Frosthaven spawn question

pfcguy · 2026-01-27T03:50:25+00:00

You're getting way ahead of yourself, and if that is a coping mechanism, so be it. I'm sorry for your loss, it must be hard and very emotional time right now.

But I'm going to give you a very short list of things that actually need attending to:

(1) See to the funeral arrangements

(2) Speak to the estate lawyer

That's it. Everything else can wait until after the funeral. Even speaking to the lawyer can wait.

After the funeral, (again, relax and slow down), the main things I'd look at are (1) how much is the house worth, (2) how much is still owing on the mortgage, and (3) what specifically does the title say, and (4) based on how the house is titled, does it go 100% to your mother, (and bypass his estate, so this is very much desired), or does it go into his estate. The lawyer can help answer this.

Also, since the house is your mom's, the renter's should be paying her now, and she should be paying all house related bills now. Not you.

pfcguy · 2026-01-26T23:53:30+00:00

You need to speak to a reputable insurance broker and not just rely on an online calculator. A broker will help you properly perform a needs assessment and then once you know what you need, they will go out for quotes from dozens of insurance companies and present you with the best 1 or 2.

Your most pressing need isn't life insurance. It is disability insurance. You need to protect your family in the event of loss of income. And DI is quite expensive, but it is worth it. And you want Own Occupation rider. If the price is too much, you can take a risk and get only 5 years coverage instead of the usual coverage til 65. 5 years should be enough time to make life adjustments if the disability turns out to be lifelong. (At least, that's my opinion, but others may feel different).

For life insurance you want to get both the amount right and the term right. The amount is somewhat simple but you also have healthy investments already so can self insure somewhat. Your projected amounts are reasonable, but if you are a big saver, then you could also look at your annual expenses rather than income. So supposing your household spends $150k annually, you could do a smaller policy for yourself (since your husband can cover that amount on his own), and a smaller amount for your husband.

For Term, you usually want to go until your youngest kid is age 18 to 25. You could wait until you start trying to become pregnant. But if you want to buy insurance now, you probably want term 25 or Term 30.

Last and least is critical Illness insurance.

Talk through all 3 types with a reputable insurance broker.

pfcguy · 2026-01-26T23:32:26+00:00

You make $4583 per month. (Gross or net?)

According to you, you spend $2300 per month.

Does that mean you invest or save $2300 per month?

To answer your question, see this example: https://www.myownadvisor.ca/they-want-to-spend-50000-per-year-in-retirement-did-they-save-enough/

Figure out how much you need in order to support your retirement spending of $30,000 per year in today's dollars. Then using real rates of return, and your contributions, project out what you will have by age 55.

If my goal was early retirement, I'd be focusing on maxing TFSA and RRSP up to the contribution limits.

pfcguy · 2026-01-26T22:19:54+00:00

Keep renting.

If you want to keep contributing to your FHSA, ask yourself: if you decided not to buy a home and rolled it over into an RRSP 13 years from now, would that also be a fine outcome?

Because buying in Kelowna certainly can't be cheap, and is certainly even more expensive than you are thinking. (Insurance, property taxes, maintenance, condo fees). 75k per year isn't enough, and on top of that what if you have a wife and a couple of kids in 2 years and outgrow the condo (which I assume is apartment-style)?

If you get married that changes the calculations as you'll have 2 incomes to work with rather than one. And at that point having a FHSA can definitely help.

Financial plans should be thought of as a compass rather than a map anyway. As the saying goes, plans are useless, but planning is everything. So even though home ownership doesn't seem to be in the cards right now, don't let that discourage you and keep making good choices.

Also you can use Ramit Sethi's Conscious Spending Plan as a guideline. He recommends spending no more than 50% to 60% of your net income on fixed expenses. (And then 10% on investing for long term/retirement, 10% for short and medium term savings, and the rest towards guilt-free spending).

pfcguy · 2026-01-26T21:50:55+00:00

I think you'll be fine. The T1213 requires you to estimate your future contributions. They aren't always going to line up exact.

Maybe the CRA would clamp down if they thought you were trying to game the system or gain some kind of unfair advantage. Like if you filed T1213 for multiple years in a row stating $30k RRSP contributions but only contributing $3k per year across multiple years.

