Hey hey all! It’s been awhile since I hit the keyboard.  Not going to lie, I am 100% over blogging.  It was a fun ride while we were on the journey to reaching our FI number.  But now that we are here on the other side of the pasture, there’s really not much to write about in regards to personal finances. It’s not that things are doom and gloom or that early retirement = depressed Court.  It’s really the opposite.  I used to type these posts up in the middle of a night shift at work at 2am to kill time.  Now that I’m no longer working, I don’t want to be in front ..read more

I actually chuckled after finding a Google Document back from 2013 titled “Lifeeeee”.  I had to share this and what my thoughts looked like 10 years ago. A Look Inside My 2013 Brain Guys, the only thing on this list that actually went according to “plan” was to have a baby. Literally nothing else here happened according to plan.  Ah to be young again (oh 2013 Court, you’re so cute to be thinking like this). Although I am so damn proud of my organized self for writing this all out in my late 20s.. I know, I’m super weird now and was back then too. What Changed? Of course, I’m glad my ..read more

Hey hey!  It’s been a busy quarter around here! The summer for us means lots of time outside and at the cabin.  This year we took two 2 week long trips out to the cabin to spend time out in nature.  It’s always so good for the soul to do some forest bathing.  The cabin set up is such an ideal spot for families with young kids – ice cream shop, a lake to bike around, swimming at the pool and lake, hikes to go on, music at the amphitheatre, kayaking, berry picking, sand castle building, petting horses, playgrounds, star gazing at the dark sky observatory, golf and mini golf ..read more

The Canadian Financial Summit that is taking place Wednesday – Saturday, October 18-21, 2023 and you can secure your free ticket by signing up here. This is a FREE summit with 35+ of the leading financial gurus across Canada.  It is now Canada’s largest personal finance and investing conference. Line Up Rob Engen of Boomer & Echo? Yep, he’s there. Ed Rempel, one of the advisors I’d actually consider using if I didn’t have US accounts? Bingo. Dr Preet Banerjee – behavioural finance expert? There. Rob Carrick from the Globe & Mail? Yup. Karsten Jeske aka Bi ..read more

Time for another annual kiddo spending update! For those new here, you can see all our parenting related posts here. Pull up any article on Google about the costs of raising a kid and they will tell you to get ready to spend anywhere from $10,000-$15,000 per year.  MoneySense released an article this August with updated 2023 figures to raise a child in Canada and they calculated an average annual cost of $16,900 CAD/year or $321,020 CAD as the total cost from birth to 18 to raise a child in Canada.  And this figure does NOT include any university spending or investing within an ..read more

While June 2021 was technically my last month in the office, I was off on parental leave collecting some EI (employment insurance) during our little guys first year and had the fallback option to return to my part time gig if I wanted to once my EI was up. So, I really was in a different headspace then vs after letting my boss know back in July 2022 that I was not returning and thus technically “retired early” then. So for all shits and giggles, I consider July 2022 – June 2023 our first full year of early retirement even though my last day in the office was a year earlier than that. Now that ..read more

Hey everyone! We’re back with another quarterly update. We’ll focus today’s post on a life & spending update this week and then a net worth update next post. What Happened in Q2 2023 Tax Season Ahh my favourite… not!  Thankfully, after discovering Expatfile for my US taxes as an expat, it’s really streamlined the process with the IRS. Nothing like paying $312 CAD to continually owe Uncle Sam $0 grrr. Filing our Canadian taxes with the CRA continues to be a breeze thanks to Wealthsimple Tax. Coaching I’ve continued to receive a steady stream of coaching clients and have decid ..read more

We’ve always half joked about how once we no longer had to spend our Monday-Fridays in the office, new (often free/low cost) activities come our way.  This weeks post is about one example that recently happened in our world which demonstrates the Catch22 that once you no longer work, you end up spending less money – especially when it comes to kid related costs. Our town offers free passes to the Telus Spark Science Centre.  There’s no catch, they are completely free passes.  You just shoot over an email with the date and number of tickets you need and poof, free access to an aw ..read more

Back in October one of our FIRE friends (hi, Robert!) lead me to a Twitter post about a writing gig that sounded up my alley. I reached out not sure where it would lead to, but lo and behold, here we are. As any long term reader knows, I do not make money from this blog.  I do not have ads up to bring in revenue.  I don’t make money from any podcasts and publications we are featured in.  The small bits I do make from affiliate payments from summits I take part in (Canadian Financial Summit, Women Can Money, etc) go towards the expenses to keep this blog up and running.  If ..read more

This is our fifth year outlining details of kid-related items and costs we’ve encountered with our oldest kiddo.  If you missed the earlier posts + our post on tips for new baby items, you can check them out here: Our Baby Item Tips For New Parents Here’s How Much Baby’s First Year Cost Here’s How Much Baby’s Second Year Cost Here’s How Much Our Child’s Third Year Cost Here’s How Much Our Daughter’s 4th Year Cost Now that our family has expanded, we have started to also track our annual expenses for our son, which can be found here: Here’s How Much Our Son’s First Year Cost We’re now go ..read more