Technology is one of the great equalizers. This point was reinforced for me last week when I received word that my grandpa, a spirited 86-year-old, had joined Twitter. Many of us assume that it’s the twenty- and thirtysomethings, born and raised alongside the internet, who feel no trepidation about banking online or on their iPhones. No, we scoff: Tech-wariness is the domain of grandparents and the Amish. But according to a recent study by the Canadian Bankers Association, just 53 per cent of Canadians aged 18 to 34 do the majority of their banking online. (Consider that 45 per cent of the 55-and-older respondents banked mostly online, too, and the generational disparity isn’t as great as you might think.) That margin seems low considering that, when I asked most of my contemporaries whether they banked online, they looked at me incredulously, and said, “Well, yeah.”

As I tried to figure out how the elusive other 47 per cent of Gen Y banked, friends and co-workers began to divulge stories of their supposedly modern friends’ e-banking paranoia. One colleague told me about a travel buddy of hers who, at 28, has never sent an email money transfer. Similarly, a 25-year-old university friend conducts most of his banking online, but absolutely refuses to bank using an app. “I have concerns about security,” he said. “A mobile network could get hacked. When I explain to friends that I’d rather just do it online, people are like, ‘Really? Okay. Your choice.’” (I should mention that, as an accountant, he’s not usually prone to money-managing anxiety.) Could it be that, for all of our constant tweeting and fancy Tupac holograms, that the “Me Me Me generation,” as Time Magazine recently called us, is not as advanced as we think we are—particularly when it comes to e-handling our money?

For answers, I called Vince Maniago, a group product manager for California-based finance tracking software (and app) Mint. Since its Canadian launch in December 2010, the software—which aggregates all of your bank accounts, credit cards, loans, mortgage, and investment info to help you track and create budgets—has been downloaded by hundreds of thousands of Canucks. Yet despite the fact that two-thirds of Mint’s customers are under 35, Maniago says they aren’t exempt from e-banking anxiety, particularly with respect to mobile apps. “That perceived lack of security—it’s a giant mental wall for people to get over, and many of them haven’t yet,” he says.  “No one is 100 per cent safe from identity theft and fraud; it can happen to the most connected or the least connected of us.”

Maniago and his colleagues refer to this young demographic, particularly those just out of college, as the “Help me spend and keep me mobile” group: They don’t really care whether their smartphone is equipped to help them pay bills or loans—they just want to know that their balances are sufficient to keep them buying. (Sounds familiar.) This hands-off banking approach, coupled with quietly simmering anxieties about fraud, render a large chunk of Gen Y perfect candidates for e-banking reticence.

Minimizing this unlikely tech skepticism starts with a dose of reality. All online and mobile banking transactions are encrypted, meaning that any financial information you enter is scrambled to fend off hackers. Plus, if you notice a suspicious charge in your account after making a web transfer, most of the big financial institutions, like RBC and BMO, assume liability and offer full reimbursement for the defrauded amount. Comparatively, it’s a lot safer than e-commerce. “Something like a third of computers are infected with malware,” says Maniago. “If you’re using your credit card online, or storing confidential documents on your PC, that is several orders of magnitude more dangerous than banking securely.”

Ironically, Maniago suggests that the luddites among us may just need to grow up a bit to fully embrace modern banking options. “By the time you get to your early 30s, you split finances with a spouse, have a kid or a mortgage, and your cash-flow situation changes. Which paycheque goes to which bill becomes much more complex. These tools become necessary evils the older we get.”

Kids: It doesn’t appear this “mobile revolution” is going to slow down anytime soon. Bell just announced it has partnered with RBC to connect certain BlackBerry and Android models to customers’ bank accounts, enabling them to shop with their phones by the end of 2013. Even the Royal Canadian Mint is developing a “MintChip” prototype, which would allow transfers under $10 to be made to a friend by tapping your phones together. If you’re still worried, you could always tweet @mygrampa for reassurance.

Ever get the feeling that you’re “leaking” money? There are many ways to do it. Maybe you get dinged a dollar for failing to meet the minimum $5 debit-charge threshold at Hasty Market, but you absolutely must satisfy your midnight jerky fix. Or perhaps seemingly negligible bank fees are the culprits. Though most people seem to think of the bank as their very own Fort Knox—a vaulted haven where their savings safely reside—your chequing account balance is regularly drained by the bank itself, due to fees being charged for your financial activities.

Understandably, most people aren’t thrilled about paying to access their own hard-earned cash, but banks approach fees like any other money-dependent business would, says Maura Drew-Lytle, spokesperson for the Canadian Bankers Association. “They try to keep fees as low as they can, but there’s a cost to operating branches across the country,” she says. “Banks have to pay rent, they have to employ people, buy supplies—all of these things cost money. They have to ask, ‘What are our competitors charging?’ and ‘What could be happening in the future that might raise our prices?’ And there’s security in knowing your money is safe.” The fees, which only account for about five per cent of a bank’s total annual revenue, also help them maintain the ATMs, and in-person, telephone, and web-based services.

At my home bank, TD Canada Trust, I have an Infinity chequing account. TD’s website describes the typical Infinity customer as one who “uses their chequing account frequently” (guilty) and values the “peace of mind and convenience” of unlimited transactions (that I do). This customer also supposedly aspires to “save money every month,” which makes sense until you add up the $14.95 monthly charge for access to the account, the multiple $1.50 email money transfers I make to pay rent, etc., and a slew of ill-advised withdrawals made at non-TD ATMs in the name of “more beer.” On their own, the charges seem minor, if not totally negligible, but cumulatively, they cost me easily over $20—and the average Canuck $16.20—per month. The good news? Many of these fees are easily avoidable.

Many Canadian bank customers probably feel like setting their monthly statements on fire, but about a third of us are paying no fees at all, thanks to a bit of financial diligence. “If you’re managing your account well, you can avoid paying fees you don’t need to be paying,” Drew-Lytle says. “Take the account you have right now, then look at three-months-worth of your transactions. What do you notice about your habits? Go online and compare account packages to see if there might be something better for you out there. Not everyone banks in the same way.”

Perfect for erstwhile fans of CosmoGirl quizzes (RIP), the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) has a “Banking Package Selector Tool” that uses your age, typical minimum account balance, and transaction tendencies to recommend your optimal account from over 100 packages provided by 16 banks. My own best matches were a Manulife “Advantage Account,” BMO’s “Plus Plan”, and the “No Fee Bank Account” with President’s Choice Financial, which all allow for high or unlimited transaction allowances and lower monthly balance demands. (Hey, don’t shoot the messenger, TD.)

If you can’t bear to part with your current bank, though, Drew-Lytle says there are a number of preventative strategies you can use to keep fees at a manageable level. For starters, pay attention to your transaction limits—if you’re allowed 10 a month, don’t exceed that amount. Maintain your minimum required account balance and your monthly fees could be reduced; make larger withdrawals less frequently—$100 once instead of $20 five times—and take advantage of cash-back options at grocery stores and the LCBO to minimize transactions.

