"We lose either way": Millions relate to Canadian millennial's honesty about finances

A Canadian woman who posted a video to TikTok struck a chord with millions of viewers after asking one simple question: How are people affording to live in Canada right now?

Sydney (who requested to be referred to by her first name only) also goes by HomesteadingMillennial on social media. She told Daily Hive that what pushed her to make the video was a build-up of frustrated and hopeless feelings about trying to survive in Canada.

It appears that this Canadian struggle resonates with many others, as the video has amassed nearly six million views since it was posted last year.

Sydney moved to BC’s Interior from Calgary about three years ago. She lives on a rural property and shares a glimpse into her “homesteading” lifestyle — a self-sufficient way of life often involving farming, homegrown food preservation, and small-scale textile production — on her social media platforms.

Before making the now-viral video, she had been struggling to find “safe and affordable housing for a long time,” she wrote in an email to Daily Hive.

In the video, Sydney can be seen in tears, talking to the camera about how life has gotten so expensive.

@homesteadingmillennial If anyone else is feeling despair over the current cost of living, I hear you. #canadahousingcrisis #canadahousingisbroken #ubi #taxtherich #eattherich ♬ original sound – HomesteadingMillennial

“I wanna know how the hell people in Canada are even living,” she says.

“I generally consider myself a positive person… While I know I’ll never truly be homeless, I have a family to live with, and I have options. Like, I’m luckier than a lot of other people, but how the hell is anyone existing in Canada?” she asks.

Sydney explains that despite getting a good job in September 2023, it only pays $40,000 annually.

“And it’s a job that requires education. And even on that job, I still can’t buy anything. I can’t afford rent these days. I’m just feeling so much despair,” she says.

Sydney emphasizes that she feels lucky that she has a “good family” who will support her if she needs it, and, as someone without kids, her expenses are lower.

But she still feels stuck. “I can’t stay here, but I can’t move anywhere else,” she says in the video.

Sydney adds that a part of her wants to leave Canada altogether.

“At 33 years old… I was really hoping that I could, at the very least, afford a small house. I don’t even want 3,100 square feet; I just want something small, 500 square feet, even less. And yet, it’s just so f*cking expensive. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

A lose-lose situation

Sydney told Daily Hive that the video was a “culmination of years of being told (since my mid-twenties, really) that we just need to work a little harder, that we need a better job, that we need to start a side hustle, that we need to upgrade our skills, that we should have gone into a trade, and so on.”

“It’s like we lose either way,” she said.

She explained a common situation for many across Canada: those who go to college or university risk racking up thousands in student debt; however, not attending a post-secondary institution may lessen your chances of getting a higher-paying job.

“If we go to post-secondary and are drowning under student debt, then we should have gone into the trades,” she said.

“Both in my personal life and in the media, I was just flooded with messages of personal responsibility when no one wanted to talk about the fact that this issue is a systemic one. I’m all for personal responsibility, but there’s only so much personal responsibility many of us can take before we need to start talking about the system as a whole.”

Canadian living “feels impossible”

Like many Canadians, Sydney has noticed how the cost of living has impacted her and those she knows.

For example, in 2008, when she was in her early twenties, Sydney and a group of friends worked as receptionists in downtown Calgary.

They had just recently completed high school and didn’t yet have a post-secondary education.

“I made $15 an hour and could afford a fairly decent two-bedroom basement suite in Forest Lawn Calgary, which is a more affordable area of town. My friends all did the same,” she explained, adding that she doesn’t believe the same opportunity exists for young people today.

She noted that throughout her twenties, she felt rent in Calgary wasn’t “too crazy.”

“As long as you had a full-time job, for the most part, we could afford stuff.”

Forward to today, however, and “life feels so impossible for so many of us.”

In 2015, Sydney said she started to notice the difficulties of getting into the Calgary housing market. She was trying to save for a downpayment and was paying close attention to home prices.

“I was keeping an eye on home prices in Calgary, which has traditionally been a bit more affordable than Toronto or Vancouver, for example,” she said.

“It had seemed to me that housing prices weren’t lining up to my wages in the same way that they had for my mother and grandmother. Even back then, I started wondering if I could even afford to buy a house. Saving for a downpayment was taking quite a long time as I was also paying rent while doing it,” she said.

