# My Financial Journal



## SW20 MR2

I haven't been on the site too long, but I've learned a lot in the short time that I've been visiting it. I figured it's time to share our story and continue to learn.

Profile:
I'm 34, and my wife is 35, and we have a 2-year-old. We both live in the GTA and work full time. Our combined gross base salary is $140k. Bonuses may vary, so let's say a minimum of $10k, but the average the last 2 years was $25k.

Assets
Bank Accounts:
Chequing - $7k (I typically don't keep this much in here and always move it to savings)
Savings - $18k
My TFSA Savings - $10k
Her TFSA Savings - $10k

Real Estate:
Home - $390k purchase price (FWIW, builder selling for $570k nowadays)

Mutual Fund Investments:
My RRSP - $96k
Her RRSP - $51k
Son's RESP - $7k (maxing out govt contributions)

Stock Portfolios (using today's prices):
My Margin - BNS, MFC, BCE, PD, PWF, RCI, RY, SU, TRP - $26,656
My TFSA - CWT-UN - $2,052
Son's In Trust - XIC, XSP, XIN, XBB, CDZ, BMO - $8,481
Wife's RRSP - PG, MCD - $4,719
Mine/Wife's ESOP - $22k (I unloaded $16k of this last week. My wife and I work for the same company, so I feel uneasy having our jobs and a big chunk of $ tied to the same company)

Most of the stocks are equally weighted within the portfolio. The stock portfolios have been somewhat a mishmash as I've been learning on the fly. I've tried to focus on dividend-paying stocks for the most part.

Liabilities
Mortgage - $150k

Total assets - $638k (I included our house at purchase price and didn't include stuff such as cars or material possessions)
Total liabilities - $150k

Rough current expenses:
Mortgage - $2200 (Put in ~$600 extra per month)
Property tax - $420
Utilities (incl TV, phone, internet) - $420
Household (incl food, entertainment, toys, clothes, etc) - $400 (We don't buy much groceries cause we eat at our parents' houses since they look after our son after school)
School/daycare - $600
Car insurance/gas - $520
Home/Life Insurance - $345

Total - $4905

That should more or less sum it up.

Short/Medium Term Actions:
- Have another kid within next year.
- Start a spousal RRSP to try and equalize portfolio sizes.
- Pay off mortgage within 5-6 years.
- Might move to another house, which would likely be $150k more than current house.

Questions for you wizards:
- How can I optimize my stock portfolio? That is, with the income difference between my wife and I, should I transfer all stocks into her name?
- Our son gets a lot of money from our extended family for Xmas and birthdays. He's currently got another $3k that I need to invest. I'm not sure what to do with it right now. I'm debating between just buying a few dividend stocks or just putting it more into the semi-couch potato that I've got going for him.
- Any other recommendations on what to do?


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## Barwelle

Just a technicality... if you're borrowing on margin, you should include what you owe for that in your liabilities.

Unless you didn't include that in you assets?


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## SW20 MR2

It's technically a margin account, but I'm not borrowing anything. 



Barwelle said:


> Just a technicality... if you're borrowing on margin, you should include what you owe for that in your liabilities.
> 
> Unless you didn't include that in you assets?


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## Barwelle

Ah, gotcha. 

Ignore me then!


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## Koala

I'm too inexperienced to offer trustworthy advice, but I do have a quick question. Why do you have money in savings when the TFSAs aren't maxed? Even if you need the money, you can at least increase the total value of them for the future by earning more interest now.


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## SW20 MR2

Good question. What I'm hoping for is that some of the advice/feedback given here will help with where this money goes. I haven't put money into TFSAs yet since I'm not sure whether I should pay down the mortgage, continue to buy stocks, etc. I'm also thinking about doing laser eye surgery as well.



Koala said:


> I'm too inexperienced to offer trustworthy advice, but I do have a quick question. Why do you have money in savings when the TFSAs aren't maxed? Even if you need the money, you can at least increase the total value of them for the future by earning more interest now.


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## the-royal-mail

This is pretty good - not too much wrong here. Note that putting money in a TFSA has nothing to do with buying stocks. You may get into that for your TFSA if you like but lots of us just use the TFSA as a place to hold money for a while, it's readily accessible and you get 1% interest on the money. I am also wondering about your insurance and utilities costs. Those seem a bit high. Can they be reduced somehow?


