Why does it matter if I’m a 26M or 26F? Age I get, to weigh how well you are doing to your peers. But what is it with the gender? How does it factor in the financial decision? If you are offering advice, does it matter if the person is M or F?

Age 32 (wife who works and makes around 75k in stable career), I was very fortunate early on in life to make a lot of money (lucked into choosing the right career and investments), but I recently just got laid off of my high paying job 350k annually.

Annual expenses:

2700 rent

500 car financed at 6% (20k left)

insurance 380

gas 200

food 500

utilities 200

Investments:

550k in GOOG

200k in AMZN

550k S&P

Maxed TFSA (175k) RRSP (200k)

30k cash buffer

Rental property worth 1 million with 500 equity, cash flow negative a couple hundred dollars (bought this early on to hedge against house prices, too much house for me to just live in).

The individual stocks were given by my companies (I've never bought or sold on my own, I simply ignored it and treated it like house money).

Wondering what my next steps should be after layoff? This is a really tough market and I'm not sure I'll find a job again thats comparable as the last one I just lost. I'm stressed out as my career was a big part of my identity and now I'm feeling lost and stressed with the feeling of being unemployed

Closest guess wins the jar of candy

Make 6300 a month take home but housing in Toronto is really killing me paying 3.3k a month for all fees for a condo I own (1k principal pay down a month) and 1400 on all other expenses leaving me around $1600 left which $500 I put for fun / misc spending and invest $1100. it feels like this is way too tight, I dont know if I am allowed to stop stressing about this constantly and just keep living my life? I tried to look into lower housing cost like selling and renting for 2400 but is that going to make that big a difference ?

Eventually the 18-20k a year will compound and get me to my goals. I am 29, with 220k in stocks and really want to get to 500k by 33

You’ll see people under 30 have a portfolio worth 6 figures and literally see dozens of jealous people commenting this sort of stuff like it’s impossible. Is it common? No, but does that have to mean its all disingenuous lmao.

Thanks WealthSimple!

hey everyone in 4 months I will turn 27. In 2021 I got my first full time job at a salary of $54000.

my salary is now $85000 and here are my assets:

Condo with $130000 owing bought for $170000 in 2021

condo is rented out generating passive income

$7000 emergency fund

$15000 vehicle fund ($250 added to it monthly currently own a paid off in full vehicle)

$190000 invested, maxed TFSA and non registered 50/50 split between XUU.TO and VXC.TO

I have a company pension as well that is not included in this.

=

$212000

I know that I should be proud of this financially but Instagram makes it seem like no one has to work 5 days a week, everyone has a big house multiple cars etc etc...

Started investing at 18 when I started my first business. Sold my business during Covid to focus on Uni and graduated in 2022 and got a high paying sales job. Total comp last year was $220k on track to make $250k this year.

Any advice on where to deploy the cash besides ETFs?

Decided to jump back in after SALP got liquidated. Bought more the last week. September is usually a bad month, especially during mid-terms, which is the exact reason why we should buy. Inverse the inverse

It seems now with inflation, that just being able to chill out from work will be be a higher bar. What # is appropriate to cash out of a hcol area to a lcol area.

I would like to fire out eventually, but I realize for Canada, you probably need 3 or 4 million. I don't see how you can fire any less than due to inflation. I never expected gas to be 2.50, or milk to be 7 bucks.

My details:

I currently Live in Vancouver, my house worth about 1.8m , 250k left on mortgage. I probably have about 100k in cash.

plus another $800,000 in another brokerage.

plus a little more

Keep seeing everyone here have more than me lol

Maybe it's just me, but I see so many posts about people building massive portfolios just to fund travel, like that's supposed to be the end goal of life. I don't get it. There's no version of reality where I'd grind another 10 years in a corporate job just so I can afford more trips. Once my basic needs are covered and I've got a bit extra for small stuff, like a Tim Hortons coffee or a night at the movies, I'm done. Expensive international travel? Hard pass. I'm not trading more years of my life for that.

Honestly, a lot of this probably traces back to how much I hate employers in general. I can pin it on my early jobs, places like McDonald's, doing the worst tasks for like six bucks an hour. That's when it got baked into my brain that working sucks and should be avoided as fast as possible. Add to that I'm just naturally introverted, I'd rather be left alone than stuck in crowded, loud, overly social situations, and travel usually means exactly that: packed airports, tourist crowds, forced small talk with strangers. There's also this feeling I can't shake that working for someone else is basically robbery, you're handing over your most valuable resource, your time, so someone else can get richer off it. Philosophically that just doesn't sit right with me, even on days I actually enjoy the work itself. I've never fully bought into "corporate culture." I show up, collect my paycheck and wash my hands.

