(Note: throughout this post I mostly ignore the US-CAD exchange rate. They're similar enough I think most of my recommendations would apply even if the amounts were assumed to be Canadian dollars, but you can multiply everything by 30% if you want.)
(Note 2: Although this post is really long, it doesn't address everything. One significant thing it doesn't address is your alleged 36% tax rate, which I doubt is correct.)
Unsecured line of credit: Bal of $24500 at Prime + 2% (currently 4.7% here), interest only required, can add principal payments of any size any time.
Credit card: $2,000 at 12.99% (intend to pay this off within 6 months, seem to have overspent with shopping).
First things first,
this is a hair-on-fire emergency!!!!!Drop
everything to the absolute bare minimum and get that credit card paid off in
one month, not six. Then cut up the card, because if you're paying interest then you've already proven you can't be responsible with it.
(Note about the Dave Ramsey/Gail Vaz-Oxlade (who?)/etc. stuff you posted: if you can be responsible and are capable of paying in full every month, using credit cards is fine and their advice doesn't apply. But you can't, so their advice certainly applies to you.)
Once the CC balance is paid off, pay more than interest-only on your credit line. I'm not going to say prioritize it over everything else because 4.7% is less than you should be able to get in investment return, but the fact that it's variable makes it risky. I'd say that once your RRSP is fully funded, any remaining income should be applied here (before paying down your mortgage).
I recently moved closer to aging family which required a home and a car.
Why do you think it required a home (by which I assume you mean a townhouse/duplex/single-family house with several bedrooms)? Is your aging family living with you? If not, you could be living somewhere smaller and cheaper.
In fact, I'd say that with $1750 mortgage + $215 condo fee + $140 property tax + $75 insurance = $2180/month housing expenses (not including maintenance) you can't really afford to live there, regardless of how good of an alleged "investment" it is.
(From my perspective, Canadian property looks like a huge bubble, so I highly doubt that 6% return over the long term too.)
it allows me to get a homestay (paying) international billet student or offer AirBnB accommodation as well as (d) run a few small home businesses using the workspace available.
Have you done those things? If not, what it "allows" you do is irrelevant. Either
actually leverage those assets, or move.
I don't know what the rental market is like in your area, but with a house that expensive I'd like to see you make some use of it (by taking on roommates or otherwise) that generates
at least $1000/month in income.
I... get 360km per ¾ tank at $28 per fill up. (budget of 6 fill ups per month for all necessary driving- $168 per month, note gas is $4.98 a gallon here (Cdn))
Part of your issue is mindset. Your description just made it as hard as possible to calculate your car's efficiency, for example. Why couldn't you have just told us the miles (or km) per gallon? When you're trying to optimize your expenses, keep your mind focused on the numbers that matter (e.g. mpg and total miles driven per month) not the ones that don't (e.g. number of fill-ups per month). This principle applies in general, not just for your vehicle.
So if 3/4 of a tank of gas costs $28, then a full tank would cost $37.33. At $4.98/gallon, that means your tank holds 7.49 gallons. Also, 3/4 of a tank lasts 360km, so a full tank would last 480km (or 298 miles). 480km / 7.49 gallons = 64.085 km per gallon or 39.80 mpg.
That's actually not bad
if it's accurate -- the idea that your fuel tank is only 7.5 gallons is suspicious. What make/model of car is this?
Car, worth $20,000 under warranty: I drive 90km to work each day (round trip)
Car fuel 170
Car Ins 140
Car Loan 255
Parking 115
(Total cost: $680/month, even before considering the time value of your commute or maintenance of wear items not covered by warranty.)
This, however, is a problem. First of all, a 56-mile round trip is ridiculous. Yeah, yeah, good job + aging family members means you feel stuck with it; I get it. But you should still recognize it as ridiculous. Also, don't forget to assign value to the huge amount of your life you're wasting on it (1.5 hours / day).
Second, even if it gets good fuel economy, $20K is 2-4 times as much as you actually need to spend on a car. Sell it and get an older one, which will still be reliable but won't cost you $140/month (HOLY SHIT!!) in car insurance alone.
Until recently, I also had a clown-car commute similar to yours, but I was doing it in a <$4000 car that cost me less than $140 per
six months in insurance. If you did similar it would reduce your vehicle expenses by
at least half.
$115 in parking is also absurd. If you can't bike/walk/take transit, can you at least find cheaper parking farther away?
I am contributing (starts in 4 weeks) $1,700 pre-tax ($1100 after tax) to an account like an IRA called an RRSP (money deposited to these incur a tax-deduction and you can elect to have the equivalent to the deduction applied by your employer if contributions are made via payroll).
