Author Topic: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?  (Read 8805 times)

imolina

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Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« on: January 02, 2018, 03:48:47 AM »
Canadians, please share you annual expenses!.

The Fake Cheap

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #1 on: January 03, 2018, 07:33:31 PM »
I'll play, it sounds like a fun game.

Just back of the napkin math:

About $24,000 per year spending, groceries is a huge chunk of that, about half.
Another $30,000 on bills: mortgage, power/utilities, daycare (1 child), car insurance, etc.
About $8,000 is saved per year.
About $5,000 per year on debt repayment.

Not sure if you wanted more specific details, or just amounts...but there you go. 





kayvent

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #2 on: January 04, 2018, 04:27:45 AM »
Since I happen to have all the numbers anyway (YNAB), I'm curious what the numbers were

My total income from all sources, minus CPP, EI, and income tax, was 71K in 2017. I'm including items like GST/HST rebate and CCB as income. I'd also typically not consider CPP a tax but for this discussion that opinion is best left aside.

From that I paid off 11K in debt and saved 21K. Gave 5K to charity. Spent 34K.

I'm a bit distraught that I spend so much looking at it. About a quarter of the spend is rent. An eighth is daycare. An eighth is 'food' (which I'm really struggling to control). About 10% of my spending is on GST/HST.

I'd like to reduce the spend this year.
« Last Edit: January 04, 2018, 04:29:50 AM by kayvent »

Lews Therin

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #3 on: January 04, 2018, 10:09:17 AM »
22K last year, includes owning a house in Ottawa, and a 2 year old car.

going down to 18k-20k this year (got a roommate)

PoutineLover

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #4 on: January 04, 2018, 10:23:52 AM »
I spend around 20k a year. Single, renting, no car.

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #5 on: January 04, 2018, 10:28:52 AM »
We were right around 25K annually for the last 2 years (before we emigrated in the summer).

That's for 2 people & 1 dog with a paid off mortgage.

(We had paid off the mortgage... not the dog.)


Prairie Stash

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #6 on: January 05, 2018, 09:01:50 AM »
Family of four, paid off house.

$25,000 for groceries, utilities, house repair, transportation etc, seems to be the rolling average over several years now
$8,000 on daycare (separated out because it's transient, only for a few more years).
$5,000 on RESP - that's not my savings so its an expense, its the kids savings that I'm funding. That will also drop soon, after 10 years they'll have enough, with matching and gains they will each have 4 full years of school paid for.

If I was FIRE the last two would disappear; I'd get $10,000 from CCB to cover RESP and have money left over for the kids expenses as they grow.

kelvin

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #7 on: January 23, 2018, 09:32:30 AM »
Last year's numbers were low:

$3000/food (ish)
$7200/rent ($600/month, all inclusive, rent for a room in an apartment in someone's basement in Ottawa)
too much in transportation. I biked all summer, tried to take the bus in winter, was consistently either late for work or spending 40 min in -20C, so I started spending money on Uber.
$8000/debt repayment.
~$1000/lifestyle upgrades. New work wardrobe for the new job (some thrifted, some new), new running shoes, new winter boots, kijiji furniture, I now own a couch and a TV for the first time in 3 years.
$1000/vacation (went home to see the family for two weeks. Not happening this year.)

I was recently a student, I'm still getting money back from the CRA every year. I think this will be my last year of that.   

This year's numbers will be higher. I got a new-to-me truck for $3500, paid for my insurance all at once at $1100 for the year. I will not be wintering in my current room ever again, I will be renting an apartment within walking distance to work by this time next year. I expect it to double my housing expenses. Also my computer died unexpectedly. I'm a gamer, I'm not building a top of the line rig, but I'm spending about $700 of unplanned money.

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #8 on: January 23, 2018, 09:44:07 AM »
One adult, two kids, two dogs. $30k. This includes ~$1k/ month for housing (mortgage, taxes, insurance, maintenance, utilities), $7k for travel, $7k for a new car.

