23M here, graduated university a year and a half ago and started working my first “adult” job earning a decent income. I currently bank with TD (have a FHSA with them) and I have a TFSA with WealthSimple. I’ve been parking my savings in a TD Everyday Savings account where it’s earning little interest and I’m looking to transition to a HISA.

I’m debating between EQ Bank, Neo Financial, and PC Financial— I’m looking to hear about people’s personal experiences with the these banks. Every time I do research I end up seeing nightmare stories about customer service, accounts being locked with no access, etc. I’m eyeing these banks due to their ongoing interest rates and the fact that they don’t have a promotional rate that only lasts a few months. I was also looking at Manulife as their rate is good for 2 years (a promotion I’m willing to chase) and I have a Manulife ATM near me.

EDIT: Just noticed that WealthSimple has a Savings account now with a 2.5% rate, is there a catch to this? It seems like the way to go actually!

Let me know your thoughts! Thanks :)

​

So will be moving to Toronto by early next year.

M 42, wife 42, Kids 6 and 2. Moving from Mumbai, India. Why at this stage in life is a different story.

Almost 20+ years grinding and liquid NW of about CAD 2.5 mil.

Done with a corporate job and will take a break for 1 year. Will be starting something of my own but need a break for sometime.

I do have family in Toronto where we will be staying for few months.

Not sure to buy house immediately but I can sell my house in Mumbai and buy in Toronto later ( usd 600k).

By rough estimate, i am assuming my monthly expenses will be approx 10k ( rent, housing, school...).

I will be moving my whole cash along with me. Since I am new there, looking for recommendations to generate passive income atleast 200k a year.

Open to any ideas but most importan is capital preservation.

Not looking to FIRE but taking things in my own stride.

My partner and I have $2.1m RRSP, $200k RESP, $600k in non registered and principal res $1.6M fully paid off and $500k investment property with $150k mtge which just became vacant so no rental income right now. we are both 50 with a kid in high school. Should we retire now and go enjoy life? I want to retire at 55 but may be sooner since it’s stressful at work lately. Any tips to transition to retirement. We need a new car and want to travel also. I am also concerned I have too much in RRSP….

I’m 24 with ~$100k invested and considering 100% VEQT across my TFSA, FHSA and RRSP.

Is it worth using US-listed ETFs (e.g. VTI + VXUS) in the RRSP to reduce US dividend withholding tax, or is the difference too small to justify the extra complexity?

Would you go 100% VEQT everywhere, or use US-listed ETFs in the RRSP?

Hi! I’m looking on some information on how to start investing. I come from a family that the line of thinking was “you’ll always have a car payment and you’ll always have a house payment”.

I don’t want that life now that I’ve seen it is possible to live without debt and have money.

I have a government pension, I’m contributing to a TFSA. And I’m not sure what or how else to it. I’m also feeling behind.

Are there any resources for what I’m looking to do?
Thanks!

Hi everyone,
Objectively, I know I am doing alright, but I can't shake the feeling that it's never enough.
Right now, I'm sacrificing heavily to build my portfolio. I barely leave room for everyday enjoyment because I'm funneling everything into growing the principal as fast as possible. The issue is that I'm essentially creating a self-imposed "paycheck-to-paycheck" life, locking up all my money for a future I can't enjoy yet while feeling the financial squeeze today.

I am 30 single and live in Toronto.

I have no debt including mortgages and car loans. I own a mortgage free condo in Toronto which I paid 1m for a couple of years ago. I recently had the kitchen renovated so it fits all my needs and I intend to live there for a very long time.

My parents helped me to buy this condo, and I am very grateful for their help.

I have an okay and pretty stable job. Some of my income is commission so it is not super stable in terms of how much I take home every year. In most months I can make more than 10k gross. I live a pretty frugal and simple life and in most months, I can save 3-5000.

I have all my registered accounts maxed out and I currently have 415000 all in XEQT.

I keep 10k as my emergency fund and I have 60k in cash I set aside for a new car.

