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$5000
What would you do if you received an unexpected $5,000 bonus?
Forget trips down south and new appliances, at least for the majority, because half of those presented with this hypothesis deal with financial obligations, whether it’s daily expenses or debt. Respondents with low income are more likely to spend that money on emergency expenses.
Another large share of participants, 43%, save this heaven-sent money.
An expensive purchase that you couldn’t afford otherwise? In Canada only 9% of respondents in general, but slightly higher in Quebec, 12%, could afford a large expense with their bonus.
Four
According to an Angus Reid poll, four out of five Canadians are tightening their belts because their budget gives them less leeway.
What did they do? They changed their travel plans and postponed important purchases. Four in ten Canadians say they use their car less to save money.
Overall, three out of five people cut spending within a discretionary budget. A significant portion, 27%, also reduce the value of their donations to nonprofits or charities.
According to these results, Quebecers are less inclined to cut back on their spending: only 42% cut their discretionary spending (compared to 57% for the country as a whole) and fewer of them change their behavior to save money or for emergency expenses.
One in five
Financial stress is very real and affects the majority of respondents. Only one in five people say they are not stressed about money. Three quarters say the opposite.
The survey also revealed that most people are heavily indebted to themselves. Nationally, four in ten Canadians admit to having too much debt, with the highest in Saskatchewan, where 57% of participants said they have too much debt.
Which province has the lowest ratio? In Quebec, 28% said they were very indebted, compared to 69% who did not consider themselves in this category.
half
Can you afford to spend $1,000 or more today? Half of the respondents (52%) said no.
“For example we should have a comparison before the pandemic, says David Dupuis, who teaches at the School of Economic Management at the University of Sherbrooke. In real life, it may be much higher than that. »
Because the phenomenon of people taking paychecks from paychecks is not new, he said. “This response shows that we haven’t learned from the pandemic,” David Dupuis said. Above all, the poll’s dataset reveals a lot of uncertainty, he says, stemming from many factors, including fear of a recession.
Perhaps this climate of uncertainty also explains why, in the context of full employment, one in three Canadians still fear losing their job.
The Angus Reid poll was conducted online August 8-10, 2022 among 2,279 Canadians.
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