Zikoris

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #9 on: January 23, 2018, 06:29:52 PM »
We're generally in the ballpark of 27K for two adults + cat, in Vancouver. Breakdown is roughly 1/3 travel, 1/3 housing, 1/3 everything else.

imolina

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #10 on: January 23, 2018, 08:06:54 PM »
Thanks for sharing. I am trying to figure out how much we would need to live in Canada, we are not up to date with the cost of living there as we have lived in UAE for 12 years already. Planning to go back in a few years and be FIREd and maybe work part time.
I have planned on 50K per year for 2 adults, 2 children living in Windsor or another similar low cost of living city, so it seems it will be fine. We have always been frugal, so we should be ok.

Off the Wheel

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #11 on: January 23, 2018, 08:25:31 PM »
We've been spending ~$55K for two adults and a dog in a HCOLA. Almost half of that is housing (mortgage/property management/taxes/insurance.) The rest I'm working on.

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #12 on: January 23, 2018, 08:27:17 PM »
Thanks for sharing. I am trying to figure out how much we would need to live in Canada, we are not up to date with the cost of living there as we have lived in UAE for 12 years already. Planning to go back in a few years and be FIREd and maybe work part time.
I have planned on 50K per year for 2 adults, 2 children living in Windsor or another similar low cost of living city, so it seems it will be fine. We have always been frugal, so we should be ok.

With 2 adults, 2 children 50k$ is fine. 40k$ would be barebone and 60k$ a volcano of luxuries. We live with 50k$ with no problem!

Novik

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #13 on: January 25, 2018, 02:19:39 PM »
Sub 20k for one person in Ottawa with plenty of optional personal spending. This includes some economies of scale with my partner.

I thought I was doing pretty well, but...

One adult, two kids, two dogs. $30k. This includes ~$1k/ month for housing (mortgage, taxes, insurance, maintenance, utilities), $7k for travel, $7k for a new car.

I am beyond impressed, @snacky - this puts you at ~333$/month for food for 5, gas, kids clothes/activities etc... wow.

snacky

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #14 on: January 25, 2018, 02:38:38 PM »
Sub 20k for one person in Ottawa with plenty of optional personal spending. This includes some economies of scale with my partner.

I thought I was doing pretty well, but...

One adult, two kids, two dogs. $30k. This includes ~$1k/ month for housing (mortgage, taxes, insurance, maintenance, utilities), $7k for travel, $7k for a new car.

I am beyond impressed, @snacky - this puts you at ~333$/month for food for 5, gas, kids clothes/activities etc... wow.

My numbers for travel were way off. It was $2k for the year for travel. I spent ~1k a month on food, clothes, fun, etc. This makes none of the numbers I've listed add up, but they do on my spreadsheet. Let's blame extreme rounding of numbers, k?

Novik

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #15 on: January 25, 2018, 02:45:06 PM »
Sub 20k for one person in Ottawa with plenty of optional personal spending. This includes some economies of scale with my partner.

I thought I was doing pretty well, but...

One adult, two kids, two dogs. $30k. This includes ~$1k/ month for housing (mortgage, taxes, insurance, maintenance, utilities), $7k for travel, $7k for a new car.

I am beyond impressed, @snacky - this puts you at ~333$/month for food for 5, gas, kids clothes/activities etc... wow.

My numbers for travel were way off. It was $2k for the year for travel. I spent ~1k a month on food, clothes, fun, etc. This makes none of the numbers I've listed add up, but they do on my spreadsheet. Let's blame extreme rounding of numbers, k?

That does make more sense - and still very impressive. Regardless, extreme rounding has been given a time-out.

Gerard

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #16 on: January 27, 2018, 11:02:02 AM »
I'm in Newfoundland, in a paid-off small house containing 1.3 people (long distance relationship!). I pay about $5K a year for housing (utilities, taxes, minor maintenance), and $5.4K for food and fun and clothes. Another $5K a year for travel (long distance relationship!), which will massively decrease in retirement.

