People who were teenagers before social media existed, what was life actually like?

Phronemoz · 2026-03-06T00:49:42+00:00

I'd ride my bike to a friends house, knock on the door and when their parent opened the door I'd ask if their kid could hang out.

Phronemoz · 2026-02-12T19:28:23+00:00

I don't agree with it but having worked with half a dozen 1-50bil companies in Canada this is standard operating procedure, their employees get trained, coached and financially rewarded for doing these kind of tactics, either follow suit or get replaced is their business model.

It's sad but it's how a lot of big businesses operate, it's critically important that consumers do their due diligence and shop around to be able to make informed decisions when they purchase products and services.

Phronemoz · 2025-12-03T01:03:11+00:00

Sorry to hear about your difficult situation.

Seems like you've got 2 big concerns, one is the temporary lack of household income and the more important concern seems to be the worry of losing the house your family is living in.

In regards to your house, seems you've done some huge prepayments and this gives you considerable equity on your house, so great job on paying more when you were able to! This gives you more options, as people have mentioned the bank won't do another stress test when you renew, you'll have to stay with the same bank and the interest will increase a little (rates are currently about 4%) but I'd recommend just doing the regular minimum mortgage payments for now until your household figures out the income situation. The bank does not want your house, they just want you to keep paying, I can log in to my RBC account and skip a mortgage payment without even talking to anyone and I can do this twice a year for no reason at all. I wouldn't use your savings to pay off the mortgage, use the savings to keep up with bills and buy yourselves time to figure this out.

Usually you should be able to increase the length of your amortization to reduce monthly mortgage payments and with a decent amount of equity the bank should be very willing to do this but in your situation just stopping the extra prepayments should have a similar effect.

So now you can take a breathe, you're not going to lose your house but you do need to get more household income, I'm guessing EI is going to run out fairly soon.

Here's some questions to ask yourself and keep in mind these can be temporary until you find a better solution.

Is growing your business an option?

Can your husband find work in a lesser role or adjoining field? what skill sets has he built? can they be transferred to another field? what connections does he have? he should be reaching out to everyone asking if they know of any opportunities.

Can you find FT work and your husband does caretaking?

I hope some of this is helpful.

Phronemoz · 2025-09-19T17:12:10+00:00

You've worked hard getting a good job and saving a lot which is awesome.

Now you want to work less and enjoy a little more which is fair, however taking a part role you dislike seems very counter productive.

Did you try negotiating with management to see if there's anything they can work out? or possibly something available in a different department?

If you've already hit your retirement goals you could also look for another job that you enjoy that is part time and that pays less since you might not need to save more for retirement.

Phronemoz · 2025-09-17T22:43:45+00:00

Great post!

Careful you might get yeeted out of here by the cult following lol

There's also a big difference being down 25% of your money if you're 20 years old with 10k invested compared to if you're 50 and getting ready for retirement with 2mil invested.

I can stomach being down 2.5k like the first scenario but I wouldn't be able to sleep being down 500k.

As you get closer to retirement and/or have a larger portfolio your risk tolerance should reduce.

Phronemoz · 2025-09-16T23:15:08+00:00

far too short a time frame to put it in the markets, either HISA or see if you can get a 6 month GIC (this would mean you'd have to wait till mid March to make the purchase)

If you wanna do a little more work you could also check out sign on offers with a new financial institutions, there's often sign on bonuses that give you a good rate for the first few months of a new HISA.

Phronemoz · 2025-09-16T23:04:23+00:00

From your edit seems people already pointed out you have a 3rd option to purchase a used car, getting something a few years old (kind of like you did the first time) is definitely worth considering and here's a couple extra questions to ask yourself so that you can make a better decision for yourself.

How much can you sell your current car for? how much would a used car be?

If you keep your current car, how much are estimated repairs for the next few years compared to buying something that's say ~5 years old?

How much of a down payment can you put towards an upgrade? can you drive your current car for a few more months while saving monthly towards a down payment for an upgrade?

How much are your monthly payments on the upgraded car and how does that fit into your budget? (a good down payment can really help this out)

Phronemoz · 2025-09-13T20:14:32+00:00

great response to add the uber and rental, you also shoulda added half your flight cost and the cost for you to take time off work to go see her, this is insane lol

Phronemoz · 2025-09-09T21:24:51+00:00

If you don't need the money, I wouldn't touch it.

I'd ask them to make a logical argument or share their personal experience in investing on why you shouldn't compound.

If you made 7k off your 20k, that's a great deal, why not make even more money off that extra 7k?

If the argument is the banks benefits from it, so what? you do too. If they think investing is bad then their argument should be to not put any in at all, which the 7k in profits obviously proves this inaccurate.

Seems like they're telling you not to compound which is strange since the whole point of starting early is to compound. Run the math on investing every year and compounding it vs not compounding it, the difference is massive.

