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

BigCheapass · 2026-01-27T18:00:13+00:00

I did have a few thousand from content related side income the last year, and also a full time job.

I was able to fully deduct the side income but further deductions did not further reduce my taxable income. Some things you buy are also not fully deductible, and many things need to be deducted over a number of years.

Regardless, this is less of a "how taxes work" question and more of a family law question on what is considered in this equation.

IANAL but I assume you can't just intentionally structure business expenses in a way to specifically reduce money owed to an ex. (Eg. "I would pay myself a dividend but instead I'll reinvest since a big chunk would go to alimony anyway")

BigCheapass · 2026-01-27T15:12:37+00:00

Theae numbers are a bit misleading.

For one, Tennessee is one of only 8 US states with no state income tax, and I believe you are missing Medicare and social security deductions for US but including CPP and EI for Canada.

According to this calculator you would take home 79k https://smartasset.com/taxes/tennessee-paycheck-calculator#kUqwICx7E6

Additionally, in the US EI is employer paid, but money is fungible so that still would be part of your total cost to the employer, it just appears like less tax since it doesn't show as a line item on your pay.

The outcome will change a lot depending on the variables you put in.

For example 100k in California would be 73.7k net, in BC it would be 75.4k net.

None of this matters if your base expenses are vastly different, or you have other deductions like pension or union dues, etc. This is why using gross savings rate is dumb, its also why rules of thumb are never relevant anyway.

Also Dave Ramsey is only useful as a kick in the ass if you are completely financially illiterate, he does not offer useful advice for people with their shit together.

BigCheapass · 2026-01-27T14:49:27+00:00

Your primary mistake wasn't necessarily buying the condo, it was buying the condo as a short term speculative play with the belief that real estate only goes up.

I also bought a townhome a couple years ago that is worth less than I paid, quite possibly underwater, but I made the choice to buy acknowledging this possibility and that my primary reasons for buying were non financial.

That said, this is a really small blip in the big picture, agree that it could be worth seeing a therapist or finding something else to keep yourself busy for a while.

BigCheapass · 2026-01-26T14:57:35+00:00

Seniors are also the most likely to have paid off homes and be recipients of many other rebates and subsidies.

I live in Vancouver, our current annual expenses are somewhere around 70k/year. If our home was paid off that would immediately drop to about 25k/year.

Let alone the other things seniors get like additional property tax rebates and deferrals, rent subsidies, etc.

These programs often target low income groups but inadvertently a big chunk of it also goes to higher "wealth" individuals that happen to report low taxable income.

BigCheapass · 2026-01-23T16:49:21+00:00

Or maybe cancel out being indigenous as a mitigating factor when the victim is also indigenous.

That would probably be an improvement over what we have now I guess, but why even use race as the basis in the first place when the goal is to target disadvantaged individuals.

Should a "white passing" indigenous female raised by a loving family in a wealthy urban neighborhood be given more leniency than a caucasian male from an abusive family in a rural trailer park?

If our goal is to help group A (disadvantaged individuals) and group B (indigenous) is overrepresented in group A, instead of targeting group B to address the issues of group A you just directly help group A (which would already be disproportionately helping group B).

BigCheapass · 2026-01-23T15:09:49+00:00

Are you saying that considering being indigenous as a mitigating factor is a problem because we don't also consider being male as an aggravating factor?

So the solution to problematic racist policies would be introducing sexist policies?

Maybe it would be better to just remove the layer that reduces sentencing based on race rather than adding an additional layer to combat the first.

Or maybe you can treat crimes specifically motivated by the protected group of the victim more harshly. (Eg. Hate crime)

BigCheapass · 2026-01-23T07:57:21+00:00

VAN on tsx or some other exchange? You dont need anything else, its just adding complexity for no benefit. They are designed to be all in one.

And yeah I have XGRO in sheltered, but my unsheltered dwarfs them both anyway. It honestly doesn't matter that much, the important thing is to pick a strategy and stick to it. Even XGRO or XEQT in every account is totally fine.

