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Ottawa woman, 63, saving for retirement but struggling with mortgage and other debts

MORTGAGE OVERLOAD

Rob CarrickPersonal Finance Columnist

This article was published more than 7 years ago. Some information may no longer be current.

Soaring house prices have made Canadians wealthy on paper, but what are households giving up in order to make their mortgage payments? As part of our package on the financial squeeze being felt by Canadian homeowners, we profiled six families across the country to see how they are coping.

Name and age: Paule Balanaser, 63

Location: Ottawa

Family description: Husband, 62; daughter, 21, attending university out of town; two sons, 42 and 26, living on their own.

Price paid for home: $204,000, bought in 2009 after downsizing from a larger house in the Greater Toronto Area

Outstanding mortgage balance: $148,000

Non-mortgage debts: $46,000 ($16,000 on a car loan, $13,000 on a line of credit and $17,000 on credit cards)

Biggest monthly non-housing expense: Paying off credit card debt

Are you regularly putting money away for savings or investments? $1,200 a month in RRSPs, between $500 and $1,000 a month in an emergency fund.

If you had to find $3,000 for an emergency, where would it come from? Emergency fund

Biggest joy you have as a homeowner: “Having my own small, comfortable place for my family.”

Biggest financial regret as a homeowner: “Still having a mortgage.”

Paule Balanaser is managing her family finances well enough that when her dog was injured in October, she was above to cover the extensive vet bills with money in her emergency fund.

In addition to putting money away for emergencies, she and her husband are also saving regularly for retirement. So why are they still paying a mortgage at an age when people typically have their house paid off? A lot of it comes down to what she refers to as unavoidable costs, notably some complex family health issues. "I've been a budgeter all along, but some years I just throw my hands up because I have no control," she said.

Ms. Balanaser and her husband sold a four-bedroom home in Oakville, Ont., several years back and moved to a suburb on Ottawa's east side. They did well in selling the Oakville house, but a lot of the profit went toward paying bills. The Ottawa townhouse the couple now lives in was a good value, but it was in rough shape because it had previously been rented. The result was a $125,000 renovation bill. "We replaced everything in the house, basically."

Ms. Balanser's insistence on having an emergency fund was vindicated by the mishap with her dog. A guest accidentally stepped on the animal, breaking its leg. "We had to have her operated on," she said. "My emergency fund went totally into that."

Photo by Dave Chan for The Globe and Mail



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