In 2024, Maclean’s readers gravitated toward stories that offered creative solutions to Canada’s high cost of living. Some of Maclean’s most popular stories this year featured Canadians who managed to escape paying high rent or massive mortgages. If our readership numbers are to be believed, living within your means is the aspirational fantasy narrative of our era.
The most extreme example of that genre was the memoir Maclean’spublished by Marc-André Gagnon, a delivery driver in Quebec who moved into his car to pay down his student debt. (Spoiler: it worked.) But readers were also intrigued by tales of people who upended their lives in less dramatic ways, like the story of a single mom who moved to rural Alberta to live in a house she could afford and the memoir of a woman who banded together with strangers to buy property in British Columbia. Maclean’s list of the country’s most attractive, affordable cities was also a hit.
Did you miss any of these stories about the cost of living? You can read our list of the most popular ones here over the holidays. Or, better yet, subscribe to Maclean’sand get stories like these 11 times a year for just $39.99.
–Sarah Fulford, editor-in-chief, Maclean’s
