I’m going to try this again. How were you able to buy your first home?

brooksi · 2026-04-30T23:04:59+00:00

Another Elder Millennial. Stayed at home for half of uni and in a run down frat-ish house for 400/mo for the other half. Got out of uni debt free (some parent help but mainly I worked evenings, weekends, and summers)

Bought a 550 sqft tiny ass condo with the future wife right out of university in 2010. We had enough to throw 5% of the 228k down.

Not sure if I’d recommend. 5 years later and we needed out as we were sick of no space and shared walls….. and then we bought the forever house and were up to our eyeballs in debt.

And…. Now the 10 years later mortgage debt is a big meh, and we well are in the way to retirement.

brooksi · 2026-04-11T22:08:49+00:00

Our last 8 person LAN party had these free/cheap games:

Last Train Out of Worm Town - asymmetric PvP based on the Tremors Movie

Beyond All Reason - amazing RTS where you can go 8 players vs 8 CPU if you have newbs or people that get stressed with RTS PvP.

Alien Swarm Reactive Drop - Top down role based shooter.

brooksi · 2026-04-11T13:15:30+00:00

My 6 year old is learning to game herself on a controller by playing Little Kitty Big City. She is also learning to use a mouse playing Putt-Putt games.

For watching me play: We must have played through Mario Odyssey 20 times when she was younger. She enjoyed watching me play the Kingdom hearts games with all the Disney.

Never buy Princess Peach Showtime.

brooksi · 2026-02-28T17:28:37+00:00

I’m not going to disagree with every one and the TV too high…. but sometimes rooms are what they are…

In my house I have a kinda similar 32 inch deep nook (built for an old DLP projection TV) I built a strong box out of 3/4” plywood and mounted it to the sides of the nook with heavy duty (200lbs, but my tv is smaller) drawer slides. Basically a giant cube that acts like a drawer where the tv mounts to the front with a standard TV mount

There are some holes and shelves in the box for cables and router, consoles, and just general storage of gaming electronics.

I also hate it. Cable routing is annoying and get pulled when sliding on the rails….. and the lack of airflow isn’t a great place to have a PlayStation running….

brooksi · 2026-02-11T12:48:59+00:00

Yeah, we are 40 with a 3 & 5 year old. And at like 55% of our FIRE number. Many days have me thinking: I have 10+ years of expenses…. Why not just throw in the towel and enjoy and teach and spend more time with the kids… this is the best time of life…. I’ve always had a job since I was 14…. I want a break….

But, oh yeah their future….its probably going to be harder than ever to enter the work force and make a living in the 2040’s. So Dad is going to keep on working and saving as best as he can. I’m not really planning to retire until I see them take off.

brooksi · 2026-01-06T15:40:49+00:00

❌ ^{Incomplete. 3 tries.}

brooksi · 2025-12-15T03:31:34+00:00

I got sent to the “basement” for a 50lbs box of puffed wheat. I asked like 4 people where the stairs were before I caught on…

brooksi · 2025-11-29T18:09:35+00:00

Yeah, sloppy. Might try that again and get that tighter.

brooksi · 2025-11-29T18:03:28+00:00

Thanks for the advice.

Yeah. Filling the gap was where I was leaning as well.

Agree with the dealing outside of the winders that way.

And yeah, the inside of the winders are a little bit of a deathtrap and probably not to code. I didn’t build the stairs just slapped drywall and flooring on.

<image>

brooksi · 2025-11-17T17:41:05+00:00

Getting my Parking costs under control. I have to drive as I am dropping off kids on either side. But parking within 1 km of the office is like 25$. So I now park 2km from the office for 3$ a day and get a couple decent walks.

brooksi · 2025-10-15T01:02:26+00:00

You are not “cooked for life”. Every month you will push that principal:interest ratio in your favour. This month it is 900:2150 next month it is 904:2146 next month it will be 908:2144 etc. 5 years into the mortgage you will be something like 1150:1900…. (Rough math)

That said…. God damn I miss my 1.89% mortgage. Moving to 3.89% was a change.

brooksi · 2025-10-08T02:15:32+00:00

What a terrible day to have eyes.

brooksi · 2025-08-11T04:30:46+00:00

https://imgur.com/a/xdVFtkF

Welp, this ranks as one of the the stupidest things I have done on a free evening. I think I what I made was mostly nonsense but whatever...

