It\u2019s happening: The trains are overcrowded again. There\u2019s traffic gridlock every weekday morning. There are longer lines at your favourite downtown coffee shop and even longer queues at lunch hour.<\/p>\n
The pre-pandemic norm of working five days in the office is coming back for many Canadians, except it\u2019s not exactly the same this time around. The cost of just about everything, from food to gas, has risen significantly from five years ago. But for many office-goers, their paycheques haven\u2019t kept pace.<\/p>\n
For those mandated to return to the office, they face increased expenses for transit, parking, meals and even dog-walkers as they prepare to spend more time away from home.<\/p>\n
Financial educator Eduek Brooks estimates the cost of returning to the office five days a week could range anywhere between $800 and $1,000 per month. Her calculation includes driving to work, paying for parking and eating out a few times a week as well as additional costs such as buying new clothing and beauty products.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re so used to not having those costs and now going back and doing those things \u2026 There might be that big shock people will see in the first few weeks or even months of going back to work,\u201d Brooks said.<\/p>\n
Experts say this may be a time to search for some financial wiggle room for back-to-office expenses.<\/p>\n
Caval Olson-Lepage, certified financial planner at Innovation Wealth, said it\u2019s about taking your budget back to the basics of wants versus needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really an awareness of what you\u2019re spending that money on, and is it a need that you have to absolutely spend it?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
For example, instead of buying a coffee every morning, getting it just once a week can help divert upwards of $30 into your commuting budget, she said.<\/p>\n
Olson-Lepage recalled how she diverted some of the money she would normally spend on commuting to buying more books during the pandemic.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow that I\u2019m going back to work, it\u2019s like, well, as much as I love my books \u2026 I need that money now to go back to spending on gas,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Sara McCullough said there\u2019s an assumption that working from home was automatically saving people money.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre we? Did you get yourself an extra subscription because you weren\u2019t commuting?\u201d asked McCullough, a certified financial planner and founder of WD Development.<\/p>\n
McCullough said people need to be realistic about how their spending habits have shifted over the years.<\/p>\n
She also said people should consider options for increasing their income, such as negotiating a raise or switching to a higher-paying job to offset growing return-to-work expenses.<\/p>\n
McCullough said going back to the office today \u201cisn\u2019t going to be like it was pre-pandemic because you\u2019re not who you were pre-pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n
That means people may have different needs and priorities than they did five years ago.<\/p>\n
Olson-Lepage said managing in-office days without upending your household budget takes dedication and discipline.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you can plan that time on a Sunday before the work week to prep all of your lunches, then it\u2019s done,\u201d she said. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to think about it during the week when you\u2019re more likely to be tired.\u201d<\/p>\n
Olson-Lepage said return-to-office is going to be a balancing act for many people as they get used to being outside of the home again.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely not easy, and there is no \u2026 one-size-fits-all formula, but it\u2019s about really just being aware of your situation,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Brooks suggested people buy snacks in bulk and keep them at their desk to avoid spending money when a snack craving hits.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re not tempted to go to the cafeteria or the vending machine or go out for a coffee midday because you have something that you can snack on,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
However, despite your best efforts to minimize expenses associated with returning to the office, Brooks said people might not be able to save as much as they did while working from home.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reality of the matter is that people might not be able to save for the first six months to a year of going back to the office while they\u2019re making these adjustments, especially if you had such a major lifestyle change,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
But as time goes on, she said it will be easier to get a sense of where the savings can happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s happening: The trains are overcrowded again. There\u2019s traffic gridlock every weekday morning. There are longer lines at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46],"class_list":["post-154194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}