I'm going to be joining the $8k a month mortgage club in 2025... I'm just under $5k/month right now. When my fixed rate is up we're going to be living like basic ass bitches. Life is so nice and comfy right now. I should probably be putting more money aside to prepare, but we still want to vacation. I'll have to cut our vacation budget to only local vacations now.. No more Hawaii or Mexico for awhile. =/

You can even see the shift here over the years... as regular posters here have had children of their own. I've also seen this with a few of my friends who had kids late (>38-39) after establishing themselves and living their lives a particular way... complete 180s in their perspectives.

Many Asian parents will live into their 90s, barring no major issues like cancer. My grandmother is over 90 and still mobile. Definitely no point in waiting for an inheritance if one wants or needs to make some major life decisions.

In our situation, it's highly likely that my children will be the beneficiaries of my parents' estates when it's their time, which allows us to live for today.

cant stand tesla so its either mini or polestar, mind you I don't care about range and I have 220 in the garage, this is gonna be a commuter car

mini 48month lease is like 31% residual

polestar rwd is 51% residual but rear wheel drive only

Too bad about the residual.

Test driving the Mini SE, it felt so alive with zippy flat handling while the Polestar 2 felt kinda wobbly. While the Polestar (dual motor, anyway) shot forwards pretty brutally good in a straight line, the Mini still seemed plenty quick.

Have you test drove a Tesla before? I know quite a few friends who hated Tesla for various reasons, but when they test drove it against the competition, they went with the Tesla.

of course I did, it's a good value car but it's just not for me

Welcome to the club! Don't worry, you're not alone, we went up 3500 a month at the end of last year, no vacations since 2017 :okay:

Sadly, only one parent remaining and they're early 70's :okay:, they had me at late 40's. Good news is I finally have enough money to buy them anything she wants + as many trips as they like :fullofwin:

My mind is blown sometimes how some of my friends parents just turned 50.

Without this thread, I wouldn't have gone the lengths to convince her to give me and my brother's an early inheritance when we want to upsize our 1-2BR when we have kids. That peace of mind means I no longer have to save an additional $300 - 600K in the next 10 years if I wanna stay in Lower mainland. In the end it benefits her, I don't have to stress about $$$ to stay here vs Calgary. I can take extra time off to take her to places, have her try restaurants, travelling, etc. Most recently my favourite thing was upgrading anything in the house that was old or outdated because she'll never buy it .

Great post on setting goals. Huge props to you on getting the car apartment and making 100k goal. I had that before too.

3 things I realized.
1) i had a goal of making 100K too = had to give up a lot & rather not be in management dealing with personalities. Stay low, make dough.

2) I planned to get married by 32 and didn't get married until 42. I also didn't plan on getting laid off twice, huge illness, which really made me realize to stop chasing after monetary goals & toys as the universe / God really throws you a curve ball at times. *It all came out for the better looking back.
Work friends are not your friends. Customers are not your friends when your corp card stops flowing as I remind young professtionals.

3) When you lost it all, you realize all you got didn't mean much. Sold my bike, sold my car, got 10+ watches stolen in a break in twice... made me realize a watch is just a watch, a bike (crotch rocket & road bike) is just a bike. I was lucky to get married and have a high performing / income wife (or whoever someone mentioned above) - you have to realize you going to have HIGH PERFORMING ISSUES (she's frugal as F but still have her "visions" on her wants.

It's been hard to learn or to educate to CURB your spending. Mortgage is 5 k and now it's 7500, that's 2500 more a month = 3k a year.

We don't freaking save 30k more a year - so cut cut cuts is really really hard for those who have had been ubering food - fancy dinner - posting Paris pics.

I only live within my means since I was a poor kid so I'm thankful. it's a very very tough lesson right now to learn to adjust and adapt.

"Oh I want to reno this" *yo, where you going to pull budget to reno
"I have so much memories on this _____ *insert purchase" *yo, you get memories when you got money. You ain't no rich no more.. gotta sell ur toys.
"i want to eat out" you know we are budgeting 600 for groceries and 2 fine dining is already 400 bucks.
"i can't wait to go on vacation" what vacation.
"I want to order uber" * go learn how to cook.

The key take away lately on RS for financial freedom is have rich parents or a inheritance LOL. Jokes aside, I don't got lick $$ to my name to spend on things after the house purchase. Mortgage rates are brutal. My dad being typical dad, told me I'll never pay off my mortgage LOL, very encouraging. Time to get back to the grind.

The last bit is pretty much us.

We want to do certain things around the house/replace certain pieces of furniture - Where are we finding the money?
We did euro delivery on the M3 and it's a beautiful memory of our last big fancy trip - we almost sold the car at one point for cash flow

The eating out part is a bit better since we have two kids, eating at fancy restaurants is basically not happening. Our idea of a fancy meal now is Cactus Club, and that's still almost a hundred every time. Our grocery and consumable bills are kind of insane.
The cruise to San Diego last month was our first big trip since euro delivering the M3 in 2018.

I've been blessed since we were married at 29, first kid at 32, second kid at 36. We've had to make some hard choices but not to the point of having to sell the car. We are at a stable if precarious spot financially, with the mortgage locked in the only real big risk is me getting laid off again.

