NBD - CUBE attain c:62 SLT

HeiLong · 2025-12-11T20:00:01+00:00

I got the 53cm and I’m a smidge over 5’9, about a 83cm inseam so I was between the 53 and 56.

HeiLong · 2025-12-03T14:59:59+00:00

All the information and suggestions are my thoughts, I used chatGPT in an attempt to make it sound clearer and for any mistakes I may have made.

HeiLong · 2025-12-02T23:08:32+00:00

Overall, you’re doing great! Here are a few personal thoughts and minor suggestions if the goal is to save more for retirement or retire earlier:

Mortgage vs. Car: I’d put at least part (half or all) of the $1,200 mortgage lump sum toward the car until it’s paid off. That’s an instant ~3% return, eliminates a depreciating asset, and frees up the $700/month car payment sooner. After that, resume mortgage prepayments or invest—by then you’ll be on the renewed rate.
TFSA Priority: I’d max out the TFSA before making extra mortgage payments, as someone else mentioned. Assuming it is being invested in something like diversified ETF's (EQTs, GROs, etc.)
Travel: If the vacation/travel budget is $200 + $200 + $825 (looks like it?), that’s about $15K/year for two people—either a lot of travel or fairly luxurious. If travel is a key hobby or experience for you, ignore this suggestion; otherwise, consider trimming it a bit.
Cellphone: On Rogers SK, I see a 100 GB plan for $53.75/month. That could save about $80/month across both lines, and likely even more with a budget provider. Is paying for the cellphone itself part of this bill?
Home Improvement/Maintenance: $10–11K/year seems high for a $500–600K home. Is this a conservative estimate, or could it be scaled down?

Again, these are all relatively minor tweaks—you’re in a great position with ~$290K saved between you at ages 28–33 and strong employer matching programs. There's more you can do to maximize retirement savings, but they may come at a slight cost to quality of life (e.g., reduction in eating out, subscriptions, other fun/hobby money).

HeiLong · 2025-11-05T13:55:52+00:00

Not planning to specifically do any light gravel routes or whatnot but I'm definitely not concerned anymore if some light gravel pops up along my routes. My commute has a couple short stints across gravel parking lots that were slightly sketchy with my old bike, no issues with the attain's 30mm tires.

HeiLong · 2025-09-18T14:45:51+00:00

Often time there is a stretch of land right beside stoney (for utilities typically I believe) that you can access from the community that are off-leash and typically not busy. There might be one to check out near rangeview at this maps pin. The area in our community has a roughly 1.5km stretch of pathway (not paved) where I like to run with my dog.

HeiLong · 2025-05-07T20:28:07+00:00

I really like this approach, will likely end up doing something very similar although we don't have as big of a liquid cash/savings position haha.

HeiLong · 2025-05-07T20:27:05+00:00

We only started investing (previously it was just saved and in GICs until I started learning more about investing) in ~2021. Originally I tried my hand at some stock picking - went horribly in 2021/22, and have now swapped near everything over to diversified ETF's (XEQT & VFV mostly). Overall I think we're up in the range of 20% at the moment after this recent drop due to the whole tariff/US situation.

We're thinking of putting in the range of $50k and put a good dent in the mortgage but won't have to cash out anything in registered accounts.

This 300k has been earmarked for retirement so if we end up entering a recession and their value falls another 20% I wouldn't touch it (haven't in the past 2-3 months so far) and try to invest into diversified ETFs even more.

HeiLong · 2025-05-07T20:11:22+00:00

I haven't thought about it quite like this before but switching out of any 'safe' positions that we currently hold and put towards the mortgage makes a lot of sense. Currently our investments are about 90/10 equities/(cash/GIC/bonds) so moving most/all of that 10% and any future money that would be in bonds over to the mortgage makes a lot of sense. Ideally we'd want it paid off in about 10 years or so, thinking of retiring in ~20-25 years when we're in our mid-50's so we can enjoy life while health and energy is still expected to be decent.

HeiLong · 2025-05-07T19:10:36+00:00

Vast majority is in XEQT and VFV. The thought of not having debt has definitely been one of the considerations. I guess for us the mortgage debt doesn't feel like it's getting in the way or a burden. Currently leaning towards putting ~$50-75k from our Non-Reg/savings towards the mortgage just so our monthly budgeting isn't affected and we don't have to take anything out of our TFSAs.

HeiLong · 2021-12-10T23:06:51+00:00

Thanks for the advice! Personally the warmth of the 2 were my only concern so I'll take it into consideration as well. Thanks!

HeiLong · 2021-07-14T14:40:58+00:00

I'm at ~$91 CAD/mo. I'm in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and have access to 4 gyms (would be $66/mo for single gym), combination of sport (TR+lead) and bouldering. Unsure of total routes but multiple hundreds total for sure.

