this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2024
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A Boring Dystopia
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I went to college, acquired two diplomas, my SO went to college and acquired one as well. My brother has two as well if I recall correctly, and his wife has one as well.
Together, we are four college graduates with upwards of six diplomas between us.
The four of us also had to pool our finances to afford one home.
Quad income, one house.
It's not a small house but it's not exactly in a high demand city (we're pretty far out in a rural area, surrounded by farmland). I also wouldn't describe the house as large. If my SO and I, or my brother and his wife were to buy this place it might be "large" but with four of us here, it's fairly modest. We have no significant land, less than a quarter of an acre, and there's nothing special about the house that makes it cost more (in fact, there were several things that should have lowered the cost). Yet here we are, scraping by with multiple incomes barely able to save at all because the monthly cost of the mortgage is so high... And we need to save, because all of those savings need to exist for when the water heater and furnace and air-conditioner inevitably fail.... They're not new, this is not a new home. I'm still finding aluminum wires that I have to rip out and replace, because if the place burns down and my insurance finds a scrap of aluminum wire, they'll deny me any coverage for the damage.
My SO and I have no children. That fact is never changing.
6 diplomas and no kids and you're having trouble affording a quarter acre in the boondocks? I'm sorry, I'm going to need more information, that just doesn't pencil unless you got a bunch of useless degrees, or are refusing to explore the job market.
I'm in Canada. Getting a diploma from a college isn't a degree. Most are 2-3 year certificate courses. Until recently, colleges in Canada couldn't even issue degrees. If you wanted a degree from college courses, usually you would earn a diploma and then have further studies at a university before you obtained a degree.
Between the four of us, there are two nurses, one graphic designer, and one IT/systems/network administrator. Our combined household income is above $150,000 CAD per year (probably closer to or more than $200k, but I haven't crunched the numbers), and our home, which is less than 3000 sq ft, and cost in excess of $700,000 CAD. Monthly we pay over $4500 per month for the mortgage alone, and we have plenty of bills which are additional to that to keep the house running, as any home owner will know.
We live in a rural community in the middle of farmland. It's a small town type thing, population in this town is under 10k. In town we have a grocery store (just one), I believe there are three pharmacies for some reason, a few medical services (clinic, dentist, eye doctor), and a handful of fast food places including an A&W, subway, pizza hut, and some local places too, mostly pizza places. To get to the next town/city over, you must drive at least 15-20 minutes to reach the city limits of another Township or city, which often doesn't get you to anywhere you would want to go, and you're probably going to need to drive at least 10-15 more minutes to get anywhere you would want to go.
Several of us have not insignificant debts, mostly credit cards and vehicle loans, though most of us have paid off our educational loans at this point.
These are all factual statements. As for my opinion.... I don't owe you an explanation. You can not believe me if you wish. I could not possibly care less about what you think of my situation. I don't say any of this to provide some sort of evidence or proof that the information I initially gave is valid or true; I wrote all this down to provide context because I felt context was warranted. We're all millennials, born between 1980 and 1990, and we've all worked our entire lives to try to get out from under the debt that was pushed on us from post secondary education and from the economy being in the crapper for so long. Nobody got a free ride through college, we all accumulated some educational debts. We're all hard working people and I don't need to justify that we're doing our best. The fact is, this house that we own today, would have cost half as much 15 years ago, possibly less. The problem is, at that time, we were all so saddled with debt we couldn't have hoped to afford this house even at less than half the cost, at that time. Now that we have enough to actually start the process of having a mortgage and buying a house, the market has gone to such shit that the only way for us to afford it with our stagnant wages is to pool our funds. With a simple meal at a modest restaurant costing over $50 CAD per person, it's not really a wonder why we're all struggling. We all require vehicles because there's next to nothing in our city worth going to, and the local grocery is frequently 50% + more costly than a discount grocery in the next town over (a 20 minute drive at least). So for less than $5 in fuel, we can save literally hundreds per trip on groceries. We couldn't do that without vehicles. Which isn't to mention work; we're all specialised in our fields and as you should be able to imagine, we generally need to go where that work is to earn the wage we deserve. Again, requiring vehicles in most cases.