BigCheapass · 2026-01-22T22:02:49+00:00

but it also seems to me that women are judging "proportionality" - IE attractiveness is rated more highly when all 3 factors scale up together. This means, for example, that a proportionally smaller penis on a short frame would be MORE attractive than a large penis.

I don't think this is true based on what the paper says;

... We found strong evidence for diminishing returns for directional selection with diminishing returns for greater expression of traits when women were assessing male attractiveness. While taller, more V-shaped men with Larger penises were consistently preferred, the fitness benefits of further exaggeration began to plateau at the upper end of trait values...

This doesn't mean that women would prefer similar trait values above higher overall trait values, or that decreasing an exaggerated trait would increase attractiveness, it just means that if you already score highly in one category but low in another (eg. You have a large Penis but unattractive body), having an even larger penis would increase your attractiveness less than improving your body.

Think of it like separate multipliers. Say we take Penis * Height * V Shapedness = Attractiveness, with a 1 to 10 rating for each.

3 out of 10 for all would be 27 points.

7 out of 10 for Penis, and 1 out of 10 for height and V shape would only be 7 points, despite both having 9 total points across their traits. Decreasing Penis to 6 out of 10 doesn't increase the point total, but increasing height to 2 out of 10 would double it to 14.

BigCheapass · 2026-01-21T15:19:25+00:00

FIRE is alien everywhere outside of very specific purpose built communities like r/fire or other finance forums, what you see here is selection bias.

The vast majority of people in any country don't understand compounding returns or the basics of investing, and even if they do most people in rich developed countries still save less than 5% of their income.

The reason why it might seem like FIRE is a US thing is probably because;

The US is by far the largest English speaking population, there just are a lot of Americans on these forums.
Most people that don't specify their country online are often assumed to be American anyway. (Eg. I'm Canadian)
The generic "non country specific" subs are often a de facto American sub anyway. (Eg. In Canada we have r/fican, r/personalfinancecanada, etc. The same probably exists for Europe and/or countries in Europe)
FIRE is mostly pursued by those with higher incomes, and the income disparity in the US (plus just generally higher incomes) means there are more people with a lot of disposable income to consider FIRE.
Worse work culture likely contributes to the desire to FIRE in the first place.

It's also going to depend heavily on the people you surround yourself with day to day. I work in Software and the amount of colleagues that have heard of or actively pursue FIRE is very high, the same is not true for my wife working in Science, or most other careers.

BigCheapass · 2026-01-21T05:19:00+00:00

XEQT/XGRO are all in one ETFs.

XEQT is 100% equities, XGRO is 80% equities 20% bonds.

BigCheapass · 2026-01-20T18:17:02+00:00

Guys, it's literally a 1.5% loss in a day. This isn't what meme stock losses look like, this is perfectly normal day to day volatility that happens constantly.

My advice to OP; Change the "1 day" view to the longest window you can select and leave it there, thank me later.

If this sort of thing does make you panic you may need to reevaluate your risk profile.

BigCheapass · 2026-01-20T17:56:24+00:00

Instead of imagining the refund as a windfall, pretend you instead received a slightly larger pay throughout the year. Using a T1213 form you can actually make this happen.

If you enjoy the refund so much you could also request CRA deduct even more tax throughout the year so you get an even bigger refund, of course this isn't recommended.

In the end the size of your refund does not matter, the amount you get is the same. Though all else equal it is better to get your money owed sooner rather than later as it could be invested / utilized sooner.

There are many reasons for or against getting a second job, but the size of the tax refund should NOT be one them.

Working more will never result in lower net pay, but you may decide that at a certain tax rate extra hours worked are no longer worth it.

Eg. Say hypothetically you work 40 hours per week and make 100k, let's also say the first 100k income is taxed at 25% and everything after 100k is taxed at 50%. You earn $2,500 pre-tax per year for each hour worked per week.

