# A young family's financial journey



## coolbeans

I’ve been reading this forum for several years, but rarely contribute. I thought I would start a money diary to track the net worth of our family, establish some goals, and benefit from others poking holes in my family’s finances. I’ve modeled this off of nobleea’s excellent money diary thread.

I am 32, wife is 33, we have 2 young kids, and we live in Edmonton. My wife and I both work full time. Me as an engineer in the oil and gas sector and my wife in HR in the public sector. Our individual incomes are essentially the same and our gross household income is $245K.

*Long term goals:*
Achieve 1,000K net worth by end of 2018.
Pay off mortgage by end of 2020.
Catch up on TFSA. Between the wife and I, we have about $54K of contribution space.
Retire at 54 (me), wife at 55 (when she hits her DB pension’s magic number).

*Goals for 2016:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits, on track)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits, on track)
Contribute $5,500 each to TFSA. This is the last bucket to fill up after all the others, see note below. ($4,460 each to date)

*Goals for 2017:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Contribute $5,500 each to TFSA.

*Assets:*
House - $446,185 (assume inflation increases of 0.13%/mo, based off annual property tax assessment year-to-year)
SUV - $18,525 (2013 model year. I depreciate it $175/mo)
Car - $7,225 (2009 model year. I depreciate it $75/mo)
Non-Registered Portfolio - $16,195 (work share purchase plan, I sell when ~$4K vests and put against mortgage, see notes below)
DC Pension (mine) - $92,720 (contribute 4% of salary, company puts in 6%)
RRSP (mine) - $86,190 (Couch Potato at Questrade)
DB Pension (wife) - $161,540 (based on rough extrapolation of annual statements)
RRSP (wife) - $19,635 (CP at Questrade)
TFSA (mine) - $21,460 (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
TFSA (wife) - $17,750 (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
Cash - $4,645 (I target to maintain no more than $5,500 for cash flow, see note below)

*Total Assets $892,070*

*Liabilities:*
House mortgage - $151,945 (Fixed at 3.04%, renewing Feb 2017)
Credit cards - $3,880 (current snapshot, we pay off every month)

*Total Liabilities $155,825*

*Net Worth: $736,250*


Some notes:

I don’t include RESPs as part of assets. We are maxed out for both kids though.
RESPs are at TD in e-series mutual funds which have a target of 20/30/25/25 in TDB909/TDB900/TDB902/TDB911 (CDN Bonds/CDN Eq./US Eq./Int. Eq).
We have about $26K for our emergency fund in the TFSAs. About half is cash, half is 70/30 VAB/ZCN at Questrade. This would cover 6 months if both of us lost our jobs. 
We have a live-in nanny for the kids, instead of daycare/day home.
I’ve been tracking our net worth since October 2013. Our year-over-year NW increase has been ~$120K, hence the goal to have $1,000K at the end of 2018.
Once we renew our mortgage in February 2017, we’ll be paying $15,700/year against the principal from bi-weekly payments. I’m also targeting lump sums of ~$15,000/year from selling my work shares continually. It should take something like 4.5 years at that pace to pay off the mortgage. I’ll probably renew with a 4-year mortgage (assuming better rate) as $10K of our emergency fund is to cover ~6 months of mortgage payments. We don’t need that if we don’t have a mortgage, so I can pay off the remainder of the mortgage with a lump sum payment!
Almost everything but the TFSA contributions are automatic deposits. I determined a while ago that $5,500 in our chequing account was a good number to handle the ups and downs in cash flow throughout the year. If, for example, the account is sitting at $3,500 and I get paid $2,500, I’ll transfer the difference ($500) to TFSAs, split evenly between me and my wife’s TFSAs. I also try to pay credit card bills as soon as they are posted.
Automated RRSP contributions also include Home Buyers Plan payback. I use the RRSP contributions to continually rebalance the Couch Potato ETFs which have a target of 15/30/55 in VAB/VCN/VXC (CDN Bonds/CDN Eq./World Eq.). I do this continually (rather than 1 or 2 times a year) because buying ETFs is free at Questrade.
The $54K in TFSA contribution space between the two of us is going to take a while to catch up on. So far this year, we are just about to meet the $5,500 each, let alone tackle the $54K of space. This will likely not happen until after the mortgage is paid off.
My job has an annual bonus but, due to the economy, we haven’t gotten anything in a couple years. If we start getting these again I’ll lump sum it against the mortgage.
I sell my work shares when ~$4K has vested because the fees to sell are around $40, so I limit my losses due to fees to ~1% or less.


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## mordko

^ solid plan


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## heyjude

Wow. I wish I had been this knowledgeable and focused when I was 32.


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## nobleea

Hey coolbeans, welcome.
Your writeup is close to an exact copy of ours. We have a pricier house and pricier mortgage, but everything else (net worth, investments, even depreciation of vehicles) is spot on. We've got a few years on you. Given your jobs, age, and kids, I may have already met you! Edmonton is not the big city that population suggests.

Really interested in following your journey forward!

Question on the live-in nanny - what's the net cost per month? I assume they either pay rent or get a lower pay for the rooming. Is it a separate suite, or just a room in the basement or similar?


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## coolbeans

Yeah, I think I directly copied your vehicle depreciation numbers months ago. I wanted to account for it somehow, but I didn't want to do the research to get accurate numbers for my particular vehicles.
Live-in nanny is ~$2100/month all in including employer portion of CPP and EI. That'll go up again with the minimum wage increase. She has a room in the basement. She doesn't pay room and board. That isn't allowed anymore under the In Home Caregiver Program. It's very convenient for us. No getting kids ready in the morning, drop off/pickup at daycare. She also cleans the house, does laundry, and makes us dinner.

Nobleea, I noticed in your first post that you used to have a smith manoeuvre HELOC. Was it worth the trouble? I'll be renewing my mortgage and could choose a re-advanceable mortgage. I'd be willing to work towards investing ~$200K of the equity in my house, which is about half the value of the house. Just not sure it's worth the effort. Right now I could get prime + 0.5% (3.2%). After tax deduction that's just over 2% interest off any earnings. Using a typical Canadian dividend portfolio, I'd be lucky to get 3.5% yield, which I lose 7-15% depending on tax bracket. So I'd clear 1.3% after tax. On a theoretical $200K portfolio (which would take a while to get up to), that's only $2,600 per year. Am I missing something?


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## m3s

Well done!

Rather than SM I'd consider topping off the TFSAs when you renew the mortgage. Much less hassle this way and the TFSA is completely tax free. Mortgage rates are rock bottom and investments are high so not the best time to drop $200k on a SM imho

Future 33/32 year old couple would have $160k TFSA room accumulated since age 18. I've been saying this would replace SM for the mass majority since TFSA came out

Seeing as you have large pensions, you should probably be considering TFSA (tax free) before RRSP (tax deferred).


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## nobleea

coolbeans said:


> Yeah, I think I directly copied your vehicle depreciation numbers months ago. I wanted to account for it somehow, but I didn't want to do the research to get accurate numbers for my particular vehicles.


Easy to do, just look on kijiji for the asking prices on the 2009 model year of the SUV and guess a selling price, take the difference between selling price of your 2013 now, and divide by 48. Rough approximation of your depreciation.



coolbeans said:


> Live-in nanny is ~$2100/month all in including employer portion of CPP and EI. That'll go up again with the minimum wage increase. She has a room in the basement. She doesn't pay room and board. That isn't allowed anymore under the In Home Caregiver Program. It's very convenient for us. No getting kids ready in the morning, drop off/pickup at daycare. She also cleans the house, does laundry, and makes us dinner.


Thanks for that. We already pay someone to clean the house, so that would be a savings. Laundry, getting kids ready in the morning and making some dinners would certainly have value.



coolbeans said:


> Nobleea, I noticed in your first post that you used to have a smith manoeuvre HELOC. Was it worth the trouble? I'll be renewing my mortgage and could choose a re-advanceable mortgage. I'd be willing to work towards investing ~$200K of the equity in my house, which is about half the value of the house. Just not sure it's worth the effort. Right now I could get prime + 0.5% (3.2%). After tax deduction that's just over 2% interest off any earnings. Using a typical Canadian dividend portfolio, I'd be lucky to get 3.5% yield, which I lose 7-15% depending on tax bracket. So I'd clear 1.3% after tax. On a theoretical $200K portfolio (which would take a while to get up to), that's only $2,600 per year. Am I missing something?


It will depend if you have the drive to stick with a proper investment plan or whether you'll start on one and then start dabbling in picks and trades. At the time, I did not. There was also a bit of a difference in how I treated money that was borrowed and invested vs money that was earned and invested. Numbers will say that it's actually better to just focus on growth stocks, not dividend. Capitalize the interest. The capital gains vs dividends makes it more tax efficient in the end. The goal of SM is really to get a much larger investment portfolio faster than you normally would. It's not to have the portfolio pay for itself from dividends though that's one way you could set it up.


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## coolbeans

m3s said:


> Rather than SM I'd consider topping off the TFSAs when you renew the mortgage. Much less hassle this way and the TFSA is completely tax free. Mortgage rates are rock bottom and investments are high so not the best time to drop $200k on a SM imho
> 
> Future 33/32 year old couple would have $160k TFSA room accumulated since age 18. I've been saying this would replace SM for the mass majority since TFSA came out
> 
> Seeing as you have large pensions, you should probably be considering TFSA (tax free) before RRSP (tax deferred).


How are you suggesting to top off the TFSAs? With a HELOC (wouldn't be tax deductible, I understand)? Slow down on the mortgage payments? Slow down on RRSPs?
The rates I'm seeing for 5 year fixed is 2.44%. Even at that low a rate, I see aggressively paying down my mortgage beneficial in a couple ways:
- I view a payment against our mortgage as the safest investment we can make, in that it's a guaranteed avoidance of paying the corresponding interest. For every $100 against our mortgage, we avoid $2.44 after tax per year for the remainder of our mortgage. Even at a marginal tax rate of 30.5% (We max our RRSPs and claim $16,000 for child care costs for the 2 kids, so that knocks us out of the 36% bracket pretty quick) we'd need a GIC paying 3.5% to equal the after-tax return. That's a pretty great GIC rate for the Fixed Income portion of our portfolio. Side note: We have RRSP contributions from last year we carried forward to this year to keep us on the 30.5%/36% tax bracket line.
- It feels really good knowing that I can be mortgage-free in 4 years.
Regarding slowing down on RRSP contributions: Our salaries aren't going up as fast is they used to, so it's going to be a while before either of us make it (if at all) to the (inflation-adjusted) 38% bracket. My understanding is that the benefits of the immediate tax refund, tax-sheltered growth, and the tax bracket differential when we retire at 54/55 seem to make sense to max out RRSP contributions before we think about TFSAs at this stage in our careers.

