Episode 187: Six Figures in Canada? Here’s Why It Still Feels Tight

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Is a six-figure salary still enough to live comfortably in today’s world?

You’ve built a business, crossed the $100K threshold, and checked off what used to be a major financial milestone. But instead of breathing easier, you’re feeling the pressure: inflation, higher taxes, rising overhead, inflated living costs, and a widening gap between what you earn and what you keep. As a Canadian business owner or entrepreneur, it’s frustrating to hit the numbers but still feel like you’re running in place. This episode unpacks the reality behind the six-figure illusion—and why that income level doesn’t stretch like it used to.

In this episode, you’ll uncover:

• The shocking truth about how much buying power $100K has lost since the ’90s
• A breakdown of real-world expenses—from mortgage payments to groceries—and how they consume your take-home pay
• Practical strategies to restructure your finances, align spending with values, and create new income opportunities through investing

Press play to find out if $100K still cuts it—and what you can do if it doesn’t.

Resources:

• Ready to take a deep dive and learn how to generate personal tax free cash flow from your corporation? Enroll in our FREE masterclass here. 
• Book a Discovery Call with Kyle to review your corporate (or personal) wealth strategy to help you overcome your current struggle and take the next step in your Canadian Wealth Building Journey!
• Discover which phase of wealth creation you are in. Take our quick assessment and you’ll receive a custom wealth-building pathway that matches your phase and learn our CRA compliant tax optimized strategies. Take that assessment here.
• Dig into our Ultimate Investment Book List
• Follow/Connect with us on social media for daily posts and conversations about business, finance, and investment on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook [Kyle’s Profile, Our Business Page], TikTok and TwitterX. 
  

Calling All Canadian Incorporated Business Owners & Investors:

Consider reaching out to Kyle if you’ve been…

• …taking a salary with a goal of stuffing RRSPs;
• …investing inside your corporation without a passive income tax minimization strategy;
• …letting a large sum of liquid assets sit in low interest earning savings accounts;
• …investing corporate dollars into GICs, dividend stocks/funds, or other investments attracting cordporate passive income taxes at greater than 50%; or,
• …wondering whether your current corporate wealth management strategy is optimal for your specific situation.

Financial freedom in Canada takes more than income — it takes strategy. Whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur, high-earning professional, or building wealth through real estate, mastering the four phases of a healthy financial plan is non-negotiable. This podcast unpacks the smartest Canadian tax strategies, corporate structuring moves, and investment tactics that create lasting wealth. From optimizing RRSP room and leveraging real estate to balancing salary vs dividends and planning your legacy, we focus on actionable insights tailored for business owners and investors. Each episode gives you the tools to align your personal financial buckets with your business goals and use a proven Canadian wealth blueprint to future-proof your finances. Follow Frederick, a disciplined 49-year-old professional in Toronto, as he earns near-perfect marks on his Canadian financial health assessment — and uncovers where even top planners need to improve. Learn how modest living, real estate investing, and precision financial vision-setting can accelerate your path to early retirement and long-term security.

Transcript:

Well, well, well, my friends, we are back here today and, you know, the, the topic of the day, sort of stems from a conversation we were having as a group and we were just chatting about income. We were talking about some, conversations we’ve had with some, some, we’ll say nameless invested student clients around, you know, what they’re earning and you know, how they’re feeling. seems that everyone’s feeling the pinch and, actually, you know, it sort of made us.

think back and kind of go like, what’s happening out there. We know inflation’s happening. I’m sure everybody’s aware of this keenly aware that things are changing COVID and all the money printing has led to prices to rise. And we’re dealing with all of this, you know, uncertainty right now, but ultimately it really had us thinking about, know, and kind of digging into like, what is enough to actually live on?

Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I think, you know, when we were, I think, Matt, you, had found an article that, you know, that kind of spurn you or spurned you, uh, you know, directed you to kind of think about this and do some research, it got, it got us thinking too is, is like, is, is a hundred thousand dollars. Is that the, is that enough money to make a comfortable life? You know, is, that.

that what the ideal has been. For me, I think when you heard that number, you’re like, will be more than enough. That’s a great number. That’s a great number. I think, I often, for some reason, and I can’t explain it, maybe it’s one of those anchoring moments in your life. I don’t know. It’s probably similar to how you hear a song and you remember that time of the moment. For some reason,

When I hear a dollar amount for a salary, I’m often brought back to when I was like an early teenager, like back to 1993. You know, think about when I heard my dad’s

Jam’s second album was just released.

Yeah. Yeah. I think I was in grade eight or nine and it was like, so, so I heard my dad who was a teacher state his salary, you know, and he said $60,000. Like he had made $60,000, which, I think was, you know, the, going top tier rate of a teacher back in 93. And, for some reason that is pegged. It has pegged me to say that’s the right amount of money. You know, you know, it’s almost like my mind.

I’ll be okay.

wiped away that inflation exists and it carries forward because when I made $60,000 when I was a teacher, was like, man, that’s awesome. But I made it pretty much quickly within the first few years of teaching and getting to the top tier on the category scale. Not say the yearly scale, like your experience scale, but once you got to category four on your scale, was like there was close to $60,000 pretty quickly.

And I remember thinking that that was it. made it, you know, I’ve got the right number. And then every year after that, it went higher and higher and higher. And I still think 60 K is the right number. And actually in reality, if, if I had worked until my, you know, my retirement date, which would have been 2036, right. It’s burned in my mind 2036, if I had taken my pension, it would be 60 K. like, for some reason it’s still there Peg that that’s the right number to live a life of comfort of.

of being able to provide for your family. guys, I, you know, when I, when I finished teaching 100 K was where we were. And, I still think that that sounds like so much money, but I don’t know that we’re gonna do some digging today. I like, I don’t think it’s the right amount of money anymore.

Yeah, 100K sounds like it was the Holy Grail. It’s like you’ve made it. The proverbial six-figure salary, six-figure- Teachers, police officers, nurses, a lot of people in public service are making this much money. what’s so crazy is this article from the Globe was saying that roughly 10 % of Canadians make six figures or above. So this kind of sounds insane to say, is $100,000 enough because

Exactly. Maybe that’s it.

The vast overwhelming majority of Canadians aren’t making $100,000 or more. And so what is happening there? I think our audience is largely made up of people who may fit this profile. so I think this is really about exploring the perception versus the reality of this $100,000 holy grail. And as we unpack this and as we think about both our current and future financial goals, it’s really, it’s about wondering, is this enough?

And it’s not going to be all bad news, even though the picture I think we’re going to paint here is a pretty bleak one for those. We live in Windsor Essex, which is incredibly affordable compared to many parts of the country. So we’re going to paint, I think, a bleak picture based on these numbers, but there’s hope. And the three of us coming from this world of education and teaching and making this six figure salary and leaving it behind for something that I think is so much better both financially

as well as with our lifestyle. So my first wonder to you guys being our human calculators, our math crunchers is, you know, if we have a hundred thousand dollar gross salary, what does it actually look like? What’s our take home? What’s our net from that for say a typical, let’s take a teacher or get any of other professions that are going to have similar benefits defined benefit pension plans, those types of things. What does it look like?

We’re going to dig into that. But before we do like something that popped into my mind and this was unplanned, this was completely unplanned. Off script, off script. But Matt, you had said something about, you know, teachers and police officers and fight like right away. What popped into my mind? I don’t know if you guys were thinking it too, but right. If you know and you are from Ontario, you know this thing called the sunshine list.

And the sunshine list here in Ontario. I don’t know if it happens in other, in other provinces, but I know here in Ontario they do. And basically the sunshine list is this list that is published every year to show any public sector workers who earn over $100,000. And the year that I went onto the sunshine list, like someone said, like, Kyle, you’re on the sunshine list. was like, what, like, what does that even mean? I had no idea.