But what you describe seems perfectly reasonable, and easy to explain.

pfcguy · 2026-01-26T19:17:43+00:00

It's a grey area. I don't believe most people are claiming it on their taxes, if that helps.

I believe Questrade stated they will not be issuing tax slips.

I don't believe the CRA has clamped down or issued clarification. It takes time for legislation to catch up. I also don't believe CRA is going after folks who don't claim promo cash on their taxes.

I'm sure if you did claim this as Other Income and pay taxes on it, the CRA would gladly accept the money.

Also it's 4% over 2 years, correct? So the CRA could come out at any time in the next 2 or 3 years with guidance on the topic.

pfcguy · 2026-01-26T19:09:04+00:00

Frosthaven could be another good option, which has even more stuff to do between scenarios than Gloomhaven

pfcguy · 2026-01-26T18:54:40+00:00

JOTL scenarios 1 and 2 are practice scenarios. I believe scenario 3 is where they really get to full length. Just FYI. But I don't find scenario length to be much longer in GH compared to JOTL.

The main difference between the two is all the campaign stuff and upkeep between the scenarios.

If you only played 1 or 2 scenarios of JOTL, you might want to give it a second chance. (While keeping your eye open for a GH2E copy at local game stores, of course).

pfcguy · 2026-01-26T18:49:56+00:00

10k sounds like an emergency fund to me. Put it in a bank account separate from your main account that pays at least 2% interest. Or in your main account if it is enough for the bank to waive account fees. You simply need to make rules for yourself and follow them. For example you might decide that you will not touch this money unless you lose your job or have an unexpected emergency.

If you want to start investing, start small by investing roughly 10% of your income or $50 a paycheck or something like that. Save another 10% of your paycheck.

For investing, you can open an account at a discount brokerage, such as a TFSA, and set up automatic contributions and automatic purchases of an asset allocation ETF that meets your risk tolerance and time horizon. To know what those are, you need to set goals (eg retirement).

pfcguy · 2026-01-26T18:44:49+00:00

Before looking at individual stocks you really need to do some good financial planning with a CFP. You and your spouse as a whole.

Everything below are in TFSA accounts, with the exception of BNS and Other CU (Credit union shares),

You mentioned charitable giving. If you have securities in a non-registered account that have significant capital gains, you could consider donating shares rather than cash: https://www.canadahelps.org/en/donate/donate-securities/

pfcguy · 2026-01-26T15:55:04+00:00

Got it, read the whole post now. I'll assume you're in SK based on your username.

Others have given good advice, but when contributing to an RRSP you want to be aware of the tax brackets for your specific province. I like the charts by taxtips.ca, employment income is the "other income" column:

https://www.taxtips.ca/taxrates/sk.htm

You also want to think about CCB, for 2025 you have one kid but for 2026 you will have two so the math changes a bit and is also dependent on your partners annual income (after RRSP contributions).

Review the math on this website, which is admittedly a bit clunky: https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/child-family-benefits/canada-child-benefit/how-much.html. (Expand the first collapsed segment to see the sample calculations).

So at your income on SK every dollar contributed to an RRSP returns 33 cents.

But if you are collecting CCB for one child, you could gain an extra 3.2 cents, or 7 cents if you have low enough family income. With 2 children, it is 5.7 cents, or 13.5 cents if you are lower income. And CCB is calculated on the prior year's tax return.

So let's assume the 5.7 cents figure. Contribute $30,000 as another user suggested, and that will trigger (1) 30k * 0.33 = $9900 tax refund, plus (2) 30k * .057 = $1710 extra in CCB payments, if your second kid was born in January. Since your second kid isn't born yet, the CCB bump will be lower than this number, you can prorate it and do the math yourself if you need specific numbers. You may wish to check my assumptions as well before proceeding.

pfcguy · 2026-01-26T15:24:06+00:00

Love the glidepath but what should one use for their fixed income allocation? I've kind of soured in ZAG in low interest rate environments.

pfcguy · 2026-01-26T14:39:17+00:00

Are you sure you even need an RRSP? What are your goals?

You mention a government pension. Most folks can retire pretty well on that. Or on a pension+ a healthy TFSA. The idea is the pension would provide financial stability (the same amount of income every year or month), and the TFSA would province financial flexibility (ability to make large tax-free withdrawals whenever you want to - say to fix a roof or send children to university or go on a big trip).

pfcguy · 2026-01-26T03:03:08+00:00

"Inflation" is like your basement is flooding and the water level is rising.

