rd_aaron's Money Diary

[Jon_Snow]

Rd_aaron, I know all about the struggle to balance between saving and "living life". My wife and I currently gross about 170k yearly, and we CHOOSE to live on 30k... we have been doing this for the past 10+ years. We have said no having a big house, German sports cars, etc - even though we could technically afford such things.

Instead we own (no mortgages) a modest home and a nice recreational property, paid for older vehicle, and a 900k investment portfolio. I am looking to "retire" at 42 early next year.

Don't regret the path we took one bit...

[gc_srt]

April 1, 2013

A little late with this update. I wish I would've done it on the 1st as it would've been a nicer result but the markets this week weren't very nice to my investments.

I need to do my taxes right away, in which I should receive a decent refund. I still plan on throwing a good chunk of that onto the LoC so I can have it paid off by end of June at the latest.

Assets
Total Assets: $59,534.26 (+0.01%... my assets went up a measly $5.49 due to poor market returns)

Liabilities
Total Liabilities: $12,439.61 (-4.97%)

Net Worth: $47,094.65 (+1.41%)

Status on 2013 goals:

- Net Worth goal of $80,000 by end of 2013 - $32,905.35 left to go over the last 9 months or $3,656.15 per month. Really ambitious as I averaged under $3,000/month last year
- Pay off line of credit by the end of June at the latest. - $1850 left. I will put another $500 on this month, plus whatever I decide out of my tax refund. Should be easy enough
- Pay off half of student loan (balance of $5,500 or less) by end of the year. - around $5200 left, so about $577/month over remaining 11 months. Ambitious but doable once TFSA is maxed.
- Reduce monthly bills - Broke $50 eating out policy again in March. Not spending ridiculous amounts but finding $50 very tough to do.
- Max out my TFSA contribution - Contributed $3000 so far. About $6452 left to get me to $25,500 or $717/month
- Pay for entire wedding without help from parents - Didn't spend too much this month. Approaching 4 month mark. Didn't put any additional money away... better start

Had a moment this month thinking I'm working too hard at saving money when I should be enjoying life at this age (25). I typically do what I want without having to think about money too much even with an aggressive savings plan, but part of me thinks there's a lot I could do with an extra $1000 or more a month that I'm saving. I know it'll set me up for the long run, but part of me wants to use that money to travel more or spend more wrecklessly haha. Anyone have advice on how to balance saving/spending? I'm an extremely frugal shopper and I know how to find deals, so that's a big reason why I still travel and spend fairly carefree, but I just don't want to look back and regret that I didn't do more before kids and other responsibilities come along.

My wife and I are in a similar situation. Hard to balance between 'living life' and saving. Now is the time to enjoy life while you don't have any major responsibilities but not too much fun.

I did a quick once over on your thread and not sure if you are contributing to RRSP but there is quite an incentive for first time home buyers. You can put up to $25,000 directly from RRSP to a down payment on a house per person.

And for the CCO stocks, Cigar Lake is scheduled to come into production later this year (Q4) and hopefully help stock price.

[rd_aaron]

Rd_aaron, I know all about the struggle to balance between saving and "living life". My wife and I currently gross about 170k yearly, and we CHOOSE to live on 30k... we have been doing this for the past 10+ years. We have said no having a big house, German sports cars, etc - even though we could technically afford such things.

Instead we own (no mortgages) a modest home and a nice recreational property, paid for older vehicle, and a 900k investment portfolio. I am looking to "retire" at 42 early next year.

Don't regret the path we took one bit...

Just curious.. do you have kids?

I'm okay with having a modest house and a cheaper vehicle(s). Just looking at my post from November of last year, I'm at around $2808/month of regular expenses, not including any entertainment, travel, etc. That's about $34k/year just for myself. However, if I take out the rent (about $8400) & investments ($13,800 - I have increase my monthly contribution since November) I'm closer to $12k/year, but I must obviously spend a decent amount on entertainment & travel otherwise I'd have a lot more left over at the end of the month.

[rd_aaron]

My wife and I are in a similar situation. Hard to balance between 'living life' and saving. Now is the time to enjoy life while you don't have any major responsibilities but not too much fun.

I did a quick once over on your thread and not sure if you are contributing to RRSP but there is quite an incentive for first time home buyers. You can put up to $25,000 directly from RRSP to a down payment on a house per person.

And for the CCO stocks, Cigar Lake is scheduled to come into production later this year (Q4) and hopefully help stock price.

I think "balance" is probably the best way to put it. I enjoy my job so I'm not rushing to retire per se, but one of my goals is to retire early. Enjoy life but don't have too much fun as you put it.

I have contributed a bit to my RRSP. I have about $8000 in there right now. I have intentions of moving some of my TFSA there when we go to buy a house but that's not for awhile yet. I might start to put a little more in my RRSP than usual since I'm starting to hit the 26% federal tax bracket (above $87k).

