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Jenkl posted:No, there really isn't. Ask away. I can tell you now I'm going to ask you what exactly are the needs you're trying to fill (what worry do you think the insurance will make go away?) It’s really our mortgage. I don’t want my partner to lose our home if I can’t work/die. Several years ago when I got the insurance I was our only income, now he’s also working but I earn 2x what he does and he would only be able to cover expenses other than the mortgage. I had extended health and disability insurance that I’ve cancelled now that I have some coverage through work again. What I still have: Term life - 275k 20-year term Critical illness - 100k - if I never claim it, I get the premiums “back” when I turn 65 and coverage ends (I think this will be about 50k that I’ll have paid them over 35 years, obviously they’re not giving me any interest or inflation adjustment here) My RRSP+TFSA would take a big chunk out of the mortgage if I died and my partner applied the funds to it. I have no idea how those would be taxed before getting to him - they would cover maybe 5-6 years of mortgage payments? kaom fucked around with this message at 23:13 on Sep 13, 2023 |
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Sep 13, 2023 23:03
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kaom posted:It’s really our mortgage. I don’t want my partner to lose our home if I can’t work/die. Several years ago when I got the insurance I was our only income, now he’s also working but I earn 2x what he does and he would only be able to cover expenses other than the mortgage. Good post. We can work with this. A term life policy is the cheapest and most direct way to fill your need - cover the mortgage if you die. Is 275k enough to do so? Is 20 years about the term remaining? Is it within your budget? If so I'd be ok with that (assuming you are using a broker that is shopping around, or, direct issuer, you're probably getting close to the best deal you could. If they are a captive, I would shop around). There are technically options you could pursue that might reduce your total cost, but they add additional risks. For example, if you were extremely confident you are and will remain healthy, two 10-year term policies (buying the second 10 years after the first) will be cheaper. Unless you turn out not to be healthier. Womp womp. There are also some alternate options with flexible term length and face amount, but they have their own costs associated. Worth getting a quote if available and you're shopping, but I wouldn't go out of my way, especially if your current amount and term are about right. Your CI policy has a return of premium (ROP) feature, and explains why they said it has cash value. The cash value comes from the fact that the day before they have to pay you back that ~$50K, it's basically worth $50K. It goes down the further away, but is never zero. ROP's on CI are pretty common and I hate them. They exist since they drive sales as the first or second most common complaint about these things is paying for something that never happens. It also means it costs more than a non-ROP option. Literally, you just get charged more, and they save the difference to have it available to return to you. On average they get the timing and amounts right to offset plus a profit, and are happy. As a general rule, if you took the lower premium non-ROP option, and invested the difference between it and the higher with-ROP premium, you'd come out ahead at 65. I can't tell if CI is fitting a need for you - are you worried about the expenses associated with some illness? Typically, disability insurance covers inability to work, both short-term and long-term policies are out there (and it sounds like in your work benefits). Use that to decide if $100k is enough, if you even need it. FWIW - I have $50K of CI through work, no ROP premium. $50K is the maximum I could get without underwriting. I looked at the list of illnesses and felt I had sufficiently higher than average risk for a few of the illnesses to warrant taking that on. I don't have any general concerns about expenses in a critical illness scenario, so I had no desire to look into higher amounts or being underwritten. Last random though - because group insurance typically has a simplified payment structure (e.g., one premium for every employee), insurance for a healthy person is typically going to be cheaper outside of your work - something worth considering if you are electing particularly high coverage amounts.
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Sep 14, 2023 00:08
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I'm very curious what needs the CI is intended to fill, I work in critical care and it seems well understood that people with medical coverage, even just MSP, don't really have to pay anything if they get extremely sick and require ICU etc. Is the CI supposed to cover missed wages for people who are self employed?
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Sep 14, 2023 04:25
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It isn't for medical payments, it's for everything else that you can't pay for because you're no longer working.
