Canadians worried about finances and inflation, polls suggest

Canadians are spending more time worrying about their finances, including in the middle of the night.

According to a Scotiabank poll, three-quarters (75%) of Canadians spend at least some time worrying about finances, and one-third said worrying about finances kept them awake at night.

On average, those polled spent 10 hours a week worrying about finances — the equivalent of three weeks per year, up 25% from last year.

Respondents spent the most time worrying about growing or protecting their investments (19%), paying for day-to-day expenses (15%) and paying off debt (13%).

For those who worked with financial advisors, those figures were 31%, 19% and 15%, respectively.

While just under two-thirds of those polled (63%) hadn’t worked with advisors in the past year, those who had were less likely to say they worried about their finances, the poll said.

Worries about saving also increased for some respondents. The proportion of those who worried about contributing to their retirements increased to 12% this year from 8% in 2020.

Overall, personal finance ranked third on Canadians’ list of things they’re most stressed about (33% of respondents), after the rising cost of living (52%) and physical health (45%).

Rising prices were also top of mind among respondents to Manulife Bank’s latest debt survey.

Among the survey’s various findings, 88% of respondents said they were worried about inflation, and 42% said their spending outpaced their incomes.

At the same time, the survey found that fewer Canadians were in debt compared to a year ago.

While more than two-thirds (68%) of respondents had debt aside from their mortgages, this was a decrease from 73% earlier in the pandemic and 79% before the pandemic.

The share of indebted Canadians had either declined or remained the same during the pandemic, the survey said.

The Manulife debt survey, conducted online by Ipsos between Oct. 14 and Oct. 18, polled 2,001 Canadians between ages 20 and 69 with household incomes over $40,000.

The Scotiabank poll was conducted online by Maru/Blue from Oct. 12 to Oct. 13 and consisted of 1,521 Canadian adults who were Maru Voice Canada panellists. 

Results of both polls were weighted by gender, age, region and education.

The polling industry’s professional body, the Canadian Research Insights Council, says online surveys can’t be assigned a margin of error because they don’t randomly sample the population.