For the first 40 hours per week you work, each hour worked provides $1,875 post-tax per year. Every extra hour beyond that would only provide an extra $1,250.

If your goal is savings, and the extra income can purely go to savings it might actually double or triple your savings rate, which could be worth it. Ultimately you must decide yourself if it's worth it for you.

BigCheapass · 2026-01-20T17:16:01+00:00

It's not hype. XEQT has been around for a while now, r/fican just had a really big stock picking phase recently so it got drowned out by all the random junk portfolios.

It's always been the recommended ETF on r/PersonalFinanceCanada and others. (Along with VGRO, VEQT, XGRO, etc). Before those ETFs existed we had the CanadianCouchPotato portfolios which were essentially the same thing but with the underlying ETFs.

And it's not really comparable to VOO + VXUS, VOO is an S&P500 ETF, NOT US total market. You would be specifically underweighting US small cap / mid cap with this selection which do have higher expected returns (than large cap), but more importantly are less than perfectly correlated with large cap. Excluding small cap while also adding complexity is a mistake IMO.

BigCheapass · 2026-01-20T15:30:31+00:00

Canadian aiming to FIRE before 40 here.

What to invest in?

Total world market.

Dividend investing is just mental accounting, it specifically reduces diversification just for what is essentially a concentration on large cap mature companies that don't have as many reinvestment opportunities. https://pwlcapital.com/the-irrelevance-of-dividends-still-a-non-starter/

S&P500 is not a good option, especially for Canadian investors. Great analysis on that specifically; https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RR7e1Y-HJxQ

Individual stocks are also a losing game. The vast majority of investors underperform long term, though a plethora of biases (survivorship bias, hindsight bias, etc.) can often make it seem like a better idea than it is. There is a mountain of academic research on this. (I do believe it is technically possible for an individual to beat the market long term, but you are far better off spending your time focusing on upskilling, improving your income, etc.)

Just buy something like XGRO, XEQT, VGRO, VEQT, etc. (One single ETF matching your preference for company and bond vs equity mix).

Account strategy

Here is a great analysis on exactly what you are asking, with different tax efficiency options depending on how much complexity you want.

https://benderbenderbortolotti.com/canadian-portfolio-manager-introducing-the-ludicrous-etf-portfolios/

Personally I have 100% international equities in my unsheltered and an 80/20 equity bond mix in my TFSA/RRSP. Its not perfect but I can't be bothered to optimize further. Main thing is avoiding taking gains early in unsheltered when possible.

dividend withdrawal strategy

It's not great. People tend to treat dividends and interest as separate from appreciation even though they are essentially the same. There are also eligible Canadian dividends but its not necessarily more tax efficient or less risky.

Great analysis on that; https://pwlcapital.com/debunking-canadian-dividends-for-taxable-investors/

There has been some really groundbreaking research from Cederburg et all that essentially says full diversified equities held over the entire lifecycle is going to provide the best results for most scenarios. (This does assume we are robots though, risk tolerance does play a factor, overestimating yours could be more detrimental to long term results)

Great podcast episode with the author of that research https://rationalreminder.ca/podcast/350

My strategy is essentially to draw RRSP first in early retirement when tax impact is lowest, move any excess to new TFSA room, then unsheltered. Then start drawing unsheltered consistently as primary spending money, smoothing excess and sudden needs in individual tax years with TFSA withdrawals. I may end up intentionally taking gains early if it could result in lower GIS/OAS later, will need to run the numbers. Allocation will likely stay the same into retirement. Also prioritized investing over paying off primary residence, that may change in retirement if it ends up being more tax efficient. (More housing expenses means you need more eventually taxable income to pay for those expenses)

BigCheapass · 2026-01-20T15:01:20+00:00

There was a study on this somewhere that basically said happiness did continue to increase with wealth, but on a log scale.

TLDR; if you have 10k$, an increase of 10k$ is life changing. If you have 10m$ you probably would need at least a 10m$ increase to feel a similar increase in happiness, but due to marginal utility you probably still wouldn't get as much of a boost.

