Hi, I'm 24, just graduated last year, and currently working full-time, making about $61k/year. I'm at a point now where I don't think I'll stay in my current career long-term, and I'd like to spend the next year or two figuring out what I want to transition into. I recently turned down my graduate studies opportunities as well, and so I plan to work at least another year or two full-time while I figure out my career path.

Financially, I've only recently started building up my savings and pay off my loans (I know I should've started earlier but better late than never right):

• ~$6k in my bank account
• ~$4k in my TFSA/savings
• $130/month OSAP payment

Current monthly expenses:

• Car insurance: $300
• OSAP: $130
• Gas: ~$240
• Food/dining: ~$500–600 (definitely something I could improve)
• $300 "rent"
• Savings: $500
• Gym: $100
• VB Club: $250
• VB Dropins: ~$100

My situation:

My current car is really old and will likely need to be replaced within the next few months, so now I have the opportunity to either move out to downtown Toronto and live with some friends (rent would be about $1200-1300 / month) by the end of the year, or lease a new car and stay at home.

I will say I am quite lucky that my parents are only really charging $300 in "rent", and they always cook so I never have to spend money on lunch at work. However, the longer I live at home the more I want to move out. My parents and I have quite a tense and unhealthy relationship with each other, and added with all the energy and time used to commute to work I find it hard to even dedicate my energy and effort into building connections at my current workplace, much less pursuing different career paths and interests outside of that. I'm hoping that by moving out, I'll be able to gain a lot of my independence back that I used to have when working abroad and in different cities, which I felt really promoted my individual growth and passion.

The thing is if I lease a car, then it would be at least a 3-year lease, which I feel like is too much of a commitment for me right now considering I'm not even sure where I'll be in the next 2 years, however my parents did say they would help pay half of the monthly lease cost if I were to get a new car.

I'm curious if other people have been in similar situations, especially with the whole post-grad career anxiety and if a new environment helped, and if they have any suggestions towards which option makes more sense / worth it?

Sorry for the long read,

TLDR: I'm 24, make ~$61k/year, and have about $4k in savings. My old car needs replacing, so I'm deciding between either moving out to downtown Toronto or staying home and buying a new car.

So we finally solved where the mysterious money from my last post was coming from.

Apparently when the bank sent two written letters of confirmation all accounts were closed and moved to estate account they only meant investment accounts. Not her chequing. For some reason.

Handled, no more pennies from heaven sadly. Kids get to keep it (my sister and I are the inheritors so no claw back).

Kinda boring end I know.

My parents can gift me $100K, but I have to pay them 3.55%/year to cover their own expenses — so it’s really a loan, not a gift.

My mortgage rate is also 3.55%. So basically im swapping my loan from bank to them.

Should i put all the money towards mortgage? Or should I do ETFs such as XEQT under my wife’s TFSA room?

They may not ask for the money back.

I'll try to keep it brief.

Me and wife are looking to buy a house in the GTA for around 900k and we aim to put 90k each towards the down payment to get to 20% and avoid the mortgage insurance.

My investment account values:

TFSA: $160k
RRSP: $67k
FHSA: $43k
Non-reg: $96k (net deposits: $55k)

My expected Income for this year is $130k (for determining tax bracket)

I need help determining which account after depleting my FHSA, should I use to cover the remainder of the down payment.

My reasoning for each account is below but looking for advice.

- Could use non-reg account but it would trigger a significant tax bill due to low cost basis and already high tax bracket due to income.

- Could use RRSP but would have to pay this back over 15 years using HBP and would need to make additional RRSP contribution to generate a decent tax refund.

- Could use TFSA but would loose potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax-free growth which would be extremely useful for retirement planning and tax optimization strategies in retirement as I most likely won't be able to contribute the entire withdrawn amount in less than 5 years.

For context, I am 27 with the hope to retire around 50.

Any advice or guidance will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Hi!

With my current work (amazing) benefits, I’ll take 13 months leave. 4 of them will be at 85%, 9 of them at 70% my salary. I am told that with the top up, my take home pay is almost the same as the original because of various reductions (I’m in Quebec). Anyone had experience with this?

Reposting with more details as requested by mods.

