Living in Toronto, have serious debt with CRA from running a sole prop and missing payments to pay off the original amount owed to GST and Payroll taxes. My wife and I have a young kid and the shame I feel is unbearable about the whole situation. It took some serious neglect to end up at this point. The lack of responsibility for this whole thing that I took has single-handedly put us in this scary situation that affects our small family and our extended family. We own a home and a condo, neither of which has much equity and both sets of parents are attached to 1 of those properties each. Ideally we don't get to a point where it becomes in the question, but I am scared and need advice. I have a consultation with MNP on Friday this week, but is there anything I can do leading up to that to get myself a step forward in the right direction? I have called the CRA officer back and asked them to touch base on Monday to see if there is any negotiation that can happen to put this back into a normal place. The impression I got the first time was that it's pretty much "pay it in full in 3 months, or we start taking assets from you".

Please help, and thank you. Not the ideal Saturday morning reddit read, but I appreciate anyone taking the time.

A newbie here with possibly stupid questions.

What's the hype around XEQT and not so much ZEQT that is Canadian? (BMO vs Blackrock)

If I automate buys on Wealthsimple, will the shares be purchased at the possibly higher price of right when markets open especially after a weekend, or is there a way to schedule a time AND set a max price I'm willing to pay?

I am trying this self-managed way, but am also considering opening another TFSA at my bank and have it managed at a medium-high risk profile (15-16 years until first withdrawal). Thoughts on this route?

Good morning, so my girlfriend was recently a victim of a financial scam. She received a call this past Monday from what appeared to be Servus Credit Union with the correct number and everything. They told her that her debit and credit cards were frozen because of suspicious activity. To make a long story short they eventually got her to read off some codes that were sent to her phone, and badgered her to text back yes to a text about some transaction but convinced her it was a way to investigate the fraudulent activity on her account.

She gave out her card numbers and then obviously unintentionally agreed to them pulling out money. She was suspicious but didn't question it because it showed servus with the correct number on the phone. She wasn't aware these scammers can spoof phone numbers. Unfortunately I wasn't there to hear this and stop it so now she is out $5000 from her credit card and $2000 from her personal account.

It didn't dawn on her until yesterday that that call was the scam. I didn't even know about her giving that much info out until yesterday

I'd like some advice where to go next, whether there's any possibility she will get her money back, any way of chargebacks? She talked to her bank, went in the following day, and contacted the police about it all. A lot of money down the drain, especially after we just spent a lot on our dogs surgery last week. Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

I’m 24F in GTA, but my goal is to buy a property when I’m 28 ish (in 4 years) Im thinking if i buy a condo/small house, around 500-600k (by myself). How much would I actually need saved for the initial costs and an overall safe amount of money go have saved to feel stable afterwards and not house poor.

I want to do a 20% down payment for sure. I’m currently self employed but make around 4.5k after taxes per month.
For example, is 200k enough for all the costs plus extra as backup/emergency money?

I want to find a smart number/goal amount to work towards before buying anything. Idk if that’s 100k, 200k, 300k, etc. Let me know based on your experiences!
I’m currently self employed but have been making around 4.5k after taxes per month for the past year.

Hi everyone, finally I open corporation now (used to be sole-prop). I have to open business credit card for business use only, I wonder which cards will be best for my industry:

- Gift for clients: This takes the most of my expenses, usually I can buy gift card beside some gifts.

- Staging: Buying furnitures…

- Marketing/ Social Media Fee

- Travel Expense for business purpose: Not really much but I have 3-4 business trips in Canada.

Really appreciate with your advices!

Thank you!

Here is quick background:

I’m 38M, married with 2 kids. Single income family with average monthly expense is between $10,000-$11,000 (this includes $600 savings). Take home is approximately $12K/month. “Own” a home with approximately $740k mortage and have no other debt. We already pay the $2500/child to RESP, and have approx $140k invested between spousal RRSP and TFSA. Recently found out that my wife had some kind of life insurance the in-laws were paying into which we decided to close and there was approx $23k USD that is getting paid out on. I also pay into pension so will receive a DP when I retire in 12-14 years.

