It'll be great to have a post like this by /u/hopefulfican on a sticky on this sub at all times. It's basically a "free" way to get some extra returns on your portfolio

Hey all,

My 2 kids are enrolled in post-secondary. Oldest in last year and youngest has 2 more years. I've had some good luck with the investments in the RESP coupled with a pair of smart-cookies who have earned about $50K in scholarships over the past several years. That said, the RESP is currently over-funded.

There is still a decent sized amount of about $15K left in the EAP (Gov Grant) money along with a large balance in the capital portion. I've had both kids open an FHSA this year which will give them $8K in contribution room. I was thinking that I would split the remaining EAP in the RESP between the two of them before the end of this year -- that money is counted towards their 2024 income, but then have them contribute the same amount to their FHSA which would effectively lower their income by the same amount. We can then start investing this amount to grow what they need for a down payment.

The remaining capital amount can then be withdrawn tax-free at any time to fund school over the next few years as needed. Anyone see any problems with this plan?

Has anyone gotten life insurance for their kids? is it cheaper to get it at a young age?

My sone is 18m and I tried to get a few quotes but it doesnt seem to make sense. Wanting to see what your experiences are with this.

For those who are five years or less from their estimated target date, do you use something like the hourly living wage for your minimum amount saved to see if you're at least in a good ballpark? For example, using the hourly living wage for a high cost of living area like Toronto (@ $26.00/hr according to 2023 calculations) and assuming a 40 hr work week, you would need to pay yourself $54080/yr. In other words, each adult in a 2-adult & 2-child household would need to have at least $1,460,160 saved in order to have a living wage in early retirement (using a 3.7% SWR). Of course holding the assumptions that the family is debt free and has maxed out RESPs already.

The above calculations don't include vacation spending, so there would need to be a separate bucket for that. Granted, the living wage calculations take into account costs related to having to go to work, which RE people wouldn't incur, so there's a bit of a buffer built in that way.

This is all a long-winded question about your thought process for determining minimum amount to save. TIA

Hi

I'm about to implement the smith manoeuvre. I got everything set up to start Jan 1st. I opened a separate checking account to track everything.

However I'm having difficulties wrapping my head around the interest capitalization. I understand how to do it but at some point the capital paid on the mortgage and available to reborrow will almost be the same as the interest owed on the heloc.

My mortgage was originally 436k. I will have about 75k to borrow on the heloc on Jan 1st. That would cost about 4,875$ per year interest or 403$ monthly.

My original payment on the mortgage is about 2,600$ and about 600$ goes to the capital.

So it turns out I won't be able to invest much after that and most of the capital free up will go to paying the interest.

Am I missing something?

Thanks

Hi everyone. I wanted to get people's opinions on my math and if I'm missing anything. Here's the short summary:

• Location: GTA
• Family: Married (both 32 y/o) with 2 toddlers and want to have another baby in 2026
• Income: 300k (200k me, 100k wife). I'm in tech, she's a permanent teacher
• Mortgage: $420k @ 5.2% until June 2026
• Home value: 900k
• Total Retirement nest egg: 140k
• Total Monthly Net Income: 10k
• Total Monthly Expenses: Around 6k

I make 200k per year, but about 70k of it is RSU's. The company is an SP500 company that is doing well and has been around for 40 years. Whenever my RSU's vest, I sell immediately and either pay down the mortgage or invest in XEQT. I treat these quarterly RSU vestings like bonuses, so that's why I say our net monthly income is only 10k/month. The months where the RSU vest, monthly income is more like ~20k for that month.

We want to have another baby (ideally born mid-2026). With 3 kids, my wife would go part time, probably 60% work load (3/5 days a week).

My strategy is that I'm currently paying down the mortgage hard since it's at 5.2% and we are relatively risk-adverse people. We sleep better knowing our debts and monthly expenses are low rather than our investments being high and our debts also being high. I fully understand the lost wealth in paying down a 5.2% mortgage vs investing in a diverse ETF, and I am comfortable making that trade-off. I'm confident we can pay the mortgage down to around 300k at renewal (June 2026) when the future baby would be born.

From there, at age 34 with a 300k mortgage and probably 175k in our nest egg, I'm torn at what to do. I can either continue pounding the mortgage while partially funding retirement and have the house paid off in our late 30's. This would mean our expenses are very low while my wife works part-time and we're in the most expensive stage of life (our 40's with 3 young, growing children). This would give us immense peace of mind to not have a mortgage while she is part-time and our kids are growing. From there, we can shovel everything into investments from our late 30's until around 55 which is our FIRE age goal.