Online-only banks offer no-fee accounts, so look into those if most or all of your banking takes place on the web. ATMs belonging to anyone other than your home bank (like those sneaky convenience-store terminals) will get you charged twice—once by your bank for the withdrawal, and upwards of $1.50 by the machine itself for use. Yes, it’s a pain to maintain ATM brand loyalty at 2 a.m., but it’s worth it at the end of the month.
Bank fees, when left unmonitored, are sort of like a gateway drug to total financial carelessness. I have no illusions that $15 here or there will send you or me reeling headlong into bankruptcy, but it’s a sloppy trickle-out expense that can be kept under control with minimal effort. If you don’t mind your fees, it’ll cost you. You can bank on that.

It could be worse, of course. It could be New York City, where the average apartment goes for $1,789 a month (in Manhattan, it’s $3,454). It could be Tokyo, where a cup of coffee costs $9.54, or Sydney, where a carton of eggs is $6.64. Still, living in Toronto isn’t cheap—we’re Canada’s most expensive city, and the 61st-most-expensive in the world—and, big surprise, it isn’t getting any cheaper. If renting in Toronto cost the same amount now as it did 20 years ago, adjusted for inflation, you’d be out $897.59 a month for the average one-bedroom apartment. If taking the TTC cost the same, too, a Metropass would set you back another $96.38.

Meanwhile, about the only thing that hasn’t gone up for twenty- and thirty-somethings is how much they make. In 2010, those between 25 and 34 years old living in the Toronto area pulled in a median income of $33,300. That happens to be 1,070 inflation-adjusted dollars less than they would have been making here at the same age in the 1990s, and $4,030 less than in the 1980s.

So how far does that much money get you in the city today? To find out, we asked two dozen Torontonians hovering around or below that median income to spend a month tracking every single thing they dropped money on or made money from—from Shoppers Drug Mart prescriptions to Disgraceland drinks to Rogers bills, and from bi-weekly paycheques to under-the-table tip-outs to birthday gifts from grandmas. Then, when the month was over, we persuaded a few of them to offer themselves up for further scrutiny. Some have it easier than others, but none are keen to complain: They’re (mostly) young, (mostly) employed, and (mostly) healthy, and they know that, whatever sacrifices they’ve made to live here, there are plenty of people in this city who have had to make more. Here’s what else we learned about what it takes to get by.

WHO PARTICIPATED

Twenty-four Torontonians, all of whom are between the ages of 25 and 34, and none of whom made more than $35,000 before taxes in 2012. The data from the survey month, February—everyone’s is collected here, on the next page—also factors in any significant yearly expenses (like tuition) or sources of income (like quarterly grants). We’re pretty sure we got our math right, but the conclusions we’ve drawn apply only for our participants, not the public at large.

NAME: Ashley Winnington-Ball
AGE: 31
LIVES: Alone, at Dovercourt and Bloor
EDUCATION: Honours Bachelor of Arts (University of Toronto)
JOBS: Customer-service and inventory manager at a spa. Jewellery designer. Freelance accountant and home-renovator.
INCOME: $1,811.26
DEBT: $12,000
EXPENSES: $1,869.65 (Incl. rent: $800; interest on her line of credit: $51.46; credit-card debt and line-of-credit payments: $200; therapy: $120; Etsy and jewellery-show fees: $32.56.)
WHAT’S LEFT: –$58.39

Two years ago, Ashley Winnington-Ball was managing a boutique on Queen West near the eastern edge of Parkdale. Half a page of her resumé is taken up by everything she was responsible for (selling, training, bookkeeping, scheduling, marketing, recruiting, researching, writing, planning, tweeting), and what happened next is what often does when you work too hard for too long: She burned out. For a year, Winnington-Ball lived off employment insurance and what little she had saved for retirement, and then, when both ran out, she took a part-time, $11-an-hour job at a women’s-only spa. Now, in a good month, she earns some more money from the jewellery she makes in a corner of her basement apartment. In a bad month, no one buys a thing.

“I really love Toronto,” she says. “I’m really happy to be rooted somewhere.” For six years, that’s been at her “miracle apartment,” the one she can’t afford to leave, not in a city where paying as much for something half the size is a steal. “It does feel like I do want to live above ground, you know?” It’s a sentence she can’t finish without starting to cry. “I’d love to have windows, real windows, a little yard or a little balcony. It’s so impossible for me to imagine having what I have [now], and those things.” Compared to when she had a full-time job, “I’m out a lot less,” she admits, looking at a list of what everyone else spent money on—concerts, movies, sports. “Like, I did not do any of these things.” The time she spends with friends usually occurs at each other’s apartments, though Winnington-Ball heads to the spa a few times a week when she’s not working. (It helps that it’s free.)

“I’m convinced that I can somehow concoct some type of lifestyle out of this mish-mash of work, and be okay with that,” she says. She’s eyeing massage school next, a few years from now, maybe. “I don’t know if it’s ever really there, that certainty that what you’re doing is the right thing,” she concedes. “But I think that if 17-year-old me met me now, she’d be really impressed, you know? And that sort of relieves me. I’m basically the person I want to be. I’d just like to be me a little more comfortably.”

NAME: Colin Medley
AGE: 25
LIVES : With roommates, at Queen and Roncesvalles
EDUCATION : Advanced Diploma (at Durham College); currently, Bachelor of Arts (at Ryerson University)
JOBS: Freelance photographer, videographer, music-video director, and graphic designer. Record-store clerk. Student.
INCOME: $2,999.08
DEBT : $20,000
EXPENSES: $2,340.76 (Incl. rent: $588.19; film and processing: $158.71; records: $85.06; clothing: $184.88; tuition: $700.53)
WHAT’S LEFT: $658.32

Generally speaking, Colin Medley’s plan is no plan at all. He didn’t have one for making money when he moved here from Oshawa four years ago—“It was always going to be month-to-month,” he says—and he doesn’t have one for what he’s doing now. But there’s certainly a pattern. He’s directed music videos for PS I Love You, Diamond Rings, Timber Timbre, and Yacht Club. (That’s his loft filled with people in Halloween costumes at the end of Diamond Rings’s “Wait & See.”) He works at a record store. He’s booked bands for concerts like last season’s Fucked Up–led Long Winter series. He’s made event posters and album covers and band websites. He’s getting a radio and television degree at Ryerson. And he’s started keeping a photo-journal of his life, and the recording studios, rehearsal spaces, and stages that make it up.

“I do make things happen, but I also leave the door open for things to simply happen,” Medley says. “I feel like it’s building towards something. A bigger thing.”

That there’s 20-grand worth of debt waiting once he’s done his degree doesn’t scare him much. “Like anything, you’ll just find a way. You make rent every month; you’ll make your OSAP payment,” he says. “It’s always been, like, I’ll be able to afford this kind of comfortable level I’ve set for myself, as long as I don’t do something stupid.”

