Canadian Dream: Free at 45 One Canadian's dream to retire at 45. Topics include: early retirement, investing, savings, spending, and happiness.

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The Costs of the Second Kid
2008-02-20 13:28:13
Well Mike over at Quest for Four Pillars is also expected their second child just the same as me so I thought I would share a few of our ideas on saving money when the second little one is on their way.  The follow is a list of ideas in no particular order. Remember all that [...] ...

Book Review: How to Survive Without a Salary
2008-02-19 13:25:36
Perhaps I should start this review with a little explanation. I’ve been doing a little research into alternative lifestyles lately to see what little parts of how people handle things could be useful to me on my own journey. Now what is an alternative lifestyle? Well that is a little hard to define [...] ...

Get Love and Give Love
2008-02-15 15:31:25
So I got a nice surprise at work yesterday to show I’m loved.  I’m getting a bonus cheque for about $1500.  Now normally I can have this applied directly to my RRSP account, but this year I’m not.  Why?  Because I’m getting the money at the end of March.  Not so useful for a tax [...] ...
Love 

It Cost Me How Much for that Square Foot?
2008-02-14 13:37:56
Long time readers might recall I did a post a while back on how much house do you really need. Well I have been thinking how much does it really cost to have a few extra square feet. So I started digging into costs. First off I realized how building prices vary heavily depending [...] ...

Alternative Power Generation - Part II
2008-02-13 13:27:47
Alright in our last post we covered most of the familiar alternatives to produce power. Now let’s have a look at some of other ideas out there. Nuclear Power Pro - No carbon dioxide emitted directly by the process. Con - Well beyond the obvious waste storage problem, you also have to worry about having the plant [...] ...
Generation  Power 

Five Ideas on Dealing with Fear of Retirement
2008-02-12 13:17:57
Perhaps one of the most difficult emotions to face when you are on the edge of retirement is fear.  With an early retirement you are literally changing how you live on a very fundamental level (ie: living off your assets instead of generating more).  So all sorts of questions come up: will my investments earn [...] ...
Fear  Retirement 

Financial Independence One Bill At a Time
2008-02-11 14:14:35
I was reading over at Early Retirement Extreme a post about breaking down financial independence into smaller parts (I can’t find the exact post I was reading yesterday so if anyone knows please send me a link). Basically you take your saving to date and divide it by 25 and that is how much [...] ...
Financial  Independence  Time 

The New Mercenary
2008-02-08 13:51:33
I’ve been noticing a new tread in the attitudes with the younger people I work with which mirrors my own.  I notice we have a new generation of mercenary employees.  They are out there for themselves and don’t have much loyalty to their companies.  Yet what is truly different about this group from previous mercenaries [...] ...

Behind the Blog
2008-02-07 13:53:47
So it occurs to me despite everyone learning a little bit about me from my various post I really never really given you a good idea of who the hell am I and how these posts come together. So let’s pull back the curtain and show you a little bit behind the show. This [...] ...
Blog 

Wow, Another 26%
2008-02-06 13:44:45
So I was reading the news yesterday and came across this article where they are predicting another 26% rise in house prices in Saskatchewan this year. What got me freaked out about this is if they are even remotely correct, I should hit double point in my house value at some point this summer from [...] ...
Wow 

Breaking the Endless Upgrade Cycle
2008-02-05 13:47:30
Alright I admit it. I used to be obsessive about technology toys. In my younger days I wanted the fastest computer and the coolest new gadget. At one point I would have been already buying a Blu-ray player and getting the next generation DVD’s. Now I just don’t care. Why? Simple, [...] ...

A Crazy Retirement Assumption
2008-02-04 13:26:25
It occurs to me while planning retirement, we all make a serious simplification while we make our plans. Almost everyone assumes you will never make another dollar from something other than your investments again while in retirement. Is it just me or is that perhaps just a little stupid? After all if you sell [...] ...
Retirement 

RRSP’s Winner
2008-02-01 13:49:44
Ok, I slept in this morning, so this is going to be a VERY short post. The winner of the copy of Preet Banerjee’s new book RRSP’s is Brian (comment #32). Congratulations and I’ll be in contact shortly to get your mailing address. Have a great weekend everyone! Tim If you liked that post, then try [...] ...
Winner 

MoneySense is Making Sense
2008-01-31 13:18:52
I was very happy to get my latest issue of MoneySense magazine (Feb/March 2008) yesterday because of one article in the back which showed what retires were really replacing from their working income while in retirement in Canada. It was found the number was around 45 to 55% (they published a wonderful table of [...] ...
Sense 

The Wonderful World of Cloth Diapers
2008-01-30 14:16:57
Well I’m surprised by the amount of debate that came up yesterday about which diapers to use.  It has got so bad it’s leaked over to MoneyGardener’s blog.  Yet I noticed expect for Lise, no one wanted to know about why we are leaving cloth diapers at all when it is a more environmentally friendly [...] ...
Diapers 

When Does Quality of Life Matter More than Being Frugal?
2008-01-29 13:36:17
My wife and I have been having an interesting discussion in the last few days. You see we have been using cloth diapers for our son most of the time for the last three years. Now we have started toilet training him we have noticed his old cloth diapers are falling apart which [...] ...
Life 

I’m Weak I Tell You! Weak!
2008-01-28 13:30:45
Well despite all my good intents otherwise I broke down and changed my investing plan last week. The reason was fairly simple. I got a raise and between that and the recent tax breaks I really don’t need as much of our saving for my wife’s maternity leave than I originally thought. So I’m [...] ...

