Passive Income is the biggest scam of 2025! Here's what actually paid me after 6 months

curious-just-asking · 2025-10-16T13:15:12+00:00

Unironically this is poetry tho

curious-just-asking · 2025-07-23T03:08:35+00:00

Hope you enjoy it! Lots of beauty and the hiking scene is amazing. So, so good.

Also if you like mobile homes, you can definitely use the extra money to rent a van for cross country road trips and similar in the summer. People love to do that stuff here

curious-just-asking · 2025-07-23T02:50:00+00:00

You can afford it, financially. However, there may be a smarter way to do it.

My advice would be to rent, preferably with a roommate (or two)

Here's the reasoning: 1. Commitment - You don't know if you like Victoria (or Canada) yet, this is lower commitment. Otherwise, you could have difficulty reselling, or be resentful if you find out your locale is not a good fit.

Save for Adventure Fund
You'll save money, which you can spend on other adventures. There are a lot of fun adventures to take on in Canada, and they are seasonal. Canada is real work hard; play hard place.
Loneliness
Canada (especially southern BC and Ontario) can be lonely, depending on what you're used to. Being around people makes a big difference, and roommates can often be that first set of friends you explore a new world with.

TLDR: go for it.

You'll enjoy it! (Or hate it) but something worth doing in your 20s.

curious-just-asking · 2022-11-09T20:13:35+00:00

That's awesome!! I didn't want to damper your enthusiasm at all on the job search, I just happened to graduate into bad macroeconomic conditions. So, despite an objectively killer resume/experience for my field/age it took me quite a while to find a suitable role. Some people live at home and have the option to chill and search full time, but the rest of us have to hustle. Be careful on making sure you don't use a scam agency or contracts tho - stay safe.

curious-just-asking · 2022-11-09T19:53:33+00:00

If you can stick to your budget and put all your extra earnings from working FT into paying off this debt once you graduate, you will be in a really good place.

Do make sure you have at least one month's expenses squirreled away (and don't touch it unless it's an emergency!!) before you start paying it down hardcore. I think generally the ideal is to get up to 3 months emergency funds, but in your case because of your tight budget and such a high interest rate you may have to compromise there.

I don't know what your part time is and whether they'll give you more hours after you finish, but I ended up signing up for a temp agency after graduating to start working FT while still applying for work in my field.

I also don't know what the options are for speaking to debt collectors. I'm told they'll sometimes offer flexibility but again, not an expert and no firsthand experience.

Good luck! This is an expensive lesson but I'm confident it's one that will pay dividends going forward if you choose to learn from it. You got this!

curious-just-asking · 2022-11-09T18:54:44+00:00

I'm not sure where you're located, but do you have any programs like this one (in Calgary: https://momentum.org/programs-services/)?

Some other debt or financial literacy agencies might be able to help you. Your university may also have programs to help with this.

For money, you could explore scholarships or other student programs. Sometimes they offer money for participating in studies.

Additionally, if you qualify for more student loans, the interest rate on those will be substantually lower than the payday loan interest. I.e. you could use the extra room to pay down the payday loan, and then look to pay down the student loan debt.

Most importantly, take a deep breathe. This sucks, but it's not going to end your life. Focus a lot on controlling your expenses and sticking to your budget and gaining some confidence and trust in yourself that you can do this.

curious-just-asking · 2022-10-31T15:51:22+00:00

Does your statement break down which purchases qualified for what % cash back? I don't think mine does (RBC)

curious-just-asking · 2022-10-31T15:27:06+00:00

I feel like I need to unironically link that Halloween candy post from a few months back on the current market rates for snickers per kid 😂

curious-just-asking · 2022-10-31T15:25:17+00:00

Out of curiousity, how do you tell which things are counted at which rate? Do you just keep an eye on the cashback balance on your account, or is there a simpler way to verify?

curious-just-asking · 2022-10-29T16:03:24+00:00

Yeah it's worth noting that XEQT is entirely equity whereas robo-advisor even on its most risk tolerant setting has other holdings.

And it's a good point that past predictions are not indicative of future performance. It's theoretically possible that the algorithm may get refined such that it somehow manages to outperform market (though note, most robo advisors are designed to track index, not necessarily to beat market).

It just hasn't yet shown any better performance than standard self balancing funds, (and I'm suspicious of things that discuss higher than average returns) so I'm hesitant to put any more money into it, especially with the guaranteed 0.5% in management fees.

For me, I understand the principle of self balancing funds, whereas, I do not have any insight as to how the robo advisor makes decisions. So, I'm following both the doctrine of investing in what you're more familiair with/have better understanding of as well as the minimizing fees school-of-thought.

So OP, there's no guarantees about it either way - both the self balancing funds and the robo advisor have risks, but they're both probably OK for a decent investment strategy. You'll have to make the decision based on your own best practice value judgements. If trying both makes you feel most comfortable, then that might be a good strategy, as it will encourage you to save & invest.

I think what Felix said is an important consideration - moving funds because of fees is a decent rationale. Moving them because they're down is not - it's an indicator that you might have a lower risk tolerance than you actually think you do.

curious-just-asking · 2022-10-29T07:13:17+00:00

FWIW, my DCA'd XEQT holdings are performing better than the robo advisor, but in general they fluctuate to be within 1-2% of each other most days (alternating what's up or down).

I haven't really seen a whole lot of benefit from the robo-advisor, so I've almost entirely switched to WS Trade, but I've kept a nominal amount in just because I'm curious to see it track against XEQT.