The idea of starting the Smith Manoeuvre was just to tap into the equity in our house and borrow money at a low interest rate. Building up our TFSAs is also a priority after mortgage/RRSP, but separate from the SM idea.



nobleea said:


> Easy to do, just look on kijiji for the asking prices on the 2009 model year of the SUV and guess a selling price, take the difference between selling price of your 2013 now, and divide by 48. Rough approximation of your depreciation.
> 
> 
> Thanks for that. We already pay someone to clean the house, so that would be a savings. Laundry, getting kids ready in the morning and making some dinners would certainly have value.
> 
> 
> It will depend if you have the drive to stick with a proper investment plan or whether you'll start on one and then start dabbling in picks and trades. At the time, I did not. There was also a bit of a difference in how I treated money that was borrowed and invested vs money that was earned and invested. Numbers will say that it's actually better to just focus on growth stocks, not dividend. Capitalize the interest. The capital gains vs dividends makes it more tax efficient in the end. The goal of SM is really to get a much larger investment portfolio faster than you normally would. It's not to have the portfolio pay for itself from dividends though that's one way you could set it up.


I'll have to do some quick Kijiji looking.

Yeah, we briefly (2 months I think) had both kids in daycare after the 2nd maternity leave. Once we got the nanny, the difference was striking. Having dinner ready for us when we get home and not having the basic house chores added a good hour each night to the time we had with the kids (compared to daycare). When they go to bed at 7:30pm, being done dinner and cleaned up by 5:15 instead of 6:15 is huge. The cost difference (at least initially) between 2 kids in daycare and having a live-in nanny were small. The difference is more now, but it's still worth the extra time with the kids.

I think I could swallow the ups and downs of the SM, its more the extra administrative time, and the relatively small return for a small portfolio, that makes me wonder if its worth it. It would be yet another chore I use up my free time on.


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## CalgaryPotato

Wow, very impressive. To have that much net worth and income by that age is awesome.

A couple of things... at the rate you're investing, in the next year you'll max out all of your registered investments. Then you'll have to start thinking about re-balancing your portfolio to maximize what you keep non registered. Just something to think about as you balance stuff now.

The other thing to think about is with your goal to retire at around 55, assuming you keep growing your net worth at the same rate, you'll presumably have a lot more money than you are currently spending every year during retirement. It's a long time away, but try thinking about what you plan to do with that excess money. For example if you want charitable giving to be a big part of it, you may want to increase your contributions to charities a little bit now, and take advantage of the tax savings. 

Also, don't save your life for retirement, way too many people do that, and then end up sick or even dying within the first few years of retirement and never get to enjoy what they toiled their life for.


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## coolbeans

CalgaryPotato said:


> Wow, very impressive. To have that much net worth and income by that age is awesome.
> 
> A couple of things... at the rate you're investing, in the next year you'll max out all of your registered investments. Then you'll have to start thinking about re-balancing your portfolio to maximize what you keep non registered. Just something to think about as you balance stuff now.
> 
> The other thing to think about is with your goal to retire at around 55, assuming you keep growing your net worth at the same rate, you'll presumably have a lot more money than you are currently spending every year during retirement. It's a long time away, but try thinking about what you plan to do with that excess money. For example if you want charitable giving to be a big part of it, you may want to increase your contributions to charities a little bit now, and take advantage of the tax savings.
> 
> Also, don't save your life for retirement, way too many people do that, and then end up sick or even dying within the first few years of retirement and never get to enjoy what they toiled their life for.


In terms of the rate that we're investing, we're maxing RRSP and RESP with automated bi-weekly transfers. The leftovers look to be just enough to roughly cover the $5,500 each for TFSA each year, so we aren't really catching up on TFSA yet ($54K of contribution space). Unless the economy improves and we start getting raises/bonuses, we won't really catch up on TFSA until after the mortgage is paid off (in 4 years). But your point is definitely still a good one. How do you manage balancing your overall portfolio? Do you assume an average tax rate at retirement, and apply that as appropriate to get after tax balances? Then there are the the tax efficiency considerations in terms of where to keep different assets. If I recall correctly: Fixed Income in TFSA, US equity in RRSP, CDN equity in non-registered. Something like that.

Regarding over-saving, our lifestyle hasn't really been cramped significantly by our rate of savings. We are currently saving $550 bi-weekly ($14,300 annually) for vacations. I think we can afford splurging on this because we bought a relatively affordable house ($350K) and are pretty thrifty in terms of clothing/eating out. I don't think the aggressive savings will continue once the mortgage is paid off and the TFSA is filled up. We also have vehicles that will need replacing around then and the kids keep costing more.


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## m3s

coolbeans said:


> How are you suggesting to top off the TFSAs? With a HELOC (wouldn't be tax deductible, I understand)? Slow down on the mortgage payments? Slow down on RRSPs?
> 
> The idea of starting the Smith Manoeuvre was just to tap into the equity in our house and borrow money at a low interest rate. Building up our TFSAs is also a priority after mortgage/RRSP, but separate from the SM idea.


You said you may consider a re-advanceable mortgage for SM when your renew. I approach renewals as a new mortgage and look at all my options. With a renewal you could free up some equity simply by choosing a downpayment/term/amortization that leaves some cash for TFSA. As far as I know HELOC rates tend to be higher and they risk increasing (my broker has been able to get me a lower fixed rate than any HELOC)

Paying down the mortgage vs investment is a difficult decision that only you can decide based on your perception of the future and level of risk you want to accept. When it comes time to renew I look at the interest rates and the market and while the rates are generally low I aim to diversify between the two. Considering the safety net of a pension and low mortgage rates, the TFSA looks attractive to take advantage of to me 

I view both SM and TFSA as investment vehicles where the TFSA is entirely tax free and the SM partially tax deductible. I don't see how the SM is separate from TFSA and I don't see how SM can be better than TFSA. Therefore if you are considering SM, I would simply consider maxing TFSA first. The question is not SM vs TFSA in my mind, but mortgage vs investment (which I agree with your assessment)

I could be wrong but that's how I see it. I max RRSP/TFSA and accelerate mortgage however I don't have to worry about RESPs. Since TFSA came out, I've been saying the SM is mostly irrelevant for those our age and even more so for those younger. I could be missing something but there are few our age who discuss this  The SM has not made sense for me based on the available rates and the TFSA is so much less paperwork


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## coolbeans

m3s said:


> You said you may consider a re-advanceable mortgage for SM when your renew. I approach renewals as a new mortgage and look at all my options. With a renewal you could free up some equity simply by choosing a downpayment/term/amortization that leaves some cash for TFSA. As far as I know HELOC rates tend to be higher and they risk increasing (my broker has been able to get me a lower fixed rate than any HELOC)
> 
> Paying down the mortgage vs investment is a difficult decision that only you can decide based on your perception of the future and level of risk you want to accept. When it comes time to renew I look at the interest rates and the market and while the rates are generally low I aim to diversify between the two. Considering the safety net of a pension and low mortgage rates, the TFSA looks attractive to take advantage of to me
> 
> I view both SM and TFSA as investment vehicles where the TFSA is entirely tax free and the SM partially tax deductible. I don't see how the SM is separate from TFSA and I don't see how SM can be better than TFSA. Therefore if you are considering SM, I would simply consider maxing TFSA first. The question is not SM vs TFSA in my mind, but mortgage vs investment (which I agree with your assessment)
> 
> I could be wrong but that's how I see it. I max RRSP/TFSA and accelerate mortgage however I don't have to worry about RESPs. Since TFSA came out, I've been saying the SM is mostly irrelevant for those our age and even more so for those younger. I could be missing something but there are few our age who discuss this  The SM has not made sense for me based on the available rates and the TFSA is so much less paperwork


Yeah, the HELOC would be higher. I recently got a quote for 2.49% for 5-year fixed and 3.2% (prime + 0.5%) for the HELOC.

I'm definitely in the camp of splitting between paying down my mortgage and investment. We had done the odd lump sum payment here and there. But, in the last year is when we started accelerating the mortgage payments. Before that we were catching up on RRSP contribution space. Once we caught up on RRSP, we looked at what to do next and realized that we could pay off the mortgage over one more term if we were aggressive. 

I see the SM as separate from the TFSA because of the source of funding. Funding the TFSA would come from our excess cash flow. Funding a non-registered account utilizing the SM would come from borrowing money against the equity in my house, outside of excess cash flow. If we have excess cash flow, we would definitely choose TFSA over non-registered account. If I'm borrowing money, I would like to be able to deduct the interest, which can't be done if the borrowed money is put inside a TFSA.

Certainly, the introduction of the TFSA in 2009 added another bucket to direct excess cashflow into for savings. For people who had previously been maxing out RRSP, they used to have to put their excess cash flow into non-registered accounts. Coming from the perspective of a young family, an additional $11,000 each year represents a significant percentage of our annual savings rate.

Interest rates going up is definitely a risk when employing the SM.


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## cashinstinct

Congrats to keep the focus on your finances and not take for granted your current high incomes, and have a plan to invest for the long term.

Having a high income is enough enough, you need discipline too and you seem to have it.

I would focus on TFSA by giving yourself more time to pay your mortgage. There is no rush to pay your mortgage considering your low balance relative to your income (less than 1 year gross of income). It can feel good to pay mortgage in 4-5 years, does not mean it's the "best" decision.

I would take a HELOC on your home only to have the money available in case "Something" happens... but not for SM right now.

It would make no sense to borrow at +- 3.2% (Prime + 0.5%) for TFSA, while fast paying your mortgage at +- 2.5%.

I would not bother with SM before you have maxed out both your TFSA.


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## My Own Advisor

Here is my feedback....for what it's worth....

Achieve 1,000K net worth by end of 2018 - *great goal!*
Pay off mortgage by end of 2020 - *great goal!*.
Catch up on TFSA. Between the wife and I, we have about $54K of contribution space - *another great goal!*

If you pay off your mortgage, invest what you (used to) put into your mortgage (i.e., 1) max out TFSAs every year going-forward; max out all contribution room; and 2) max out both your RRSPs eventually AND 3) start/build a non-registered portfolio with what's leftover) you'll be set at age 55.

You'll likely have >1 M in invested assets + a paid off home + workplace pensions.

That will provide a VERY NICE lifestyle in (early) retirement. 

Lastly, regarding your mortgage, do what you feel is best - but I would continue to get a variable mortgage with bond yields being so low and for the foreseeable future. You can get a variable mortgage for about 2.25% - it would kill your mortgage even faster.


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## coolbeans

*November 1, 2016*

Not much to say for this past month. We're within 120 days of the maturity of our current mortgage. We need to get some rates held in the next month. We didn't have any leftover cash to put towards the TFSA goals. I'm not sure we'll make that goal this year with 2 months to go and Christmas to fight against. If we're going to make it, it would be November. I sent in T1213 (Request to Reduce Tax Deductions at Source) forms for my wife and I. This is for child care deduction (for my wife) and RRSP contributions (me).

*Goals for 2016:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits, on track)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits, on track)
Contribute $5,500 each to TFSA. This is the last bucket to fill up after all the others, see note below. ($4,460 each to date, $0 change)

*Goals for 2017:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Contribute $5,500 each to TFSA.