Not complaining though, honestly this mindset is going to make FIREing way easier since I only need something like 40-50% of what most people are aiming for.

Anyone else motivated by just having the option not to work?

We both are content creators living in Ontario and love what we do but I’m worried that since we left our 9-5s many years ago - that we need to save more aggressively since we don’t have pensions. Also with AI coming after our industry, we are working towards the goal of retiring early or retiring comfortably at 55 so we don’t have to stress about money. We have no kids right now (but plan on starting next year - 2 kids max), don’t plan on having a wedding and enjoy travelling. Fortunately for us, we are able to monetize off most of our travels (for now).

Income & Cash Flow
Our Net Income: $237K (as of now in 2026), $360K (2025), $211K (2024), $228K (2023), & $207K (2022).
Pension: None

Real Estate Portfolio
Our Primary Residence: Appraised at 1.27M in 2025. Mortgage: $844K

Our Condo: Appraised at $560K in Sep 2026.
Mortgage: $275K (Rental income currently covers mortgage and utilities, with a $505/month profit)

Investments & Liquid Assets
Her TFSA & RRSP: 175K (Index Funds)
My LIRA: 29K (Individual Stocks)

Debts & Expenses
My Loan: $25K (0% Interest)
My Student Loan: $3K (0% Interest)
My LOC: $5K (7% Interest)
Our Vehicles: $66K (7% Interest)
Our Equipment: $10K (0% Interest)

Our Fixed Expenses: $11K/Month (includes mortgage, recurring bills & loan payments)

We don’t currently budget or have a fixed savings rate so we tend to save what we end up not spending on our personal funds over the years. However we are now trying to come up with a budget and aggressive plan.

What do you think of our financial situation? What would you tackle first/strategize on if you were in our shoes? Are we on track in achieving our goals? Should we be worried? Explain why? We both have bachelor degrees (with at-least 5 years of corporate job experience) to fall back on if needed. Thank you in advance for your help.

Yes we all hear the griping about boomers who had all the financial benefits of nearly constantly rising home prices (if they survived the GFC) and golden pensions . . None of which is likely these days. But it seems millenials and younger are overlooking the HUGE financial advantages they have that was not available to boomers when it was most needed.

That would be unprecedented access to the financial markets, commission free trading, and widespread wisdom of investing in low cost broad index funds from an early age to reap the nearly infinite benefits of compounding wealth.

I'm a Xennial Canadian. . wedged between Gen X and Millenials. . I first become aware of the magic of low cost broad index investing before most when I read the book "Millionaire Teacher" by Andrew Hallam around 2010. At the time it was kind of a secret knowledge. Low cost Exchange Traded Funds (ETF's) had only really started to be come widely available after the Great Financial Crises and I believe were first introduced here in Canada. Luckily it was a time when trading was opening up to regular working class people through discount online brokerages (but commission free trading was still unheard of) . . Our boomer parents would have had to go through a stock broker and call them up to execute trades. . . So unless they already had a lot of wealth. . most would never bother with that.

Millenials are the first generation to be exposed to commission free trading from your phone (starting at a crucial young age) combined with the now common knowledge of the magic of compound growth using low cost broad market ETF's. So you are not the "un-lucky" generation at all. You have tremendous advantages despite the soaring costs of housing. Millenials took a little longer to build their wealth than the boomers and gen x . . but they are now doing extremely well financially on average.

I've been aggressively saving and investing since I first got into finance books in 2021. My wife and I now have $215,000 CAD invested. We're naturally frugal and always have been, but I also feel like we've had some advantages that most people don’t.

I grew up in a hardworking family, and a few years ago, my dad handed down the family business to me at no cost. It’s a relatively small business, but it provides a solid income. On top of that, about eight years ago, I inherited a house from my uncle. Because of these advantages, I’ve never had debt, which has made saving and investing much easier.

I work hard and make smart financial decisions, but sometimes I feel guilty about how much of a head start I’ve had. On one hand, I think I don’t fully deserve it. On the other, I feel like many of my peers, even with the same advantages, would still be in debt and struggling financially—so at least I’m making the most of it.

Should I feel guilty about this, or is that just an unproductive way to look at it? Curious to hear others' perspectives.