r/fican

Road to 10k .Started with the last $300 I had 😭

I made it my mission to become financially literate and independent over the last few years. No plans to buy real estate so this is my nest egg. On the road to $1M hopefully soon!

Shout out to Wealthsimple & XEQT for making it so simple.

I grew up in a low middle-class family. We definitely weren't poor but also didn't have a lot of money. I never learned financial literacy until I picked it up on my own in my mid-twenties. I've always wanted to "do better" and be successful, and when I look at these numbers I think it's a lot, but I somehow feel stressed about money all the time and like I'm so behind on life.

Leaving my 100k/year corporate job to work on my own business and myself for a year. Got tired of the grind, being underappreciated and working stupid hours to make others rich. Burnt out last spring and have been struggling to convince myself that I'm ok financially and made the right call. Didn't have much of a choice tbh...

Putting the house up for sale soon and thinking of either buying a duplex to live & rent out or keep costs low and simply rent for a while and see how things develop this year. I have approx another 200k in assets. I've tried a few online COAST calculators and the numbers are very subjective. It's hard to foresee how much I'll be spending in my 60's you know.

Has anyone else here at some point just needed to get away from the rat race for a while or for good? How'd it workout for you?

Tips ?

Hey guys I’m new to investing and would like some advice on what I should do and what to buy. Also really need help on how to buy it because I’m not sure if I just buy multiple of one stock or whatever the case may be lol and maybe the amount I should put into each just to start. I have $2000 that I’ve been saving up and I want to put that into investments. I am also in school, live at home and work part time making around $1250 so I’m not making a lot but I am ok with putting even half of it towards investing. The only reason I have BRK. B is because a friend said to get it. Sorry if I’m rambling lol

I opened this tfsa this year & am very new to investing. I’ve been learning a little but still feel like maybe I’m doing something wrong. Do these look okay?
I do have another tfsa - managed, that I first opened after I became a FT (full time) employee at my job beginning of last year.
Any feedback or advice is appreciated.

Hi guys! I am working as a warehouse associate, I earn like 1400 biweekly.

I have already started to put 100 to TFSA with VGRO.

I don’t earn that much to be able to put aside money for savings since I pay bills.

I want to learn how to treat my money wisely and possible things I can do to earn money with investments or something.

I would really appreciate if you guys can give tips or share where you learned about these stuffs.

Thank youu!

I’m 22, turning 23 soon, and have some experience with short turn around single stock investing for a few thousand dollars profit when i was 18 or 19 but after an inheritance I’ve decided to start my long term growth.

I maxed out my TFSA yesterday at 40700$≈ with a 100% take in XEQT. I’m wondering what my next steps are, where do I put money next, do I diversify? My satisfaction comes from seeing the number get bigger and understand that putting more money into it is the best way to grow it, but I am still a student in college till August of 2028. I have two 4 month work periods during those times one starting in january of 2027, and january 2028. During that time I will be saving roughly 40%-50% of my income to contribute to my accounts.

I do want to know which account I should open next (RRSP or FHSA). If possible I should fill my TFSA every january? What kind of growth can I actually expect? What kind of things can I do to improve? Really any sort of guidance is appreciated, and helps me in an area I hope to improve in.

i realized now i was just lucky and i havent performed better than zeqt. worse actually, i have 150k less compared to last year

also i picked zeqt purely since it had the lowest fees. i wonder if that makes sense at all or if i should have put more thought into it. the differences between veqt, xeqt, cage, etc are convoluted so i just picked blindly based on fees in a rush since i figured i should commit asap before i use the spare cash for a new "genius" investment

24M. Mostly posting this for some perspective/closure from people who have made a similar mistake.

Back in October 2025 my portfolio peaked around $42k. A lot of it was crypto, I was up quite a good amount from my original investment and I didn’t take profits, set sell limits, or rebalance. Then crypto got destroyed and now, almost a year later, I’m sitting around $20.6k.

It’s been messing with me mentally because I keep thinking about what I could’ve had if I had just taken profits. I know hindsight is easy and staring at the old peak does nothing for me, but I still feel like an idiot for letting it happen.

At this point I’m done trying to outperform the market. I make about $2,000 biweekly after tax, and my plan is to move everything into XEQT and contribute around $1,100–$1,500/month going forward.

Realistically, I think that’s part of what appeals to me about just using an index fund too. I wouldn’t constantly be thinking about when I’m supposed to “take profit.” I’d just keep contributing consistently, and ideally put even more in when the market is down instead of trying to guess tops and bottoms.

I’m still only 24, so I know I have time, but it’s hard not to feel behind when I’m basically back to half of where I was, especially with how other people my age are probably doing much better but I know comparing like that can be unhealthy mentally.

For anyone who has been through something similar, how did you stop obsessing over what your portfolio “could have been” and just move forward?

33M here. I’m fairly new to investing and Canadian personal finance, and I’d really appreciate some honest feedback from people who have been doing this longer than I have.

I became a Canadian resident in October 2024. When I first arrived, I honestly had very little understanding of how things like TFSA, RRSP, FHSA, contribution room, tax deductions, etc. worked. I also didn’t realize that I needed to actually open an FHSA to start accumulating contribution room, so I missed out on that during my first year.