I did the math on the difference between paying off the house in the next few years and then investing hard vs investing hard and not paying off the mortgage until our early 50's. It looks like early mortgage payoff would cost us 300-500k in inflation-adjusted future wealth. ($3M vs $2.6M). However this also means during our entire 30's and 40's, we'd have a mortgage payment (3k/month) + 3 kids. For some reason I hate this. My job is relatively secure and I'm very good at what I do, but at the end of the day, I'm in tech. Markets change, jobs come and go. I'm confident I'd be able to land another well-paying role, but if I'm being honest I don't know if I'd be able to land another 200k+ role. I sort of see my current position as an opportunity to make huge headwinds towards FI because I don't know if my income is sustainable for the future. This is why I'm so locked in on lowering expenses (mortgage payoff).

Our retirement expenses would probably be around 50-75k/year. I am very comfortable retiring with 2.6M + my wife's pension (which would be lower because of working part-time for several years. But, still a teacher's pension which is very good). We're low-risk, frugal people who like low expenses and high income.

So I guess my question is, is it crazy to forfeit 300-500k in future wealth so my wife can be a part-time stay at home mom if it would make her happy and we would still be able to retire comfortably? I'd essentially be trading away a future $3M inflation-adjusted nest egg for a $2.6M nest egg, with the benefit being no mortgage payment from my late 30's and on. I'm sorry if this is a silly question. I've been running the numbers for weeks and I just can't help be think I'm missing something and it's stressing me out. Thank you all in advance.

I'm in the process of completing a re-read of the ERN SWR blogs and have been looking at his toolbox spreadsheet, particularly the cape adjusted SCR calculations. However I am unsure how to approach imputing our VGRO holdings into the Parameters tab. How are others approaching this? Simply as an 80/20 split between stocks and 10 year bonds or are you populating custom series based on the allocations? If custom how does that work? Thanks

VGRO current allocations:

U.S. Total Market Index ETF 36.82%
FTSE Canada All Cap Index ETF 24.17%
FTSE Developed All Cap ex North America Index ETF 13.68%
Canadian Aggregate Bond Index ETF 11.70%
FTSE Emerging Markets All Cap Index ETF 5.65%
Global ex-U.S. Aggregate Bond Index ETF (CAD-hedged) 4.03%
U.S. Aggregate Bond Index ETF (CAD-hedged) 3.91%

I am at the end of my mat leave and I'm a single mom of 2.

I've had to use money from my savings so essentially I am starting all over again (36). My income 75k annually. In Alberta

During my mat leave I've also had to max out both Credit Cards to stay afloat and had alot of missed payments and my credit took a BIG HIT!

I'd like pointers on how to rebuilt credit as I'd love to purchase us a home.

I'm currently kinda following Dave Ramsey's strategie.

• build a 1k starter emergency fund
• paid off M/C
• paid Visa to be up to date and below 30% utilization
• I have ~11,560 in autoloan left
• Kids have RESP (that I'm considering pausing to contribute for now until I'm back on my feet)
• I plan to open a FHSA before year end

My question is I will be getting ~15k and plan to put 8k when I open the FHSA. With the other 7k (believe me I'm fighting hard not to go shopping) I was thinking of putting a portion to next years contribution room for FHSA, adding to the emergency fund (I plan to put 6k - 12k as my monthly expenses are low. I thankfully don't pay much in rent as I split cost with sibling), put towards paying off my auto loan, or my managed TFSA account.

Also for the FHSA is it better to be managed or HISA? I thought about DIY investing but I don't fully understand it.

Thank you guys so much for any advice I'd really like to get started on my fire journey. I know 36 may still be young but I also feel like it's already too old!

I (28F) am in a fortunate position that I have maxed out my TFSA and RRSP and have an emergency fund of 30,000. I also have a house with a 360,000 mortgage.

Besides this I have 50,000 sitting in a WS cash account and I’m debating what to do with it.

Some factors in mind are:

• I’d like to have kids in the next 5 years and stay at home for 1 year with each kid (take EI/no company top up)
• eventually buy a larger house in the GTA/be closer to family

Should I be paying down the mortgage, making a non-reg account so that the funds are more accessible, something else ?

