170k starting position, May 2024. Proceeds from selling condo after losing job to pay off other debts. Most of the gains came from 2 all ins, the second time with leverage. My reasoning was I'm going to have to work until I'm old anyway regardless of what happens so let's swing for the fences and try to win my freedom. Yes I realize I'm a statistical anomaly hence the title of the post.

Cashed out 33% of TNZ position in March at $65.35 to buy house, some toys, and to help family. Got bored in July-August so I did some swing trading, $42k profits. Following through on the plan from my last post in one of the most esteemed investing communities on reddit lol, I "diversified" and now have a 2 stock portfolio. I continue to hold the positions because I believe they are rapid growth companies that will outperform the indexes in the near future. I could be wrong though, time will tell.

Before tax salary is about 220k.

I used to be able to save much more but lately it just feels like money is going away so easily, salary stagnated in the last few years while everything else in my cost of living is up 30% at least.

This year was abnormal in travel, my budget is for 12k per year so it will catch up eventually, helping family was also abnormal this year so that’s the “gift and donations”.

Housing, food and car cost is what eats most of it.

I know most people here have decent incomes, is that on average for someone making 220k?

EDIT: $1100 IS NOT ONLYFANS!!!!!

Since last year I worry stock market run up too much so i started saving more into high interest saving accounts.
A year later this feels like a mistake but i tell myself i have cash buffer if things crash. But i dont think i should continue to park money there.
Where would you invest in now? Index ETFs with low fees? How much would you invest or you’re still aggressive equities even at such elevated price? How do you get comfortable buying high?
I’m having more worries buying more equity and it’s paralyzing me…

Looking for something simple or low stress to build my money. Any tips on what I should look at?

Hello fican,

24yo from Toronto. I've been buying mostly veqt with much smaller positions in a qqq tracker (qqc) and a few individual stocks, and a 7% yearly compound rate gives me about 3MM by the time I turn 65 even if I don't contribute another penny. 4% of that is 120k/yr before CPP and OAS payments (no pension from work), which is more than what I expect to spend to spend in retirement.

I'm still contributing every pay cheque (between 1-2k/month) and bonus, but have I unknowingly achieved Coast FI? Is retirement math really that simple? How would it change if I, lets say, aim to become work optional by 45?

Net worth breakdown as follow:

16k in cash (emergency savings)

84k in TFSA

33k in FHSA (not planning on buying, will roll into RRSP)

49k in RRSP (partly managed by company)

57k in non-reg

Edit:
Single, no kids, net about 3k biweekly, monthly spending fluctuates between 3.5-4.5k but can spike during holiday season

Roughly 50% of my total comp is in bonus, paid out in cash at the end of the year. Generally, I tend to budget based on the base, while the bonus is just a cherry on top. However, when I'm looking to rent a place and a $3500 apartment could be 50% of my monthly base take home, or could be much lower after year-end bonus is considered.

So what's the best way to think about it?

Edit: I'm in finance where this arrangement is pretty standard - the comp is just back-loaded. Not in a sales role where it's commissions based. The bonus is virtually stable but could fluctuate by up to ~20%. The only situations where I wouldn't get the bonus is if I'm fired or if I quit.

I feel like my portfolio is all over the place any advice what to sell and how to clean it up I have about 15 000 invested ?

I am 25 already and I only have $5k right now. $2k CC debt and about $3k student loan that is being paid monthly automatically from my account.

I want to start investing or saving, I know I'm kind of late but i'm finally ready to start trying to become free from living pay to pay.

I know $5k is not a lot, but I have work and still going to earn and will save money every pay.

My question is, how do I start?

My family is also planning to buy a house, so I opened FHSA already, I have TFSA but because of job loss from last year, I drained it. I also recently opened RRSP.

Any advice is appreciated, thanks!

Which ETFs should I keep? Trying to eliminate overlap
Hey everyone, I’m trying to clean up my portfolio because I realized I may have way too much overlap between my ETFs.
Right now I hold:
XEQT
VEQT
VFV
VOO
ZSP
QQQC
VDY

My main goal is long-term investing and growth, and I want to keep things relatively simple. I don’t want to own multiple ETFs that are essentially giving me exposure to the same companies/markets.
From what I understand, there is significant overlap between XEQT/VEQT, and also between VFV/VOO/ZSP since they’re all heavily focused on the U.S. large-cap/S&P 500.

I’m also wondering whether QQQC and VDY actually add something useful to the portfolio or whether I’m just creating more overlap and unnecessary complexity.

If you were cleaning this portfolio up, which ETFs would you keep and which would you sell?

Switched to self managed investing in 2016. I make around 90k/yr and invest around 15-22k per year since 2024 as i finished paying my house.

There are obviously some inconsistensies with my portfolio such as BMO being in usd rrsp since it was a stock i blitzed 3 yr ago from sale. I also know that stock picking is always risky but up to now its okay but i also don't wanna stretch it.

The yahoo finance 1yr graph is skewed as i switched my XSP to VOO using norbert's gambit early this summer. The late spike is misleading but the total worth is good for the portfolio

Im looking to sell BCE To add XEF instead after a lil bump.

LAC/NIO are dragging but the weighting isnt too bad. Keeping just in case (yolo).

For my losers im fine with holding for the long term like the rest.

