.00 per month, while a person receiving Ontario’s Minimum Wage would be bringing home about $1,600.00 per month, and finally a top end General Welfare (now laughingly called “Ontario Works”) recipient would be bringing home a whopping $626.00 per month.
After resolving what we considered to be minimum monthly expenses we then briefly discussed how people fall into the “credit trap” by using credit to augment income. When the credit cards get too high the whole debt package is, hopefully, wrapped into a new mortgage arrangement and the cycle continues.