*Assets:*
House - $446,765 (+$580) (assume inflation increases of 0.13%/mo, based off annual property tax assessment year-to-year)
SUV - $18,350 (-$175) (2013 model year. I depreciate it $175/mo)
Car - $7,150 (-$75) (2009 model year. I depreciate it $75/mo)
Non-Registered Portfolio - $17,940 (+$1,745) (work share purchase plan, I sell when ~$4K vests and put against mortgage, see notes below)
DC Pension (mine) - $93,000 (+$280) (contribute 4% of salary, company puts in 6%)
RRSP (mine) - $87,300 (+$1,105) (Couch Potato at Questrade)
DB Pension (wife) - $164,590 (+$3,050) (based on rough extrapolation of annual statements)
RRSP (wife) - $19,775 (+$140) (CP at Questrade)
TFSA (mine) - $21,900 (+$440) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
TFSA (wife) - $17,730 (-$20) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
Cash - $2,565 (-$2,075) (I target to maintain no more than $5,500 for cash flow, see note below)
*Total Assets $897,075 (+$4,500)*

*Liabilities:*
House mortgage - $150,825 (-$1,115) (Fixed at 3.04%, renewing Feb 2017)
Credit cards - $2,785 (-$1,100) (current snapshot, we pay off every month)
*Total Liabilities $153,610 (-$2,220)*

*Net Worth: $743,465 (+$7,215)*


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## m3s

coolbeans said:


> I see the SM as separate from the TFSA because of the source of funding. Funding the TFSA would come from our excess cash flow. Funding a non-registered account utilizing the SM would come from borrowing money against the equity in my house, outside of excess cash flow. If we have excess cash flow, we would definitely choose TFSA over non-registered account. *If I'm borrowing money, I would like to be able to deduct the interest, which can't be done if the borrowed money is put inside a TFSA.*
> 
> Certainly, the introduction of the TFSA in 2009 added another bucket to direct excess cashflow into for savings. For people who had previously been maxing out RRSP, they used to have to put their excess cash flow into non-registered accounts. Coming from the perspective of a young family, an additional $11,000 each year represents a significant percentage of our annual savings rate.


I consider your "source" of the funds to be irrelevant. When you renew, you simply increase your mortgage to unlock cash for the TFSA instead of using a HELOC. That way you not only borrow at a lower rate, *but also get a better tax advantage of the TFSA than tax deductible interest*.. plus no tax deducting paperwork, and it's not a callable loan like a HELOC..

Whenever you have a mortgage, I consider both TFSA and SM as leveraged investing because either could be used to pay down the mortgage instead. At this point you've already decided that cash should be on your mortgage or invested, so I don't see how cash flow is relevant to catching up on a mortgage or past TFSA contributions

So it's a matter of TFSA vs mortgage. Personally I think the TFSA is such a good deal it should not be neglected. Many healthy stocks pay 3-4% dividends and they increase them annually, so the sooner you invest the more time you have to reap the tax free rewards. Ideally your direct cash should be going into non-reg to be transferred into TFSA on Jan 1.


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## coolbeans

*December 1, 2016*

We'll be signing for the new mortgage late December for 2.14% fixed for 5 years. We'll have about $600 in daily interest to pay to get this rate as our current mortgage matures mid-February.

We didn't have any leftover cash again to put towards the TFSA goals. Not looking likely to meet our TFSA goal.

Waiting for the response from the government for the T1213 (Request to Reduce Tax Deductions at Source) forms I sent for my wife and I.

*Goals for 2016:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits, on track)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits, on track)
Contribute $5,500 each to TFSA. This is the last bucket to fill up after all the others, see note below. ($4,460 each to date, $0 change)

*Goals for 2017:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Contribute $5,500 each to TFSA.

*Assets:*
House - $447,347 (+$580) (assume inflation increases of 0.13%/mo, based off annual property tax assessment year-to-year)
SUV - $18,175 (-$175) (2013 model year. I depreciate it $175/mo)
Car - $7,075 (-$75) (2009 model year. I depreciate it $75/mo)
Non-Registered Portfolio - $17,630 (-$310) (work share purchase plan, I sell when ~$4K vests and put against mortgage, see notes below)
DC Pension (mine) - $94,730 (+$1,730) (contribute 4% of salary, company puts in 6%)
RRSP (mine) - $90,395 (+$3,095) (Couch Potato at Questrade)
DB Pension (wife) - $167,640 (+$3,050) (based on rough extrapolation of annual statements)
RRSP (wife) - $20,110 (+$335) (CP at Questrade)
TFSA (mine) - $23,340 (+$1,435) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
TFSA (wife) - $17,735 (+$5) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
Cash - $3,950 (+$1,385) (I target to maintain no more than $5,500 for cash flow)
*Total Assets $908,135 (+$11,060)*

Liabilities:
House mortgage - $149,705 (-$1,120) (Fixed at 3.04%, renewing Dec 2016 at 2.14%)
Credit cards - $3,875 (+$1,090) (current snapshot, we pay off every month)
*Total Liabilities $153,580 (-$30)*

*Net Worth: $754,555 (+$11,090)*


----------



## coolbeans

*January 1, 2017*

2016 has been a good year. Despite no raises or bonuses we were able to save quite a bit and increase our net worth $130,000 year-over-year. That includes ~$28,000 off our mortgage, $85,000 increase in our RRSP/pensions, and $11,000 increase in TFSA. The only goal we didn’t quite make was to contribute $5,500 each to our TFSAs, which we were short by $2,080. In retrospect, if we’re going to meet this goal for 2017, we’ll have to get it done by October. November/December is tough to find extra cash because of Christmas and nanny bonus.

I’ve decided to start including our RESP accounts in our Net Worth calculation. Although the money is ear-marked for our kids’ post-secondary, including it is an important piece of our family’s overall financial state. 

We’ve signed all the paperwork for the new mortgage (2.14% fixed 5 years) and the first withdrawal is January 13th. I’ll be selling my work share purchase plan vested shares in the next week to make a lump sum.

I’m looking forward to when the 2016 TurboTax is out so I can run the numbers for the tax return. We’ll be getting money back. Whatever we get we’ll probably throw at the mortgage.

*Goals for 2016:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits) Complete
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits) Complete
Contribute $5,500 each to TFSA. This is the last bucket to fill up after all the others. ($4,460 each for 2016, $0 change) $2,080 short.

*Goals for 2017:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Contribute $5,500 each to TFSA.

*Assets:*
House - $447,930 (+$580) (assume inflation increases of 0.13%/mo, based off annual property tax assessment year-to-year)
SUV - $18,000 (-$175) (2013 model year. I depreciate it $175/mo)
Car - $7,000 (-$75) (2009 model year. I depreciate it $75/mo)
Non-Registered Portfolio - $19,910 (+$2,280) (work share purchase plan, I sell when ~$4K vests and put against mortgage)
DC Pension (mine) - $97,455 (+$2,720) (contribute 4% of salary, company puts in 6%)
RRSP (mine) - $90,795 (+$400) (Couch Potato at Questrade)
DB Pension (wife) - $170,690 (+$3,050) (based on rough extrapolation of annual statements)
RRSP (wife) - $20,425 (+$315) (CP at Questrade)
TFSA (mine) - $24,690 (+$1,355) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
TFSA (wife) - $17,790 (+$55) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
RESP - $39,600 (CP e-Series at TD)
Cash - $5,315 (+$1,365) (I target to maintain no more than $5,500 for cash flow)
*Total Assets $959,605 (+$11,870, +51,470 if you compare with last month due to addition of RESP to NW calculation)*

*Liabilities:*
House mortgage - $150,355 (+$650) (Fixed at 2.14%)*
Credit cards - $3,195 (-$680) (current snapshot, we pay off every month)
*Total Liabilities $153,545 (-$30)*

*Net Worth: $806,055 (+$11,900, +51,500 if you compare with last month due to addition of RESP to NW calculation)*

*Mortgage went up because of interest fees for breaking early and only one payment in December.


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## nobleea

Good work for the year. Hopefully 2017 is even more prosperous!



coolbeans said:


> I’m looking forward to when the 2016 TurboTax is out so I can run the numbers for the tax return. We’ll be getting money back. Whatever we get we’ll probably throw at the mortgage.


Honestly, picking up the new tax software is probably the best part of January for me.


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## Steve Divi

Great work Nobleea.


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## coolbeans

*February 1, 2017*

This month's post is not going to make perfect sense compared to past months. We just got our property assessment from the city, which resulted in a big drop for house value compared to last month, which is based on a forecasted appreciation from the last year's assessment. The approach I take on my tracking spreadsheet is once I get the property assessment I calculate the effective monthly appreciation rate and apply that retroactively. This year our property was assessed $8,000 lower than a year ago. I prefer this approach as I'm most interested in tracking smooth ups and downs of my assets/liabilities. An alternative would be to just fix the the house value based on the previous property assessment, and then only raise or lower when I get the next property assessment. This would be easier to explain in these posts, but I don't like the step change in my tracking sheet. My approach isn't perfect, but I'm not sure there is a perfect one. The same thing will happen when my wife gets her annual pension statement. I'm certainly open to others thoughts on this.

This month I sold the vested portion of my work share purchase plan and applied that against the mortgage, hence the big drop there. Our mortgage pay-down plan will have our mortgage paid off February 2021.

We made our final payment for a Disney cruise we are excited about for the spring which explains the drop in my TFSA (where we save for vacations).

We also had a major service on our SUV which explains the higher credit card balance.

I've filled out the paperwork to open a family RESP account at Questrade. Then I'll transfer the TD RESP accounts over. I'm not sure which is the weird one. TD has two separate accounts for our two kids, but they are both family plans. Questrade just does a single account for both kids. I've made some phone calls to each institution to confirm this. I just want to make sure there aren't any problems with the transfers. Also, according to the TD person I talked to, the transfer should be free. We'll see, I don't see that in the fee guide. Anyone here transferred from TD and/or to Questrade?

*Goals for 2017:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Contribute $5,500 each to TFSA. ($0 to date. CPP, EI, and nanny raise are making this unlikely for the first half of the year)

*Assets:*
*House - $433,562 (+$565) (assume inflation increases of 0.13%/mo, based off annual property tax assessment year-to-year)
SUV - $17,825 (-$175) (2013 model year. I depreciate it $175/mo)
Car - $6,925 (-$75) (2009 model year. I depreciate it $75/mo)
Non-Registered Portfolio - $15,490 (-$4,420) (work share purchase plan, I sell when ~$4K vests and put against mortgage)
DC Pension (mine) - $97,720 (+$265) (contribute 4% of salary, company puts in 6%)
RRSP (mine) - $91,840 (+$1,045) (Couch Potato at Questrade)
DB Pension (wife) - $173,740 (+$3,050) (based on rough extrapolation of annual statements)
RRSP (wife) - $20,665 (+$240) (CP at Questrade)
TFSA (mine) - $20,260 (-$4,435) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
TFSA (wife) - $17,825 (+$35) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
RESP - $40,035 (+$440) (CP e-Series at TD)
Cash - $2,585 (-$2,730) (I target to maintain no more than $5,500 for cash flow)
Total Assets $938,475 (-$6,200)

*Liabilities:*
**House mortgage - $141,755 (-$8,600) (Fixed at 2.14%)
Credit cards - $5,795 (+$2,600) (current snapshot, we pay off every month)
Total Liabilities $147,550 (-$6,000)

*Net Worth: $790,925 (-$200)*


----------



## nobleea

coolbeans said:


> *February 1, 2017*
> *Net Worth: $790,925 (-$200)*


Good post. The house value is always a hard one. Depending on your home and location, the city assessment has always been below the market value by anywhere from 5-15%. In a perfect world, there would be no change to your net worth if you were to sell your home - you would have perfectly estimated it's value (minus selling costs). Never seen it happen though. As your net worth grows, any changes to your home value will have a diminished effect on your net worth (hopefully).
I understand what you're doing, makes sense. I don't do it for house value, but try to do the same for the wife's DB pension. Even then, there's always a (positive) step change when I get the update. I'm sure once interest rates start increasing, it will be the opposite.

