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Name, age: Amy, 32
Annual income: $28,300 from teaching, $4,250 from Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP)
Debt: $18,000 in student debt
Savings: $39,500 in savings account
What she does: Teaching assistant at a university
Where she lives: Mississauga
Top financial concern: “Me and my partner want to start a family one day, but right now it’s this impossible fantasy because of my finances.”
Amy’s life changed drastically eight years ago, when she suffered a serious concussion that left her bedridden for almost a year. It was five years before she could work, owing to extreme fatigue and other postconcussion symptoms.
Even today, she struggles to work more than three or four hours before her body crashes.
“I can’t hold a full-time job, which is why teaching has been a great way for me to do work,” she said. “I can go to a class, go home and rest, then do some marking maybe.”
Amy works as a university teaching assistant on different contracts, so her income varies depending on the semester. She also receives help from the ODSP, but because she is working, she does not qualify for the full amount of about $1,000 a month. During the years she couldn’t work, that was her entire monthly income.
She still lives in her childhood home, a three-floor townhouse that has no mortgage. A parent pays all of the house-related expenses such as taxes, utilities and insurance.
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Her main expense is medical bills. ODSP is supposed to pay for some basic services, such as dentistry, but she hasn’t been able to find a dentist who accepts the plan. She’s been getting relief from her brain injury symptoms at a concussion-focused physiotherapy clinic, but it’s in Guelph and costs $180 per session.
“They were like, ‘You should come one to two times a week,’” she recalled. “That is all my money for a month. I’m going now once or twice a month.”
Amy has a boyfriend, and they dream of having a family, but the goal feels far off financially. She’s been saving money to go back to school for a medical therapy field where she would make more money per hour than teaching and could still work part-time.
She says the lack of supports for someone in her position – well educated and hard working, but with a long-term injury – makes her feel devalued by society.
“I have so little access to resources and so many barriers, despite being relatively intelligent and driven, adaptable and creative and all these things where I have the potential to do something meaningful,” she said. “It does a number on your self-worth. I struggle with that.”
Her typical monthly expenses:
Investment and savings: $50
$50 to savings account. “Part of my savings is set aside for potential emergency vet bills. I would also like to get a car and go back to school.”
Servicing debt: $247
$247 to student debt. “I like to hack at it a bit every month.”
$0 to credit-card debt.
Household and transportation: $175
$0 to rent, taxes and utilities. “One of my parents pays all my cost-of-living expenses.”
$100 to home renovations. “I kind of woke up from my period of five years where I was really out of it and realized, ‘whoa, the house needs some work.’ So I’ve painted two floors … and am replacing things that are broken.”
$50 to transit.
$25 on cellphone. “A pay-as-you-go phone plan with no data.”
Food and drink: $419
$329 on groceries. “I don’t meal plan but I look for deals.”
$90 on eating out. “I have a limited number of hours I can function well in a day. Sometimes I am buying food out not for pleasure or fun, but because I literally don’t have any more energy to make food.”
Miscellaneous: $485
$28 on clothing.
$112 on pets. “I have one rescue cat. I also take care of two leopard geckos from a sibling who moved out.”
$10 on art supplies.
$5 on cosmetics.
$0 on the dentist. “I recently went to seven dental offices who did not accept ODSP patients and sort of gave up.”
$270 on physiotherapy. “Clinic in Guelph that specializes in concussion. They’ve been helping a lot with my symptoms … I take three buses over two hours to get there.”
$10 on donations.
$50 on gym membership. “A lot of time is spent there on rehab exercises.”
Some details may be changed to protect the privacy of the person profiled. We want to thank her for sharing her story.
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