How long could you manage without a paycheque?

I guess about 10 years, more if I cut some expenses out. I am assuming no EI, welfare, or severance at all.

When I was in my 20's before children I could go about 4 years with no income at all. Now that I've got 3 children, sick elderly parents and a dependant wife I can go about 6 - 7 months "Tops".
It has **** nothing ****to do though with the public education system being gutted financially and more healthcare costs being offloaded onto the sick people.

Nope, Must be just be because I have never learned how to save. Yeah, that's it.

Too many people I know and they include an age spread of 4 decades, have no concept of a savings plan for rainy days. Credit cards are so easy to use.

I pay myself 10% first every paycheque (put it into a savings account) and force myself to live off the rest of my pay cheque... My savings have always saved me in emergency situations, and for that I'm grateful!

Injury at work and WSIB involvment is a good way to use all your savings and equity in your home. Wrong decisions and the length of the Appreals process only add more delays while financial decisions have to be made to meet your obligations. No income and legal bills for representation with no quarantee of success....not a good combination. If you finally succeed you have already spent what you are awarded. And what is this about employers rights? Aren't we all employers? I employ my dentist, doctor, teachers, bank tellers, pharmacist, gas station attendant......?

I agree Chuenoi, I was taught long ago that you have to pay yourself first......it will save your bacon in the event of the worst happening. But in reality, depending on where you live in this country.....there's always been work available. Why is it that hardly anyone wants or feels like they should get a second job (part time) to get out of a bind......been there, done that and I'm proud to say that it has been very beneficial to me.......even in the early 90's I had two jobs!

I'm 22, have two jobs and go to school full time. If starting today I had 0 income I would last maybe a month and a half. I put close to $500/month into savings; however, that disappears in one beautiful second every August and December when tuition is due. I live paycheque to paycheque absolutely. It is NOT because I don't know how to save. And it's NOT because i don't know how to work. I have one day off per week...or at least what I consider a day off. On Saturdays I serve at a restaurant and my shift doesnt start until 5:30. That means I have a day to catch up on sleep, do laundry, and go grocery shopping. So on my one day off per week I still work a 7 hour day. It has been this way since I graduated highschool.

We are doing it now, and it has happened several times that expected money does not arrive on time. It makes it really hard. We have to call landlord, phone company, etc to tell them that payments will be late, we eat very little, we never go out for fun...This is not because we don't know how to save, it is because of jobs being cut and my husband is over qualified for a lot of the available jobs, so he get overlooked or not even called for an interview, I have gone back to work in fast food, not a dream job but it does help to get food on the table and just barely keep us afloat month to month until he starts full time work again. So to answer the original question, we have gone for as long as 3 weeks without any income.

have been off on sick leave at the same time the wife was layed off, so we went a entire month with no income, the second week used savings, to live..no choice..now there is no disposable income to save on ui..200 a week is tough

Just getting used to living within our means after turning 65 and losing my job to outsourcing. When your salary drops by 50 %, it is a real shock to your system. With a bit of foresight, we had paid off all our credit card debt before the axe fell. It is actually quite a nice feeling of paying cash for everything we buy. No worries of going over our heads, like before. We are getting our bills under control. It is amazing what you can do to reduce power usage, insurance costs, car expenses. Even got the mortgage rate cut down to a manageable size. I was really worried at first, but now I think it is a much more relaxed lifestyle. Paying down debt was the hardest part, but well worth the effort.

why do you have a mortgage at 65? that sounds like a financial crisis waiting to happen...

Sure you could last without a paycheck. I've been doing it for almost a year. It's all based on judgment and belief, I'm not going into it here because it would be to long to explain.

Never know what'll happen tomorrow !? Always good to save extra 'emergency' cash aside, automatically (i.e. switch partial of your paycheck from one account to another, 'automatically' monthly. We will always make excuse we need all $ from pur paycheck and can't even save $ 20 if we don't set it up 'automatically' but manually !!! - This is just my own point of view).

Gone with out paycheck for up to 6 months - but it wiped out savings at that time. Then finally both of us got work, paid off all debt except for mortgage and rebuilt savings.

Now we're both unemployed again but this time I have some EI til end of 2011 and partner has some pension monies plus we now have savings and no debt - should be good for up to 8 months maybe even a year. If even one of us is working we can survive because we have no debt and we were able to save money for dry times.

It helps that we have no kids at home anymore and live quite frugelly - no smoking, drinking, eat out only on special occasions, walk to save on driving when possible and other cost saving measures. But as we all should know not everyone is so fourtunate.

It really to bad we are all slaves to the God of money. Nothing is free if you sit home and do nothing the bills still mount ,Taxes,water, sewer, hydro , heat, insurances, satellite , internet,food, telephone,home repairs and maintenance, so you get the picture so you must have a soure of income otherwise you just fall farther into the cesspool of life called debt .. So the answer to how long can you live without a pay cheque is not very long unless you start living back in time were money never exsisted and you lived off the land and sleep under the stars and die if you get sick.

I've been in the workforce for a little over 25 years and have only ever lived cheque to cheque. No savings and not even retirement to look forward to. There's a CPP calculator on the Service Canada site that will tell you how much you'll get if you were 65 today. According to the current figure for myself i will definitely be eating cat food when I retire. Sadly, there are a lot of us that don't even have retirement to look forward to. Living from one pay to the next and not being able to put money away is a sad reality too many of us have to face. If I had no income I would only last as long as the food in my cupboards.

Sorry Jack... had you had saved $1,000. each year... that's LESS than $100. per month or $25. per weekly paycheck or $3.00 per day, you could easily have a base RRSP investment portfolio of $25,000. which obviously would have grown over the past 25 years... and continue to grow for the next 15. Ever wonder where you frivolously spent that $3.00 per day or $25. per week went. Think back !! Maybe a pack of cigarettes, a bottle of beer, a McDonald's lunch, etc. etc. I'll even bet ya have a cellphone, right ?

I am currently unemployed and looking for the last three months, under EI, I get the maximum; which is about 800 every two weeks (1600 a month), I was making over 60k. I been through this before and had saved about two months worth, but the bills pile up and unexpected expense show up; i.e. vehicle issues, paying my two kids to go to school etc. if I go find a retail job for now, I make less than what I get for EI (about 48,500). Can go without pay for about two months if it wasn't for the unexpected stuff, it would be longer.

I find that people always criticize others for not saving enough money especially for their retirement. As for the majority of people that do not save enough money for retirement, I do not see them as the problem because after paying all expenses (for basic survival), they do not have enough to save and put away. I really blame the companies that offer such low salaries to their employees while the CEO, VP, directors earn such a huge salary and bonuses that they are able to save for many rainy days or for a comfortable retirement. Offer higher salaries and you will notice how much money people will be able to save

@Lisa , what do you call expenses for basic survival? Cellphone, HD TV, etc. Companies pay for what your work is worth. This is it. Take it or leave it! I work for a big multinational company. I have no one reporting to me. I am a grunt. I make $250,000 before bonuses. Why? Because that is what my profession is worth. If they won't pay me this much, or anyone else in my profession for that matter, I move on and some other company reaps the benefits of my knowledge and expertise. Pure and basic text book economics. My CEO makes about $1.2 million per year and he deserves it. You wouldn't last 5 miniutes in that position, nor would I, so that is why I make a paltry $250 k per year.