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

Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Visitors Out: Total Visitors Out: 18 2087 4155 4155

The Crossroads
2008-01-08 19:34:24
After considerable internal debate I want to run an idea past you all.  You see I’ve been posting five days a week for over a year now and I’ve come to an important conclusion: my writing sucks.  There isn’t any reason to sugar coat this, it really does suck some days.  This issue is my first draft of [...] ...
Crossroads 

The Other Way to Retire
2008-01-08 14:23:03
Ok after Colleen’s comment on yesterday’s post I can’t help but do a post on what happens to you when you do nothing to plan your retirement. Some people refer to this as the default retirement, I refer to it as the other way to retire. In Canada there is the general belief that we [...] ...
Retire 

What’s Good About the GST Cut?
2008-01-07 13:23:30
As of January 1 I’m supposed to start saving money as the GST has been dropped by 1%. Yet once I looked at our spending on what I actually get taxed on I realized it has to be one of the more useless tax cuts ever introduced in Canada for me. You see all my [...] ...

What’s the Point of Using Net Worth?
2008-01-04 13:57:21
I read a post just the other day by Brip Blap on whether a net worth was useful to calculate at all. Overall I have to agree with a few of his points, but generally the thing that stuck me the most was “knowing your net worth doesn’t tell you everything you need to [...] ...

What to do with that Raise?
2008-01-03 14:07:03
Well if you are like me you might have just gotten a raise that starts in the New Year.  So I’m currently debating what to do with that little extra on each pay cheque so it doesn’t disappear into my monthly spending.  Here are a few ideas along that line. After my first paycheque in the [...] ...

Net Worth Update - Dec 2007
2008-01-02 14:03:40
Here is my net worth from Dec 31, 2007 (yes just a little late I know). Assets House $308,000 RRSP $13,900 Old Work Pension (LIRA) $11,800 New Work Pension $5700 Wife’s RRSP $6100 Wife’s Investment Account $7400 My Investment Account $2800 High Interest Savings Account $5900 Debt Mortgage $143,700 Line of Credit $2900 Therefore my net worth now stands at $215,000 for the end of 2007. That [...] ...

Happy New Year
2008-01-01 14:54:49
Welcome everyone to 2008.  I wish you all the best in all your goals and I hope we all have a prosperous year ahead. I’m now back from vacation, so please be patient if you left a comment with a question or sent me  email.  I’m trying to dig out from the back log of being [...] ...
Happy New Year  New Year 

Sometimes I Think My Husband Is Totally Nuts (Or Maybe Not)
2007-12-31 13:30:11
 As promised here is the second guest post from my wife, this time she talks about our spending. Okay, I’m married to a personal finance blogger and I don’t actually want to kill him every time I go to buy something. But it wasn’t always this way. When we first got married, it took me a [...] ...
Husband  Maybe Not 

Interview with Trent from The Simple Dollar
2007-12-28 13:30:25
I have to admit I’m always a little amazed how when I ask a writer of big blog for an interview that they often say yes.  So continuing with this trend, I got a hold of Trent from The Simple Dollar (TSD) to answer a few questions. Tim:  Your blog recently hit the point where you could [...] ...
Dollar  Interview  Trent 

Interview with Mike from Quest for Four Pillars
2007-12-27 13:30:51
Today we continue to interview the writer’s behind Quest for Four Pillars.  Next up is Mike. Tim: Having started as a frequent commenter on other blogs.  What made you want to start a blog of your own? Mike: As much as I liked commenting on other blogs I was limited to the topics that other bloggers came [...] ...
Interview  Quest 

Interview with Mr. Cheap from Quest for Four Pillars
2007-12-26 13:30:19
Today we have another blogger interview.  This time we are looking at half of the dynamic duo wrote write the Quest for Four Pillars blog.  So with out further ado let’s talk with Mr. Cheap. Tim:  Ok, with a pen name of Mr. Cheap I have to ask since you have some of the lowest living [...] ...
Interview  Quest 

Christmas Bonus - Crossover Play
2007-12-25 13:30:54
Ok, I wasn’t planning on giving you a gift, but I’ve broke down and decided to release a little side tool I’ve developed while working on the retirement spreadsheet to predict when you become financially independent. The Excel file is listed below and called “Crossover Play” in honour of the cross over point from the book [...] ...
Christmas 

Interview with Financial Jungle
2007-12-24 13:30:22
Well folks welcome to another blogger interview series.  This week we got a good line up of personal finance bloggers including Mike and Mr. Cheap co-writers of Quest for Four Pillars, Trent from The Simple Dollar and the blogger behind Financial Jungle.  So without further delay let’s get stared with the Financial Jungle. Tim:  Thanks for [...] ...
Financial  Interview  Jungle 

Just How Wrong is the CPI for Me?
2007-12-21 13:18:51
I’ve always know there was something wrong with those inflation numbers from the government. Now after doing a little math I’ve come to understand why they don’t work for me. Mostly it has to do with the weights of each class of spending. The government when calculating the Consumer Price Index (CPI) [...] ...

