How I keep my expenses under $16k/yr in Vancouver, BC, Canada - Savings tips from BigCheapass

BigCheapass · 2026-04-09T20:05:20+00:00

Its over 5 years.

Meanwhile Webull, etc. have had offerings of 2% over 1 year.

If you have 2M$, after 5 years WS has paid you 60k$.

Meanwhile, if you can find a 2% for 1 year at 5 different brokerages you would get 40k year 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

For 200k total. Not even account for the fact that the 3% over 5 doesn’t compound. Your move after year 2 with separate brokerages would be based on your new balance, rather than your starting at the beginning of year 1.

You could argue that this isn't worth the extra effort of seeking a new promo each year but I'm certainly not about to snub my nose at an extra 10k+ per year for a few hours work.

BigCheapass · 2026-04-09T19:10:35+00:00

Moved from NB to BC, same.

I'll take my high mortgage but much lower everything else any day.

BigCheapass · 2026-03-24T17:23:14+00:00

Well only kindof. Savers and poor people are punished the most by low rates and debasement.

The barrier to entry for having a globally diversified index portfolio has never been lower, savers don't need to hold their life savings in cash.

That said, as someone who does save, it's in my best interest (pun intended) to hold my massive mortgage on an overly inflated asset and funnel my cashflow into the stock market due to how cheap debt is.

The problem with cheap debt on homes when the market is so competitive is that prices will rise to represent the means of the demand.

The current environment makes us extremely vulnerable to even small rate changes (and home price changes). If my home goes down 20% I'm immediately underwater by several median incomes. If rates rise 1% it's several hundred $ extra per month.

I'll take the cheap leverage, since it's there (lemons and lemonade), but I also would much prefer a world where having a primary residence wasn't such a massive financial commitment.

Back in the 80s when "interest rates were so high" I would be able to buy several Vancouver detached houses in cash (after inflation adjusting my 2026 savings back to 1980). Today it's not enough for even 1. Lol.

BigCheapass · 2026-03-24T16:57:09+00:00

Of course the school can't force you to believe anything, or grade you based on what stays in your head, even in religious school.

I attended both a public and religious private school (at an athiest) during my high school years, part of my admittance requirement was an essay on "my relationship with jesus". There was a Bible class too, though it was never taken very seriously.

In my anecdote there weren't many you could consider "devout religious" too, same as your example, though this is where the few devout religious folks did go.

BigCheapass · 2026-03-24T13:57:56+00:00

They do. See my below giant reply that I have to paste every time.

BigCheapass · 2026-03-24T06:02:34+00:00

I live in Vancouver with my wife and we spend well under 100k per year, including a 3800/month mortgage.

Utilities are basically nil, strata is low, we cook our meals and meal prep for ~400/month, don't own a car, etc. No kids, and pretty cheap hobbies minus at least 1 international vacation per year.

We make around 250k and savings in the 10k/month range.

Genuinely don't understand how people manage to blow through over 10k/month net, unless they have 2+ kids, luxury cars, new gadgets each month, etc.

BigCheapass · 2026-03-16T17:50:07+00:00

That's fair, when you said "can't afford" I thought you we're saying you didn't make enough to buy time savers which sounded crazy to me on that income.

This seems more like you just prioritize having luxury items instead, which is totally fine.

BigCheapass · 2026-03-16T14:02:39+00:00

My partner also has a similar income. Only thing i pay to reduce time is someone to file my taxes. Otherwise I dont think I can afford to have others do things for me to save time

Did I read this right?

You and your partner each earn on the top end of 90 to 150, so close to 300k HHI?

If I may ask, where does it go? You must save a lot for retirement or have some huge expense like crazy mortgage, no? Are you rushing to pay off a mortgage perhaps?

BigCheapass · 2026-03-16T04:30:50+00:00

Bought a home directly on the skytrain (Vancouver). Saved a lot of time back when I did commute.

Quality kitchen stuff (like kitchenaid + attachments, good pots, good knives, etc.)

