Let's pretend that you are a single person living alone in Ontario and work 35 hours per week in a minimum-wage job with no benefits. Your monthly budget is $1575 (before taxes). Try to balance your monthly expenses (see attached spreadsheet). And then, write a journal about ‘living on less'.
Some issues/questions to consider:
• How much do you currently spend on housing, food, transportation and other basic necessities?
• As a single person, could you live on a minimum wage income of $11.40 per hour?
• Did you discount taxes? Did you put any money away for savings or retirement?
• Could you support a family of four on this income? Don't forget to include childcare and education costs.
• Could your family live comfortably on the average Canadian family income of $70,562 (after-tax) per year (Statistics Canada, 2011 NHS)?