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## Koala

I'm in the same boat for some of my TFSA contribution room this year. Some is invested/planned, but I have to figure out what to do with the rest. I look forward to hearing what you decide to do!


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## SW20 MR2

the-royal-mail said:


> This is pretty good - not too much wrong here. Note that putting money in a TFSA has nothing to do with buying stocks. You may get into that for your TFSA if you like but lots of us just use the TFSA as a place to hold money for a while, it's readily accessible and you get 1% interest on the money.


What I meant is that, I could've simply transferred the funds into my TFSA savings account in the interim. However, I didn't want to do the transfer in case I decided afterwards that I wanted to put it into my TFSA stock account instead. I'll figure out what to do with it first and then move the funds.



> I am also wondering about your insurance and utilities costs. Those seem a bit high. Can they be reduced somehow?


Here's how it breaks down.

Utilities (incl TV, phone, internet) - $420
Cable TV - $55
Internet - $31
Home/Cell Phone - $93
Electricity/Water - $121
Natural Gas - $121

Now that I think about it, the home/cell phone costs have gone up since we both got smartphones since I last did the monthly budget. It should be $161 for the phones.

Home/Life Insurance - $345
Home - $80
Life - $265


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## Sampson

SW20 MR2 said:


> Questions for you wizards:
> - How can I optimize my stock portfolio? That is, with the income difference between my wife and I, should I transfer all stocks into her name?


You don't actually tell us what the difference in income is, you only list combined income. Tough to know how beneficial this would actually be.

In our household, we do precisely this. The high income earner pays all the bills and the low income earner invests/saves all their money. Be careful how you do this since gains on money gifted to your spouse for her to invest is still taxed in your hands.



SW20 MR2 said:


> - Our son gets a lot of money from our extended family for Xmas and birthdays.


You could open a trust account for him, since you won't be able to invest directly under his name. We keep track of gifted money, but end up putting this into our own accounts. There is no point in a 3 year old having $3000 to his name. Perhaps you can use those funds to invest into his RESP rather than using your own.



SW20 MR2 said:


> Any other recommendations on what to do?


I would step back and really take a look at your investments - it seems you have the time and knowledge to tackle a DIY ETF based portfolio and your combined assets are large enough to warrant this approach. I would recommend you consider your entire portfolio as a single unit, look at all the mutual funds, individual stocks, etc and determine if the breakdown is (i) low-fee, (ii) fitting of you risk tolerance/profile, (iii) capable of producing returns to meet your mid- to long-term goals.

I personally wouldn't worry too much about your expenses - don't let them inflate much higher by lifestyle creep. If I understand correctly, your household takes in roughly $8000-$8500 monthly after tax. With expenses averaging $4900 - that means you are still saving 39-42% of your take-home pay, nothing to be shy about. Make sure you plan to meet your goals, and heck, if you are on target, make sure you take advantage of your efforts and have fun.


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## Koala

Sampson said:


> In our household, we do precisely this. The high income earner pays all the bills and the low income earner invests/saves all their money. Be careful how you do this since *gains on money gifted to your spouse for her to invest is still taxed in your hands*.


Could you elaborate on this or at least direct me to some more info? If we have a joint account and I take some out and invest it at what point is it considered a 'gift' from my husband?


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## Sampson

CRA has an 'attribution rule' that relates to intent of avoiding taxes.

So in your joint account, say each month, $10,000 goes into the joint account - $9000 from your husband, $1000 from you.

If suddenly, you start investing $5000 ea. month, clearly the money was not earned by you, and since your husband has such high income, they want the gains earned from his income to be taxed at his higher marginal tax rate. By gifting the money to you to invest, CRA would view this as him trying to avoid paying taxes on those gains by shifting the investment earnings to you, the lower income spouse.

I think the way to properly split this would be to invest your maximum $1000, and use all his monies to pay your bills etc. I don't know how CRA really does this during an audit if any $ over your maximum theoretical saving amount would qualify as attributable to the earner.