An industrial heater anchored to the ceiling whirrs on, blasting loud, hot air into the room, a sign of the Roncesvalles building’s past life as a car dealership. “For what I’m doing, I know I’ll never be wealthy,” Medley says. “But I’m doing what I love, so I’m not really worried about that.” It makes it a little easier that so many of the musicians he spends so much of his time around are also his friends, the circles of his work life and social life neatly overlapping. “My outlook is just work really hard at something and good will come.” He doesn’t sound entirely sure about that last part; his voice creeps higher as he says it, as though he’d prefer it ended with a question mark. But uncertainty hasn’t stopped him yet.

NAME: Alex Nursall
AGE: 25
LIVES: With roommates, at Church and Wellesley
EDUCATION: Honours Bachelor of Arts (U of T)
JOB: Post-production coordinator
INCOME: $2,570
DEBT: $0
EXPENSES: $1,353.51 (Incl. rent: $600; last instalment of her wedding dress: $178; eating out: $9.02; alcohol: $78.75; TTC: $3.)
WHAT’S LEFT: $1,216.49

“The trick is to have anxiety about spending money,” says Alex Nursall, not so much offering advice as explaining herself. Take her wedding last month: Her “British nerd” husband taught her bookbinding so they could make the guestbook themselves; Nursall folded all the origami bouquets, origami boutonnieres, and, with an aunt’s help, hundreds upon hundreds of origami cranes; another aunt took photos; and her mom baked cupcakes, which took the place of a sit-down dinner.

“Most people I know are on contract,” she says, sitting in her sunny kitchen a few feet away from a “PARTY NAKED” mosaic she also made herself. “They have no benefits, crappy pay, and long hours. Everything just feels so ephemeral when it comes to work.” She’s one of the lucky ones: no debt, thanks to jobs she worked throughout university (and parents who could afford to help), a partner to cover the groceries every once in a while, and, for the past eight months, a full-time gig at an ad agency. Still, Nursall saves—enough to keep half a year’s worth of money in the bank to live off, should she ever need to. “I think the biggest anxiety is that it may be good right now, but it’s not going to stay good.”

If being ready for when that might happen means watching the Leafs at bars, rather than the at Air Canada Centre, fine. If it means walking for hours each weekend to get around, rather than taking the TTC, all good. And if it means having a wedding with no honeymoon waiting on the other side, that’s okay, too.

“I’m basically happy where I am,” Nursall says. “I mean, it’s much easier for me to be 25 with no car, no kids, no pets, no mortgage, no anything, and to earn this amount of money and be perfectly fine with it. But I know there will come a point when things will change.” When they do—when she decides she’s waited long enough for a house, or a dog, or to travel—that’s another story, one that may well play out elsewhere. “My goal in life is not to be a millionaire, or earning $150,000 a year,” she says. “I want to earn enough money that I’m comfortable just where I am.” Even if where she is isn’t Toronto.

NAME: Julian Carrington
AGE: 30
LIVES: At his mom’s, at Parliament and Wellesley
EDUCATION: Honours Bachelor of Arts and Juris Doctor (both from U of T)
JOBS: Assistant manager at video-game store. Film critic. Film-festival volunteer. TIFF intern.
INCOME: $1,927.91
DEBT: $23,000
EXPENSES: $1,237.81 (Incl. rent: $0; eating out: $289.33; Criterion Collection Blu-rays: $227.35; credit-card debt: $221.00)
WHAT’S LEFT: $690.10

Julian Carrington knows two things very well. One: “Most people could not afford to go to law school and then not do anything with that.”And two: “If I came from a different background, what I’m making right now wouldn’t really be cutting it.”

“The law thing, I don’t know,” he says. “That took me a little while to fully give up on.” Though Carrington never really wanted to be a lawyer, he’d long wanted the degree. Not sure what else to do after university, he went to law school, graduated, and passed the bar, only to throw a series of interviews for the well-paying articling jobs that typically come next. “I would be in interviews and I’d be worrying that I might get offered a position,” he admits. “It was just terrible and mutually unappealing, I’m sure.”

That was 2008. By 2012, he was working retail and looking for entry-level jobs in what he realized he’d wanted to do all along: film-festival programming. “I didn’t understand how I wasn’t even getting interviews,” he says. “You’d look at the duties and they’d be [things like] sending emails. And I’m like, ‘I have a law degree.’” He had started reviewing movies on the side, but couldn’t take on full-time unpaid gigs, because then he wouldn’t be able to make rent. He was stuck.

That’s where his background came in handy. At five, Carrington moved to Canada from Barbados with his mother, who married a fellow Caribbean immigrant who went on to become the president of a technology company before he died in the late ’90s. “Since then, it’s been basically me and my mother,” he says. She’s paid off his $60,000 student line of credit and is helping pay off his $20,000 OSAP loan. She also bought the Cabbagetown townhouse that Carrington moved back into last October. “My mother—my family—has always been very willing to support me,” he says, sitting on a salmon-pink couch in an unmistakably mom-furnished living room. “I’m not one of those kids who get shoved out the door and it’s like, ‘Okay, now you’re on your own.’”

After only a few months of living at home, Carrington’s been able to do everything he couldn’t before, including, in early March, landing a three-month contract with TIFF.  The plan is not to stay forever, but there’s not much to complain about, either. “I was reluctant to move back because it just seemed like I’m at an age where I ought not to be in this situation. There was no reticence in the sense of, ‘Oh man, my mom’s so lame. I can’t stand living under her roof.’ It’s not bad.” Nor has there been much of a social cost: He has a girlfriend, who has a west-end place of her own, where he can stay to be closer to his friends.

It’s only time, really, that he’s not spoiled for now. He works 60 hours a week and eats like it: His breakfasts might come from Treats, his lunches from Tim Hortons, and his dinners from Pizza Pizza. “I had no alcohol spending [in February,]” he adds. “No partying, nothing like that.” His mom would no doubt approve.

NAME: Josh Kolic
AGE: 31
LIVES: Alone, at Runnymede and Bloor
EDUCATION: Three Bachelor of Arts degrees, one of them Honours (all from Lakehead University)
JOB: Behavioural therapist
INCOME: $2,100
DEBT : $25,000
EXPENSES: $2,440.11 (Incl. first and last month’s rent: $1,350; alcohol: $0; dog: $126.62; coffee: $36; line-of-credit and student-loan payments: $197.43; Metropass: $128.50)
WHAT’S LEFT: –$340.11

Even though it’s a bright weekday afternoon, the lights are off and the blinds are closed in Josh Kolic’s tiny bachelor apartment. Two days before, he explains as he switches on the ceiling fan’s light, one of the autistic teenagers he teaches knocked him out with a head-butt, the second on-the-job concussion Kolic has suffered since he came to Toronto last May. The first time it happened, he couldn’t work for three months; this time, his doctor says, it should just be a week, so long as he rests.

Kolic knows this means he might not be able to do a job he loves much longer. But if anything gives away that he’s not from here, besides an accent that’s had 30 years in Thunder Bay to ripen, it’s his utter lack of cynicism. “I still don’t feel defeated,” he says. “I just figure that, if it keeps happening and I have to get out, this is a city where there’s another job around the corner, another opportunity around the corner. You’re never beaten here.”

