Quote:
Originally Posted by Katsunami
Some people have gone so far that they put themselves into the situation that two people in the household need to work above minimum wage, and all tax benefits must stay constant; should one salary be lowered, or one of the benefits fall away, then these people may get into trouble.
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Thanks for the reply. Not quoting whole post although it is very interesting.
The situation that you describe in the snippet is the norm in Canada for a lot of (I would guess the majority) of first time home buyers. In fact many would consider themselves to be doing very well in this situation.
One real life example is my building. Building repairs to the strata/condo building were put off for many years. Then two major repairs were scheduled within a 6 month time frame and assessments were charged to the owners within that period (approximately $12,000 CAD per unit). Liens have been placed against 30% of the units as the owners are unable or unwilling to pay. This could affect the rest of us negatively as the money must be paid to the contractors by someone. It was a foreseeable problem as 1/2 of the nonpayers already had liens. Oh well time to lawyer up as the saying goes.
Possibly I am off topic, but I am basically saying that these things happen even to the financially responsible.
The mobility situation is interesting as well. A 50 mile commute is not uncommon in Canada and a 100 mile daily commute is far from unheard of. The village I live in 1/2 the year is 106 miles from the nearest city and people must drive 106 miles to go to the bank, hospital, do anything but the most basic shopping, and almost all other services. It can cost $1,000's to have a vehicle towed to town for repairs. Children are bussed in weekly to attend high school. 1/2 the population are computer illiterate and wouldn't order online even if they could and shipping rates are pretty high as well. Most of the adult population goes to town more than once a week even at 50 below and several commute daily. Fairly expensive. Many communities are not accessible by road at all. Shipping is $2-$3 a pound and virtually all food other than wild game must be shipped in. I paid $10 for a quart of milk more than once in two of these communities.
Sorry for the off topic if indeed it is and I will get back on again by agreeing with you and samhy that it is indeed the bloggers fault that she got in so deep, and many people do well on far less. Many don't as well, living in debt on a large (to me) income.
I think it is very hard to break bad habits and rarely easy to get out of crippling debt. The skills are hard to master and there is an unfortunate tendency to just give up. Even if she is trying for the second or third time, she does seem to be trying and I find it impossible to condemn her.
Helen