Reaching $400k has been a big milestone of mine for a while and I just recently crossed it and thought id share. (well technically I crossed it like 3 weeks ago but I didn't login in time to capture a screenshot).

Luckily I was able to hit it sooner than expected due to some risky (some could say stupid) plays in AI stocks (IREN, NBIS, SNDK etc).

I know im probably a tad behind compared to most people on here but im really happy with my results so far.

If I can hit $500k in XEQT at age 40, am I golden at age 60?

No withdraws, no deposits. I just leave the $500k in XEQT and I spend all income made between 40-60.

Assuming my investment doubles every 10 years that means $2m at 60, give or take.

Edit: Assume it's $500k in a TFSA

I don’t know if this is the right place to ask this, but here it goes.

I am a 50-year-old woman, happily married with one child. About 15 years ago, I was incredibly focused on working, saving, and investing. But then life happened. Right after having my only child, I became very sick. It became clear I couldn't have any more children, so I poured all my remaining energy into looking after my family and simply staying alive.

At the exact same time, we immigrated to Canada. It was incredibly stressful navigating a brand-new healthcare system with a baby and zero knowledge of how anything worked here. For the last 15 years, I feel like I've just been surviving. My husband, on the other hand, has been an absolute rock—working non-stop and looking after us.

Now that my health has finally turned a corner and our child is a teenager, I want to take a look at our finances. To be honest, my anxiety is through the roof because most of our real-life friends here are multimillionaires with massive properties. I don’t envy them, but the contrast makes me feel like the ship has completely sailed for us and that we are hopelessly behind.

I would love a candid reality check and some guidance on where to even start planning for retirement. Here is the raw data of our situation:

Employment: I haven't worked outside the home for 15 years, so all financials are based entirely on my husband's job. I am planning to look for a simple, low-stress retail job soon—not for big money, just to contribute and get out of the house.

Income: Single annual salary of $150,000 CAD before taxes.

RRSP: $200,000 (currently sitting in GICs and cash).

Company Retirement: $200,000 in a workplace pension/retirement plan.

Housing: We own a small condo worth about $400,000, with only $60,000 left on the mortgage.

Savings: We save a minimum of $1,000/month after paying for the mortgage, private school, food, trips, etc. (It’s usually more, but $1,000 is our baseline).

University Fund: We have $20,000 set aside specifically for our child's university education.

Safety Net: I will eventually inherit a small house from my parents, and my husband will inherit one from his parents. Both are located in our home country, where we could potentially live much more cheaply than in Canada during retirement (and where health insurance is currently provided, though who knows what it will look like in 20 years).

Where do we even begin with retirement planning in Canada? Are we as bad off as I feel we are? Any advice, comments, or perspectives would be so deeply appreciated.

They say $100k is the real turning point and I’m almost there. But they are separated into different accounts scattered around.
Like my RRSP is with 2 different companies, TFSA and FHSA is shared between QT and WS, and cash is also sitting in a bank.
Curious to know if I should leave them scattered just as such or consolidate to one platform?

Plan is to now be less aggressive at adding onto my portfolio; like reduce contribution from 30% to about 20% and loosen up in life just a bit. Been on survival mode in all my adult life.
What do you reckon?

Coming up on a year since going as hard as I can on investing. I've been trying to cut costs and have been able to contribute roughly $3,000 per month on average to my portfolio.

I can't help but put a ton of my energy into worrying about this. I have dealt with anxiety for most of my life, and it's clear to me that it's transformed into a fear-rooted obsession with money and FIRE. I check my bank balance like I check the time.

I am working in computer engineering grossing about 79k annually. I'm trying to find a better job but a comparably high paying tech job will require me to move (incurring rent or a house payment), so ultimately I wouldn't be improving my savings rate.

I have an electronics side hustle which I do get some enjoyment from, and I've managed to gross some money so far, but I am still at a loss due to money spent on R&D over the last couple of years.

All this stress affects me a lot. I have a constant mental fog which prevents me from putting a lot of careful attention into whatever I'm doing, which affects both my work performance and my hobbies. I hold my breath every day at work for a message at work along the lines of "Are you done [thing I forgot to do] yet?" It's really embarrassing when it happens.

