About Me

Hi!

I am a twenty-eight year old husband and father of three young children. This is the story of how I got to where I am now, and how I am going to achieve FIRE in 15 years.

The Backstory

My journey with FIRE begins almost 10 years ago. Like most high school graduates, I knew next to nothing about personal finance. I was 18 when I got my first credit card, and I had no idea how it worked. I almost immediately maxed out the $1,000 limit, and I even purchased balance protection insurance. I lived paycheck to paycheck, spending my money on video games, computers, drinking, eating out, and just general wastefulness.

I had my first experience with investing and life insurance when I was introduced to a couple who worked for a MLM insurance and mutual fund company in 2010. I'm not naming any names, but although they had high fees and sketchy hiring practices, I learned a lot about proper life insurance coverage, the power of compound interest, and the importance of saving and budgeting.

I started investing in mutual funds in 2010, but sold all my investments to buy my first house in 2012. I was still very young (21), and spent way more than I could afford. Thankfully, I was able to put in a rental suite and rent it out to help supplement my income.

Around the time I purchased my house, I stumbled across personal finance blogs. I learned a lot from milliondollarjourney.com, mrmoneymustache.com and greaterfool.ca, and still read their blogs to this day. I learned how to reduce my investment costs by seeking ETFs with low MERs, how to use leverage to reduce taxes and increase investing gains, cutting spending way back, and renting out extra spaces.

2018 was the year I started investing in ETFs using Questrade. Unfortunately, I bought most of my ETFs at the peak of the market, but luckily I still have 15 years of investing ahead of me. I prefer this method to stock picking as I can invest smaller sums more frequently, it costs nothing to purchase (with Questrade), and they are automatically rebalanced.

The Blog

I started this blog to keep me on track, and to share some of the tricks I have learned along the way. This is how I plan on achieving FI.

I have been an employee of the federal public sector since 2009, which allows me to be a member of the Public Service Pension Plan. Fortunately, as a member of this plan, I will receive a defined benefit pension after 25 years of service, in 2034.

My DB pension will provide me with about $3,000 per month of pre-tax income. However, in order to maintain my lifestyle, help pay for post-secondary education for my children, and to be able to travel, I will need to supplement my pension with other sources. My plan is to build an investment portfolio of $1,000,000 in the next 15 years, using various methods. This should provide an additional $3,000 per month of pre-tax income.

I know this is a very ambitious goal, so to keep myself on track and to keep readers informed of my progress along the way, I will be posting the following:

- Net Worth Updates around the 10th day of each month.

- Investment Updates around the 20th day of each month.

- Spending Updates around the 30th day of each month.

- And other financial or personal updates whenever possible.

Welcome to Freedom 43!