Thanks

I'm trying to understand if my plan for retirement makes sense or if I'm making a critical mistake. For example, say I'm planning on saving $20k per year for 25 years. At an estimated 5% ROI, I'll have approximately $1M after the 25 years. What I'm confused about is how does inflation affect that $1M? Basically, using a present value calculator and an estimated 2% inflation per year, that $1M will only feel like $600k in today's dollars. $600k is not enough for me to retire with so do I need to keep saving until the present value of my savings is $1M (~$1.7M)? or am I missing something?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/canada-post-strike-benefits-cut-1.7395774

I read this story about a Canada Post employee who can't afford his cancer meds because his drug benefits were suspended due to the strike. It's a horrible story but it's a reminder that we need our own health insurance that's independent of employment. I have a personal health insurance plan I pay almost $200 a month for. Sometimes it seems like I'm throwing money away but then I see articles like this.

Even if you're healthy, you should think about getting a personal health insurance plan before you FIRE.

Hi everyone,

I need some advice on managing my portfolio.

• Let's say $1.5M CAD in hedged tech stocks in a taxable account
  • $1M was the principal I invested in 2013
  • $500K is profit (50% gain in 2013).

My main concern:
I’m worried that the CAD will weaken significantly, especially with potential volatility in the US (e.g., a Trump-related market impact). Since my portfolio is CAD-hedged, this might affect my returns.

I’m considering moving to USD stocks on IBKR for better exposure.

Questions:

1. Is my CAD-hedged position too risky in light of potential CAD weakness?
2. Is it wise to sell my holdings and pay taxes before moving to IBKR
3. Is there a way to avoid triggering taxes?

My family has a trust that is currently with a big bank’s private banking. The private banker and fund manager are absolute sleazeballs and have cost us at least a million in potential returns (if we just invested in S&P), not to mention their insane management fees.

However, my mom is not familiar with index investment, and seems to be unable to understand. And, because the bankers are very nice to my mom and always take her out to dinner, my mom thinks they are her friends, and have her best interest at heart. After many heated discussions and hurt feelings, I have finally convinced my mom enough as to allow me to move “my portion” of the money to another account, even if I am not able to access it right now at my young age (late 20s).

But here comes my question. Yes, I am familiar with index investing in small amounts. The money that I have made are invested in wealthsimple, and seem like peanuts to 3 actual million. Is it even wise to put all 3 million in wealthsimple? Will they be able to keep my money in the trust?

Should I split it up between multiple banks??? Because what if the one bank goes bankrupt? Also what index fund do I buy? I am so overwhelmed. My mom is already eyeing at me like “ha, bet you have nowhere better to put this money” and I desperately need help.

Edit: yes the bankers are sleazy, I will die on this hill. They spend half the time spreading gossip about the personal lives of other private bankers in their firm, so that we will not go to them. Once, I merely mentioned that a good friend is in at a high frequency/market making firm (with no intention of trading with him) and they immediately started attacking my friend’s career and anyone would be stupid to do high frequency trading instead of trading with them. And much much more…..

Based on the 4% rule, I’d only need $450K to cover $1.5K in monthly expenses ($1.5K * 300). My mortgage is fully paid, and my wife’s income alone could more than cover our shared expenses in case things get tough and I can't find another job but that shouldn't happen.

Our low monthly expenses are a result of splitting bills, which helps keep things manageable. While it may still feel a bit early for a completely comfortable retirement, this situation could allow me to step away from full-time work, pursue side hustles, or take extended sabbaticals.

If you were in a similar position, would you stop working full-time to prioritize freedom or continue working and investing to build a larger cushion? What do you think would be an ideal retirement amount for someone who values financial independence and doesn’t plan to significantly increase their lifestyle?

Edit

Using data from last five years the total monthly payments never exceeded three grand the average is around 2500 even with the 600/month mortgage, yes we are that frugal

My Income 140k wife 80k we are both 40

My wife also has a decent chunk of cash 180K she doesn't plan to retire for the next 7 to 10 years. The question is mostly about the theoretical possibility to cover shelter and food, basic FIRE requirement. Of course I'm not planning to sit on the sofa for the next 50 years but in order for me to take extended sabbaticals I have to assume it would be very difficult to find another job whenever I feel ready to go back, so I'm just going with the worst case scenario.

As a matter of fact I've been FI in the last 3 years, sum of all expenses were less than interest earned without my wife's contribution taken into account. Of course the stock market could crash but it only I have 75% of assets in it so the remaining 125 K could get me through the first 5-7 years but yes it's tight

It's officially been 15 years since the TFSA was introduced in 2009. How much do you have in your TFSA, and how has that changed over the years? And what do you invest in?