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## SW20 MR2

Sampson said:


> You don't actually tell us what the difference in income is, you only list combined income. Tough to know how beneficial this would actually be.
> 
> In our household, we do precisely this. The high income earner pays all the bills and the low income earner invests/saves all their money. Be careful how you do this since gains on money gifted to your spouse for her to invest is still taxed in your hands.


My base salary is $90k, and her's is $50k.



> You could open a trust account for him, since you won't be able to invest directly under his name. We keep track of gifted money, but end up putting this into our own accounts. There is no point in a 3 year old having $3000 to his name. Perhaps you can use those funds to invest into his RESP rather than using your own.


One of the trading accounts is a trust account, and it's got about $8500 in stocks right now. There's $3k in cash right now which I'm trying to figure out what to do (eg. dividend stocks, couch potato, etc). For the RESP, we're contributing what we need to maximize the govt contribution, so I suppose it's neither here nor there if I put the additional funds into the RESP account or into a couch potato.



> I would step back and really take a look at your investments - it seems you have the time and knowledge to tackle a DIY ETF based portfolio and your combined assets are large enough to warrant this approach. I would recommend you consider your entire portfolio as a single unit, look at all the mutual funds, individual stocks, etc and determine if the breakdown is (i) low-fee, (ii) fitting of you risk tolerance/profile, (iii) capable of producing returns to meet your mid- to long-term goals.


I think this is probably what I need to do. I've been treating my mutual funds as my "core" and long-term holdings and my stock portfolio as my "play" portfolio (for the lack of a better term). That is, if my stocks go down or I take a loss, I can accept it.


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## the-royal-mail

I'm a bit concerned with the amount you are paying every month in life insurance. That's a lot of money. Over a year it's over $3000. May I ask why you are paying so much for that? If you're working full time, many company benefits plans have a life insurance policy included. Seems to me this is a luxury spend, but I may be wrong.

P.S. No need to quote every reply.


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## SW20 MR2

It's a policy that we bought when we got married 7 years ago and something that I've thought about occasionally. I honestly don't know much about life insurance, and it was something that our family recommended us to do at the time. 

Given our ages, family situation, and financial situation, would you recommend going with term insurance instead? I'll check our company benefits policy to see what type of coverage we have.


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## Sampson

Re: RESPs - $3000 Cash is fine. I think you need to set out a goal/plan for the RESP. Whether you will have a fixed asset allocation or change this over time. Our son is about 15 months old and we have him at about 80% equity and the remaining allocated to cash and/or bonds. As he gets older and closer to school age, we plan to reduce equity exposure in favor of fixed income and cash. The point of having the cash on hand is for diversification, and to take advantage of any buying opportunities if the markets fall.

Re: insurance - (i) how much coverage do you have? and (ii) does this align with what you need. In your scenario, at the pace you are saving monies, you can probably be self-insured (i.e. have enough assets to cover all your liabilities and support your son/family in event of disaster/death) by the time your son is 15-18. You have relatively low liabilities so I personally would go for a Term-15 or Term-20 policy if I were in your shoes [and they are quite similar  ]

To assess adequacy of you policy, just plan for the worst case scenario in the event of loss of you income - what would you like paid off immediately, how long would you have to support your family etc. Do this for death, permanent disability, and prolonged medical expenses. Only after you set out those targets should you judge whether you are paying too much or possibly even too little for your policy. I would also get a little extra coverage since your son is so young, and it may be possible you have more children/dependents.


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## marina628

My husband and I bought a whole life policy 26 years ago , I did not realize until Last year it was not the best way to go.The only plus side is we are getting guaranteed 8% annually on the cash value and dividends.That was back when savings accounts were paying about 12% interest !


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## SW20 MR2

I looked into our life insurance a little more. From work, we both have coverage for 1-year's salary. Each of our private policies are for $100k. Also, roughly have of the coverage is for critical illness, so we have both life insurance as well as CI. 

Given our difference in incomes, should I move all of the holdings in my margin account to her name and continue buying stocks only in her name (aside from TFSA)?