Ha, we also had a major service on our 2013 SUV this past month.

Interested in hearing how your TD RESP transfer works as I'll be doing the same in a couple years.


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## coolbeans

*March 1, 2017*

It was a good month, with respect to net worth gains. I guess the broad market did well? I have no idea with the couch potato, which is nice.

This month was tough on the cash flow/savings. We had a bunch of credit card balances to pay off to the point that I had to dip into our TFSA savings $2500. Here are some of the culprits. We finally upgraded the 3-year old to a twin bed frame and mattress from his old toddler bed. Mattress was $440 (including $95 delivery!), frame was $150, sheets and comforter were $150. We had a $380 WCB bill for the nanny. $225 for our share of a VRBO in Canmore for Family Day long weekend. $195 for vaccinations in advance of our cruise (those travel clinics are expensive!). $150 for Banff camping reservations for August. $820 for a major service on our SUV. So that adds up to ~$2500. My cash flow system isn't really designed to handle that big of a swing (amongst the standard monthly/bi-weekly debits/credits). I'm not really interested in creating a bigger buffer to handle this rare occasion. In fact I purposefully try to run my cash flow somewhat lean to keep me honest. Now I just have to pay back that $2500 into my TFSA before I can tackle the annual $5500 each goal.

The family RESP account is now open at Questrade. I just need to fund it. I had already stopped our monthly contributions ($208.33 x 2) to the TD RESP accounts, with our last contribution being late January. I'm just waiting for the corresponding grant money to pop in before I do the big transfer. That should be any day. I also have the February contributions (and likely March) waiting in a savings account until the transfer goes through, then I'll lump sum transfer that. I wonder how long the transfer will take.

Both the wife and I received our T4s and I put them into TurboTax. Looks like we will actually owe money (~$900). My wife's portion of that is actually owing $~4000 with me getting back ~$3100. My best guess is that the wife's work screwed up the income tax reduction at source I had done and undertaxed her last year. No worries, I guess we inadvertently made a little interest on the government's taxes. I guess I'll wait until the end of April to file the tax returns.

*Goals for 2017:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Contribute $5,500 each to TFSA. ($0 to date. CPP, EI, and nanny raise are making this unlikely for the first half of the year)

*Assets:*
House - $434,125 (+$565) (assume inflation increases of 0.13%/mo, based off annual property tax assessment year-to-year)
SUV - $17,650 (-$175) (2013 model year. I depreciate it $175/mo)
Car - $6,850 (-$75) (2009 model year. I depreciate it $75/mo)
Non-Registered Portfolio - $16,065 (+$575) (work share purchase plan, I sell when ~$4K vests and put against mortgage)
DC Pension (mine) - $101,885 (+$4,165) (contribute 4% of salary, company puts in 6%)
RRSP (mine) - $95,365 (+$3,525) (Couch Potato at Questrade)
DB Pension (wife) - $176,790 (+$3,050) (based on rough extrapolation of annual statements)
RRSP (wife) - $21,380 (+$710) (CP at Questrade)
TFSA (mine) - $19,325 (-$935) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
TFSA (wife) - $18,030 (+$205) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
RESP - $41,515 (+$1,475) (CP e-Series at TD)
Cash - $2,110 (-$475) (I target to maintain no more than $5,500 for cash flow)
Total Assets $951,085 (+$12,610)

*Liabilities:*
House mortgage - $140,460 (-$1,295) (Fixed at 2.14%)
Credit cards - $1,690 (-$4,105) (current snapshot, we pay off every month)
Total Liabilities $142,150 (-$5,400)

*Net Worth: $808,935 (+$18,010)*


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## coolbeans

*April 1, 2017
*
It was another good month, with respect to net worth gains.

Both of the TD RESP accounts (one for each kid) were transferred into the single family RESP account now open at Questrade. I didn’t track how long it took exactly, but it was several weeks from when I mailed the forms to when the funds showed up. I still have to set up the automatic monthly $416.66 ($208.33 x 2) contributions. Once the 2nd account came over, I set up the new Questrade account as a bill payment in Tangerine. I’ve been holding back the last few months of monthly contributions in a separate savings account at Tangerine until Questrade was set up. The plan is to lump sum that into Questrade. I only sent over $10 at first just to confirm I had the correct account. I know I have the correct account, but it always makes me nervous the first time I set up a new bill payment that it’ll go into the wrong (not ours!) account. Once I see that $10 go through, I’ll send the rest as a lump sum and set up the normal monthly contribution as well.

Haven’t done taxes yet as we will owe a bit (my wife). I spent some time reviewing her last pay stub in 2015 and 2016 T4s, as well as the final pay stubs for those two years and confirmed that her employer just undertaxed her.

I switched over all of our couch potato investments to the Canadian Couch Potato 2017 Model Portfolio: ZAG/VCN/XAW. This is also what I used for the family RESP at Questrade. Here are our allocations by account type:
RRSP: 15/30/55
TFSA: 47/30/23 (this is a mix of emergency fund with 70/30/0 and retirement savings with 15/30/55, which is built into my re-balancing spreadsheet I use)
RESP: 15/30/55 (this will start shifting towards more ZAG once my eldest is 8 at a rate of 8.5% more fixed income each year, ending in 100% ZAG at age 18)

Doing this resulted in some sell fees (each between $5 and $10) which will be paid off within a year of MER savings. It gets even better when including the additional drag that our previous ex-Canada ETF (VXC) causes in registered accounts relative to XAW. See: http://canadiancouchpotato.com/2017/01/13/model-portfolio-update-for-2017/
The thing I really like is the simplicity across our portfolio. All of our registered accounts utilize the same 3 ETFs.
*
Goals for 2017:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Contribute $5,500 each to TFSA. ($0 to date. CPP, EI, and nanny raise are making this unlikely for the first half of the year)

*Assets:*
House - $434,690 (+$565) (assume inflation increases of 0.13%/mo, based off annual property tax assessment year-to-year)
SUV - $17,475 (-$175) (2013 model year. I depreciate it $175/mo)
Car - $6,775 (-$75) (2009 model year. I depreciate it $75/mo)
Non-Registered Portfolio - $18,840 (+$2,775) (work share purchase plan, I sell when ~$4K vests and put against mortgage)
DC Pension (mine) - $104,085 (+$2,200) (contribute 4% of salary, company puts in 6%)
RRSP (mine) - $97,130 (+$1,765) (Couch Potato at Questrade)
DB Pension (wife) - $179,840 (+$3,050) (based on rough extrapolation of annual statements)
RRSP (wife) - $21,725 (+$350) (CP at Questrade)
TFSA (mine) - $21,420 (+$2,095) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
TFSA (wife) - $18,105 (+$80) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
RESP - $42,310 (+$795) (CP at Questrade)
Cash - $3,885 (+$1,745) (I target to maintain no more than $5,500 for cash flow)
Total Assets $966,255 (+$15,170)

*Liabilities:*
House mortgage - $139,160 (-$1,300) (Fixed at 2.14%)
Credit cards - $2,890 (+$1,195) (current snapshot, we pay off every month)
Total Liabilities $142,050 (-$105)

*Net Worth: $824,205 (+$15,275)*


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## Steve Divi

Great work CB,

Wish my wife had a job  j/k


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## coolbeans

*May 1, 2017* (a month late to post)

It was a really good month but also a really bad month.

The good is that I got an unexpected bonus and a decent raise. I used it to catch up on the TFSA savings I needed to dip into, which I mentioned in my March update. The rest went against the mortgage.
The bad is that right at the end of the month our sump pump failed during some wet weather and resulted in a bunch of damage to our finished basement. These costs aren't reflected in this month, but will show up in the following month. See the June 1 update for the outcome of that.

I completed taxes at the end of April and had to pay ~$4k due to undertaxing by my wife's employer. We also had to dip into our TFSA savings a bit for this (also replenished by the bonus).

*Goals for 2017:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Contribute $5,500 each to TFSA. ($0 to date. CPP, EI, and nanny raise are making this unlikely for the first half of the year)

*Assets:*
House - $435255 (+$565) (assume inflation increases of 0.13%/mo, based off annual property tax assessment year-to-year)
SUV - $17300 (-$175) (2013 model year. I depreciate it $175/mo)
Car - $6700 (-$75) (2009 model year. I depreciate it $75/mo)
Non-Registered Portfolio - $16210 (-$2625) (work share purchase plan, I sell when ~$4K vests and put against mortgage)
DC Pension (mine) - $108150 (+$4065) (contribute 4% of salary, company puts in 6%)
RRSP (mine) - $100615 (+$3485) (Couch Potato at Questrade)
DB Pension (wife) - $182890 (+$3050) (based on rough extrapolation of annual statements)
RRSP (wife) - $22580 (+$855) (CP at Questrade)
TFSA (mine) - $23105 (+$1685) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
TFSA (wife) - $18325 (+$215) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
RESP - $43790 (+$1485) (CP at Questrade)
Cash - $4025 (+$170) (I target to maintain no more than $5,500 for cash flow)
Total Assets - $978955 (+$12700)

*Liabilities*
House Mortgage - $129145 (-$10010) (Fixed at 2.14%)
Credit Cards - $2885 (+$0) (current snapshot, we pay off every month)
Total Liabilities - $132035 (-$10015)

*Net Worth: $846920 (+$22715)*


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## coolbeans

*June 1, 2017*

It was a really bad month but also a pretty good month.

The bad is that between restoration (drying) and repairs, the basement bill amounted to ~$10k. This could have been much worse. Early on, before we knew the extent of the damage, several friends mentioned ~$20k being a common number. The other thing that could have been much worse is that we found out we didn't have coverage. Sumps are covered under the sewer backup endorsement which I didn't realize and decided not to have on our policy many years ago. In retrospect, sewer backup coverage is probably also smart to have. Anyways, the insurance company suggested it was worth having customer service review the tapes from any conversations I'd had with them over the years to see if they didn't explain all that the endorsement covers (including sumps). Fortunately, they must not have done a good job explaining the coverage we had declined in the past as they decided to provide coverage. Besides the ~$1k deductible (and the sump pump rush replacement for $320), they covered the rest and we just got our cheque in the mail. This is not reflected in the numbers below.

