Personal Finance

Canadian cities where can you live your best CERB life? Not Vancouver or Toronto

  • Last Updated:
  • May 14th, 2020 12:05 pm
[OP]
Banned
Apr 25, 2020
722 posts
566 upvotes
M1C

Canadian cities where can you live your best CERB life? Not Vancouver or Toronto

Edmonton, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Montreal, Halifax, St. John’s, Fort Nelson
Any other cities to add to the above list?


From the National Post
Where can you live your best CERB life? Here's what $2,000 per month will get you in cities across Canada
Don't even bother trying to live on CERB in Vancouver or Toronto where a one-bedroom apartment averages more than $2,000 per month. Here are some better options

Call it Justin bucks, Tru-dough, but $2,000 in the bank is $2,000 in the bank.

Every four weeks, if you’re a CERB applicant — that’s Canada Emergency Response Benefit — you’ll get the cash to help float you through the next month of life. It’s like regular income; you’ll be taxed on it down the line.

Otherwise, it’s sweet cash money, even if it’s not really all that much. At $500 per week, it’s less than a person working 40 hours per week earning $15 an hour would take home. Better than nothing.

Obviously, that depends on where you live. Don’t even bother trying to live on CERB in Vancouver, where rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $2,006 on average per month, or Toronto, where a one-bedroom apartment averages $2,213 per month, although you might be able to scrape by in the ‘burbs, such as Brampton, Ont., or Burnaby, B.C.

Here’s the National Post’s look at where you might live your best CERB life, if you’re single and living alone in a one-bedroom rented apartment. The data has been gathered from a variety of places, across a few metrics. Rental data is from rentals.ca 2020 Q1 rent report.

The grocery data, by province, is from the latest available Statistics Canada data, from 2017. It’s extrapolated from the average household spending per year on groceries.

And then there’s discretionary spending: Let’s say you’re getting into the baking game and have had your eye on a standing mixer. What better time to splurge?
10 replies
Newbie
Feb 24, 2007
61 posts
15 upvotes
Brampton
Brampton Ontario, or Burnaby BC only places to scrape by huh?

Interesting National Dope...
Banned
Dec 28, 2019
1021 posts
649 upvotes
Canadian cities where can you live your best "welfare" life...
Deal Addict
Apr 5, 2017
1485 posts
1337 upvotes
Edmonton, AB
jackrabbit000 wrote: Edmonton? Are you nuts, this place is a sh!t hole in the middle of nowhere.
lmao it's a painted target in the middle of nowhere. You got the bulls-eye downtown and butt-crack river encircled by a ring road with sad bottlenecks and speed traps, at a speed limit and design that makes it useless. Saskatoon is a mini version of this but I would imagine it's more pleasant there with less people and better roads.

I can't wait to make the move to BC once real estate comes more down to earth, and it better, because every house is a milli? LOL...I'd have to go in on a place with someone I know that we could fix it up maybe run a business out of it. How the heck does it cost as much as living in Maui, Hawaii. May as well sell off everything, take what I need, and go live with relatives on that big ole beautiful island and just eat fish, fruit, and rice off the land while not worrying about too much population density.
Member
Dec 22, 2018
206 posts
84 upvotes
Markham
tehwegz wrote: lmao it's a painted target in the middle of nowhere. You got the bulls-eye downtown and butt-crack river encircled by a ring road with sad bottlenecks and speed traps, at a speed limit and design that makes it useless. Saskatoon is a mini version of this but I would imagine it's more pleasant there with less people and better roads.

I can't wait to make the move to BC once real estate comes more down to earth, and it better, because every house is a milli? LOL...I'd have to go in on a place with someone I know that we could fix it up maybe run a business out of it. How the heck does it cost as much as living in Maui, Hawaii. May as well sell off everything, take what I need, and go live with relatives on that big ole beautiful island and just eat fish, fruit, and rice off the land while not worrying about too much population density.
sushi is more expensive in Hawaii!
Deal Expert
User avatar
Mar 18, 2005
23569 posts
5040 upvotes
Niagara Falls
Depends on what you want to do with your life. If you love the outdoors there are plenty of places in Northern Ontario that you could go far on with $2000 a month. These places don't have job offerings, but if that isn't an issue then it's all good. I'm sure every province has that if you don't want to live in a city.

If you want to live in a city I just checked kijiji for Niagara. Saw a basement apartment for $750 including utilities in Niagara Falls. Get yourself an electric scooter and you can zoom around all of Niagara Falls without much issue.
1 bedroom in a 3 bedroom apartment in downtown St. Catharines, utilities included for $500.

Plenty of ways to live of CERB if you really wanted to.
Deal Fanatic
Oct 7, 2007
9337 posts
5153 upvotes
Could be time to de-densify (if that's a word) the big cities.
Deal Addict
User avatar
Jun 23, 2017
1501 posts
1054 upvotes
Toronto, ON
any municipality / county with low cost-of-living.

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