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Sep 14, 2023 04:50
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It might be very particular to my experience, but with CI I was specifically thinking about “what if I need treatment that I can’t get at home” because I’ve seen that happen to two families now, one where one of the parents had to leave for weeks at a time for specialized care, and another where a child was diagnosed with cancer while visiting family in another province and not cleared to fly home. You don’t need to spend the money on treatment, so it can go to things like those travel costs for yourself and for your family to see you. I’m still not sure if I need it. It’s not offered through work, and what I have is not cheap. I have to think about this more. Jenkl posted:Last random though - because group insurance typically has a simplified payment structure (e.g., one premium for every employee), insurance for a healthy person is typically going to be cheaper outside of your work - something worth considering if you are electing particularly high coverage amounts. Thank you so much for this post. It doesn’t sound like I got suckered into a total lemon, so I think I can complete a more holistic look at everything when my work coverage is due for renewal later this year. My employer gives us a budget to put toward various options, and I think any surplus goes into a healthcare spending account - I should probably explore whether I’d be better off taking the cash and using it for personal coverage outside work. I already meet an exclusion for a medical device to the tune of 2k every 2 years because there’s a cheaper version insurance and MSP both consider “good enough” for my condition so I have to pay out of pocket for the difference in quality of life. 
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Sep 14, 2023 05:41
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Sounds like you're on the right track. Just think through the need, the experiences youre worried about, and if your usual emergency fund might not be enough for them, at least until the disability insurance kicks in. Oh, and I really can't stress enough how much more expensive the ROP piece is making it. Not exaggerating to say it is in the neighbourhood of twice the cost. Could be more or less, case by case, insurer to insurer.
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Sep 15, 2023 02:24
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If there a reasonable ETF that has something like a tsx index minus banks and financials. I have fallen pretty far off of my allocations and should pick up some more Canadian assets, but so much of the major indexes are financial companies and that honestly feels like a lot of systemic risk to be sinking a bunch of money into. It feels like there's a shoe waiting to drop with them pushing loan amortizations way out to avoid forcing people to go into arrears.
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Sep 20, 2023 10:17
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T.C. posted:If there a reasonable ETF that has something like a tsx index minus banks and financials. I have fallen pretty far off of my allocations and should pick up some more Canadian assets, but so much of the major indexes are financial companies and that honestly feels like a lot of systemic risk to be sinking a bunch of money into. It feels like there's a shoe waiting to drop with them pushing loan amortizations way out to avoid forcing people to go into arrears. why would you want canadian investments
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Sep 20, 2023 10:42
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Toalpaz posted:why would you want canadian investments
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Sep 20, 2023 12:05
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I'm only slightly less incredulous than my colleagues here, but more specifically, why do you want more Canadian exposure, but then also want to exclude a major component of the Canadian economy? Kind of sounds like you don't want more Canadian exposure.
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Sep 20, 2023 13:05
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Instead of buying a Canada index, short Canadian banks. If that sounds too risky, I guess now you know a limit to your conviction! Something market irrational something solvent. I have a hard time imagining a Canadian bank going down without a hefty investor bailout. But nobody compliments me on my imagination anymore so I’m probably missing something.
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Sep 20, 2023 13:49
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Technically yes you can short the stocks but with interest rates the way they are atm it’s probably not a good long term idea, so the situation isn’t quite the same. The reason to over weight in your local country is because it reduces risk in economies that have nothing to do with your spending situation, and completely eliminates currency risk. If you want to exclude financials then you should reconsider why you’re investing in Canada, it’s a huge part of the economy so by not investing in them you are choosing a strategy that is less correlated to the place you spend your money. Therefore, you would probably be better off by just keeping it simple and reducing your Canada allocation as a whole.
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Sep 21, 2023 19:40
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Opened a joint Motive account with Mrs. Slidebite, totally online and not super painful. Most PITA was needing to email them a statement from a CC/bill that shows your info and address as a proof of identity, and that wasn't a terribly awful thing. Their online help email seems to reply within 24 hours which in this day and age seems pretty good. Got debit card in the mail 3 days later (oddly, the default PIN was only 1# away from my existing pin  ) and getting ready to move some cash in for savings.
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Oct 19, 2023 22:19
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Doing the meme of getting a loan to pay off my loan(s) but I think it works out. I'm reducing my debt payments from 1216$ a month to 333$ a month for 2% more interest than my previous loan but still 6% less than what my credit card was (12% 3 year to 14% 5 year basically). The main thing is after 5 years in theory I end up paying an extra 4000$ in interest but by my math I should by april of next year have enough money saved up from not having to juggle payments to just pay off the loan. I've never did RRSP's or savings or any of that until now because I've been living kinda paycheck to pay check due to bad financial decisions, but how much as someone in my mid 30s should I be putting into the various savings accounts I should do; and which ones should I prioritize? I figure I want a war chest of around 6,000$ to buffer me in case I misjudge what my budget allows for a given money; but maybe I can get the ball rolling around December, where I should have 3,000$ in my checking account and not be any danger of sudden expences?