The basement is almost back to normal. We just need the carpet stretched and we can put everything back.

*Goals for 2017:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Contribute $5,500 each to TFSA. ($0 to date. CPP, EI, and nanny raise are making this unlikely for the first half of the year)
*Assets:*
House - $435820 (+$565) (assume inflation increases of 0.13%/mo, based off annual property tax assessment year-to-year)
SUV - $17125 (-$175) (2013 model year. I depreciate it $175/mo)
Car - $6625 (-$75) (2009 model year. I depreciate it $75/mo)
Non-Registered Portfolio - $18645 (+$2435) (work share purchase plan, I sell when ~$4K vests and put against mortgage)
DC Pension (mine) - $109675 (+$1520) (contribute 4% of salary, company puts in 6%)
RRSP (mine) - $101910 (+$1295) (Couch Potato at Questrade)
DB Pension (wife) - $185940 (+$3050) (based on rough extrapolation of annual statements)
RRSP (wife) - $22995 (+$415) (CP at Questrade)
TFSA (mine) - $18460 (-$4645) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
TFSA (wife) - $16340 (-$1980) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
RESP - $44500 (+$705) (CP at Questrade)
Cash - $4395 (+$370) (I target to maintain no more than $5,500 for cash flow)
Total Assets - $982435 (+$3480)

*Liabilities*
House Mortgage - $127830 (-$1315) (Fixed at 2.14%)
Credit Cards - $2330 (-$555) (current snapshot, we pay off every month)
Total Liabilities - $130160 (-$1870)

*Net Worth: $852275 (+$5350)*


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## Spudd

Be careful on the TFSA contributions - when you withdraw, the contribution room doesn't come back until the following Jan 1.


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## coolbeans

I track TFSA contributions/withdrawals in a spreadsheet (semi-regularly). Although, we have a large amount of available contribution space at the moment, so I'm not too concerned. We've had some close calls in over-contributing. One time I didn't realize until a couple months after it had happened. Not ideal. Keeping track of TFSA contribution space is annoying.


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## Steve Divi

Nice work Coolbeans


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## coolbeans

*July 1, 2017
*

Not much to report this month. We are almost caught up to the point where we'll be able to contribute to the TFSA goal below.

Doing a 3-week camping family road trip soon which should be fun.

Work is calming down a bit.

Portfolio is down a bit, but it doesn't matter to me.

*Goals for 2017:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Contribute $5,500 each to TFSA. ($0 to date)

*Assets:*
House - $436390 (+$565) (assume inflation increases of 0.13%/mo, based off annual property tax assessment year-to-year)
SUV - $16950 (-$175) (2013 model year. I depreciate it $175/mo)
Car - $6550 (-$75) (2009 model year. I depreciate it $75/mo)
Non-Registered Portfolio - $16325 (-$2320) (work share purchase plan, I sell when ~$4K vests and put against mortgage)
DC Pension (mine) - $107385 (-$2290) (contribute 4% of salary, company puts in 6%)
RRSP (mine) - $99905 (-$2005) (Couch Potato at Questrade)
DB Pension (wife) - $188990 (+$3050) (based on rough extrapolation of annual statements)
RRSP (wife) - $22760 (-$240) (CP at Questrade)
TFSA (mine) - $20380 (+$1920) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
TFSA (wife) - $18135 (+$1790) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
RESP - $43735 (-$765) (CP at Questrade)
Cash - $7630 (+$3235) (I target to maintain no more than $5,500 for cash flow)
Total Assets - $985130 (+$2695)

*Liabilities*
House Mortgage - $125850 (-$1980) (Fixed at 2.14%)
Credit Cards - $4035 (+$1705) (current snapshot, we pay off every month)
Total Liabilities - $129885 (-$275)

*Net Worth: $855245 (+$2970)*


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## coolbeans

*August 1, 2017* (posting 2 months late)

*Goals for 2017:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Contribute $5,500 each to TFSA. ($0 to date)

*Assets:*
House - $436955 (+$565) (assume inflation increases of 0.13%/mo, based off annual property tax assessment year-to-year)
SUV - $16775 (-$175) (2013 model year. I depreciate it $175/mo)
Car - $6475 (-$75) (2009 model year. I depreciate it $75/mo)
Non-Registered Portfolio - $16825 (+$500) (work share purchase plan, I sell when ~$4K vests and put against mortgage)
DC Pension (mine) - $107180 (-$205) (contribute 4% of salary, company puts in 6%)
RRSP (mine) - $101015 (+$1110) (Couch Potato at Questrade)
DB Pension (wife) - $190135 (+$3050) (based on rough extrapolation of annual statements)
RRSP (wife) - $23420 (+$660) (CP at Questrade)
TFSA (mine) - $20100 (-$280) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
TFSA (wife) - $18100 (-$30) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
RESP - $44450 (+$715) (CP at Questrade)
Cash - $3330 (-$4300) (I target to maintain no more than $5,500 for cash flow)
Total Assets - $984765 (+$1545)

*Liabilities:*
House Mortgage - $120495 (-$5360) (Fixed at 2.14%)
Credit Cards - $2210 (-$1825) (current snapshot, we pay off every month)
Total Liabilities - $122705 (-$7185)

*Net Worth: $862065 (+$8725)*


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## coolbeans

*September 1, 2017* (Posting 1 month late)

*Goals for 2017:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Contribute $5,500 each to TFSA. ($0 to date)

*Assets:*
House - $437525 (+$570) (assume inflation increases of 0.13%/mo, based off annual property tax assessment year-to-year)
SUV - $16600 (-$175) (2013 model year. I depreciate it $175/mo)
Car - $6400 (-$75) (2009 model year. I depreciate it $75/mo)
Non-Registered Portfolio - $17520 (+$695) (work share purchase plan, I sell when ~$4K vests and put against mortgage)
DC Pension (mine) - $108750 (+$1565) (contribute 4% of salary, company puts in 6%)
RRSP (mine) - $101510 (+$495) (Couch Potato at Questrade)
DB Pension (wife) - $193185 (+$3050) (based on rough extrapolation of annual statements)
RRSP (wife) - $23745 (+$325) (CP at Questrade)
TFSA (mine) - $19040 (-$1060) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
TFSA (wife) - $18115 (+$15) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
RESP - $44820 (+$370) (CP at Questrade)
Cash - $7025 (+$3695) (I target to maintain no more than $5,500 for cash flow)
Total Assets - $994235 (+$9470)

*Liabilities:*
House Mortgage - $119160 (-$1330) (Fixed at 2.14%)
Credit Cards - $3030 (+$820) (current snapshot, we pay off every month)
Total Liabilities - $122195 (-$510)

*Net Worth: $872045 (+$9980)*


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## coolbeans

*October 1, 2017*

Finally catching up on the money diary after a busy summer.

The 3 week family road trip was a lot of fun. All expenses in, it cost just over $3600. We put somewhere north of 4000km on the family car. Based on the CAA Calculated Costs of Driving Your Vehicle article, it's $0.50/km for a mid-size vehicle for: fuel, insurance, license, registration, depreciation and maintenance. There's a calculator option as well. Playing with that, I figure another $750 for incremental maintenance and depreciation from the ~4000km trip. So that puts the trip at ~$4350 for a 3 week camping trip.

I finally put together a cash flow spreadsheet with all our future costs. Based on this, (especially with nanny costs going up with minimum wage going from $12.60 to $13.60) we're looking at going in debt in early 2018. This also explains why we haven't been in a position to contribute to the TFSA yet this year and we didn't max out the goal last year. This isn't that big a deal, but we have to decide where the shortfall is going to be made up. The options are vacation savings, RESP contributions, RRSP contributions, mortgage lump sum payments, and more frugalness. The cash flow shortfall is assuming no raise/bonus for me in the spring. This is pretty unlikely based on how my company is at the moment. The cash flow problem gets worse October 2018 as the minimum wage goes from $13.60 to $15.00. The plan is to have the nanny until our youngest starts grade 1 in September 2019. Once that happens, we'll move over to before/after school care which is around $550/month/kid right now. So maybe $1300/month for both in 2019. The nanny would cost about $3000/month at that point. So our childcare costs would go down ~$1700/month. We'll keep some form of house cleaning. Which might add $200/month. So our costs drop ~$1500/month.

We'll have to decide how we want to address the potential forecasted shortfall...

*Goals for 2017:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Contribute $5,500 each to TFSA. ($0 to date)

*Assets:*
House - $438095 (+$570) (assume inflation increases of 0.13%/mo, based off annual property tax assessment year-to-year)
SUV - $16425 (-$175) (2013 model year. I depreciate it $175/mo)
Car - $6325 (-$75) (2009 model year. I depreciate it $75/mo)
Non-Registered Portfolio - $18800 (+$1275) (work share purchase plan, I sell when ~$4K vests and put against mortgage)
DC Pension (mine) - $111090 (+$2340) (contribute 4% of salary, company puts in 6%)
RRSP (mine) - $104300 (+$2790) (Couch Potato at Questrade)
DB Pension (wife) - $196235 (+$3050) (based on rough extrapolation of annual statements)
RRSP (wife) - $24610 (+$865) (CP at Questrade)
TFSA (mine) - $20540 (+$1500) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
TFSA (wife) - $18220 (+$100) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
RESP - $46175 (+$1360) (CP at Questrade)
Cash - $6480 (-$545) (I target to maintain no more than $5,500 for cash flow)
Total Assets - $1007290 (+$13055)

*Liabilities:*
House Mortgage - $117830 (-$1335) (Fixed at 2.14%)
Credit Cards - $1800 (-$1230) (current snapshot, we pay off every month)
Total Liabilities - $119630 (-$2565)

*Net Worth: $887660 (+$15615)*


----------



## coolbeans

*November 1, 2017*

It's been a pretty good month in terms of net worth gains. I've also bean working on some other things that will help maintain/improve this pace.

I expanded the cash flow spreadsheet out to the end of 2020. It’s nice to see the light at the end of the tunnel in terms of our child care expenses dropping at the fall of 2019 as well as the mortgage being paid off at the end of 2020. Right now I’m forecasting going into debt early in 2019 when childcare is most costly and we’re in CPP/EI contribution season. In reality, we’ll make adjustments before we go into debt or other factors will improve the forecast:
* Hopefully our income increases faster than inflation. This is relatively likely for me, but less likely for my wife. So perhaps a wash.
* I’m not including any annual bonuses in my cashflow, which is very likely for me.
* I’ve started a grocery price tracking spreadsheet in Google Sheets. This includes a bunch of frequent purchases (apple sauce, granola bars, salsa, cheese, string cheese, butter, peanut butter, bread, pasta, cereal, tomato paste/sauce/crushed for our frequent pasta sauce recipe, Kraft Dinner, toilet paper, fruit snacks, bar soap, brown sugar, bouillon cubes). I calculate the best price/unit. I used to do this years ago. This has become easier as Save-on-Foods, Walmart, and Superstore all have online grocery shopping. More importantly, this means you can look up their prices from the comfort of your home. I’ve saved the hyperlinks for all of these items at each store in the spreadsheet. I even managed to get the “importxml” function in Google Sheets to mostly work and automatically grab the price from each of the Superstore hyperlinked htmls. We’ll see if that breaks in the future. The intent is that I can quickly look at prices for the items we’re about to go get. Walmart and Superstore also do price-matching. The Flipp app (and now website!) is also a nice last minute check of any other sales to be price-matched. Groceries make up a big part of our annual expenditures. Admittedly, I still need to get a better grasp on how big that number is, but I’d guess $10000 per year. If I can save 10% through this system, that’d be pretty great.
* Worst case we need to pull back on our $550 bi-weekly vacation savings.

