Half of Canadians have little rainy day fund

Our oven can’t heat a week ago. It took $435 to fix it. Last year, we spent $350 to fix our laundry dryer when it didn’t dry. Fortunately we have emergency fund set aside for those home repairs.

I read an article that 40% of American don’t have $400 for emergency fund. That is very scary.  It appears that Canadians have similar issues. A survey in 2017 says almost half of Canadian employees living paycheck to paycheck.

I guessed since it is so wide spreading, it is more of a society problem or systematic issue rather than an individual problem. Something is seriously wrong here. I don’t believe we can blame almost half of Canadian employees that is their fault. Perhaps the pay was not keeping abreast with the inflation? Or perhaps certain industries wages are just too low to sustain a reasonable living standard.

Home repair doesn’t happen too often. We are lucky. Most of our appliances only breaks once in 10 years. It is usually around $500 each time. However, the car maintenance is quite expensive. It is like going to a Doctor’s office, there is no negotiation at all about what needs to be fixed and how much it costs. It can easily add up to thousands of dollars per year. Car for most people are even more of a necessity than home appliances. They need it to go to work and pick up their kids. I guessed most of them might have to use credit cards or very high interest loans if they don’t have family or friends to turn to. That’s how many of them start a debt spiral. It is very unfair indeed.

Here is a guide for emergency fund by Canadian government.  It provides a bank account comparison tool to help us choose a suitable one. However, I didn’t see Motive Financials in it which provides 3% interest rate now for a saving account. The saving accounts with the highest interest rate it shows is only 2.5%.  I don’t see Motive Financials in most saving account interest rate comparison. Probably it didn’t pay enough money for promotion. LOL. That is good. I don’t benefit from those marketing expense anyway. Keep your cost low, please. Motive Financial.