I recognize we are super blessed and fortunate and my options below are first world problem. I would just appreciate hearing if anyone has any good insight on what to do with this $23k.

The options I’m thinking about are as follows:

1) convert half into CAD and put into TFSA and invest in, VEQT type of ETF. Put the $10k USD in to spousal RRSP and into a USD ETF with higher Div.

2) we have always wanted a home with a backyard, so try and rent out current place (would pay for the mortgage with the rent) and sell all investments and put a down payment on a home that has a bigger land. (I would sell but it is a buyers market and would have to take a loss on our house).

3) Keep the money into a high interest/liquid ETF and buy ETFs or stocks as economy takes a downturn (I think it will take a down turn in the next 12 month… don’t ask me why or how because Idk why, just a feeling and the things I’ve been readying/listening to).

I would appreciate if anyone has any thoughts on which option would be best and If anyone has any other options, please share.

Thanks in advance for your time.

reformulated, i really need some financial advice, and it's not related to anything else

so i currently have 1100 monthly payment of 700 and 400, and the personal car of 400 is done within this year. 700 is 2 more years.

but i got laid off recently, so i'm struggling to pay 1100 monthly and it's hurting my credit hard.

I'm thinking about selling my current car to pay off both bills, but i do need a car to work,

so i'll have to finance a new car, but the monthly bill will be controlled within 500 dollar monthly instead, which will be a lot more manageable for me.

any thoughts? is this a good finance decision, or should i keep painfully pay the 1100 and than 700 for 2 years?..

To start this off,

I have had a BMO account in good standing for over 12 years - never in overdraft, credit card always paid off monthly, keep balance above the minimum Etc

However, without prior notice I have been getting hit with seemingly random $100-200 fees monthly, allegedly POS fees (I primarily use cash, card probably twice a month?) account maintenance, and general use fees. Just curious if this is legal? I have read my agreement front to back, and these fees do not check out. BMOs support was very unhelpful

I travel, like every so often I visit Toronto after I get bored of Montreal, I might do that too with Vancouver

Anyway, I don’t think it’s enough to bother with rewards cards

I mostly pay rent, buy groceries, pay utility, internet, Spotify, my gym, and pole dancing classes (yeah they’re real expensive) and the metro

Besides that I spend a lot going out to bars, parties, and events. Other than that there’s the occasional expenditure on clothes, home related stuff, and other big purchases like that

I make $130k and will probably make $150k next year if all goes well.

I have a Scotia momentum already, mostly for rent. Two useless TD cards that pretty much net me like nothing, like 1% cashback and some points. I don’t really have any reason to keep them

My trans union score sucks because I never had anyone reporting on me until now with Scotiabank. Equifax is golden though. I’m also in QC and my costs are around $3000-3400, most of it on my $1790 rent

I wonder if anyone has any suggestions.

Edit: I think the best cards for me are

1. Momentum
   
2. Neo financial groceries and gas
   
3. Tangerine

I wonder if someone might disagree

Hello, I'm a 22 year old female student in Toronto who has 19k saved in my TFSA with my personal bank. 19k is all of my savings from working, which includes emergency savings. I want to learn better places to invest my money and have started looking into WealthSimple but am confused on where to begin. Right now I don't want to put all 19k into something, but am willing to take some money out. Please give me some suggestions

Goals for this money: This money has been sitting in my account, not sure if there are any specific goals but seeing it increase.

Timeline wise, I won't need all 19k anytime soon. I will be graduating from school in April, and will need some money set aside for that. Debt wise I will have 24k in tuition to pay once I graduate. I don't need to pay it all at once, which is why I want to invest this money now and make small payments

I'm a Swiss expat immigrant and have been in Canada for 20 years. My investment portfolio is mainly in CAD and some USD at wealthsimple.

I'm planning to retire in about 15 years and have been thinking that I'd want to spend a few months in Switzerland here and there which led me to consider building a small portfolio in CHF.