I know it's raw, but I just want a brainstorm of ideas, of toughts, because I would want to be, but I have no idea what to do, how to begin with what, etc.
I'm a student btw so I can't be full-time on anything. And I don't ve any clear small job yet.

I feel like i have a lot of ways to make funds somehow, but I’m caught between a lot of different things.

I’ve been learning full stack development and I want to do more data science, so I started that free online HarvardX course on it. My plan is to learn enough to do freelance webdev before getting into data science. Another option was making a roblox game with a friend who can 3d model, but i’d need to invest a lot into advertising.

I have some experience with self employment + food handling work. I made 400 when i was like 14 off of youtube before i outgrew the content i was making. I still have an account with 6000 subs. I could probably force myself to continue that line of content despite my resentment for it and find the time to do so. Or i could try a new one and face disengaging my really old and equally gone audience instead of building on a relevant one. Or i could content farm.

This option is a combination of the first two. My friend’s into tech and has made like a thousand this month from A.I video farms on different accounts. I could copy the idea with her support and speedrun learning basic algorithms over winter break and try to make something similar and spend half-days everyday on it. I’m not sure how long it would take to nail the basics.

Fourth, book writing. This one’s kind of slow, but you ever see those cringey “in love with the alpha” books online? I got paid 14 bucks to write 3 chapters once. I’m a fast enough writer i could make good enough money if i spent my every waking hour writing werewolf book for those Chinese ebook companies. I have 2 knocking down my email rn for my resumé bc of samples/previous work. After a while, i have enough money from ghostwriting ebook chapters, make my own shitty booktok book (the plot’s already done and it has enough popular tropes that are adaptable) and advertise it with the money from that. Booktokers will read anything and i got the plot ran by a few and they loved it. After the book’s done, spend everything else on tiktok ads, and the plot’s outrageous enough to market itself.

Fifth, art comms. I actually have a comm i haven’t done for 2 yrs for a friend for 20 bucks. They live in the u.s. i have no excuse tbh. Maybe im js waiting for the value of CAD to drop again so the 20 USD becomes 40CAD.

The issue is i don’t have focus and keep jumping all over them. I feel like theyre all good ideas. I’m willing to take online marketing courses for the book one. I js want a job i don’t have to bus out in wretched weather for.

I am returning to Canada. While away, I did pay into the social security systems of countries that have an agreement with Canada for social security equalization, hence my understanding is I was accumulating <<years>> towards OAS eligibility in Canada (but not accumulating CPP) during these stints abroad. They span across 3 different countries... I'm a salaried worker in a very niche domain with skills that warrant that countries <<import me >> for a while. Just so people understand I am not flip-flopping like this for shits and giggles.

My question.

Do I need to file any papers to formalize this? I'm 20 years+ away from OAS. Am I supposed to hang on to foreign income tax reports all this time to prove this? Or what documentation am I supposed to hang on to? Some countries only require me to hang on to tax reports for 10 years, others for 7 years for audits.

I think its 40 yrs between 18 and 65 for full eligibility ? So 40 yrs out of 47 available. I have tallied 5 years abroad, but already ditched one of the foreign tax reports as its 11 yrs old and this stuff was flying miles over my head in my early thirties.

So my thoughts, maybe I should only worry about keeping the documentation if ever I realize I am moving towards 7 yrs total abroad ? Yes I do expect my services will be required abroad in the future. .. I struggle to find employers wanting me to stay in Canada considering my skill set.

At little about my situation

• 29M going through a divorce

• Bought a house for 1,440,000 in October 2022

• Wife did not work and had a crazy spending addicition which racked up all of our lines of credit, credit cards, etc and hid it from me. This is what triggered the divorce process.

• House value tanked and we just sold for 1,290,000.

• after I calculated everything spent, including down payment I made myself, land transfer tax, interest on the mortgage, her bullshit spending, paying all the joint debt and the support I paid in a lump sum, I’m at a 486,000 loss in 4 years.

All in all I’ll be walking away with about $87,000 to start my life over.

On the bright side my 2023 Income was $300,000 after taxes and expenses (Real Estate Agent).

I’ve reduced my expenses from $11,000/ month to $3500 (rent, phone bill, internet, and groceries)

My question is should I

1. reinvest back into the business and try to up the income to cover the loss from the turbulent marriage. I deal in a very niche sector of real estate, land assemblies and acquisition for developers and was thinking of going back into residential real estate as almost a side gig.

2. Start investing, I’ve never invested in my life, was caught up in the idea of the home being a nest egg and that was my investment.

