Comments on: Quarterly Net Worth Update: Q3 2019

By: Court and Nic

Court and Nic — Mon, 14 Oct 2019 21:01:19 +0000

In reply to Max @ Max Out of Pocket. Thanks for the note Max and happy to share. I hope the move to Canada does on out for you in the future! We are VERY happy with our decision. Makes sense for you to wait until you can lock in your wife’s US citizenship first. The USD/CAD exchange rate is definitely working on our favour :) and yes this market/economy has me a bit worried, especially since we’re planning to withdraw from our portfolio very soon!

By: Max @ Max Out of Pocket

Max @ Max Out of Pocket — Sun, 13 Oct 2019 22:53:04 +0000

Thanks for sharing. My wife is Canadian and one (of our many) long term plans is to move to Canada at some point. She is currently applying for US citizenship to make sure we lock that in for the long term. As of now, all of our assets are in USD but we may end up with a split portfolio like this at some point in time. It will be nice to bounce ideas! I am moving more and more into cash as well!

Max

By: Court and Nic

Court and Nic — Tue, 01 Oct 2019 09:47:28 +0000

In reply to Elise @ Financial Fitness Fanatic. Thanks Elise, we’re inching there slowly! I feel like a market correction is headed our way too, but who knows! Time will only tell. And here’s hoping our cannabis stocks take off :) thanks for tuning in!

By: Court and Nic

Court and Nic — Mon, 30 Sep 2019 19:26:16 +0000

In reply to Angela @ Tread Lightly Retire Early. Yes, exactly! Trying to be as fiscally conservative as possible! And if all else fails I’ll ref at the rink a few times a month

By: Elise @ Financial Fitness Fanatic

Elise @ Financial Fitness Fanatic — Mon, 30 Sep 2019 19:23:28 +0000

You are getting so close! We also have more cash on hand than typical right now, but this is largely because we want to be prepared to invest heavily just *in case* the market takes a downturn. However, we did purchase a few cannabis stocks just for fun as well with the same thought you had. Looking forward to seeing how they do!

By: Angela @ Tread Lightly Retire Early

Angela @ Tread Lightly Retire Early — Mon, 30 Sep 2019 02:44:26 +0000

I would definitely have just as heavy a cash position as you do that close to retirement. Definitely the way to hedge against sequence of returns risk (and the risk of needing to keep working when you’d otherwise hit your number).

By: Court and Nic

Court and Nic — Thu, 26 Sep 2019 17:35:40 +0000

In reply to Kim @ The Frugal Engineers. Yep, you are correct - the mortgage that we have in place does not allow for a full lump sum payment to kill off the mortgage completely. We can pay $37k/year towards a lump sum so we will be doing that to get it paid off by 2021. And yes, 1.5 years is definitely going to fly by! Especially with my new work schedule

By: Kim @ The Frugal Engineers

Kim @ The Frugal Engineers — Thu, 26 Sep 2019 17:30:32 +0000

Is there any reason to hold the 87k in cash for 1.5 years instead of paying off the mortgage now? Is it one of those things in Canada where you’re only allowed to pre-pay X amount a year?

I like how you laid all this out with the numbers 🙂 1.5 years is gonna FLY by!

By: Court and Nic

Court and Nic — Thu, 26 Sep 2019 14:48:10 +0000

In reply to Chris @ Mindful Explorer.

Hey Chris,

Thanks for the comment.

Agreed, with the way the world is shaping up I do not want to be heavy in natural resource companies for the long term.

As for the TFSA, because I am a dual US/Canadian citizen I don’t get the full tax advantages of the TFSA and RRSP as the US does not recognize these as tax advantaged accounts. So unfortunately for little ole me, maxing out my TFSA doesn’t provide as great a benefit as Canadians who are not dual US citizens.

As for the high interest savings account, we do have one open already. It’s with Motive in their Savvy Saver account which is earning 2.8% which is pretty nice! A large majority of our Canadian cash is in that not our TD accounts which hardly earn anything.

And lastly, yea we plan to be mainly in VTSAX in the long term. We will have 80+% of our assets in there in the long term as we slowly sell our other funds first. Many of the other funds make up a super small percentage of our portfolio (1% or less) and are just for fun.

By: Chris @ Mindful Explorer

Chris @ Mindful Explorer — Thu, 26 Sep 2019 14:38:56 +0000

I agree on not going too heavy on VCN as it is extremely weighted on natural resource companies and in a climate change era this is a bit volatile. I am curious on why so much in CAD taxable when the CAD TFSA is not maxed? As for the cash is it possible to put it into a high interest savings account? In Canada right now ScotiaBank has a special savings account called the Momentum Plus which is paying up to 3% on new accounts. (https://www.scotiabank.com/ca/en/personal/bank-accounts/savings-accounts/momentum-plus-savings-account.html) Keep up the hard work and rocking on your plan with my only other suggestion to be to streamline all those different funds into 1-3 max. I like what JL Collins wrote on the subject as well as MMM, I hold 3 myself which are XAW ZAG and VCN.