A 36-year-old Guelph, Ont. mother is working to repair her family’s finances after two extended parental leaves left them leaning on debt to cover rising living costs.
Julia, who works as an Ontario public servant, took 18 months off after the birth of her first child and 16 months after her second. She says the time with her children was valuable, but the leaves also created financial and career setbacks. Her family bought a home during her first leave, believing subsequent leaves would be easier to manage financially, but she says living expenses rose sharply between 2022 and 2025.
By the end of her second leave, Julia and her partner were relying on their home equity line of credit to get by, particularly after her workplace top-up payments ended in November 2025 and her Employment Insurance benefits ran out in April. The couple turned to the line of credit in part because they could not secure a daycare spot that would have allowed Julia to return to work sooner.
A Household Under Financial Strain
Julia’s partner works in hospitality and earns about $100,000 a year. She says he supported her decision to take the leaves, believing the time with their children was irreplaceable, and remains confident the family will recover financially. Julia, however, says she experiences regular financial stress, describing an annual “giant freakout” about money — a pattern she traces back to growing up in a household where finances were a frequent source of tension.
She recently deleted her social media accounts, saying that seeing other people’s travel and home renovations online was worsening her own sense of financial inadequacy.
The family’s $710,000 home was purchased with the help of a $200,000 down-payment gift from her partner’s grandmother, which Julia says felt like a major stroke of luck. The household currently carries $479,422 on its mortgage and $66,000 on the home equity line of credit, alongside modest savings of $8,100 in a registered retirement savings plan and $23,084 in a registered education savings plan for their children.
Plans to Rebuild Savings and Career
Now back at work, Julia earns $107,000 annually from her job plus $5,628 through the Canada Child Benefit. Her priorities going forward are paying down the line of credit and resuming regular contributions to her RRSP.
Beyond the financial rebuilding, Julia says she also has to re-establish her career footing after two leaves. She notes that taking time off slowed her professional progress compared with male colleagues who are already being considered for manager and director roles — opportunities she says remain further off for her.
Her monthly budget includes $2,522 toward her mortgage, which she was able to renew this year at a better fixed rate than her previous term, along with $772 for a car lease payment, $736 for daycare and after-school care, and $1,492 on groceries, a figure she says surprised her once she added it up.
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