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## SW20 MR2

It's been about a year since my last update, so here goes:

Last year, I listed our short/medium term actions would be: 1. Have another kid; 2. Start a spousal RRSP; 3. Pay off mortgage in 5-6 years, and 4. Possibly move. #1 will be accomplished next month, and I did start a spousal RRSP to help balance out the weighting of the assets. For #3, we are well on our way, and I expect the mortgage to be fully paid in 2 years, so we're ahead of schedule there. For #4, we're definitely not moving this year since I don't want to move with a newborn, so I expect this will happen once this house is paid off.

As far as income, both of us switched roles within our company last year, and our combined gross income not including bonuses is now about $155k. I'm always a little worried that both of us work at the same division within the same company, but our division is still growing, and the entire business unit was left intact despite a 10% global headcount reduction for other groups.

Here's the net worth calculation...

Assets
Bank Accounts: $53.3k
Chequing - $7.8k
Savings - $24.5k
My TFSA Savings - $10.5k
Her TFSA Savings - $10.5k

Real Estate: 
Home - $390k purchase price (FWIW, builder selling for $570k nowadays)

Mutual Fund Investments: $229.1k
My RRSP - $145.3k
Her RRSP - $68.1k
Spousal RRSP - $4.9k
Son's RESP - $10.8k (maxing out govt contributions)

Stock Portfolios (using today's prices): $62.6k
My Margin - $28.8k
My TFSA - CWT-UN - $4.7k
Son's In Trust - $10.2k
Wife's RRSP - PG, MCD - $7.4k
Mine/Wife's ESOP - $11.5k

I didn't have much time to focus on the stock portfolio last year as I was just busy with work, but it's pretty much the same as last year but I got rid of a couple of losers and picked up a few more dividend payers.

Liabilities
Mortgage - $85k

Total assets - $735k (I included our house at purchase price and didn't include stuff such as cars or material possessions)
Total liabilities - $85k

Total net worth = $650k 

That's an increase of $162k which is 33% increase compared to the from $488k last year. Overall, I'm very happy with how things turned out last year. We've lead a fairly frugal life over the past few years, but with another child on the way, we're gonna start to spend a little more. In addition to child-related costs, I'm sure we'll be doing more vacations and stuff as well. I've really started to realize that there's no point in worrying about money so much and saving so much and not enjoying life.


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## SW20 MR2

Wow, time has flown by in the last 3 years. Lots of changes:

- We had a second kid, and they are now 6 and almost 3.
- We moved to a bigger house last year and now have a fairly big mortgage again.
- I moved to a competitor, and my wife was recently let go from her job. We had been talking about having her stay home with the kids anyways, so we'll probably try that for the next year or so.

Here's the picture as of a few weeks ago (some figures may be off due to rounding): 

Assets
Bank Accounts: $52k
Chequing - $8k
Savings - $32k (Will be the war chest while my wife is at home if we need extra money)
Kids Savings - $12k (I'm putting this in a couch potato in a few tranches)

Real Estate:
Home - $1.05M purchase price

Mutual Fund Investments: $372k
My RRSP - $189k
Her RRSP - $123k
Spousal RRSP - $29k
Sons' RESPs - $31k (maxing out govt contributions)

Stock Portfolios - $95k

Liabilities
Mortgage - $446k

Total assets - $1.6M (I included our house at purchase price and didn't include stuff such as cars or material possessions)
Total liabilities - $446k

Total net worth = $1.15M 

Our overall net worth has increased significantly in 3 years, but a lot of it is due to real estate. That said, the investment portfolio has grown by a lot as well, and we continue to save. The main thing that's on my mind, however, is the cash flow if my wife isn't working. Here's a quick monthly summary:

Take home pay - $6774 ($120k gross per year plus 15% bonus, the take home is net of an RRSP contribution as well)
Baby bonus - $320

RESP/RRSP contributions - $760 (will reduce by $100 when my wife stops receiving severance)
Daycare for younger child - $566
Mortgage - $2816 (accelerated payout schedule)
Property tax - $503
Car/home insurance - $324
Life insurance - $265
Utilities - $248
TV/internet/home phone/cell phones - $342
Gas - $240
Transit/parking for work - $233
Dining - $285
Sports - $231
Misc - $647 (This line includes stuff like groceries, household goods, personal care, clothes, etc). I'm too lazy to break things out. 

