over the next six weeks, as part of Out of pocket seriesGlobal News will examine how inflation is affecting Canadians from coast to coast.
If there’s one place in Canada with a reputation for being expensive to live, it’s Metro Vancouver.
Now try doing it with two kids on one income inflation At the highest level it has been in a generation.
That’s the case for thousands of British Columbians, including Vanessa Molloy of North Vancouver, a restaurant manager and server with two sons aged nine and 14.
Inflation has ‘squeezed’ the Canadian wallet. What happened?
Co-pilot of fatal Nepal plane crash tragically lost her pilot husband in 2006 air crash
“Gas is more expensive, my car insurance is more expensive, all of a sudden groceries are more expensive, and any budgeting I had has gone out the window,” the 39-year-old said. “It used to be that I had a little bit left over for some fun extras, but now, I don’t have what I have and use it for the essentials.”
Molloy isn’t the only one feeling the pull. An Ipsos survey of 1,004 adult Canadians conducted exclusively for Global News between December 14 and December 16, 2022, found that 36 per cent of respondents had reduced spending on non-essentials such as entertainment and travel, while 27 Percent cut spending. Essential things like food or clothing to pay for other basic needs.
Those pressures are especially pronounced for single parents, said Vivica Ellis, executive director of the nonprofit Single Mothers Alliance BC, which advocates for universal school lunches and free transit for youth under 18. We do.
‘Minding Pennies’ – High inflation is having a big impact on NS business owner, investment advisor
Brendan Fraser delivers emotional, tearful speech at Critics’ Choice Awards
Ellis’s group is in the middle of a federally funded study on the effects of the pandemic on single moms, but she pointed to a 2021 Child Poverty Report CardWhich also showed in 2019, nearly half of children in BC one-parent households lived below the poverty line.
“The feedback we’re getting on a weekly basis is that single moms are now having to make very difficult choices about things they didn’t have to make before,” she said.
“The majority of children and youth and parents living in true poverty in British Columbia are in families headed by a single parent, and already these families are struggling with the cost of housing, the cost of food, and many other things. .. so inflation right now means they’re really starting to buckle.
Single parents, Ellis said, are disproportionately affected by precarious work and precarious housing, meaning a financial emergency, job loss or sick day puts them even more at the mercy of rising prices.
Nothing has hurt the bottom line of Canadian households over the past 18 months more than the rising cost of basic goods.
As prices at the pump increased in the past year, Molloy considered selling the car she relies on to drive herself to work and her children to school, but said travel times and transit Once in the cost of the math doesn’t work.
Ipsos poll finds 72% of families with children worried about rising food prices
Recession will be ‘deeper’ than previously thought, but job losses will be minimal: Deloitte
“So it’s kind of to ‘bite the bullet’ and keep the vehicle, but then its only use is for absolute necessities – picking up kids, groceries, errands done, all within a single trip.” So I’m not going back and forth and I’m not going to be driving to many different places many times a day,” she said.
“I really try to budget my gas.”
The price of fuel in Metro Vancouver reached a shocking high of $2.42 per liter in September 2022.
The supermarket has become your weekly challenge. Inflation data for B.C. from November 2022, the latest available data, showed groceries had risen 10 percent year-over-year.
Molloy has left while balancing fewer car trips with shopping for deals—a process he likens to having a second job.
“I am constantly writing lists of what is selling where. Even if one place has most of the things I need for better sales, but another place may have two or three things, I leave those things so I don’t have to go to many different places. have to go.”
“I go in and I spend $100 and I look at this and you know, 18 months ago I would have gotten double that for $100 — and now I don’t even get everything that’s on my list.” “
With supermarket sticker shock, Molloy said she now regularly watches flyers and monitors two-for-one deals.
Price hike hits young parents as inflation hits – ‘the most expensive part of your years’
Singer and former ‘American Idol’ contestant CJ Harris dies at 31
In-store brands are essential, as are healthy foods that don’t spoil as quickly as root vegetables and apples. She buys less meat, and chooses items like bone-in chicken that allow her to make soup or another meal.
There are other areas where Molloy has managed to avoid the worst.
She’s lived in the same two-bedroom unit for a year, and the rent that seemed “extremely expensive” in Metro Vancouver’s white-hot market now feels like a “steal.”
The latest data from Rentals.ca pegged the average two-bedroom unit in Metro Vancouver at $2,820 per month, up 15.1 per cent year-over-year.
She has also been able to rely on her eldest son for most of her childcare needs, but she said that when her youngest son is ill, she is forced to take time off from work, which means cut his income.
‘You have to be creative’ on Extra
With family budgets under pressure to cover the basics, inflation has changed the way the Molloys afford so-called “extras”—self-care, fun activities for the kids, or the occasional restaurant meal.
“As far as eating out, we don’t even do that anymore.”
Working in a restaurant, Molloy has access to free food on her shifts that she brings home for the family, but otherwise, going out is limited to the occasional stop at Starbucks for a treat.
Free or discounted activities, such as Tunny Tuesdays at the local pool or a visit to the Burnaby Village Museum or Christmas light display, are now a staple.
“But in years past when we did it, we usually went to The White Spot for a fun dinner, and we didn’t do that this year because it wasn’t in the budget,” she said.
BC introduces one-time living tax credit payments
Police in India have charged two people in connection with the death of a family crossing the border into the US
This summer, instead of taking the boys on an overnight trip to Cultus Lake, Molloy opted for a day trip. And she said she began taking the family with Camp Stove to the park to have cookout picnics when the weather was nice.
“Trying to make little things that really weren’t going to cost us a lot look like fun—you definitely have to be creative.”
She said that her kids understand that the family has a budget and that things won’t be like this forever.
But she said it’s still hard to realize as a parent that she’s “saying no all the time.”
“It’s hard because, you know, there are other kids who are going to Disneyland for spring break, and I’m like, ‘Okay, we’re going to the grandparents’ house,'” she said.
“It’s really hard to explain as a parent, ‘Well, we don’t make Disneyland money so we can’t go.'”
Between trying to balance work, raising two boys and balancing a budget, Molloy said she also worries that prices will continue to rise while her income remains stable.
What’s more, she’s noticed that some restaurant customers are tipping less because they, too, are feeling pressured.
She said she’s held back from living comfortably, and is sometimes left juggling credit cards or forced to choose which bills she can pay in full.
“It’s almost like feeling like you want to bury your head in the sand and not think about it, but you know it’s not reality — you can’t ignore these things.”
Whenever her car makes a strange sound, she said she feels pangs of anxiety, wondering if it will burn a thousand-dollar hole in her budget.
“You don’t think about a few weeks ahead, you have to think about months ahead, how you’re going to budget and how you’re going to approach things,” she said.
“Now that our vacations are over and we’re heading into spring… I have to start thinking about summer and, how am I going to be able to do something special with the kids?”
The pressure is enough that Molloy has investigated local aid organizations. crop project and food banks.
So far, she said, she’s been able to make ends meet, but each month is a stretch.
“I guess my feelings were, well, there’s still food in my fridge, there’s still food in my cupboard — there are people out there who have it worse than me. So when I thought about it, I’m not there yet. I’m not,” she said.
“I’m pulling it together as best I can right now. I guess it’s part of my embarrassing pride. I prefer to do it on my own.