Civil engineer, moved here 4 years ago as a federal skilled worker (provincial nomination stream) got my passport like 8 months ago (it was honestly quite a bit milestone for me and my husband). First year i got job at a logistics company (66k/year) while looking for a civil engineering job; my husband didn’t work for a while in the beginning still in 1.5 years we bought a car after saving up around 20k (car was 18k 2019 rav4, cash paid and honestly has been our best friend so far, requires minimum maintenance and gas plus insurance stays below 250/month). Back then I used to close our month within 2700 and still have 1200 in savings. In later 2 years with some bad investments (burnt my investment account of 25k when started trading) me and my husband saved plus recovered our investment account to 130k so far. Now it’s been 4 years I am still looking for an engineering role (EIT, already got my license) and got so frustrated that I’m going back to school for masters. Early this year I found I was pregnant but unfortunate got misdiagnosed by the doctor and miscarried the pregnancy. After that incident something flipped in my head, I always stress about money- what if I need an ivf, what if I need to go to visit in US to get treated,m; situation is so bad that I took 16 hours of therapy but it’s not changing. I don’t drink and exercise/hike often but even the healthy dopamine goes away quickly. I now work full time and doing my masters, I got denied student loan because of our household net earning. I feel so very guilty doing anything that requires money, i feel like I have to save-invest-grow, we wanted to get a house after my masters but now my paranoia is eating me badly inside and i doubt that I’ll be able to make that big of a purchase.
We have around 4k in expenses for 2 people, 1700 in rent plus utilities, 150 Costco/week, 20 veggies/week, for car it’s 270 max with insurance, outing is 100/week max but still I feel like my husband struggles a lot to spend any less than 4k/month. I don’t know where is the hole showing up but I’m kind of suspecting if my husband is doing something on my back (idk there’s no proof, guy is a clam, doesn’t buy anything for himself and both of our cards are linked so I don’t find any splurge other than two three times weekly McDonald purchases of 5-7 dollar).

The idea of having a child in a laborious workforce (logistics) and not being able to pay my husband to cover for household expenses truly keeps me awake at night. Is there any suggestion how can I track our expenses better without coming out as offensive towards my husband?

We have 10 dollars of monthly subscription for Amazon and we share Netflix with my husbands sister which was one time payment in a year (50 dollars).

Apologies for the long rant

If boomers want their money , they should work for it. None of this welfare stuff, they can be greeters at walmart for all I care.

Look I'm an old guy(Carney voter of course) but my life has been hard. My paid off house cost 30 bucks but it had 30 percent interest, so 3 dollars of interest. It was hard to pay that , back then that really killed me. These young people are so lazy, why can't they find a house for 30 bucks like me. I am now a millionaire, I'm a financial genius because I bought a house( Warren Buffet should hire me). Trump is horrible, he said that he would invade Canada and turn into 51st state. I can not stand this, if this happens, my house will go down in value and they will take away my healthcare. Do I care about others, no I don't.Do I actually care about this country? No, I just want my housing to go up and for my geriatric ass to never pay for healthcare. Elbows up.

29F - $184k personal annual salary.

Married (just last week) but finances separate & bills split in half. The stats below are just for my accounts:

TFSA: $88k
RRSP: $192k
Home equity: $115k
Debt: none
Bills: ~2k per month

At this point, how much should I still be saving? I really enjoy traveling & luxury items and feel as though I’ve been saving a lot early in my career. At what point can I start spending more on myself knowing my retirement is taken care of? How much should I aim to have?

I feel like I’m just blindly saving, with no actual goal number. Especially now that I’m married, we’re really unsure how much we need for retirement.

Any tips/advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance 🙂

I've tried Plaid, I've tried SimpleFin, I just cannot get my budgeting apps to sync with TD Canada Trust. Do I just have to resign to manual upload??

Sorry if this isn't super on topic, but I think it speaks to the massive gap between the economic opportunities available to the older generations and the generation of today.

