I'm 39 and looking to CoastFIRE at age ~45. I currently have a DB pension job but have been RTO'ed after 6 years fully remote and I fucking hate it.

My current contract lasts another 2 years and I'm considering looking for fully remote jobs elsewhere, even if it means a pay cut and loss of my DB pension.

Has anyone quit their job with a DP pension and still successfully FIRE'ed?

As you may know in Canada we have two worlds: market-cap all-in-ones (XEQT, VEQT, ZEQT, HEQT, …) and factor all-in-ones (FEQT, and now CAGE).

But there is no all-in-one that mixes both 50/50. So he built his own model portfolio and we nicknamed it REQT. (R because of his first name!)

Four sleeves: US, Canada, International and Global Innovation. Each sleeve is 50/50. Half is market-cap ETFs (for example ZSP + ZSML to cover the full US market, all sizes). The other half is factors: Fidelity's momentum and value funds (FCMO/FCUV for US, FCCM/FCCV for Canada, FCIM/FCIV for international).

We’ve built https://reqt.ca to follow the performance live during the day, with a look-through of all the underlying securities. What we found interesting building this portfolio composition is how some stocks are "amplified" through factors.

Newmont is ranked around 284th in XEQT, at 0.06% so just noise because it will never really affect your returns. In REQT, the U.S. momentum factor pushes it to 14th.

Iridium Communications, to be acquired by Rocket Lab next year, is ranked 2,000+ in XEQT but is ranked 117 in REQT.

Caterpillar is top 10 in REQT. It would never be top 10 if you just hold ZSP.

As quick disclaimer…
It's an educational model, not a fund, not financial advice. Just a dad and his son testing an idea in public! Also a good way to stick to the long term strategy.

I’ve made a video to go through this portfolio model: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByIZVrcIXsc

Plan is to not touch it until 60 years old.

When I was 20 I got my first real job paying 50k a year and by 24 I had 100k saved up. Because of no rent and car expenses. I’m 28 now and I do make more but my expenses have gone up and I find it harder to save a meaningful amount. Anyone else experience this? What did you do?

Open to all suggestions. What should I add more. I am thinking to explore individual stocks how much should I begin with.

Regards

hey! last time i posted around 25 days ago most of the comments were about my salary and age combination but few were about my actual portfolio 😂 moved some money from cash and savings into the investments to diversify things a bit and get some exposure to semiconductors, gold etc - what are we thinking?

first screenshot is normal investment account, second is tfsa

investment schedule is 1000 weekly distributed with the majority of distribution going towards the CA dividend and the CA equity fund

Roast me all you want but seriously what should I change or add not really liking the look of my portfolio

Hi everyone,

I posted here about five months ago asking whether I should invest my savings or keep them liquid. I appreciated the advice and wanted to share an update and get a sanity check on my plan.

My current position is:
• $33K in a HISA, including $10K set aside for future student-loan repayment
• $20K in a GIC inside my TFSA
• $2K in XEQT inside my TFSA
• $27.5K TFSA contribution room for the year

I live on my own so I have rent and other expenses to cover while studying and working part-time. I know six months of living expenses is a common emergency-fund guideline, but because my income and future expenses are uncertain, I’m hesitant to keep six months in cash and invest everything else.

Assuming my current savings rate continues, I estimate I would have around $80K by the end of 2029. However, I also expect to graduate with approximately $25K–$30K in student loans.

I want to keep $30K in guaranteed, low-risk holdings specifically for repayment. That would currently consist of my $20K TFSA GIC plus $10K from my HISA. My plan is to repay the interest-bearing portion before the grace period ends, then repay the 0% portion over one to three years so I can maintain some liquidity. However, I’m also considering paying off the entire balance immediately for peace of mind.

Since the $10K in my HISA has a specific 2029 purpose, would putting it into a non-registered GIC make sense while keeping the rest of my HISA liquid? I would rather preserve future TFSA room for long-term investing, but I’m unsure whether paying tax on the GIC interest makes that a poor choice.