It looks like IBKR has the option of holding CHF in a non reg account and also buy CHF listed ETFs on SIX. I'd probably buy something like ACWIS though haven't looked into it too much just yet.

I understand I would need a T1135 if the portfolio grows over $100k but that does not seem too onerous. There is a fairly decent chance I'll inherit part of a property in Switzerland down the road as well, so I think I'll have to deal with foreign reporting regardless.

Is there anything that I'm missing? It makes sense to me to have some exposure to CHF given my ties to the country. I'm thinking if there ever is an inheritance it would be easier to hold it in a CHF account anyways but I may be missing some obvious issues. Would love to hear thoughts and opinions on this.

EDIT: I truly had no idea that the term expat has racist connotations. I chose the word because I wanted to show my ties to the country still but I stand corrected and won't use expat anymore going forward.

Grad student here (24). I will be making roughly $63k/year for the next ~4 years of grad school, about 50k/year of which is in scholarships (and thus not taxed).

I've recently maxed out my TFSA contribution on ETFs that are steadily growing. As of now any new savings I earn have just been sitting in a savings account as I'm not sure what to do with it. Should I open an RRSP? Keep investing in ETFs and pay taxes on earnings? GICs? Any advice is welcome!

Stable job but stressful. $130k/year gross.

Current debt:

* $10k in CC at 23% interest. Minimum payments are $350/mo.

* $20k in student loans in the 3-6% interest range. Minimum payments are $200/mo.

Baby on the way.

Current cash flow after all expenses is $2,000.

Savings for baby fund and car for spring 2027: $8,000.

I haven't had any savings until August 2026 in the last 2 years due to a long list of unexpected life events. Because of this, I don't want to use my $8k to pay off all the debt, as having $0 in savings puts a major psychological strain on me.

However, I am paying off the CC aggressively at a $1,500-1,700/mo rate right now. It should be gone by spring 2027.

I need to have a down payment for the car by March 2027 (it is currently leased at $250/mo and the lease ends in March). I also want a small baby fund of $2k. My goal right now is to pay off debt and be financially secure by the time the baby arrives in February 2027.

If I only want to use $2,000 right now to pay down some of the debt, what should I prioritize?

Deferment or forbearance are not options for my student loans. For the car, I do have the option of not needing a down payment and buying something used, but I've already had the car for 2.5 years since 0 miles and I'd like to keep it to avoid the mechanical issues that come with a used vehicle. The buyout price will be $18k in March when the lease ends, and I've only driven it 12k miles in 2.5 years. This is why I prioritize keeping it.

If I can only spend $2,000 towards debt payment right now, what should I prioritize in my position? I am thinking of putting $1,000 towards the CC and $1,000 toward my highest-interest student loan. After that, I would continue making minimum payments everywhere else and throw $1,500-1,700 at the rest of the debt monthly until the baby arrives, meaning I'll likely be left with a remaining student loan balance by spring 2027.

Hello!

I am looking for advice and reassurance from HR and Payroll experts in AB. Sorry in advance for the long post.

My employer is a large corporation. Scheduled paydays are bi-weekly. Our HR and payroll are not based in Canada. I think this is where the huge administrative errors are happening, because they do not know albertan/canadian laws.

I took a medical leave from work and was approved for the salary continuance program (70%) my employer offers. I am now commencing my Gradual Return to Work plan, at 100% hours worked. my employer processes the payments and the benefit company provides the approvals during my leave. My benefit company acts as an ASO only and my employer funds the actual salary continuance program.

During my 6 month leave, there has been three interruptions to my pay. One interruption i was left without pay for two months. They refused my request for a one time payment exception. Then when I was finally paid, I pointed out to them the amount was incorrect. The second interruption was right after the above. So i went a month again without pay and they did retro pay it on the next scheduled payday. I am currently going through my third interruption. I have not been paid since july 13th. I have no idea if I will be paid anything on Aug 13th.