I’m self-employed and get paid in USD. I’ve mostly been using Wise to convert USD to CAD because the exchange rates have been pretty good and the transfers are basically instant.

My financial situation

From 2025 until now, I’ve made roughly $53K USD from my work. My income varies, but I currently make around $3.5K–$5K USD/month.

My expenses have been extremely low until now. I’ve been spending roughly $1,300 CAD/month:

• ~$350 rent for a room
• ~$300 groceries (I mostly cook at home) and i make sure to order online to take advantage of promo codes and points and everything.
• Car insurance, phone, gym, etc.
• The remaining ~$400 is basically discretionary spending, Some gas, movies, eating out, shoes, etc. I have an embarrassing number of shoes at this point

I also paid my car (2014 Accent) in full, around $5K. And i don't move around alot with it especially in summer, i got an electric bike and e scooter which helps me a lot.

Because my expenses were so low, I was able to save roughly $45K CAD / $32K USD over the past couple of years.

I have no debt. I have one RBC credit card, which I pay in full every statement.

What I was doing with the money

For the longest time, most of my savings were just sitting in my bank account doing nothing.

Then about a week ago, I started seriously looking into Canadian personal finance. I spent a lot of time learning about TFSA, RRSP, FHSA, tax deductions, government benefits, investing, and how these accounts can be used toward long-term goals like buying a house.

Honestly, it was pretty overwhelming at first, especially coming to Canada without knowing how any of this worked.

I’m also Muslim, so I’m trying to keep my investments Shariah-compliant. For example, Wise offers around 3.4% interest on USD balances, but earning interest isn't something I’m comfortable with, so I didn't use that option.

After doing a lot of research (mostly with GPT), I decided to open a Wealthsimple account and start investing in halal/Shariah-compliant ETFs.

What I've done so far

The plan that GPT gave me:

TFSA: (21k room)

• 70% SPUS
• 20% SPWO
• 10% GLDM

FHSA: (8k)

• Same allocation as TFSA

RRSP: (~4.5k)

• 100% SPUS

I also turned off interest and stock lending where applicable.

I’ve basically maxed out the contribution room I currently have in these accounts, while carefully tracking the CAD equivalent of my USD contributions so I don't accidentally go over my contribution limits.

I also recently closed my CAD RBC chequing account because I was paying the $12.95 monthly fee. I now use Wealthsimple for most of my day-to-day banking and have automatic payments set up for my RBC credit card.

One complication is USD transfers. Wealthsimple doesn't currently allow me to directly connect my Wise USD account because the Wise USD account is based in the US rather than Canada. So I opened a USD account with RBC to make moving the money around easier. Hopefully Wealthsimple/Wise integration improves in the future.

My current cash position

After investing, I still have around $23K CAD sitting in cash/checking.

I'm getting married soon (about 3 months from now), so my expenses are going to increase significantly over the next few months. I expect my monthly expenses could reach around $3.5K CAD/month once rent, living expenses, etc. are included.

Because of that, I was advised to keep the $20K as an emergency/safety fund rather than investing some of it in an non registered. At roughly $3.5K/month in expected expenses, that's around 5–6 months of expenses.

My income is currently around $3.5K–$5K USD/month, so assuming my income remains reasonably stable, I should still have some money left over each month to continue investing.

My long-term goal

My main financial goal is to eventually buy a house.

I'm thinking roughly 10 years as a timeline, and ideally I'd like to buy it without a mortgage. I really don't like the idea of being in debt, so my current goal is to build enough wealth over the next decade that I can hopefully buy a home mostly or completely in cash.

I know that might not be the most financially optimal approach compared with using a halal mortgage/Murabaha and investing the difference, but avoiding debt is personally very important to me.

So, what do you think?

I’m basically trying to figure out whether I’ve made reasonable decisions so far or if there are things I’m overlooking.

Did I invest too much too quickly?

Is keeping ~$23K in cash reasonable given my upcoming marriage and expected ~$3.5K/month expenses?

Does my TFSA/FHSA/RRSP allocation make sense for a 10+ year horizon?

Is there anything I should be doing differently with my USD income, especially when converting to CAD and contributing to registered accounts?

And more generally, if you were in my position, what would you be looking at or doing differently?

I’m interested in hearing from people who understand Canadian personal finance and can point out mistakes, blind spots, or things I should learn about.

I know I’m still very new to all of this, so I'd genuinely appreciate the criticism.

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TL;DR: 33M, became a Canadian resident in 2024 and knew basically nothing about Canadian investing/taxes. I’m self-employed, make $3.5k–$5k USD/month, have no debt, and managed to save about $45k CAD because my expenses were very low ($1.2k/month).

I recently learned about TFSA/RRSP/FHSA and started investing in what I believe are halal ETFs:

TFSA: 70% SPUS / 20% SPWO / 10% GLDM

FHSA: same

RRSP: 100% SPUS

I’ve used most of my available contribution room and still have ~$23k CAD in cash. I’m getting married soon, so I expect my expenses to increase to around $3.5k/month, which is why I’m keeping the cash as an emergency fund.

Long term, I’d like to buy a house in ~10 years, ideally without a mortgage.

Am I approaching this reasonably, or did I invest too much too quickly? Anything I’m overlooking as a self-employed person earning USD in Canada?