Christmas Vacation Plan
2007-12-20 13:49:18
Yes it is the season for vacation again folks. The good news is with good old Wordpress here I’ve got a batch of draft posts ready to go for the time I’m off, so you will still get posts for most of the holidays.   Except for Christmas day where you should be spending [...] ...
Christmas  Vacation 

The Double Bridge Investment Plan
2007-12-19 14:09:42
I realized after reading the comments of yesterday’s post that I have yet to explain my investing goals so more often that not my investing behavior must be driving the average person crazy trying to figure out if there is a purpose to it all. For example, I like index funds, yet I also [...] ...
Bridge  Investment 

The RRSP Portfolio War
2007-12-18 13:55:20
A little over a year ago I changed my plan for how I was investing my RRSP portfolio. At first I was just in some managed mutual funds, but now I’m fully over to using just index funds (equally split with bonds, Canadian index, S&P 500 index, and an international index). My wife’s [...] ...
Portfolio  War 

The Dark Side
2007-12-17 13:45:34
Learning more about personal finance is usually put into the light of being a good thing, yet it does have some drawbacks. So let’s have a look at a few signs you’ve joined the dark side of personal finance. You may know more about your local tax laws than your accountant.  I discovered this one [...] ...

Next Round, Who’s In?
2007-12-14 13:46:13
It’s been a while since I’ve done a series of interviews on PF bloggers, so I’ve started putting out request emails to see who would be interested. So far this is the confirmed list of people to be interviewed: Mike from Quest for Four Pillars Financial Jungle Trent from The Simple Dollar I’ve got a few outstanding email requests to [...] ...

The Dangers of Comparsion
2007-12-13 14:02:04
Despite our wishes to all get along in universal peace, there are always going to be arguments about things. For example, people start comparing things and then get upset by the results. A classic case came to mind this morning when I noticed a post over a Million Dollar Journey comparing PF bloggers net worths. I [...] ...

What to Do When Your Husband Announces to the World That He Wants to Retire at 45
2007-12-12 13:23:44
Well after begging a few times my wife came through with not just one, but two guest posts. Here’s the first installment. I’ll be posting the second one over the holidays. If you have any questions for her please leave them in the comments as she does read this blog. So what exactly [...] ...
Husband  Retire 

Future or Today’s Dollars
2007-12-11 13:49:19
Perhaps one of the hardest things to wrap you head around when planning your retirement is should you do your math in future dollars or today’s dollars? At first I thought it was just a preference. After all working in future dollars for me has always felt a little wrong. I know [...] ...
Future 

The Basics of Free Heating
2007-12-10 13:42:33
I have a very particular requirement when I’m looking to buy a house that always drives my real estate agent a little nuts. I always buy a house with as many windows facing south as possible. I do this for one main reason only: solar heating. I love to use free, all [...] ...

Passive Income - Progress Update
2007-12-07 14:15:45
On yesterday’s post I had a question on why do I use net worth to define my goals and that got me thinking about my passive income in general and the fact I have yet to do an update from my first post where I discussed my thoughts on it. As you might have noticed from [...] ...
Income  Progress 

2008 Goals
2007-12-06 13:42:19
With the end of the year looming on the horizon I’ve been wondering what to set as some goals in 2008. I was thinking of keeping it simple and just coming up with a dollar value to increase my net worth by, yet I realized I have a problem. You see my wife will be taking [...] ...
Goals 

The New File System - Final Update
2007-12-05 13:48:02
So after a long road I’ve reached the end of my public declaration about creating a new file system. Overall I’m fairly happy with the results the file system itself is easy to use and it is set up in such a way adding new folders has been an easy job. My wife even likes [...] ...
System 

Revising the Retirement Plan
2007-12-04 14:08:36
After my problems sorting out our new company’s pension plan, I’ve finally got my head around the various plans. The other component to this problem is how does this impact my grand retirement goal to get out of the workforce by 45. Strangely enough on the pension side, there isn’t a huge amount of [...] ...
Retirement 

Well Isn’t That Just Stupid
2007-12-03 13:54:18
This last weekend I managed to do something so incredible stupid it almost takes my breath away. I had just got a gift card as a present and then managed to drop the thing in the parking lot on the way out by accident. Can you just hear the sound of me losing $80 in [...] ...
Stupid 

Hot Chocolate Mix & Granola Bars
2007-12-01 14:00:27
So after a couple of requests here are a few of our most loved recipes. 1) Hot Chocolate Mix 3 cups skim milk powder 1 cup cocoa 1 1/3 cup of sugar 1/3 cup of powdered coffee whitener 1/8 tsp salt Mix it all up and store in an air tight container.  We make a batch each fall and it usually lasts [...] ...
Chocolate  Granola 

What I Really Want
2007-11-30 13:58:59
I had an interesting discussion last night with my wife. She was wondering what I wanted to shop for on boxing day (we typically get cash as a present from a few people). Now granted I do have a few smaller wants on my Christmas list, but beyond those I was having trouble [...] ...