I would guess you could do about the same in Windsor -- house prices are similar, food and travel are much cheaper than here, and you'd pay less for heat and more for AC. Throw in a few K for dental and medical, and a couple of K per person for other stuff. A bunch more if you have a car, I guess. Still, you could have a fairly decent life for $25K.

My plan is to retire to Toronto with base spending around $1500 a month for two people.

Off the Wheel

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #17 on: January 27, 2018, 11:12:50 AM »
I'm so impressed by these numbers. We live in a 'reasonable' townhome with a 'reasonable' mortgage, and it still costs us $26K+ a year (when covering mortgage, property management, taxes.)

bluebelle

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #18 on: January 29, 2018, 10:08:01 AM »

My plan is to retire to Toronto with base spending around $1500 a month for two people.
not to be a buzzkill, but how do you plan on living in Toronto on $18,000 a year for two people?  Does that exclude housing costs?

Zikoris

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #19 on: January 29, 2018, 10:31:33 AM »

My plan is to retire to Toronto with base spending around $1500 a month for two people.
not to be a buzzkill, but how do you plan on living in Toronto on $18,000 a year for two people?  Does that exclude housing costs?

I'm not the person you asked, but anyway, we do it with zero difficulty in Vancouver. Toronto can't be any worse. Excluding our fancypants international travel, our total spending including everything was under $18,000 last year.

lizi

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #20 on: January 29, 2018, 10:50:15 AM »
I'm at a shade under $20K, just for me. I share living expenses with my SO but we keep finances totally separate. He is probably more in the $35-40K camp but has more bikes and skis than me.

I'm in a LCOL area so living expenses are generally very cheap. $450 a month on rent, ~$160 a month for groceries (that's just my share, and I pay a little less than 50% for rent and a little more than 50% for food).

Off the Wheel

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #21 on: January 29, 2018, 11:25:26 AM »

My plan is to retire to Toronto with base spending around $1500 a month for two people.
not to be a buzzkill, but how do you plan on living in Toronto on $18,000 a year for two people?  Does that exclude housing costs?

I'm not the person you asked, but anyway, we do it with zero difficulty in Vancouver. Toronto can't be any worse. Excluding our fancypants international travel, our total spending including everything was under $18,000 last year.

Does that include housing? If so... what's your secret?

Zikoris

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #22 on: January 29, 2018, 11:27:58 AM »

My plan is to retire to Toronto with base spending around $1500 a month for two people.
not to be a buzzkill, but how do you plan on living in Toronto on $18,000 a year for two people?  Does that exclude housing costs?

I'm not the person you asked, but anyway, we do it with zero difficulty in Vancouver. Toronto can't be any worse. Excluding our fancypants international travel, our total spending including everything was under $18,000 last year.

Does that include housing? If so... what's your secret?

Yes, everything. Just do all the stuff MMM and your Grandma would tell you to do to save money. Nothing special.

kayvent

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #23 on: January 29, 2018, 05:30:54 PM »
My grandma would buy smokes from Indians to save money. So I should pick up smoking?

First Born

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #24 on: January 30, 2018, 08:39:37 AM »
I'm so impressed by these numbers. We live in a 'reasonable' townhome with a 'reasonable' mortgage, and it still costs us $26K+ a year (when covering mortgage, property management, taxes.)

Me too!  We live in a medium COL area (outside GTA) - we are a family of 4 in a largish house with a smallish mortgage and our house+hydro+gas was $26,500 last year 2017.  We have looked at going to a rental house but rentals in this area are $2,000 month plus utilities.  You can find $1800 rentals for main floor only - still going to be almost 22K per year pls utilities.  We want to stay in this location until the youngest finishes HS.

If we slashed everything except food and housing we are still over 40K per year.