Net cash flow - ($371)

As you can see, we're in a little bit of a deficit on a monthly basis. We've started to be more frugal in general by buying less stuff that we don't absolutely need. If we want something, we buy it, but we are not big spenders by any means in terms of things that we like (eg. designer clothes, expensive electronics, etc). I've been thinking about a things we can do to bridge the gap:

- Move into a smaller house. Our house is much too big (3300 sq ft) for the 4 of us, and I'm leaning towards moving back to something smaller. I think we can now get $1.15M for the house, pay off the mortgage, and be left with $700k to buy something else. Ideally, we can get a small detached or a townhouse, and that will wipe the mortgage right off and free up $2800 per month. 

- My wife get's a part time job. Our little guy goes to school for a half day every day, so could she find something to do either in the mornings or several days per week. Her mom is around to help with childcare, so it's not a big deal. One of the most important things is that she gets something low stress. Her last job was fairly stressful, and it took a toll on her home life.

I'd love to hear comments/feedback.


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## jetsfan

..


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## Eclectic12

SW20 MR2 said:


> What I meant is that, I could've simply transferred the funds into my TFSA savings account in the interim. However, I didn't want to do the transfer in case I decided afterwards that I wanted to put it into my TFSA stock account instead.


Unless you are concerned about getting the maximum TFSA interest ... waiting might not have been required.

If you broker has a HISA MF with a reasonable rate that can be bought/sold for free ... then one can deposit the $$$ into the stock TFSA to buy the HISA MF.

In the future, where one decides to put it against the mortgage, sell MF and withdraw. Should one decide to buy a stock, buy the stock and sell the MF.

In the meantime, which one is evaluating where one prefers to deploy the $$$, it is earning interest tax free.


The main limitation is that should one withdraw in say Jan, the withdrawal amount won't become contribution room until the following Jan. 


Cheers


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## SW20 MR2

It's an option for next school year, but we'd likely keep him in. We both feel that it's worth the money to have him in school to learn and socialize. He would be in school for just that one more year, and then he'd go to public school, so the money would come back. Theoretically, we should be able to weather the storm of the deficit for a few years without any problems. My wife should also have a severance amount of $50-70k coming in the next 8-10 months - won't get into it here cause we are working with a lawyer right now.

She really wants to stay home, but the main things that scare us are that, 1. I'm the sole breadwinner, and what happens if I lose my job? And 2. if something happens to me, and she'd need to go back to work, how hard would it be for her to re-enter the workforce (she's 39)?

I'd really like her to start her own business, but we don't know what. She's not experienced enough or has a depth of knowledge in any discipline to do consulting work.



jetsfan said:


> You mentioned your wife might be staying at home - would that eliminate the $566/month in daycare and result in a positive cashflow?


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## SW20 MR2

Lots going on the last few months, and here's the latest update:

Assets
Bank Accounts: $88k
Chequing - $16k
Savings - $56k (Need to do roof this year and windows next year...also a war chest for a few months while we get used to our new setup...see below)
Kids Savings - $15k (I'm putting this in a couch potato in a few tranches...been behind in this and need to get moving)

Real Estate:
Home - $1.05M purchase price

Mutual Fund Investments: $429k
My RRSP - $236k
Her RRSP - $126k
Spousal RRSP - $33k
Sons' RESPs - $34k (maxing out govt contributions)

Stock Portfolios - $100k

Liabilities
Mortgage - $414k

Total assets - $1.67M (I included our house at purchase price and didn't include stuff such as cars or material possessions)
Total liabilities - $414k

Total net worth = $1.25M 

Not included in the above is the $31k lump sum payment that we made on the mortgage this month. Not that the specific number means anything, but it feels good to get the number under $400k. I looked back, and we were able to make over $80k in lump sum payments over the course of the 2-year mortgage term. I don't think we can replicate it again, but on the right track.

My wife is now working part time, and that is helping with the previous monthly deficit that we were running. We're able to save some money each month, and this will be good enough for us to ride out for the next 16 months while our little guy still attends school. Once he goes to public school, that will free up some cash each month. We decided to stay in the house, but one of the things that we're going to do is to reduce our mortgage payment to give us wiggle room of $600 per month. We have been paying $1300 bi-weekly and will change it to $1000. That still amortizes out to about 17 years, but I'm confident that we'll come in under that (goal is 10 years). I'll just make more lump sum payments if we're in a situation of excess funds.

