r/PersonalFinanceCanada

I recently received $200,000 in compensation due to a workplace incident. I’ve never been given any amount of money in my life. Other than maxing out my TFSA, how should I invest this money?

I knew I was taking a financial hit when I decided to take 15 months off and my husband was going to take the first 13 weeks with me. Being first time parents, going through the first 3 months together was amazing. He's back at work now and I think I would have been quite overwhelmed without him, especially the first several weeks.

For fun, I calculated how much gross pay my maternity leave will cost me.... $87,669!!! I almost passed out. This also doesn't include the pension I need to pay back when I return to work, which I expect will be around $8000. I guess I knew it would be a lot but actually seeing the number is making me second guess everything. Our gross household income is approximately $185,000. My husband can pay all the bills and groceries on his salary, but there's not any leftover to save for renos, extra money on the mortgage or investing. We have a $12,000 emergency fund. In addition, I saved $10,000 to cover my car payment, insurance and anything else that isn't a bill/groceries. My husband has his own savings.

My first goal once I get back to work is to invest in my TFSA. I had over 35000, but used the money for my share of the down payment. Part of me thinks I should go back to work at the 12 month mark (if I can even get daycare..) and work towards that goal. In the same breath, I'm really looking forward to spending next summer with our daughter. She will be able to walk, eat, be in the sun and have a personality haha!

While pregnant, I always said that money comes and goes but our daughter will only be this age once... but now I'm second guessing... What would you do in my situation?

Context: I’m 25m with $24,400 left of TFsA contribution room.

Wealthsimple is offering me a portfolio line of credit of up to $6000 at 0% for 6 months. After the 180 days the standard rate of 4.45% ensues. If I take this 6k and just park it into indexes forever while paying the loan off within a year, what are my downsides besides standard market risk? Seems too good to be true. What am I missing? What would you do? (Yes the index would be XEQT)

So I bought a new vehicle (2025 jeep) and financed it over 8 years and after sitting on it for 9 months, I realized it’s a huge financial mistake for the long-term (I’m 27)

I still owe a substantial amount and know a trade-in wouldn’t give anything close to fair value at this point ..

(I do have a good paying job but this move was totally unnecessary on my part)

Can anyone offer some advice or insight here?

hello! i am 19 and my immediate family has been on or below the poverty line for my entire life and generations before that. i am now on my own, i have a decent job with good insurance, working 30-40 hours per week at a little over $20 an hour. i am currently living with my boyfriend’s family (not necessarily by choice, my mom recently moved to another country) and i do not pay rent, nor do i have a car.

i went through some difficult financial hardship at the beginning of this year before i moved into my boyfriend’s, so i only have about 5k in my savings. i haven’t been able to get a credit card, but i have credit building through koho, and my equifax credit score is 715. i have no debt. i bank with tangerine, and i track every cent i spend.

now that i have a decent job and very limited financial obligations, i’d really like to take this opportunity to be as smart as possible with my money. i haven’t really been taught what to do regarding finances, but i don’t want to spend the rest of my life struggling or in debt.

here are my questions:

1. should i focus on saving, or investing? what is the smartest thing to do with my leftover money?

2. what even IS investing? how do i do it?

3. what percentage of my income should i be saving every month? since i’ve moved in with my boyfriend, i’ve been able to keep about 40%, should i be saving more? i still pay a decent amount for my phone, medication, and therapy, but i fear i also buy a lot of stuff that i don’t need

4. i just have a savings and a chequing account. is there a different account that i should be putting my savings into, something that would give me higher interest?

5. should i get a credit card? is that necessary, and how do i go about being smart with it?

if you are only able to answer one or two questions, or even have advice that i haven’t mentioned, please do! i greatly appreciate any help, thank you :)

I’m 20 in school, my school loans are my only debt. I’ve had this credit card for nearly 2 years now and always pay the balance off in full. I have a 40% utilization ratio only because I put all spending on the card for cash back benefits.

I just got an offer for a $1500 limit increase which would immediately put my utilization down to 23% because my monthly spending wouldn’t change (probably go down now that summer is over, if anything).

I know there’s risks if you’re an over-spender and see yourself struggling to pay it back or you’re applying for a new loan soon. Neither of these apply to me, so should I just take it or am I missing something else?

Edit: childfree couple, forever

Everywhere I read, reverse mortgages are described as predatory, awful deals etc.

But what is the alternative?

I’m planning for retirement, I’ll have enough money invested, I’ll have cpp, oas, etc. This isn’t a “poor senior desperately needs cash”.

This is a “if I can count on an extra x dollars that I pull out of my house equity, this affects my retirement planning and I can retire earlier”.

