The Canadian Payroll Association’s survey found 59 % of Canadians would have trouble making ends meet if their paycheque was delayed by even one week.

The implications of a serious financial crisis inherent in this result are disturbing and raise serious questions about the need for financial and societal changes. If a one week delay causes 59% of Canadians trouble making ends meet, what would the fallout be if they missed a paycheque.

The possibilities for serious economic fallout increase if one considers the two growing subgroups that were left out of the survey on the status of Canadian wage earners.

The first subgroup is those Canadians who have trouble making, or cannot make, ends meet even if their paycheque is on time.

I ran out of gas Thursday evening. Not because, as some wiseacres have suggested, I cannot read a gas gauge but because I had been down to my last 9 cents for a week.

I had been striving to stretch my last tank of gas through to the next morning as my paycheque would be deposited shortly after midnight Friday and I would have funds for more gas.

Instead I had to glide the Cavalier into a visitor spot in front of an apartment building and walk off in search of someone with a gas can and a few litres of gasoline they could spare.

70% of my budget goes to cover shelter costs leaving 30% or about $350.

Subtract the $50 a month it costs to swim, swimming permits me to walk by keeping my back toned and prevent it from crippling me, and you are down to $300. Subtract the $95 a month for insurance and $205 remains.

This works out to $51 a week for gas; an amount that sounds like plenty until you consider the rising cost of gas and the fact that any additional costs come out of these monies.

So far this month I have had to invest $40 for brake pads and another $20 in oil, fuel injector cleaner and gas conditioner. I really should have the gas tank drained, the fuel injectors cleaned and a tune-up. All of which are well beyond my ability to pay for.

Reducing me to $145 or $36 per week for gas; reducing the distance I can travel.

While the brake pads etc represent a one time expense, every month contains the need for some form of one time expense. The fact the Cavalier has needed so many one time expenses has put me behind on “normal” one time expenses eg pain medication.

Yes, I know that the car is a major expense but with no viable transportation alternative I need the car to get to work, to my volunteer/service commitments and to all the other aspects of the community I am involved with.

Also, as the reader can see from the budget numbers, there is no money in my budget for food. The car is necessary to get to free meals and free grocery sources in order to eat.

Thursday’s lack of gas flows mainly from the steadily increasing gas prices. The Cavalier does not get as good mileage as the Duster did, but it has a back seat I can sleep in/on – which is an important consideration in my overall financial reality.

The Abbotsford recreation credit had gotten me a three month pool pass, providing a $50 a month cushion. Running out of gas Thursday is not surprising as this is the month the three month pool pass expired and I was out of pocket the $50 for a pool pass.

I must use gas to get to work and to get food to eat. This leaves me with limited distances I can travel forcing me to reduce, perhaps end, my community involvements. It also leaves me facing the probable need to give up volunteering or doing service work as it renders me unable to get to these commitments; a situation neither healthy for me nor helpful to the organizations or community.

To me, and too many others, it does not matter if our paycheques are on time – our current financial situations are unsustainable; we are in a death spiral down and out onto the streets of Abbotsford and homelessness.

Mathematically it is only a matter of time until I (we) find ourselves in the other subgroup the survey overlooked: those with employment and income insufficient to be able to cover the high cost of shelter in Abbotsford or the Greater Vancouver Area.

In one of the twisted realities of this equation, once I fall out of housing into my car again I will be better off economically. While joining the growing community of Canadians living in their vehicle will result in the loss of the portion of my income I receive to cover shelter costs, I will gain back the shelter costs I pay out of other income and so be 100% better off, doubling my disposable income.

Before the numbers catch up to me and put me onto the streets I am looking to for a suitable van, in good shape and at a ridiculously good price to outfit as a mobile home. Cell phone technology, the portability of current computers and mobile internet make functioning with a van (or even the Cavalier) as one’s home quite viable.

The van would be the preferred solution from the point of view of ability to organize and the comfort of long term liveability. Important considerations in light of my lacking the energy, will or heart to make the long struggle back into what is considered proper housing until my personal economic circumstances change to a point where housing is and will remain viable affordable option.

While this is not warm and fuzzy or pleasant it is Reality and will remain Reality for a growing numbers of Canadians until we, as a country and society, decide it is an unacceptable Reality and make the required changes.

Until such time – Wanted: Van …