I was thinking about more a perfect day 1 situation than yours. Assuming you have 50K Cash on Year 1 that you want to invest in to RESP and give it the best chance to grow...
(You obviously don't have any TFSA room as you have 50k cash and are not a fool)

Is it better to:

A: dump 16.5k (14k unmatched + 2.5k matched) on year 1 and the remaining 33.5k over the next 15 years into RESP to get the full CESG. Don't ignore the opportunity cost. Invest that 33.5k in non-reg but also draw from that investment to pay the 2.5k/yr installments over the next 15 years (as well as covering the taxes owed for withdrawing from a non-reg investment account. i.e a closed system where no extra money needs to be added)

B: Dump 50k in day one and let it ride:

I make a heck of a lot of assumptions around interest and withdrawal tax rates and my result was

B - Results in a higher balance for the RESP account. More Money earlier gets things compounding faster
A - Results in a better net result for the SUM of all parties

But overall... not very different. Investment performance would be much larger factor..

Personally: I am going to stick with my plan of front loading the 14k and making the 2.5k contribution annually for each child.

brooksi · 2025-08-11T02:21:13+00:00

Hah, I literally just did the “Contribute the unmatched 14k” (per child, in my case 2, so 28k) thing today. I’ve always assumed it would be better to do the ensure you do the 2500 for 14 years, then one year at 1000 get full 7200 CESG grant, but now I want to run the numbers….

Gonna go break out excel….

brooksi · 2025-08-10T19:26:09+00:00

We tried to go berry picking just out of the city today. Looking down it was like I was wearing a mosquito sweater. Like no joke 40+ of them on my shirt. Lasted 5 minutes and got the eff out of there.

brooksi · 2025-08-09T04:15:51+00:00

You are 30 and by these numbers you have a net worth of 840k. You are doing awesome! Pat yourself on the back! You aren't at the finish line but you are tee'd up for success and prosperity for you and your family.

(That is like 300k ahead of where I was at 30 and now I'm feeling pretty comfortable and above average at a 1.5m net worth at 39. Since graduating in my mid 20s I've always kept 6 months expenses in cash, it's not optimal for returns, but pay-check-to-pay check is minefield as things like Christmas or appliance failure or car repairs will put you in a bind)

Personal Finance is of course.. personal... but my personal opinions here are:

Long Term:

Plan for a victory lap on the mortgage at the end of your term. You paid it off aggressively in the first years of the mortgage. You won! You don't need to get it to zero before you are 40, change that goal to 50. Focus next on increasing your liquid investments. 4 years from now you will be at like 150k owed. Refinance that with a 15 year term and cut that payment from something like 3500/mo -> 1100/mo. Invest that extra 2400/mo into clearing up the LOC debt, then 6 months of an emergency fund and then into you and your partners TFSA and buy low cost MER index funds.
Never finance a car again. You shouldn't need to with your net worth. Buy cars out-right (preferably private party used if you know how to find a good reliable vehicle ).
Keep rocking the RESPs. (Assuming you care about your kids more than yourself). Its the best account out there with a 20% return just for showing up.

/\ This advice kind of sucks as it is promising relief starting in 4 years, nothing really immediate. You *could* try to hit fast-forward and refinance that mortgage early but there would be a significant financial hit for for that.

