Stocks

I told the owners of my company it’s a firm line in the sand , Mar thirty first , one says , we asked for one years notice, I said I gave you five months and only now are you in panic mode . They proposed maybe I would do part time ( I’ve been part time for a decade , they just didn’t know lol ) . I want to go while I still like the company and everyone I work with , I don’t wanna stay till I hate the place . It is a nice feeling knowing I have a way out .


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I told the owners of my company it’s a firm line in the sand , Mar thirty first , one says , we asked for one years notice, I said I gave you five months and only now are you in panic mode . They proposed maybe I would do part time ( I’ve been part time for a decade , they just didn’t know lol ) . I want to go while I still like the company and everyone I work with , I don’t wanna stay till I hate the place . It is a nice feeling knowing I have a way out .


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This is a life goal of mine...being able to walk away when it's time, and not stress about having to work into my retirement years.

Maybe I'll hold off on doubling my mortgage...(Plus the sellers didn't agree to our 1.5M thank Christ!).
 
I’d advise talking to a legitimate financial planner , not the guy at the bank that took three courses . And have a plan. It’s ok to double the mortgage, but have a plan to pay it out before day X hits .
You’ll get lots of advice to keep the mortgage and pile spare cash into the market . Ok , but as a guy that used equity in my house and put two fifty into a market that vaporized, I still had a house with a new two fifty debt . Last couple years sure , trained monkeys could pick winning stocks .
When you read about the millionaires that buy cottages with insane mortgages because the mortgage is x percent and cash in the market is paying xxx . Joe regular does not have a job paying eight hundred K , and a bail out plan when it goes south . Millionaire guy does . Never invest money you couldn’t live without .


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I’d advise talking to a legitimate financial planner , not the guy at the bank that took three courses . And have a plan. It’s ok to double the mortgage, but have a plan to pay it out before day X hits .
You’ll get lots of advice to keep the mortgage and pile spare cash into the market . Ok , but as a guy that used equity in my house and put two fifty into a market that vaporized, I still had a house with a new two fifty debt . Last couple years sure , trained monkeys could pick winning stocks .
When you read about the millionaires that buy cottages with insane mortgages because the mortgage is x percent and cash in the market is paying xxx . Joe regular does not have a job paying eight hundred K , and a bail out plan when it goes south . Millionaire guy does . Never invest money you couldn’t live without .


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There are very few people at a bank I would trust with money or financial advise. A friend has money with someone that's as good as it gets at a major bank (advisor meets weekly with CEO to advise ceo on markets and the future). After fees, he's not much different than S&P 500 and chill. Sadly, that's astonishingly good performance for a bank advisor. Most of the bank advisors normal people can access will barely beat inflation.

If someone thinks they should get advice, I would highly recommend fee-for-service instead of asset-under-management. AUM is a huge conflict and normally the investor gets fleeced (grossly overpaying for services, getting bad advice that maximizes AUM instead of maximizing after-tax money for the client, etc). When I think my plan is solid, I'll pay the few thousand for a sober second look to make sure I don't have a scary hole I missed.

If you are going to borrow to invest, don't screw up the timing or the investment (as you so painfully found out).

At the end of 2021, I borrowed an amount I would be annoyed to lose but it wouldn't change my life if I lost it. Bought three dividend paying securities (33% each). Dividends have been paying off the loan and I threw some extra money at it when rates spiked and one of the dividends was paused which made the house of cards not happy. Four years in, the loan is ~20% of the original amount borrowed and the investments are up about 68%. It was the opposite of insurance, I took on risk to gain money. One of the securities has been running as a DRIP for a while. One was running as a drip for a few years but I turned that off to speed up the loan repayments in 2026 (and now all are in TFSA so interest is not deductible). One has been paying out the whole time as it more than covers the interest payment.
 
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Saw some things on social media which prompted checking exchange rates ... 1 CAD = 0.7366 USD as of a couple minutes ago. That is a significant change since yesterday. I spot-checked EUR and GBP which seem in the ballpark, if anything those have gained a little against the CAD. Means the USD went down relative to other major currencies.
 
If you are going to borrow to invest, don't screw up the timing or the investment (as you so painfully found out).

My own view is to set up a brokerage account and do things yourself. You'll pay some transaction fees but no management-fee percentage off the top. Then pick several dividend-payers that aren't going to go broke any time soon. Or a broad-market dividend-paying ETF.

Re borrowing to invest, I've had a brokerage account for long enough that it was possible to upgrade it to a margin account. Means I can do limited trading in options, and I can trade on margin ("borrowing to invest"), but I refuse to do so on a long-term basis. Normally I maintain zero debt, but if a situation presents itself as something that can't possibly stay, I will occasionally buy stocks and then write (sell) slightly-in-the-money call options against them a couple weeks out in duration. Most of the time, the stock stays put or recovers, or maybe there's a little wiggle room for it to drop to the strike price, and I keep the option premium when it gets called away, and I'm only borrowing money for a couple of weeks. If it does happen to go down further, my cost base for buying it is now lower than it would have been ... repeat. Given that there is the possibility that you may end up owning it ... Don't do this on something you don't mind owning for the long term - or with an amount that you don't mind carrying for the long term.

My upcoming spring vacation is paid for by selling worthless call options to speculators ... the speculators (not me) just didn't realise that they were worthless at the time 🤣
 
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