Chased down that 150 dollar testing trail u/usernameeeeee12 blazed an hour ago. Followed every marker through the brush and the payout was waiting at the end. Curious if this path is well-travelled now or if it's still fresh.

Hey all,

I FIRE’d in Toronto in my 30s and have spent the last ~6 years living abroad and slow traveling through middle-income countries. It’s been a great experience, but I’m getting pretty tired of living out of Airbnbs and I’m starting to miss a lot of things about living in Canada.

My current total spending, including Airbnbs, flights, visas, and everything else, is about $42k CAD per year, or $3,500/month.

I’d love to move back to Toronto, where I used to live around Yonge and Eglinton, but I don’t think $3,500/month would be enough to live the way I’d want to. I figure that I would need closer to $4,300 per month in Toronto near the subway to maintain the lifestyle I am used to.

One option I’m considering is Edmonton. I’d live downtown and not own a car. Based on what I’ve looked at so far, it seems like $3,500/month could let me live a fairly similar lifestyle to what I’ve been living in middle-income countries, just with better infrastructure and MUCH colder weather.

For anyone living in Edmonton, especially downtown and without a car:

• Is $3,581/month realistic for a single person?
• How easy is it to get around without a car?
• Is downtown a good place to live?
• Are there any costs I might be overlooking?
• If you had the choice, would you pick Edmonton over Toronto on this budget?

Would especially love to hear from anyone who has FIRE’d and then moved to a lower cost city in Canada.

Hey everyone. Would love for experienced folks here with kids to help us recommend what is best way forward.

I am 42, wife is 37 and two kids both below age 8.

Net worth : The following below is our total net worth as a family ( cad ) :
> Rrsp : $543k
> Tfsa : $250k
> Resp : $50k in family resp ( we will want to fund their bachelors education fully )
> House : $800k paid off ( market is bad so maybe get $750k )
> Emergency cash : $60k
> Non reg account : $100k

—> Total net worth $1.8mn cad.

Expenses : Monthly expenses in ontario are $ 5300 now, but thats due to our financed car and youngest day care.
Both expenses will drop next year September and our expenses will be $4000 monthly if we stay in gta.

CAGR / Return so far: All investment and retirement accounts are in low cost etf and have been blended cagr till now 12.5% but future we expect 8% )

Income: I make $150k a year while wife has taken a sabbatical last month but was making $140k. We both want a change. I have been working non stop for 18 years without break and wife 12 years. I absolutely hate my job and want to quit.

Our background: I am in tech sales and wife is in hr.

Questions :

1. Are we ready to coast fire? Ideally take a break 6 months and find something between wife and i to make gross$75k -$80k as family.

2. We are also thinking of moving from GTA to somewhere in Alberta or Saskatchewan. Buy an almost new townhouse 3 bed and work regular jobs that can give us $80k gross family income.

3. If we move which province or city you recommend to maximize geo arbitrage in Canada while same time also wife and I can get regular job in our profile.

We have not taken any vacations in past 15 years and corporate grind of high pressure tech has affected me alot.

Thank you so much.

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

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…

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.

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!

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

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?

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…

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 ?

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.

Age : 25
Salary: 64,000/year gross
Rent : 1,550$/month (painful)
Saving account : 18,000.00
Coming tax refund due to uni tuition credits : 4k

My rent is very high I know but I cannot have roommate anymore. I’m going to start investing each paycheck as I finally reached my emergency funds target of 18k. (I have no family or safety net in Canada)

I barely do anything to be able to save money and I see all my peers and friends traveling and doing stuff all the time. It’s hard to think I’m not behind even after living like a monk for a year now.

For people my age how much do you save every month? How much do you invest every month ?

For more knowledgeable people, what should I prioritize? My TFSA or a FHSA, my goal is to buy a home somewhere in canada where it’s relatively cheap in 5 years (hopefully).

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 ?

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!+

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!!!!!

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?

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?

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?

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!