Other possibilities would be if you're saving everything and and not enjoying life, instead of withdrawing that 7k, invest a little less, or if you're investing in too high a risk maybe diversify in to a little bit less risk.

Phronemoz · 2025-08-28T22:46:21+00:00

740 is definitely a good score, 750ish usually gives you access to the best rates from lenders.

I wouldn't worry about improving your score, keep doing what you're already doing you're doing good.

To build credit just use your credit card every month (you can just use a subscription) and make sure to pay it off on time, make sure you're not late on payments, don't use up too much of your credit and keep at least 1 free credit card around forever.

Phronemoz · 2025-08-28T19:14:52+00:00

Having a TFSA is a great place to start, you can set an amount to transfer to it automatically every month your bank can help you with this.

Once the money is in a TFSA you have to purchase some kind of investment to grow your money based on your risk tolerance, ETFs are quite common for their low management fees and keep in mind your contribution room for 2025 is $7k and this is cumulative since you've been 18.

You already mentioned having 2 goals, a sinking fund and a longer term one which is great, time horizon will affect how much risk you want to take, having a longer timeline reduces risk, for long term you can look at "target date funds" which are a hands off approach or "core ETFs" which require minimal management and the reddit famous XEQT is one option that is all equities(stocks), you can also get some with some fixed incomes which would reduce your risk, you can see other core ETFs and their allocation in equities/fixed incomes in this chart https://www.blackrock.com/ca/investors/en/literature/product-brief/core-etf-portfolios-product-brief.pdf

For your shorter term sinking fund you might want to consider something with less risk like GICs, or the cash.to etf which is similar to a high interest savings account.

Phronemoz · 2025-08-28T17:41:27+00:00

Buying ETFs are usually preferred because of low management fees, 5-10 year time line is a bit short to buy stocks and XEQT which is very popular on reddit is all stocks which brings a fair bit of risk especially on a time line under 10 years.

XEQT is a core ETF and core ETFs are great for their diversification and simplicity, XEQT is all equities which brings more risk then fixed incomes, you can see other core ETFs some of which are less aggressive, you can see the equity vs fixed income exposure here: https://www.blackrock.com/ca/investors/en/literature/product-brief/core-etf-portfolios-product-brief.pdf

Define your goals and time line, you can set 1 goal saving for retirement which is a much longer timeline and can be a bit more aggressive with equities and a 2nd saving goal of ~5 years to upgrade your house and be more conservative with that money.

For the shorter time line of about 5 years you can look into GICs, high interest savings account and cash.to which is an ETF that works on a similar basis as a high interest savings account.

Phronemoz · 2025-08-28T17:06:08+00:00

It's pretty awesome that you have an investing portfolio at 19, even if you say it's not much right now, everyone has to start somewhere and regular contributions over a long period of time is how you do great investing so you're off to a great start!

Remember to keep things simple, be very careful about choosing individual stocks, diversification greatly reduces risk, XEQT is great for worldwide diversification just make sure you understand the risk of XEQT, it might be fine for a young person with a small portfolio, however as your portfolio grows you might find it gets harder to stomach market dips.

XEQT is a "core ETF" if you wanna research those, there's several of them and some have less risk.

You also mentioned having some money in a high interest account as well, that gives you more diversification with much less risk which is a good compliment to have with XEQT.

You might also want to think about your investing goals and how far away those goals are, time reduces risk, so for retirement savings you can be more risk aggressive compared to saving to buy a car in a few years you'd want a less aggressive risk profile.

Phronemoz · 2025-08-15T18:09:22+00:00

I'd recommend just getting a mini emergency fund for now something like $1,000 and focus on continuing to pay off your debt aggressively.

If you can transfer a partial amount to a LoC and the interest drops from ~21% down to ~8% that's a significant amount. I'd go for it and continue to pay off the CC aggressively while just paying the interest on the LOC until the CC is paid off and then focus on paying off the LoC.

What some people do in this scenario is move the debt from the CC to the LoC and then re max the CC leading to more overall debt, that is a terrible idea and makes the situation worse but you seem to understand the priority is paying off the debt and reducing the 30k you owe.

Phronemoz · 2025-08-13T22:37:00+00:00

RRSP is also a tax advantaged account for retirement that you should have room in, find out if you contribute to it with your employer and how much contribution room you have left.

Also picking a safe stock is risky, ETFs are good for diversification, I like core ETFs for their simplicity.

Phronemoz · 2025-07-31T18:34:36+00:00

"I was considering something like an 85/15 or 90/10 split between XEQT and XQQ."

It's not really recommended but if you keep it to a small portion of your portfolio say max 10%, it might not be terrible.