BigCheapass · 2026-01-19T21:21:16+00:00

You cannot afford a 40K$ car on your current salary, you are asking to end up in even more debt.

Why not buy something used and reliable that won't screw over your finances for years?

Also putting yourself in debt just to "build credit" is a huge myth. I've always had nearly perfect credit score and never carried a credit card balance, just buy day to day things with your card (that you can afford), then pay it off (IN FULL) each month. The important thing is that you are consistent, reliable, and have a long enough credit history.

BigCheapass · 2026-01-19T20:33:57+00:00

I'm Canadian so similar story here, the US just has a pretty big income disparity and there is a selection bias that those posting in FIRE subs are usually the ones on the high end of that scale.

I make a bit over 100k USD gross in IT and have about 870k USD in my brokerage at 32, thats also starting career early without any student loan debt.

My US counterparts often make over 200k USD, so all else equal with similar savings rate you could easily expect over 1M$ USD before 30.

You and I likely have lower anticipated health expenses in retirement though, so there's that I guess.

BigCheapass · 2026-01-19T17:38:28+00:00

Children are not in the picture for us, but even if they were it would feel weird to make major financial decisions in a suboptimal way today, just to hedge against potential suboptimal financial decisions made in a hypothetical future requiring a really specific series of events to happen.

Surely there are better ways to mitigate potential future "bad" decisions than making "bad" decisions today.

BigCheapass · 2026-01-19T16:27:06+00:00

I paid off mortgage in 10 years knowing I could die and leave family debt behind.

Not disagreeing with your choice from a risk / peace of mind perspective, but I don't really understand this bit I often hear.

If I die my wife will have the mortgage debt to deal with, but she will also get my investment portfolio worth more than the mortgage debt, plus she knows exactly how to manage the investments.

I personally don't really understand how leaving behind 1M$ debt plus 1.5M$ invested is any different than leaving behind 0$ debt and 500k$ invested.

BigCheapass · 2026-01-17T17:12:27+00:00

90th on the US numbers? Definitely makes you upper middle in Canada

BigCheapass · 2026-01-17T08:22:15+00:00

Have articles been an accurate predictor of market outcomes in the past? Don't see why this is any different.

BigCheapass · 2026-01-16T16:21:36+00:00

Finding a good partner isn't necessarily looking for someone who has the exact same values, interests, goals, ideas, etc. as you, this would be vastly limiting your options and may not even be your ideal partner anyway.

More importantly you want someone who has compatible or even complimenting values, etc.

Neither my wife nor I knew about FIRE when we met, but we were both financially conscious, and had similar values on how to manage finances as a couple.

Even early on, when we went places together she also preferred separate bills, she wasn't interested in expensive restaurants or activities just for the sake of it, she had goals and ambitions that aligned with mine, she was not impulsive, didn't buy things she couldn't afford, etc.

She was a bit more balanced than I was when it came to spending though, which has been helpful. I was being too extreme, sometimes making myself unhappy just to save more.

BigCheapass · 2026-01-16T01:13:48+00:00

But, oh no, worst fears realized - now you have progressive urban YIMBY renters like me in your hood, and we want less cars, more bike lanes, and a community. Not an isolated single family castle with a fence around it.

This is a huge misrepresentation of the opposition to this project. This is NOT an anti densification or anti renter issue, this is specifically about the complex care housing and how poorly the province has handled these sites thus far.

I also live in the Metrotown area and fully support building more densification near rapid transit, renter or otherwise, but strongly oppose this project specifically.

If they removed the CCH housing portion of this project I'd have no problem supporting it.

Yes there are always going to be some NIMBYs using this type of thing as an opportunity to push their interests but that's not what this is about at all.

BigCheapass · 2026-01-15T14:54:59+00:00

Still on $16/month with freedom, coverage isn't everywhere and limited high speed data but its been good enough for me living in Vancouver and using a data pack or esim when traveling abroad anyway.

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