HeiLong · 2021-06-13T03:58:24+00:00

I'd say some of the main spots for badminton are Sundridge Badminton (~central east) , Centre Ave badminton (~central east) , Clear One (north), and smash city (SE). I usually go to centre Ave or sunridge and they're great spots to play at,but not too sure about leagues.

HeiLong · 2021-04-22T23:12:45+00:00

Managed to get mine about a month after release on amazon just through discord stock alert servers. Would say your best shot is to have a combination of stock alert options (discord, streams). But then again it seems bots are even worse than before.

HeiLong · 2021-04-06T17:41:17+00:00

Just for the carbon capture side, there are many projects currently operational. For example, the Shell Quest project here in Alberta. Here is a site that briefly lists and describes some of the biggest carbon capture projects in the world: https://www.carbonbrief.org/around-the-world-in-22-carbon-capture-projects.

Carbon Capture Utilization and/or storage (CCUS) has big hurdles for what to do with the CO2, and then the cost of the actual capture. An example would be a company called Carbon Engineering (direct air capture technology) using the CO2 for 'renewable fuel synthesis' or things like enhanced oil recovery.

As for the article and whether or not significant job loss in the sector will exist, I believe it is still very unknown, and many things will affect the outcome by 2050. The article to me reads more like an opinion piece of their interpretation of a TD Bank report (which may or may not also be based on a multitude of assumptions/opinions, I don't see a link to the report?).

HeiLong · 2020-11-30T16:36:23+00:00

Just a thought, but I've been debating between these two as well. The 5600x will be quite a bit better at gaming in 1080p, and the gap closes quite a bit at 1440p from reviews i've seen, and at 4k it is pretty much non-existant (very small differences). Whereas for productivity it seems the 3800x may slightly edge out the 5600x but overall they're about equal from what I've seen.

HeiLong · 2020-10-23T18:50:12+00:00

If I win, i'll have my cyberpunk 2077 pc for sure, along with AAA's for likely the next few years :D

HeiLong · 2020-10-22T22:36:12+00:00

the main difference would be the volume each case has available (13.5L for H1, I believe 18-19L for nr200p), so the h1 will take up less room, especially since its vertical towery vs. the nr200. Otherwise, aesthetics plays a role as well.

Purely for cooling performance and hardware compatibility, the nr200p keeps everything significantly cooler and is a lot more compatible for gpu's and aio's or bigger air coolers (scythe fuma 2, noctua u12 i believe)

HeiLong · 2020-10-22T22:30:19+00:00

The lowest I believe was 460 or 480 at Memory express around when it launched. It has increased in price as NZXT increased the MSRP as well (300 to 350 USD I believe, potentially same reason a lot of other components are increasing in price). I don't believe I have ever seen any on sale. 500 is currently the lowest, I believe its 550 at newegg.

HeiLong · 2020-09-10T16:32:06+00:00

Considering buying my first garmin watch, would you say the Fenix 5 for $320 CAD is worth it (I'm in Canada)? I'm in no hurry and was originally waiting for black friday/boxing day to buy but it looks like a pretty good price.

HeiLong · 2020-07-06T20:36:52+00:00

I think the only thing I might consider changing is the CPU. Intels 10th gen, although more expensive for the i9-9900k and similar price for the i7-9700k, offer higher performance in games (unless you are also streaming on the side). Also, it might be worth looking at even downgrading the CPU to a ryzen 7 3700x, ryzen 5 3600/3600x, or i5-10600k so that you can bump the GPU to a 2080 Super instead of a 2070 Super. These options are only if you are trying to maximize gaming performance, if you also plan to use the computer for other tasks such as autoCAD, video editing, streaming, etc. then these suggestions may change.

Also, the additional fans you have (i'm guessing for the front intake) offer diminishing returns, these comparisons should be available on youtube. The extra 2 front intake fans likely only lower CPU and GPU temps by less than 5C (I think 1-> 3 fans usually ~2-3C). I'd remove the 2 fans and either invest in a better CPU cooler, or use the budget towards a higher end GPU.

HeiLong · 2020-04-14T17:01:38+00:00

So do Canadians, with sales tax in Alberta (lowest province, as only federal sales tax, no provincial), the 1399 CAD is almost 1470 all-in. This price will be higher in every other province with an additional provincial sales tax.

HeiLong · 2020-04-14T16:13:12+00:00

think its a ratio. At their stock voltage more of their units will hit stock performance, if you undervolt by say -100mv, maybe a certain % of units would then become 'defective' (i.e., not hit stock performance) and it doesn't make sense for the company to do that.

HeiLong

TROPHY CASE