That wasn’t how he felt back home. “There’s only so much you can do in a town that small,” he says. Here, Kolic and his nine-month-old dog, a manic Jack Russell mix named Hank, are a sprint away from High Park, and he’s a subway ride away from the Sony Centre where, last October, he saw New Order live in concert (“I never thought that would happen in my life,” he beams).

“Don’t get me wrong, it’d be nice to make more money,” he says. “I’m sure everyone thinks that. I’m sure there are people who make $70,000 a year who want to make $100,000. I just don’t want a lot of things.” And if he did make more? There’d be Jays’ season tickets, he thinks. “Maybe I’d go on a trip. But, you know, I’ve been here 10 months. I still feel like I’m on vacation. Where I grew up, everyone joked that people from Toronto thought they were the centre of the universe, but then you move here and realize you kind of are.”

There’s one more reason Kolic is optimistic: His job just switched from permanent part-time to full-time, which means more hours and more money—but, he hopes, no more concussions. “I mean, you can only get so many head injuries, right?”

Cost-of-living data in the introduction comes from the New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey, Mercer’s Cost-of-Living Survey, The Canada Mortgage & Housing Corporation, the Toronto Transit Commission/transitstop.net, and Statistics Canada. All prices are in Canadian Dollars.

Next page: How’d everyone do for the month? See the
gory details from all two dozen of our participants.

Last week, the penny dropped. When my Loblaws purchase (consisting mostly of chocolate, if I’m being honest) totalled $15.26, the cashier coolly refused the penny I offered to her, and rounded my purchase down to $15.25.

This is the new Canadian reality, ever since the feds officially stopped circulating our penny on Feb. 4. It may seem strange that there’s been a large amount of media attention devoted to such a diminutive coin. We’re certainly not the first developed nation to nix the one-cent piece—Australia and New Zealand decided to kill the penny last century. But its departure has real consequences—both financial and emotional—for Canadians.

Naturally, that includes the government. Citing production and handling costs as reasons for terminating the copper-ish coin (it’s actually 94 per cent steel), Parliament announced plans last year to phase out the penny. Prior to that, the Royal Canadian Mint had been spending 1.6 cents to manufacture each one-cent piece, and the extra $11 million it cost to produce each year seems like a lot to fund such a minuscule slice of Canadiana. Of course, it will take years for the piece to completely leave circulation, since pennies are still considered legal tender and businesses will be allowed to accept them if they choose.

The penny’s demise also signifies a shift in the way retail pricing and transactions are conducted. About two-thirds of all payments are made using credit or debit and only 19 per cent with hard cash—but that doesn’t mean cash-carriers won’t notice changes at the checkout. Using a process known as “symmetrical rounding,” payments will now be rounded to the nearest nickel, up or down depending on the bill’s final amount. Totals ending in 1, 2, 6, or 7 will be rounded down (for example, $13.07 becomes $13.05 at the till) and those ending in 3, 4, 8, or 9 will be rounded up ($13.04 becomes $13.05). Sure, the difference seems negligible, but the change has consequences for how businesses will price their goods in the future.

This move isn’t just a boon for coin collectors, either: As much as the penny occupies (or rather, occupied) the role of red-headed stepchild in our roster of Canadian currency, citizens seem to look upon it as a signifier of national identity, much as we do with The Hockey Sweater and the double-double. In the midst of the media-wide reporting on its withdrawal, many affectionate remembrances of the coin popped up. On the day the penny officially stopped circulating, the first “o” of Google’s doodle was a spinning Canadian penny; The Huffington Post compiled a commemorative playlist, including songs like crooner Dean Martin’s “Pennies From Heaven,” but weirdly omitting The Beatles’ standby “Penny Lane.” The coin even scored its own Twitter account (dubbed @CDN_Penny), spewing 140-character one-liners like, “Carly Rae Jepsen apparently trades me for a kiss. I did not agree to this.”

Someone who is intimately aware of the penny’s importance is Miss Suzette (that’s actually her real name), a Toronto-based humour coach and journalist who runs a volunteer group called “The Penny Project” out of community outreach centre 6 St. Joseph House in the Church-Wellesley village. The group gathers every Friday night for four hours to shine and sort pennies, adorning everything from jewellery to art to office supplies with their supply of coins. “People never think of it. It’s like, ‘Big deal! A penny,’” says Suzette, who is, fittingly, also known as Miss Pretty Penny among her participants. “People are saying, ‘Good riddance,’ and, ‘They’re heavy to carry around!’ but since starting the project, I’ve gone from stepping on them to making something out of them.”

Financial and retail implications notwithstanding, Suzette is a proponent of the penny’s nostalgic value. “Kids were taught to count with the penny; there’s an old tradition of cultural phrases related to it, like, ‘Find a penny, pick it up.’ Sure, it’ll be nice not to have all of that in your pocket anymore, but you’ll find them in your couch or in jars or shoes—they’re everywhere. And they’re good luck, always.”

As the penny goes the way of the one- and two-dollar bill, it’s easy to underestimate the significance of Canada’s smallest monetary denomination. (Not to sound callous, but I’ve knowingly vacuumed them up more than once while cleaning.) Ceasing to distribute the penny reflects our move towards a cashless society, more preoccupied with convenience than preserving the culture of our tiniest coin. It remains to be seen whether we’ll copy Sudbury and erect a giant copper coin beside the Gardiner made from the 82 million kilograms of pennies still floating around, but the coin’s removal will be felt, even if it seems like a small change right now.

If you’re anything like me, the stock market of your imagination is a cinematic flurry of suits-and-ties, practically sweating stocks, waving their arms and frantically yelling, “BUY!” and “SELL!” like Wall Street auctioneers. Trading might seem like the exclusive domain of deep-pocketed businessmen who suffer from perma-bluetooth, but it’s also an option for many people with average incomes. Akin to a fantasy football league for business buffs, playing the markets can be  an exciting endeavour for the financially savvy twenty- or thirtysomething, not to mention a smart investment avenue. New investors can reap the rewards of a properly managed portfolio, provided they balance their books and inner financial bravado. Here, we’ve compiled an essential list of to-knows for stock-market virgins on a tighter budget than Joe CEO.

Hot tip #1: Know what the heck a stock is. By issuing stock or “shares,” a company is selling off chunks of its ownership to shareholders in order to raise money to fund its operations. With each stock you purchase, your stake in the company’s profits and assets becomes greater. (If I invest in McDonald’s, for example, I technically possess a microscopic piece of every patty and pickle it owns.) As the company you invest in earns money, the return on your stock will grow, and you’ll make a profit if you sell a stock for more money than you paid for it. The stock market, then, is the arena wherein stocks are bought and sold by shareholders, usually with the help of a broker. “As a company’s earnings increase, investors will have more confidence in it,” says Christine Coverdale, a portfolio manager and chartered accountant with TD Waterhouse.