More importantly, like what popped into my mind was I’m going back and I’m thinking about John and your $60,000, right? You’re saying like, was your number. You said 1993 for that number, because we’re human calculators and really, you know, Microsoft Excel is kind of my, biggest help in that, in that endeavor. You’re a geek. I’m totally geeky for sure.

I’m not

You were in 93, you are still in 2020.

I totally am. I totally am. But so what we did was we actually looked at the data and basically over any 20 year period, if you actually think about inflation, it’s typically around 4%. Now, of course it can go way high, like in the 80s went way high for a while. It’s way high right now. It’s always reported lower than the reality too, which is something that’s hard to really navigate, right? Because they get to decide what the basket of goods is and they take things in and put things out.

Anyway, that that 4 % is the average over like pretty much all 20 year periods. Okay, that’s kind of a good number, even though the government and the Fed in the US and the Bank of Canada are trying to aim for this like 2 % number, right? Like they actually want the money supply to inflate. They do want a little bit of that because that means they get more money, right? Like think about that. You get pushed into higher tax brackets, right? So like the tax brackets didn’t go down

as your salary went up, Like John, like you hit that 60,000 fast and the government was like exactly as I planned, right? Like John, you get to pay me more money now. Congratulations. and by the way, everything costs more too. So when I looked back and I was like, when did the sunshine list even begin?

And the sunshine lifts began in 1996. what pair Pearl Jam’s third or fourth album or something like that. So John, were talking 93 and 60, 65,000. And now we’re in this place where the sunshine list, what hasn’t changed on the sunshine list is this hundred thousand dollar benchmark. So think about that for a second back then.

60,000 actually was, and you said the max salary for teachers, I think in, in 93 was around 65,000 in Ontario, $65,000. That was a big gap between this sunshine list. And now it’s like all teachers, once they hit the top of the grid are on the sunshine list, right? And a lot of people like, you know, teachers are paid too much or police officers are paid too much. But in reality, if we were to take that, that number from

from 93, like you said, we use 65,000, cause that was the max teacher salary in Ontario. And you actually used 4 % as inflation on average each year. By the time we hit, I just turned 40, John, you’re what 42? 43. So John’s 43. You would need, in order to replace that $65,000 salary, like that was the number you had in mind. And you’re like, that’s a big. dad celery that was my

That’s yeah, it’s like amazing. Well, in today’s dollars, assuming 4 % inflation every year, uh, by the time you are 43, which is now you’d need $210,000 have the same buying power, the same purchasing power. Now, if you want to go, some people like, I, know, 4%, that’s too high, whatever. Let’s put it down to 2 % for a second.

It’s still 117,000. And I think 2 % is way conservative in terms of like what inflation actually looks like.

So in context, you know, like if I, if I think about my, my 1993 self, when I viewed my dad’s salary at 60 K and I compare it to my, my salary, when I finished teaching, my dad would have felt so much richer than I felt, you know, basically if it was a 4%, it should be double, you know, it’s like he, he was like, to him, it was feel like if he’s living in today’s time, he felt like it was, he’d made 210,000 worth of buying power.

versus my 100,000 worth of buying power. That’s crazy.

Yeah, and I want to go even further. Like I’m like doing this on the fly as we’re talking in my magical spreadsheet here. And I just want you to think about this for a second. Think from like the, the fact that back in 96, okay. So you just said 93, but 1996 is when the sunshine list came out and it was to expose public sector workers. So you could see like any name.

that was earning more than a hundred thousand. That was by, think it was the Mike Harris government. If inflation goes at 4%, John, right now that list, if it actually inflated, if the number inflated, would 324,000. So like when you think about that and the differences, right? It’s almost like the sunshine list is silly now. And then if we look at it at 2%, it’s 181,000.

what would it be? We would be on it.

we’re talking like maybe some superintendents, not all superintendents or the directors of certain districts or I don’t know what police chiefs and so forth earn. But when you really think about that, the fact that the sunshine list kept, they were like, no, no, 100,000, they kept it static for the last, call it 30 years. And yet inflation has grown salaries.

our salaries have not kept up with inflation, but yet the sunshine number that benchmark has not grown either. mean, ultimately you’re going to have essentially if they don’t change something pretty soon, you’re going to have fast food employees that are going to be on the sunshine list, right? But I guess they’re not public sector. So who knows.