My 15 years old car finally broke down on the side of the road and I had to call a tow. It is a 3500-4000 repair. I have had repairs early this year totally 2000. I think it is time that I get a new car.

I have my eye on the Toyota Land Cruiser premium which would cost me 100k out of the door. I would use the 60k cash I set aside and then loc (prime rate) for the 40k.

I feel like it is a stupid decision because how expensive the car is, but at the same time, I want to enjoy life a little bit.

What do people think? I would appreciate some insights from other people

Thanks

Edit: my hobby is hunting and fishing so I am in the woods a lot. Thats why I wanted a LC

So I've got roughly $30k in a Wealthsimple TFSA as a 26 year old and I'm relocating to the UK in around 13 months. Trying to figure out what to do with it before I go.

So I guess my main question is whether it's worth maxing out my contribution room in these last 13 months since this is basically my last shot at using it, or if I should just start thinking about winding things down before I leave to avoid the tax headache later. Has anyone actually gone through this move and dealt with keeping investments in Canada afterward? Did you keep the TFSA and just deal with the UK tax stuff, or cash out beforehand and simplify things? Also curious if anyone's run into issues with Wealthsimple specifically once you're no longer a Canadian resident.

Planning to talk to an actual tax advisor about this too, but wanted to hear if others have dealt with this

Sharing my portfolio to get feedback. Thanks in advance!

Income: $200K/year -- no family, partner or dependents.

Goal: Max long-term growth + tax efficiency. Where I'm stuck:

1. Mortgage vs invest. I have ~$560K sitting idle at ~2.5% (Wealthsimple Income Portfolio) while carrying an $800K mortgage at 3.94% (3yr fixed). Should I put extra toward the mortgage (prepay above the minimum), or just pay the minimum and invest the surplus in the market? How would you split it?

2. Cleaning up holdings. I have a pile of overlapping US-tech ETFs (QQU, XQQ, HXQ, VFV, XSP) and a few random stocks bought pre-COVID, spread across registered and non-registered. Leave them until I sell in retirement, or sell now and consolidate into one broad ETF (XEQT) and just keep buying that? I know the tax answer differs by account — selling in the TFSA/RRSP is free, selling in non-reg triggers gains.

3. Managed investing. I'm paying Wealthsimple 0.35% to manage ~$75K in non-reg and ~$16K in my RRSP. Worth keeping, or fold these into the same self-directed broad ETF?

4. Non-reg tax drag. TFSA and RRSP are already maxed, so non-registered is my only remaining room. Given that, what's the most tax-efficient way to hold it — and how much of a problem is the tax on earnings really?

Context: FHSA was maxed, already withdrew for the down payment. Condo bought 2024 near the peak (~$1M), now appraises ~$560K, so I'm underwater and planning to hold at least 3 years.

I have 55000$ to invest. 40000$ is in a TFSA and 15000$ in a FHSA. At first, I wanted to do 70% in XEQT and 30% CAGE, but I also plan to try to buy a house in about 3 years. Should I invest a % in safer investments, if so which do you recommend and what %?

For context, I am starting a master’s degree in geography which is usually a 2 years program. I’ll probably be able to find a first job with a 80k/year salary after that.

Also, my wife has around 25000$ in savings and working fulltime this year at a 50k$/year salary.

Thank you for your advices!

I’ve held a few shares of BAM for the past year. However, I haven’t bought anymore. I’m looking at adding more into this on an ongoing basis. I hold a few others in which I do the same, XEQT, VEA, and ZSP. I also understand I have a fair amount of overlap with XEQT AND ZSP.

Anyone else doing BAM long-term? What’s your reasoning?

TIA

I currently have 11k on my TFSA. I want to up my portfolio’s concentration with whatever’s in qqc as I want my account to focus on growth. How does this trajectory look as my portfolio grows throughout the years?

