Earlier this year around March I got into investing and instead of going for the smart choice that everyone says and investing in an ETF, I decided to try my hand at picking an individual stock. Ended up reading about this company called Hydrograph Clean Power which had been having a huge run the past year and especially the past month. There was a spike to $11 back in march and for most of the time since then it’s been steady around $6

I’ve been putting all of my paycheques into it and getting my average cost down to $5.50 where it is now. but now in the past 2 months it’s had a huge drop down into the mid $2 range. Now I realize that I had plenty of warning and there’s plenty of advice against trying to pick a stock. I don’t know why I thought I was smart enough to beat the system lol. know it’s really not a huge amount of money but this is over half a year of work for me and looking at the graph makes me wanna cry.

I only make $2200 a month and rent is $1400… I hate my job and if I had $10k saved right now, like I should, I would take a bit of a break while searching for other work.. but I can’t afford to do that. I’m keeping my shares but not going to invest any more into HG. gonna start going into XEQT like I should have originally.

40M and 40F, DINKs, both nurses in BC. Combined salary 220k pre-tax. We hit Coast a few years ago but kept working full time (no debt, 900k portfolio, 60k annual spend).

We realized we had leftover money each month but nothing we want to spend on, so I'm buying back time by going down to part time 3 days/week starting next year. My schedule is such that I work full-time for a few weeks, and then I get a few shifts sprinkled in for the next few weeks.

We're doing vacation bidding for next year and I have 170 hrs to use. Due to my uneven schedule, I managed to get the entire Sept off and I still have 120 hrs left to allocate. If I'm smart with my vacation planning, I can get another 2-3 months off. The plan is to travel and to do nursing-related volunteering internationally.

Next step is for my wife to find a suitable part-time role she likes. We'll ride these part time roles until age 55 and then fully retire with a pension.

Please give me any advice / recommendations for my portfolio thanks . I’m 29m .

Before you comment yes I will be moving the majority of the $4,000 to my TFSA account. Will mostly invest in VEQT and XEQT. Made a wealth simple account solely for investing purposes and will not touch the money for atleast 10 years.

I'm 42F, single, no kids, living in Canada. I'm getting increasingly tired of my corporate job and would like to transition to Coast FIRE soon, ideally into something less stressful that I enjoy more.

Here's my situation:

Investments: Approximately $740k total, mostly invested in XEC, XIC, VOO, XIU and XEF.

Registered accounts: RRSP, TFSA and FHSA are maxed out.

Non-registered investments: About $25k.

Housing: Renting an apartment; no house, mortgage or other real estate.

Other assets/debts: No car, no significant other assets, and no debt.

Family situation: Single, no children, and not expecting any significant inheritance.

Current expenses: Approximately $3,500/month ($42k/year), including rent.

My goal isn't necessarily to retire completely right now. I'd like to leave my current job and find something less stressful, potentially lower-paying, without having to keep maximizing my investments every year. Ideally, I'd let my existing portfolio grow over time while earning enough to cover most or all of my living expenses.

Does Coast FIRE seem realistic for me at this point, at age 42 with $740k invested?

Thanks!

EDIT: Ideally, I'd like to fully retire by 50, but I'm willing to work until 55 if necessary.

Just seeking advice from potentially other people who made it i currently take home around 36k after taxes working labour in a factory i live at home and dont pay rent and am now currently setting 500 aside every week for savings and never dive into my savings for any reason

Anyways all that to say i dont really know what should be my next move ive just been in a loop of working then gaming on repeat i want to start earning more but dont really know where to start im not attached to my job at all but also feels dreadful thinking of leaving to go to school or find a new job that im not really interested in or might be bad at and end up losing money ive been saving

Hi everyone,

I'm 39F and fortunate to have a well-paying job ($300K/year plus significant company stock). I can save around $8K per month, including $2K that goes automatically into my pension.

I currently have about $650K invested, primarily in broad-market ETFs. My husband has around $500K invested as well and plans to continue working until age 65.

My TFSA and RRSP are maxed out, so my additional investments go into a non-registered account with Questrade. A lot of my income over the past few years has gone toward our home down payment and other expenses, so I'm now focused on building my investments.

I'm hoping to retire early, ideally within the next 5 years, and I'm debating between two options for the remaining $6K I save each month:

Option 1: Invest the full $6K/month into broad-market ETFs in my non-registered account.