I thought I froze there. Let’s segue.

Yeah, segue.

So now let’s, let’s segue from this, from that. And now let’s John bring it back to Matt’s question and then we’ll, we’ll dig in. Okay. yeah. So it’s.

It’s actually, you know, it’s hard to think about, you know, thinking that I, my dad had so much more buying power than I have. So, so thinking about how that in context of is a hundred thousand dollars, the, you know, the right amount of money to live that comfortable life. Cause I, I still think that many people think so, like you said, Kyle, the six figures, and now we’ve just got one piece of data that says,

know, if $100,000 on the Sunshine List in 96 compared to now is like 310, it’s like now it’s almost like does it is 310 the right amount of money like to live that super comfy life to $100,000 back then. you know, I think there’s a case here, but I mean, we still let’s dig into some of the numbers. Like Matt brought up the idea of like thinking about

Let’s look at $100,000 as if we were making that now, which teachers at the top end of their salary are. And let’s now compare it to what some of the average costs are and see like where does our budget fit in with? Let’s say we make $100,000. That probably means what we’re going to take home between 65 to $70,000 after tax, after pension contributions, after all of that, maybe 60K, you know, around that.

Big s*** bye.

after you kind of like take off all the deductions and planning for, cause I had pension, you know, pulled off right from my salary. So I remember thinking 60 K was like my take home. And I did some, number crunching right there. And that’s the money you have to spend on all the things, right? All the things. it’s like, okay, if, that’s the number then do we have enough to kind of like, not only, you know, pay for your family cause you’re, know,

$100,000 actually, like you guys said, is the 90th percentile. But when you look at stats cam, it’s the 90th percentile if you’re close, you’re between 35 and 44. So it’s like by age. then income kind of peaks at between 45 and 55. 90th percentile in Canada.

at 45 to 55 is like 130K. But I mean, like you’re still, you’re still in good shape there. So it’s kind of like, what, what are we spending on for our families? What are we like, if I got a car payment, if we got mortgages, like I want to know, I want to, want to, I want to understand that is a hundred K enough to have all of that and, be able to, to like save for retirement, but also like a good retirement.

Or maybe like there’s a ton of people like, know, Kyle, like we get calls all the time reaching out to us about investing and real estate investing and JB partnerships. And a lot of them, a lot of these folks are wondering, it’s like, can I retire early? You know, can I retire early? I make a hundred K a year. Do I have enough to retire early? So it’s almost like is a hundred K enough to like pay for everything and be able to like plan for retire early retirement.

Yeah, it’s definitely becoming more and more of a challenge as you can imagine, right? And, you know, we dug up all kinds of numbers here. And of course that, you know, makes my heart sing. However, it also makes it a little sad when you see like, John, after you consider, let’s say like taxes on a hundred K and then say it’s a pension contribution or let’s say.

you’re paying around like 10, 12 % of your, you know, of your pay to put into your own pension, right? Like, like, let’s assume that that’s happening. You’re left with maybe 60,000, you know, low 60s after all of that, right? So you’re like marginal tax rate is like 37,000. Like here’s, here’s the crazy part. So the average tax rate for someone who earns 100,000.

in Ontario and it’s similar in other provinces, but not exact, but the average tax rate ends up being around 22 and a half percent. Doesn’t sound bad, but the marginal tax rate is 37.91%. So call it 38%. And that means that even if you want to go out and earn more money, if you do it and it’s not say protected in some way, say a corporation or some sort of other, you know, structure,

you’re losing essentially 40 % of every extra dollar you earn to the government. you know, some, some people who earn a hundred thousand and let’s say they go pick up, you know, a shift somewhere at, know, they want to be a, a waiter or they want to, you know, go bartender. They want to do anything, assuming they’re claiming as they’re supposed to quote unquote, claiming those tips they’re giving, you know, 40 cents of every dollar to the government.