After putting together that cash flow forecast, it put into focus the various variable/fixed costs that we pay for which resulted in:
* I discovered the Energy Efficiency Alberta rebates. We bought and installed the Nest Thermostat E and applied for the $100 rebate. I looked at the variable component of our gas bill (seriously not an easy task to figure out) and determined that a 15% reduction in gas would save about $60 per year. At $240 after tax, minus $100 rebate, that’s just over a 2 year payback. We already had a programmable thermostat (4 settings for M-F, 4 settings for Sat, 4 settings for Sun), so the savings may be somewhat optimistic, but I still think in the long term it’ll pay for itself. Especially if gas prices ever increased. It also forced us to revisit our temperature settings and be a little more aggressive now that our kids aren’t super young. We also have the ability to set a lower temperature remotely if we go to the in-laws for a whole Saturday (fairly common). It also automatically drops down in setting once it senses no-one home for a long enough period of time.
* I called Shaw and they dropped our internet bill by $5/month
* We got our home insurance renewal. It was higher than I had expected, although we had a flood claim in the spring. I called and they dropped it from $112/month to $90/month.
* Our Netflix subscription was set up through credit card payments. I re-discovered that you can set up Netflix to be billed through your iTunes account. From what I’ve read it requires that you cancel your Netflix. Wait until after your last payment period passes, then re-subscribe through an iOS device. This is useful because you can purchase discounted App Store gift cards at Costco pretty frequently. On the order of $100 for $80. I was already doing that for just general App Store usage and our Apple Music subscription. I’ll now be able to get the same discount on my Netflix subscription.
* I purchased a home energy monitor (Rainforest Automation EMU-2) and filled out the form on EPCOR’s site: https://www.epcor.com/learn/meters/advanced-meters/Pages/home-energy-monitors.aspx. The energy monitor cost $87.40 including shipping and tax. It comes from BC. It took about a week (and a follow-up phone call by me) to have EPCOR connect it to the power meter that is on the side of our house. I think most of Edmonton has these power meters now. This let’s us see the instantaneous power usage in kWh. It probably takes about 5 seconds for the monitor to register me flipping on the bathroom lights or whatnot. The intent is a beneficial change in behaviour and power usage. I’ve also put a Kill-A-Watt on my Christmas gift list so I can check the standby power on the various electronics in my house to see what I can unplug.

Future things to try and save on:
* I’m going to call my insurance company to see what they can do about our car insurance as well. Maybe I’ll even get a quote to change providers.
* It’d be nice to lower our water usage. We range from 13 to 20 m3/month throughout the year. The cost per m3 (including cost of water, wastewater treatment, and drainage) was ~$3.80/m3 on the last bill. So that’s $49 to $76 per month of variable costs. It’d be cool to get a similar water usage monitor, but I haven’t found anything out there. I found an expensive Kickstarter that hasn’t shipped and also a DIY hobby electronics version, but nothing a simple/affordable as the energy monitor we bought.
* Expand grocery spreadsheet. I don’t have meat/produce in there yet.

*Goals for 2017:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Contribute $5,500 each to TFSA. ($0 to date)

*Assets:*
House - $438660 (+$570) (assume inflation increases of 0.13%/mo, based off annual property tax assessment year-to-year)
SUV - $16250 (-$175) (2013 model year. I depreciate it $175/mo)
Car - $6250 (-$75) (2009 model year. I depreciate it $75/mo)
Non-Registered Portfolio - $16275 (-$2525) (work share purchase plan, I sell when ~$4K vests and put against mortgage)
DC Pension (mine) - $116895 (+$5810) (contribute 4% of salary, company puts in 6%)
RRSP (mine) - $109920 (+$5620) (Couch Potato at Questrade)
DB Pension (wife) - $199285 (+$3050) (based on rough extrapolation of annual statements)
RRSP (wife) - $26045 (+$1435) (CP at Questrade)
TFSA (mine) - $22285 (+$1745) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
TFSA (wife) - $18565 (+$350) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
RESP - $48585 (+$2405) (CP at Questrade)
Cash - $9385 (+$2905) (I target to maintain no more than $5,500 for cash flow)
Total Assets - $1028405 (+$21115)

*Liabilities:*
House Mortgage - $112400 (-$5430) (Fixed at 2.14%)
Credit Cards - $3235 (+$1430) (current snapshot, we pay off every month)
Total Liabilities - $115635 (-$4000)

*Net Worth: $912770 (+$25115)*


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## coolbeans

*December 1, 2017*

Another good month.

I've been keeping up on the cash flow spreadsheet, reconciling actuals against forecast. I do it on roughly a weekly basis. Hopefully with my cost-saving measures (in addition to hopeful income gains) I'll see that forecasted debt in 2019 disappear and we'll be in the black. The reason I have more cash than $5500 is because of that forecasted cashflow, otherwise I would dump the difference into TFSAs.

My wife's cell contract was just up in November. I called Bell and dropped her plan down to $35/month from $50/month, for the same features.

I put a call into another home/auto insurance company a couple weeks back. It's confusing comparing the different features between them and my current insurance company. Based on what we discussed, I'm looking at saving $300 per year on the home insurance. We ran out of time on my lunch hour, so we didn't get to the vehicles. We'll see what the full package looks like and what the compromises are in cost/coverage.

We've been using my grocery tracking spreadsheet. It's a bit of work to do the planning in advance of going grocery shopping. The spreadsheet is pretty messy right now though. I can probably do some organizing to make my life easier. I also added a bunch of meat prices. We freeze most of our meat anyways, so buying in bulk is not an issue. Meat is a high cost, so there's probably a bunch of savings we can find there. We have also been having beans (chickpeas, black beans, etc) based dishes once a week for the last month as a cheaper alternative to meat. We have an Instant Pot, so we also tried cooking beans from dried, rather than from canned. That's an additional savings of maybe 40% on the cost of canned beans and was pretty easy.

I successfully re-subscribed to Netflix through iTunes as described last month.

Most of our Christmas shopping is done and reflected in those credit card balances.

I'm excited for January 1 to see where we landed at the end of the year. I have a retirement savings/spend spreadsheet that I forecast our savings up to retirement and our spending from that point on. I checked and we are on track to exceed our forecast which is great. 


*Goals for 2017:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Contribute $5,500 each to TFSA. ($0 to date)

*Assets:*
House - $439230 (+$570) (assume inflation increases of 0.13%/mo, based off annual property tax assessment year-to-year)
SUV - $16075 (-$175) (2013 model year. I depreciate it $175/mo)
Car - $6175 (-$75) (2009 model year. I depreciate it $75/mo)
Non-Registered Portfolio - $17735 (+$1460) (work share purchase plan, I sell when ~$4K vests and put against mortgage)
DC Pension (mine) - $119740 (+$2845) (contribute 4% of salary, company puts in 6%)
RRSP (mine) - $112145 (+$2225) (Couch Potato at Questrade)
DB Pension (wife) - $202335 (+$3050) (based on rough extrapolation of annual statements)
RRSP (wife) - $26780 (+$735) (CP at Questrade)
TFSA (mine) - $23800 (+$1515) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
TFSA (wife) - $18680 (+$115) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
RESP - $49820 (+$1240) (CP at Questrade)
Cash - $13265 (+$3875) (I target to maintain no more than $5,500 for cash flow)
Total Assets - $1045785 (+$17380)

*Liabilities:*
House Mortgage - $110385 (-$2015) (Fixed at 2.14%)
Credit Cards - $3850 (+$620) (current snapshot, we pay off every month)
Total Liabilities - $114235 (-$1395)

*Net Worth: $931550 (+$18775)*


----------



## milhouse

We were going to migrate our home insurance this year but we also had to spend more time than expected to ensure we were comparing apples to apples in terms of coverage. We ended up not changing providers but I think we're going to be more ready to make the change next year.

I've been trying to introduce more bean dishes into our meal rotation too. We also just got an instant pot and are going to see how it does with recipes with beans.


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## BoringInvestor

I was just catching up on the past few months of progress, and it's great to see the gains for you and your family!


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## nobleea

Great work so far - making good progress.

RE: monitoring utility consumption. I don't think your NEST thermostat is going to save anything close to the numbers you've mentioned, though I suspect you know this. Maybe 5% at best in the coldest months.

Check out EKM metering for some relatively inexpensive options for gas, water, hot water, and power metering after your main meter. I think they can get down to 15 minute granularity for water and instantaneous for power (along with charting, etc). I track our monthly consumption of water, power and gas - the actual variable consumption, not the dollar value. Since we've moved in to our new house, we've ranged from 4.7-13.3 m3/month (average 9.1/mo). That's with a 4 person family, a single female in a suite, and a 1/4 acre landscaped property. 16m3/mo is the monthly average for an Edmonton household. I'm surprised we're able to keep it that low, but we do have dual low flush toilets, high efficiency washers (in house and suite), and very low flow shower heads (house and suite). We do have an irrigation system, but we didn't use it last year. I don't think an instantaneous water meter will provide much benefit. All you need to address is shower heads/bathing, toilets, and washing machine. Those are the biggest users of water.

On the power, I took a good look at the consumption of every appliance when we were choosing what to buy for the new house. There can be quite a range for essentially the same appliance. I was even more shocked to see that small bar fridges use essentially the same amount of power as a full size fridge.


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## coolbeans

*December 1, 2017*

2017 has been a pretty good year. We're up $140,000 in net worth year-over-year. We're on track to hit $1,000,000 net worth some time this year. It's been interesting and motivating to track and forecast our cash flow and I think we'll see some savings just from keeping focus on that week-to-week.

December was negative/flat for our investments, so we were flat NW since last month. We booked a Mexico trip for our family, so that came out of our vacation account and hit the NW ~$5,000. One set of grandparents are coming too, so that'll be fun. It means my wife and I can sneak off for some snorkeling once or twice.

I still need to follow up on home/auto insurance quotes. I'll try to do that January.

I've cleaned up the grocery tracking spreadsheet. Added a few more items. Added historical low unit prices so it's easier to tell how low a price can go so that maybe we wait.

