Woodstonian Goes Viral Sharing Financial Struggles

Friday, 27 October 2023 11:29

Stephanie Finlayson brings home $2,710 per month, but her monthly bills total $2,701. This means she only has $9 remaining for food and other expenses.

WOODSTOCK - What started out as a rant after a long day of work has turned into a viral video.

Stephanie Finlayson is 42-years-old and she has been living in Woodstock for the past two years.

She posted the video on TikTok on September 11th, after she worked an 8.5 hour shift knowing that she was still not bringing enough home to support herself and her 18-year-old son. Finlayson makes $21 per hour and works 40 hours per week. This means she has a monthly income of $2,710, but her monthly bills total $2,701, leaving only $9 in her bank account for food and other expenses.

Finlayson says she talked to her Dad on the phone before she made the video. He gave her what advice he could, but he didn't really know what to tell her for the most part.

"I ultimately felt like I needed to get more off my chest but I didn't know who to talk to. So I grabbed my phone, I threw it on my dash and I hit record. I didn't know if I would post it or not and I didn't know if I wanted people to see it, I just wanted to express myself."

She decided to share it on TikTok because she didn't use the social media platform very often and thought no one would see it, but that was not the case. The video had 1.9 million views as of this morning with 66,000 likes and over 19,000 comments.

Finlayson says the response has been overwhelming.

"I definitely learned that I was able to say something that a lot of people wanted to say, couldn't say, or didn't know how to say. Once I opened that door the comments that poured in were just, there were some hateful and criticizing comments, but for the most part it was we're all in the same boat. We're making $30 or $40 per hour, we're making six figures a year with two incomes and we're not breaking even. We don't know how you're doing it."

Oxford MP Arpan Khanna talked about Finlayson's struggles in the House of Commons yesterday and you can listen to his full statement in the video below this article. Finlayson will be meeting with Khanna this evening to talk about it.

She's hoping she can spark change.

"To Parliament and to everybody else, we're not okay. The cost of living has exceeded our wages, even if we're making a few dollars above minimum wage we can't break even. As an economy, if this happens to too many people it will crumble. We won't be a strong country anymore and we won't have the support that we need."