Prairie Stash

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #25 on: January 30, 2018, 09:05:10 AM »
I'm so impressed by these numbers. We live in a 'reasonable' townhome with a 'reasonable' mortgage, and it still costs us $26K+ a year (when covering mortgage, property management, taxes.)

Me too!  We live in a medium COL area (outside GTA) - we are a family of 4 in a largish house with a smallish mortgage and our house+hydro+gas was $26,500 last year 2017.  We have looked at going to a rental house but rentals in this area are $2,000 month plus utilities.  You can find $1800 rentals for main floor only - still going to be almost 22K per year pls utilities.  We want to stay in this location until the youngest finishes HS.

If we slashed everything except food and housing we are still over 40K per year.
That implies food cost is $14,000/year for a family of four. Stick around and this forum will help you cut all your expenses. The only nice thing about high spending is there's lots of ways to save and feel great doing it. Teaching your kids to be frugal is a life lesson they can rely on whenever life throws unexpected obstacles their way.

Novik

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #26 on: January 30, 2018, 09:07:39 AM »
I'm so impressed by these numbers. We live in a 'reasonable' townhome with a 'reasonable' mortgage, and it still costs us $26K+ a year (when covering mortgage, property management, taxes.)

Me too!  We live in a medium COL area (outside GTA) - we are a family of 4 in a largish house with a smallish mortgage and our house+hydro+gas was $26,500 last year 2017.  We have looked at going to a rental house but rentals in this area are $2,000 month plus utilities.  You can find $1800 rentals for main floor only - still going to be almost 22K per year pls utilities.  We want to stay in this location until the youngest finishes HS.

If we slashed everything except food and housing we are still over 40K per year.
That implies food cost is $14,000/year for a family of four. Stick around and this forum will help you cut all your expenses. The only nice thing about high spending is there's lots of ways to save and feel great doing it. Teaching your kids to be frugal is a life lesson they can rely on whenever life throws unexpected obstacles their way.

Seconding that the food budget seems quite high, especially given that with 4 people you can have plenty of economies of scale. Unless maybe house/hydro/gas wasn't all your housing expenses?

bluebelle

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #27 on: January 30, 2018, 09:42:03 AM »
At the risk of being beaten about the head and shoulders, I'll supply ours.  It's for a family of two.  I know there is room for improvement, but hubby is not fully on board and never will be.  And I'm not pushing it any further with him.  I'm just adding our numbers for the other end of the spectrum here.  I use rough classifications, anything bought at the grocery store is in the 'food' category, anything at Walmart is 'home'.  Home/living includes home maintenance, internet/cable, clothing.  Misc includes entertainment, so his hockey fees, the occaisonal concert etc.  Most of the 'health' was reimbursed through our insurance, but I include it as a buffer in retirement (we'll be able to purchase group insurance as part of his retiree benefits which will probably be about the same cost).  At least 95% of our meals are home cooked, predominately from scratch, but he's a big meat eater, and quite frankly, we can both tell the difference between meat from the butcher and grocery store, and the fish monger and the grocery store, so those stay in our future.  I'm always interested in folks that seem to eat for < $5/day, but I don't see us doing it.  For example, just the salad last night was $3 a serving, albeit a large serving, but when you add up the cost of romaine, tomatoes, avocados, pumpkin seeds, dressing, cheese (for him), it adds up.

food   10,000
vehicle/gas 4,400 (all vehicles are paid for)
home/living 7,300
travel 3,300
parking 2,300 (he drives to work, and parks in the building, not worth the fight)
booze 1,500
health 4,400
misc   2,500
restaurant   1,600 (the occasional lunch out for me, one meal out for the two of us once a month)
ins car/home/MC 7,400  (2 cars ,2 motorcycles, insurance is stupid expensive in Ontario)
cash 'stuff'   4,500 (mostly the entertainment budget)
property tax 7,000
total   56,200
« Last Edit: January 30, 2018, 10:18:20 AM by bluebelle »

First Born

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #28 on: January 30, 2018, 09:58:48 AM »
I'm so impressed by these numbers. We live in a 'reasonable' townhome with a 'reasonable' mortgage, and it still costs us $26K+ a year (when covering mortgage, property management, taxes.)