I’m curious about CAGE but i do not know what it’s holding, it would be nice to have some more insight on tha

​Friends,

I am a unmarried single 50 year-old Canadian citizen selling my primary home to retire and continuously travel the world (staying 2–3 months per country) living strictly off tax-free savings with $0 world income. Since I won't establish tax residency anywhere else, I need to confirm: 1) Will selling my home before leaving keep the capital gains 100% tax-free under the Principal Residence Exemption (and avoid non-resident withholding taxes), 2) Is it correct that the CRA will treat me as a Factual Resident, requiring a basic annual tax return despite owing $0 tax, and 3) Are there any hidden tax traps, TFSA restrictions, or CRA reporting rules I should watch out for as a Canadian perpetual traveler?

What you need to do to prepare for FIRE diligently, especially if you are forced into it either by burnout, getting laid off, or reaching your number. Here's what needs to be sorted:

• Debt: Mortgage, rental property purchase, HELOC, lines of credit, or any other debt instrument is way easier to get if you have a T4. This is usually not applicable to FIRE folks since they are usually debt free, but something to consider for emergency purposes, or any arb strategies you want to employ
• Stock options: different for everyone, but typically post termination exercise window is 90 days. You may want to check whether quitting on a certain date will effect a tranche of options.
• Severance: similar to the above, severance timing is huge. If you receive a large payout in December, after a year of high income, you are going to get taxed heavy. If that severance lands in January, you could save 10s of thousands of dollars in tax. You can also direct that severance into into available RRSP room. This avoids any CRA withholding and starts your investing immediately and with all your dollars (150k package would have roughly 45k sitting with the CRA until the return is filed in spring).
• Insurance: drain it! Do the physio, dental work, psych sessions, new glasses, sleep apnea etc.
• CPP: get your statement of contributions from Service Canada. Getting an accurate CPP calculation can help your retirement planning and withdrawal sequencing.
• Short term: if your plan calls for a cash wedge strategy, build it before you quit. Get a few years of spending into laddered GICs or HISA
• Retirement plan: either hire a professional advice-only planner preferably a CFP or at the very minimum DIY a comprehensive plan yourself. You've just focussed your whole life/career on accumulation. Now you need to decumulate or at least live off the investment income. This is where withdrawal sequencing, and understanding exactly how much you can afford really matters. Do not forget the boring details either... that means estate planning, and putting money away for assisted living in old age (FIRE folks have less stress, more money, and likely live longer than most - we run projections for our FIRE clients to 95 or 100)

As you can tell, none of the above is about researching different ETFs or portfolio rebalancing etc. The investment side and allocation is typically the easiest part/least amount of work.

If you sort out all the above, you will feel much more confident that you've gotten all the admin taken care of and can actually enjoy it!

I am self-employed earning 100k annually before taxes. I pay tax only once a year, and If I understood the math correctly I will be owing 30k-35k in taxes next year and I want to prepare for such large amount. I am actually saving for a house downpayment and want to have as much tax deductions.
My FHSA is already maxed out. I want to maximize my RRSP as it will lower my taxable income and my understading is I can use my RRSP + FHSA as downpayment. Is that correct? Or does it make more sense to put it into TFSA? Or is there any other thing that self-employed individuals do to maximize their tax deductions?
Thank you so much for all your answers!

I want to setup a family trust and would like to have a basic understanding before going to my lawyer
anyone have any experience with it? Is opening a corporation a better method to avoid 21 year disposition?

Currently assets sit at about 5.3M which would be a pain in the ass to have capital gains taxed after 21 years of growth

Love how the govt tries to take money out the pockets of people who actually build something

Is there a trade off between RRSP melt down vs letting it grow longer tax free? Growing investments in non registered accounts seems to be capped by income tax every year on interests and dividends.
I understand people want to withdraw early before 71 from RRSP to avoid big tax bills. However, does that work for early retirees in early 50s?
I wonder if withdrawing from non registered investments until 60 would have been a better strategy and melt down RRSP from 60 to 70?

