“All I really wanna see is the MONEY”

Updated December 8, 2020

Welcome back to the Roaring Twenties. Is now a good time to talk about personal finance? Niceee

Last year, I shared my personal finance stack as someone just entering the workforce. While the foundations stay the same - I’m still fairly new (lmao) - a status update is in order. On the off chance someone I know reads this, I hope that by me being transparent, they feel more empowered and excited about the idea of making and sharing their own money moves.

Personal Finance Stack: “The collection of tools, banking partners, and investing services you’ve chosen to manage your assets and financial life.” (lebel.io)

Let’s go… here’s the 2020 personal finance stack:

Dashboard / Net Worth Tracking

Weathica - Wealthica allows me to see all of my accounts and investments in one place. When you have accounts from 5-10 different institutions, it can be difficult to keep track of 1) your transactions, 2) how much money is in each account, and 3) your investment performance. This makes it easy.

All you have to do is link up all of your accounts once, and Wealthica does the work. There are also a lot of third-party extensions that provide you more insight on your money - everything from balance sheets, income tracking, and more.

Income

Employment - I currently work part-time as a production assistant in the Vancouver film industry. It’s around 2-3 days a week, with each day being $300 worth of pay. This is how I’ve been keeping myself busy while I take a small break from full-time work.

I used to work for a Fortune 500 company in Montreal as an assistant marketing manager. Quit in July 2020 to move back to BC.

Interest - Very small. Annually it’s around $100-200.

Spending

Tangerine Chequing Account. No minimum balance needed. Unlimited transactions. No monthly fee forever. Free e-transfer. Easy linking to other bank accounts. Cool orange colour. Pyramid scheme-esque $50 referral bonus. Under Scotiabank’s ABM network. Did I mention I used to work for them? Tangerine has been great for my daily banking since I’ve been with them back in 2016. It’s like having a student bank account for life.

American Express Cobalt Card. This card is brazy. The Amex Cobalt is a points-based credit card with a $10 monthly fee that kicks serious ass. You earn 5 points for groceries and restaurants, 2 points for travel, and 1 on everything else. Points can be redeemed for a variety of rewards (e.g. Amazon, Ticketmaster), but the big thing here is Amex’s Fixed Points Travel Program where you can use points for round-trip flight tickets. Details below:

So what’s the redemption rate like? Let’s use the Canada/US (Long Haul) flight for example since I like to make trips from Montreal to Vancouver (it’s the reason this card first got me curious). If we use the redemption rate of $700 per 40,000 points, 1 point is approximately $0.0175. If you earn 5 points per food-related purchase, your reward rate is 8.75%. For travel, it’s 3.5%, and that leaves 1.75% for the rest. If you spend $115 on food per month, you make your $10 monthly fee back and start profiting right after. And I know you spend a lot more than that monthly on food.

At 8.75%, let me know where you can find a better return on spending.

Did I mention you can earn up to 30,000 points for free as a welcome bonus if you spend $500 per month? That basically pays for a flight by itself. Consider introducing this into your life - it’s ranked Canada’s #1 credit card by creditcardGenius for a reason.

Lastly, there is no income requirement for this card.

Tangerine Cash-Back Mastercard. My faithful #2 when the establishments REFUSE my Amex (it happens a lot). This is a no-fee, straightforward cash-back credit card that distributes my cash reward on a monthly basis (most only pay it out annually). I get 2% back on 3 categories I choose (groceries, restaurants, and pharmacies), and 0.5% on the rest. The typical monthly pay out is around $10 based on my spending patterns.

Scotiabank SCENE Visa Card. Right now this card is here just so I can say I have all three bases covered (AMEX/MC/Visa). You get 1 “Scene Point” per $1 spent - with the ability to redeem 1000 points for a $10 discount on select restos and 1,250 points for a Cineplex movie ticket, the rewards rate is 0.8-1.0%. I don’t use this unless I have no choice. Fun fact: this was my first credit card!

Cash. I keep $20 in my wallet because You Never Know. Once it gets all used up (usually takes 3 months), I replenish with another $20.

Saving

EQ Bank Savings Plus Account. The GOAT for no-nonsense savings. EQ Bank has one of the highest interest savings accounts in Canada with unlimited e-transfers and transactions, capability to pay bills… it does it all. I use this account for my emergency fund and keep around 3 months of expenses inside. Interest rate: 1.5%

Tangerine Savings Account. Because I already have a Tangerine chequing account, it’s a lot easier creating savings accounts with them to hold short-term money - money for rent and credit card payments.

Occasionally, Tangerine offers promotional interest rates for 6 months that are higher than EQ Bank. All I’ll say is that I’m not particularly loyal to EQ when that happens…

Interest rate: 1.05%

Investing

Wealthsimple Invest TFSA. My main investment vehicle. When I was working full-time, I contribute 30% of my after-tax income into this TFSA and my asset allocation is 90% equities and 10% bonds. My cumulative MER is around 0.7%, and I love Wealthsimple because I don’t have to think about it.

I leave around 50-60% of my investments in this account. The other half, I manage on my own…

Wealthsimple Trade TFSA & RRSP. This is where I invest in individual stocks. Wealthsimple Trade is my ideal platform thanks to its easy-to-use app and zero-commission trading, which can’t be said for others like Questrade and Qtrade.

Qtrade TFSA. I have a small amount here to play around with options trading. As a discount brokerage, Questrade starts at $8.75 per trade. I’d actually recommend Questrade - it’s a bit cheaper at $4.95/trade.

Budgeting

YNAB (You Need A Budget). Assign a job to every dollar you have. YNAB is a spreadsheet I pay for to budget every loonie I make to a specific category of spending, from groceries to grooming to transportation. You can link your bank accounts to YNAB to assign which category your transactions fall under and see how you’re doing. What I love about it is that it requires DAILY UPDATING, meaning you’re forced to confront your purchases and see if you’re still respecting the budget you’ve given to each category.

YNAB also comes with specific reports for you to track your progress, such as spending, net worth, and income vs. expenses.

Only caveat? After your 34-day trial is over, YNAB is $84 USD / year. Speaking from personal experience, the $84 delivers results and encourages mindful money management. My net worth is going up so I’m doing something with YNAB right... right?

Education

r/PersonalFinanceCanada. This is a great community of Canadians talking all things personal finance. Everything from the sad state of housing prices to discovering you don’t have to pay an additional 8% sales tax in Ontario for restaurant purchases under $4 happens on a daily basis.

What else?

I’ll be doing an in-depth writeup on a few of the tools in 2021 - Wealthica and Wealthsimple are on top of mind. In the mean time, wear a mask!