Me too!  We live in a medium COL area (outside GTA) - we are a family of 4 in a largish house with a smallish mortgage and our house+hydro+gas was $26,500 last year 2017.  We have looked at going to a rental house but rentals in this area are $2,000 month plus utilities.  You can find $1800 rentals for main floor only - still going to be almost 22K per year pls utilities.  We want to stay in this location until the youngest finishes HS.

If we slashed everything except food and housing we are still over 40K per year.
That implies food cost is $14,000/year for a family of four. Stick around and this forum will help you cut all your expenses. The only nice thing about high spending is there's lots of ways to save and feel great doing it. Teaching your kids to be frugal is a life lesson they can rely on whenever life throws unexpected obstacles their way.

oh Yes!  Good catch - we are spendy on food for sure - 2 teenagers that eat and eat plus lots of meat/cheese etc.  I should have clarified that that also included personal care/hygiene/detergents/dog food etc.  I am sure I could improve on that at the expense of protest from family.

max9505672

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #29 on: January 30, 2018, 10:35:07 AM »
I spend around 13.5-14k/yr.

Single, renting with 2 roommates in Montreal, 25 y.o. car, in a ''mustache growing'' mode.

Prairie Stash

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #30 on: January 30, 2018, 10:48:03 AM »
I'm so impressed by these numbers. We live in a 'reasonable' townhome with a 'reasonable' mortgage, and it still costs us $26K+ a year (when covering mortgage, property management, taxes.)

Me too!  We live in a medium COL area (outside GTA) - we are a family of 4 in a largish house with a smallish mortgage and our house+hydro+gas was $26,500 last year 2017.  We have looked at going to a rental house but rentals in this area are $2,000 month plus utilities.  You can find $1800 rentals for main floor only - still going to be almost 22K per year pls utilities.  We want to stay in this location until the youngest finishes HS.

If we slashed everything except food and housing we are still over 40K per year.
That implies food cost is $14,000/year for a family of four. Stick around and this forum will help you cut all your expenses. The only nice thing about high spending is there's lots of ways to save and feel great doing it. Teaching your kids to be frugal is a life lesson they can rely on whenever life throws unexpected obstacles their way.

oh Yes!  Good catch - we are spendy on food for sure - 2 teenagers that eat and eat plus lots of meat/cheese etc.  I should have clarified that that also included personal care/hygiene/detergents/dog food etc.  I am sure I could improve on that at the expense of protest from family.
Putting perspective on everything; you eat $9.59/day/person. So if you give everyone $70/week, is that a reasonable amount? I have no idea, but you do. I don't need to convince anyone, you have to convince yourself.

Options abound for reductions like getting teenagers to cook (life skill). Or the other big one is to change the diets to more fresh vegetables and less cheese or something along those lines. Weirdly, the more frugal grocery budgets also tend to have better health outcomes. Frugal groceries (for me) requires more home cooking with more vegetables; generally healthier whenever you compare it to any nutrition plan. Maybe you're already the healthiest family on the planet, but in general I find the frugal diet actually promotes healthy eating as a bonus.

The other big bonus to reducing spending is that you actually think about spending instead of putting it all on auto pilot. Its harder at first to figure out reasonable spending amounts, but because of doing the hard work I can skip working for 25 years....I promise the reward is greater than the work (just severely delayed in some cases). Little steps all the way get you to the budgets you see here.

daverobev

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #31 on: January 30, 2018, 02:07:01 PM »
Last year, my 'half' of our four person household (2 adults, 2 not):

$23k, excluding investing/saving, ie only money that was 'spent'.