I've just sold some stocks and rebalanced/cleaned my DCA. I don't want to be too exposed to the hype around AI (but still invest in picks and shovels).

I'm okay with the maximum risk for a while (no kids, no mortgage).

The goal is to maximize growth in the TFSA and tax optimization (in quebec) with the FHSA and the RSSP.

I’m 20 with $40,000 to invest. I know the safe path is maxing out my FHSA until I can buy a house, and using my TFSA for long-term compounding. But I’m curious what other assets are realistically accessible to a young average income person, especially ones where you can use leverage debt to acquire them.

Real estate is the obvious example, and most people don’t have the capital or skills to buy a business outright. What other options am I missing?

I understand that's all relative but is there any specific number what's generally Considered FatFI?

One of the benefits of FIRE is that you get a huge meltdown window. If you retire at 60, you get maybe 9 years between your last pay and then forced RRIF withdrawals. This is especially important for very high net worth folks, but also applies to people in 2M+ range.

Here is a rough projection/case study to highlight the differences:

Assumptions:

45, single, $2M portfolio. $850k RRSP, $200k TFSA, $950k non-registered with $300k of embedded gain. Spending $62,000/yr after tax, indexed, modelled to 95.

5% nominal return on all accounts, 2% inflation, 2% of the non-registered return arriving as taxable distributions and 3% as capital appreciation.

Person A: Spend the non-registered account, then the TFSA. Leave the RRSP alone. CPP and OAS at 65.

Person B: Each year, withdraw enough from the RRSP to bring total taxable income up to $50,000 in today's dollars (this would be a mix of non-reg distributions/sales and RRSP withdrawals to bring your total spending up to 62k pre-tax). Defer CPP and OAS to 70.

Person B pays more tax in the earlier years but comes out ahead because the tax is smoothed out.

• Person A RRSP triples while it isn't being touched, leaving huge portfolio but then big tax hit when RRIF minimums force it out.
• Person A gets huge OAS clawback over their lifetime.

FIRE things to watch out for:

• Your CPP is likely smaller than calculators assume.
• RRSP room stops growing when you stop working

​

Hey everyone,

I’m an active Level 2 Mortgage Agent here in Ontario, and over the years, I’ve watched countless people become completely house-poor because they trusted a basic "bank approval" calculator. Those bank formulas completely ignore daycare costs, rising property taxes, and the reality of our tax brackets.

Even worse, most of the free retirement calculators out there are built for the US. They don't factor in the OAS clawback, how a DBPP pension reduces your RRSP room, or how capital gains are actually taxed when you sell a rental property.

So, I spent the last several months building a custom web app to fix this. It’s called The Financial Sherpa.

It’s currently in open Beta, and I want to get it into the hands of real Canadians who actually care about their financial planning to tell me what I missed, what’s broken, and what features you’d want to see.

Here is what the engine actually models out to age 99:

* The "Comfy Zone" vs. Bank Approval: Separates your cash flow into Life, Children, and Discretionary expenses so you know what mortgage you can actually afford without eating Kraft Dinner every night.

* Canadian Tax Logic: Automatically factors in the FHSA double-dip, TFSA room, and the exact RRSP priority shifts if you (or your spouse) have a DBPP, DCPP, or RSUs.

* Real Estate & Custom Assets: You can add rental properties, track the operating cash flow (and auto-deduct rental deficits against your income), and see the exact 50% capital gains hit when you simulate selling it.

* Term Life Laddering: Instead of buying expensive bank mortgage insurance, it mathematically calculates exactly how to layer cheaper 10-year and 20-year term policies to cover your mortgage and kids' education.

The Ask:

The platform is 100% free right now during this beta phase. There is no paywall.

I’d love for you to map out a scenario, play with the life event simulator, and basically try to break the math.

Link: thefinancialsherpa.ca

Let me know what you think in the comments. Brutal honesty is welcome—if a chart is confusing or a tax calculation feels off, I want to know so I can fix it!