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As I approach senior age territory, it’s becoming more and more apparent that I’m in deep shit. I’ve spent most of my adult life traveling and working around the world. I have about $230 in Canada pension a month due to supplement what will be left of my savings. So I empathize with the plight of this new Vancouver senior who is trying to live on her allotted $1,000 a month. She pays $850 for an apartment where she has lived for 20 years and is facing moving out of the city to be able to afford rent and food.
Lectures aside about the foolishness of not saving enough to support oneself in old age, there are a ton of baby boomers reaching 65 who have little income to support themselves, especially in urban areas where rent is high and getting higher. As Canada’s rich/poor divide becoming more pronounced, and surely to become even greater the longer Harper is in control, there will be no housing affordable for seniors who live in urban areas.
It’s telling to see this rich/poor divide displayed so prominently on the front page of the Vancouver Sun featuring this compelling story of the senior aside a column featuring a story about a $40 million house and another devoted to the ‘the 25 most expensive houses”.
We may yet see in Canada and the US a new migration of seniors from cities to less inhabited areas, perhaps in communal situations, to be able to afford to live. It will be kind of like the 60′s all over again. Only less trippy and certainly less fun.
Cross posted at Let Freedom Rain.
As a senior. I had a good pension, when I retired fifteen years ago. However, today my pension is no longer adequate. You don’t get raises when on a pension. I found RRSP’s a poor investment. The government takes a percentage off the top. Then your withdrawal gets added to your income, and you get dinged again by income tax. As a senior, you have very few tax write offs. The government ends up thieving, most of your saved pension money from you.
So, unless you have a lot of cash money stashed away. You will have to go rural, even that has gone up in price. I had to sell my car. The insurance and the outrageous cost of gas. I could not afford to run my car. I got a call, my house insurance went up $165.00 from last year. When I raised the question. I was told, the HST had driven up the cost of materials needed to repair a house.
Food prices have gone sky high, since the HST. The cost of fuel, has driven up freight rates. Beware, the HST has a very long arm. You have to factor in, absolutely everything. You will see, just how much the HST is going to hurt you. The HST isn’t pretty, when you find yourself a senior. I can’t even imagine, how parents can manage to feed and cloth their children. The everyday family or person, lucky enough to have a job, will not be able to save for their retirement.
With hydro going up to 53% more. The new carbon tax hike. You must look at the large picture. There are very few goods you need to use, that aren’t taxed in BC.
Rural for me was the north. But with the HST, and the cost of living that kept climbing. I had to turn my furnace to 12 during the day, and at nine for night. My winters are, wool sweaters and socks, day and night. I hang my clothes to dry, to save hydro.
As a senior, the only way you can cut down on, are utilities and food. So next winter, I will have to cut back even more.
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