We're solidly middle class, and we're okay being middle class. None of us inherited significant money from family, and only because of a death in our immediate family were we even able to afford the down payment to buy a home. We're proud of what we have accomplished, and there's nothing you or anyone else can say that will take that away from us. The fact is, my entire generation has been screwed from the start. There have been more economic crisis and "once in a lifetime" collapses and such that we've been held back so significantly that it has become a near impossibility for many people I knew from highschool to achieve the same as we have despite being similarly educated and in a similar social standing.
I do, however, take offense at the implication that we simply suck. That we've somehow squandered the opportunities that we have had.
And with that, I bid you good day sir.
Hey, I appreciate the context and explanation. I'm sorry if I came across as offensive, that wasn't my intent. It appears that I made a couple of assumptions about your situation which weren't true, and you cleared them up for me.
I'm from the same generation as you, and come from generally the same circumstances (no inheritance, DINK, etc), but I live in the US so I'm not very familiar with Canada's job market, or wages. I also made a bad assumption about diplomas being bachelor or master's degrees.
700k house with $4500 monthly mortgage sounds strange as well, but maybe you have a shorter term loan than I expect. I know housing prices in Canada are crazy, but 700k in the middle of nowhere is bonkers.
$200k household income puts 4 adults at about the average salary in Canada. That's a little distressing given your degreed qualifications, I'd think that IT work and nursing would bump those numbers quite a bit.
I know you didn't ask for advice, so I'm not going to attempt to give it. Thanks for helping me to understand your situation, sorry again if I sounded like a jerk.
I get it, it's easy to just react and not think about the tone you may be portraying on the internet.
Remember we're dealing in Canadian dollars; but the housing market here is nuts. A couple of new builds went up about a block from me and they're asking for 1.5M each, with about 2/3rds as much house for the price.... We have 6-7 bedrooms and those places have 4, IIRC. They're new, but I don't think "new" is worth twice the asking price.
My problem is that I'm not terribly far from a Toronto, it's about an hour drive in light traffic by the highway a bit more when you consider it can take 20 minutes to get to the highway from here. Still 1.5 hours or so from Toronto, and people who live in Toronto who have money and are looking for a small town to live in... My area is pretty appealing to those folks, especially when they can sell their modest tomorrow house for several million dollars (again, Canadian). So if someone is looking to retire to a small community, they can likely sell their home, buy one of those 1.5M houses up the street, and still have money left to retire with....
Toronto's housing issues have become a problem for the entire region. People are commuting farther and farther to get to Toronto for work because the costs in the city are so outrageous.
My mortgage is a standard 25 year term, but the bank is handling property tax so that drives it up a bit. It's closer to $4000/mo before the extra stuff. Here, we also need mortgage insurance, home insurance and content insurance. Mortgage insurance is required so the bank can get paid if we are incapable of paying them and the asset disappears (like if we were all at home and the house was destroyed), house insurance is for us, if the house is destroyed and we survive, the home insurance will cover the cost of replacing the house (rebuilding it). Content insurance covers everything we own that is in the house, like our TVs, computers, beds, clothing, etc.
Some of the insurance is mandatory, most of voluntary but a really good idea.
We also have mandatory car insurance here. So between the mortgage and all the insurance we have for home and vehicles, plus property taxes and other things, we're probably spending above $5k/mo on simple living expenses. Then bills for electricity, heating, internet, cellphones.... Our total household expenses are not cheap and they're not getting any cheaper. Many are poised to increase over time. With the fairly stagnant salaries we bring in, it's not easy.
I work in IT, I hold the IT certificates, and I'm actually earning the most in the home. Something like 1/3rd of our income is me. Probably more like 40% maybe more. I don't have the exact figures for what everyone is making, but I'm well above a one-quarter share. Less than half, but above one quarter. My brother, the graphic designer, has had the worst luck with employment and earnings, but he still contributes where he can. It's just been tough for him, but I won't get into his situation since that's not my story to tell.
I recently had a bout of unemployment, and while we have social assistance here for unemployment, it was less than 40% of my normal earnings (there's a cap that I hit). I'm back at work now and things should ease up financially.