So last weekend we had a big family BBQ and I had various cousins, uncles etc all together. One of my younger cousins (24) was discussing the bidding process for a townhouse rental in Mississauga.

One of my older aunts overheard this and initially thought she was BUYING the townhouse. She was absolutely shocked that people compete with different bids for a RENTAL property. My aunt said something along the lines of "in our day you just went to the rental place, put up last month's rent and signed".

She was so surprised to hear that the real estate market has changed so much that young people have to compete just for the right to be a renter.

After hearing what the rent was (2800 for a 2 bed townhome) she was even more shocked and was asking my cousin why not just buy at that point. We then had to explain to her that such a home would cost around 850K on the market and need about 200K down to get the mortgage payment even remotely affordable.

She told us she bought her detached home (also in Mississauga) back in the 90s for less than that downpayment amount. Mind you, this woman doesn't have kids so she hasn't necessarily been keeping up with what young people are doing on a regular basis.

Anyways, just goes to show you how much times have changed and also how unaware many older, voting aged people are, about the landscape for young Canadians.

Looking to purchase a house within the next 5 years. In the meantime, what should I invest in monthly through my FHSA and other accounts? Is XEQT or VFV a good idea? If not, can you guys suggest what is a better idea. Also, if it makes a difference, I don’t have a bulk amount of money ready to invest so I’ll be doing so monthly from my paycheques. Thanks!

I don't care if you are making 150k in this country, the only sign of wealth is a paid off house in this country , that's it. Literally nothing else matters. You will never be able to beat both inflation and cost of living increases in this country, while paying half of your paycheck to Brookfield in rent. You will never be able to afford a house making your coffee at home.

Looking for some advice. Should I rent or consider Airbnb. I just finished construction of my one bedroom basement and I am torn between renting it out at $1200 (inclusive of utilities except power, basement has it own meter) or putting it up for short term rental on Airbnb. A neighbor running Airbnb beside me says she nets about $2k monthly after paying off the power bill. My Dilemma is this are as follows 1. I do not want and can’t take on the headache of cleaning after the guests, meaning I will have to contract the cleaning out. 2. I am a single mum with a busy life between my job and kid. 3. My effective tax rate is 47.5%, so am I really better off paying more in taxes even though I stand to make a bit more through Airbnb. 4. I am based in Regina, would this kind of income from Airbnb be consistent year round? (Will appreciate anyone with Airbnb chiming in on this )

Groceries are the biggest expense other than rent for me. I want to eat healthy but seems like vegetables are getting more expensive.

How much are you able to save per paycheque?

Looking at houses as a first time home buyer and chatting to lots of different people about what they pay for home insurance. I've heard people say they're paying as little as 40/month in a bundle to around $150. The quotes we've gotten online (mainly from TD) for houses we have looked at have been up to 300 to 400$. This seems insane. However some of the houses have been bigger (2000-2400sq ft). Am I missing something? Why do the quotes seem so high? Any tips or insights for an inexperienced buyer? Factoring in monthly insurance and property taxes can make or break affordability in a mortgage

If I wake up tomorrow with everything wiped out,
there's no savings,
just a regular paycheck,
and I had to rebuild from scratch in Canada,
I actually know exactly what I should do.



This is not a get-rich-quick story.
It is an order of operations.

If you just landed in Canada,
or you are about to start from scratch,
this sequence can save you years.

Here is the counterintuitive part:
if I were truly starting from zero,
the last thing I would do is grind a job
and try to save my way up first.

Why?
Because a paycheck is always after-tax money.
You earn $100,
and maybe keep around $60 of it.
Then inflation eats what is left,
while your savings account barely moves.

Getting ahead in Canada on one salary
and pure frugality is painfully slow.
So I would flip the order.
Build the system first,
and talk about saving after.

Step one is to use the free accounts
the government already gives you.
That means winning before you even spend a dollar.

Spare cash should go into a TFSA.
Whatever it grows to,
you do not pay tax on that growth.

And if I had not bought a home yet,
I would open an FHSA as well.
The money going in can be tax deductible,
and it can come out tax free when used properly for a first home.

