This is How Much Money You Need to Make to Afford Living in Toronto

Thinking about moving to Toronto or rethinking your budget? This is, on average, how much money you need to make to afford living in Toronto.
This is How Much Money You Need to Make to Afford Living in Toronto

Okay, Toronto. We get it. You’re expensive! To be exact, you’re the 86th most expensive city in the world to live in.

As millennials, we’re living paycheque to paycheque just to reap the benefits of this fine city, home to our favourite sports teams, some of the busiest shopping malls in Canada, and really delicious food festivals. And it’s safe to say, budgeting is new to a lot of us… Actually, there of plenty of people who don’t budget at all. Which got us thinking: how much money do we really need to sustain city life?

LowestRates.ca recently broke down the average cost of living for 20-something-year-olds in the city. Categorizing payments by housing, phone and internet, transportation, groceries, and health and fitness, they considered a number of factors and found an average price for each. Here’s what they come up with:

Housing: $1334.75/month
Phone and Internet: $140/month
Transportation: $176.25/month
Groceries: $300/month
Entertainment: $324/month
Health and Fitness: $75/month

Making the average total spent per month, $2350.

Now, based on your personal circumstances, you could be paying more or less than this. Again, this is just an estimated average. But according to these rates, to make ends meet, you’ll need to make, at the very bare minimum, $35,000 a year to live in Toronto. That doesn’t include shopping, debt repayment, or savings. And to make $35,000 annually, that means a minimum wage job ($11.40/hour), ain’t gonna cut it. That’s the sad truth about city life.

So yeah. Toronto is expensive. Luckily, minimum wage is going up to $11.60 this October (still not great but hey, it’s something!) and $15 by 2019, plus there are plenty of side hustles you can take on to help make ends meet.

Do you think this breakdown of how much it costs to live in Toronto is accurate? Comment below!

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