Hot tip #2: Determine the “why” behind your buys. “You buy stock if you want your money to grow,” says Coverdale, and that’s a good reason if I’ve ever heard one. On average, stocks on Canadian indexes (like the TSX) will yield returns of between eight and 10 per cent annually—a much higher rate than many other investment avenues. (Bonds, for example, will typically only net you about two per cent return.) Provided you’re willing to ride out the market for five years or more, Coverdale believes the stock route will pay off. “It’s like walking up the stairs while spinning a yo-yo,” she says. “There will be fluctuations, but you’re further up in the long run.”

Hot tip #3: Start early. Investors in their 20s and 30s are intrigued by stocks, Coverdale says, because, at that age, people are “more likely to take chances—they’re just at start of their careers and have lots of time to replenish any losses.” While the dynamic nature of the stock market and its potentially high return rates seem tailor-made for young risk-takers, Coverdale warns against the financial pitfalls of youthful naiveté. “A lot of the time, young people have unrealistic assumptions of how their stock will perform. They think a 10 per cent return isn’t good enough—they want 20 or 30 per cent.” If young investors can keep their champagne wishes and caviar dreams in check, and wait patiently for stocks to appreciate over time, they can avoid the burn of initial losses that might spook them into pursuing less lucrative assets, like guaranteed investment certificates or bonds.

Hot tip #4: Do your homework. Doing some background research on the markets, and your own financial situation, is a smart idea. Coverdale says to “ask yourself how much money you’ll need and when you’ll need it. How much can you afford to lose?” Young investors should be aware of their own risk tolerance—whether their financial decisions tend to skew more conservative or aggressive. It’s also wise to put together a mock portfolio and monitor the markets (a.k.a. “paper trading”) before investing real money to give you a feel for what kind of investor you’ll be. “You won’t have the same reaction as if it were your own real money, but it’s a great starting point,” says Coverdale.

Hot tip #5: Minimal money? Try mutual funds. To get your money’s worth from an investment, especially if you don’t have much cash to begin with, Coverdale recommends mutual funds—which basically involves a group of people pooling their money together into stocks chosen by the investors and handled by a portfolio manager. “If you, your best friends, and your mom each have $5,000, rather than each one of you trying to invest on your own, let a professional look after things. You can’t go very far at all with $5,000 on the stock exchange.” You only really need between $100 to $500 to get started, says Coverdale, who also manages a mutual fund on behalf of her four-year-old niece. “We do just $100 per month, and it’s a great way to build up your investment with a small amount of money. It’s more bang for buck.”

Exploring the Eaton Centre on a weekend in early December requires a level of bravery unlike any other time of the year, as I found out for myself last Saturday. Imagine, if you will, an Animal Planet–like mix of panicked middle-aged women checking items off their holiday hit-list in the Urban Eatery, packs of gum-snapping teens rifling through the racks at H&M, and grown men rushing through Sears, drenched in mall-sweat, all in the name of scoring a blinking wombat from the department store’s third-floor Furby pyramid. Not a good look, Toronto.

What possessed me to enter Yonge Street’s yuletide rat race? Nothing. Literally. With each passing year, my friends and family respond to my “what do you want for Christmas?” query with that very answer: “Nothing.” Why, then, as adults, do most of us insist on breaking the bank when everyone seems to have aged out of lengthy wish lists? Wouldn’t the smart financial decision be to give our loved ones the nothing they’re asking for?

Smart, sure. But for some, a “no-gifts” policy is anathema to centuries of tradition. Tina West, an associate marketing professor and interim chair of Ryerson’s Ted Rogers School of Management, suggests that exchanging gifts takes on an especially symbolic meaning once the holidays roll around. “Gifts are almost a reflection of our success, financial well-being, and even love,” she says. “You don’t want to disappoint kids, but with parents and adults, many of us have material things, everything we could possibly need, but we still have this sense of obligation—like, you have to give something.”

With the influx of cheap American chains and shopping trends like Black Friday trickling north of the border, it’s not hard to see why we’re dead set on gifting in the absence of real wants or needs. “It’s the thrill of the hunt,” says West. “People are competitive by nature, and when key shopping seasons come up—Christmas being a big one—no one wants to miss out on a great deal.” The slew of manipulative seasonal product campaigns also seems to awaken that primal competitiveness within us—which probably explains why otherwise rational adults continue to engage in makeshift mall sleepovers, just to get their hands on a Tickle Me Elmo.

Holiday shopping doesn’t just bruise our dignity, either—our bank accounts also take a serious hit. According to a consumer survey released by the Bank of Montreal in early November, Canadian shoppers are poised to fork over an average of $674 this season on gifts alone. And that doesn’t even account for the cash we’ll need to cover other expenses, like turkeys and train tickets. All told, experts estimate that your Christmas tab could soar as high as $1,182.

I appreciate a full stocking as much as the next girl, so if a full-on gift moratorium sounds a bit draconian, there are other low-cost options that will satisfy your need to gift. Arranging a Secret Santa exchange among friends limits your gift expenditures to one purchase. It also allows you to set a price limit agreed upon by the group. If you have a larger extended family, it may be worth restricting gifts to children under a certain age. You might even consider pooling your funds to make a donation to a charity of your choice, or setting up a volunteering day at a local charity or food bank to spread the holiday spirit outside of your inner circle.

It sounds juvenile, but when all else fails, kick it kindergarten-style and make something. Dara Frydman owns Bathurst Street’s Designher Co., a DIY crafting outpost that runs workshops and corporate events for adults. She says that as people recognize their financial limitations and tire of the mall crush, more and more are realizing the value of do-it-yourself gifts. “There’s this misconception that your end project is going to be dowdy and disposable,” she says. “But DIY is a budget-friendly idea—not only is it personalized, but you can often make something you’d never be able to afford otherwise, like a reupholstered ottoman that would run you $1,000 if bought brand-new.”

As unappealing as it may be to break from the holiday ranks by suggesting an alternative to the annual gift exchange, most of us have very real financial constraints that become all the more noticeable after the Christmas season has passed. It’s a hard conversation to initiate—no one wants to seem like a Scrooge—but there are financial and intrinsic benefits to re-examining why we buy things, minimizing our costs, and getting a little creative—a cognitive shift that just might prevent us from acting out our animal instincts in the malls. Maybe a less-is-more attitude is the real gift that keeps on giving.

What if you knew that a mysterious three-digit number was preventing you from owning the condo of your dreams or a car that doesn’t require a jump-start every morning? Wouldn’t you want to learn more about it? Aside from your bank PIN, a credit score is one of the only numbers standing between you, your money, and—to crib from the book of Oprah—your best financial self. And yet many people are unaware of its existence.

A credit score is essentially a measure of your financial health at a point in time, and how it stacks up against the rest of the population. And your number isn’t just benignly floating in the ether: It determines a bank’s willingness to approve your credit and loan applications, which come in handy if you want to rent an apartment, buy a house, a car, or insurance. It’s also not uncommon for employers to ask for a credit check to weed out fraudsters during the hiring process, particularly if the position involves handling the company’s financials.