As for advice. One of the certificates I hold is in business. Part of my business studies included personal financial management. I'm certain that any advice you could give, I've already heard and told myself over and over again. Knowing what to do and doing it, are two different things entirely. I've never had investment money, though I know what to do if I ever do. Most of my earnings go towards keeping things running and doing minor upgrades where I can, when I can. Right now I'm in a bit of a recovery phase, where all my free money will be going to paying down any debts that have arisen from my time unemployed. Once that's taken care of, I'm hoping to develop a small slush fund for when/if I ever end up in a similar situation and getting my long term debts paid off. This will, unfortunately, take years to accomplish. Most of my money needs to go towards keeping the lights on.
Simply put, losing the house, or falling behind on bills is simply not something that should ever happen. So my focus is clear. Primarily keeping the house in working order and our bills paid. After that pay off any and all existing debts, then finally build funds so I can relax. Even if something were to happen, like when I ended up unemployed, I can survive without further stress and worry... Allowing me to focus on getting a job instead of stressing over what needs to be paid, and where our next meal will come from.
I'm far from the only one struggling. I know you are too. I'm sure many aspects of my story are echoed in your life. The fact is that this cannot continue like this. We need better wages. Prices for goods and services cannot continue to just rise uncontrollably. The middle class is disappearing, we're not unique in our position and bluntly, it makes me mad that everyone in the middle class seems to be struggling, but nobody cares enough to actually do anything about it. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the middle class gets squeezed between them. Either we gain enough to escape into the upper class, or we're doomed to fall into the poor house. Most of us are headed down. Some may go up. I probably won't live long enough to see which way my family goes, and I have no children to suffer through it either way. As long as I can maintain what we have for the next 20-30 years, we should be able to come out on the other side, into retirement and the story will eventually end with us. I'm okay with this. Hopefully whomever gets whatever is left when I die, escapes the trappings of middle class and can move up in the world.
Good luck everybody.
Thanks again for the insight, it sounds like you've got things on the right track.
Truthfully, I feel like I'm struggling, but relative to most I'm probably living very well. I own my home near the ocean in a major metro in California.
Any advice I'd feel comfortable giving doesn't revolve around money investments or savings. When my relationship with my now wife first got serious, we talked transparently about what kind of life (and lifestyle) we wanted. We did a back of the napkin calculation of the minimum income required to support ourselves, and at the time we were very short. We agreed that we would become very aggressive about our careers and income generation. This is why I asked you about whether you'd been exploring the job market with your sights set on long term goals.
My wife and I decided to work together to defray the risk inherent in solving the income problem. We started by having one of us find a job with a salary slightly above our old ones. Then that person became the anchor for the household which enabled the other person to find a job that was far riskier but with much higher financial upside. Once things stabilized with that person's career, making it less risky, that person became the anchor for the household which permitted the first person to take on risk (and debt) to go back to university for a degree specifically selected to improve their earning potential once they graduated.
Over and over, slingshotting each other forward by taking turns and being very aggressive about generating income, and then investing that income. 20 years later we feel like we can do most of the things we want. We still stress about having enough or being on track for retirement, but it's a different kind of stress.
Well, that's certainly a good plan.
At this point I'm not confident that either myself or my SO would be comfortable doing the same strategy. Personally I'd like to return to school and upgrade my diploma to a degree, however, being the highest earner in the home, I can't really take the several years of unemployment required to do so, even with support from everyone involved. It would simply be too much of a hit to our finances.
I've been exploring getting some after-hours training in to enhance my resume, even looking into pursuing a degree part time. The problem I keep facing is that since I'm very rural, the universities that offer degree courses in IT (non-programming) are few and far between, and for the most part, those IT related courses that are required for the degree, are not offered as distance learning. I'm simply too far away to attend a university class, even part time, in person. The closest uni that would offer a course that I'm interested in, would likely be more than an hour drive away each direction. With my current duties and obligations in the home and for work, I just can't seem to find a way to make that work. Distance learning is my only real viable option, and it's basically not offered for the program I want.