I’m also unsure what to prioritize after maxing my TFSA. I’ve been advised to delay using an RRSP because my current income is low and to hold off on an FHSA because opening one starts the 15-year timeline.

My main questions are:

1. Does my overall investing and student-loan repayment plan seem reasonable?
2. Would a non-registered GIC make sense for the $10K set aside for repayment?
3. Would you repay the 0% portion immediately or gradually?
4. After maxing my TFSA, should I prioritize an FHSA, RRSP or non-registered XEQT?

I only started investing about five months ago, so there may be things I’m overlooking. I may also be overthinking this, but I want to balance financial security while I’m in school with setting myself up well for the future. Thanks in advance for any advice!

Should I hold what I have in VCN and XDIV or get into what everyone seems to love XEQT? curious!

Below is our profile, immigrant family (moved to Canada for masters 14yrs ago), both doing well in our careers. Used AI to do a plan for retirement to see how much we have to keep putting in each month into retirement accounts if we wanted to retire at 58 with spending power of 200-250k gross per year in today’s dollars and it said at 2.5% inflation and 10% nominal growth on investments we should be able to do it with only topping up rrsp and tfsa for both each year, but wanted to validate it.

38M and 38F. Have roughly for spouse - 114k in rrsp, 91k in tfsa; 135k in pension account ; I have 230k in Rrsp and 110k in tfsa; 70k in nonregistered. Rrsp and tfsa are topped for both.

2 kids - 2 yr old and a new born. Resp is at 28k (front loaded) for one kid, have to open one for the newborn.

All investments are 90% between xeqt, cage, S&P 500 and Nasdaq. 10% is maybe 3-4 individual stocks.

Total invested assets are 720k

Own a primary, worth 1.7M has 850k mortgage (bought 1.9M) but we like the house and don’t care what happens to the price. Current amortization left is 8yrs. Made lump sums and locked a high payment amount to pay off sooner. 3.35% variable rate. Renewal is coming up next year and planning to push to 20 yrs so payment will drop.

Have a rental worth 950k with a 450k mortgage. Can sell at any time, but renting with 1.5k positive cashflow a month now.

Expected spending in retirement will be 200-250k in today’s dollars a year for the first 20 years and drops 15% every 5 years.

Roughly make about 200k each pre tax.

Future investment contributions - plan to top up rrsp and tfsa and spouse’s pension plan each year.

Questions I have are:
1) can I retire at 58 (20 yrs from now) with the spend at 250k without contributing more than topping up rrsp and tfsa?
2) should I push my mortgage out and invest instead or continue with the aggressive payment and pay off the mortgage in 8yrs.
3) should I be able to be financially independent earlier?

When I first started pursuing FIRE, it was mostly about investing more and watching the number go up.

Over time, I find myself thinking more about how to reach FIRE sooner, what actually matters for measuring progress, and whether I’m truly on track.

Curious if others have had a similar shift as they’ve progressed - what became more important to you over time?

Just found out I've been getting a 30% withholding tax on my corporate trading account dividends instead of the 15% it's supposed to be. Apparently my W8-BEN-E expired and iTrade didn't bother to notify me. Fun little gotcha, I think a lot of people will miss if you're handling your own investments in the US. I didn't even realize this thing expires.

I've escalated with iTrade to see if there's any way I can be reimbursed, but there's likely a less than 0 chance they do anything for me.

Pretty concerning that I was never notified about this document expiring, seeing as the outcome is false unrecoverable costs.

As the title says, I have some cash that I don't want to invest as I will need it probably end of this year. It needs to be accessed within a couple weeks notice. What is the best safe place to park it for 5-8 months?

Edit: FHSA already maxed out. It can be put in a TFSA (there is room) or non-reg account. Current sitting in my bank account wasting away.

Edit2: Looks like ZMMK would be the best yield for a cash/money market type fund? Not interested in opening bank promo accounts aha

Hey!