Right? So it’s like, as you get to that level, it’s like every extra dollar you earn is like, you’re giving more of it away, which is also not super exciting. Um, on the other end, when we look at the cost of everything. So if you think you got 60 K left to spend, um, that’s like $5,000 per month. And then we start to look at some of these average payments here. Like Matt take, uh, you had pulled some of these numbers here. Like what were some of these averages that you were seeing?

you know, I, I remember like the car payment one kind of blew my mind cause I don’t have a car payment right now and I hate buying cars personally, but the average you said kind of blew my mind. take us through some of

to article $813 is the average carbon. That’s a seven year loan as well. $813. I know we bought a van, this would have been a 2020 and ours is a little, you know, 550 bucks for our Chrysler Pacifica. I’ve got another car that I was able to buy through my business. And this has been a point in a number of our episodes, you know, when we make salaried income,

there’s some benefits, but there’s also some challenges. And we’ve alluded to those in some other, in other episodes about, you know, why owning a business is preferential. So, you know, in my case, our family car is, is owned personally. My, my business vehicle is owned through the business. That’s a benefit of owning the business. So $813 per month of that $5,000 call it $600 a month. If you drive a more modest vehicle.

And that means that half of people are paying more than that. Like half are paying under that and half are paying more than that.

That’s not necessarily true.

my gosh, the man deal. No, geez, I’m like so

It pegged groceries at about $350 per person. John was saying for his family of four, he’s about $1,200 a month. So call it $400 a person for groceries. doesn’t count for restaurant meals, for your morning coffee run. That is just straight groceries. So call that person $400 a month, $1,200 a month on groceries. Let’s talk.

maybe mortgage payments, we’ve got a mortgage broker with us here, John, like so the average house price in Windsor, Essex, and again, keep in mind, we are one of the most affordable places in the country where you’d want to, maybe where you’d want to live. I’m sure there’s spots that might be cheaper, but we were $530,000 was the cost of the average house in Windsor, Essex in the of October, 2023. I’m going to estimate or I’m going to guess that most teachers

live in houses that are more money than this, money than the average here, because I would surmise that teachers are certainly not only in the highest 10 % of income earners here at Windsor-Essex, but probably even more. So John, if you had to estimate what a payment would be on this, what would it look like?

Well, I think maybe a better number is to not think about buying this house outright right now. Because if I’m a teacher or if I’ve been making 100K, it’s taken me 12 years to get to that spot, to reach the top of the category. So it’s likely that we bought a home or you bought a home lower than that value.

your your mortgage, say your mortgage payment is probably lower at this point. Now, if I had to refinance or if we needed to buy another home and we didn’t have any equity, like we’ve built, you know, only 20 % equity, then then we can talk about like what that calculation might look like. But what we did instead was that we looked up the average mortgage payment across Ontario. And I think we had some data from 2019. And it was like,

around 2000, between 1500 and $2,000 a month in mortgage payments. So that’s like, that kind of takes into account that you may have bought your home 10 years ago or five years ago, or even one year ago, you know, or today. And that’s where your kind of mortgage payment is coming from. So that might be a little bit more realistic to think about in terms of a person who’s making 110, because realistically, if I bought a brand new home,

today, it’s likely that I already had a home, you especially if I’m, you know, you’re in your forties to fifties and you’re making a hundred K a year as a teacher, then you’ve got built up some equity in the home prior to like move or port over into the new home. You know, so there’s that, but again, if you put, say, let’s say you put, oh, I don’t know, 20 % down and current rates, woof.

Current rates are high, right guys? Current rates are anywhere between 5.8, 5.7 and seven depending on your credit score. So an average rate right now, if you look at that 6.5 % and you put 20 % down on say that 530K home and you had no more equity, like let’s say you were a first time home buyer, then you’re looking at like 2,600 bucks a month in mortgage payments. So that’s gonna eat up a good chunk of your value.