It does include debt, though. So, ~$4k on a car loan, roughly the same on the mortgage.

Food: $1800

Daycare: $2300

Electric: $550

Gas (natural): $300

Water: $300

Property tax: $900

Petrol ("gas"): $500

Eating out: $550

Very rough numbers, and not added to 100% there.

No daycare this year (or maybe there will be; eldest went to school in September, youngest is only 1, and as I'm 'retired' the theory is no). The car loan will be (early) repaid next month, I just put a lump down. The mortgage has a couple of years left, and I keep bumping the payment and making extra payments.

So when you take all that out, actual *living* costs are about $11k, and 'essential' costs (gas/electric/property tax/food/maintenance) are under $6k.

We drove to Florida, and I took a holiday on my own to the west coast, mostly on points but staying in a hostel most of the time.

The car is my big 'luxury', and was from the current perspective a large 'waste' of money. But hey.

This is me tracking *my* expenses, and half of joint ones. My wife spent more than this.

FI40

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #32 on: January 30, 2018, 02:21:38 PM »
I'm going to get destroyed here but:

80k total, family of 3 (almost 4), Mississauga
26k rent + 2k utilities
9k groceries
5k vacation
17k day care
2k restaurants and lunches
2k presents for others and charities
3k public transit (GO train mostly)
2k car insurance
1.5k gas
1k maintenance (took care of a brake issue, oil changes I did myself so at least that was cheap, battery died so bought a new one, rustproofing)
2k other entertainment (classes, weekends away, shows, movies, etc)
1k clothes
1.5k Phone/internet (bought a phone this year so this was 200 higher than normal)
3k household (furniture, appliances, kitchen stuff, and misc - this will be lower going fwd)
1.5k baby (clothes, diapers, activities, etc)

That about covers it.

Lews Therin

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #33 on: January 30, 2018, 03:42:23 PM »
Whats the house prices in Missasauga FI40?


FI40

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #34 on: January 31, 2018, 07:23:48 AM »
Whats the house prices in Missasauga FI40?

I mean it varies a ton based on neighbourhood. My neighbourhood is cheap compared to the neighbourhood next door but still expensive. It's best for us to live in this general area though because of the proximity to my wife's work and the train station for me (trains go express from Clarkson station so it's optimal in a way to go from there). It works very well for us.

Here's a somewhat nice detached in my area, nothing spectacular obviously, 750k
https://www.realtor.ca/Residential/Single-Family/19015801/2423-BONNER-RD-Mississauga-Ontario-L5J2E1-Clarkson
and here's a modest semi, 565k
https://www.realtor.ca/Residential/Single-Family/19014340/2454-BROOKHURST-RD-Mississauga-Ontario-L5J1R3-Clarkson

I feel rent is cheaper in the long run at these prices. The place I rent is more comparable to the first property though not quite as nice.

Lews Therin

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #35 on: January 31, 2018, 01:49:55 PM »
That's insane! The 1% rule would be 7,5k per month.

I don't understand how people can make sense of buying in areas like toronto vancouver... pretty sure the land taxes are close to equal to my yearly mortgage.

Gerard

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #36 on: January 31, 2018, 02:40:37 PM »
not to be a buzzkill, but how do you plan on living in Toronto on $18,000 a year for two people?  Does that exclude housing costs?

I guess the big secret is my sweetie moving into a great neighbourhood before it gentrified, and being covered by rent control. So monthly expenses break out like this: rent (including heat and hydro) $860 a month, food/fun/incidentals around $450 a month (could be reduced), phone/internet $100 a month (could be reduced). That leaves about $90 a month for fiddly little unforseen expenses, like clothes and medicine and the occasional bus.

That's the base spending. Presumably we'll spend another few thou a year on travel and the occasional splurge. Luckily we'll have a pretty big safety cushion between passive income and base spending.

imolina

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #37 on: February 01, 2018, 03:44:03 AM »
not to be a buzzkill, but how do you plan on living in Toronto on $18,000 a year for two people?  Does that exclude housing costs?

