Thought I'd add in my two cents...
I invest entirely using Questrade, for the ability to buy ETFs free (or nearly free - when using a limit order, as suggested here: http://canadiancouchpotato.com/2014/12/15/the-limits-of-limit-orders/ they do charge a tiny ECN fee).
My allocation is at 55% VXC, 25% VCN, and 20% VAB. I rebalance every time I add more, which is every 2 weeks. I have both a TFSA and regular taxable account (no RRSP as of yet, long story... I just moved here personally this year, so I have no room, although my wife should have minimal room from working a little back in her highschool years. I figured I'd wait until I get the official assessments next year to open RRSPs for both of us).
Personally, I have no dedicated "emergency fund" to speak of. If I needed to, I would take some out of the TFSA first in an emergency. Our total balance is such that our entire investments would have to decline by about 70% before I would begin to get worried about not having enough in an emergency (we have no debts to speak of (including no house), so we'd also both have to lose our jobs before I'd get worried... technically all that is possible, but worth the risk to me).
Thanks EfficiencyNerd! I appreciate your 2 cents. Where did you move from?
Sounds like your 'stache is plentiful. Are you on the rent VS buy side, as far as a home is concerned?
We moved from Boston, where we met while in school. I grew up in upstate NY, she grew up just south of Toronto.
I wouldn't say my stache is "plentiful" per se, just that in the unlikely event that we'd need money in an "emergency", I'm comfortable that there would be enough in it, even if the market happened to take a pretty good plunge. From your finances posted recently, you have about $100k - granted, not all of that is easily accessible, but if you really needed to you could get it out. You also mentioned earlier having $10k in a checking account as an emergency fund (forgive me if that's no longer the case, I haven't read every reply on this thread). But if you ever needed $10k, why not just dip into your savings somewhere? Maybe I'm simplifying it too much, and it would suck in any event to need to take money out if the market happened to be down, but to me the risk of both of those events happening simultaneously (market plunge + needing emergency money) wouldn't be worth having that much sitting around in a checking account. Again, just my thoughts. Once you throw the HELOC option in there, that's definitely another good option if you have it, and I'll admit I know next to nothing about a HELOC.
As far as home prices.... damn they are expensive in Toronto. Eventually I'd like to buy, but at this point we wouldn't have enough of a down payment that I'd be comfortable doing that, regardless of the rent VS buy math. Ideally I'd like to end up further away from the city where home ownership is more feasible and realistic.
Actually, what I'd really like to do is build a super-efficient house... think Passivhous levels, with solar/geothermal to make it net-zero or even negative footprint. But that's a story for another day.