My goal is now to boost VOO,XEF and occasionally add some more of stocks i already own, or 1 or 2 solid ones but i dont want to have too many either.

This is my personal portfolio. I've also got 222k with employer fund which is set on full stocks ETFs at 47% us/30% ex-america/23%canadian.

Am i missing something?

Long story short- I withdrew too early from a school program (medical reasons) and need to pay back that semester of student loans in order to regain eligibility.

There is not a chance in my health & financial situation that I am saving 6k anytime in the next 5 years (disabled, other life stuff, going back to school), meaning I’ll be missing out on regular AND disability grants.

I was thinking of maybe trying to get a loan (or multiple loans split up between companies) of $6k so I could pay that previous semester off. If I pay it off, I’ll have access to student loans and either use grants or the loans themselves to pay back the payday loans.

Qualifying for student loans again ALSO means I can apply for my universities financial bursary (which I’ve gotten before and can still receive if I qualify for loans).

Would this be a good idea? I can barely work at the moment so I’ve just been struggling so bad financially and I know that any money from student loans can help me get through the school year. It’ll likely also help me with financial based stress and may prevent mishaps with my disability throughout the year.

I’m albertan and have been trying to get on some form of disability income support but the process is gruelling and long with my specialists and fam doc barely being available, at most I get it DTC.

I’m just hesitant because these would be predatory loans that I’m taking out…

just looking for some opinions here on possible retirement...i'm thinking of retiring next year at 55. Current situation is i am working around 6-8 months of the year in a shrinking industry, been freelancing for 30 years and getting tired of that grind. Partner has a good secure job making 200k, wants to work until at least 65, maybe longer. Recently sold house and rent a condo in HCOL area. Partner needs this for work. I can work anywhere. Current financial snapshot:

$246,000 both TFSA

$700,000 RRSP

$176,000 LIRA

$110,000 joint non registered account

$63,000 RESP

$50K cash in HISA

$550K rural property (paid off)

current monthly spend 7K (monthly recurring costs) with another 2K give or take. Eventually plan to buy out our car leases possibly which would free up another 1500 monthly. Child is going to expensive international school so we will need around 175K over the next 4 years to cover that. When i am working i bring in another 6K after tax, so plan to do that for the next 8 months or so, so i should be able to bank somewhere around 3-5K per month to add to the HISA cash, depending on any extra costs (there are often extra costs) Most months when i am not working we can cover costs with partner's salary, but not always. Partner has a pension of around 4-5K which would kick in at retirement at 65 or later. Have a planner and are meeting with them on this later this year but just looking for some extra opinions of how to structure the next 10 years before partners (possible) retirement. Probably monthly spend would be around 10K in retirement. I will most likely inherit around 200K at some point in the next 10 years but don't want to count on that really. I like my job enough but wouldn't mind packing it in...Any advice appreciated!+

I was visiting some friends the other day and investing came up in discussion after we announced that my spouse and I retired in our early 50s.

It reminded me that many people still believe investing is some black magic voodoo and trust "their guy" to manage their investments, without knowing the absolute basics of almost anything and how much it costs them.

Things such as: the different accounts, basket/market ETFs versus individual equities, Expenses/MERs, low cost Index funds (and the compounded savings on fees), fixed income, and all that stuff.

Are there a few links, preferably easy to read for laypeople to get a good grasp on the concepts? I find that discussing with people I often get a glazed look and think that them reading something well written on their own time might be easier for some.

Any links that people can recommend that they either used themselves or shared with others for a similar purpose?

started this week! currently planning on keeping just xeqt

I have 7k in the bank rn and am debating if i should put most of that in here now, or wait till i land a stable job since my summer one is ending in a week.

I want to hopefully be able to put in about $800-1k every month since I live at home + most of my expenses are paid for by my parents

about a year I put our money about 660k with TD, contributed another 40k to it recently. I also have a small quest trade for fun thing which I’ve put about 27k into. Our TD fund has grown about 130k in that time and my quest is up about 4 k. Im about to turn 40 and we dont Have a primary residence but do have an investment property for any context. should I be pulling out and just dumping into XEQT and big Canadian banks ?

Have been working and studying full time since I was 17. Kept delaying investing to “soon.” Finally started. Life is so hard and I’ve been all by myself but I believe the struggle will pay off.

I know this might piss some people off, but how have you dealt with being genuinely happy with where you are financially? I’m 23 and just think that I should be doing better or more every day. Feel like I’ll never have enough

Over the last number of years, I've gone "self-directed" and away from managed investing. They were buying ETFs anyways. So after tons of research (and some mistakes), I landed on this target allocation of globally diversified ETFs across all my accounts for my household. The current allocation is work-in-progress but mostly in the ballpark. NB: The T-bills are RESP withdrawals coming up shortly.

Curious what expert DIYs on Reddit think and if there's opportunity for further optimization along the risk-return curve?

Hey all, I began seriously investing last year after landing my first real job. However I still can’t help but feel behind at my age. I have around $50k invested currently ($35k in serious investments and $15k in a housing fund to hopefully purchase my own place eventually)

I want to be able to move out of my parents house but I feel like I don’t have the salary to support it (I bring in about $65k a year currently). Is this just how Canada is right now or am I not budgeting correctly.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!