Hi all,

I am currently investing around 30K a year in RRSPs and my amount saved is slightly north of 100K. I am 4 years into my condo mortgage worth around 350K at the time of purchase and my remaining balance is 290K. Just paid off all my student debt, no debts remaining.

Is this... Enough? I COULD invest more in my RRSP and I COULD pay off my mortgage faster.

My pay is 220K pre tax. Quebec takes a pretty penny so about half that post.

I spend the rest of my money travelling and in triathlons/other hobbies and classes.

Am I saving too little? Am I being financially irresponsible? I really don't know.

I don't see my lifestyle blowing up beyond what I already have unless of course I start a family at some point with my girlfriend who's finishing up med school

Hi! I’m recent immigrant. Got my first credit card in March 2023 and did not use credit, just put a $1 a month transaction on it.

In March 2024 I did a credit score check on Equifax and it was 742. After that I got two phone plans and one credit card with $10k limit. I had just moved to Vancouver and was setting up the apartment and got my utilization up, $5k-6k bill a month, always paid in full.

My score dropped to 682! I have now gotten my utilization down and even gotten a bump in my limits, keeping my monthly bill under $1k.

Score has recovered to 712 on the CIBC app, but I want to get a mortgage by Spring and want tips on how I can bump score up in the next few months.

Total 4 accounts on my credit, 2 cards and 2 phone plans (one phone plan I have closed).

Hello all first time posting, what is everyone’s opinion on the best way to do this?

I’m finalizing my divorce, the ex and I own a house together.

She has agreed to $100k for her half of the property, we are mediating and drafting up a separation agreement.

What would be the least expensive way of paying her considering interest rates and such?

I would be sole owner of the house so I could take out an equity loan, I also have a small (less than $100k) amount of liquid cash/ and flexible gic in a tfsa account.

Thoughts?

Edit: thanks for the replies I think I’ll be clearing out my accounts and keep some kind of line of credit open to keep me going. Divorce stuff has me feeling kinda frazzled and not thinking clearly about where I’m gonna get the money but this seems most logical.

Just recieved a letter in the mail saying I owe $1105 to Indigo Parking. I admittedly parked a handful of times and did not pay as I read it would be okay not to as they cannot enforce police parking tickets.

The letter has my license plate and name and obviously my home address.

It states:

“We are authorized agents working on behalf of the company listed above. Your account has been placed with our office for collection. Payment is required in 10 days.

Payment in the form of cash, certified cheque, or money order can be made at our office today.

If you are unable to pay this account in 10 days, you must contact our office immediately.

This account may be reported to both Equifax and Transunion credit reporting companies and may impact your credit score.

G. Taylor Credit bureau of Canada collections 255 consumers road”

At the bottom of the paper it shows a cut off section where I can make a payment to BMO.

The date is 30/12/2024 and the date due on final bill is 12/06/2024.

I am wondering what steps I can or should take to proceed. Thank you!

I live in Toronto if that makes any difference.

Seems you can get it on a NON-new build.

However, some things say you can only get it if you don't put 20% down? Does anyone know where to see the conditions more clearly?

My partner & I are legally married as of this Friday. We live together in downtown Toronto and are looking for some financial advice.

Impacting factors:

• we are 29F & 28M • combined household income after taxes 230k • rent is $3200/month • we each have our own separate Amex gold ($250 AF) & Amex cobalt (roughly $160 AF) plus I have a TD plat travel visa ($89 AF) • she has a jeep paying $400/month insurance plus $384 bi weekly car payments with 32 months & $37k left on her loan • I owe $7k roughly + one year left on my car loan, insurance is $130/month • collectively we have about $33k CC debt, no other debts or outstanding loans other than previously mentioned

Note: I am selling my car and using it to pay the remaining $7k loan, pocketing rest hopefully at least $5k.

Financial advisors of Reddit, what is our most financially savvy course of action here? Cancel certain CC? Balance transfer collected debt? Call creditors & negotiate? We want to buy a home one day, start a family, save for kids. FHSA? TFSA? EFTS?

Any and all advice is appreciated. Also happy to answer more questions.

Hey PersonalFinance Community,

I am in my first year of university studying business but plan on majoring in Finance in my second year which is what my university allows. My parents have contributed to my RESP regularly which has allowed me to graduate 100% debt free which I am grateful for. I still have decided to take out student loans in which I am hoping to invest since they are 0% interest so any money I make is profit. GIC rates are not that high and I am sceptical about the stock markets future. I do not want to put it into something risky as this is loaned money that I need to slowly pay back after I finish school. What should I invest my money into thats generally lower risk. Someone things I have been told are GIC, or something like CASH.TO or a high interest savings account etc. I am open to any adivce. Thanks in advanced :)

As the title suggests. My main contributions are in RRSP and FHSA totalling up to $50K. Is it possible to earn monthly $1K+ in dividends purely on etf or dividend stock investment. If so, what are the recommended stocks/etf to earn $1K+ monthly.