I’m about to start getting back into savings again. I used to have a TFSA managed by RBC that was netting me 5-6% gains yearly when I was contributing yearly between 18-21.

I took out my savings to move out and pay for my masters degree, which is now complete, and I am on contract-based work (academia).

I am trying to be a bit more in control of how I invest into TFSA, in that, controlling where the money goes, so I just opened a Wealthsimple account. My contribution room is big because I did not contribute to TFSA since I was 22.

What ETFs would you recommend investing in?

A lot of my colleagues and friends recommended me XEQT, VFV, SMH, USD, and so on. My risk tolerance is pretty high, so I am willing to take on some volatile swing.

Quick disclosure: I’ve been running the Smith Manoeuvre myself for over five years, and I built this calculator:

https://www.deductibleinteresttracker.ca/smith-manoeuvre-projection

It’s free and doesn’t require signup. Mods, I’m happy to remove the link if this isn’t allowed.

Most SM calculators boil the strategy down to a few assumptions and one large number at the end. I wanted to model what actually changes over time: the mortgage balance, the readvanceable limit and 65% ceiling, capitalized interest, taxes on distributions, and what happens to the refund. It also lets you compare up to three strategies side by side.

One difference is that it tracks total wealth rather than stopping at net worth. That becomes important when comparing different ways of using dividends and tax refunds.

Here are three results I found interesting. The baseline is an $800,000 home, a $400,000 mortgage and a 6% HELOC.

1. The tax deduction helps less than the usual back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests.

In this scenario, the break-even total return is just under the HELOC rate: roughly 5.5% against a 6% line.

So the deduction provides about half a percentage point of cushion, not the two-plus points implied by saying that a 6% loan “really costs” only 3.4% after tax. The missing part of that calculation is that the investment return is also taxable.

Small changes to the return assumption can therefore change the outcome quite a bit.

2. A net-worth chart can make faster mortgage repayment look worse than it is.

Suppose you send dividends and tax refunds to the mortgage, then reborrow the available amount to invest. The mortgage is paid off sooner, but a basic net-worth chart may show that strategy falling behind.

The problem is that the chart ignores the mortgage payments you no longer need to make after the mortgage is gone.

When those freed payments are included, the faster-paydown strategy comes out ahead by the tax savings generated along the way. That’s why the calculator tracks total wealth: net worth, plus freed mortgage payments, plus any other cash contributed or withdrawn.

Looking only at net worth can lead to the wrong comparison.

3. Capitalizing interest improves cash flow, not wealth.

Borrowing to cover the HELOC interest keeps the cost out of pocket for a while, but it doesn’t make the interest disappear.

It also works only while there is enough room under the 65% limit. Once that room is exhausted, the HELOC interest has to be paid in cash and may be roughly comparable to the old mortgage payment.

The model still has limitations: returns are constant, there is no sequence-of-returns risk, final-sale taxes are excluded, and it assumes you don’t spend the freed cash on a boat.

I’d be interested to hear about any incorrect assumptions, missing scenarios or ways to break the model.

I need help and I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m basically guessing my way through this. I only started investing in 2024 and I’ve made pretty much FA. Only real moves I’ve have made is VFV because I read it’s S&P 500 and also buying more into CLS because I noticed it was the main thing making any money.
Should I be focusing on ETF’s or stocks? What should I be looking for? What rookie mistakes am I making?
I would appreciate sincere advice. I don’t have much saved for retirement so I’d really like to change that.

Hey r/fican,

I've been tracking my path to FI for a few years using a pretty messy spreadsheet. As a designer, I wanted something cleaner and more visual to test scenarios, so I turned my sheet into a basic web app.

It handles budget inputs, investment growth, and projects FI timelines specifically around Canadian account logic (TFSA, RRSP, and FHSA).

Everything runs locally in your browser with zero data saved anywhere.

I'm trying to make sure the underlying math, growth logic, and tax assumptions hold up before relying on it completely.

If anyone is willing to test it out and try to break the logic or UX, I’d really appreciate the feedback!
I'll drop the link in the comments below.