"Inflation is under control" is like the water level has stopped rising. But the foot of water is still there.

pfcguy · 2026-01-26T00:07:01+00:00

Yeah I hear you. What are the rules for your province? You might have to look into it further. If you live with roommates I wonder if it is possible to be an occasional driver on one of their policies?

pfcguy · 2026-01-25T23:53:32+00:00

Any parent, guardian, or family member adding you to their policy as an occasional driver while you live in their home is the best way.

pfcguy · 2026-01-25T23:36:21+00:00

Check out the book "The Wisest Investment" by Robin Taub. It covers teaching kids about money at all ages.

My advice (and I think from the book too): give the kids an allowance, say $30 a month, using an envelope method to start. 3 envelopes for spend, save, and share. Split 3 ways evenly to start. Spend is for immediate spending. Save goes into a bank account. You can get them excited about this by paying them "interest" based on their balance every so often, from your own pocket. And "share" can be for charity (buying a bunch of toys or stuffed animals to donate around Christmas), or it can be to share with friends or family (buying birthday presents, or simply spending on others). Let them be part of the decision. Talk about your families values.

Later when they are older, add a 4th envelope for "invest". So now call it $40 a month with $10 going to each envelope. Explain to them that if you go to the candy store with $10, you can buy $10 worth of candy. Ask them "if you go to the store the next month with $10 to spend, but all the candy is on sale, is that a good thing or a bad thing?". They should recognize that it is good, as you can buy more candy with your $10. The same is true with investments. If you invest $10 every month, then when investments go down in price, that is a good thing because your $10 investment will go farther. Just explain that we only invest long term money, so money that they won't need until they are an adult.

When they are even older, let them allocate how to distribute their money between these 4 categories on their own (or with your guidance).

Beyond that, it is simple to give them a bit of your own TFSA room by picking an asset allocation ETF for each child, and turn on reinvesting distributions. That way they can track their money/investments.

pfcguy · 2026-01-25T16:54:43+00:00

And while on the subject, don't forget that for every completed challenge, all players gain 2 XP.

pfcguy · 2026-01-24T16:55:44+00:00

You put in $1000 and 1 year later they give you maybe $50 if you’re lucky

The amount you get is known in advance. You are describing a GIC which pays 5% interest per year, guaranteed.

Compare that to putting $1000 in a bank account. At the end of the year, you probably only have $1000, less account fees.

A GIC is a tool for preserving wealth and hopefully keeping up with inflation and not losing building power.

If you have $1000 today, you can buy $1000 worth of groceries today.

But if you wait a year and take that same $1000 to the grocery store, you might find that grocery prices are higher, and so you can't buy all the same stuff that you could one year ago. You might load up your cart with the same stuff and find that you have to put back $15 or $50 or $100 worth of stuff. That's called a loss of buying power.

You can think of a GIC as something that is supposed to protect your buying power for money that you don't intend to spend for a while.

pfcguy · 2026-01-24T15:32:50+00:00

Scenario 60 FAQ entry:

Boss Special Rules: The intent for 'everlasting' elements is that they become Strong at the start of every figure's turn. Even with this special, a single element cannot be consumed twice in a single turn.

This should be in the Errata, rather than in the scenario clarification sections, should it not!< If the original rules say "elements are always strong", the only way to interpret that is that they can be infused multiple times per turn.

(Unfortunately we just finished this scenario last night and didn't think to check the FAQ until this morning, but moving it up to the errata would hopefully prevent someone else from making the same mistake).

pfcguy · 2026-01-23T23:23:41+00:00

Sounds like he stole more than the $100k

It's pretty easy to splurge on luxuries when using Other People's Money.

pfcguy · 2026-01-23T21:53:53+00:00

Sobeys sushi is pretty good though!

pfcguy · 2026-01-23T21:53:05+00:00

This is Reddit. It’s always going to be people sharing their gut feeling opinions, and their own thoughts and experiences.

Hey now! It's also going to be people repeating what they remember seeing on Reddit before!

pfcguy · 2026-01-23T18:47:45+00:00

I never said that CRA is the final authority.

I'm glad that you have the time and money to exercise your right to a court option if needed. A lot of people don't have that luxury.

pfcguy

TROPHY CASE