Option 2: Put an extra $2,500/month toward our mortgage using RBC's double-up payment option to pay down the debt faster, and invest the remaining $3,500/month.

Our mortgage balance is approximately $380K, with a fixed interest rate of 3.9%.

I know investing could potentially generate higher returns over the long term, but paying down our mortgage would reduce our expenses in retirement and give me more financial security. On the other hand, I have a relatively short timeline to build a large enough investment portfolio to retire comfortably.

Given that my husband plans to keep working for another couple of decades, how much should that factor into my decision?

For those who have been in a similar situation, would you prioritize investing to maximize portfolio before retirement, or accelerate mortgage payments to reduce our fixed expenses? My husband's income can cover the regular mortgage payments (not double up).

Thanks

I am 23. I turn 24 in February. I make 48k and I don’t see that much potential for me to make more. I chose a bad degree(psychology) and am stuck doing admin roles it seems. I am so stressed seeing people say they can’t retire on 1 million when I don’t even think it’s possible for me to make that amount ever let alone buy a house or have kids or anything. How do I set myself up for a good future with these bad odds. I’m so lost and stressed. Please give advice

The plan:
I’m 19M in last year of college for power engineering. My girlfriend is also in her last year of college at 19 becoming a Sonographer. Together we should be making $200k ($110k me 90k her according to Google entry positions). We want to stay home and live with our parents for about a year and a half or so then move to a new city where we both like. We plan on renting for about a year to save for as big of a down payment as possible then after a year or so buy a house. Average house in that area is about $600k.

The situation:
I have a net worth of about $70k. About $43k is in gold and silver and I’ve got about 6k in my FHSA (only because I found out about tax advantage accounts this year). She’s got roughly $16k between TFSA and FHSA. Shes just got hers set up with the bank’s portfolio managers. On the other hand mine is all self directed.

The question:
Now knowing about these tax advantage accounts, any extra money I make is getting put in there. Right now most of it is in commodity ETFs like ZCOM. With the time horizon given (roughly 3 years), would you make any changes to my account investments or leave it as it is.
P.S. I do not plan on selling any of my physical gold or silver Until i buy the house (or keep it if thats possible)

34M in Alberta. Household income around 300k, wife has DB pension and I have DCPP plan making contributions of25k a year.

Currently have around 100k invested between RRSP, LIRA and TfSA, mostly XEQT. Planning to save/invest around 50-60k yearly going forward (excluding DCPP contributions)
Getting around 55k tax free from a settlement soon. Planning to keep 5k for myself and invest the remaining 50k in my TFSA.

Since I already have retirement contributions and plan to keep investing in index funds, I’m thinking of taking some serious risk with this 50k. Looking at stocks like RKLB, NVDA,etc. Hold for 10+ years and hopefully get some big returns.

I know I could lose a good chunk of it but at my age and income I feel like I can afford the risk.
Am I being stupid here or does taking this kind of risk make sense given my situation? Would you just put it all in XEQT instead?
Or I am thinking about using it as down for another rental property. First one is about $800/month cash negative

The title says it. Im 35F and work in banking- my role is extremely demanding mentally & with high sales targets ($12.6M / quarter)- which i always hit. I make just $85k salary + bonus yearly which total comp can average to $100k/yr. I am salaried and miserable since I know I may be able to get paid more elsewhere with the amount of stress i deal with.

I am planning to start applying elsewhere next year. So those of you making $300k+, what do you guys do & how demanding/ stressful is your job?

Hello. This isn't to come off braggy or anything, but I am genuinely looking for advice.

I am graduating from my engineering program this coming April, and got a full time return offer from a company I did a summer internship with. Only caveat is that they are in the US, and I am from Ontario (all friends and family from here). I've done summers before there and have had fun, but this is obviously a much more serious commitment.

The salary is genuinely something I won't get in Canada at my level of experience (cash salary + housing stipend = 110k USD, eligible for 10k+ bonus - for context starting in my industry on the high end is around 80-100k cad) but I will be living in a remote Colorado rocky mountains town for the foreseeable future. The job is very stable (I won't need to be worried about layoffs).

