average rent for a one-bedroom apartment<\/a> in Toronto is $2,300. Groceries could run around $400 a month, while cellphone and Internet and other household needs amount to about $290. Public transit and personal care round out the necessities. After all these expenses, a person can expect to have about $1,100 a month left. <\/p>\nOf course, life wouldn\u2019t be much fun without the extras so let\u2019s include eating out, a gym membership, entertainment, and clothing, adding $610 a month. In total, a Gen Z can be left with about $500 a month or $6,000 a year.<\/p>\n
Having a roommate provides a lot more wiggle room in cash flow: sharing a two-bedroom apartment can cut costs by about $850 a month, allowing for about $16,000 a year for additional expenses and savings, a much more comfortable situation. The roommate scenario also works on a lower income of $50,000 a year.<\/p>\n
That doesn\u2019t feel like doom and gloom to me.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just the income and expenses that parents worry about \u2013 it\u2019s also general financial security. This is totally legitimate because life happens: phones need replacing, apartments need furnishing, friends need wedding gifts. Planning for these added costs means avoiding the credit card debt trap.<\/p>\n
The take-away? Gen Zs need to create financial security right from the start. Priority one is to have an emergency fund \u2013 cash sitting around for expense over and above the norm. Having a couple of thousand dollars in savings account will help defray occasional or unexpected costs to avoid racking up credit card debt, a trap that can be hard to get out of as high interest costs eat up precious income.<\/p>\n
Setting money aside in long-term savings should start with a Gen Zs first full-time job. The benefit of investing early cannot be exaggerated. The power of time and compounding makes it much easier to save for retirement and starting early builds a solid foundation that leads to financial stability and confidence.<\/p>\n
Of course, not all Gen Z\u2019s situations are the same: some will work lower-paying jobs, some will work in the gig economy, some will have student loans to repay. And we can\u2019t ignore the fact that buying a home is much harder for them than for prior generations. <\/p>\n
Financial security won\u2019t be easy, but it\u2019s also not impossible. Giving them good financial advice and the confidence to make their way will help. <\/p>\n
Anita Bruinsma is a Toronto-based certified financial planner and a parent of two teenage boys. You can find her at Clarity Personal Finance<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Launching into adult life and gaining financial independence feels hard right now: with a changing work landscape, price…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":954975,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,45,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,133,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,131,132,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-954974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-finance","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954974","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=954974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/954975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=954974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=954974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=954974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}