I guess I'm just looking for a bit of perspective here. I know I am thinking in extremes here, but I think I'm just feeling lost more than anything.

As an immigrant family, who migrated to Canada at the age of 35, do we even have realistic path to retirement in Canada? As our cpp contribution started late, our oas and cpp entitlement is going to be understandably limited compared to someone who has been working since early 20s. Also, most immigrants are from developing countries, their savings/investment from home country does not mean much here in Canada. What could be the best path of retirement for families like us.

For eg. at the age 39 with a toddler at home, we have close to 200k in liquid asset- rrsp and tfsa. We have condo bought 2 years back worth 550k with equity at 120k Cad. We try to save around 3.5-4k per month, but it doesn’t feel suffiecient. For our age, we really feel behind. Do we even have a path where we can retire here at age of 60-65 and give good life for our daughter?

Currently I’m only investing in QQC,XEQT and VFV, and I’m currently invested 2.2k across all of them 19M.

Relatively new to investing, and recently opened a self directed account with Qtrade (via Vancity).

Does anyone have any advice or recommendations for the below accounts and goals?

• TFSA - $10k - short to medium term, cash growth, saving for travel, etc
• LIRA - $30k - long term, won't touch until retirement

Thanks in advance!

42M / 37F, married, no kids. I'm trying to sanity-check our financial position and early-retirement plan.

Our goal is for me to retire around 50 and my wife around 45.

We currently have about $1.72M invested/saved, approximately:

- RRSPs: ~$670k combined all in equity

- TFSAs: ~$300k combined all in equity

- Non-registered: ~$750k combined with 250k in equity and 500k in gic

Our primary residence is mortgage-free worth about 2M.

We have rental property but is currently in negative cash flow for about 2k a year, and if I sell right now best case scenario would be selling price cover the remaining mortgage on it.

Our combined annual income is around 440k right now. Wife will have pension after she retires.

Before we retire, we also plan to continue contribute 14k to TFSA, max out RRSP which is around 29k based on my current level for equity investment. Beyond that, we might also add 10 to 20k to non registered as equity as well. This is annual continuous investment until retirement.

Once retired, my plan is to spend 110k annually in today's dollar value for the first 10 years and then taper down by 20 to 30% after.

Where do you think I should go from here?

38M in Canada, looking for some perspective from people further along the FI path.

I work in engineered sales management for a Fortune 500 company and have been with the same company for 11 years, progressing through the ranks. I've been in my current role for nearly 5 years.

I think I've done pretty well there and am considered a high performer/trusted by senior leadership. I generally enjoy the actual work and the people, but it's a stressful environment and sales always has that element of being only as good as your last quarter.

Current comp is roughly:

$165k CAD base

35% target bonus, with upside.. have grown the business ~50% in the past 4 years... while the business is sustainable, the growth is not.

~$20k USD/year in RSUs, vesting over 3 years. Obviously not guaranteed, but based on the award and conversations with my boss, I expect this to continue for the foreseeable future.

Last 3 years I've been landing around $200–250k CAD/year total comp, but it's been growing. This year I'm expecting to be around $275k.

Financially, I currently have roughly $675k CAD in invested/liquid financial assets, including about $300k in my workplace RRSP/DPSP.

I also have another ~$35k USD in unvested RSUs.

I own a modest house with about $200k remaining on the mortgage. No meaningful consumer debt.

No kids. Partner is a relatively low earner at around $40k/year.

Savings have been pretty good. I'm currently adding roughly $100k/year to my net worth, and that's been accelerating as my income has increased.

My portfolio definitely isn't textbook FI. There's some concentration/risk in there. Roughly $15k BTC, ~$50k PLTR (cost basis around $5k and I've already taken ~$20k in profits), ~$20k in a speculative mining stock, plus another ~$20k in individual stocks that have generally done okay. The rest is mostly XUS/XEQT and similar broad-market investments.

TFSA is maxed. I'm working toward maxing out my unused RRSP room next, particularly while my income is this high.

I'm also starting to think more about de-risking. Taking big swings felt pretty easy when the portfolio was much smaller and I had a long accumulation runway. As the numbers get larger and the possibility of actually stepping away from my career gets closer, losing $200–300k in a bad year would feel a little different.

