Hey I’m Canadian, feeling the squeeze of things right now, worse than ever. The cost of living is ridiculous. Are you guys hit with the same problem right now? Or not so much? It’s bad pretty much everywhere here for once.

48 comments

  3. So, the places I have seen and felt it more than groceries, is travel, leisure, and other forms of discretionary spending. Hotels, sports and concert tickets, restaurants have all gotten stupid expensive.

    Groceries have gone up, sure…but being super intentional about that can mitigate a lot of the expenses there in a way you can’t when you *need* to visit somewhere and need a room for the night.

  4. I’m completely unaffected by housing. 30 year mortgage’ll do that. Grocery inflation is worse, but I can afford it and avoid the worst of it by cooking at home from scratch. The egg shortage hurt though.

  5. Housing crisis, no. We were lucky enough to buy our house right before the prices skyrocketed.

    Food? Yes. We’re two adults and our food bill has more than doubled in the last year, without changing our buying patterns. I finally had to revamp our planning and buying habits to just pare things back to a reasonable level. And I’ll add that we’re two professionally employed adults in an upper middle class household without kids. (Partner’s daughter is in college and we help pay for that but she doesn’t live with us.)

  6. I live in San Francisco and it was already so bad to begin with here that I haven’t really noticed a difference.

    We already pay over $5k/month for a 1-bedroom apartment and a dozen eggs here is $7.

  8. Not really. It’s not a great time to buy a home, but I’d rather continue to rent anyway and my rent hasn’t increased much over the past few years.

    Groceries have gotten more expensive, but they’re still a pretty small part of my budget so I hardly notice it.

  9. house is paid off, I can cook for myself so there is no need or desire to eat at restaurants and my pantry and freezer are completely full. I could not leave the house for over two months and be perfectly fine.

    except for booze. I need to stock up more on booze.

  11. Not really.

    Luckily I was able to become a homeowner right before rates went up. At the time it seemed expensive, but it’s hard to believe how much worse it got afterwards. And fortunately 30 year fixed rate mortgages are common here. So we generally don’t have to worry about rates after we lock in.

    Groceries cost a little more than before the pandemic. But thankfully it’s something my family can manage without too much trouble.

    My sympathies to current first-time homebuyers though.

  12. Housing where I live in southern California is so bad that I just laugh because I don’t want to cry. A 1200 sq house in a decent neighborhood is going to be an $8k-9k monthly mortgage, and that’s after putting down $200k+. I just don’t understand who can afford this. Congrats, you make $350k a year, and now you can afford an average house in a solid neighborhood and nothing more.

    Groceries suck too but housing is just comical at this point.

  13. I have a fixed rate mortgage, so i’m protected. Groceries on the other hand are not so protected 🙁

  15. Of course. Everything is more expensive. My house is paid off, but property taxes are based on home values which have simply exploded, even going strong in my area with the higher interest rates. It sucks across the board, but it hurts some more than others, obviously, just depending on how much you make.

  16. Yes. I’m an engineer making good money and home ownership is extremely difficult for me. I can’t even imagine those making half or a third of me. For starter houses in Seattle without a ton of problems you’re looking at $1mm USD+. The region is not building anywhere near enough housing for its explosive growth in the past decades, we need laws to change that momentum.

  19. Yup, can barely keep my head above water. Just a few years ago working the same job I had disposable income. I even got a significant couple of raises since then.

  20. Housing crisis: Not really. I do want to own my own place soon, but I’m not 100% where I want to settle down. Because of that, I’m not really in the market to buy right now.

    Grocery inflation: Maybe a little. Fortunate enough to have a good job, so paying a little extra for groceries hasn’t really affected me. Is it annoying? Yeah. Is it something I really notice? No.

  21. Personally, not really. Groceries have gone up, but at the end of the day I don’t eat that much food to make a really substantial impact.

    I’ve owned my house since pre-pandemic, but the housing market has gotten pretty wild. We hit an inflection point where building almost nothing (and population increasing) since 2008 finally caught up. At the same time, pretty much everyone who had a mortgage prior to 2020 refinanced to an all time low rate 2020-22 (sub 3%). Now rates are very high (8%) so many homeowners have the “golden handcuffs” which further constrains inventory. Interestingly, in some ways the rates may be holding prices down. I don’t envy anyone house shopping right now, especially for a starter home

  22. We’re more than halfway through a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage so our housing costs haven’t changed, but groceries have definitely gone up. I’m doing much more grocery shopping at Aldi and finding that their prices increasingly resemble what used to be Meijer prices (which have gone up even more).

  23. Not really. Our housing is locked in via a mortgage but if we had to buy now in Southern California, it would be tough.

    Our utilities (gas and electric) and groceries have gone up a bit in the last year and a half but not so much that we’ve changed our shopping habits. The egg prices were annoying and the chicken breasts have gotten more expensive but it is what it is.

  24. Yes, my apartment takes up an absurd slice of my income. Grocery inflation is not bad but only due to my diet and personal relationship with folks in the food industry.