Was talking with the wife last night as her mat leave is ending in a few months. We were in a position before to let her keep working at Telus and be very underpaid for the last few years but that may potentially need to change.
- Her ex manager was a mom with university aged kids and gave my wife a ton of flexibility because she understands the challenges of having kids, but since that manager took a package we don't know what the new report is going to look like
- Telus while poor on pay had a very generous mat leave package which was the reason why she stuck around as we toyed with the idea of a second kid
- I made enough for the longest time to let her take it easy, but the extra 30k in cashflow would be very helpful now
- Her team has endured two layoffs and she wasn't affected, but there's no guarantee that she would still be safe next time
- She's bored of her job

She said she's going to start looking in the new year. I'm hoping for some breathing room by March/April-ish

We aren't paying off our mortgage, we have no illusions of that :lol

With the new rules on builds and a 45 wide plot, we are banking on getting bought out some point in the next decade and we'll move to Burnaby or some shit.

The way Telus is going she’s lucky she has a job to go back to.

Can pretty much guarantee she is going to see a STARK difference in the treatement she receives there after being gone for an extended period of time. She probably won’t want to stick around anyways

BIG time.

My gf and I both make over $100K, but neither of us have inheritances, or money from the family.

My dad might pass something onto to me one day ($100-$200K, who knows), but he'll likely live to 150.

The lack of inheritance or family help makes a massive difference in holding you back, hence we're still renters.

We're hoping to buy our first place in the next few years here.

So i got back yesterday afternoon, came into work this morning at 6:30am and realized VANCOUVER WEATHER SUCKS.

The weather is so damn gloomy and depressing im surprised that ya'll arent impacted by seasonality disorders. Its probably also why everyone in HK are like super energetic and high strung. The heat and constant sunlight makes everyone mad.

My parents aren't rich but there was fortunately no clear signs of financial stress growing up. But also it wasn't like there was money to spend. My parents bought my childhood home new, lived in it for like 25 years but never renovated or even did proper maintenance so it did get pretty run down in some parts towards the end. The only thing they ever did was replace the living room carpet with cheap laminate a few years before they decided to sell.

I always had a thought like "what if they were secretly rich but they just are pretending to be not so that we don't get spoiled"... unfortunately it seems like we were simply just solidly in lower-middle class.

As for inheritance, my brother and I have told our parents outright that we are ok and self sufficient, and that neither of us want or expect any inheritance left behind for us. And that we simply just want to see them blow it out on themselves now to travel and live comfortably that they've retired.

I think “SAD” effects people who come here from elsewhere far more than the lifers lol

I’ve never felt my mood change or have any adverse reaction to the weather as someone born and raised here, just kinda look out the window at the pouring rain and figure eh fuck it.

With that said my phone memories popped up the other day and when it was a torrential downpour and exactly a year earlier I was swimming in the ocean at Positano drinking wine on the beach in 28 degree sunshine.. would I rather be there? Well yea lol

Personally, I am a strong believer that pay should never be the exclusive factor in determining whether to stay in a job or not. Job satisfaction, flexibility, additional benefits / perks etc. should always be part of the consideration.

In your wife's case, if she were to change jobs, you want to keep in mind the actual difference in take home pay. If you guys are aiming for a $30k increase in (take home) cashflow, that probably means her (before tax) salary jump would need to be something in the $50k range?

Regardless, I agree with Hondaracer that the Telus your wife returns to is gonna be very different from the one when she started her mat leave.

Talking to my friends in FP&A at Telus and it's crazy how hard it is to fight for marketshare despite prices dropping YOY for telecom.

Vancouverites: Vancouver is the best it's the only place you can surf and ski in the same day I wouldn't want to live anywhere else in the world.

Vancouverites every October: Fuck this place all it does is rain half the fucking year I'm so depressed.

Most peeps I know born post 1995 have an inheritance of some sort, because you need to be reasonable wealthy to have kids in Vancouver.

Getting that $100-200K by mid 20's to 30's helps you get so far ahead in life experiences or financially. I'd travel the entire world to get that FOMO out of the way then yolo the rest to open a small business.

But the stress and strategy to ask for an early inheritance is as hard as paying off a mortgage early

Most Vancouvrites can't afford to skii yet they say that, it's kinda funny.

The amazing summer always makes you forget how shit the winter is lol, every year without fail

I work in telecom and honestly, any type of growth over the last year+ is a result of Canada's immigration numbers. It is propping the entire industry (& many others) up.

Add: We are fortunate that the immigration target over the next few years is 500k/year. None of the telecom companies truly need to do anything to continue to grow as we are basically a utility / essential service now.

Fixed :lawl:

Oh we are looking at 30k gross, so realistically bringing home an extra 15-16k a year. Who wouldn't mind and extra 1300 a month though?

The big push really is we are unsure about the team that she's heading back to. She still has her job but what is she doing when she gets back? There's always the choice of making the move AFTER she starts at Telus, but the money is enticing as well. Her salary wasn't high to begin with and the raises has been abysmal in the last few years and she tells me she's lucky that I picked the right field and hasn't left good enough alone so I keep trying to climb.

One of the factors that we are considering is that her next job will probably be a hybrid role where she'll have to head into the office. Driving the X3 to downtown doesn't sound too enticing despite being close-ish. We'll have to see what opportunities there are. We are lucky in the sense that we have the power on our hands to be picky.

I track and autox my M3. gtfo. BIC BAWS does as well, and donk got in the game with the vette