“Just sell the house and downsize” I don’t want to leave my house. I spent decades making it perfect for us. I want to die in my house.

So what’s the alternative? Between getting 55% of the equity out and getting 0% of the equity out, 55 sounds better no?

I just don’t understand what else I’m supposed to do aside from a reverse mortgage.

Hey everyone,

I'm 27F living in BC and have started investing more seriously during the past year, in which I was able to max out my TFSA (Arrived in Canada only in 2023 so my room is only $27,500). I also opened my FHSA in 2024, and I have accumulated room from 2025 so I already have 16K invested there this year.

My question is: Since my income is on the lower end (about 50K), and I don't think it'll improve much in the next years (maybe up to 70k,80k hopefully), should I defer some of my FHSA contribution?

What would you do next if you were in my shoes? I set aside about 2k to invest monthly. I'm wondering if the next step would be to open a non-registered account or investing in RRSP, but since I wouldn't take much benefit from the RRSP tax deduction now and I would probably be taxed on a higher bracket in the future, I'm not sure what do do.

Thanks in advance for all the help!

Hey everyone, hoping to get some advice here. I’m 29, working in Canada right now, and I’ve already maxed out my TFSA for the year. I have some extra money I want to invest but I’m honestly stuck on where it should go next.

Here’s the thing, my situation is a little different from the typical advice you see online. I’m planning to move back to my home country within the next five years, so I’m not going to retire in Canada. I’m also not planning to buy a house here, so FHSA doesn’t really make sense for me either.

So RRSP feels like it might not be the right move since it’s mostly built around long-term tax deferral for people who’ll be retiring in Canada. But I don’t know enough about how RRSP withdrawals work once you’re a non-resident, so maybe I’m wrong about that.

Basically I’m trying to figure out the most tax-efficient way to save/invest the rest of my money given that I won’t be here forever. Is a regular non-registered account really my only option at this point? Would love to hear from anyone who’s been in a similar situation or has dealt with the cross-border side of things once they left Canada.

Thanks in advance!

Back in April I received a review letter for my 2024/2025 Employment expenses as it relates to personal vehicle usage as a condition of employment. My employer provides me with a T2200, yearly. It states the accumulated (year) amount I was reimbursed for my mileage claims that I must submit each month, in order to be reimbursed for my use. It is NOT an allowance, and it’s not automatically sent to me. I have to keep a log and have it signed off at varying levels before I’m paid out. For 2024/2025 the reimbursement is anywhere between $.49-0.56 per KM.

I sent the CRA: logs, my insurance, licencing, repairs, & maintenance receipts. I sent my loan docs with my interest, gas receipts, etc. everything to show my workings.

Within a short period of time, they sent me back a letter stating they are NOT allowing my expenses. They cited I am in receipt of a non-taxable allowance that is REASONABLE. In review of the “reasonable” rate the CRA states on their website this is around $.70 per km, so I’m technically reimbursed below that rate.

I drive a minimum of 250km per month for employment, and I’ve driven as much as 600 km a month. I live in a small town and have a 12km round trip to work and back. In 8 years of owning my vehicle I’ve driven 98,000 km for personal and work. I’m driving an average of 3500 km yearly for work.

I’ve had the same job for 8 years as well. Bought my vehicle new, having paid $63k including my initial lease costs, then 5% interest on my $17,000 risidual at end of lease (vehicle had equity as I paid for 100,000km in depreciation, and used 40,000 km) just sold it for $15k and dropped it on a new one.

I feel like whoever did my review took one look at the 24 logs, 20 odd receipts abd said “not today” and if they actually looked close enough, I am not reasonably reimbursed, or does my T2200 say I receive an allowance.

I’m stumped! I work in government, in a health related field, and I’m one of 1200+ people who claim this yearly. It’s never been an issue, and none of my collegues had the issue either, some in my role 20+ years.

Do I file an objection, or is this a waste of time. I’m on the hook now for nearly $6000 in taxes. On top of the taxes my family already pays because I live in a crappy province where the provincial portion of tax is nearly on far with the federal amount we have to pay. I earn just shy of 6 figures.

Help and opinions are appreciated.

Curious about people's recent experiences using Chexy and Neobanc. Does it really work as advertised? Can you really pay any traditional chequing account bill with a credit card? How does scheduling work? I saw some posts about sometimes payments being late. I guess I have a couple of specific questions

1. Does either one provide a routing/account number you can use in the cases where you dont have a bill but have a PAD setup
2. How is your credit card charged? Can you control when it is to ensure funds are available when needed?
3. How are the charges categorized? I saw that they come through as recurring for some but not all. Is there any way of knowing? This only makes sense after all if your cashback is better than the fees you will pay.
4. I also saw you can pay credit card bills through them as well. Curious why anyone would do this? Unless your cashback on the bill payment is more than the fees it doesnt make sense

With today’s Rogers announcement, the 3% cashback (for rogers services) is going away. What’s the best Mastercard for Costco purchases now?