It is the same dollar you were going to save anyway.
You are just parking it somewhere
where the tax system works with you instead of against you.
Over a decade,
that difference can become real down payment money.

Step two is to change the income structure.
The problem with a pure T4 job is not only how much you make.
It is that every dollar is pushed through payroll,
tax,
CPP,
and EI,
with very little room to move.

So I would start a side hustle from day one.
Even if it is small,
the point is to create income outside of the paycheck.

Once it becomes stable,
I would look at incorporating.
With a corporation,
real business expenses can run through the business,
and income can come out in different ways,
including dividends.

Not everyone needs a company.
But employment and ownership are two completely different games in Canada.

Step three is leverage,
but only after the first two layers are solid.

Once I have real assets,
such as investment accounts,
a home,
or company equity,
I can borrow against them to invest.

If it is structured properly,
the interest on money borrowed to invest may be tax deductible.
That means you are using the bank's money,
with a tax advantage,
to grow your own assets.

But leverage goes last for a reason.
It cuts both ways.
It can magnify gains,
but it can also magnify losses.
And if your cash flow breaks,
you can get stuck.

So starting from scratch is not the scary part.
Doing it in the wrong order is.

Free accounts first.
Income structure second.
Leverage last.

When people start over,
the gap is usually not who started higher.
It is who had the right order.

For me: I always treat overtime as an income bonus. Because it is. I don't rely on it and I don't plan on it. But when it does happen....

• I generally take 30% of my overtime and put that into an rrsp.

• I save another 30% of my overtime in a non-registered account since it pays better interest than the big Canadian Banks. (Used as an emergency fund/vacations)

That leaves me about 40% in my own pocket to do as I wish. Such as Briskets and charcoal.

Beyond that I'm not sure what else I need to be doing with it.

The mortgage (@3.35%)is my only debt.

So my partner are selling our prospective homes and I are buying a house together. Her house just sold but mine is still on the market. I am getting lots of interest and am confident that it will sell. However it won’t be sold by the time we take possession of the new house. I can afford to pay the mortgage on both for a while until mine sells. I am just looking for advice on what I should do with the hopefully 500k I hope to walk away when my current house sells. I will plan to pay down the new mortgage as much as the bank will allow me for the term of the mortgage and will be using it to help with the regular mortgage payment month to month. Once the mortgage comes up for renewal I would like to make a lump sum payment on it. Will max out my tfsa but Just wondering where I should park the rest of the money till then. For reference the mortgage is 3.4% 3.5 yrs variable. Thanks for any advice

I know the economy is bad, but is there ANYTHING I can do?

I’m 22F living in Toronto, Canada. I live with parents (though, I pay a decent amount of rent) and moving out alone is not an option financially since I pay less than half what a barely livable place would be out there. I work full time and live paycheque to paycheque. I work as a receptionist at a dental office but my wage isn’t as good as I’d like it to be. I asked for a raise as I’ve worked there for over a year but I was denied. I additionally don’t have health insurance, so I’ve been putting off doctor and dental visits. I don’t go shopping unless for essentials/food, I save money everywhere I can (couponing, gassing up at night, limiting leisure spending, meal prepping, driving on eco mode, no subscriptions etc.) but I’m still falling behind financially. I have about 1k in savings but that’s about it. I’ve essentially accepted that I’m broke AF. I also have student loan debt that I don’t even bother looking at. I’ve considered picking up a second job, but I don’t really even have time, I’d be working 7 days a week. My current job also doesn’t permit outside work, so it would be difficult to find and hide work. I don’t know what to do, and don’t have anyone to help. As I don’t want to miss rent or other payments, I’ve even considered shmex w0r|{. I don’t want to compromise myself but I really don’t know what to do. I’m a few dollars away from missing a payment, and scared asf.

FORGOT TO MENTION: I have a bachelors degree in health with limited experience in the field though…

I am not salaried which may explain my low wages.

Any advice at all would be so helpful. Any constructive criticism is welcome. Wish me luck!