There was a Questrade 'wrapped' summary in my inbox this morning. This Spotify wrapped style summary really has taken over huh? I'm not mad about it, as a bit of a money nerd I enjoy seeing the numbers presented to me with aesthetics 💫
There was almost $10k net deposit which surprised me a bit because saving wasn't particularly a priority for me this year. So I was kinda expecting to see around $5k. So yay? My Work RRSP is matched and about $10k too this year, so about a $20k contribution.
A fairly high income and low fixed costs really go a LONG way.
I had a very YOLO year, went on multiple trips to Asia, travelled to numerous concerts in expensive cities. And I ate out generously too. Given all that I did I'm surprised I saved what I saved.
Just looking at the numbers the markets were really fantastic this year, this is my second highest networth increase of all time, just behind 2024.
Networth($)
Difference
2013
-1255
2014
44435
45690
2015
70349
25914
2016
116304
45955
2017
173446
57142
2018
194270
20824
2019
261263
66993
2020
305679
44416
2021
355714
50035
2022
345301
-10413
2023
381877
36576
2024
480807
98930
2025
562804
81997
We really had an amazing bull run for all my working life, as you can see, my annual networth has only decreased once in the 12 years.
Fingers crossed for a great 2026 as well. I'll be doing my 2026 vision board at my friend's tomorrow. Maybe I'll share the end result if it's good.
When I updated my networth this month, I was again surprised to see it go up almost 10k to 560k+ now. I don't think the market was doing particularly amazing this month so imagine my surprise. I know it's all virtual gains on paper until I sell, but this is more than my monthly pay?!
I remember back when I started this money journey, one PF blogger wrote about investments snowballing after 200k (he has long sold his blog etc, I remember he was based in Seattle). Now, I can't say I really noticed it when I hit 200k, but I'm definitely noticing it now (surprised pikachu meme).
Anyways, that prompted my update. Wonder if I'll miraculously hit 600k by my birthday in Feb? That'd be really cool.
In terms of liquidating my assets to prepare for a down payment, I sold about 10k worth of TD stock so now I have 20k in my TFSA. Will liquidate about 10k in my RRSP to transfer to my FHSA to max out my contribution for this year (I have 16k room according to my Notice of Assessment this year).
December is also the month I give my end of the year food bank donations etc so I'll get on that.
On the personal side, I mentioned thinking about yolo-ing to Korea in my September post. So I did yolo, and a friend even came with. I made sure we did some awesome tourist stuff for her first visit. We rented hanbok and even hired a photographer for a quick photoshoot (we looked like we were eloping royal handmaidens hahaha).
Hit a few different cafes (omg Starbucks Reserve desserts in Seoul was to die for), and kbbq (I wish we had charcoal grill in the city!).
And Jin's concert was unreal, so so much fun. What a performer. The whole concert experience is top notch. I've always said ARMY is an amazing audience, warm and the best place to experience hive mind in a positive way.
It has started snowing for real here so it's slowly starting to feel more festive and I need to sleep early to wake up for the charty cookie sale tomorrow morning. I hope there will be very creative and tasty cookies.
There will be an end of the year update in Jan. Have a great holiday season and see you then (unless somehow I get inspired again)!
The US government basically not announcing job numbers and bunch of other indicators just have me feeling very uneasy about the current market.
Normally I'd be on team 'just stay put through the storm', but since I do have plans to possibly purchase a property next year, I want to have the downpayment money and a bit of extra available. I think it might be wise to have that amount just out of equities at least and keep the rest in. So 50k from RRSP homebuyer's program and I should have about 25k FHSA this year and able to put another 10k (I'll transfer from my nonregistered account) next year.
So a total of 85k from registered accounts, I think I'll free up another 15k so we're at a nice 100k round number maybe? Or should I liquidate more of my equities? Maybe a quarter (about 135k) to a third (180k).
I like my current lifestyle and don't want to live cash poor, so ideally I find a cheaper condo or somewhere with not super high condo fees (surprise! the condo fees in this city is usually 500-800 for a 1-2 bedroom). My current arrangement with my roommate was really great for cash flow, I could basically float all my yolo trips and such. Too bad she's moving out after this year's lease and I don't want to find another roommate.