  25. Housing crisis isn’t terrible here (Chicagoland area). Houses aren’t crazy expensive, just higher interest rates really. Groceries are a bit more but I shop the sales every week so the budget hasn’t increased too much because of it.

  27. Not entirely. I’m in a house at a good rate paying for a mortgage that was set based on my home’s value about a decade ago. For groceries yes, but I get paid well so I’d rather deal with that than with the shortages we faced in 2020.

  28. Me? Yes, the housing market is affecting my buying timeline. Otherwise, not really.

    Inflation? I see it in my bills but otherwise live well below my means.

  29. I was lucky enough to get a house when interest rates were still very low. The house cost substantially more than it would have a couple of years earlier, but the interest rates made it affordable. I wouldn’t have been able to afford it today.

    Groceries have gotten more expensive but not unsustainably so.

  30. I live in an “affordable” area and housing costs locally are 3X what they were a few years ago and continue to skyrocket. There’s talk of a county wide property tax reassessment next year, so I’m sure that won’t hurt at all.

  31. Two 8% rent increase in a row, rising prices on meat and the soy milk brand we like. I just paid off my student loans and a hospital bill from my emergency fund so I’m feeling a bit $$ aware right now

    None of this is fun but we’re able to roll with it for now.

  32. Grocery inflation is noticeable, but made infinitely more obnoxious with every fucking company opting for the dishonest as fuck “shrinkflation” marketing style.

    QUIT PUTTING FUCKING DIVOTS IN THE BOTTOM OF JARS!

  33. The cost of living affects everyone except the ultra wealthy. Even well off people are getting drained by everything costing twice as much.

  34. Indirectly

    I’m a therapist at a medical center for low income individuals. I’ve had people cry in my office over housing problems. It’s pretty bad, a lot of the charities aren’t even taking new applicants because the wait-lists are already too long. It’s tough out there.

    As an individual I’m doing well because I have a good stable job and no children.

  35. I would have said no until 10 minutes ago when I bought something that usually comes in a 6 pack and noticed it was a 4 pack. Now I’m really losing it

  36. Grocery and food prices have definitely gone up, but while a lot of people feel it’s a sudden thing, I’ve felt a steady increase (with occasional sudden fluctuations in things like eggs or chicken) over the past 8 years or so.

    There’s a housing crisis on the West Coast and a few other cities (New York and Austin have ridiculous real estate markets right now too) and house prices did increase quite a bit but it’s nothing like in Canada. I live in Ohio and housing-wise you still get decent value for your money here and I haven’t seen an increase in homelessness or tent cities like you do in places with housing crises.

  37. Housing crisis, no. I live in the Rust Belt. Most of the towns in the area are significantly smaller in population than they were in their heydays, so housing is still relatively plentiful and cheap compared to a lot of regions. Think I saw a post on r/coolguides or r/mapporn recently that showed Pittsburgh as the cheapest major city in the US. I’m 100% certain it’s inaccurate and missing a lot of variables, but I’ve lived in the metro area my whole life. The old steel towns have a lot of space.

    Grocery inflation? Definitely. I haven’t had a significant pay bump since before Covid and things just keep getting more and more expensive. My food budget’s gone up like 20-30% since 2020. This month I just *barely* had enough cash in my checking and savings to cover living expenses, insurance, and my car payment. I had $7 left in my bank account all week until yesterday, and what I have now is going to be spent almost entirely on food, rent, and my next insurance payment.

  39. Not really luckily. We do eat out a lot, like 4-5 times a week but it’s not that bad tbh

  40. Not really… But the kick in my ass is cars/trucks. It’s getting to be time to replace mine and the wife’s (hers is 6 y/o and mine is 9).

    Replacing my truck with the same model is 20 fucking grand more. Her suv is 10 grand more.

    Not wanting to bitch since we have a low rate mortgage and are doing fine… But fuck me and spending 80 grand on a goddamn truck.

  41. Grocery not so much because I have options and can eat cheaper. Rent on the other hand is killing me. It has gone up over $6,000 a year in the past two years.

  42. My grocery cost has almost doubled. I’ve had a stomach surgery and eat half of what I used to and I’m paying about what I used to pay back in 2020 pre-Covid.

  43. My husband and I live in a tiny house in my parents backyard he was laid off my hours are cut and we wanted children but by the time we get back on our feet and a place ourselves I’ll probably be too old 🥲

  44. Groceries are crazy. Eating more beans, less meat. More soups, stews, chili. Filling the plate with potatoes, rice, bread. We have two teens also.

  45. Yes. I feel like my dream of ever owning my own house just keeps getting further and further out of reach. Our food bill has also significantly increased and I find myself refusing to buy “extras” bc I’m not paying $7 for a bag of fucking chips.

  48. Housing, no. Groceries (and gas), yes.

    I bought my house before the inflation crisis, and I have a fixed-rate mortgage, so that’s fine. But the cost of food and fuel has really hurt lately. We’ve had change our budget to make it work

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