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Oct 21, 2023 01:52
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A guaranteed 14% return from paying down that debt early is gonna be hard to beat. I'd plough everything into the loan, other than keeping that buffer to cover any surprises. The only reason I can think of to open a registered account before the loan is done is if you're eligible for and interested in a FHSA. You could open it this year, contribute nothing, and that doubles your contribution room for 2024. Other than that there's no rush. There's some finer points about FHSA vs RRSP vs TFSA but the important part is to get in the habit of saving. As much as you can, really. I'm trying not to muck this post up with tons of details but by all means ask away, I just don't want to overload.
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Oct 21, 2023 02:51
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pokeyman posted:A guaranteed 14% return from paying down that debt early is gonna be hard to beat. I'd plough everything into the loan, other than keeping that buffer to cover any surprises. I don't think I've heard of a FHSA, the TFSA is the thing Turbotax says I could contribute like 35,000$ to but never do right? edit: Aha, yeah I think I qualify for a FHSA as I only rent an apartment, I don't own it. Is the idea I can lower my taxes by putting money into that as long as that money is used to buy a home? Raenir Salazar fucked around with this message at 03:05 on Oct 21, 2023 |
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Oct 21, 2023 02:58
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Raenir Salazar posted:I don't think I've heard of a FHSA, the TFSA is the thing Turbotax says I could contribute like 35,000$ to but never do right? TurboTax is probably telling you about either RRSP or TFSA. RRSP room goes up by some fraction of your income each year. TFSA goes up by a set amount for everyone each year. FHSA and RRSP work with pre-tax money. Whatever you put in now you get the tax back, then when you go to withdraw you pay tax then. If your tax rate later (e.g. in retirement) is lower than now (e.g. when you're working), you win. TFSA is after-tax money. You put money in now, but since you've already paid tax on it you pay nothing at withdrawal. If your tax rate later is higher than it is now, you win. If your tax rate is exactly the same now and at withdrawal time, and you contribute your RRSP deduction, there's no difference between RRSP and TFSA. You may already know this, but it wasn't obvious to me so just in case: the point of all of these accounts is that they're containers for something that generates a return. Typically people invest in stocks or bonds, or hold GICs, or keep cash in high-yield savings account. So it's not so much "yay I've opened a TFSA" as "I'd like to invest in some stocks so I have money to retire on in 30 years, and I'm gonna do that in a TFSA so I don't pay any tax on the gains".
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Oct 21, 2023 03:18
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Oh, forgot to answer your question about FHSA. Yep that's the idea, you can save up tax-free (just like an RRSP) and withdraw tax-free (unlike an RRSP) to buy a home. If you don't buy a home, you can transfer the FHSA contents into an RRSP without it counting towards your RRSP contribution room.
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Oct 21, 2023 03:24
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Raenir Salazar posted:Doing the meme of getting a loan to pay off my loan(s) but I think it works out. I'm reducing my debt payments from 1216$ a month to 333$ a month for 2% more interest than my previous loan but still 6% less than what my credit card was (12% 3 year to 14% 5 year basically). You rent. Do you have a family? If you didn't have the buffer, could you still borrow money? I think some kind of buffer makes sense when you have a family and mortgage payments and an emergency would be really awful, but for you maybe you'd just be paying effectively 14% on that emergency fund. I guess just imagine the worst case scenario and what would happen if you didn't have money in that situation.
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Oct 21, 2023 03:53
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Thanks for the explanations, to be clear I was thinking like, a couple hundred dollars each month divided into the different savings accounts to get them going. Which I think isn't going to make a big difference on when I pay off the loan, neither does keeping a couple grand in my checking account for Sudden Groceries. I thinks its maybe a difference of a few months? If I were to wait until 1 year before paying off the loan that's 800$ in interest, and I'm pretty sure either way I can get it paid before a year which is probably like 400-600$ by then. I think in the grand scheme of things it isn't the worst thing to go about this cautiously (keeping a slowly accumulating buffer where I can still buy Nice Things like MTG cards), getting the different savings accounts started and putting small amounts in them, while gradually saving up to pay off the loan? Although I notice my bank (BMO) seems to have an offer about a savings account where I get bonus interest if I keep putting a certain amount of money into it? I'll have to look into it sometime around December.
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Oct 21, 2023 15:53
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There's also a table at https://www.highinterestsavings.ca/chart/ with the non-big banks' savings accounts, you can sort by rate if you like. In terms of pay off loans asap versus splitting between loans and savings, I haven't actually done the math but my guess is you're right that it's not a big difference at the end of the day. I would go with whichever you're more likely to stick with. If the idea of seeing "loan balance: $0" is exciting, go for it. If you're eager to get started with savings, split 'em up and get 'er done.