All in all, we've had a good run, and this is a slightly new chapter in our life. We'll figure it out as we go, but I think we're in good shape.


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## redsgomarching

wow great update. glad things worked out. your wife working part time will help in the long run. 

my mom did something similar while me and my 3 other siblings were growing up to keep baby sitting costs down. not only did this help her keep her skills up to date and a cash flow, when my brother hit an age they were comfortable with to baby sit us, she was able to secure full time work again.


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## mordko

"Bank Accounts: $88k" - can I ask what it's for?


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## SW20 MR2

We usually don't have quite this much cash around, but I think I mentioned in a previous post that my wife got a lump sum payment as part of her package from her old job. A good chunk of the money is still unused.

Chequing - $16k -> Everyday use. I normally don't keep this much in there. Usually $3-5k.
Savings - $56k -> This is our money to pay for house stuff, car repairs, etc. I have since taken $31k of this and made a lump sum payment on our mortgage. Another $7k will be used for our roof. The rest will be kept around for a while in case we need it, especially with my wife now only working part time. I'm pretty risk-averse and like a margin of safety, even though we have a LOC available.
Kids Savings - $15k -> This is our kids' money. I need to get off my butt and put it into a couch potato. It will be given to the kids when they are adults. Already have RESPs to cover their education.



mordko said:


> "Bank Accounts: $88k" - can I ask what it's for?


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## nobleea

SW20 MR2 said:


> Lots going on the last few months, and here's the latest update:
> Total assets - $1.67M (I included our house at purchase price and didn't include stuff such as cars or material possessions)
> Total liabilities - $414k
> 
> Total net worth = $1.25M


You've almost tripled your net worth in the 4 yrs since you started this thread. That is absolutely amazing, especially considering the figures we are talking about.


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## Emjay85

nobleea said:


> You've almost tripled your net worth in the 4 yrs since you started this thread. That is absolutely amazing, especially considering the figures we are talking about.


It really is incredible, given your incomes are not extraordinary either, to have such a high net worth. I am a few years younger with 1 child a little over a year now and am not even close to your assets or net worth with a similar income, and cannot picture for the life of me being anywhere near by your age. I must be doing something wrong! It does however, go to show that it is possible to accomplish. 

Nicely done.


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## Causalien

Too much home.


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## SW20 MR2

Causalien said:


> Too much home.


Yep, I definitely feel that way at times. We really like the area we're in, and the homes don't get much smaller than our's in our area. We will eventually need it though. I foresee in the future where one of our parents will eventually move in as they age.



Emjay85 said:


> It really is incredible, given your incomes are not extraordinary either, to have such a high net worth. I am a few years younger with 1 child a little over a year now and am not even close to your assets or net worth with a similar income, and cannot picture for the life of me being anywhere near by your age. I must be doing something wrong! It does however, go to show that it is possible to accomplish.
> 
> Nicely done.


Thanks. A good chunk of it is due to real estate though, so I don't really count that portion. We don't spend much money in terms of hobbies or tangible goods, and we haven't really gone on vacation either. In retrospect, I think we need to spend a little more to enjoy life, especially while we're still relatively young. Now that the kids are 6 and 3, I think we will start doing an annual vacation or two.


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## nobleea

SW20 MR2 said:


> Thanks. A good chunk of it is due to real estate though, so I don't really count that portion. We don't spend much money in terms of hobbies or tangible goods, and we haven't really gone on vacation either. In retrospect, I think we need to spend a little more to enjoy life, especially while we're still relatively young. Now that the kids are 6 and 3, I think we will start doing an annual vacation or two.


When people are 80 and they're looking at their accounts thinking they don't have enough money, almost no one would go back in time and trade their family vacations/trips for more money.

Of course, if you keep it up, you'll be 80, with big accounts, and the ability to look back fondly on many family vacations.


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## My Own Advisor

nobleea said:


> You've almost tripled your net worth in the 4 yrs since you started this thread. That is absolutely amazing, especially considering the figures we are talking about.