I guess the big secret is my sweetie moving into a great neighbourhood before it gentrified, and being covered by rent control. So monthly expenses break out like this: rent (including heat and hydro) $860 a month, food/fun/incidentals around $450 a month (could be reduced), phone/internet $100 a month (could be reduced). That leaves about $90 a month for fiddly little unforseen expenses, like clothes and medicine and the occasional bus.

That's the base spending. Presumably we'll spend another few thou a year on travel and the occasional splurge. Luckily we'll have a pretty big safety cushion between passive income and base spending.

Where exactly and what can you rent for $860?. I remember paying $500 for a basement studio unit (rat infested and with humidity) 15 years ago (2003) in the St Claire area.

imolina

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #38 on: February 01, 2018, 03:45:33 AM »
That's insane! The 1% rule would be 7,5k per month.

I don't understand how people can make sense of buying in areas like toronto vancouver... pretty sure the land taxes are close to equal to my yearly mortgage.

If you refer to property taxes I believe they have a low rate. Still insane prices.....

FI40

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #39 on: February 01, 2018, 06:55:46 AM »
That's insane! The 1% rule would be 7,5k per month.

I don't understand how people can make sense of buying in areas like toronto vancouver... pretty sure the land taxes are close to equal to my yearly mortgage.

If you refer to property taxes I believe they have a low rate. Still insane prices.....

Yes I think property taxes are often a quarter to half a percent - actually let me look it up - http://www.mississauga.ca/portal/residents/taxrates - yeah around 0.4%.

Yup, still insane. I'll probably never buy here. We plan to move out of the GTA in the next few years as part of FIRE or semi-FIRE, and house prices and overcrowding are two of the big reasons why.

Gerard

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #40 on: February 03, 2018, 04:39:35 PM »
Where exactly and what can you rent for $860?. I remember paying $500 for a basement studio unit (rat infested and with humidity) 15 years ago (2003) in the St Claire area.

1 BR, 3rd floor of a house, Little Italy. It's also possible to find ratty humid basement apartments in the neighbourhood, but this isn't one of them.

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #41 on: February 04, 2018, 01:28:19 PM »
$14k per person in a 2-person household. That's with a massive increase in monthly rent, and a fairly luxurious lifestyle.

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #42 on: February 04, 2018, 01:48:21 PM »
Does that include housing? If so... what's your secret?

Off the Wheel, there are a number of ways Mustachians in Canada are keeping their shelter costs low.

Some forum members are in co-op housing. Those were built via various deals (some municipal, some provincial, some federal), which resulted in low ongoing costs for residents (and even lower if someone is eligible for a unit with more direct subsidies).

My household has only been in market units so far, in extremely HCOL areas. We've achieved this in different ways -owning then renting out all available space; pitching to a landlord that we take over a perpetually unrented suite and taking care of it in exchange for reduced rent; living in "undersized" spaces, nonmainstream arrangements, etc.

Paying market rates for conventional housing can be the biggest impediment to saving. Avoiding that can make all the difference.

JAYSLOL

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Re: Canadians - what are your annual expenses?
« Reply #43 on: February 11, 2018, 09:36:27 AM »
Canadians, please share you annual expenses!.

Well, here goes

Family of 3 in Western Canada
combined income ~50k

Rent - 8.5k
Food (including eating out) - 8.5k
Gas - 2k.
Car insurance + repairs - 2.5
Medical/dental - 2k
Gifts/family support/charity - 3k
All other expenses (phone bills, clothes etc) 4.5k
Travel and recreation- 3k

Total - 29k

Savings - 21k.

Working to whittle down spending and up income to to get to a 50% SR or better soon.  Lots of facepunch worthy spending, especially car/fuel, phones and lots of other non essential stuff.   At least my rent is extremely low for this area, which makes a big difference.