Financial planner outlines her approach, argues that highly detailed budgeting & lifestyle advice can even benefit high earners
Grocery prices seem to have shifted from temporary source of shock to perennial frustration among Canadians. Since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, grocery prices have increased almost 30 per cent. In real terms, a family of four in Canada has gone from paying $14,800 for groceries per year in 2020, to $19,000 per year in 2025. It’s a regular low-level source of stress that compounds with other short-term price shocks like the recent spike in energy prices. FP Canada’s annual stress index found that 64 per cent of Canadians saw grocery prices as a source of financial stress, that’s compared to 51 per cent for housing prices and 14 per cent for stock market volatility.
It’s a stress that Cindy Marques works to address head on. Marques is a Certified Financial Planner and the Director at Open Access Limited, a group retirement plan provider. She talks about how she works with clients to get into the details of their shopping, their food habits, their overall consumption and their budgeting. She spoke about how she’s seen her clients’ behaviour change in the face of higher food costs and why even advisors more focused on high earners should look at these budgeting techniques regardless.
“It’s not a new conversation. And the prices are frustrating. And while we can’t control how grocery stores price things, we can control how, how much food ends up in the trash and our ability to make smart decisions about how we shop,” Marques says. “I hear the pain points and my best advice is really just to guide them on things that you can think about when you’re walking through the grocery store and before you even leave, preparing yourself to handle that grocery shop and do it smartly.”
Marques says she sees a real desire to live more frugally being expressed, especially by younger clients. Millennials and Gen Z are electing to go out less frequently, pay down debt, and control for potential costs like interest payments. Marques notes a focus on saving, too, but often with specific goals in mind. Those savings are often put in low-risk high interest savings accounts, rather than long-term investments, because many of these clients feel they need to prepare for sudden expenses more than grow their money for retirement. There’s a pressure to “do it all,” she says, but in working towards that goal, detailed input on managing grocery costs can be a solid starting point.
Some of Marques’ financial advice begins with managing pantries and food waste. She suggests that before a trip to the grocery store, her clients should take stock of what’s in their pantry, what’s in their fridge, and what kind of meals those ingredients can be put towards. She suggests using tech tools like apps and AI to find recipe suggestions or meal ideas making use of what’s on hand or what might go to waste otherwise. She suggests finding new uses for less desirable produce: blending overripe fruit into smoothies or less attractive vegetables into soups. She suggests adding substance to expensive meat with beans, cabbage, or other low-cost additions that make food feel that much more filling and nutritious.
At the grocery store, she suggests looking closely at price labels and citing per-unit costs. She pushes back on the logic that bulk buying is always the better price, and asks her clients if they really need that gallon jug of ranch dressing from Costco.
There’s an ethos of empowerment and self-sufficiency that goes into Marques’ advice. Beyond encouraging her clients to learn more cooking techniques and pantry-staple menu ideas, she encourages more DIY approaches to home repairs. She stresses that DIY work doesn’t need to involve expensive tool purchases either, not when tool libraries are increasingly available. She’ll encourage gardening for extra veggies, going to clothing swaps for new outfits, and consulting with free and open sources of information for advice about how to live more frugally.
While she encourages all these penny-wise steps, Marques also strives to make sure clients don’t make themselves miserable in the process. She frames budgeting as about living life, rather than restricting yourself. She encourages her clients to track their expenses so they know what they can spend on fun and they can do that without feeling stressed. She advocates for sinking funds that clients can put towards a planned holiday or something they really want, so they don’t feel like a treat compromises their financial freedom.
All this guidance is helpful, but for many advisors it’s far more granular than they might go in their practice. Marques, however, emphasizes that this kind of cash flow and budgeting work can be just as helpful for high earning clients. She notes that lifestyle creep can mean high earners also live paycheque to paycheque and that controlling for these daily expenses can result in real wealth generation.
“It’s important for advisors not to brush off cash flow planning because really otherwise it’s just kind of pie in the sky ideas,” Marques says. “It’s all well and good to crunch the numbers and say, you want to buy a house for X down payment, here’s how much you have to save per year and here’s the account to do it to be the most tax efficient. Well, great, that is good advice. You show them how to be tax efficient and where to do it and other benefits they can get from using the FHSA or whatever it may be. But can they afford to do it? Does it fit in the line item? If it doesn’t fit within their cash flow, then your advice is just theory.”