Houses are better than condos for capital gain potential, but I'm more looking to my portfolio for retirement than my residence. Also houses are a lot of work and I am honestly not a handy maintenance person. But if I find a good townhouse it could be the best of both worlds.
I guess I'll just keep an eye on the local housing market and see. Right now it's a buyer's market but prices haven't really dropped.
One step at a time. Get my questions answered at the work RRSP program and start liquidating my FHSA first.
** Sidenote: I love being BTS ARMY. This fandom is honestly the coolest, the b-cd.app website to-do-list tool is the bestest! I put this post down as one of my tasks today and here I am! It's really helping me with productivity in a gentle positive way.
To say I was surprised when I updated my networth spreadsheet this month is an understatement. I just hit 500k networth in July and in September I've hit 550k? Well I sure hope the last 3 months of the year will be just as good 😂
Anyways, the pleasant surprise was almost my entire reason for posting. I've ceased updating the monthly networth charts so please look forward to the year end one (the only one I keep up to date for now).
BTS' Jin has announced a super last minute encore concert in Seoul for the Halloween weekend. The urge to YOLO is very strong, since I already took a day off - originally planning on going to this year's Figure Skating GrandPrix Canada stop event that weekend. I'm afraid the artifical 30k networth gain is not helping my YOLO brain right now. While I know I'd probably enjoy the figure skating competition, the euphoria from a BTS concert is basically guaranteed while competitions can be disappointing (Ha! GPF 2019 ha!).
A dear friend has all of us doing a healthy October challenge for her birthday, so I'm struggling with getting my protein quota and staying away from junk food. Nothing gets my cravings on like being told you can't eat chips nor drink soda.
On a not so happy note, I've hurt my left wrist. It's been gradually getting more painful and I'll have to go see the doctor to get it investigated soon. Even though I don't want to file for worker's comp (as this is likely a repetitive stress injury from work), everyone is telling me to at least get it documented.
Hopefully my wrist won't get worse and hang on til I hit FI. Though I'm not too far from Barista FI from the ways things are going this year (yeah yeah I know past performance isn't indicative of the future, but just let me enjoy this for a bit).
It's been a fairly warm fall so far for Calgary, but I've been pretty busy. Fingers crossed that I get out to the mountains for one last hike!
Wishing everyone a great October! Are you doing anything exciting? As for me, I'm particularly looking forward to mooncake this weekend.
So, my coworker made me feel bad about my money😂, and therefore I'm back!
The story goes: at work we're getting a retention bonus this month, and casually I was chatting with a coworker friend about where to put the money. We have the option of directly depositing it into our work RRSP account or receive it as income to do as we please. And I said I'll probably put it into TFSA instead of RRSP. My coworker was like 'Yeah I guess if you haven't maxed that out!' And to add insult to injury 'That's just play money amounts anyway'.
So that hurt my feelings/pride as an ex-money blogger😂. Therefore I've decided to come back to keep myself a bit more on track with financial accountability.
Since I last wrote on this blog, I've made a legit PF blog website, abandoned it in a year (and the whole PF blogsphere).
Travelled quite a bit (I'm the cliche that fell in love with traveling to Japan). Fell passionately into fandoms (hello figure skating! Have you heard of Yuzuru Hanyu? And from that, into BTS who really helped me get through the pandemic).
Just hit 500k networth this year so even though I'm not as hardcore frugal as I was in the early working years (2013-2018), I think I've still done well financially.
I have a short term goal for FHSA savings that I'll be working on since my living situation might be changing soon.
Otherwise I just miss have a space to chat about money (my friends are either the more active/risky investors or find it to be a chore😂).
I'm done with my student loan! It's all thanks to the juicy tax return I received. Originally I did not plan to use the whole tax return towards debt repayment. The plan was to use some of the money for investments and savings, but I could not help it when I actually got the tax refund. Now I officially owe the government nothing, hooray!
I have been eating out quite a bit lately in celebration, but rest assured that I will not fall victim to lifestyle inflations - at least not too much.
March 2014
Networth
Assets
TFSA (td)
1635
TFSA (questrade)
7317
Total
8952
Liabilities
Student Debt
0
Total
8952
I don't include my bank account and credit card balances because they fluctuate, so I don't like them as indicators of my net worth. I don't carry a credit card balance.