+1 

Very well done. Once that mortgage is killed in 10 years, or so, you'll be rollin'.

Keep up your contributions to your registered accounts including RESPs for kids. Again, great work.


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## mordko

Unless I am missing something, net worth about doubled in that period of time, which is still great.


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## SW20 MR2

An end of year update (numbers below might not add up due to rounding):

Assets
Bank Accounts: $35k
Chequing - $6k
Savings - $18k 
Kids Savings - $11k (started to put this into couch potato accounts)

Real Estate:
Home - $1.05M purchase price (can likely get $1.5M for our house if we were to sell today)

Mutual Fund Investments: $479k
My RRSP - $266k
Her RRSP - $135k
Spousal RRSP - $36k
Sons' RESPs - $41k (maxing out govt contributions)

Stock Portfolios - $121k

Syndicate Mortgage Investment - $15k (higher risk than our typical other investments, but we can stomach this even if we lose it all...my wife's company is involved in selling these investments among other products)


Liabilities
Mortgage - $369k

Total assets - $1.70M (I included our house at purchase price and didn't include stuff such as cars or material possessions)
Total liabilities - $369k

Total net worth = $1.33M 

Overall, this has been a solid year despite the big change in my wife's work arrangement. Her part time work has helped with the finances, and for our new mortgage, we reduced the bi-weekly payment to be $1100. We are cash flow positive each month, and my younger son will only be in montessori school for another 6 months. When he's done, that's an extra almost $600 per month that will be back in our pockets.

One thing that I need to start thinking about is our saving strategy given that my wife's income is now significantly less. We used to previously max out both of our RRSPs, and I would make spousal contributions each year (~$5-7k). I will continue to max out my RRSP through a combination of company-matched contributions and spousal contributions. I'm not sure about what to do about her side. She's currently earning approximately $1k net per month working part time, so her annual income is low. I'm not sure if I should continue to contribute for anything above the min personal amount or just bank it all. There's a chance that she may go back to work full time in a few years, so it may be nice to have some room banked up. But nothing's for certain right now. Regardless, we'll continue to invest money as it becomes available.


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## scorpion_ca

I was wondering what was your income in 2016. Also, if you don't mind to share your profession. New members might get an idea to choose the profession where they can earn big bucks.


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## SW20 MR2

Base salary is $123k with a target bonus of 15%. I'm in the financial services industry and have worked for big global brands in analytics, marketing, and product management. My current role is in product management, and my role is director-level from a responsibilities perspective.


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## NielsJensen

Thanks for sharing mate!


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## SW20 MR2

My mid-year update (numbers below might not add up due to rounding):

Assets
Bank Accounts: $51k
Chequing - $8k
Savings - $42k 
Kids Savings - $1k (deployed majority of the kids' money into a couch potato)

Real Estate:
Home - $1.05M purchase price (likely worth around $1.9-2M now; neighbour's house sold for $1.93 2 months ago and our place is bigger)

Mutual Fund Investments: $508k
My RRSP - $276k
Her RRSP - $141k (not contributing much right now due to her part-time income)
Spousal RRSP - $46k 
Sons' RESPs - $45k (maxing out govt contributions)

Stock Portfolios - $150k

Syndicate Mortgage Investment - $15k (higher risk than our typical other investments, but we can stomach this even if we lose it all...my wife's company is involved in selling these investments among other products)


Liabilities
Mortgage - $358k

Total assets - $1.77M (I included our house at purchase price and didn't include stuff such as cars or material possessions)
Total liabilities - $358k

Total net worth = $1.41M 

Overall, things are going very well. My wife has actually been working around 30 hours per week, so her income is now about $2k net per month, but still have good flexibility. The extra $1k helps to put some more money back in the bank and easily keep us in the black. My little guy is also going to public school in Sept, so the $700 from part-time school will go back in our pockets as well. Hence, I'm thinking about upping our bi-weekly mortgage contribution back up by an additional $2-300. At the current payment rate, the mortgage will take about 15 years to kill, but I'd like to get it done in 10 or less. 