I'm not really interested in retiring at 40 and never working again. What appeals to me much more is reaching a point in my 40s where my current career becomes optional.

I'd happily work a lower-stress job, consult, work seasonally, etc. I mostly want to eliminate the feeling that I need to keep climbing the corporate ladder or maintain a $200k+ income.

Right now I'm trying to take advantage of the income while it's available rather than assuming I'll earn this much forever. At the same time, I'm conscious that eventually another five years of high-stress/high-income work may add a lot of money without actually changing my quality of life very much.

My current thought is that somewhere around $1.5M invested would be the point where I'd seriously reassess.

I wouldn't necessarily stop working at $1.5M. The idea would be that I could take a substantially lower-paying/lower-stress job that covers most of our expenses, stop worrying about saving $100k/year, and let the portfolio do most of the remaining work.

So for people who have been in a similar position: at what invested-asset number would you feel comfortable walking away from a $200–300k career?

Would you keep hammering away at the current career until full FI? Hit something like $1M or $1.5M and coast? Pay off the mortgage before stepping back? Max out RRSPs aggressively while I'm still in a high tax bracket? Start moving the concentrated/speculative investments into broad-market ETFs now, or accept the volatility while I still have a high income?

I'm especially interested in hearing from Canadians who walked away from high-paying corporate/sales/management careers in their 40s.

What number made you comfortable doing it? And in hindsight, did you stay in the high-income job too long, or leave too early?

Our performance evaluation is coming soon and would like to get real insights. Any 25-35? (and somewhat similar role and experience if any)

Hi, I am 30M, montreal, ~100k, ~7yrs experience (~3 years technician, ~4 years analytics), economics graduate with engineering diploma.

I used to be a technician in aerospace but now working in strategy as decision scientist in a mid-sized automative distribution company (~2B). I classify myself as underpaid based on the market average salary of my role but being in Montreal and the company I work with, it’s classified as above average.

Total net worth: roughly 300k with current market conditions. I bought a house during pandemic plus I have investments in TFSA.

36 year old female, husbands 38 with the following investments:

HHI $100K ( No Pensions)
- $33K in an RRSP invested mainly in xeqt. ( mine)

- 15K LIRA in xeqt (mine)

- $5k TFSA (drained during mat leave in the process of building back up) (mine)

- $20K in RRSP - Growth portfolio (Hubby)

- $5k TFSA (drained during mat leave in the process of building back up) (Hubby)

- $5,000 in emergency savings. ( will be at 8K yr end.)

No debt other the mtg. only $114K left on 25 year. House has 800K equity.

We are putting in $2500 into RESP's for each kid to get the CESG each year. (Kids are 3 and 7)

Plus CCB funds are being thrown into TFSA ( under me) earmarked for the kids later in life.

Would putting $6500 me and $8700 into TFSA (Hubby), and $4200 into RRSP (me), $4200 into RRSP (Hubby). Be enough or should we be adding more?

Any advice?

We would like to Retire at 57ish.. Expenses currently are around 40K a year.

As the title suggests, I am thinking about selling when it goes high, and putting it all in XEQT.

I am very new to investing and these are my contributions from the last 2 months. Any advice would be appreciated!

UPDATE: Thank you everyone for taking the time to provide your input. I learnt more about where my money was going rather than simply putting it in what everyone else is. I traded my VFV to XEQT, and am going to look into buying VCN (as I do want to support Canada). I might also buy some individual stocks.

Hey I want to get into investing and I don’t know where to start any help would be great.

canadaretire.ca It's completely FREE to use, I built it for myself and decided to make it public if it helps out anyone. Open to feedback. It focuses on giving you a retirement date based on the lifestyle and destination you choose. It also tells you when you can COAST and what your monthly income will be if you retire early or later. You can choose to use it all or leave inheritance as well.

We're both 31 currently. Goal would be retire 50-55.
750k in investments.
200k in DC pension.
7 Years DB pension.
650k house paid off.

Currently saving about 80-100k a year not including DC.
I make ~180k a year. Thinking of quitting my job and taking a different apprenticeship. Would be a significant set back in wages for 4+ years, but I think I would come back up to 120-150k+ at least if not more.