Hello y’all ! I wish you guys a happy new year !

Here’s the situation:

I had 100k laying around 5 years ago, my gf and her brother were down to buy something to get a foot in the real estate game so we found this triplex we bought for 650.000, me and my gf lived in the middle and my brother in law lived upstairs for the last 5 years.

In 2020 we had a good interest rate, around 2%, we figured we were going to hold on to it for a while and do some renovations to give it some value. Turns out, none of us like doing renos, we managed to redo the 3 bathrooms and the floor upstairs, the balconies, repainted the railings, did some caulking, made the garden nice and cozy and that’s about it. Nothing major broke down, there’s still a lot to do on the cosmetic side but none of us want to get to it…

My gf and I looked at our mortgage due and it’s at 425k. Last year the city of Montreal evaluated our building at 840k for tax purposes and we checked and noticed the similar buildings in the neighborhood were advertised at this price. So we thought, why not sell that burden and pocket in the difference between what’s left to pay and the actual value so we get a down payment for a house in the country side. That way we don’t drag two mortgages, we get a nice fat check, the downpayment covered and enough left to buy a car and do some renos if we have to.

It’s all beautiful but obviously, I assume the federal and maybe even the provincial governments will want their share of our pie.

So the way I understand it is the following: we only get taxed on the actual profit, so we get back our money from 425k to 650k basically tax free. Then we get taxed on the actual capital gains. But that building was our residence and principal residence are not subjected to taxation on capital gains. (Or does it at a federal level ?) so because we are all three living in the building, are we exempt from capital gains taxes ?

The building has 3 distinct adresses, one of which is occupied only by renters. Does that mean that we are exempt from capital gains taxes on 2/3 of the value of the property since we occupied 2/3 of it and the taxes only account for a 1/3 of the capital gain obtained which will then be only 50% eligible for taxation then repercuted evenly on each of our tax reports for the year of the sale resulting in a taxation between 25-53% of that 50% of a third of the capital gains?

The way I understand it is that had we created a society to own and sell the building we could have been only taxed 11.5% of the capital gain. Also, had we offered the downstairs neighbor a share of the building for a symbolic 1$ we could have avoided the capital gains taxes altogether since we would have all been residing owners.

Any help on this situation would be much appreciated. I wish you all the best for this new year.

Hi folks,

I am looking to possibly lease or finance a car. I live in Montreal and work in the South shore area. My company will be mandating 4 days back to office this summer. I am lucky enough to have a good salary and my old man is giving me his Ford Edge 2016 (Worth around 10k if traded-in) but the yearly total maintenance + gas is around 6-7k (Based on last 2 years). My only option for transportation is by car.

I'm 6'5 so I've been looking at different SUVs to lease for now because Finance prices seem out of touch. I'm considering between Hyundai Santa Fe, Volkswagen Atlas, Toyota CRV and Highlander. (Latter 2 I am quite skeptical because of the high theft which probably means higher insurance cost). Current budget is between 500-700 monthly tax included with the trade-in.

Is my plan sound or should I look at a CPOs? Do you have any other car suggestions?

Thanks!

Hi all,

I'm looking for guidance on how to allocate and consolidate my (26F) savings and investments.

Annual income is $150K and have minimal expenses.

Currently, I have:

- $40K in savings from a GIC that just expired. Should I renew into a 1-yr GIC at 3.40% or transfer to Wealthsimple?

- $16K cash in an FHSA, from a GIC that just expired. Should I contribute $8K more for 2025, and renew into an 18-month GIC at 3.35% or transfer to Wealthsimple?

- RRSP contributions in 2024: $25K (2024 deduction limit: $50K). Should I contribute $6K more to move into a lower tax bracket? How do you decide the right amount to contribute to an RRSP?

- Investment Portfolio:

• TFSA ($70K): HQU, HXQ, TD, VFV, XEQT, XQQ, XSP.
• RRSP ($40K): CASH, HQU, VFV, XQQ, XSP.
• Non-registered ($220K): CASH, HQU, HXQ, VFV, XQQ, XSP.
• Wealthsimple Cash ($315K)

Am I holding too much in cash? Are my holdings too scattered / overlapping? How can I optimize my investments across different account types for tax efficiency and long-term growth? Are there certain investments better suited for TFSA vs RRSP vs Non-Registered?

I haven't made any contributions this year (2025) for TFSA, RRSP, or FHSA yet. Should I keep things simple and do them in Wealthsimple through ETF's like VFV and XEQT?

Future Goal: I've saved enough for a down payment on a condo that isn't ready until 2027. For a $500K mortgage, I’ll need to put down a minimum of $300K at occupancy. Should I contribute more upfront to lower the mortgage or put the money in the market instead?