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Oct 21, 2023 19:51
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Hey congrats on putting together a plan to save and pay down debt, that’s awesome you’re going to be able to do it so quickly!  pokeyman posted:I would go with whichever you're more likely to stick with. This is my vote too. The only thing not mentioned is I’d also check if your employer does any kind of contribution matching, just in case there’s free money available there to help with your savings.
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Oct 21, 2023 20:51
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Boy, the government and/or banks really make it hard to set up RESPs for anyone but your own kids. The parent has to be there in the room to sign the paperwork at the same time as the account owner, which can be sort of annoying to arrange! I get that there are tax consequences for over-contribution across all accounts registered for a given beneficiary, but they could just send the parents a yearly statement to help them avoid the awful problem of having more than $50K in a kid’s RESP total. We wanted to set up RESPs for our niblings but instead we’re just writing annual cheques to the parents and leaving them to do the work. Luckily I trust our siblings to actually put the money into RESPs—I hope that continues to be the case!
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Oct 21, 2023 22:20
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pokeyman posted:There's also a table at https://www.highinterestsavings.ca/chart/ with the non-big banks' savings accounts, you can sort by rate if you like. kaom posted:Hey congrats on putting together a plan to save and pay down debt, that’s awesome you’re going to be able to do it so quickly! Yup, I feel safer trying to maintain a buffer, and also lets me impulse spend on Nice Things(tm) every so often. The main thing was I was doing the math the other day as I was getting annoyed struggling every month and according to my spreadsheet I should be on paper accumulating money but I'm not, so between that and deciding to track my expenses with an excel spreadsheet to get things under control I thought about "Wait a second, can I fix this with a loan?" and reducing my debt payments by a large amount should help a ALOT towards fixing my finances. I just have to not overspend on my credit card (again) and make sure I quickly pay off anything like subscriptions as I get billed and I should be pretty good to living a debt free life within the next 6 months or so. FINALLY I CAN DO THINGS!!! Raenir Salazar fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Oct 21, 2023 |
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Oct 21, 2023 23:30
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I just got a pile of TFSA NORs that reversed a bunch of overcontribution penalties that came out of CRA disputing my Canadian resident status a decade ago. I didn’t do anything to trigger it, and my accountant says he didn’t do anything after we reached the (embittering) compromise with CRA, so…it Just Happened?
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Oct 25, 2023 20:07
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Never look a gift-CRA-agent in the mouth.
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Oct 25, 2023 20:40
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Yeah I’m a little worried they will re-re-consider it at some point, but I guess that would be harder for them to just arbitrarily do.
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Oct 25, 2023 20:58
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Has anyone here ever collected CPP survivor benefits as I’m about to start and I don’t really understand collecting CPP at all.
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Nov 2, 2023 02:08
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Is there anywhere I can find credible reviews/recommendations for cross-border accounting? I'm going to have to file US & Canadian taxes next spring and don't think I can manage it myself. Google shows no shortage of options but most have either very few or hundreds of obviously fake reviews.
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Nov 5, 2023 17:17
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For the few years I was working in the US and living/also working in Canada I used https://can-ustax.com . They’re based out of Ottawa and seemed to do a great job figuring out how to manage both returns to optimize things. I can’t give a detailed review because I don’t have any point of comparison, but they met my standards for quality, responsiveness, and legitimacy. I work and live exclusively in Canada now so I just do my own taxes now. It’s much easier.
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Nov 7, 2023 02:39
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Mint is shutting down December 31st and I'm bummed. I gave YNAB a go, but I don't think it's suitable for me. I'm not working on paying off debt and my savings contributions are automated. I just need to track my spending against a monthly budget for groceries, coffee shops, business expenses etc. Does anyone know any Canadian-friendly alternatives?
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Nov 24, 2023 04:33
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I'm about to start tracking expenses using a plain ol' spreadsheet, if that helps!
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Nov 24, 2023 04:54
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Yeast Confection posted:Mint is shutting down December 31st and I'm bummed. If retrospective information is fine(not up to date every transaction), my advice is to bite the bullet and use a google sheet/excel to slowly set something up that fits your needs. I used to use YNAB to track my spending a few years ago. Now I have a google sheet setup that I just download the excel statement from various credit cards, copy and paste the debit fields and description fields into the sheet, there is a cell next to each item with a drop-down menu to pick which category each payment is for (groceries, alcohol, cell phone, monthly subs etc) and then a series of fields that populate with the totals for each category. Once a month, usually the first week of a new month, I go in and input the data for the previous month. It usually takes 20-30 minutes for a single month with 2-3 credit cards and a bank account.
