Can you actually live on minimum wage?
There's been a lot of talk lately in regards to minimum wage not being 'livable' for the average person, and I wanted to see if it were possible to live on it.
Toronto is currently the 20th most expensive city in North America, and the most expensive city in Canada to live in based on Expatistan.com's rankings (https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/toronto)
Minimum wage in Ontario is currently set at $11.25 per hour, with an expected rise to $11.40 in October of this year.
I'll base this budget off of the wage at the time of writing this article, which will allow for the extra increase of $0.15/hr to be put into savings.
Minimum Wage: $11.25/hr
36 hours/week @ 52 weeks/year
Salary: $21,060/year
Vacation Pay: $842.40/year
Total: $21,902.40 per year in income
This works out to $1825.20/month gross income, before deductions.
Taxes/Deductions:
Income Tax: $153.30
EI: $34.31
CPP: $75.91
After Tax Income: $1561.68/month
Proposed Budget:
Fixed Expenses-
Rent: $700 including utilities (this was very easy to find in Toronto, and I found hundreds of listings without much effort online, bachelors and/or 1 bedrooms. Nothing shared. Avoiding trendy areas will greatly reduce rent costs)
Internet: $28.20 (Teksavvy Cable 5 package, which is more than sufficient for a general internet browsing, as well as online gaming and streaming Netflix)
Cell Phone: $39.55 (Wind Mobile Smartphone plan, which includes up to $650 for a phone every two years)
Metropass: $141.50
All fixed expenses include applicable tax.
Total fixed expenses: $909.25 ($652.43 remaining)
Variable expenses-
Food: $325 (includes eating meals out and household wares)
Clothing: $100 (shopping at stores like wal-mart, target, and other discount based retailers)
Entertainment: $75 (can easily cover a netflix subscription and a few nights out
Misc/Contingency: $50
Total variable expenses: $550
Savings: $102.43
At a very modest 5% investment return rate (easily obtainable via most stocks in dividends exclusively, without accounting for market appreciation), this savings amount will yield $42,277.60 total in 20 years assuming the amount saved monthly does not increase.
I've used 36 hours weekly as a baseline for these calculations, as it accounts for approx. 26 days not working per year (outside of a regular 2 days off per week), or about five weeks off for 'unpaid' days/unemployment/etc. This also does not account for any stat holiday pay, overtime pay or any potential tax refund at the end of the year. This also does not account for the 4% vacation pay that employers in Ontario must give their employees, regardless of employment status (full or part time). This can be given in the form of paid time off, or actual cash.
These items were purposely left unaccounted for, as there's no guarantee of overtime, additional hours or a tax refund (I'll cover ways to maximize this in a future post), and they account for variations in variable expenses.
In the event that there's debt involved (ie. student loans/etc), the savings and contingency amounts should be redirected to this to reduce the debt as quickly as possible. If the debt repayment requirement is greater than $152.43 monthly in order to reduce the principle, negotiating the debt with the issuing company would be worthwhile.
Living within a budget can be difficult, but minimum wage was never meant to allow for expenses past the minimum required to live. As I've demonstrated in this article, it's definitely doable in Canada's most expensive city with money to spare.