Fundamentals, I guess

Baycrest Six know credit

Even during the Depression, credit was the last thing anybody wanted, a sign of shame. "When I was nine or 10, my dad was a tailor but he couldn't find work. My mother had to go to a grocery store to buy essentials. The owner wrote our name in a book, $1.65," Mr. Brown says.

When his father found work and was paid, the first thing his mother did was wipe out that $1.65 debt.

Times have changed. Canadians have never been in more debt than they are today. They have also never saved so little.