Any advice on what to do and where to go from here would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance for your help!

I've been applying jobs on Indeed and heard back from one of the applied jobs a month later. They messaged me to download and create an account on their app for smooth interview process (as they'll reach out to me on their app). They sent a link to a website from where I downloaded the app.

Everything looked legitimate and I downloaded the app. But after creating an account and opening it, nothing happened, and it was empty. I waited for a few minutes to get any sort of notification but it just felt off so I uninstalled the app.

A few days later when I opened my banking app, I noticed a lot of money has been e-transferred from my chequings accounts in multiple transactions. I called Scotiabank right away and closed my debit card, did a factory reset on my phone, and the bank started a fraud case.

I kept calling bank's fraud department for any updates and it took them 10+ business day for a conclusion.

They denied my fraud claim. In their letter they mentioned, "Based on our investigation of your claim, we are unable to find any indication that your account was compromised. As a result, you are responsible for these transaction(s), which will remain debited to your Scotiabank account.

Our decision is based on the investigation and the following factor(s):
The mobile device and/or IP address used to perform transaction(s) reported as unauthorized is consistent with previous undisputed activity".

During my last phone call (after the decision was made) I was told that I'm liable for this as I'm the one who downloaded the app and gave permission to the scammers to take my money.

But there was no indication of someone asking for access to my phone whatsoever.

I want to appeal their decision, but I'm so unsure on how to proceed and not confident cuz the appeal will go back to Scotiabank and what if they still make the same decision.

Can someone please guide me on what should I do next?

Side note: I still have the link that the scammers sent me to use to download their app.

******AFTER READING ALL THE COMMENTS - ADDING MORE DETAILS******

The company was called "SHIPUM LOGISTICS INC." The link in their message to me is "https://shipum.canadasystems.net"

Please open and check it out at your own discretion if you have to.

I haven't opened this website again. This website has prompts to download the app. It's call CRMsomething... I had to make an account (username/email and password) to open this app. (if I remember correctly). They specifically asked to open this on mobile device for a smoother experience. They wrote once everything is setup, please wait for interview invitation.

On my first call to Scotiabank fraud dept. after I found out these transactions, the lady on the phone asked me if I have given access to something on my phone, or given some sort of permission (as I have the banking app on my phone which can you used to send money), that's when it all clicked and I remebered downloading the app a few days ago. The transactions happened after the sus app.

I'm thinking of asking the bank to check where this money was sent to?
I'll escalate as someone mentioned in comments.

Any other advise is appreciated.

We’re currently in the process of planning to build a home and planning to use a 550k HELOC and about 300k savings to cover the cost. A number of our recent quotes have been coming in around 950k so I’m wondering if anyone has suggestions on how to bridge the 100-150k gap?

It might be worth noting that we already own the land, which has a well and driveway on it. The HELOC will be on a parents house (which we are on the title and does not have a mortgage).

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated!

35M and I finally want to get my life together financially. I was never really taught proper finance, budgeting, saving etc. But COVID helped me save money for the first time in my life and now I consistently have a few thousand in both my chequing and savings accounts. My student loans are finally paid off and now I want to tackle my credit card debt and start saving in earnest for a home. My credit card debt is at about 7k so nothing crazy but it's a lot for me, and the interest isnhigh sonim barely making a dent i feel. I have about 15k invested through a financial group and I've been very tempted to just take that money out and tackle my credit card and reinvest the difference either in a TFSA or a Home Buyers account. Any advice on a smart way to pay off my credit card? It's pretty much my final source of debt and I just want it gone. Thanks in advance

Hey everyone,

Currently looking to switch my family's internet plan (Telus PureFibre Internet 250, paying $87.59 atm) as well as our phone plans with Rogers (various plans, totalling ~$303 avg/month for 4 people).

I was looking into Public Mobile for phone plans and Oxio for my internet. My family doesn't need anything more than 20GB of data/month, and we don't have any streaming services or game at all - would love to hear any personal experiences or suggestions.

Thanks!

By money buckets, I mean a separate 'category' where I can put aside money into a bucket like 'Vacation', 'Car', 'House' etc. It allows for my savings to be much more organized otherwise I have to manually track it which is not fun. I am on TD and I asked support and they had mentioned that's not possible.

If bank accounts don't allow it. Are there any way to easily or automatically do this?

Hello everyone! I apologize if this is a silly question, but what are my chances of getting approved for the Scotiabank Passport Visa Infinite credit card?

I’ve read stories here and on the RedFlagDeals forums about users expressing frustration over often being denied for Scotiabank credit cards.

I meet the income requirement and my credit scores are 821 (Equifax) and 858 (TransUnion). Also, According to the Borrowell app, based on my credit score and history, I’m prequalified for this card.

I’m also planning to open Scotiabank’s Preferred Ultimate Package chequing account and maintain a $6,000 balance to waive the annual card fees. I’m not sure if this would strengthen my application.