Curious what everyone is switching to.

I have a LOC with Tangerine from many years ago, I never used it at all but thought it's good to have it there for just in case. I signed up also because it was a prime or something like that, but now they put the rate at something ridiculous like Prime + 4 or whatever.

I noticed in my WS account I can have Portfolio LOC supposedly at 3.95% rate ... up to ~35% of portfolio - which given that I never had to use my LOC anyway, it would be enough room for me to have a "just in case" LOC.

Any downside? I think it's the same and still doesn't cost me anything to have it standing there?

Hey all,

I'm interested in changing up my credit card. For the past like 16 years I've been using the basic TD cash back card but I feel like I'm missing out on some perks.

I have a wealthsimple account that would wave the annual fee and get me the visa infinite + which offers 2% cash back on anything. I also do quite a bit of travelling so the no FX fees is attractive.

With that said, I'd also really like to have a card that I can collect air miles with for the same reasoning.

I have never been a big credit card guy and I honestly don't care to do my own deep research into them. I'm just wondering if anybody has some basic advice for me on this?

Ill likely cancel my TD card and go with the WS card but should I also pair this with another card that I can stack air miles with? I know people often have several cards but I can't imagine I'll be swapping cards for different purchases.

My partner and I are hoping to buy a property this year or next, so I'm looking for somewhere to park our down payment where it's safe and earning a decent return. Since we'll likely need the money within that timeframe, I'm not looking at investing it in stocks and mutal funds.

I've been comparing savings account offers and trying to make sense of what's actually best once you factor in promo periods and fine print.

So far I've found:

-BMO with what looks like one of the stronger Big 5 promo rates at 5%, and the promo runs for 120 days.

-Scotia also has a 5% promo, but it's only for 90 days

TD and some of the other Big 5 options looked lower from what I could find online

I haven't dug as deeply into the fintechs yet (Wealthsimple, EQ Bank, Tangerine, Simplii, Neo, etc.) all seem to get mentioned a lot on this sub, but their promo rates cant match Scotia or BMO.

For those of you who have been parking a house down payment or other short-term savings:

What's currently giving you the best return? Is a longer promo period (120 vs. 90 days) enough to sway your decision? Are there any fintech offers that are clearly better than the Big 5 right now? Do you chase promos or just stick with one institution for simplicity?

Would appreciate any advice from people who've gone through this recently. I feel like every bank has some kind of promo and it's hard to tell which one is actually the best deal once everything is taken into account.

Thank you!

Hi! I'm almost 30 and currently paying about $1800 in rent in downtown Calgary for a 1 bed. I am considering buying either an apartment style condo in inner city or a townhouse far from inner city. My budget is $260-270k ideally which should get me to $1900-$2000 with mortgage+condo fee+property taxes. This does not account for any unexpected expenses of the condo. My hope is to live in it for a few years and hopefully eventually upgrade once I have enough principal on it even if the property doesn’t appreciate significantly.

So far from what I have read and heard people always suggest going for a townhouse. However, I feel like if there are certain advantages of apartment style buildings in Calgary like underground parking (no snow cleaning), security and some amenities. Would love to hear thoughts of everyone who have purchased either of the two on a limited budget. The condo inventory is really high at the moment with much more supply than demand in Calgary. The search definitely feels very overwhelming.

Edit - sorry I should have been more specific about selling in a few years. I am looking at a 7-10 year time frame.

My mom and dad both 63. Both immigrated to Canada 23 years ago. My dad started working and contributing for 23 years in Canada and my mom only worked for last 10. My dad has been contributing to group RRSP plan with his employer.

Here is their situation:
- live in Waterloo Ontario
- house paid off, valued at $700k
- Dad’s RRSP $200k
- No other debt
- past year my mom took home $40k
- past year my dad took home $100k

Are they okay to retire?

One of the questions they have been asking was about medical expenses, specifically prescriptions they both take to manage their health. Do retirees have some sort of benefits or government plans for pharmaceuticals?

Thanks to all in advance

Just got a notice that I owe a substantial amount from 2022. I stupidly didn't file my taxes since 2020 but it's on my to do list for this week! If I pay the amount now and then the amount changes (as in reduces) when I file, will I get money back? Or do I wait to pay until I file? Thanks!