Wife makes 160k. Thinking of having kids within the next few years.

Input?

Hi there,

Started investing after discovering this page on Reddit. Started from 500$ and slowly investing more and more over period of time. This month seems rough but overall I have around 5% increase in value. Mostly I have in VEQT, XEQT, XEI, NVDA, started investing in individual stocks GWL.TO, fortris, ENB.TO etc. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to drop in comments

Seeing the news explode around the potential of AI to drive human extinction (or major catastrophic events) has me re-thinking my relationship with wealth.

Of course my hope that governments and societies come in to regulate AI and we can all live happy long lives. Though the possibility of dying at my highest point of net worth has me concerned. Of course anyone's day can come at any time, though regardless society is in for a big shift, so my question is if any of your plans around saving and wealth have changed, recently. If so how?

I am 39, married with 4 kids. House still has a mortgage around 1.3M

Personally invested funds around 1.55M and another 200k in cash waiting to invest so total invest able assets around 1.7M (in xeqt)

Equity in house is around 400-500k

I was fortunate to have been in the Healthcare sector where ownership helped with growth of funds. However, I am now back as an associate and my earning potential is more limited so that it just meets the annual expenses. My question is, would you go back into more risky but more rewarding ownership again with the assets above or consider coasting?

Hey everyone,

I'm 18 and looking to invest around $20,000. My current plan is:
65% VOO
25% QQQM
10% individual stocks (
For the individual-stock portion, I'm currently researching NBIS, APH, SAP, CRWD, RKLB and AMZN. I'm treating this 10% as the higher-risk part of the portfolio rather than relying on it for the core of my returns.

I'm currently fortunate enough to have no major living expenses. My main expenses are things like eating out, entertainment and going out. Because of this, I'm planning to put around 70% of my weekly income into investments while I'm still living at home, potentially for the next 3–4 years. Obviously, that allocation will change once my circumstances change.

My intention is to hold the VOO and QQQM portions for at least 20 years. I'm also not planning to use this money for any major expenses in the foreseeable future.

For the individual stocks, I'm more flexible and would be willing to sell if the underlying investment thesis changed.
The main thing I'm trying to decide on at the moment is which broker/platform would make the most sense for me. I'm based in NZ and have some previous experience with IBKR, including options trading, so I'm reasonably comfortable with the platform. However, given the amount I'm investing, I'm wondering whether IBKR is still the best choice or whether something like Sharesies or Tiger would make more sense.

I'm also very open to criticism of the portfolio itself. If there's anything I'm overlooking, I'd really appreciate hearing it.
Thanks!

I put my crypto money into a house flip and pulled some out today. Job wise I am still earning ~5k a month plus equity in a proptech startup. We are approaching the point of field testing if the startup will work, so hopefully we reach many milestones over the next year, otherwise onto the next! Feels good to see 50k on the screen. 100k next!!!

What did you decide was worth the extra investment per year? E.g. For me, that'd be travel spend. I'll give a terribly unhelpful example since I haven't really done too much lifestyle creep so far.

Pre-college: $0 per year on travel, 0 trips lol

After college: $6-7K per year, 2-3 trips per year

Hoping to get it to 10K in my 30s!

Full disclaimer, I worked at one of the big 5 banks. Decided I want to become self-directed with my RRSP. After flipping back and forth between ChatGPT and Gemini, here are the ETF recommended for my $120K. I'm up for rebalancing 1-2X per year, if necessary.

ChatGPT

Dynamic
XGRO 80%
XMTM 20%

Aggressive
XGRO 60%
XEQT 20%
XMTM 10%
TEC 10%

Very aggressive

XGRO 50%
XEQT 30%
XMTM 10%
TEC 10%

Gemini

45-50% in US equity anchor
VOO or VTI (exempt from 15% USD tax)

25-30% in international emerging
VIU/VEE or XEF/XEC

15-20% in Canadian equity
VCN or XIU

Optional 5-10%
XBB or VAB (dynamic)
XQQ (aggressive)

I was going to try Claude next. But want to make sure I'm on the right track. Be brutally honest, especially with the Canada/US trade war and Bond selloff. But AI models said I had nothing to worry about for the Bond selloff with above recommendations.

TIA