Our goals for 2018 are the same as 2017. The TFSA deposits are likely to remain stagnant again this year, due to increased minimum wage for nanny. I'm hopeful that I will get a raise this year that will counter-act that (and then some). I'm also hopeful that with our other cost-saving measures and more focus on cash flow that we will actually be able to contribute some to the TFSA. We'll see.

*Goals for 2017:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Contribute $5,500 each to TFSA. ($0 to date)

*Goals for 2018:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Contribute $5,500 each to TFSA. ($0 to date)

*Assets:*
House - $439805 (+$570) (assume inflation increases of 0.13%/mo, based off annual property tax assessment year-to-year)
SUV - $15900 (-$175) (2013 model year. I depreciate it $175/mo)
Car - $6100 (-$75) (2009 model year. I depreciate it $75/mo)
Non-Registered Portfolio - $18325 (+$590) (work share purchase plan, I sell when ~$4K vests and put against mortgage)
DC Pension (mine) - $119415 (-$325) (contribute 4% of salary, company puts in 6%)
RRSP (mine) - $111690 (-$455) (Couch Potato at Questrade)
DB Pension (wife) - $205385 (+$3050) (based on rough extrapolation of annual statements)
RRSP (wife) - $26870 (+$90) (CP at Questrade)
TFSA (mine) - $25160 (+$1360) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
TFSA (wife) - $18635 (-$45) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
RESP - $49780 (-$40) (CP at Questrade)
Cash - $11275 (-$1990) (I target to maintain no more than $5,500 for cash flow)
Total Assets - $1048335 (+$2555)

*Liabilities:*
House Mortgage - $109035 (-$1345) (Fixed at 2.14%)
Credit Cards - $8195 (+$4345) (current snapshot, we pay off every month)
Total Liabilities - $117230 (+$2995)

*Net Worth: $931105 (-$445)*


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## coolbeans

Just noticed that last post should have said January 1, 2018. Oh well.

*February 1, 2018*

*Goals for 2018:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Contribute $5,500 each to TFSA. ($0 to date)

*Assets:*
House - $428055 (+$555) (assume inflation increases of 0.13%/mo, based off annual property tax assessment year-to-year)
SUV - $15900 (-$175) (2013 model year. I depreciate it $175/mo)
Car - $6100 (-$75) (2009 model year. I depreciate it $75/mo)
Non-Registered Portfolio - $14940 (-$3385) (work share purchase plan, I sell when ~$4K vests and put against mortgage)
DC Pension (mine) - $121400 (+$1985) (contribute 4% of salary, company puts in 6%)
RRSP (mine) - $114480 (+$2790) (Couch Potato at Questrade)
DB Pension (wife) - $208435 (+$3050) (based on rough extrapolation of annual statements)
RRSP (wife) - $27965 (+$1095) (CP at Questrade)
TFSA (mine) - $21110 (-$4055) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
TFSA (wife) - $18675 (+$40) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
RESP - $51150 (+$1370) (CP at Questrade)
Cash - $8435 (-$2840) (I target to maintain no more than $5,500 for cash flow)
Total Assets - $1036640 (+$360)

*Liabilities:*
House Mortgage - $103605 (-$5430) (Fixed at 2.14%)
Credit Cards - $2545 (-$5650) (current snapshot, we pay off every month)
Total Liabilities - $106150 (-$11080)

*Net Worth: $930495 (+$11440)*


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## coolbeans

*March 1, 2018*

*Goals for 2018:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Contribute $5,500 each to TFSA. ($0 to date)

*Assets:*
House - $428610 (+$555) (assume inflation increases of 0.13%/mo, based off annual property tax assessment year-to-year)
SUV - $15900 (+$0) (2013 model year. I depreciate it $175/mo)
Car - $6100 (+$0) (2009 model year. I depreciate it $75/mo)
Non-Registered Portfolio - $14995 (+$55) (work share purchase plan, I sell when ~$4K vests and put against mortgage)
DC Pension (mine) - $120325 (-$1080) (contribute 4% of salary, company puts in 6%)
RRSP (mine) - $114200 (-$280) (Couch Potato at Questrade)
DB Pension (wife) - $211485 (+$3050) (based on rough extrapolation of annual statements)
RRSP (wife) - $28065 (+$100) (CP at Questrade)
TFSA (mine) - $22315 (+$1210) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
TFSA (wife) - $18570 (-$105) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
RESP - $51165 (+$15) (CP at Questrade)
Cash - $10045 (+$1610) (I target to maintain no more than $5,500 for cash flow)
Total Assets - $1041780 (+$5140)

*Liabilities:*
House Mortgage - $102245 (-$1360) (Fixed at 2.14%)
Credit Cards - $2585 (+$40) (current snapshot, we pay off every month)
Total Liabilities - $104830 (-$1320)

*Net Worth: $936950 (+$6455)*


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## coolbeans

*April 1, 2018*

Pretty flat month. We had our Mexico vacation last month and it was great. Very relaxing.

I looked into auto/home insurance and determined that our current insurance is competitive.

I've been utilizing the grocery tracking spreadsheet and doing a ton of price-matching using the Flipp app. I've also been tracking expenses with Quicken. I've also been more diligent to separate out non-grocery items (clothes, kid's activity stuff, etc.) from the grocery items when I categorize in the app. This is mostly because we shop at Walmart and Costco a fair bit and categorize those as groceries even though we are occasionally buying non-groceries. Our groceries are looking like $800-$900 per month. So I'll try to keep up with Quicken so I can watch that number.

A couple things came up that really impact our finances for the next while:
1. I completed our taxes and between the two of us we owe just under $2000. I think the reduction of taxes at source forms I submitted resulted in us not being taxed properly. Not a big deal, just unexpected. This is the second year in a row that got messed up. I think next year we'll both get refunds though because the government reduced the amount approved in the most recent reduction of taxes at source I submitted due to owing last year.
2. Our laptop died when we got back from Mexico. It was having major hardware issues the last 6 months, so it was limping along. Now it is completely dead. I bought a new laptop.

Between those two unexpected expenses, our cashflow isn't looking great for next year when the real crunch happens. Our plan is the following. I should find out in the next couple weeks if I get a raise and bonus. So I'll update my cashflow spreadsheet and see how those two things help. We'll also have to divert 1 or 2 of our planned mortgage lump sum deposits. No ideal, but we're running a tight ship, so anything that is unplanned has an impact. We've been doing well compared to my assumptions for credit card costs in our cashflow, so that will also help.

*Goals for 2018:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Contribute $5,500 each to TFSA. ($0 to date)

*Assets:*
House - $429170 (+$555) (assume inflation increases of 0.13%/mo, based off annual property tax assessment year-to-year)
SUV - $15725 (-$175) (2013 model year. I depreciate it $175/mo)
Car - $6025 (-$75) (2009 model year. I depreciate it $75/mo)
Non-Registered Portfolio - $16630 (+$1635) (work share purchase plan, I sell when ~$4K vests and put against mortgage)
DC Pension (mine) - $121965 (+$1640) (contribute 4% of salary, company puts in 6%)
RRSP (mine) - $114495 (+$295) (Couch Potato at Questrade)
DB Pension (wife) - $214535 (+$3050) (based on rough extrapolation of annual statements)
RRSP (wife) - $28235 (+$165) (CP at Questrade)
TFSA (mine) - $23230 (+$915) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
TFSA (wife) - $18575 (+$5) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
RESP - $51445 (+$280) (CP at Questrade)
Cash - $8760 (-$1280) (I target to maintain no more than $5,500 for cash flow)
Total Assets - $1048790 (+$7010)

*Liabilities:*
House Mortgage - $100885 (-$1360) (Fixed at 2.14%)
Credit Cards - $7300 (+$4710) (current snapshot, we pay off every month)
Total Liabilities - $108180 (+$3350)

*Net Worth: $940610 (+$3660)*


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## coolbeans

*May 1, 2018*

Pretty good month.

Last month I commented about a couple unexpected expenses coming up that may impact our savings plans next year. Well I received some good news at work and I got a small raise and a pretty good bonus. The combination of the two basically righted the ship and cancelled out the unexpected expenses. So we're back on track to maintain our savings plan even next year when it's the tightest.

I've dropped the goal to contribute to our TFSA accounts since this isn't realistically going to start happening again until 2020 due to cashflow.

*Goals for 2018:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)

*Assets:*
House - $429725 (+$560) (assume inflation increases of 0.13%/mo, based off annual property tax assessment year-to-year)
SUV - $15200 (-$175) (2013 model year. I depreciate it $175/mo)
Car - $5800 (-$75) (2009 model year. I depreciate it $75/mo)
Non-Registered Portfolio - $13925 (-$2705) (work share purchase plan, I sell when ~$4K vests and put against mortgage)
DC Pension (mine) - $123820 (+$1855) (contribute 4% of salary, company puts in 6%)
RRSP (mine) - $116225 (+$1730) (Couch Potato at Questrade)
DB Pension (wife) - $217585 (+$3050) (based on rough extrapolation of annual statements)
RRSP (wife) - $28590 (+$360) (CP at Questrade)
TFSA (mine) - $24570 (+$1340) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
TFSA (wife) - $18620 (+$45) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
RESP - $52255 (+$805) (CP at Questrade)
Cash - $12460 (+$3695) (I target to maintain no more than $5,500 for cash flow)
Total Assets - $1058775 (+$10480)

*Liabilities:*
House Mortgage - $95705 (-$5175) (Fixed at 2.14%)
Credit Cards - $3645 (-$3655) (current snapshot, we pay off every month)
Total Liabilities - $99350 (-$8830)

*Net Worth: $959420 (+$19310)*


----------



## coolbeans

*July 1, 2018*

Good month. Paid property taxes. Spousal RRSP is set up for my wife, so now contributing all of my space to that to get us back even with each other. Chugging along.

*Goals for 2018:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Contribute $5,500 each to TFSA. ($0 to date)

*Assets:*
House - $430845 (+$560) (assume inflation increases of 0.13%/mo, based off annual property tax assessment year-to-year)
SUV - $14850 (-$175) (2013 model year. I depreciate it $175/mo)
Car - $5650 (-$75) (2009 model year. I depreciate it $75/mo)
Non-Registered Portfolio - $16895 (+$2255) (work share purchase plan, I sell when ~$4K vests and put against mortgage)
DC Pension (mine) - $130655 (+$2935) (contribute 4% of salary, company puts in 6%)
RRSP (mine) - $120425 (+$1000) (Couch Potato at Questrade)
DB Pension (wife) - $223685 (+$3050) (based on rough extrapolation of annual statements)
RRSP (wife) - $31280 (+$1975) (CP at Questrade)
TFSA (mine) - $23965 (-$2210) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
TFSA (wife) - $18925 (+$105) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
RESP - $54630 (+$940) (CP at Questrade)
Cash - $13275 (-$205) (I target to maintain no more than $5,500 for cash flow)
Total Assets - $1085075 (+$10155)

*Liabilities:*
House Mortgage - $92275 (-$1375) (Fixed at 2.14%)
Credit Cards - $3620 (+$505) (current snapshot, we pay off every month)
Total Liabilities - $95890 (-$870)

*Net Worth: $989185 (+$11020)*


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## coolbeans

*August 1, 2018*

This month we cross the $1MM net worth point. Since starting this thread we added RESP to our net worth, so the original goal of $1MM by end of 2018 is more like $1.05MM now. We're on pace to make that number assuming we continue our average $10k net worth increase per month.