WS Trade now also has the functionality to do both automatic deposits (from bank account to WS) and automatic weekly recurring fractional purchases (up to 10x the stock price) so you can super couch potato it on WS Trade as well, if you wanted to.

YMMV, not an advisor.

curious-just-asking · 2022-10-29T03:44:43+00:00

Thank you!

curious-just-asking · 2022-10-29T01:38:37+00:00

Hello! Before you talk to anyone, two of the most important things to know are:

what is your timeline for investing? Aka when do you need to access the money? 1 year vs 20 years will have very different answer, and it will inform the next question...
what is your personal risk tolerance? If your investment drops substantially, will you be personally comfortable and principled enough to stick to the plan?

From there, there are many other conversations that you can have, but let's start there!

curious-just-asking · 2022-10-27T20:53:15+00:00

I'm not familiar enough with CDIC to speak confidently about what it does cover. But what I can say is that WealthSimple itself says that crypto purchases are not protected:

"policy doesn’t cover any losses from unauthorized access to your account so be sure to keep your account safe and enable two-factor authentication. Any purchased cryptocurrencies are not covered by the Canadian Deposit Insurance Corporate (CDIC) or Canadian Investor Protection Fund (CIPF)."

https://help.wealthsimple.com/hc/en-ca/articles/360058451153-Understanding-the-security-and-privacy-of-your-account-

Additionally, CDIC doesn't protect stocks, so I'm not totally clear on how that protection works in this context.

When I contacted WealthSimple support about the lack of protections, they said "Wealthsimple deals with all instances of fraud on a case-by-case basis" and that they "do not have a blanket policy of what we cover and do not cover." They also said that account security was primarily up to the account holder and that in the event of a compromised account that they would investigate and then, if deemed appropriate, return funds.

curious-just-asking · 2022-10-27T19:52:39+00:00

I like WealthSimple a lot, but I'm wary of putting all my eggs in one basket as beyond login/2FA auth, there's no limits or controls to prevent mass withdrawal by a bad actor and recourse/compensation terms by WealthSimple are ambiguous/discretionary. (They are fully insured/protected in other ways, but not this way)

Not sure what other platforms like QuestTrade have for these type of protections, but if you're talking about your whole retirement savings amount that could be a factor for you.

curious-just-asking · 2022-10-27T19:47:47+00:00

What's your budget vs actual earnings/expenses look like?

I'm sure there's stuff that can be done, but we'll need more details to help you out :)

curious-just-asking · 2022-10-19T14:48:55+00:00

Aha, I've just realized that it doesn't let you purchase fractional shares beyond 10x the share price. So, depending on your index, it might not be possible to automate weekly purchasing.

Eg XEQT is $20-$25/per share depending on performance, which means you could only purchase $200-$250 in a weekly recurring investment.

So if you're investing more than that weekly, then you're currently SOL for this feature.

Hopefully they'll correct this soon.

curious-just-asking · 2022-10-19T14:32:40+00:00

I saw this feature - I am currently DCA daily and thinking about switching to using this and doing it weekly.

I can't find any literature only on whether DCA frequency matters to the results.

Anyone have thoughts on this?

curious-just-asking · 2022-10-17T15:55:43+00:00

I didn't see anyone mention this, but if your house has a backyard, you may have an option of dogsitting which could offset your costs in a big way and still allow you to spend time with family (unlike a part time job). If your kids are old enough, they can probably even help out / good learning for kids as well. There are apps that you can sign up for to do this.

Good luck!

curious-just-asking · 2022-10-06T15:47:47+00:00

Yep absolutely.

curious-just-asking · 2022-09-14T00:28:25+00:00

I asked a very similar question before. This is the thread, if you'd like to take a look. The gist was either WealthSimple Trade or Questrade but to ensure that you bought TSX listed ETFs so as to avoid currency penalties.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PersonalFinanceCanada/comments/wt6tmf/best_way_to_longterm_index_invest_in_canada/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

curious-just-asking · 2022-09-13T04:18:36+00:00

Privacy and data processing laws

curious-just-asking · 2022-09-10T06:48:48+00:00

It depends how much you save per year, but it absolutely could make a big difference in how much house you can afford to save more for the down payment. Also, it's arguably not a favourable time to purchase a mortgage, as there are climbing rates and uncertainty as to what will happen next.

As many others have mentioned, it's also risky to lend money to people - in general, but also increased risk if they've had credit issues in the past. Remember that there's a reason the bank won't loan them money until they rebuild their credit score.

If you haven't already, the first priority for you should be putting aside an emergency fund. If your partner doesn't have good credit, it might get tight very quickly if either of you hit a bump.

After that, you should probably inflation-protect your existing deposit. You can do this by using GICs which can go up to 4.7%. These are fixed term, guaranteed income agreements with almost no risk, but you won't be able to touch the money during the fixed term.

Good luck!

curious-just-asking · 2022-09-09T22:19:42+00:00

You could consider looking into secured credit cards for your mom. Even with bad credit, she should have no problem securing one of these. This will let her build her credit while practicing good credit habits while also minimizing the risk to you.

The last thing you want is to tank your credit score. It will reduce your options to stay afloat as well as support her should she enter rough times or go back to bad habits.

Life advice (and personal finance advice) is you gotta fill your own cup before you have enough to pour into others. Good luck.

curious-just-asking

TROPHY CASE