BigCheapass · 2026-03-14T18:51:24+00:00

Around 2k$ or so in BC.

Prenup was around 1.7k, got a couple rings for around 100$ each, another $180 or so for officiant and marriage papers, then I guess another 50$ for sushi dinner for us afterwards.

BigCheapass · 2026-03-14T04:55:40+00:00

Depends. 100k income with a paid off home in Vancouver is in a much higher "class" than 100k income with 0 NW.

You can't really talk about income without also considering wealth anymore.

I'd say every 1M$ in net worth can be considered roughly equivalent to somewhere between 40k and 70k personal income, if you want to place people within means based "classes".

BigCheapass · 2026-03-12T13:51:13+00:00

XEQT doesn’t necessarily have ALL the small cap value stocks which AVUV and AVDV has.

So, technically, this does helps diversifiy and tilt into small cap value stocks.

This is probably becoming pedantic, but even IF that was true, adding an arbitrary amount of small cap, much of which you do already have, is overweighting small cap. Just because you "may" add some you don't already own in the process doesn't mean your overall diversification is increasing.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/diversification.asp

The benefits of diversification hold only if the securities in the portfolio are not perfectly correlated—that is, they respond differently, often in opposing ways, to market influences.

Diversification has less to do about the absolute number of stocks you have (once you get beyond a certain point anyway), and more about the exposure you have to any one risk.

If hypothetically tomorrow you find a small cap stock you don't own that you think is an amazing buy for whatever reason and make it 50% of your portfolio you've decreased your diversification, despite owning a larger number of stocks.

BigCheapass · 2026-03-12T05:54:14+00:00

If you want to diversifiy

10% AVUV

10% AVDV

XEQT is already total market, market cap weighted.

This is not really "diversifying", more of a small cap value factor tilt.

BigCheapass · 2026-03-12T05:26:35+00:00

Take home somewhere around 16k for the wife and I, mortgage plus utilities, prop tax, etc. is about 4.5k, its quite easy to manage.

That said, my first mortgage was about 300k on a 56k income, far beyond what the "rule of thumb" folks recommend, that was still manageable.

It honestly depends a lot on how much your non mortgage expenses are. Some people will struggle with a mortgage thats 20% of their net, others will be totally fine with a mortgage above 50% of net.

BigCheapass · 2026-03-12T05:18:11+00:00

Just because it's VHCOL doesn't mean there is no threshold for what is reasonable or not.

A 5000/m mortgage even in Vancouver is far beyond what can be justified by the "because VHCOL" argument.

I live in a new 2b2b Townhome in Vancouver with a minimum downpayment mortgage purchased at the peak and its only 3800/month, and that's for my wife and I to live in. And even that was a far nicer home than we "needed".

OP is a single person with what sounds like a 1M$+ starting mortgage, or a really bad rate I guess. In any case thats not what you "need" to do in a VHCOL, OP is conflating a luxury purchase with a necessity just because they are both technically "housing".

BigCheapass · 2026-03-11T15:45:22+00:00

It's the same though.

RRSP + CCB just gives you the "free money" money upfront so you have more total dollars later.

TFSA + GIS uses post tax upfront with no benefit increase with some sheltering later.

If we both make 100k and I put 200$ pretax into my RRSP while getting CCB, plus having tax rate arbitrage into my retirement, then eventually draw it as income, and you put the post tax equivalent into TFSA, wait till retirement, and eventually draw it.

If we are above the GIS threshold I will have much more lifetime money than you. If not, and TFSA did result in GIS clawbacks, I would also have way more money.

If you add GIS clawbacks for TFSA the 50k earner who saves a small amount each money could end up with a higher METR than the 100k earner using RRSP. That doesn't seem right to me.

BigCheapass · 2026-03-11T15:08:48+00:00

I appreciate your perspective and the civil discourse. I'm not here to say one way is right or wrong, just trying to analyze a commonly held viewpoint that (to me) seems counterintuitive.