Ended up replacing tires on the SUV for $800.

Had a great summer vacation. Actual cost was ~$3100. Not bad for a 3 week road trip. We mostly camped.

The wife and I have been exercising a lot (mostly running) for the last couple months. We both read the Younger Next Year book and that sort of kick-started us to do what we already knew we needed to do.

*Goals for 2018:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Contribute $5,500 each to TFSA. ($0 to date)

*Assets:*
House - $431405 (+$560) (assume inflation increases of 0.13%/mo, based off annual property tax assessment year-to-year)
SUV - $14675 (-$175) (2013 model year. I depreciate it $175/mo)
Car - $5575 (-$75) (2009 model year. I depreciate it $75/mo)
Non-Registered Portfolio - $17720 (+$825) (work share purchase plan, I sell when ~$4K vests and put against mortgage)
DC Pension (mine) - $132915 (+$2265) (contribute 4% of salary, company puts in 6%)
RRSP (mine) - $122120 (+$1695) (Couch Potato at Questrade)
DB Pension (wife) - $226735 (+$3050) (based on rough extrapolation of annual statements)
RRSP (wife) - $33020 (+$1745) (CP at Questrade)
TFSA (mine) - $24775 (+$815) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
TFSA (wife) - $19005 (+$80) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
RESP - $55875 (+$1245) (CP at Questrade)
Cash - $11385 (-$1890) (I target to maintain no more than $5,500 for cash flow)
Total Assets - $1095210 (+$10135)

*Liabilities:*
House Mortgage - $90895 (-$1375) (Fixed at 2.14%)
Credit Cards - $4080 (+$465) (current snapshot, we pay off every month)
Total Liabilities - $94980 (-$915)

*Net Worth: $1000230 (+$11050)*


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## coolbeans

*September 1, 2018*

Another good month. Still on track to hit our goals for the end of the year.
The wife and I have still been exercising consistently.
We've continued to do the price matching for groceries and stocking up on items when they match historical lows.

*Goals for 2018:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)

*Assets:*
House - $431965 (+$560) (assume inflation increases of 0.13%/mo, based off annual property tax assessment year-to-year)
SUV - $14500 (-$175) (2013 model year. I depreciate it $175/mo)
Car - $5500 (-$75) (2009 model year. I depreciate it $75/mo)
Non-Registered Portfolio - $14645 (-$3080) (work share purchase plan, I sell when ~$4K vests and put against mortgage)
DC Pension (mine) - $134480 (+$1560) (contribute 4% of salary, company puts in 6%)
RRSP (mine) - $122760 (+$645) (Couch Potato at Questrade)
DB Pension (wife) - $229785 (+$3050) (based on rough extrapolation of annual statements)
RRSP (wife) - $34420 (+$1400) (CP at Questrade)
TFSA (mine) - $24305 (-$470) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
TFSA (wife) - $19065 (+$60) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
RESP - $56665 (+$790) (CP at Questrade)
Cash - $14525 (+$3135) (I target to maintain no more than $5,500 for cash flow)
Total Assets - $1102610 (+$7400)

*Liabilities:*
House Mortgage - $85535 (-$5360) (Fixed at 2.14%)
Credit Cards - $3310 (-$775) (current snapshot, we pay off every month)
Total Liabilities - $88845 (-$6135)

*Net Worth: $1013765 (+$13535)*


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## coolbeans

*October 1, 2018*

*Goals for 2018:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)

*Assets:*
House - $432530 (+$560) (assume inflation increases of 0.13%/mo, based off annual property tax assessment year-to-year)
SUV - $14325 (-$175) (2013 model year. I depreciate it $175/mo)
Car - $5425 (-$75) (2009 model year. I depreciate it $75/mo)
Non-Registered Portfolio - $15980 (+$1340) (work share purchase plan, I sell when ~$4K vests and put against mortgage)
DC Pension (mine) - $133980 (-$500) (contribute 4% of salary, company puts in 6%)
RRSP (mine) - $121395 (-$1365) (Couch Potato at Questrade)
DB Pension (wife) - $232835 (+$3050) (based on rough extrapolation of annual statements)
RRSP (wife) - $35255 (+$835) (CP at Questrade)
TFSA (mine) - $25570 (+$1265) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
TFSA (wife) - $18930 (-$135) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
RESP - $56670 (+$5) (CP at Questrade)
Cash - $11310 (-$3215) (I target to maintain no more than $5,500 for cash flow)
Total Assets - $1104200 (+$1590)

*Liabilities:*
House Mortgage - $84150 (-$1390) (Fixed at 2.14%)
Credit Cards - $4065 (+$755) (current snapshot, we pay off every month)
Total Liabilities - $88210 (-$635)

*Net Worth: $1015990 (+$2225)*


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## coolbeans

*November 1, 2018*

*Goals for 2018:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)

*Assets:*
House - $433090 (+$560) (assume inflation increases of 0.13%/mo, based off annual property tax assessment year-to-year)
SUV - $14150 (-$175) (2013 model year. I depreciate it $175/mo)
Car - $5350 (-$75) (2009 model year. I depreciate it $75/mo)
Non-Registered Portfolio - $17085 (+$1105) (work share purchase plan, I sell when ~$4K vests and put against mortgage)
DC Pension (mine) - $128450 (-$5525) (contribute 4% of salary, company puts in 6%)
RRSP (mine) - $115200 (-$6195) (Couch Potato at Questrade)
DB Pension (wife) - $235885 (+$3050) (based on rough extrapolation of annual statements)
RRSP (wife) - $35215 (-$40) (CP at Questrade)
TFSA (mine) - $26550 (+$980) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
TFSA (wife) - $18500 (-$425) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
RESP - $54350 (-$2325) (CP at Questrade)
Cash - $8635 (-$2675) (I target to maintain no more than $5,500 for cash flow)
Total Assets - $1092460 (-$11745)

*Liabilities:*
House Mortgage - $82760 (-$1390) (Fixed at 2.14%)
Credit Cards - $3900 (-$160) (current snapshot, we pay off every month)
Total Liabilities - $86660 (-$1550)

*Net Worth: $1005800 (-$10190)*


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## coolbeans

*December 1, 2018*

*Goals for 2018:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)

*Assets:*
House - $433655 (+$565) (assume inflation increases of 0.13%/mo, based off annual property tax assessment year-to-year)
SUV - $13975 (-$175) (2013 model year. I depreciate it $175/mo)
Car - $5275 (-$75) (2009 model year. I depreciate it $75/mo)
Non-Registered Portfolio - $18955 (+$1870) (work share purchase plan, I sell when ~$4K vests and put against mortgage)
DC Pension (mine) - $132555 (+$4105) (contribute 4% of salary, company puts in 6%)
RRSP (mine) - $117485 (+$2290) (Couch Potato at Questrade)
DB Pension (wife) - $238935 (+$3050) (based on rough extrapolation of annual statements)
RRSP (wife) - $37150 (+$1935) (CP at Questrade)
TFSA (mine) - $28140 (+$1590) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
TFSA (wife) - $18685 (+$185) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
RESP - $55925 (+$1580) (CP at Questrade)
Cash - $14605 (+$5970) (I target to maintain no more than $5,500 for cash flow)
Total Assets - $1115340 (+$22880)

*Liabilities:*
House Mortgage - $80670 (-$2090) (Fixed at 2.14%)
Credit Cards - $6055 (+$2155) (current snapshot, we pay off every month)
Total Liabilities - $86725 (+$65)

*Net Worth: $1028615 (+$22815)*


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## coolbeans

*January 1, 2019*

It's been up and down the last few months, but generally a pretty good year. We're up just about $100,000 year-over-year in net worth. We didn't have to adjust our saving rate along the way, so we were able to stick with our plan.

We're looking forward to 2019. The first half will be cashflow negative due to CPP/EI, but once we get to the summer it'll start being cashflow positive again. Childcare costs should go down in the fall as we shift from a nanny to before-after school care. That will save quite a bit and we can start catching up on TFSAs once again.

2020 will be even better. First half of 2020 will be mostly flat for cashflow, but will pick up again after CPP/EI is maxed out. Then some time in the fall, we'll have our mortgage paid off and be able to shift those dollars to catching up on TFSAs even faster.

Hopefully I'll get a raise and bonus this spring, but my cashflow forecast out to 2020 assumes 0% for increase and $0 for bonus, so any raise/bonus will have a significant positive impact on our goals. Bonus would go straight against the mortgage, and raise will allow us to start contributing to TFSA earlier than planned.

My rough forecast is we'll catch up on TFSAs by 2026, but hopefully we can get there sooner. Then I'm thinking we'll max out the RESP to the $50,000 contribution limit (past the $36,000 grant matching). Then we'll look at opening up a non-registered investment account for Canadian stocks, I would imagine. At that point we're a few more years from the earliest retirement we'd consider. Lot's can happen to change that between now and then, of course.

As for other goals for 2019. I slowed down with the exercise a few months ago due to being sick and didn't get back up to the same consistency. I'm planning to change that (7 days straight closing my rings on the Apple Watch so far!). I would also like to try to read some books. My oldest is now getting into reading books and we've started doing family reading time of 30 minutes a few times a week. We'll see what sticks, but it's been good so far. We've also been playing a lot of board games with the family in the last month or so. Both kids are pretty interested in it.

*Goals for 2019:*
Max out RRSP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)
Max out RESP contributions. (automatic bi-weekly deposits)

*Assets:*
House - $434215 (+$565) (assume inflation increases of 0.13%/mo, based off annual property tax assessment year-to-year)
SUV - $13800 (-$175) (2013 model year. I depreciate it $175/mo)
Car - $5200 (-$75) (2009 model year. I depreciate it $75/mo)
Non-Registered Portfolio - $15805 (-$3150) (work share purchase plan, I sell when ~$4K vests and put against mortgage)
DC Pension (mine) - $127290 (-$5265) (contribute 4% of salary, company puts in 6%)
RRSP (mine) - $111705 (-$5785) (Couch Potato at Questrade)
DB Pension (wife) - $241985 (+$3050) (based on rough extrapolation of annual statements)
RRSP (wife) - $36550 (-$600) (CP at Questrade)
TFSA (mine) - $29245 (+$1110) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
TFSA (wife) - $18375 (-$310) (some cash, some CP at Questrade)
RESP - $53560 (-$2365) (CP at Questrade)
Cash - $10525 (-$4080) (I target to maintain no more than $5,500 for cash flow)
Total Assets - $1098260 (-$17080)

*Liabilities:*
House Mortgage - $75205 (-$5465) (Fixed at 2.14%)
Credit Cards - $6805 (+$745) (current snapshot, we pay off every month)
Total Liabilities - $82005 (-$4720)

*Net Worth: $1016255 (-$12360)*


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