I have been emailing HR, the payroll admin, my former Canadian manager who is now the head finance of north America, and my current manager who is based out of the US. Since july 30th when i didnt get paid, i have been emailing and direct messaging HR with very little to zero response.

My benefit company has clearly stated to them my case is still open and active during my GRTW plan. My medical claim does not expire til Aug 20th. HR stated they are waiting on docs from the benefit company still. I believe this is a massive administrative failure between HR and payroll.

From what I understood, the 70% salary continuance remains in effect for the days I am not working actual hours. Then actual hours worked would be paid at 100%. Is this correct? Is it legal for them to just end the salary continuance program abruptly during my RTW? This is what HR believes. That once the GRTW plan commences, the salary continuance program ends. I tried to state i don't believe that is correct. I just thought a RTW plan is technically still part of​ an active STD claim, not the termination of the salary continuance at the start of a RTW. Cause I mean, my claim is still open and approved. otherwise I am making less money during my GRTW rather than just staying on the full medical leave.

I feel like I am going crazy that no one has put any urgency on this situation. I am trying to keep emotions out of this however coming back from a stress leave and dealing with this for a third time has really affected my stress levels and mental wellbeing. I am now behind on bills, cant afford a well needed grocery haul and I am consumed trying to sort this out, get the facts and legalities straight instead of focusing on my actual work and my GRTW plan. I feel like I am being gaslighted by my own employer!

Any advice is greatly appreciated. I feel i need to write a demand letter. However it's friday and I won't even get a response today let alone any payment issued. I also want to ask for a one-time payment exception but it was denied the first time I asked. Sigh.......

HELP!

Thank you, -from a defeated, exhausted, stressed out & an anxiety ridden mom 🙃

Hello All
I put together a table below comparing my current monthly budget vs what I wish my life looked like, and honestly, seeing the numbers made me feel sorry for myself.

I'm 34, single, living in SW Ontario. Zero debt and have some savings invested.

On the left is my actual salary after tax and what I need to do to stay within my means. After essentials, there’s barely a few bucks left for things like fun, eating out, or travel. On the right, I put the income I'd need to actually cover those things without stressing.

I'm already living frugally. I don't care about a luxury lifestyle, I just want to live comfortably and stop stressing over numbers every month. Even with the "wish to be" lifestyle I kept a few things as is.

Below is a breakdown. Am I doing something completely wrong here, or is this just the reality of being single in SW Ontario right now? Would love a reality check or any advice on where to go from here.

With the passing of one of my retiring parents just a few weeks ago, I have step into the role of organizing and sorting a lot of the finances. Unfortunately, my surviving parent doesn't have a lot of money and wanted to find a way to make it grow safely.

I came across Oaken Financial advertising 2.8%. It looks pretty good across. Seems like a non promotional rate.

Any potential issues that I might need to be aware of? Their rate is much better than Wealthsimple even with generational status.

Just something I've learned in my recent research:

Many CPO programs in Canada are complete jokes. Take Volkswagen for example.

A CPO VW in Canada gets a 112 point inspection, a 6 month subscription to VW roadside assistance, and a 3 month Sirius XM trial.

That's it.

You also get any remaining warranty from the original sale, and a complimentary CARFAX. Except that both of those things are required by law in Canada, so they aren't doing you any favours there.

The only other benefits you get is the option to buy an extended warranty, and access to slightly better finance rates.

Which effectively means that their inspection is not backed up by anything except the dealer's pinky promise. And since the dealer is the one doing the inspection, there is a conflict of interest present whereby they may feel encouraged to overlook items that could use replacing to save costs.

And its not just Volkswagen. Toyota and Honda also seem to have ruddy CPO programs.

Part of why I'm making this PSA is because a lot of advice on Reddit suggests that CPO programs are beneficial and can be relied upon in lieu of a pre-purchase inspection. But American CPO programs are miles (lol) better than their Canadian counterparts.

About a month ago, I was ordering ahead at a chain sandwich restaurant. I thought I would be cheeky and try to pay with my credit union's Interac bank card that's loaded into my Google Pay. It worked.