[Jon_Snow]

Just curious.. do you have kids?

Nope. We decided quite early on that we were not going to be parents. Makes planning for early retirement/financial independance quite a bit easier.

[gc_srt]

I think "balance" is probably the best way to put it. I enjoy my job so I'm not rushing to retire per se, but one of my goals is to retire early. Enjoy life but don't have too much fun as you put it.

I have contributed a bit to my RRSP. I have about $8000 in there right now. I have intentions of moving some of my TFSA there when we go to buy a house but that's not for awhile yet. I might start to put a little more in my RRSP than usual since I'm starting to hit the 26% federal tax bracket (above $87k).

You definitely have time to put your money into RRSP. You have to have the money in the RRSP 90 days before you intend to use them. Does your work have RRSP matching or can you take RRSP directly off your cheque? Might be an easy way to save more - take the money off the top before you see it.

[rd_aaron]

You definitely have time to put your money into RRSP. You have to have the money in the RRSP 90 days before you intend to use them. Does your work have RRSP matching or can you take RRSP directly off your cheque? Might be an easy way to save more - take the money off the top before you see it.

My situation is:

Defined Contribution Pension Plan - I put in 2% of my paycheck, they put in 8% for a total of 10%. Can't change this.
Group RRSP - I have the option of having however much I want taken off my cheque and put into the group RRSP (same options as pension plan.. Sunlife). I have $150/month coming off. I could probably increase this since it's been at $150 for a couple of years.
Personal TFSA - I've been contributing $500/paycheque ($1000/month) to this. Will reallocate once I max TFSA.
Personal RRSP - Contributed $4000 to it twice, both after I received my bonus.

Taking money off the top has been by far the best financial decision I've done. I want to avoid keeping up with the Jones' if at all possible so this helps. I try to live a moderate lifestyle and try to have the same amount of money in my account month to month. I'm fine with this as I know there's a lot of saving happening in the background.

[My Own Advisor]

@rd_aaron,

Well done... "Taking money off the top has been by far the best financial decision I've done."

You get into a great habit of this now, paying yourself first and into your 30s, you'll start to realize you a tidy investment portfolio because of your early-discipline.

[rd_aaron]

May 1, 2013

Pretty decent month overall. Big change in my strategy this year, however. I've decided with the upcoming wedding to reallocate the money that generally would be going into my TFSA into my savings account to use for wedding expenses. We've paid a lot of deposits so far and paid the full price for some things, but most of the expenses will be the month leading up the wedding and I haven't really saved anything for this yet. I'd prefer to have a bunch saved to pay off credit cards immediately instead of paying them off slowly, so I will be doing this until all the bills are paid.

At the current rate I'm saving, I'll have $5500 saved by the time of the wedding. This will make paying the bills off much easier.

I just did my taxes this past weekend and I should be receiving a tidy little refund of around $1,600 so that will be a nice boost. I'll use a chunk of this to help pay off my LoC (which will be easily paid off before the end of June) and the rest might go to wedding saving as well... haven't decided.

Assets
Total Assets: $62,686.26 (+5.29%)

Liabilities
Total Liabilities: $11,777.24 (-5.32%)

Net Worth: $50,909.02 (+8.10%)

Net Worth Increase: $3814.37 (+481.67% from last month)
Moving 12 Month Average: $2637.54 (+3.83% from previous 12 month span)

I'm a bit of a stats/numbers guy so I've started tracking my moving 12 month net worth increase average. This is basically showing me over the previous 12 months what the average increase in net worth has been. Month to month is too erratic, especially in March due to my bonus, so tracking a full years worth of net worth increases provides me with somewhat useful data. Obviously I'd like to always have the average increasing which would show that I'm consistently accelerating my asset growth.

Status on 2013 goals:

- Net Worth goal of $80,000 by end of 2013 - $29,090.98 left to go over the last 8 months or $3,636.37 per month. Actually outpaced this amount this month
- Pay off line of credit by the end of June at the latest. - $1350 left. I will put another $500 on this month, plus whatever I decide out of my tax refund. Should be easy
- Pay off half of student loan (balance of $5,500 or less) by end of the year. - around $4900 left, so about $615/month over remaining 8 months. This one will be tough.
- Reduce monthly bills - Broke $50 eating out policy again in April. Going to try $100 eating out policy.
- Max out my TFSA contribution - Contributed $3000 so far. Will re-evaluate after most wedding expenses are in.
- Pay for entire wedding without help from parents - Solved this problem by re-allocating TFSA payments to wedding fund

Felt better this month in regards to "living life" vs. saving. Felt we did lots of fun things but kept costs pretty minimum. Net Worth increased nicely so didn't spend too wrecklessly.