As I had mentioned before, we're definitely spending a little more nowadays on some more fun stuff. We're going on a cruise in Nov and we're also doing some weekend trips during the summer as well. With the recent 30% off sale by Disney, we also bought park tickets in advance for a trip likely next year. I love seeing the kids having so much fun - can't put a price on that!


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## SW20 MR2

Here's the year update (numbers below might not add up due to rounding):

Assets
Bank Accounts: $57k
Chequing - $10k
Savings - $43k 
Kids Savings - $4k (deployed majority of the kids' money into a couch potato)

Real Estate:
Home - $1.05M purchase price (likely worth around $1.5-7M now with the downturn in the housing market)

Mutual Fund Investments: $538k
My RRSP - $296k
Her RRSP - $144k (not contributing much right now due to her part-time income)
Spousal RRSP - $48k 
Sons' RESPs - $50k (maxing out govt contributions)

Stock Portfolios - $160k

Syndicate Mortgage Investment - $15k (higher risk than our typical other investments, but we can stomach this even if we lose it all...my wife's company is involved in selling these investments among other products)


Liabilities
Mortgage - $336k

Total assets - $1.77M (I included our house at purchase price and didn't include stuff such as cars or material possessions)
Total liabilities - $336k

Total net worth = $1.48M 

Another good solid year. Net worth increased by $153k since last year. To do's for 2018:

- Continue to pay down mortgage - I increased our bi-weekly payment a few months ago, so that we're paying $1300 bi-weekly. We've got a decent savings account balance right now, and I expect a decent-sized bonus in Feb. Hence, we will likely make a lump sum payment in Q1. Time left on mortgage is 11 years based on current payment schedule. 

- Renew our mortgage - Easy one since my wife is an agent. 

- Re-structure stock portfolio - I've been reading thru the 5-pack thread and will likely do a 10-12 pack strategy. I need to figure out which industries/companies to target as well as come up with a strategy to execute the trades. I will need to sell off a bunch of our holdings where I'm overweight, but it will trigger a series of capital gains (likely $20-30k). Also, the majority of the holdings are currently in my name while the majority of the savings accounts money is in my wife's name. I will likely sell the stocks and put them back into a high interest savings account in my name and then use the money in my wife's savings accounts to buy the new stock holdings. This should move the future tax burden to her since she's self-employed and earns less income.


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## SW20 MR2

Been a while since I did an update (numbers below might not add up due to rounding):

Assets
Bank Accounts: $87k
Chequing - $16k
Savings - $68k (this will come down by $40k in the next week, making a $20k lump sump payment on the mortgage and getting the windows replaced)
Kids Savings - $3k (waiting to add to the couch potato)

Real Estate:
Home - $1.05M purchase price (likely worth around $1.5-7M now with the downturn in the housing market)

Mutual Fund Investments: $574k
My RRSP - $314k
Her RRSP - $146k (not contributing much right now due to her being self-employed)
Spousal RRSP - $58k 
Sons' RESPs - $55k (maxing out govt contributions)

Stock Portfolios - $158k

Syndicate Mortgage Investment - $15k (higher risk than our typical other investments, but we can stomach this even if we lose it all...my wife's company is involved in selling these investments among other products)


Liabilities
Mortgage - $308k (will drop by $20k once lump sum payment made this week)

Total assets - $1.88M (I included our house at purchase price and didn't include stuff such as cars or material possessions)
Total liabilities - $308k

Total net worth = $1.57M 

I've done a lot of work on restructuring our stock portfolio this year, but still not done yet. I settled on a variation of the x-pack strategy that's been discussed on here:

financials - banks - RY, BNS
financials - non-banks - MFC, SLF
utilities - EMA, FTS
industrials - BIP.UN (still undecided on the other holding...I've been eyeing CP, but it seems very pricey nowadays)
energy - TRP, CVX
telecom - RCI.B, BCE
consumer staples/defensive - MCD, PG (had MCD for years, but will likely swap it up for something like CTC)
real estate - SRU, CAR, HR (wanted a little more diversity in my REIT space so I chose 3 holdings)

The US stocks are in my wife's RRSP account, and the rest are in a combination of TFSA and non-registered accounts). I'm weighted properly on most, but I have to add to my positions on some of them, and I have some other holdings that I will sell to buy some of the above.


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