3. A third option that I haven’t thought of and someone here could suggest.

The goal now is to minimize my expenses as much as possible, and take a couple years to rebuild. I can reduce my expenses to $600 a month by moving back in with my parents but that’s a hard pill to swallow.

I just feel a bit lost on what I should do so I thought I’d ask strangers on the internet.

Any advice is appreciated!

Thank you

Really, just because I wanted a single graph to look at. Contributions to my previous employer's retirement account started back in early-2003 at $8.40/paycheque. I had no idea what I was doing, but kept contributing, and increasing over time. There's a little nostalgia, looking back, as I learned certain concepts and applied them to what I was doing; to life events (e.g., using the HBP while buying my condo in 2009, job loss and pause in contributions in 2015, etc.). Recently I passed two milestones. > $400k in total invested assets, as well as total investment returns exceeding net contributions.

https://preview.redd.it/t3muycrs7y1e1.png?width=1881&format=png&auto=webp&s=eda9fd4f50129289d2cf4388f733e9e2b8aa8ff2

I retired last summer, so 2024 will be my first full year without employment income—just dividends and capital gains. I’m looking for advice on optimizing my situation, especially from others in the FIRE community.

Background:

• Portfolio: $5M, leveraged by $200K.
• Living on margin this year (IBKR, ~5% interest). My reasoning: as long as margin rates stay below expected returns (7%), it’s better to hold and not sell.
• 2023 returns: +35% YTD (heavily exposed to the US market).

Tax Issue:

The 15% US withholding tax on dividends is non-refundable unless I owe at least $7K in Canadian taxes, meaning I could lose that credit forever.

I modeled three scenarios to assess costs, using Wealthsimple’s tax simulator and my own calculations. Costs include taxes, interest, and opportunity costs:

Assumptions:
• Margin rate: 4.9%
• Average return: 7%
• 50K in dividends annually (can’t change).

Conclusion: Scenario 3 seems optimal, with the lowest total cost. Even if US withholding taxes are unrecoverable, keeping the portfolio fully invested appears better as long as market returns outpace the margin rate.

Risks:
• Market downturns could amplify losses.
• Long-term compounding works both ways (for investments and margin debt).

Questions:
• Should I sell gradually (e.g., year by year) to recover some US withholding tax, or stay fully leveraged? • How do others in FIRE manage taxes and leverage in a situation like this?

Would love your insights—thanks!

That’s it, I’m doing it. I’m writing this from a lovely little coffee shop and it hit me that this is where I want to spend my mornings - weekends and weekdays instead of working at a job that is no longer challenging me and that I no longer have passion for. I’ve been hesitant to pull the plug for two reasons, 1) despite the above my job is moderately high paying and not very demanding and I could never find myself in this situation again, 2) I have not identified a meaningful way to spend a big chunk of my free time.

I realize now that if I don’t put energy into #2, I’ll wake up ten years from now still on the fence. Hence the title of this post, giving myself a timeline to get this figured out.

Financially, I believe I’m fine: -NW: $1.75M -Home: 700K HCOL -Debt: 0 -49F -single no dependents -annual cost of living: $35K

Plan -Work 1 more year, invest ~$90K -Take 4-6 months off -explore low cost hobbies OR -Get PT job or volunteer for structure OR -Find FT job that challenges me -not interested in travel

Does this make any sense? Thoughts welcome. Thanks in advance.

I recently passed $1M in net worth thanks to the latest stock market rally combined with a sprinkling of crypto gains. Like many of you, I don't discuss finances with anyone else IRL, but I wanted an outlet for this, and also to hear your stories!

I'm in my early 30s and hoping to retire before I'm 50. The calculations show that I should be able to hit my FIRE number (around $2.5M invested) in 10-12 years, with conservative estimates. I don't really feel any different hitting the magic $1M number, but feel like I should celebrate it somehow.

Do you all celebrate your milestones? If so, how?

Hello. I currently have 2 rental properties with approximately 120k and 170k remaining on the mortgages. Each property is valued conservatively at 700k each. I have a lot of equity in the rentals and net about 3.5k monthly after everything is accounted for.

I can afford higher mortgage payments for these properties as the income justifies it. Both are in my personal name so I would be able to use the re-fi money tax free in order to invest. The idea would be to take the money and park it in self directed investments until another real estate opportunity presents itself.

The one issue I have encountered in the past was that being self employed always seems to be a risk for the banks and getting money out tends to be an issue.

72k in salary and 114k in rental income annually. I think it makes sense to take out money since a have a large cushion. Is there thoughts on this or am I missing anything g that would make me not want to re-fi?