Hi everyone, I'm glad to have stumbled upon this forum! I've been lurking reading posts for a week or so and I figure this is definitely an online community I want to be a part of.
According to the post for guidelines it said to be specific so I hope I'm not being too specific!
As for who I am:
Family:
-25 years old
-happily married for going on 6 years (man we were just babies when we got married!)
-Our only child is turning 3 in a couple weeks
-We live in Canada on the prairies in a small town, used to live in the city but moved closer to work almost a year ago. Fairly remote area.
Employment:
-On the job for about 3.5 years now with the same company
-In the Agri-mfg sector, still seeing how we'll be affected by the downturn, we did about 22mil in sales last year, hoping for 30mil this year.
-I work as the 'Accounting Team Leader'... for lack of a better title, I wear a ton of different hats depending on the day.
-Training was initially in IT (where I started with this company too) but am now working towards my Accounting status (CGA) which the company is paying for.
-The company is owned by a larger company (probably 5 times our size) that is very people focused, so I definitely have lots of career advancement opportunities
-DW is a stay at home mom, and we're planning for baby #2 so she'll be busy.
-I earn about 75k/yr before tax in Canadian dollars.
Retirement Goals:
-I plan to retire at 45. I doubt I'll actually retire at 45, but I'd like to have the option. Basically at that point I'd like to 'slow down' and work more on my own projects.
-I plan to be financially independent at 35.
Savings Strategy:
-I currently contribute 6500/yr ($125/wk) into a middle of the road (risk-wise) registered retirement savings plan (tax deferral) with a mix of equities and incomes. I think this may be similar to 401k in US (?).
-5000/yr at tax time to a 'labor sponsored venture capital fund' (Saskworks venture fund), a special program that gives a tax credit, so after tax deferral and credit a $5000 investment costs me just $1500 after I get my tax return. I plan to max this out each year. The growth on this is probably in the 2-5% range, but it isn't typically subject to the emotions of the public market as these are all privately held regional corporations. Mainly do this for the amazing tax credit.
-10000/yr ($5000 x 2, one TFSA for me, one for DW) into an aggressive fund (Sprott Canadian Equity Fund) which concentrates on energy and resources and holds gold as well. I actually just started this this year but plan to continue, not likely in the same fund, but I plan to continue to max out my tax free savings account (I believe similar to US roth), basically TFSA means growth is tax free.
-1020/yr into registered education savings plan for child. Pretty poor returns but government matches 25% so pretty decent.
-Both of us are insured for 350K roughly
Assets:
-160,000 Home - currently owe 157,500 I'd say this is worth less than I paid for it, but I don't know for sure since maybe 10 homes a year come for sale in this area. I intend to stay for 5-10 years so not too worried.
-10,000 RRSP - CI Invesments
-10,000 Saskworks venture fund
-10,000 TFSA - Sprott
-8,000 Bonds
-17,000 cash
-30,000 vehicles, a car (5000) and truck (25000) paid for.
Liabilities:
-157,500 Home - as before I figure this is only worth maybe 160,000.
-12,000 - Student Loan, I have the cash to pay it off but I've decided to wait at least 6 months to a year to see how things go with the meltdown
Ownership of company I work for:
The other major item in my situation is that I currently own 2% of the company I work for which is financed through a loan from my employer. This is for $312,000 and I pay 4% on it per year, though this will be going down in the short term as it varies with prime. Basically the idea here is dividends pay down the principal and I pay the interest. I am in over my head on this one, but I can afford to finance it for about 5 years no problem. There is a shareholder buy back agreement whereby the company must repurchase the shares for the higher of my purchase price or the current value, so worst case the company goes bankrupt and I can walk away without owing anything additional and just lose my interest paid. The opportunity here is that we are currently in a big growth phase so those shares may increase dramatically, but we'll have to see.
So there's my situation in a nutshell, I look forward to communicating with everyone and hopefully we can all meet our retirement goals!
If you see anything bone headed in my above write up please let me know
Linear Mode