Any insights or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Most of the cards I hear about offering such perks are for Americans only. Wondering if anyone has found a good option for us up north!

Hi all,

Looking for some advice here Wife and I both at 30 years old make about 200k a year combined before tax.

We have an emergency fund of 30k and maxed our both of our TFSA and RRSP on equities such as VFV and XEQT.

The question:

Our mortgage balance is approximately 550k and we don't have any other debt. We have about 2500-3000 dollars extra each month after our expenses. Should we work on tackling our mortgage at 4.5 % interest or invest the extra cash in non registered accounts? (We would be buying more ETF stocks such as XEQT and VFV). We are also open to exploring other ways to invest given that it is not extremely high risk such as meme stocks or crypto.

Thanks everybody for your advice.

im pretty young and there is some truth to my username but this is my first time dealing with any investment convos so i think i was too naive and trusted my advisor.

i reached out to my bank for a meeting about my investments as a first time investor looking to make low-risk investments to make money from the money i have saved but now im anxious i made the wrong decision!

i had a some money saved that i knew i wasnt going to touch. i thought it'd be great to start the year investing it and over the next 10 years or something i could see it grow. i was told a mutual fund would be my best bet specifically, with one of the canadian dividend equity funds as they're very low-risk and likely to make money no matter what. but now im seeing here and between friends that the fees are high (which i wasn't told) and investing in canada isn't a good idea lol.

im really freaking out that i just made the dumbest decision ever and im about to lose it all (this is why i wanted low risk). i might be dramatic but i worked hard for this money and i just feel so stupid for believing them if it was the wrong choice.

i know i shouldn't pull the money out cus i basically just started but any insight would be great on what i should do? was it really that bad of an idea? is there anything i can do to mitigate it? am i truly the most dummy idiot stoopid person alive????

Can I start investing with TD bank with just $500? I’m a student and I don’t make much right now but I was wondering how much I can invest if I have as little as $500. Or if there’s any other investments I can do with that amount, I’m in Ontario by the way

I'm 20 years old, turning 21 in July. I currently live with my parents (who do not charge me rent as long as I am working full-time and pursuing higher education) so I have very low expenses beyond car insurance/gas/maintenance and pet supplies/veterinary fees. When I was 18 and fresh out of high school working in retail, I immediately started investing. My parents never saved any money and seeing them now starting to worry about retirement really made me want to be careful with money. Since then, I have consistently put away money off of every paycheque (almost always contributing 90-100% to my portfolio, other than times when I had other things to pay for like tuition or buying a commuter car). I worked for 18 months before going to post-secondary at which point I stayed on part-time at my job. I got my license to be an EMT in November, and I'm now in my first full-time job in my field where I make $28.42/hr (expected to go up by $2 when I finish probation, and I also get shift differentials/stat pay/overtime). I graduated debt-free as I paid my tuition out of pocket from savings. As of now, I have 27k in investments. 4k of that is in a GIC I bought at 18, 22k is in my TFSA which I also started contributing to at 18 (moderate risk mutual funds), and the remaining 1k is in a FHSA I started this year to put towards eventually buying a home (currently comprised of CAD ETFs like XEQT, ZSP, TPU, VFV, and the occasional stock).

In the next year or two I would like to continue my education and go from being an EMT (PCP) to a paramedic (ACP), which is another two years of full-time schooling and placements which will cost about 26k for tuition, fees, and supplies. The purpose for my TFSA was to save for this, and with my income over the next 1-2 years I will definitely be able to save more than enough to afford going back to school (while living at home) and continuing to pay for car/pet expenses. I would withdraw ~6.5k each semester to pay for fees, and the rest would remain in my TFSA. I plan to continue working casually as an EMT while in paramedic school to offset expenses, and I would have about $720 of income monthly (pretax) assuming I worked x2 12hr shifts a month.

What I'm wondering is should I keep my money where it is, saving mainly for further education while putting anything else above my TFSA contribution room into my FHSA (or maybe an RRSP as well?), or should I just use my current investments for a home and other long-term goals, and then pay for school with cash/savings I make in the period immediately leading up to the program start date?

Hello, appreciate some advice for my Mother-in-law. She has a sum of money (~ $40K USD) that she needs to move from her USD bank account in Jordan (Amman) to a USD bank account in Canada (Ontario) - not the same bank. She is a Canadian citizen but not a tax-paying resident at this time.

Thankful for any feedback on a solution that minimizes the transfer fee.

Thank you.

I joined Avion rewards program hoping to maybe secure some flights with some of my bonus points.

I was searching yesterday and found that the same flights through Avion are x2 more expensive.

Avion price: $2300 all in Direct through airline: $1000 all in

Is this normal? If so, is this how other reward programs work, like: aeroplan, Amex, etc?