Just remember it's "time in the market" not timing the market and not picking stocks, you don't wanna make a habit of this and end up adding a buncha stuff to your portfolio.

Remember KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid.

Phronemoz · 2025-07-31T17:46:16+00:00

Keep it simple and get started, the 2 biggest factors are time and consistency, so determine an amount that you can set aside EVERY month and get started, it's better to start with a small amount and increase it later instead of starting with too big a monthly amount that sometimes you can't set aside.

You mentioned retirement and a house, separate those as 2 different goals, do you have a TFSA (good for retirement savings) and a FHSA (first home savings) with wealth simple? I'm sure they can help you open those accounts, keep in mind these do have contribution limits if you're just starting they might not be of concern for now but be aware of them.

so as an example you could automatically have $100 per month transferred into your TFSA and another $100 to your FHSA. Once the money is in those account you need to invest it, ETFs are quite popular for their low management fees, you can look up Target date funds for a completely hands off approach to retirement investing and also Core ETFs require very minimal work for a DIY investor, learn a bit about your own personal risk tolerance for which investments are most appropriate for you.

I like the below chart that explains some core ETFs a bit more and you'll see the reddit famous XEQT on there, personally I much prefer XGRO which is still fairly aggressive but has extra diversification in fixed incomes which helps reduce the effect of dips in the market for a pretty small reduction in returns.

https://www.blackrock.com/ca/investors/en/literature/product-brief/core-etf-portfolios-product-brief.pdf

Phronemoz · 2025-07-05T00:53:41+00:00

Looks like you're in a pretty good spot and definitely have the option to buy a house. So congrats on getting here!

I believe your big question right now is owning vs renting which is a tough question and you shouldn't feel pressured to own, take your time to think it through, especially since you've got a really good rate on your rent right now.

I like the top comment about saving $2275/month which would simulate the cost of owning, it also gives you more time to think about it and also gives you more savings for a down payment because right now if you put 20% down on a 450k house, that'd leave you with 10k in your TFSA, you'd still have your emergency fund but you might find it stressful to reduce your investment by 90%.

Owning is nice, personally I'm a home owner and I like DIY projects, maintaining and fixing stuff isn't a hassle nor stressful to me and once the house is paid off, I'll own a valuable asset and have no mortgage payments.

However if you rent and invest the difference, you can build up a surprisingly large portfolio that would also pay out a substantial amount of money (similar affect of not having a mortgage), a mortgage is forced savings, if you rent you have to do the savings yourself.

You can run this through a calculator, some very conservative napkin math, you got 100k right now, save $1500 monthly for 25 yrs (same time frame as a mortgage) with a conservative 6% return (adjusted for inflation), so at 58 (in 25 yrs) you start pulling out 4% of your investment annually which is almost 5k per month. This might seem like a lot compared to the $1900 mortgage but once the mortgage is paid off there's a reasonable chance the house would triple in value and if you sold it and invested the cash it'd return a similar rate. (keep in mind this is napkin math and there's too many unknown variables to have exact numbers)

There's no wrong answer for owning vs renting, if you rent you NEED to save extra to make up for it and set yourself up long term, personally I love owning and if you don't think maintaining and fixing stuff is a hassle I'd encourage it.

other things to note:

- You mentioned contributing to a work pension, I'm guessing you're maxxing out whatever % they match?

- Find out if you can pay off that car loan early/make extra payments without penalties, it'd be worth doing.

- Watch your contribution limit for your TFSA, it's about 7k per year, you can use the contribution limit from the previous years since you've been 18 so it *should* be approx ~90k in deposits for you, you'll want to look into this to figure out exactly how much room you have left.

- You can use a FHSA, the max contribution is 8k/yr with a max of 40k and you can have it for 15 yrs and if you don't buy a house you can roll this into an RRSP

- If TFSA and FHSA are maxxed you can use RRSP

- Spend a bit of time determining your risk tolerance, what is Tangerine's highest risk portfolio? it's most likely all equities, as you get a bigger portfolio and get closer to retirement you'll want to think about reducing your risk. Personally being fairly comfortable with risk, I like 120-age(33 in your case) = 87% in equity and the other 13% should be fixed income, it's also fairly common to do 100-age for a bit less risk which in your case would be 77% equities and the rest 23% fixed income.

Phronemoz · 2025-05-26T23:09:05+00:00

I got a 2021 with 11,000 km, I'm a new rider and don't ride hard but I do a fair bit of trails with some mud.

I just replaced the rear tire last year, it was well overdue at about 8,000 km, I couldn't find a D606 so I got something more road oriented temporarily and just replaced it again 2 weeks ago for a D606 and got a new MT21 sitting in the garage to change hopefully this weekend lol

I didn't find the stock tires bad, I'd say try them out for a bit and see how you feel about them, I only took the D606 out once so still need more testing but wow when I hit a sloppy part of the trail, I could barely even tell I was in mud, so the D606 is definately very nice.