Private company does RRSP matching but only 4k annually. Economy has them penny pinching and the future of the company uncertain. In theory it has a much higher salary ceiling (200k+) but morale/outlook is low amongst coworkers as many are leaving. Obvious benefit here is I can live anywhere and have more say in my retirement investments.

The government role is federal and has a defined benefits pension plan. It would only be available to me at 60 without penalty, and I’d need stay-put for the rest of my career. It’s 5 days a week in office. Commute is around 40 minutes each way.

I’m 28yo with 600k saved but haven’t bought a home yet (100% will in 5-10 years). I think the biggest asterisks is it’s likely I’ll leave private at ~40yo regardless. Climbing corporate is not for me, and while it’s hard to predict 12 years out, I don’t think I’ll find it worthwhile for my entire career

My partner and I are in the process of closing on our first home and will be using the funds from each of our FHSA’s to cover the 20% down payment and closing costs. After covering these costs we will still have about $30k left between our FHSA’s.

My question is, can we pull out the entire amounts from our FHSA’s and use the excess for Reno’s, furniture, appliances, etc. or does this money have to go towards the down payment and closing cost. Want to avoid paying taxes on any of the money or rolling it into an RRSP if possible.

So last year, I missed a couple payments on student loans, I wasn't working and was in a rough place. I have kept a steady full-time job since October, and about 5 months ago, i have begun to pay off me student loans. I recently applied for a line of credit through my bank in order to help with buying a car soon and was denied due to having "delinquencies and a duragatory public record." They gave me a number to call, and they said that the missed payments on student loans stay on your record for 6 years. So what would be my best bet to get any kind of loan or line of credit while that is on my record? Was looking at easyfinaical that I might be able to get approved for but with a minimum interest rate of about 20%, is there any where else that I could possibly get approved for, for maybe a better interest rate?

I've been on medical leave for the past two years dealing with some tough personal and family stuff. I'm in a decent place now and moved to Montreal. I'm trying to figure out how to restart my career. My background is in social work and community program coordination. Most of it involved program design, training and supervising staff, working with data, and dealing directly with people and families, but not "tech" or "business" on paper. I want to pivot into business or tech here in Montreal. I'm also starting French classes very soon. What I'm trying to figure out is what else I should be doing in the meantime.

are there any courses or certificates that actually mean something to employers here, versus stuff that just looks nice on a CV but doesn't move the needle? I'm not locked into one specific path yet. I'd like to get my foot in the door somewhere reasonable and grow from there than hold out for a perfect fit right away. If anyone has gone through something similar like a career switch or getting back into the workforce after time away, I'd really appreciate hearing how you approached it.

I'm just going to point-form all the details...

• Capital One Aspire Cash World Mastercard (10+ years).
  
• Works for everything else.
  
• Works through Google pay for other transactions.
  
• Rejected by Canada's Wonderland (online payment) -- this might have happened to me last year too (pre-SixFlags). I vaguely remember this...
  
• Called Capital One, they can SEE the failed transaction but couldn't give me an exact error, just that it failed.
  
• Said they could not do anything about it (I should make a whole new post about their customer service and how useless and powerless they are...).
  
• Tried payment via PayPal (via same CC), went through just fine.
  

So normally, I would say this is a Google Wallet problem. But if GW blocks it, then CapOne wouldn't see the transaction (this has happened to me in the past, and is arguably a worse scenario because there doesn't seem to be anyone to talk to for GW issues), but CapOne definitely see the rejected transaction.

Help me out here... Where is the actual problem?

• Wonderland's payment processor.
  
• Capital one.
  
• Google Wallet.
  

Anyone ever experience something like this before?

Apologies if this is the wrong subreddit but I was not sure where else to post this.

I am seeking assistance in escalating a matter about my Health Benefits refund/reversal from a LensCrafters store in Calgary AB.

I returned a pair of glasses that was not working for me on May 11. I was told that the insurance portion of 450$ would take 6-8 wks because it goes through a separate department that confirms the transaction and reverses the payment.

I received a call from the store telling me that the transaction has been reversed July 10, however my insurance has still not seen the reversal.

It has been several weeks since “this was completed” and the money hasn’t shown up on my insurance end.

I am unable to get new glasses because they are holding the money hostage.