You’re rated on a fluctuating scale of 300 (yikes) to 900 (yay) using a super-secret formula known only to credit bureaus like Equifax and TransUnion Canada. You’ll start encountering resistance from the bank in doling out loans or credit cards when your rating is 650 or lower. From my vantage point, words like “mortgage” and “insurance” sound like terms that real grown-ups use when they don’t want you to know what they’re talking about. So, if we’re taking our sweet time reaching significant, adult-style commitments—specifically, ones that might require a credit check—how relevant is a credit score, really, to the average twentysomething?

Very, says Jeffrey Schwartz, executive director of Consolidated Credit Counseling Services of Canada. “Even if you’re living on cash and not on credit, and your needs are basic, you’re still going to get older, your needs and wants will change, and you may get into a job where you need some sort of credit history,” he says, noting that unsavoury credit behaviours can remain on your file for as long as six years—your past haunting you long after  you’ve put the jello shots and impulse buys away. “It may be a little shortsighted not to build good credit today if things could change tomorrow. You want to make sure you’re in a solid financial position now.”

Schwartz lists a multitude of sloppy money habits that can contribute to a less-than-stellar credit rating, which could lead to higher interest rates, or outright credit refusal. The most critical, he says, is your payment history. “If you’re late, or behind on payments by a month or two, that’s going to show up on your credit rating. You have to live within the parameters of your credit without overextending yourself.”

Also look at how much debt you’ve accumulated in relation to your credit limit. (It’s not necessarily a negative to carry a balance month-to-month.) Having no credit history at all, or a very young profile, can represent a risk to lenders, as they have little to no information with which to make a judgment about your credit-worthiness; consistently making payments—on time—is a good way of demonstrating your responsibility to lenders. Schwartz says that if you do have to carry an ongoing balance, make sure it’s no more than 50 per cent of your total limit.

So what happens when one finally decides to trade the windowless confines of their month-to-month lease on a Parkdale basement for home ownership? At that point, how can they rectify the damage of poor credit scores past? “The people that ask that are usually the ones with poor credit histories,” laughs Schwartz. In addition to making timely payments, avoid applying for all kinds of shiny, new credit cards as a way to magically start over. Schwartz recommends getting the credit you already have in shape, thus proving your financial responsibility to lenders. Steer clear of overspending and you could see improvements in your score in as little as six months.

The credit system “isn’t infallible,” so Schwartz suggests checking your credit report as often as four times a year or, at the very least, once annually for accuracy. For a fee online, or free by mail, you can request a report from TransUnion Canada or Equifax Canada, which displays everything from your banking information to your credit card payment history. For an extra few bucks, you can see your elusive score.

It might seem silly to assign so much importance to a seemingly random string of digits, but I turned 25 two days ago, and toppling over the quarter-life cliff has roused in me a sort of mortal unease. I suppose mailing away for my credit score isn’t the worst way to ring in a new year. After all, age ain’t nothing but a number—a credit score, however, means a little more than that.

Living with your parents is not cool. Let’s just get that out of the way. After I graduated from university, I moved into an awesome apartment on Ossington with my best friend. It had ensuite laundry, a deck with a view of the CN Tower, and a bay window in the living room. The bus stop was just a few doors down. The subway was five minutes away. It was more than cool; it was perfect.

So as I hauled my junk up the stairs of my parents’ house a year later, a Seinfeld scene flashed through my mind: Sitting with George in Monk’s Café, Jerry complains that his parents have come to stay with him, and since his girlfriend lives with her parents, they haven’t been alone together in weeks. George perks up. “Hey, maybe this will become like a cool thing, living with your parents.” Cue laugh track. “Yeah,” Jerry says. “Then maybe baldness will catch on.”

Nearly 20 years later, I think it’s safe to say George’s dream has not been realized. Still, post-recession, young adults are scurrying back to their family homes like light-frightened cockroaches charging a crack in the wall. According to the 2011 census, 56.3 per cent of Torontonians between the ages of 20 and 29 live with their parents. And in GTA areas like Richmond Hill, Vaughan, and Pickering, the number exceeds 75 per cent.

But that doesn’t mean they’re all freeloaders. Sure, there’s probably no shortage of genuine sponges, hunched in front of glowing screens deep below ground while the cheese-string wrappers pile up (not that I would know anything about that). But the bulk of people in their 20s living at home would welcome the obliteration of that cliché.

What gets lost in the familiar “failure to launch” narrative is the upside—and for most people, the sole motive—of living at home: the piles of money you can save by sucking it up and staying there for a few more years. And yet, as George Costanza and I can attest, unless your name is Lena Dunham, all the money in the world won’t make you cool if you’re still rooming with your ’rents.

Well, screw that. I live in my parents’ basement. I may not be cool—and I may not have bedroom windows—but, at 24, I have my own bathroom and a sweet-ass leather couch. Suck it, renters: I’m in the majority.

It can feel as though every new glass-walled condo built in this city nudges the cost of living up a few more dollars. For a 22-year-old eager to push the “start” button on her post-grad life, the reality of what it takes to live in a decent apartment in a nice area will hit you like the gastric aftershock of one too many Big Fat Burritos.

In his recently published book How Not to Move Back in With Your Parents: The Young Person’s Guide to Financial Empowerment, Rob Carrick, The Globe and Mail’s personal finance columnist, writes, “The less skilled you are at saving, the less independent you are.” But what if your savings plan means moving back home, a situation that renders you dependent on your parents’ tolerance, goodwill, and groceries? “The times call for emergency measures,” Carrick told me. “The unemployment rate for young adults is double the national rate, and many young people are working jobs that are well below their credentials and qualifications.”

Carrick points to two major forces conspiring to send young adults back to the basement: graduating with lots of debt, and the difficulty in finding the kind of job that offers opportunities for career-building.

Jaimie Milburn, a 22-year-old music publicist who lives with her parents in Port Perry, just north of Oshawa, divides her time between an artist-management company based in Scarborough and another in downtown Toronto. She’s been looking at apartments in the city to help ease the two-hour commute, but it’s been a discouraging experience. “You’re paying a lot of money for not a lot of space,” she says. “Coming from a small town, I want to live somewhere where I feel safe and I can get to transit easily. But you pay for that stuff, unfortunately.”

You sure do: According to the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the average two-bedroom apartment in Toronto costs $1,149 a month. A quick scan of Craigslist, however, reveals it’s not easy to find even a decent one-bedroom for that amount. Toronto’s average rental vacancy rate was at a 10-year low in 2011 at 1.4 per cent—as of spring 2012, it sat only slightly above that, at 1.5 per cent.

For those of us who don’t aspire to be bankers and lawyers, those numbers are dispiriting. But desperate times call for creative measures, and Carrick’s advice to young adults today is to “suck it up” and be open to opportunities that you may have scoffed at in your undergrad years.