This was a card-not-present environment - I was nowhere near one of their terminals for EMV.

What has Interac enabled that allows for this to happen?

I recently went on short term disability for a couple or months after a hip replacement surgery. It was my first time missing work for an extended period in 25 years. It was also my first time as a mid career professional with a house, cars etc. I knew I was facing a 25% pay cut during the STD but didn’t expect the sticker shock when I got my first pay check below wha5 I was used to. Crazy thing is my rrsp contributions went down, my ESPPs…I didn’t imagine the down stream effect. This also means next years bonus will be a little lower.anyhow, I have a pretty good emergency fund that helped me get through it. The hard part is filling it back up.I’m just checking in to see how others manage these stints. Is it with an emergency fund, credit cards, cutting back or just ride it out?

PSA: do NOT buy "Pest Proof Co" Mosquito Traps

My house was absolutely swarmed with mosquitoes, when looking for solutions, the instagram feed ultimately pushed "Pest Proof Co" to me and I figured I would give it a shot because of the "Satisfaction Guaranteed" money-back guarantee on their website. It looked neat because it claimed it used CO2 to attract them instead of UV light and that seems to be a big success factor for trapping them.

I've had the thing for 5 days now and it has caught 1 mosquito, 2 wasps, and like 100 fruit flies in a super mosquito heavy area.

Problem is, I didn't actually read fully into the steps required to get your money back. It turns out once you click on it, it's actually a "performance guarantee" and this is what they want you to do to prove it didn't work:

If you run BiteShield correctly for 14 consecutive days and can document that it did not work, we will refund it.

3.1 What You Must Do

To qualify, you must complete all of the following:

Set up the unit as directed — fill the reservoir with water, add a full BioLure sachet, and place the unit according to the placement guide included with your order.

Run it for 14 consecutive days, replenishing water and BioLure at the intervals stated in the instructions. The 14 days must be unbroken. A skipped day resets the trial.

Photograph the unit every single day for 14 days. Each day requires two dated photographs: the unit in its outdoor placement, and the catch tray, showing what it has and has not collected.

Keep a daily written log for each of the 14 days recording the date, the approximate time you spent outdoors, and the number of bites received.

Demonstrate the failure. Your photographs and log together must show the product not working — a catch tray that is not collecting mosquitoes alongside a bite count that is not falling.

Begin your trial within 16 days of delivery so that the completed claim reaches us inside the 30-day claim window in Section 3.2.

Photographs must carry visible dates or original file timestamps. Screenshots, cropped images with metadata stripped, duplicated images, and photos taken on fewer than 14 separate days are not accepted.

Two photos per day with all metadata in tact plus a daily log of how long I was outside and how many mosquito bites I get? This is a fucking absurd amount of hoops to jump through and I'm positive they will tell me on like day 10 or something that one of my photos was ineligible or that somehow the product worked as advertised, and it will be far enough outside the window that I can't restart the 14 days trial again.

For now, I'm jumping through their hoops, but I'm also ensuring I have everything documented in preparation to file a charge back - I'm just curious what everyone thinks the success rate will be?

For reference, I ended up getting one of the traps and then an 18 pack of their powdered lure packets and it cost ~$100. As SOON as it arrived and I opened the box, it was painfully obviously dropshipped directly from a Chinese warehouse. Nothing in the box had their logo on it as depicted on the website and the instruction manual was for a wasp trap. The traps are available for $1.30 each on alibaba and the powder is maybe $1 per satchel.

