It’s hard to believe but my son is now 16 months old! I thought now would be a good time to look back and see how much we spent in the first year of parenthood (from just before he was born until his first birthday). Before we get going, I’ll set the stage by being […]
Category: Value-based spending
My First Year of Car Ownership – How much does it really cost?
Last April, I bought my first car at the age of 32. More on that in this post on how to buy a used car. Before that, I tried to save money on transportation costs. Now that a year has gone by, I thought it would be interesting to analyze how much it really cost […]
Your Largest Expense: Taxes – RSP’s and TFSA’s for Canadians
When the average person is asked what their three largest expenses are, they probably say Housing, Transportation, and Food. What a lot of people miss is the fact that their single largest expense may be tax. Especially when you add it all up – federal income tax, provincial income tax, sales tax, capital gain tax, […]
Financial Coaching the Average Canadian Household (Part 3 of 6)
Part 3: Aligning Discretionary Expenses with Values This is the third post in a series of six that walks through a theoretical exercise of me financially coaching the Average Canadian Household (as defined by Statistics Canada data) to see how we could improve their financial situation. In the first post, we did a deep dive […]
Financial Coaching the Average Canadian Household (Part 2 of 6)
This is the second post in a series of six that walks through a theoretical exercise of coaching the “Average Canadian Household” to improve their financial situation. In the first post, we did a deep dive in to the Average Canadian Household’s finances – looking at their income, expenses, and net worth. In my coaching program, […]
We bought a house!
Well, we did it! We pulled the trigger on our largest single expense yet – a house! I’m not going so far as to calling it an “investment” just yet given it is our principal residence. Why I chose not to buy a house in my 20’s: (in order of importance to me) Concentration risk: […]
What has COVID-19 done to personal finances in Canada?
Over the last week or two, I have been preparing a series of upcoming posts where I will walk you through a deep dive into the average Canadian household’s personal finances. During my research, I stumbled upon an interesting tidbit that I figured warrant a short post. The Canadian household savings rate in the second […]
How to Buy a Used Car
I didn’t buy my first car until my early 30’s, 32 to be exact. This doesn’t mean that I didn’t drive. Read my post here on how I optimized my transportation expenses through my 20’s. Shortly after we found out that my wife was pregnant with our first child, we decided that we would value […]
Ideas to Reduce Transportation Expenses
After taxes and housing, transportation is generally up there on the list of significant household expenses. Similar to some other parts of my life, I took an unconventional approach to optimize my transportation expenses. I’ve detailed this below, not for people to use as a guide, but more to share my experience and how this […]
Housing Expense: Rent vs. Buy?
As I wrote my last post on My take on rental properties, it got me thinking about another related topic – the question of whether to rent or buy a house. For the average household, housing is the second largest expense (after tax of course). That said, it is important that we all spend some […]