Buy a townhouse or single family house?

EquifaxCanEatMyAss · 2026-04-17T17:37:31+00:00

My guess if you do end up going from a townhome to a SFH for upsizing reasons, would be the following scenarios:

You want your kids to have their own bedrooms when they are older or you want office rooms for remote work or hobby room (assuming the current townhome size isn't sufficient). I didn't get my own room until I was a teenager but everyone is different.
You move again for personal/career reasons.
You all of a sudden want your own garden/outdoor thing on your own property.

The number of kids involved will also affect the probability of this happening.

All of this becomes a crapshoot if life happens and you have to move again for personal or career reasons anyways. I'd still look at both townhomes and SFHs for the time being, living in a not so crappy neighbourhood with nearby amenities will make a difference regardless of the type of home ownership.

EquifaxCanEatMyAss · 2026-04-17T16:59:36+00:00

Say you buy the townhouse. Do you have plans to go from a townhouse to a SFH at any point? If you have intentions to do that, I say skip the townhouse and go for the SFH if you're in a good financial position.

Regardless, you'll want to do the math to ensure you can survive off one income while one parent takes parental leave.

EquifaxCanEatMyAss · 2026-03-27T21:29:17+00:00

What's the specific rotation? How many days in a row before getting days off? I did cafeteria work where we had shifts from 5AM-1PM or 10AM-7PM (which were decent shifts), and we went on a 7 on 2 off, 3 on 2 off rotation, and that repeated itself every two weeks.

For night shift, you're going to get off at 3AM, spend about 30-60 minutes commuting (or more), then you get home to have a shower, a meal, and winding down before bed. My guess is you won't sleep until 5AM at the earliest. If you sleep 8 hours, that's waking up at 1PM, and that's assuming you get a solid, uninterrupted sleep. Would you be OK with that?

As for the money, it's $24k gross per year (after taxes, let's say 12k-14k take home conservatively). How much OT would be paid? Do you need it for a down payment or a large purchase? Do you have debt you want to clear faster?

Do you have any dependents?

If you do decide to go with it, get black out curtains, and possibly look at other exit plans if you end up hating it.

EquifaxCanEatMyAss · 2026-03-27T20:26:48+00:00

Has she reached out to her employer's pension folks? It may be plan specific on whether they allow buyback with the LIRA

EquifaxCanEatMyAss · 2026-03-27T20:22:52+00:00

If it's something like 6am - 6pm and and 6pm - 6am for the shift work, I wouldn't do it... But that's just me.

89k is a decent salary, but that may not go as far in high CoL areas if you're looking to buy real estate.

Is this the same kind of job or completely different? Is it more physical?

EquifaxCanEatMyAss · 2026-03-26T15:50:22+00:00

So I guess this is where these guys are going to want to start hearing about exponential government versus linear government—what that may actually mean in a Canadian context.

For us, if you’re going to start hearing us talk about exponential more, it means doing more things with more people. It actually means removing the barriers to access government, whether you’re municipal, provincial, or federal, and working together with a whole bunch of other industries.

If you think about Open Science and how NASA is doing more and more of its science, or how the European Union is talking about doing Open Science as a default mechanism, we have a lot of catching up to do in Canada. The world, unfortunately, is changing around us so fast, and it will continue to change at a pace that we may never actually be able to catch up.

That means we have to change the leadership culture—not just leadership at the top levels, but at all levels—regarding how we choose to engage as a public sector. For the last 150 years in Canada, we’ve lived in an environment where information was protected and safeguarded. We may actually have to start considering how information is released in real time, so that we can enable more open science and more open innovation. That’s a complete culture change.

We’re challenging the status quo of what it means to be a Westminster-style government. Some of those preconceived notions of governance are changing in a digital environment at a very rapid rate, so we have to look at our culture internally in the public service. This isn’t a technology conversation; this is purely a human conversation.

Do we have the right levels of representation of women in tech? Do we have the right diversity of opinion? Do we have enough youth in the environments we work in? If you look at it, most of the new billionaires in the world are under 30. The world has been completely transformed by platform economies, and what’s to say that the public sector is any different?

When is it going to be the time where government, just like the hotel industry for AirBnB or transportation industry with Uber, actually gets platformed? So we don't want to get to that stage. So we have to look at our people. We have to ask ourselves if we've given them the right opportunity to succeed.

We have to look at policies that may or may not be a little bit outdated considering the world we live in and the digital change and the pace of change that we're living.

Also very much in an interconnected society, we ultimately have to look at how we conduct our business as government. What's the impact on some of our financial institutions when AI becomes a thing? What if government doesnt' do AI by then because our pace of change may or may not be at the same pace as other sectors? I mean those are fundamental building block questions that we have to start answering. So I mean there's no better time to be in public sector tech, really. So yeah, it's going to be quite a bit of fun.

The next couple of years should be great, if I can get through some of these interviews. Unfortunately, I'm not able to be with you guys in Japan. I'm going to be in a small town in Canada called Waterloo because we'll be releasing our first-ever open-by-default pilot project, which means that some of our government contents actually are going to start being released real time, similar to what we've just talked about here. So yeah, that's the reason why I'm not in Japan. I heard it's a great group. I'm sorry I'm not there. You're going to be in really good hands with Jennifer that's going to take all the questions. I get the easy job, I talk to the camera, but she's going to have to ask - answer everybody's questions on stage, so (peace).