Here's the thing - I have 0 intention on moving permanently/immigrating to the US. I would plan to be there for 1 TN visa cycle (~2/3 years). Is this opportunity worth taking? I would be moving away from all of my friends and family, living in a small, mostly transient, remote town, with awful weather to boot. My experience here would be applicable to PEO as everyone I'd work with is either a PE or does technical work.

What things will I need to consider if I do go down? Does anyone have similar experiences and can share the legal things they needed to do? I know I'd need to import my car, and that I have to essentially renounce my Canadian residency to not be taxed, but what goes into it? I think I'd have to liquidate my TFSA as part of that.

I have OSAP loans - do they need to be paid off before I can renounce my residency? That is the only debt I am in, and the only assets I have are my TFSA (~42k I think), some other money in my savings accounts, and my car.

Thankfully I know someone who works there (former classmate) and called him. He essentially said go for it and that it was a good gig. On paper this opportunity looks great but I'd like to be as knowledgeable as possible before signing anything (have until Oct 26th EOD).

TYIA

TLDR: got a great offer in a mediocre place, worried about legal/financial efforts needed to go there

My car loan balance is 17500, and I have 25000 in cash. If I pay off my loan I’d have about 7500. Excluding this, I already have an emergency fund put aside.

Should I pay off my loan in full (6% interest) or should I invest the equivalent in ETFs such as XEQT, or VEQT and continue paying my loan as the annual return on XEQT is greater than 6%. At least for 2023,24,25,26 so far this is true.

I have lots of contribution room in TFSA 39k to be precise and I’m 24 with a job that pays 30k a year. I’ll be going school shortly to help boost my income, but the tuition will be taken care of by my parents.

Beyond burnt out. I've been in the US working at a FAANG for the last 6 years, I have a wife and 2 kids, and frequently think about moving back.

Financially it's been an amazing boon, but not sure how much longer I can take this, maybe 2-3 years max but this past year I've even started to see health issues related to my stress.

I have $1.75m in my brokerage account, I stupidly bought two homes here (one just before interest rates rose, and the second thinking it would go down before the orange buffoon came and further destroyed the economy) but would still unlock about $450k from the homes.

Presumably we will need $80k to survive, so I am thinking just get a townhouse/semi detached somewhere, and live off the rest and coastFIRE, but am I crazy? Is that feasible?

I stay in Canada and I don’t have any preference. I just want to know which one is better to invest in. I’m new I’ve seen people talk about the XEQT. I’ll like to start with 100 a month

I'm 45F, married with two teenage kids. I've saved approximately $1.1 million across my RRSP, TFSA, 401(k), and cash. My husband has his own retirement savings, including RRSPs and TFSAs, totaling approximately $600K.

Our house and two cars are paid off. The kids have approximately $135K in RESP savings, and their university tuition will be covered through my husband's employment benefits.

I'm at a point where I really want to retire. My job can be stressful and extremely busy, and after years of working so much, I'm starting to feel like I want my time back.

The thing is, I don't really have many hobbies or interests outside of work because I've spent so much time focused on my career and saving for retirement. I'm also unsure whether my $1.1 million in personal savings is enough to retire early, even though my husband plans to continue working until the traditional retirement age because of his pension.

For those who retired early:

1. What do you do with your time? How did you find hobbies, purpose, and fulfillment after leaving work?
2. Was it difficult having one spouse retired while the other continued working?
3. Did you ever struggle with feeling like you needed a purpose or identity after leaving your career?
4. Financially, did you find it difficult to make the transition even when you had enough saved?

I'd love to hear honest experiences, both positive and negative. I'm trying to figure out whether I'm ready to make this next chapter of life happen.

For example 40% of VEQT is morning star US equities and 30% is canadian equities.
What I often see is if someone posts their portfolio showing veqt + other canadian equities (ENB, RBC, etc), people will jump to the comments and start their rant about “VeQt AlReaDy HolDs tHaT”

Yes. It does. But, only at a very small weight. Have you guys ever thought that someone might want to REDISTRIBUTE their investments into a different market more than others?

Granted that anyone posting their portfolio as such and asking for advice probably did not consider the % of global diversification of their portfolio but my point stands that it is a valid, and sometimes planned, move to make.

Why am I even slightly qualified to state this? I’m a Masters finance student with 3 Co-ops in Bay st investment banking.

This is just an example. I just wanted to shed light on this topic because I never hear anyone debating or discussing this.

