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Name, age: Jerome, 26
Annual income: $180,000 ($140,000 with 20.5 per cent bonus, $3,000 stock–purchase matching, and 5–per–cent registered retirement savings plan, or RRSP, match)
Debt: $0
Savings: $46,000 in savings account, $56,000 in tax-free savings account, or TFSA, $88,500 in RRSP, $24,000 in first home savings account, or FHSA, $519,000 in other investments
What he does: Banking
Where he lives: Toronto
Top financial concern: “AI and how it changes our careers as a human race. We might all be automated out of a job at some point in the not so distant future.”
Jerome grew up in an affluent part of Toronto, without any financial concerns. His parents wanted him to learn how to work and to save, so he was required to have a part-time job starting in Grade 10.
He worked 20 hours a week at a pharmacy, and used his own money to pay for food while he was out of the house, or to take his girlfriend on dates.
“It was never just, ‘You can have what you want,’” said Jerome, who is now 26 and still with his high school sweetheart. “They taught me the value of a dollar strongly.”
While his family did have a registered education savings plan, or RESP, set up, Jerome’s mom also made him put half of each paycheque away to help pay for university. Between that and money he earned from jobs in his co-op program, he contributed about $60,000 of his own savings to his education and finished school debt-free.
“My parents and the RESP paid for the rest,” he said. “It’s given me a step up, maybe two steps up.”
Jerome says having no loan to pay back helped him move out of his family home earlier than some of his peers, three months after getting his first full-time job in banking. After Jerome’s now-wife recently completed a master’s degree, she owes about $30,000 in student debt, and also makes more than $100,000, sending their household income to about $300,000.
He says they are very much on the same page when it comes to savings, and credits much of their success to her frugality. “She’s a titan,” he says.
The couple puts a lot of their monthly income away with the goal of eventually buying a house. They have enough saved that they could probably do it now, but Jerome thinks it makes more sense to grow that money in the stock market until they are ready to settle down and possibly have children.
Despite their early successes, he says he worries about artificial intelligence continuing to replace more and more jobs, and whether he could one day be out of work because of AI.
“I want to save as much as we can before that happens, if it is going to happen,” he says.
His typical monthly expenses:
Investment and savings: $4,765
$583 to TFSA: “Maxed my contributions at the beginning of the year.”
$1,015 to RRSP
$667 to FHSA
$2,500 to non-registered investments
Servicing debt: $0
Household and transportation: $3,398
$2,416 to rent: “One bedroom plus den with a parking space downtown.”
$33 to renter’s insurance
$60 to electricity
$100 to gasoline
$150 to car insurance
$167 to car maintenance
$200 on travel to work: “I take the streetcar to work every day and my wife Ubers when she goes in.”
$75 on Ubers that aren’t work-related
$140 on cellphones: “My phone plus a plan for each of us.”
$57 on internet
Food and drink: $825
$350 on groceries: “Creating meal plans out of what is on sale.”
$475 at restaurants: “Combines our shared and personal budgets.”
Miscellaneous: $5,511
$3,131 to payroll deductions
$200 combined entertainment budget
$25 on cannabis: “A rough estimate, likely a little high.”
$22 on streaming: “Disney and Amazon Prime.”
$100 on clothing
$320 for dog: “Pet insurance and expensive food. He has bowel disease.”
$30 for haircuts
$13 for dentist: “Insurance covers most of this.”
$21 for optometrist: “Annual checkup.”
$1,250 for vacations
$67 to donations
$200 on gifts
$17 on life insurance
$65 on long-term disability insurance
$50 on dry cleaning and alterations.
Some details may be changed to protect the privacy of the person profiled.
Participate in the Paycheque Project
Welcome to Paycheque Project, a regular series in The Globe and Mail that looks at how much young Canadians are earning – and where that money is going. We’d like to hear from young adults from a diverse range of backgrounds, geographic locations, and earnings ranges.
If you’re a millennial or Gen Z and would like to participate, fill out the form below or send an email to Roma Luciw at [email protected]. Please include your name, age, where you live, occupation, your biggest financial concern and your email. And remember, Paycheque Project is a judgement-free zone.