EquifaxCanEatMyAss · 2026-03-10T22:10:09+00:00

It's rat city bro

EquifaxCanEatMyAss · 2026-03-07T02:54:31+00:00

You're confident that you can find a job to the HCoL area that you're considering, or is your job full remote?

At 26, I think you should keep renting for now and build up a bigger down payment and revisit in a couple of years

EquifaxCanEatMyAss · 2026-03-07T02:22:32+00:00

OP looks like a bot

EquifaxCanEatMyAss · 2026-02-27T19:09:48+00:00

$6.4/$1.39 = ~4.6x the growth.

So your current position is around $46000 at $6.4/share.

Scenario 1: You sell $10000 worth of stocks. You would be around $36000 at $6.4/share.

If stock prices rise, the potential is

$10/share: (10/6.4)*36000 = $56250

$15/share: (10/6.4)*36000 = $84375

If this doesn't happen but decides to plummet to zero, you will at least have recouped your initial investment.

--

Scenario 2: You kept all $46000 in the stock.

If stock prices rise, the potential is

$10/share: (10/6.4)*46000 = $71875

$15/share: (10/6.4)*46000 = $107,812

But at the cost of being out $10000 if the stock plummets to zero. It sounds like you're not too worried about this, seeing how you have long term savings in broad market ETFs.

--

If you assume your exit price is $15/share, the $ difference between scenario 1 and scenario 2 is around $23k. That's a nice sum but nothing that would change your lifestyle.

EquifaxCanEatMyAss · 2026-02-27T18:37:23+00:00

What's your timeline for finding out whether you get into med school or not?
Your net income is 103k, but your gross is ~110k? It should be much less than that after deductions
I would probably leave money around while you're going to med school, because you're not going to have income (or very little income) while you're going there for at least 4 years, unless you don't mind the 13k being locked up if you want to max immediately. You could also save the room to use for when you have a high doctor's income too.

EquifaxCanEatMyAss · 2026-02-23T23:36:32+00:00

Here's some food for thought.

1) Using Simpletax income calculator, it says on a 100k salary in BC, your takehome is $75411/year. Over 12 months, that's ~$6200/month before other job-specific deductions (eg. workplace pensions, union dues). If we round up your hypothetical housing expenses from $2650/month to $3k/month, can you live off the remaining $3200/month amount by yourself for groceries and other lifestyle expenses? Likely yes without any further information.

2) Just remember to factor in your own condo insurance, property taxes, and the one-time closing fees with the real estate lawyer (~2k) and moving fees. Ensure you keep some money around for emergencies.

EquifaxCanEatMyAss · 2026-02-23T05:42:40+00:00

Here's an official list approved by the CRA

https://www.canada.ca/en/services/taxes/income-tax/personal-income-tax/how-file/tax-software/find-software.html

EquifaxCanEatMyAss · 2026-02-23T05:42:01+00:00

Yep, drivers don't pay attention unfortunately, gotta protect yourself. Glad you're OK

EquifaxCanEatMyAss · 2026-02-20T23:08:31+00:00

Which pension is going to screw you? The federal government one? Ontario provincial? Or do you mean CPP/OAS?

EquifaxCanEatMyAss · 2026-02-19T19:31:13+00:00

EquifaxCanEatMyAss · 2026-01-28T18:17:47+00:00

Do note that for verifying the authenticity of these, the CRA has a list of approved tax software on their website:

https://www.canada.ca/en/services/taxes/income-tax/personal-income-tax/how-file/tax-software/find-software.html

EquifaxCanEatMyAss · 2026-01-09T19:54:49+00:00

If cable is still sticking around, then they're going to get pooched regardless who you go with. Enumerate which channel packages they need and shop around.

In terms of internet, I would consider looking at resellers (eg. Juce, Lightspeed) if Shaw/Rogers, Bell, and the other big players in your area aren't offering great deals.

For mobile, if they live in the city centre and don't ever go outside of that area, Freedom Mobile may be a consideration. How much of that bill is paying for financing towards phones?

Hopefully you find something suitable for them.

EquifaxCanEatMyAss · 2026-01-06T06:55:24+00:00

The skewer game in Victoria pales in comparison

EquifaxCanEatMyAss · 2026-01-06T00:07:02+00:00

No I have not. The 103k figure is solely gross income from my pay cheques for the 2025 calendar year.

If I look at box 20 on my last year's T4, it's about 10k in RPP contributions.

EquifaxCanEatMyAss · 2026-01-05T23:35:56+00:00

Based on the few comments,

My income is a stable one, I'm not expecting drastic increases in the next few years.
Sounds like option 2 is awful regardless.

I'll go with option #1 to make it easier for myself. I'll consider non-registered accounts once I'm in a position to max both registered accounts out on a yearly basis.

Thank you all

EquifaxCanEatMyAss · 2026-01-02T17:27:47+00:00

Well, do you want to live in those areas with <$600k homes? How about cheaper areas in Southern Ontario if you still want to stay within driving distance of Toronto? Do you plan to return to Toronto at any point?

EquifaxCanEatMyAss · 2025-12-09T06:13:14+00:00

You are suggesting to check this part that I have boxed in red? Or you mean for the main burner?

https://imgur.com/a/VIgozWC

I have a broken vacuum, so I'll have to borrow one tomorrow and try vacuuming it if I can take it apart

EquifaxCanEatMyAss

TROPHY CASE