Kait Babin, a 22-year-old who is enrolled in a year-long post-graduate program in advertising and account management at Humber College, found her options limited after graduating from Queen’s University in the spring. “It was either move to downtown Toronto and pay a lot more money than I’m paying at home, or live at home and commute back and forth for the year,” she says. She’s aiming to save between $2,000 and $3,000, but at the moment she’s just breaking even with each paycheque from her part-time job. “It will be many months before I’ll be within reach of my target,” Babin says, “but I’d rather stay debt-free for as long as possible and move out when I can afford to do so.”

In the meantime, living at home has its perks. “I lived in a very, very tiny apartment for the last couple years in Kingston,” Babin says, “so to have a big room, and more than one spot that I can study in, and a nice open kitchen have made me so much happier. I mean, it’s not like it’s a bad place!” Adrienne Middlebrook, a 24-year-old communications student in her final year at York University, also appreciates the comforts of living at home. “I definitely have a nicer place than I would if I were renting.” Middlebrook wants to have at least $4,000 saved up before moving out, although she would consider staying at home until she has enough for a down payment on a condo—about $30,000 to $40,000. She has around $3,000 saved at the moment, but plans on travelling in Asia when she graduates, which would deplete the funds somewhat. “I’m more concerned about finding a job after graduation,” she says. “After I get a job, I’ll start saving.”

So are we just a generation with expensive taste? Do we expect too much luxury in our 20s? Costly items such as smartphones, cable TV, and high-speed internet are not things a 24-year-old is going to forego in a hurry. But Carrick takes an optimistic view of young peoples’ spending habits. “I just don’t buy into the argument that today’s generation is a bunch of greedy, acquisitive, entitled, spoiled brats who only care about buying things,” he says. Moving home is “short-term pain for long-term gain. It can be perfectly comfortable. But if you’ve had a taste of freedom, moving back home and having your parents saying, ‘Where are you going? Take out the garbage. Pick up your clothes. Stop taking such long showers’—is that really a good thing?” It’s not as if living with your parents isn’t a trade-off.

Giordan Postorino is a 24-year-old musician and music teacher who lives with his family in Toronto’s east end. For the past three years, his girlfriend has also been living with his family. “Since I basically make my living through music, having the freedom to be able to make music whenever I want is the best part about living at home,” he says. “And none of that would be possible if I didn’t have amazingly wicked-cool parents.” Still, he points out that there are definite drawbacks to living at home as an adult: “It’s a little difficult trying to have sex and holding the bedframe so it doesn’t smash up against the wall. At some point you want to just be able to [have sex] and not really [care] about who may be listening.” Thankfully, he and his girlfriend found an apartment just a few days after we first spoke.

The large number of twentysomethings cohabiting with their folks has definitely blurred boundaries between parents and their adult offspring. Middlebrook says her parents are fine with her bringing home her 27-year-old boyfriend, who lives with his parents in Oakville. Babin, on the other hand, can’t imagine bringing someone home. “My mom sleeps very lightly and would wake up at the slightest noise. If anyone came home with me, she would know and she would grill me. I mean…no.”

Despite the occasional awkwardness, Milburn isn’t sure she’s ready to move out. “I always tell my parents, if we could just pick up the house and move it closer to the city, I would probably never leave,” she says. She enjoys the company that her parents provide, and thinks living by herself would be lonely. And she’s not in the financial position to break out on her own just yet. She’s closing in on her savings goal of $3,000, but after looking at a few apartments in the city, she’s not so sure that’s going to be enough after all.

For now, Milburn’s parents, who own a business, will have to wait a little longer before they can turn her bedroom into an office, or even move to a smaller house. “I think we’re all sort of in this transition,” she says, “and it comes down to being the only child in the house—my decision’s really going to affect their decisions. That being said, my mom will be a mess the day I move out.”

I used to be so ashamed of moving back. I always thought adult life began as soon as you left home, so how could I call myself an adult if I was still mooching off my parents? (For whatever reason, my enduring taste for Pizza Pockets, Goldfish crackers, and Fruit by the Foot has not shaken my sense of self in quite the same way.) Moving back home in my third year of university—I was planning to study abroad in my last year, and wanted to save money—was one thing. But moving home a year after graduating from university? For shame.

For the record, I did it for an unpaid internship and still haven’t quite formulated a plan to move out now that I have a big-girl job. The monthly savings are just too sweet. And, like everyone I spoke to for this article, I’m busy enough with work that I’m rarely home anyway. For many Torontonians in their 20s, it’s kind of a no-brainer.

Take Omri Dor, a 26-year-old accountant who lived at his parents’ Thornhill home for nearly four years after graduating from Western University. He had figured on staying at home until he could afford to buy a place, but found himself itching to get away sooner. In June, he moved to a rental apartment downtown and says his years at home allowed him to save more than $20,000.

For those of us living with our parents, it can be difficult to set aside that nagging itch of embarrassment, especially amid the torrent of articles and books slamming today’s twentysomethings for our blasé attitude towards growing up. We are witnessing the rise of a new transitional phase for young adults, in which the period of time it takes to establish a career, get married, and have kids has expanded beyond what would have been thought of as “normal” 20 years ago. But if a 25-year-old chooses to stay in his parent’s home for a few extra years, it doesn’t mean this period doesn’t “count.” Plenty of young people in Toronto, a city that seems to get exponentially pricier each year, are treating this phase not as an excuse to delay adulthood or extend their hard-partying college years, but as a way to close the gap between the adult life they had always envisioned and the scary financial reality of what it means to be independent in Toronto in 2012.

Of course, the option to move back home is limited to those who happen to live in the same city as their parents, and who can stand to be around them for longer than the odd Thanksgiving or Christmas trip home. But if you grew up in a big city like Toronto, and plan on starting a career there, it’s not such an embarrassment to call yourself a parental basement–dweller. Embrace it. It’s warm down here.
 

Mama, I’m coming home

If pop culture’s taught us anything, it’s that’s living with your parents isn’t always the domain of dorks…is it?

Click here for a close-up view of the infographic below

From the outside looking in, my life earlier this year appeared to be unfolding like a Candace Bushnell novel: A young, starry-eyed girl makes the move from sleepy mid-sized town to The Big Smoke to pursue her dreams of writing, moves in with a quirky-yet-loveable roommate, and hijinks ensue. And, as is the case with Bushnell’s Sex and the City heroine Carrie Bradshaw, people were wondering how I had the money to fund my new downtown lifestyle. As it turns out, I didn’t. With not much more than first month’s rent in the bank, I quickly realized the error of my rushed decision.

So, feeling like a downcast baby bird who’d made her first wobbly flight only months earlier, I begrudgingly called my mom and dad to ask for financial assistance. (If it’s any consolation, I pay interest in self-inflicted guilt.) I’m one of the lucky ones, and I know that, believe me. Not everyone has the luxury of having two parents who are willing to (temporarily) help bail you out of your financial gaffes. Mercifully, I’m not alone: According to a recent RBC study, 78 per cent of Canadians have personally loaned or borrowed up to $500 or more from friends or family members. But if you think it would be less complicated to borrow from mom than a bank, think again.