It feels like “drowning”

Sydney isn’t the only person who has expressed concern about the difficulty the average Canadian endures just to make ends meet.

Many are taking to social media to express their feelings, and their sentiments resonate with thousands of others across the country.

A mom shared the cost of a single grocery trip on social media to show how expensive life currently is in Canada.

Natalie Crystalle took to TikTok to express her frustrations with the soaring cost of living in BC.

“If you don’t believe how expensive life is in BC, let me just paint a little picture for you,” she said. “So I just went grocery shopping, and I spent $102, and this is what I got,” she added with a laugh.

Crystalle then shows her grocery haul: a pack of salami, sausages, blackberries, raspberries, soup, bagels, yogurt, melon, eggs, and a rotisserie chicken.

The mom of one was shocked at how little she got for how much she spent.

“Do you know how long this food’s going to last me? Probably like two to three days,” she said. “So you’re supposed to spend three to four to five hundred dollars a week just to feed your family now? Like, that’s sick. That is absolutely sick.”

 

@nataliecrystalle Omg this inflation tho… #groceryhaul #groceryshopping #inflation #fyp #foryoupage #discoverpage #viral ♬ original sound – Natalie Crystalle

Sydney said these feelings of despair are comparable to treading water because you’re just trying to keep from going under.

“Are we getting ahead? Do we have emergency savings? Can we save for retirement? All no, but at least there’s food on the table. I can afford both spaghetti and rent this month,” she said.

“We’re choosing between heat and eat. We’re choosing to go hungry. All the while, we’re constantly being gaslit by the media, and we’re just lazy or need to work harder or find a better job. We need a side hustle, and we need to monetize all our hobbies and so forth.”

One can only tread water for so long, she added.

“If we are describing the physical sensation in our bodies, I think a lot of people would say that it feels like we can’t breathe – that we’re drowning.”

When it comes to finding solutions to this complex problem, Sydney said she’s noticing that many people are choosing to blame the current government, specifically Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Several nationwide surveys found that many Canadians believe the federal government — and specific significant policies directly under their control — are the leading factors for bringing Canada’s housing affordability and supply crisis to new heights.

However, she feels issues around unaffordability in Canada have been brewing for a long time.

“I don’t think people really understand that this has been decades in the making. Housing is a human right, but it’s also treated as an asset that makes money, creating a dichotomy that I don’t think takes up enough space in many conversations around housing,” she explained.

“If we are looking to our governments for accountability for the current state of the housing market, we need to look at all three levels: federal, provincial, and local. All levels of governments have essentially washed their hands of this issue for quite literally decades.”

How are people surviving?

Sydney said that since posting the video, she’s received thousands of comments and messages on social media from people all over the world who said they related to how she was feeling.

“I really thought, and continue to think, that if it’s so difficult for me to find stable, affordable housing, to be able to afford groceries and so on, what about those folks who aren’t as privileged as me?” she said.

Sydney said that as much as she was feeling overwhelmed by the current state of unaffordability in Canada, she was “feeling sadness on behalf of everyone else, too.”

“I thought that if it’s impossible for me, if you are on a fixed income, if you are Indigenous, if you are 2SLGTBQIA+, if you are living with a disability, then how are you surviving? Are you okay? Because I’m not okay.”

A shared Canadian millennial nightmare

Millennials in Canada more or less know how bad they have it. They’re set quite possibly to become the wealthiest generation in history, but at a horrifying cost to all — soaring wealth inequality.

It’s changed the way Canadians spend. Many are prioritizing down payments and mortgages over weddings and travel. After all, Canada is among the most expensive countries to retire.

Earlier this year, a Leger survey commissioned by Canadian investment service Wealthsimple found that nearly three-quarters (74%) of Canadians between the ages of 25 and 44 feel the conventional approach to retirement — to stop working at 65 and then enjoy travelling, leisure, and time with family and friends — is outdated.

The online money management platform says the study reflects the ambitions of Canadian millennials and Gen Z for “a modern form of retirement” that lets them pursue personal and professional passions throughout their adult lives.