The cost of living in Metro Vancouver continues to rise, causing financial stress for many.<\/p>\n
1130 NewsRadio spoke to locals who report that their budgets are being stretched to the limit.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverywhere, I\u2019ve noticed, is crazy expensive,\u201d one said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m definitely more conscious of deal shopping and [seeking] lowering prices across different stores,\u201d said another.<\/p>\n
Some have even noticed more people taking advantage of food programs to avoid the skyrocketing costs at grocery stores.<\/p>\n
\u201cI noticed there\u2019s this food program that\u2019s in the building that I\u2019m in, and it gets outdated food from stores and\/or expiring food from stores,\u201d one man told 1130 NewsRadio.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt first, it started out fairly minor, but now there\u2019s like 50 units in there. There\u2019s only 90 units in my building.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mason Cox, Director of Counselling at the Credit Counselling Society, says many people are running out of things to cut from their budget to make ends meet.<\/p>\n
\u201cBack in the day, whenever we would meet with individuals and talk about budgeting and those kinds of things, we\u2019d see where there might be a little bit more flexibility \u2014 \u2018If you don\u2019t do this as much, maybe you can afford X,Y, and Z,’\u201d said Cox.<\/p>\n
\u201cNowadays, we\u2019re just seeing budgets are tighter and tighter.\u201d<\/p>\n
He says taking on debt might seem like the only choice, but warns it will cause more financial stress in the long run.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a Band-Aid solution,\u201d said Cox, who says food and shelter should be prioritized over all.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are the most important things that you need just to get by.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cox advises writing a list of your expenses to see where you could cut costs.<\/p>\n
He says people struggling to make ends meet shouldn\u2019t feel alone and shouldn\u2019t avoid seeking help.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people get overwhelmed because they\u2019re looking to make changes right away,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I think the best thing you can do is really get everything down on a piece of paper so you can start \u2014 then making the decisions of how you can overcome those challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The cost of living in Metro Vancouver continues to rise, causing financial stress for many. 1130 NewsRadio spoke…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[49,48,55],"class_list":["post-592688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592688","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=592688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}