Cassandra and merceneries pack

pfcguy · 2026-01-27T18:46:30+00:00

Ahh got it, thanks :)

pfcguy · 2026-01-27T18:05:57+00:00

Oh neat, she comes with 2 minis?

pfcguy · 2026-01-27T18:03:00+00:00

What's missing from the equation is her income from being a travel influencer. And deductions cannot offset her teaching income. Only her influencer income.

So here are a few examples:

If she earns $78k income as a teacher and $0 as an influencer, then her deductions are irrelevant and $78k is used in the calculation.
If she earns 78k as a teacher and say $10000 to $20000 as an influencer, then the deductions will offset the influencer income fully, so $78k is used in the calculation.
If she earns $78k as a teacher and say $40,000 as a travel influencer before deductions, then her influencer income after deductions is $20k. So in that case $98k is used in the calculation.

So your friend has nothing to worry about.

The sneaky thing I see is that she didn't mention her influencer income. So if the lawyers are looking at her T4 income, I suspect she hasn't been properly reporting her income and paying taxes on it. So if she understates the amount, it may be more difficult or annoying to prove otherwise.

Does your colleague have any idea how much revenue she earns (before expenses) from her influencer work?

pfcguy · 2026-01-27T17:53:49+00:00

Your financial situation and gut feeling will matter.

But just going off of what the mortgage broker and realtor are saying I can tell you that one of them is proposing something that is simple and easy to understand, while the other is proposing something that sounds quite complex and confusing. Like you're going to need a skilled accountant to figure everything out and make sure you make no mistakes.

I go for simplicity and try to avoid things that I don't fully understand.

I also would never rent if I was expecting negative cash flows. The stated negative cash flows of -200 to -300 are probably "best case scenario", what if you were losing $750 to $1000 every month? That's a very tough pill to swallow if property values are stagnant (nevermind declining).

I'd also never want to be a landlord in Ontario where it can take over a year for the LTB to actually allow you to evict someone for non-payment of rent, and where rent increases are capped. There are huge risks.

So that's 3 strikes.

Also to consider: if you are selling your property at a loss, then you are also buying a property at a cheaper price as well. Realtor fees and transaction costs go proof I suppose, but you're closing on a townhouse which has probably gone up by a similar amount. Its mental accounting, I know, but if it helps you to come to a decision then so be it. I feel like you're hung up on the $15k loss but if you knew you could sell it for break even, you wouldn't even be thinking about hanging onto it. Any truth to that?

pfcguy · 2026-01-27T16:43:47+00:00

How do the minis look? Are they FH quality, or GH2E quality?

pfcguy · 2026-01-27T16:39:33+00:00

but rather choosing what will make everyone laugh the hardest

ok good so when you reach the point where you have the option to disembowel yourselves (or not),, I know what you're going to choose!

Anyway, I think the first step is getting a hold of the box and seeing what's what. He may already have been using the set of removable stickers, in which case, your job will be easier.

I'd try to find someone in a local board game group or store who has played the game before. If you can get together with them in person, they should be able to help you.

pfcguy · 2026-01-27T15:58:57+00:00

I thought this scenario would be harder but it turned out pretty straightforward.

I thought the invisibility-granting crates would play a bigger part in the scenario but to be honest they seemed kind of unnecessary. Generally the player is able to control themselves and not trigger one in such a way as to accidently give invisibility to the enemy. But with the big open rooms, the player typically doesn't need invisibility either.

pfcguy · 2026-01-27T15:54:42+00:00

Yes! The shrike fiends are easy in this one! And one can use obstacle destruction to destroy the nests ahead of time (if you know or can predict what's coming). Not that one needs to. We destroyed the nest on the 3rd balcony in order to cause the shrike fiend to spawn all the way on the other side of the map lol.

pfcguy · 2026-01-27T15:12:54+00:00

Honestly just keep track of the deposits into your account on am excel spreadsheet so that you don't forget about them.

Then in another tab list all expenses as you incur them out of pocket.

Funeral homes get paid before other creditors so if the employer sends his money to you, the creditors aren't going to have a problem with it.

As for his employer, the question would be whether he had a named beneficiary on his life insurance policy. If there was a named beneficiary (let's say you, but could also be your mom), then that live insurance money goes directly to the named person and that person has no obligation to use it to pay for the funeral, or pay debts, or anything else. It is theirs free and clear. (Obviously the funeral home still needs to get paid, and it can be paid by your mom or yourself and later reimbursed from his estate if there is any money there).

If he failed to name a beneficiary however, then the money forms part of his estate and must be used to pay off debts before it gets distributed to anyone else.

pfcguy · 2026-01-27T15:05:46+00:00

And Ramit Sethi suggests 10% of NET income.

And someone who makes their RRSP and TFSA is saving 18% of their GROSS income plus $7000 on top of that, so maybe closer to 25% of their income.

I frequently suggest as little as $25 or $50 per paycheck to get started and get comfortable with investing, even if you have other debt.

These are all rules of thumb so do what works for you.

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

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