This statement doesn't make much sense. If it's tax-advantaged, then there is no such thing as "$1100 after tax" (except decades from now, and you don't really know what that number will be). Again, organize your mindset because I suspect you may be double-counting the taxes or something here.
I assume what you're trying to say is that your $1700 RRSP contribution reduces your take-home pay by $1100, so your net monthly income is $4200.
Misc 65
Personal needs 80
Household set up expenses, some shopping (fall clothes/shoes, etc) 100
Missing/leaked/overspent 300
Food-groc. AND Pharmacy 400
Internet 95
Credit line interest and principal 250
VISA 25
First of all, "credit line principal" and "VISA" (assuming that's referring to the credit card, and not the travel document) are not a valid expense categories. You're not spending money on the card/acccount, you're spending money on the stuff you bought with it plus the interest. The interest is an expense by itself, but the principal is an expense accounted for in a different category (whatever category the stuff you bought with it belongs to).
Second, you have
three different bullshit "slush funds" ("misc," "household set-up expenses, some shopping" and "Missing/leaked/overspent"). You did not "leak" $300, you leaked $465. And that's
every month?! Holy shit!
Cut that to zero.
Third, "personal needs" + "groceries" (which I think most people consider one category) at $480/month for a single person is ridiculous. Cut that in half.
Fourth, $95 Internet? Crazy! Even though I realize that Canadian ISPs can be about as shitty as US ones, I still believe you could downgrade the speed to somewhere between 3 and 10 Mbps and pay $20-$40/month for it.
Cell Phone 135- smartphone rquired for job (email and web access)
I call bullshit. Maybe your work requires email and web access, but I find it damned hard to believe it requires $135/month worth of it (or that if it is, that it isn't just paying the bill for you).
Quit streaming videos when you're not on Wi-Fi, realize that you don't need unlimited data, and cut this bill at least in half. (If I can get 5GB data for $30/month in the US, I have no doubt that you can get sufficient data in Canada for twice that much.)
Elder care 350
Why?
Shouldn't their own savings and/or insurance and/or the Canadian government be paying for that? Even if not, you should treat this like a plane crash: put on your own oxygen mask before attempting to help others.
Vacation 50
Savings for home repairs 0
Fix your priorities. If you can't afford to save for home repairs, you can't afford to take a vacation (or afford the house itself, for that matter).
I think the rule of thumb is that repairs can be estimated at 1% of the house value per year, which for a $375k house works out to $312/month.
Once you're out of CC and unsecured credit line debt and have your expenses under control,
then you can start thinking about a vacation again.
Condo Fee includes water 215
Hydro- electricity only 65
No gas bill? Is heat free, or is it electric and included in that $65/month, or is Canada a lot warmer than I've been lead to believe? I'm suspicious.
Pet costs 365
That is a
ton of money to be spending on pets, but I don't really expect you to act rationally about it. I'm going to let others address that issue in more detail.
Life ins 25
What for? If you're single, who are you expecting the beneficiary to be?
Health insurance 75
What for? Aren't you guys famous for your socialized medicine?
Expected ER expenses: (optional, if relevant) don’t know what this means.
It means "how much more or less money do you expect to spend after early retirement?"
Okay, so here's a first stab at a new budget:
Net pay (i.e., not including RRSP):
4200Housing & utilities (
this category still needs to be cut unless you get renters)
Mortgage 1750
Hydro- electricity only 65
Condo Fee includes water 215
Insurance (home) 75
Property taxes* 140
Car
Car fuel 170
Car Ins
140 25 Car Loan
255 36 (the difference in cost between your $20K car and a $4k car, amortized over the same time period as your current loan)
Parking 115
Telecom
Cell Phone
135 60 <- still overly generous
Internet
95 30Household expenses
Personal needs
80 40 Food-groc. AND Pharmacy
400 200 Household set up expenses, some shopping (fall clothes/shoes, etc)
100 0 Savings for home repairs
0 312 Side gig supplies 50
Vacation
50 0Insurance
Health insurance
75 0 Life ins
25 0Elder care
350 0Pet costs 365 (
this category still needs to be cut)
Credit line interest and principal 250 (accounted for separately)
VISA 25 (accounted for separately)
Total:
6095 3648Debt service: $552 + ALL additional income----------------------------------------------------------
Now, all of the above was what I could assume based on what you told us. The
real big-ticket savings would be if you significantly modified your lifestyle by moving within walking/biking distance of your job and moving your aging family in with you. That would render most of the advice above moot, however, and would require a bunch more details (e.g. how many aging family members we're talking about, housing costs near your job, etc.) to analyze.