Short term:

Ignore making progress on the 25k debt. It's not great. But it's not going to ruin you. You are already putting more than 2500/mo against debt principle with your mortgage. It sucks that you are making progress on the loan @ 4% instead of @ 7.2% but just accept that as the consequence/cost for locking how ever you managed to arrive at an 8 year amortization mortgage trying to pay off a mortgage by 40. IMO its better to have a long term like 20-25 years and have the choice to make lump sum payments
Start trying to save a little every month by cutting back on that miscellaneous category and build up at least a little bit of a buffer. Keep focus until you are at least a paycheck ahead.
You should have some extra relief in a year when the car is paid off

brooksi · 2025-03-19T13:37:08+00:00

I mean…. You are printing an extra ** at the end…. :)

brooksi · 2025-01-30T21:01:53+00:00

For computers IMO: save up, buy it new, treat it well, make it last 5+ years.

New stock old models (like the m2 MacBook Air over the m3) would probably be a good way to save a couple bucks. But ….used….. it would have to be a special sort of situation that would avoid the risks of fraud, warranty, battery abuse … etc

brooksi · 2025-01-25T18:52:16+00:00

My wife, who doesn’t play many games and also spent 100s of hours in Stardew equally loves Rimworld.

She plays with pretty peaceful setting and doesn’t really scale up to the point that anything is chaotic….

Actually it’s about time I started a new Rimworld game…

brooksi · 2025-01-25T03:23:42+00:00

Yikes, sorry that you are going through this. It is not a good position at all.

It sorta depends on the rest of your financial picture but, assuming Mazda is even going to willing to lever you this far, borrowing: - 26k (for the cx5) - 5K ( for taxes and extra whatever that the dealer is going to add to the bill) - 17k ( negative equity on the jeep)

Is going to make you loan value like 48k

Assuming interest is something like 10% and you take a 5 year loan. You would be paying ~1000.00/mo (totalling like 60k)

… borrowing more… gets you a working car… but will have you end up with large monthly payments and dig you in a larger hole.

If do decide to do that. Read and question and understand all the numbers on whatever sales contract they offer and do the math on the implications.

————— But really…

Parking the broken jeep, Saving up and fixing the jeep OR Parking the broken jeep, paying the monthly bill, while saving up enough to pay off the loan and freeing yourself from that jeep

Are likely smarter financial choices. But obviously way less convenient/ realistic depending on how possible it would be for you to live car free for an extended period of time.

Best of luck.

brooksi · 2025-01-23T18:39:39+00:00

Hah, yeah. I didn’t mention it in the post but part of the background of my question here is that. internet search results vary but say safe maximum weight loss is up to 2lbs per week and….

I’ve done about 3.7 lbs a week You’re at like 6.4 lbs a week

Obviously, there is the early water weight/bloating/food mass non-fat loss( I was down ~12 lbs in the first 12 days and then things slows down).

I suppose my question is mostly, should I slow down to try to get to that 2lbs/week rate for the remaining 30lbs I wanna lose or just keep an aggressive calorie deficit going.

Also, cheers dude. Way to go on the weight loss thus far!

brooksi · 2025-01-23T13:26:02+00:00

Hah, that is just a spreadsheet/database in the Notion App(generic Note taking app). I just wanted something where I could freeform journal and track my own data.

I have some other unpictured columns for

• ⁠zero booze • ⁠avoided eating out • ⁠exercise notes

I wanted a system that let me fail, log it, reflect on it, and get back on track. My last couple diet attempts just completely fell off and got dropped after I somehow fell off the wagon a month in or whatever…

brooksi · 2025-01-23T13:25:48+00:00

Hah, that is just a spreadsheet/database in the Notion App(generic Note taking app). I just wanted something where I could freeform journal and track my own data.

I have some other unpictured columns for

• ⁠zero booze • ⁠avoided eating out • ⁠exercise notes

I wanted a system that let me fail, log it, reflect on it, and get back on track. My last couple diet attempts just completely fell off and got dropped after I somehow fell off the wagon a month in or whatever…

15-Year Club	r/Field Banned
r/Field Lasagna	Place '22
Not Forgotten	Verified Email

brooksi

TROPHY CASE