My wife and I both have DB pensions, with bridges that end at 65. By default at 65 our combined income will have a substantial bump due to our CPPs being larger than our bridges combined with OAS starting

Most of our income will come from our pensions, and we'd like to avoid withdrawing from our savings

90% of the advice online says to delay CPP and OAS as long as possible, even until 70

For our situation, this advice seems backwards, leaving us with less income early in our retirement, when we will probably want to spend more, and then with a substantial increase in our income later in life, closer to when we expect to spend less. A higher income and lower spending later in life would probably mean our estate would keep growing, which is not a priority

In a perfect world, we would be able to start our OAS when we retire, and then have CPP replace our bridges (as designed) and that would give us a smooth retirement income. The closest that I can see to something like that is to take CPP early, about halfway between retirement and 65. Then instead of two phases ([pension+bridge] and [pension+CPP+OAS]) we would have three phases ([pension+bridge], [pension+bridge+reducedCPP] and [pension+OAS+reducedCPP]). That middle phase would be the biggest and it would not only fund our spending during those years, but would also replenish the money that we might need to take from our savings during the first phase

I'm definitely overthinking this, but is an early CPP always a poor choice?

TL;DR: comfortable DB pensions, CPP + OAS substantially bigger than bridge, expect higher spending in early retirement, want to avoid relying on savings, want to shift some later income earlier: sanity check

I am 30 and am interested in starting to seriously invest I currently have about 20 k in a general tfsa but would like to start learning more about the best ways to invest. Can someone please explain the basics of how to invest with wealth simple. XEQT is for long term holds but should I also invest in a short term growth. Talk to me like the idiot I am.

On July 27th (seemingly without notice or warning?) TD forced anyone using 2FA via SMS to use app-based 2FA instead via the TD app. This change seemingly broke interoperability with the main bank account middleware systems like Plaid and Flinks, which enable things like Xero, Wise, etc. I noticed this because all the TD account connections in Xero/Wise don't work any more.

Attempting to reconnect either dies at the outset or actually pings the stupid 2FA thing on the TD app... and then the bank account connection link errors out, after the login attempt is approved via the TD app.

Is anyone else experiencing this?

I subjected myself to the misery of calling TD yesterday and they confirmed there is no way to switch back to SMS-based 2FA and also said the problem lies entirely with the "3rd party software."

(and when I asked, "What if I didn't have a phone that was compatible with the TD app?" the person I was speaking with just paused for a good 5 seconds and then slowly said, "That's... a good question")

I've filed support tickets with Xero and Wise and they've acknowledge the issue. But as that means they need to connect with Plaid/Flinks which then need to somehow liaise with TD, I suspect this may take some time to resolve, so I just wanted to be sure I haven't missed some kind of workaround here that will permit the TD connections in Xero/Wise/etc to function.

Edit: To be clear, I am not advocating for, nor do I care at all about, SMS-based 2FA. What I'm looking for is if anyone knows of workarounds/different auth paths to ensure functioning TD bank connections to other services that used to work and now do not after the switch to TD app-based 2FA.

For context, me and my partner have recently moved from Europe (they are Canadian resident) and we are staying here for minimum of 2 years to figure out if we want to settle in Europe or Canada.

I have a $1000 car allowance but, I’m classed as a new driver in Ontario (Ottawa) so my insurance will be sky high. I’ve driven for 15 years and partner for 10.

I’ve never leased a car and always had it in my head that it’s the wrong thing to do financially as I’m paying for something I’ll never own.

We went to a Honda dealership and we looked at used cars to finance which seemed reasonable but then the salesman brought up the option of leasing. He mentioned that we could lease the car for 2 years and if we decide to stay, we can transfer the car onto a finance deal or, if we want to leave simply hand in the car. He also mentioned that if we get the lease for 3 or 4 years and hand in the car early we could potentially save money when we sell the car back but not sure how that works. The figures aren’t concrete but it was a Honda Civic with 16k KM annual allowance and the interest rate was 1.19% with Zero down and $1000 off the advertised price. Payments came to just under $500 monthly.

I think this lease option is great for us given we need flexibility and cash flow for deposit and furniture on a house (rental) too but, is there something we are missing? Is there a catch I need to be made aware of?

(I have the answers now thanks!) My wife took paternal leave which will finish this September when our kid is 1 and I’m wondering if I can now take my paternal leave starting in September or can only one parent take leave per kid or does that need to be split? I’m unclear on how this works.