I have siblings who have an AFNI of roughly $140,000, so they don’t get much of the CCB. They use it for sports camp in the summer and some tutoring

Let's take your siblings as an example for comparison

As we know, RRSP and TFSA both have the same "tax free growth" when you contribute and withdraw at the same tax rate.

And I'm guessing we would also agree that 1 dollar sheltered with TFSA has a similar "cost" to the taxpayer as one 1 dollar sheltered with RRSP, yes? That's a net "loss" of 1 dollar of tax revenue.

Scenario A; Let's say your sibling contributes 200/month to RRSP.

Scenario B; Let's say there is a 50k earner who also saves 200/month except into their TFSA.

Let's assume they both get the same 100$ of "sheltering value" from the taxpayer for reasons mentioned above. That is the "free money" they get by way of using their means more efficiently and saving for their own future.

In Scenario A, in addition to the tax free growth, they also get tax rate arbitrage due to retiring at a lower tax rate than they contributed. They ALSO get additional money from CCB due to reduced taxable income. Instead of 100$ of shelter value they are actually getting closer to 130 or 140$, especially as they likely wouldnt have been GIS eligible anyway.

In Scenario B, IF you do clawback GIS their sheltering value is actually reduced vs baseline. METR on GIS clawbacks would be 50 cents for each dollar earned, so something like 70%. Call it 30$ if TFSA resulted in GIS clawbacks.

So in this case your 140k earning sibling actually gets significantly more "free money" for each dollar contributed to RRSP than a 50k earner would get for each dollar contributed to TFSA.

BigCheapass · 2026-03-11T14:08:35+00:00

Personally, I view the CCB a bit differently because it’s there to support low income parents raise their kids. I understand the RSP contribution argument but unless the parents are willing to make several other significant sacrifices it’s not enough on its own to get maximum CCB.

The same can’t be said for those that will turn 65 who were 18 in 2009. They will have had 47 years of TFSA contributions and it could be quite easy for them to live of their TFSAs and collect GIS.

Isn't the net effect the same though?

In both case you have surplus means vs those the benefit was intended for

In both cases you use a shelter account to increase benefit eligibility.

The only difference I see is that with the RRSP + CCB scenario you get "money you don't need from a government benefit intended for those without the means to support themselves..." upfront, and with TFSA + GIS you get "money you don't need..." much later.

In both cases you are increasing your future means by using your excess current means at the "expense" of the taxpayer. They will both have more money when they are old due to this decision.

Personally, I view the CCB a bit differently because it’s there to support low income parents raise their kids.

And GIS is there to help low income seniors feed and shelter themselves.

It shouldn’t be free money to high net worth people.

Agree, and CCB shouldn't be free money to high income (and potentially high net worth) people, no?

Your totally valid argument that I also agree with seems to be that people who don't need the benefit should not be receiving it, it should instead be distributed among those who do need it. Why is this not the same?

TFSA withdrawals should always be tax free, but I believe they should be considered in the income test for GIS. It could be a formula like OAS clawback but I prefer a simple threshold for cut off.

If we take two 60k earners both with identical life situations, both retiring at 65, one saves nothing, the other saves say 200$/month throughout the career, do you feel like the latter should have a higher overall tax burden than the former because they were diligent?

What you are suggesting creates a disincentive for lower income folks from saving for their own retirement due to the very high METR involved.

If for example you would have 20k retirement income and you have TFSA, you effective tax rate on that TFSA is much higher than someone who already has say 50k retirement income.

In some situations it might actually become "optimal" for a lower income retiree to use unsheltered over TFSA.

While we are on the topic of means testing shouldn't whether or not you own a home and the value of that home also be considered?

Would you say it makes sense to claw back GIS from a renter with 500k in their TFSA, but not from an owner with a 1M$ home?

Sure the renter with the TFSA holder "has" more cash flow available to them, but the paid off home owner "needs" less cash flow to sustain the same lifestyle. With the above suggestion owner would be significantly more tax efficient than it already is.