Unfortunately, my life's story, while interesting, is full of missteps and failures. As a brief overview, I dropped out of highschool after my parents separated, nearly ended up homeless but my brother gave me a room in his apartment for a year or so for me to get on my feet. I was ~16. I entered the workforce to get off of social assistance, and floundered for several years doing retail work to make it by. After a particularly bad break up, I obtained my highschool equivalent diploma, and started college at ~23yo. I lost about 7 years or more doing menial labor.
I got into trouble during my academics, ended up getting a year long suspension for an action that I thought would be helpful, but the administration at the college took as malicious. Took me almost two years before I decided to return, I was bitter about trying to help, and being punished for it.
I graduated college at ~29yo, with two diplomas (each a "2 year" diploma), and got my first job in my field. That was around 10 years ago. I'm 40 now, I'll be 41 later this year (in a few months).
I was diagnosed with ADHD at 39, and the same year, I bought a house with my SO, brother and his spouse.
This is the first time in my life I'm not renting. I finally paid off my student loan in 2022, and I fully paid off my vehicle in 2019? I think. I still carry significant debts, mostly credit cards, a lot of it from the seven year gap and from my college days. Though I still have expenses that I have to put on credit, since I don't currently have a slush fund for incidentals. I usually pay more for things because I always focus on buying things that are durable and reliable more than cost effective in the short term. This leads to spending more up front, but (hopefully) less in the long term. Most of what I own is older, most of it was purchased used, but I haven't had to replace almost anything I own unless it is so obsolete it no longer functions effectively for what it does. My most significant recurring purchase is for laptops, since college I've owned three, all of which have been more than $1500 CAD, frequently more than $2000 CAD.... Around $5000 in 10 years. Rivalling that is my cellphone, which is rotated out every 3 years or so, and I buy my phone entirely (rather than lock into a contract with my provider), and they cost around $1000 CAD for every upgrade, every three years. I'm currently on year two of owning my current phone, a pixel 7. My computer's, laptop, phone and car, are all work-enabling devices for me given my vocation, so those expenses are generally required to be effective in my job. Everything else I've purchased has been either less expensive or a one time purchase that I have not had any need to replace.
My strategy is to pay for reliable things up front, to minimize any recurring costs of replacement, and provide a good return on my investment. Hopefully better than that of cheap items that will need to be regularly replaced.
This, hopefully, limits my spending, but my recent unemployment has significantly damaged my finances. I was in a good position prior to the unemployment condition, though with little if any savings, and much of my ongoing expenses taxed my finances since my income from social assistance was so low in comparison to my normal income.
As mentioned, my current plan is to continue to reduce any debts until they are resolved, since I know any investments I make right now, and any interest I earn will be far outweighed by the interest owed on my debts. Once debts are eliminated (aside from the mortgage), I can refocus on saving and building a slush fund for incidentals. Again: this will take years to accomplish. So my only daily focus right now is to maintain my employment so I can continue to pursue my debt payment plan. I need to re-do my budget and assess my financial condition given my new employment, and plan from there. I'm certain I'm making enough for my ongoing expenses, both fixed (mortgage, bills, etc), and dynamic (additional considerations for debts, as well as food, fuel for my car, maintenance, etc); what I need to determine is how much I have above and beyond those required expenses, and allocate some for entertainment, so I don't lose my mind or burn out working without a break, and a small amount for upgrades, like for my cellphone in a year and a half or so; then push the rest to debt repayments as I am able, and have a bit left over for minor incidentals (under $200).
Budgeting is not an activity I enjoy. It's necessary, but it's incredibly hard for me to do given that I have ADHD.
Most of my life and the poor path I had previously (especially prior to college) can be explained by my ADHD condition and being undiagnosed. Now that I'm receiving treatment for it, the effects are significantly reduced.
That's my story, and it goes so much deeper. I left out a lot of detail for brevity, and all of that detail explains why I ended up here. I'm proud of how much I've done despite my obvious challenges, and I've accomplished a lot in the short time I've been receiving treatment for the condition.
Personally, I like a relatively simple life. I don't want much. I don't desire travel or vacations, I'm happiest watching TV on the couch with my SO. My next big spend will likely be a ring. She's stuck with me for the better part of a decade and she was instrumental in getting the mortgage approved and the house purchased. It's time.