Like I said, that’s the reality of people. Like think about this guys. Like this is, if I’m not a hundred K year earner and I’m a new teacher and you’re thinking about getting, you know, buying your first home, you’re not even making a hundred and K and now your mortgage payments, 2,600 bucks.

It’s insane. Yeah. I gotta say like that. We, if it, if it’s $60,000 and we’re talking about a single income, you know, so that’s one thing. So, you know, maybe, you know, you have two incomes coming in. Maybe you double that if, know, that person also makes a hundred, but let’s assume a single income for a second. That’s $5,000 a month. If you were to come into the market for the first time right now, and you were at the top of the grid and you’re making that hundred thousand,

you’re giving up more than half of the money that you have coming into your bank account every month for that mortgage. And then you’ve got like 2,400 bucks. You might have a car payment or not, right? So let’s call it, you know, what that’s 1600 bucks left now. Well, that’s talked about groceries, which were 400 a person or so. now you’re at 1200. Like this money is just disappearing very quickly.

You’re now down to 1200 and we haven’t talked about, you know, say property taxes, say property insurance, same auto insurance, say life insurance. If you actually are, you know, concerned about, about the uncertainties of life, that yeah, is crazy. Inflation is crushing us. just in general in Canada, when you think that a hundred thousand

Gas. Cell phone.

You know, we, did this episode to really answer this question. And I don’t think we were answering it as we go, I’m like, starting to recognize that this is crazy when you think about that. And I’m just, I feel blessed that I guess we got into the housing market when we did, because it’s definitely going to pose a challenge for some other people out there. So I wonder. Like, what do we, like, what could we suggest for those who are listening, who may not have a residence yet?

They’re looking to invest. want to get into the real estate market. what are some things we can do? Like, you know, not go to Starbucks is one of them, but I don’t think that’s going to cut it. And I know Matt’s not a big fan of it. What, do you think, Matt? Like what can,

That’s a big fan of Starbucks, not cutting it out.

That’s it.

Well, I think this is the silver lining. This is the great message. And the three of us are living proof of this, right? It’s like, we have, you you either have to spend less and that’s definitely no fun and pretty hard to do because of course, one of the benefits of so many of these jobs is you get, you know, some significant time off. so time off with no money to travel, that reminds me of like having a poor retirement. It sounds awful. So you either have to spend less, which to me is no fun, or you have to make more.

And that’s what this podcast is all about. How can you make more? How can you create more income opportunities? How can you generate more money? How can you create some assurances that as you age and as you progress and as you get to the point where you want to wind down your working career, you will have enough money to enjoy the time that you’ll then have. And as part of my own personal beliefs, how can I leave something behind as a legacy for my children so that when inflation continues to take its toll in the future, my kids,

we’ll have a leg up on everyone else. And that’s where the messages of so many of our episodes about how to go about investing and how to get started are critical. And just think about the number of people we talk to who have been stuck, who have been spinning their wheels and investing and inflation has continued to eat away and eat away and eat away at the income they do have. The cost now to invest have been going up and up and up. So I think, you know, my big message here is to get started. You know, this,

To think the topic of this is mind blowing that a hundred grand is perhaps not enough for you to live comfortably almost anywhere in this country is pretty mind blowing. And I think a call to all of you out there who have aspired to take action and start investing to actually take that action, to reach out to us for a consultation, for a call, we can get into the minutiae with you and really analyze your situation. We’ve got, know, Kyle is brilliant at this.

we can start to talk to you about some of our back-up episodes, topics, we can really help you understand which one of these strategies might relate to you. Is it real estate investing? We certainly do a lot of that. We’re gonna talk in future episodes about some terrific opportunities we’ve just recently found in real estate investing. Is that the way you wanna go? Do you wanna be hands-off and just be a money partner, a joint venture partner in a future property? We’ve got options for that as well.

This, like I can feel my like temperature rising as we talk about this. This is like a crisis. If a hundred grand isn’t enough to live comfortably in this country, I won’t complain about systemic issues or things we can’t control. Cause I’m a firm believer in your destiny is in your hand. So forget complaining about the government or this or that, or the other thing. Like let’s focus on what you can do for yourself.