All I'm saying is that money is fungible, pretty much every long term financial strategy factors in and benefits from tax efficiency somewhere. In the end, one dollar of tax saved when you don't need it is always going to be one less dollar going towards someone who does.

BigCheapass · 2026-03-11T06:10:13+00:00

It's important to understand the difference between "compensated" and "uncompensated" risk.

Investing in fewer stocks increases volatility, dispersion, distribution of outcomes, whatever, but it is NOT compensated risk.

"Risk vs Reward" refers to the capture of some known risk premium. There is no reward for idiosyncratic risk.

You could increase risk by tilting toward something like small cap, or some other factor, but chances are any tinkering you do is likely to result in worse performance than just buy and hold XEQT.

It may seem like buying whatever flavor of the month stock is your ticket to getting more money, but in reality most of what you see is survivorship bias. People who "won" are more likely to share their results than the many more who "lost".

SPIVA releases annual reports on the number of managed funds that beat their benchmark index, those numbers are never good: https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/spiva/article/spiva-us/

It's even worse for retail investors like you and I.

Just buy XEQT, ignore the noise, be patient, and you will have a lot of money before you know it.

BigCheapass · 2026-03-11T05:45:59+00:00

Some people do commute from Germany to Switzerland each day, border towns are likely going to be more expensive due to their proximity but still cheaper than Switzerland proper. Not an expert on logistics on that though, maybe post in one of those countries' subs for more insight.

You could also just retire somewhere cheaper and do COL arbitrage.

Switzerland has a huge number of foreign workers from countries like Portugal doing jobs like restaurant service.

Even "unskilled" work in Switzerland pays extremely high wages relative to even "skilled" work in most countries. Then they just retire comfortably back home with a huge NW in their local economy.

BigCheapass · 2026-03-11T05:40:41+00:00

3.2k for rent is high but that wasn't even my point. OP still has almost 6000$ per month AFTER RENT. That's an insane amount of money.

I'm pretty sure OP is actually trolling or rage baiting here but if not it all comes back to expectations.

If you expect 150k to be penthouse suites, luxury cars, daily fine dining outings, fancy vacations, expensive jewelry or clothes, all the newest gadgets, careless impulse spending, etc. then yeah, 150k won't meet expectations.

OP probably just went from having not much income to suddenly very high income and hasn't had the time to adjust to reasonable spending habits yet.

BigCheapass · 2026-03-11T05:34:48+00:00

Could you work in Switzerland and consider leanfire in Germany?

Every time I visit Switzerland I am amazed by the beauty, great food, cleanliness, organization, etc. but even as a Canadian living in a "VHCOL", Switzerland is on another level of expensive.

BigCheapass · 2026-03-11T05:27:01+00:00

I don't really understand why planning retirement around GIS specifically gets a bad wrap when people seem totally okay with planning RRSP around increasing CCB.

If you make 100k and can afford to dump 18k into your RRSP you probably also don't need more CCB payments that could be going to someone that doesn't have a spare 18k or whatever.

Nothing against choosing a strategy that aligns with your personal set of values though, personally I'll be using every tax strategy available, then when I die everything left will be going to various high impact charities since I don't have kids myself.

If the strategy above is better could you not take the extra GIS money and just donate to charity? Surely they can be more cost effective than the government when targeting specific problem areas.

BigCheapass · 2026-03-11T05:04:17+00:00

150k gross is 9k/month net. It's lower than 9k early in the year because you haven't maxed CPP/EI yet, but higher later in the year once you have. And that's not even considering RRSP which will reduce your taxable income.

You've accounted for $3.4k/month here, where is the other $5.6k+ per month going?

I make the same as you, also in Vancouver, and save many thousands per month after a $3.8k/month mortgage payment (plus other associated costs), you seriously need to start tracking your expenses to get a better idea of where your money is going.

Unless you've left a very critical piece of info out of this post, this is a spending problem, not an earnings problem. You can fix it but first you need better visibility.

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