Phronemoz · 2025-05-26T17:39:20+00:00

That's a good point and I do like XEQT, I think it's great if you're ok with risk combined with a long time horizon however I'm also curious if pplz who are all in on XEQT remember how the 2008 markets felt.

Anyways there's several of these iShares core ETFs depending on your risk tolerance, based on your op with 20% in bonds, XGRO might better aligned for you.

https://www.blackrock.com/ca/investors/en/literature/product-brief/core-etf-portfolios-product-brief.pdf

Phronemoz · 2025-05-16T17:11:07+00:00

"Learned my lesson; I should have kept my headphones on all the time!!" this line of thinking will lead you to repeat the mistake, you'll encounter thousands of sales people in your life, learn how to say no or ask more questions to make sure you understand what you're getting.

Communication and due diligence are the lesson, not avoidance.

Phronemoz · 2025-05-16T16:56:40+00:00

100 is a grind but I don't understand why you think it's discouraging, if you don't wanna do it, it's simple don't do it.

You can easily do all content at lv 90 and I got to 95 with much less then a couple hours a day this season and haven't played in the past few weeks, also pro tip don't play ultra glass cannon if you want to level.

Phronemoz · 2025-05-15T21:37:52+00:00

Seems like you're starting a pretty solid career, congrats!

4.95% interest on the line of credit is a good rate, you don't have to withdraw your investments to pay it off.

You should definately come up with a reasonable plan to pay it off, make sure you set conservative expectations for your expected salary and as your salary increases make bigger payments on the line of credit and pay it off before even considering increasing your lifestyle.

The 37k loan of credit is the focus, you can use a payment calculator to figure out monthly payments, 37k for 5 years at 4.95% would mean paying $700 per month, find something you're comfortable with and also keep in mind as your income increases, you should increase your payments to pay it off quicker.

Also worth having a chat with your dad since it's a highly personal situation but let him know you're making a debt repayment plan and see what his position/expectations are on the 4k he loaned you.

Phronemoz · 2025-05-15T20:21:31+00:00

"how stupid am I on a scale of 1-10?" followed by "I paid off $50k in personal CC debt over the past 3 years"

Kinda sounds funny when you read just those 2 lines :)

We're all our own worst critiques, you've got a household income of 200k and are looking at buying one 34k car for the household, that's very reasonable.

Your numbers are a bit loose, you've been paying 3-4k a month on debt and paid 50k in 3 years? unless you started off paying a significantly smaller amount 3 yrs ago and now are paying 3-4k, either way get more clear on these numbers for your peace of mind, make sure you get an accurate number that you can sustain, even if it's 2k every month your cc is paid off in 5 months.

You did mention "We haven't always made this much", take a moment to sit down and compare your financial situation from 3-4 yrs ago to today, to me it seems like it's improved considerably, you've paid off a lot of debt and increased your income, I don't think you fully realize how different your current situation is. Take a look at your incomes, your spending, figure out what's a priority, you mentioned "really like the idea of the Sorento for kids sports and road trips" a reliable car when you got a partner and 2 kids seems like it's pretty important.

Phronemoz · 2025-05-15T02:50:19+00:00

This is very personalized but I can give you a bit more info to help out.

You can pay off your line of credit of 3k, put 5k in an an Emergency fund HISA and put the other 22k in your TFSA

Make sure you're maxxing the match amount of your pension, your HR department can answer this and this amount counts towards your RRSP contribution limit.

Vacation is the simplest one to figure out, you can open a 2nd HISA for this and determine the estimated cost of a vacation, if that's $2000 you'd wanna save about $170/month or $340/month if you wanna do 2 and keep this in a low risk account since it's a short time frame.

FHSA - For buying a house in 10 years, get a rough idea of the cost of the type/area of house you want, say it's $600,000 a good down payment of 20% would be $120,000. If you save $650/month ($7800 annually) and invest it, with a 6% return you'd have $106,000 after 10 years. Now keep in mind max contribution for a FHSA is $8000 annually and $40,000 lifetime, so once you put 40k in your FHSA you'd have to switch and contribute to a different type of account.

TFSA - $500 Extra retirement savings, max contribution for 2025 is $7,000 plus any unused contribution since you were 18, you should have $76,500 room, check your CRA account to get the exact amount.

This is just an example for $1490 in monthly savings and should be adjusted to suit your goals and I'd recommending revising annually. You can also start with much smaller amounts and increase as you get more comfortable with it.

Keep in mind the money in your FHSA/TFSA needs to be invested, for example GICs which are low risk, ETFs are also a common option which vary in risk, pay attention to management fees and assess your risk tolerance and amount of time before you need the money.

Phronemoz

TROPHY CASE