A quick look into Canadian financial well-being

financewell-beingcanadadataanalysis

At the start of 2025 I spent sometime reflecting on my financial health - and what financial health even means. As part of this analysis I was curious how I compared to other Canadians and came across the following report provided by the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) using data from August 2020 to January 2025.

If you're curious the report can be found here on their webpage, but key data points are:

Money management

  • 50% of households accessed savings to cope with current economic conditions.
  • 53% of households have an emergency fund that would cover 3 months of expenses, compared to 52% in 2024 and 65% in 2019.
    • Thus, 47% of households do not have an emergency fund that covers 3 months of expenses.
  • 52% of households report using a budget, compared to 49% in 2019.
  • 69% of households spend less than or equal to their monthly income, compared to 70% in 2024 and 81% in 2019.

Financial vulnerability

  • 56% of Canadian households report having trouble or sometimes struggling with financial commitments.
  • 35% of households borrow money for daily expenses.
  • 32% of Canadians are stressed, anxious, or worry about finances.

Financial knowledge, credit records, and fraud

  • 44% of Canadians describe themselves as financially knowledgeable, compared to 40% in 2019.
    • Thus, 56% of Canadians would not describe themselves as financially knowledgeable.

Money worries

  • 37% of Canadians feel they are just getting by vs. 30% in 2019.
  • 33% of Canadians say they are short on money at the end of the month vs. 19% in 2019.
  • 35% of Canadians believe finances control their lives compared to 24% in 2019.
  • 29% percent of Canadians believe they will never have what they want vs. 20% in 2019.

I found many of these to be surprising. Over half of households struggle with financial commitments, a third of Canadians are stressed or anxious about their finances, are short on money at the end of the month, or are borrowing money for daily expenses, and less than half would consider them financial knowledgeable.

There are a lot of details not mentioned above such as where Canadians are spending their dollars and how this has changed over the years, which is something I'll cover in future posts. However I think this data shows two things: Canadians are struggling to manage their financial well-being and there is room for improvement. It will be interesting if this is something that individually Canadians can manage or if larger, societal changes will be needed.