Book Review: RRSP’s
2008-01-25 13:29:23
Well I recently had the pleasure to read a review copy of RRSP’s by Preet Banerjee who also writes the blog Where Does All My Money Go. Overall I have to say it is a very complete book of strategies that surround RRSP’s that is fairly easy to read due to Preet’s ability [...] ...
Book  Book Review  Review 

Alternative Power Generation 101 - Part I
2008-01-24 14:03:26
Alright, I normally don’t talk about just pure environment issues, but I’m in a bit of an odd position that I understand some of the challenges facing newer technologies in the market place from a combination of research and various life experiences. So here is a short guide to alternative sources and their issues. [...] ...
Generation  Power 

A No Tax Retirement?
2008-01-23 13:48:30
It occurs to me that perhaps every one is going about their retirement planning in the wrong way.  You see I’ve been looking at factors around retirement to determine which ones are really significant.  Like what happens to your plan when your rate of return on your investments is only 6% when you planned for [...] ...
Retirement  Tax 

Put Chicken Little Back on the Shelf
2008-01-22 13:48:57
Every article I’ve read yesterday about the market drop all seem to say”The sky is falling!” I’ve read that Chicken Little story a few too many times to my three year old, so don’t mind me as I’ll just put it back on the shelf. If you don’t believe me let’s run down [...] ...
Chicken 

Should you Retire If the Market is Dropping?
2008-01-21 13:21:39
I had a brief but fascinating discussion this weekend with someone who is planning on retiring in the next year.  The point was the person was actually considering pushing off his retirement by an extra year due to the market down turn last week.  I don’t know his exact exposure to the market, but I [...] ...
Market  Retire 

What Trip Wire? Or an Update on My Mortgage
2008-01-18 13:51:43
A while back I mentioned my mortgage might prove to be a small problem to my retirement plan. Oh has that ever changed. By merely doing a lump some payment last year and changing my payments to every two weeks instead of twice a month I’m now only going to have under $10,000 [...] ...
Mortgage  Trip 

What is Left Unsaid
2008-01-17 15:16:29
I read a post over at Thicken My Wallet about money being the last taboo. I sort of agree with the post, but what I really got thinking about after reading that was all those things in our lives we leave unsaid. You see I don’t say everything I should some days. In some cases I [...] ...

RBC Action Direct Rant
2008-01-16 13:47:23
Ok I normally don’t rant too much, but this has got me so pissed off. I started investing my wife’s and mine taxable accounts with RBC Action Direct because they didn’t have any maintenance fees at the time. I knew the trading fees where not cheap, but in an effort to keep everything [...] ...
Action 

Investing In a SideWays Market
2008-01-15 13:52:08
With the market going sideways I’ve decided to alter some investments to establish some cash positions. I won’t be selling anything, but I am going to stop buying anything for a while and adding my contributions to a money market fund instead. For those of you wondering why let me show you a five year [...] ...
Investing  Market 

What’s Next? The Quest for Balance
2008-01-14 13:46:31
So after spending the last few years overhauling my finances you would think I would hit a point where I consider everything done. I could say “So what’s next? I’m done my list.” Yet I’ve found this isn’t the case. Personal finance is one of those very interesting things to study and apply in [...] ...
Balance  Quest 

Update on Our Savings Goal for Maternity/Parental Leave
2008-01-11 13:50:57
I felt it was time I updated you all on my previous posts about saving for our maternity and parental leaves in the spring.  We are currently only missing just over $2200 of our savings goal. We plan to finish this difference mostly from a third paycheque I get in Feb ( I get paid every [...] ...
Parental 

What People Really Need
2008-01-10 13:35:34
During my usual lunch hour reading I came across a post by Trent over at The Simple Dollar. It was a letter from a reader, which I will quote here: “I do NOT overspend. I work with a monthly budget, live very carefully and frugally, etc. It’s the debt, and the underearning. I am working [...] ...

Sick Leave: The Other Vacation Time?
2008-01-09 13:53:23
Ok, this idea has been burning a hole in the back of my mind.  I was talking to a person who is retiring shortly and he had accumulated about 300 days of sick leave at his job over a long career of being healthy and going to work most days.   Yet in the end he [...] ...
Time  Vacation