Our families know us better than anyone, so any wrongdoing, even a financial one, is a slight at close range. Recently, even the paragons of mother-daughter harmony—Lindsay and Dina Lohan—experienced a very public bust-up over a $40,000 mortgage loan, among other things. If the Lohans can’t make it work, what hope is there for the rest of us?

Not much, says Laurie Campbell, CEO of Credit Canada Debt Solutions. A large percentage of her clients are in dire financial straits, and on limited speaking terms with their relatives, thanks to loans gone awry. “It’s just such a mess,” she says. “They’ve either loaned money directly to a family member or co-signed on a loan that they’re not being paid back for. Because it’s family, there’s this expectation that you don’t really need to pay them back right away. Then, every time you see them, you know that you owe them money. The relationship’s balance has shifted and there can be real discomfort that surfaces afterwards.”

There are, of course, obvious upsides to borrowing from the Bank of Rich Uncle Tony over, say, the Bank of Montreal: You’re not subjected to a barrage of service and product offers, rigid payment schedules, or those lofty interest rates that can really stymie your upward climb out of debt. If you’re considering hitting up a relative for money, make sure you choose your backer wisely. Being on good terms with a family member is just as important as their financial situation. “If the relationship is a bit rocky to begin with,” says Campbell, “this could definitely put it over the edge.”

Even though it might seem a bit impersonal, Campbell recommends approaching an intra-family loan as you would any other business transaction. Resentment and confusion often stem from the lender interpreting the money as a short-term loan, and the recipient viewing it as a gift. “It’s amazing how quickly that relationship will sour if you get the feeling that you’ve been taken advantage of,” says Campbell. “It’s not even about the money.” Be sure to establish immediately whether payback is necessary to avoid any miscommunication.

Once that’s out of the way, start outlining the terms of the loan—and do it in writing. Come to an agreement on the amount of money being loaned, and figure out how the funds will be transferred—will you send a cheque? A wire transfer? A carrier pigeon? Make sure to settle on a repayment schedule and any interest that the lender will collect over the course of the reimbursement period. And kids, if you’re having problems with payback, don’t let them fester: Tell mommy and daddy all about it as soon as you realize you’re in trouble.

“Make sure you’re committing to something you can do,” warns Campbell. “There’s nothing worse than saying, ‘I’ll pay you back $500 next month,’ when you have no intention of doing that. If you need to renegotiate the terms, discuss this openly.” Finally, as tempting as it might be to punctuate requests to “pass the stuffing” with comments like “and my money, you thieving bastard” at family get-togethers, Campbell stresses the importance of setting up acceptable times and places to discuss the debt. (This does not include the dinner table.)

Slowly but surely, I’m finding my financial footing. My current closet doesn’t exactly resemble a Manolo Blahnik showroom, but baby steps, right? In the interim, though, it’s nice to know my family has my back through bank accounts thick and thin—that is, until mom shows up when I’m 40 with my stack of IOUs.

As I got off the subway last week and took the escalator instead of the stairs, I thought to myself, “Body, we should really take a dance class.” I often find myself daydreaming about all the sexy transferable skills I could glean from after-work lessons—fluency in Spanish, the ability to touch my toes—if only I had the time and, more importantly, the funds.

But maybe the solution to my dearth of extracurriculars isn’t money at all. Bartering, the mutual trade of goods and services with no cash involved, has been gaining popularity as a cost-saving practice. Granted, this isn’t the 18th century: No self-respecting business owner is going to trade their inventory for a robust calf, but, believe it or not, bartering is alive and well in 21st-century Toronto, if you know where to look.

One local hotbed is Trade School Toronto, a four-day seminar series running next week that offers classes on everything from gluten-free cooking to self-hypnosis. Instead of paying cash to attend, students are asked to come with materials or services to barter with the seminars’ instructors.

Shannon Simmons, a 27-year-old financial advisor hosting Trade School’s “Finances 101” class, is intimately familiar with the benefits of bartering. In 2010, her job dealing with white-collar clientele at a finance firm started to make her feel claustrophobic. Frustrated, she began researching Gen Y’s money struggles and seeking creative, low-cost ways to offer her services to that demographic.

Inspiration struck her in an unlikely place—waiting in line to get into a bar. After explaining the concept of tax-free savings accounts to a couple of financially confused strangers, they bought her table a round of drinks as thanks for sharing her expertise. It was that first alcohol-based trade that spawned Simmons’s “Barter Babes Project.”

Simmons advertised her plan to barter full-time on her blog; after local media caught wind of it, she spent the next year acting as a consultant for over 300 young women trying to get a grip on their finances. She wasn’t paid in cash, but accepted things like a new iPhone, and less practical things, like crossbow lessons, as compensation for her services.

Bartering was an ideal way to tap into a growing number of young people searching for alternative ways of making ends meet, who couldn’t justify forking over $200 an hour to a fee-for-service financial advisor. “If you go on Facebook, this generation is, like, ‘I’m on a recession budget. FML!’” says Simmons. “We’re already okay with saying, ‘Ugh, I’m so broke, let’s go to a cheap bar,’ or, ‘I’m trying to save money, let’s have a clothing swap.’”

The concept of bartering isn’t exactly news to business owners, some of whom work it into their company model. (Some Moksha Yoga studios offer an “energy exchange,” where patrons can assist with cleaning or administrative duties and then receive unlimited yoga in return.) But the recent rise in person-to-person trades proves that the average bartering virgin can become a savvy swapper, too.

To get started, Simmons recommends meeting with a financial advisor to strategize. After accounting for crucial expenditures like rent and food, bartering should account for about five per cent of the rest of your discretionary income. (For example, if you have $500 left over, spend $475 of that on new, store-bought items and barter for the rest). Then, create a running wish list to make sure you’re bartering for items and experiences of value to you, instead of, as Simmons puts it, “endless lasagna.” Setting up a fair trade takes time, so don’t count on exchanging a pie for moving help if your lease expires within a week.

Once you’ve drafted your list, wet your trading toes by organizing in-person swaps with friends or attending meets across the city. Websites like swapsity.ca allow you to scope out a person’s bartering “profile,” and will even match you with like-minded barterers, sort of like online dating or what would happen “if Facebook and Craigslist had a baby,” says Simmons.

She also suggests thinking about the skills you have to offer outside the confines of your job. “Sure, I’m a financial advisor but I’ve played chauffeur for a day,” she says.

Simmons’s Barter Babes experiment ended almost a year ago, but she’s still an advocate for trades—she’s currently bartering with a local artist for a painting. Sure, she’s not asking all of us to quit our steady jobs and protest the oppressive use of currency, but she’s proof that when it comes to providing for yourself, maybe money isn’t everything.

Shannon Lee Simmons teaches “Finances 101” at Trade School Toronto (Harvest Noon, 16 Bancroft Ave., 2nd floor) on Sept. 30 at 6:00 p.m., tradeschool.coop/Toronto.