I will however say, IN MY PERSONAL OPINION (not financial advice), most people are not financially qualified or literate with the necessary skills to redistribute the diversification of a professionally made ETF

I think wealthsimple now actually allows you to allocate % of your portfolio automatically to a certain equity, so for the people who do understand this YAY

Edit: Personally I hold 95% VEQT across all my portfolios so I am not defending this approach, just stating a fact

People working in the Oil and Gas (OG) companies, what is the fastest way to get promoted?

I am 25 and make 71K in a global OG company. It takes me 5 years to get to this salary level and a step into the OG industry. I am planning ahead for the future. So, how do you get your career ladder leveling up as fast as possible in the OG?

I'll be 39m in a few weeks and I have just realized that I'll be hitting my FIRE number in February 2027.

What is tipping the scale is a mortgage renewal offer I just received for February. During the interest hikes in 2022/2023 my rate was 6%. I ended up making interest only payments for a good while, but when rates started to come down I kept those higher payments. This and throwing extra cash at the balance when I could I managed to catch up and then some. All in my new mortgage payments will be 6000/yr less starting in February 2027.

My liquid assets are:

1.0M taxable accounts

200k TFSA

200k RRSP

100k company pension

With the smaller mortgage payments my yearly spend will sit at $50,000; enough to cover a 3.5% withdrawal rate. I will say that my life is a bit on the leaner side at the moment as I live in a small condo in Toronto and don't own a car, also I would like to own a house one day, and build in some padding for travel and/or kids. So this is more like my Leanfire number. This also doesn't factor in taxes on any withdrawals.

As I'm doing my own calculations, I'm curious how others are planning. I'm at 20% which I thought was high but my other expenses will be very low including no mortgage or car payments.

I work in consulting and really don’t like it, cannot see myself doing this forever by any stretch so the last few years I’ve been trying to save as much as humanely possible while still actually living my life.

I’m recently married and looking to buy a home with to start a family. I own a downtown Toronto condo outright, only paying the $800 maintenance fee and about $3000 in property tax. It’ll probably sell for between 480K-510K depending on how much the market continued to go down.

TFSA - $160,374
RRSP - $216,494 (invested entirely in USD, being $153,130 of that currency)
Non Reg - $83,496.57
LIRA - $50,554.56
GIC - $113,538 (to pay back a family member for a loan to buy my place)
Chequing account - $10,958.38

In all, this is about 635K invested not including the equity from my condo.

Would you say I can slow down the period of investing as I enter the phase of life where I’ll need to pay for a bigger home? I know compound interest says no but I wonder if a more laid back role could be the solution.

I net about 100,000 a year.

Age: 28

Location: Metro Vancouver

Salary: 90k including overtime and bonuses (**4 days a week because I can't stand my job). I could be making roughly 115k if I worked 5 days a week.

Debt: student loans for my program, will needs to pay $250 a month for the next 8-10 years

Current spending: $1200-$1500/month, I am lucky to have never paid rent (lived with my parents or partner)

Am currently partnered, anticipating marriage next year and kids in the next two years. Also plan on buying a home together in the next two years, so expecting my spending to go up substantially.

Currently invest 45-50k a year, I am VERY aggressive with investing. I consider myself fairly financially literate and am always reading/watching videos to learn more and do better. Financial independence is also very important to me.

Main question: I have been working for about 4 years as a pharmacist. I truly detest my job and stay only for the money. On the job, I believe I am a pretty good pharmacist and I do care about my patients deeply - but this job is not fulfilling or rewarding in any way to me. I recently completed a master's degree (so I worked PT as a pharmacist for two years, reducing my income but still continuing to invest aggressively). I have the option of taking a pay cut for better work-life balance and hybrid or remote work. I am also fully aware that toxic managers and workplace culture are not limited to healthcare, they're everywhere.

I initially imagined that I would take a pay cut to 80k if I could land a government role with good benefits, but upon discussion with my partner/family/friends, many advise against this. Given how much I value aggressive wealth accumulation, they say that this is the best time to make as much money as I can in healthcare before I take on a mortgage and have kids. A counter-argument is that switching jobs and taking the pay cut will allow me to gain more seniority in the company, setting myself up for success down the line.

I'm truly torn on what to do. I would do anything for my patients but have made a number of sacrifices for this job that have greatly affected my quality of life. Any advice on how to proceed? Thank you!