Yeah, good message there, Matt, and good takeaway. And I think my takeaway from analyzing the data is thinking about some of the, like you said, messages we’ve shared in prior podcasts, which is about kind of aligning your priorities. Like I think, like we talked about a lot of averages here, like when we did our average, what’s our average mortgage payment? What’s our average car payment? What’s our average for groceries? What’s our average for going out to eat? Like that kind of thing.

For me, think if you’re going to say make it and change your comfort level so that 100K is enough, and if you’re gonna just say, I’m not gonna make more money, but I’m going to restructure the money I have to create cushion so that I can invest, that’s still doable, because that’s what I did for a long time. I had no extra money coming in, but I did a lot of restructuring on what matters to me.

And I think that’s a good question we have to ask ourselves. What really matters to you? And then how do you restructure? So like what you said, Matt, is important too. Hop on a call with us too, because we’ve done a lot of restructuring calls to think about what should we focus on? How can I restructure this? We did an episode a couple episodes ago, Cal, about where we, should we be putting money here? Or maybe we should be actually doing some money, putting some money away for our financial security

first bit because that will also allow us to have some capital money we can move to other places. And we actually can use the same dollar twice. And so we’ve got some strategies we’ve used with people to help restructure their current, you know, their current financial situation to allow them to get into real estate investing or use their money for, for future wealth building. So let us know about that. You know, I think, but I think that’s my big takeaway.

I it. I love it. I got a, uh, some like a surge of energy from Matt there. was getting passionate. love it. And he’s getting excited. You know what I’m hearing in both of what you’re saying is, you know, again, like I loved what I heard from Matt about this idea that you are essentially in control of your destiny. Um, and that is a hundred percent true. And John, you’re giving some ideas around how you can actually take control of your destiny. And I think I just want to sort of put a,

exclamation point behind those two ideas. Like if you don’t know why you want to invest or you don’t know why you want to grow some wealth or whatever it is, the reality is, is you’re not going to do it because you’re not clear enough on the why. You’re not clear on what it is that you’re trying to achieve. The reality is, and I say this to people who do call in and I, there was one time where I said to someone, said,

It sounds like you’re living your best life right now with your current budget and it’s working for you. You don’t have anything left to invest, but it sounds like you’re doing exactly what you want to do. We always use the example of the softball, you know, playing softball four days a week. You know, if that’s you rock and roll, but if you’re not happy with where you’re at now, you gotta prioritize, you gotta think about what is it that you actually want.

And then actually like it’s when people say planning, like it sounds scary, but the reality is like, if I keep doing what I’m doing now, and then I fast forward for 10, 20, 30 years, what is that going to do for me? And if you’re playing a game where it means you’re going to be at exactly the same level and you just, you know, hopefully we’ll continue earning the same amount of income, but you’ve not gained any sort of assets or wealth.

That’s fine. But as long as you’re aware that that’s what you’re doing, right? If you want that to change, you need to look at that and you need to actually extrapolate out and say, if I keep doing this, here’s where I’m going to be. Like it’s not going to change on your own. You need to be well aware of it. And if you’re okay with the end goal or the result of it, then you’re in good shape. If you’re not okay with that end goal, then you need to look and you need to decide what

actually brings me happiness and joy in my life now. And what does not for a lot of people, I pick on cars all the time, cars that 800 on average per month for a car payment is a lot of money, right? So it’s like, does it actually bring you the amount of joy that you really thought it would bring you? It’s okay. If you’re wrong, you can sell it and you can downsize or you can sell your home and you can downsize that whatever you need to do, do what you need to do.

and get yourself going on your plan, not on our plan, on your plan.

Canadian Wealth Secrets is an informative podcast that digs into the intricacies of building a robust portfolio, maximizing dividend returns, the nuances of real estate investment, and the complexities of business finance, while offering expert advice on wealth management, navigating capital gains tax, and understanding the role of financial institutions in personal finance.

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