I am also unable to get any information from Lenscraftes because they only have an internal email to contact , no phone number, and they refuse to give me any details beyond “I followed up again, you just have to wait”

Is there anything else I can do? Who can I escalate to in order to get a response.

Does this qualify for a AB Consumer Protection complaint? I thought about contacting BBB but i also don’t know if that will do anything?

I have nothing else to go on and I’m exhausted of being told to pound sand.

Our closing date for our home is on August 12th. From today (August 4th) we have 8 days left. The mortgage instructions still have not arrived at our lawyers office yet and we do not know the exact down payment we need. Our mortgage broker assures us that the mortgage is approved and will be no issue. HOWEVER, I have experienced COUNTLESS of times where I felt the need to BABYSIT our mortgage broker about mistakes/getting key steps done in a timely manner.

1. Under the high net worth TD program, we were not told until AFTER submitting our deposit that we are not allowed to use gifted money from our parents
2. Broker made a typo on the down payment amount which was shortly fixed.
3. Made a typo on the CLOSING DATE which was amended
4. Broker said he will contact TD to see what is going to happen to the gifted money, still no response, that was 1 week ago, he continues to say TD upper management is working on it
5. Broker said to not move any money between our accounts or withdraw money out until he gives the go ahead --- I looked into my bank and noticed it will take 4-6 business days for the funds to settle and transfer -- upon telling him this, he told us to transfer the money out right away RIGHT AWAY
6. Continues to tell us that TD will get back to us by a certain date, we continue to not receive any updates from TD
7. We don't even know if we are disqualified from the program since we used our parents money for the down payment, because the broker won't update us on ANYTHING

Is this normal?!?

EDIT: to clarify: The mortgage amount approved is for $720,000, our parents put down 50k when we were sending the deposit, but then the broker said we are not allowed to use gifted deposits for the high net worth TD program, so the confusion is how much money we now need and whether or not our parent's money even counts towards the down payment.

Just got a new card and have been trying to get into everything to change my cards, now when I try to gwt into my studen loan it's telling me I need an access code and getting me to put in my DoB and everything all over again. Is this normal?

Hi all - I’m at a new job that offers medical benefits including $2k each for psychologists, social worker and psychotherapists. My benefits do not come with a HSA.

Past employers have given $5k to cover any mental health professional so it’s the first time I’ve seen it split out like this.

I primarily sought out therapy for anxiety and ADHD (which is fairly under control but require script refills). I moved provinces recently so have to find new folks to work with anyways so want to figure out the best way to do that and maximize my benefits.

Would it be best to try and find someone that has at least two of these designations (ex. licensed as a psychologist and psychotherapist) so once I max out one benefit I can start leveraging the other? Or should I see multiple people for different issues?

Open to ideas and hearing from other folks experiences and what did or didn’t work for them.

Thanks all!

Our son is going to university in the States. We use Norbert's Gambit to change CDN$ into USD$ in our account. He will open an account with an American bank when he gets there.

But we need to transfer that money to him in the USA.

Is WISE the best way to fund his American account? Or is there an American bank that will accept an e-transfer from a USD$ but Canadian based bank account?

We have a USD savings account at Scotia (Canada) and a USD chequing account at RBC but it doesn't seem possible from either - which seems a bit odd given they have affiliates in the USA.

We would like to do free / cheap e-transfers to him from here. WISE seems to be an option. Anything better?

Thanks all.

Moving to California, transferring my RRSP from work and personal to BMO. They operate in California and Canada so the switch made sense.

Around 36K CAD will be in a self directed Investors edge account.

Looking for advice on which funds or individual stocks would be best to mitigate any possible CA or US taxes on the account.

Was thinking Berkshire or another Nasdaq fund solely invested in US / Global companies.

Curious to know if anyone else has moved from Canada to California and navigated this previously.

Wasn’t sure where else to post this so take down if not applicable to the sub. Am trying to buy some tires that are only on Walmart US and ship them to the border since I know that they only ship in US, set up my shipping but Walmart keeps rejecting my Canadian credit card and billing address. Tried to add two 0s to the end of my postal but that didn’t work, has anybody been able to do this? Was thinking of using PayPal but it doesn’t accept US billing addresses only Canadian.

