How much you need to make per hour to live alone in downtown Toronto
A couple of weeks ago we published an article that broke down how much the minimum amount of money you need to make to be able to live alone in Toronto in your early 30s would be.
We went through everything from monthly rent and groceries, to ‘partying’ money and gym memberships. In fact, we covered 9 categories all together and came up with a total of $3,093.63 per month after taxes, CPP, and EI.)
This meant that in order to live alone in downtown Toronto and have any kind of life (see: eat dinner out occasionally, grab a coffee) you needed to be pulling in a minimum annual salary of $47,500 before taxes to reach your $3,093.63 monthly goal.
Many of you agreed with the post. Many of you said it was low-balling. Many others said that was way too high.
After all, it depends on lifestyle. If you bike to work your TTC costs will go down. If work picks up your phone bill, you won’t have to worry about paying it yourself. Quit drinking? Good for you. Your monthly funds probably shot up.
The point is, everyone lives in Toronto differently. The one thing that connects us however, is the need to pay the bills.
So while that number of $47,500 is all fine and good to use as a minimum if you’re sitting down to discuss an annual salary at a full-time job with some security, the truth is, a lot of people in our generation don’t have that luxury.
Our generation hasn’t taken on the moniker of precariat for no reason, after all.
Many of us have to scrounge hours, side-hustle, take on multiple jobs, have sixteen different skills just to land our first job, and ultimately treat work as always being one day away from unemployment.
That means Torontonians need to be making an hourly wage that’s even higher, to make up for both lack of consistency and things like vacation (if you’re working hourly, you’re not getting paid when you’re not showing up).
If we stick with the numbers we came up with in our last post, that means you need to be pulling in a minimum hourly wage in Toronto of $23.75 for 50 weeks of the year at 40 hours per week (if you give yourself two weeks off).
Remember, that’s a minimum and it only gets you to $47,500. If you’re looking to make somewhere around $60,000 a year, you’d better be getting $30 an hour. Want to make $100,000? Don’t take less than $50 an hour.
There’s a reason work by the hour costs more; there’s no security after the 60 minutes is over. And certainly no benefits.
So keep this in mind the next time you’re in the business of selling your skill. Time really is money – know how much yours is worth.
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