Yeah, that rent is incredibly low for Toronto. But also, 1800 for all utilities, potential medicine, transportation,… does not get you too far.

My wife and I do shopping for a full week at Farm Boy (not the cheapest) and this runs to about $300 for a week of food. Does not include other things such as detergent, toilet paper, etc..

you're talking about expenses that are like $5 there and $10 there

$1800 for everything shouldn't be starving

Where do you live that utilities, public transport, and niche medical expenses are $5 here and there?

Beijing, China

If that’s correct (and it seems it is) there still seems to be some room, especially for applying for additional assistance (but I don’t know how Canada handles it, the USA would likely grant SNAP).

Thanks for pointing that out. It confused me too.

Canadians don't have the easy option of moving to Florida or Arizona to avoid heating bills, either. That could be a big portion of the remainder.

Florida insurance (all types) each costs far, far more than heating bills. People with cars just got (or are about to get) a 40% f.u. for living in FL bump in their auto. It makes no difference if you've no collision on your own car. And - that 40% is just this year's increase.

Building insurance is many magnitudes worse. I personally know small biz owners that are teetering on shuttering after the legislatures latest insurance fixes.

One of my dads friends lives in Florida and wants to sell her house and move. She doesn't seem to really believe that moving would mean her auto and homeowners insurance would go from $1500/month to that a year.

It is really easy to use Zillow to compare houses across the USA - I can find nearly identical properties in almost any metro area I could consider, and it will list prices, taxes, and even estimate insurance.

But it's much harder to compare all the other expenses involved with month-to-month living (utilities, car insurance, car maintenance, etc).

I'm vacillating between curious & skeptical about how Zillow can give accurate FL structure insurance estimates, while those numbers are changing from month to month or even faster.

I only turned on heating for one month this winter because I padded windows with extra thermal tape. When it's above 0 °C it's enough to just keep windows closed. Inside the room the temperature only dropped to 20 °C up until the outside temperature started freezing

but she only has $60 for food? if you assume phone and internet is ~$250/m and two bus passes are another ~$250/m, that's $1,300/m for other stuff? I can't really make heads or tails of this budget without knowing more.

It's super easy to hit $1k/mo in routine medical/dental expenses. That's one Dr visit, 3 meds and a bit of dental work w/o insurance. Tack on 1 non-routine medical issue and that can easily go up by a factor of 2 or 20.

Total nonsense! All but dental are fully covered for retirees where she lives.