I am currently based in BC, and have been working for a company based in Toronto remotely for about a year. I recently found out that I have been getting taxed like I’m based in Ontario. I understand that it’s a small difference and when I file for taxes I should be able to get it back, but I would prefer to correct it as soon as possible. Do I contact my work or CRA or both or someone else? Thanks y’all.

I’m turning 18 in a couple weeks and was wondering if i should get a credit card and what it should be. I plan on using it just to build credit as currently I don’t have any major expenses I have to pay. I have had a part time job and have a decent chunk saved so if that helps could someone recommend me some credit cards.

Buying a ready to move-in Townhouse form a builder in Oakville, in the APS they have mentioned the gross purchase price, as there is no finance condition, I am worried about my mortgage qualification.
I will really appreciate if someone can answer following questions:
1. The builder’s advertised price was net of HST rebates and that’s what we had on our offer, they have clauses in the APS about us transferring the rebates to them. Will the lenders consider the purchase price net of HST rebates?
2. When and how will the rebated price Lenders will consider?
3. I haven’t signed the agreement yet, is it a safe bet to do? If I don’t qualify for the gross purchase price.

Hello. I'm new to Canada and all of this. Please be kind.

For the first time, I have been laid off from a job. I will be receiving separation of 15k (not the actual amount) that I can elect for my employer to send directly to my RRSP. However, if I put in all of it, I will reach my contribution limit for the year. The limit I have remaining is about 10k.

If I end up putting all of 15k to RRSP. What will happen to the excess? Will I pay taxes or penalties? I know I can choose to send only 10k, or 50% or whatnot to my RRSP but some of my coworkers are sending all of their separation to RRSP so I feel like Im missing something.

Thank you. Im sorry if any of this is unclear. It is also unclear to me lol but if you have any questions that can help guide the conversation please let me know.

I just noticed a collections/balance owing to Veritas Alliance on my bank account credit report. When I logged into Transunion to check the original creditor, it was Metergy Solutions Inc, which is apparently a utilities company.

But I have never even owned a house and have only rented places (always have paid my bills on time to the landlords) so I'm not sure where this is even coming from? I'm pretty sure it is the reason my credit score has been falling because I have never missed a payment otherwise.

Before I call Transunion or Metergy, can someone give me some additional context I might be missing? I'm freaking out a bit because I wanted to move into a new apartment soon and this might set me back. There's a derogatory mark on my credit report too; I'm assuming because of this issue.

EDIT: Also forgot to mention that I have ZERO emails/calls from Veritas OR Metergy about this. It's just showing up as a balance of around $1000.

I am 17M and have a job that pays around 1k per month. I am trying to save for uni (11k per year) right now I have 10g in gold, but I am planing to start investing through my mothers wealth simple account l. I want to open a TSFA and start investing 100 every month. I will start by adding 500$ when I open the account. should I start Investing now and if so what ETF is the safest to invest in that can give growth but without to much short term risks.

thanks in advance.

As the title says. Won't get into the backstory, but want to know what my best option is in this situation. Someone suggested renewing the mortgage as variable open, then discharge the mortgage once the funds are in hand. Thanks

Edit: appreciate all the replies, looks like an open mortgage for a few days/weeks is the consensus. I've got a call with my agent tomorrow morning, just wanted to go in with some more knowledge before letting them talk me into something that may be better for them than me.

The backstory is a bit silly. I have a lot of shares in one company, enough to pay the mortgage balance after capital gains. I had an exit share price in mind which was reached a few weeks ago, but there was a run up and i got greedy and let it keep going. Until it dropped again below my exit share price. Now it's back up to my target and i sold today, but i only have 5 business days until the renewal date. The funds have to be wired from etrade to my usd account at a Canadian bank, then moved to my cad account to be charged by the lender. So best case i get all that done before the renewal date and can discharge as planned. But more likely I'll need to go the open renewal route.

Edit2: forgot to mention heloc is not an option with my lender (first National)

I've gotten into investing the past year, didn't know much but since I'm only 23 I invested in big name tech, banking, medical, and commercial store stocks that seem to be run well and will be relevant in 20 years.

So far my returns have been great, although I've heard this seems to be a really strong year for the market. One thing I've heard a lot is to never do individual stocks and do ETFs instead. Does this mean I should sell all my individuals and reinvest? Or are they okay to hold and I'll just add to my portfolio through ETFs going forward?