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Nov 24, 2023 05:36
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pokeyman posted:I'm about to start tracking expenses using a plain ol' spreadsheet, if that helps! I just don’t know how to go about building one that accounts for spending and categorizing. Finding a tutorial for something like that is really hard,
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Nov 25, 2023 23:50
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Your bank offer you any rudimentary tools? I don’t see any personal utility in tracking expenses but Tangerine has things categorized for me if I wanted to see it.
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Nov 26, 2023 08:08
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virinvictus posted:I just don’t know how to go about building one that accounts for spending and categorizing. Finding a tutorial for something like that is really hard, It's as much or as little work as you want. Start by recording the transactions and assigning them to categories. You can figure out the rest as you go.
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Nov 26, 2023 18:13
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I'm looking around for a new software engineering job and boy there's not a lot out there right now. There's a almost no opportunities where I live in Vancouver, and a tiny few in Montreal. Sadly, remote seems to be becoming more rare and going away. Due to the lack of local and remote roles I've been applying everywhere and actually have a bit of traction with a place in Texas (sadly not remote). Haven't landed the job yet, and things could still fall apart, but it seems close enough to the possible end line that I should probably start to seriously evaluate whether moving there for a short period of time could make financial sense and the financial implications. The job market is that dire that I am considering this. I feel like I've read here some people with some experience working in the USA (Subjunctive?) so thought I'd post here that I'm curious if anyone here has experience with working in the USA and still having some ties in Canada and what this all means for taxes, TFSA, RRSP etc. Anything one has to do? A possible wrinkle here is that I do have some property in Vancouver and as a Housing Turbo Bull (lol) I'm a bit reluctant to sell it if I leave and I'd be curious about what happens if I hold onto it? Can I keep it as my "permanent residence" even if I'm living in the USA the whole time and renting it out? Or maybe better for tax reasons not to? I actually don't think housing is going to go up that much more, but I'd more holding onto it out of a paranoia that I'd be wrong. I have some family that sold out of Vancouver and went elsewhere and now can't come back because everything exploded out of their price range. If I want to ever retire here and guarantee I have some stable secure tenure, it means holding onto a toehold of property in Vancouver just in case house prices lurch upward again.
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Nov 26, 2023 19:47
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Last time I checked, Canada says you can keep your TFSA but you will not accrue contribution room while out of the country. The US does not recognize TFSAs as tax sheltered accounts. I solved this problem by having gently caress all left when I first left Canada. I still sent the CRA a letter to help them determine that I was no longer a resident, which they took their sweet time doing. If you own property that you intend to keep vacant and return to this may complicate things. Presumably you'll be sponsored for an H-1B visa and pretty soon qualify as a US resident for tax purposes, but if you're still earning Canadian income from TFSAs or property you will have a complicated tax situation and likely need to pay someone competent to help you file with the IRS and CRA. Note that US law is incredibly stupid and you will likely be considered a nonresident alien for some amount of time after you arrive and therefore have to give a Canadian permanent address to certain agencies. If you were to move tomorrow, for example, you would likely not meet the substantial presence test for being a US resident for this calendar year. Move January-June and it's less of a problem. *I'm not an expert on any of these things. I started off on a different visa and was considered a nonresident alien for tax purposes for two tax years. This was very disadvantageous because you can't file a joint federal return as a married couple as a nonresident-for-tax-purposes. Precambrian Video Games fucked around with this message at 20:36 on Nov 26, 2023 |
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Nov 26, 2023 20:32
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CRA has an interpretation bulletin on how they determine residency: https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-ag...nce-status.html If you are a resident, you have Canadian tax obligations on your worldwide income. But I think it means you still get to do things that come with residency like accrue TFSA room. You probably should consult immigration and tax professionals for planning purpose so you can make an informed decision on what to do.
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Nov 26, 2023 20:36
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Internet claims I can contribute to an RESP I don't own as a gift. If the RESP dissolves for whatever reason, does the gift go to the subscriber too or do I get it back? Also, the subscriber has to provide proof of the beneficiary's enrolment to withdraw, but is there any check that the funds are actually used to pay for school?
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Dec 7, 2023 17:44
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