Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Have You Changed Your Lifestyle?
Everything costs more these days; food, fuel, housing. Have you made any changes in your life to reflect the higher cost of living? You may have some helpful hints to pass along to other C100 Listeners.
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6 comments:
In order to save money - I only drive when I go to work and do my errands on the way to work or from work. I no longer have cable. And I'm eating less, since it is too expensive to eat.
We have done all we can already to save money, we turn the power bars off the to electric heat in the summer, air exchanger off in the summer, light bulbs changed etc. We hardly eat out and now it is even less. We use to do a fair amount of traveling but even that has been cut back. I am getting soo frustrated. My husband got approx. $3000 dollar raise, I got a $2000 dollar raise and the take home doesn't even cover the cost increase in our food bill let alone gas. We don't purchase meat at the grocery store, just fruit, vegies and processed foods....we get our meat striaght from the farmer. It saves, but our grocieries have increased approx $60-80 every 2 weeks and that doesnt' include what we now purchase the week in between...We a have 1.5year old and the baby only increased our bill by $20-30 max. Plus we now have the added expense of diapers, wipes etc. (Hopefully not for much longer.) I am use to us having a surplus as I don't like debt and now it is almost impossible for that to happen. We wanted to take a couple nights and go to PEI or NB for a mini vacation....we can't now. This shit sucks and is not good....I suspect morgages will soon start forclosing, etc...the economy is about to suffer big time. We are all programed to charge charge charge and the problem is most of us know, have 3-5 credit cards maxed, plus lines of credit 10K or more with balances....people can't live like this. Bankrupsies are around the corner for a lot of people if cost of living keeps climing at this rate. I manage my money and it scares me to death.
The scariest part of this whole cost of living increase thing is it just might be starting. Food prices are rising but will go up even more with rising fuel prices. The cost of building a house will increase because things that use petroleum products (shingles, vinyl siding) will also increase.
We feel your pain.
We have already cancelled one over night trip within Nova Scotia because of the fuel increases. Also, during this time of year we usually have already taken at least a couple of drives down around Wolfville or Lunenburg, but we haven't done that yet this year and again it's because of the fuel costs. We have another excursion planned for the July 4th weekend to Cape Breton but am seriously thinking about cancelling that! We are becoming more content lately with just spending time together on our back patio entertaining friends and family and having bbq's. There are so many beautiful places to visit in Nova Scotia, it's a shame that fuel costs are causing us to rethink travel, even just within our own Province. Anyone to think that this will not have an impact on the tourism industry is living in a bubble.
I barely make ends meet. I'm a single female working full time with a pretty good salary. Between paying off student loans, paying outrageous rent, grocery costs etc... I always made sure I had a little extra $$ for gas to run errands and travel a bit on the weekends (I take the bus to work), I just can't afford the price of gas right now, my car stays parked most days.
The cost of living has increased where salaries have not. I'm trying my best to break even every month, but it's getting harder to do. I've noticed I'm getting less groceries to get by and I'm constantly thinking of ways to cut back but there is nothing else to cut.
We have lives in Spain for many years. Now my partner and i are planning to retire to NS this October. He is Canadian and i am British. We have enough to buy a decent house, we are wondering if his pension of 1000 cdn will be enought to live on. it would be a great help if any one could give us an idea of running a three bed home, shopping, bills in general. thanks
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