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Some traditions deserve to be broken

Some traditions deserve to be broken


Mr. Tucker and I have covid so we’re taking precautions so the kids don’t get it

When the pandemic happened the holidays were furthest from our minds. Easter was the first holiday after the lockdown started but it had never been a huge deal for anyone but the kids. When Thanksgiving rolled around we rented a couple of cottages on a lake, quarantined for two weeks, and then met up with another family. If I am honest, it was one of the best Thanksgivings we ever had. The kids hung out with other kids, the adults had drinks & played cards, and Mr. Tucker made an amazing Thanksgiving dinner. After dinner we played games, laughed, and then built a bonfire. Everyone was full, happy and relaxed. After that first one, the past two covid Thanksgivings we’ve used to take a small road trip and do something fun as a family, usually Halloween-related (Thanksgiving in Canada is the second weekend in October) with those same friends. It’s been a nice, new tradition that we all enjoy.

Christmas that first covid year was just the four of us. Determined to make the kid’s holidays still good, we ramped up the activities that we could still do during covid. We baked cupcakes for The Mission, we headed out to pick out a fresh tree, we did our 12 Days of Christmas Movies & we baked cookies and delivered them to friends. We also doubled-down on Advent calendars to make every day of December special and started incorporating Jólabókaflóðið – the Icelandic tradition of getting a book & some chocolate on Christmas Eve – into our new holiday tradition. Christmas day we had outside visits with family and friends (no easy feat in Canadian winter) and then sat down to dinner just the four of us. This time the kids were honest: they loved having a relaxed Christmas. We spent the day in our PJs and watched movies and they loved it. They hated having to dress up and sit around watching the adults talk about boring things so this was a change they really enjoyed.

I loved it, too.

I loved it for different reasons than the kids did. Because we were the only people in the family with young kids, we’ve always hosted. That has meant 13-15 people for dinner, including my divorced parents. For various reasons, it’s always been stressful and chaotic but we always did it because otherwise we’d have to choose somewhere to go that would exclude other members of the family, feelings would be hurt etc. So from that point of view, it always made sense for us to host.

We are heading into year three of Christmas with covid and over the past years I have discovered that I ENJOY a simpler holiday. I love not having to hold myself up to some ideal holiday standard where every moment feels like I’m shoving a square peg into a round hole. No matter how hard I tried to make everything perfect, there were always little stinging comments and judgement or a divisive conversation would erupt. Mr. Tucker and I would shut the door behind the last guest and then feel like collapsing from exhaustion both physically and mentally. It was a lot of work and we convinced ourselves that we were giving our children the experience of seeing all of the family at Christmas and vice versa.

Looking back, I realize now that I can take the things I enjoy about holidays and leave the rest. I grew up in a house where a fake Christmas tree was just unfathomable. But just because our families did it one way doesn’t mean we have to do it that way. We don’t need to take the most difficult path just because, “that’s the way we’ve always done it.” So this year when I saw a sale on fake Christmas trees I pointed to the flyer and said to Mr. Tucker, “Do you think we should consider…” I didn’t even finish my sentence before he shouted, “YES!”

My ideal Christmas has fallen heavily on Mr. Tucker’s shoulders these past couple of years. When we were younger and more energetic I could do a lot more of the heavy lifting but since I’ve become more and more disabled a lot of this magic has to be done by him. It occurred to me that it’s a lot to ask of a man who already works full time, cares for two kids and helps his disabled wife to also be responsible for all the traditional stuff. To be fair, now that the kids are older they can also do a lot of the work and that eases the burden somewhat. But I also realized that we can even let a lot of it go and still have all of the magic. A great holiday doesn’t have to include stress and exhaustion…and you don’t have to have a neurodegenerative disease to say no to things that make you miserable, either!

The eldest was kind of sad to not be able to go and get a fresh tree but when we pointed out all of the benefits, she got it. No needles all over the place that get stuck in your feet, no having to water it all of the time and it spins so no worrying that the dogs will knock over and make a huge mess of water and needles. It’s even easier to decorate because the branches are moveable and sturdy. We still decorated the house and listened to Christmas music – the important ritual of a good holiday, in my opinion. All of the magic, half of the work.

This year on Christmas Eve, we are having my brother and my Dad over for Réveillon and instead of a traditional French Canadian feast, we’re going to order in Chinese food and just hang out and play cards. We’ll then curl up with our new Jolabokaflod books & eat chocolate. Christmas morning will happen when we all wake up (probably late), we’ll open presents, have a leisurely breakfast and then drive around seeing family and friends for porch visits. Dinner will be easy, eaten in our PJs and then we’ll probably watch Miracle on 34th street (another tradition).

If covid has taught me anything, it’s to let go. Let go of relationships that don’t serve me, stop trying to force relationships to be what they never will be, let go of my expectations and stop doing things I don’t want to do just because it lives up to someone else’s preconceived notions or sense of tradition. I don’t think we will ever host another large family dinner again. We enjoy a small, quieter holiday where we’re aren’t pretending that these traditions that don’t serve us are the most important thing. The most important thing will be the holiday will be spent relaxed and together.

This is Halloween, this is Halloween

This is Halloween, this is Halloween

I love everything about Halloween. I love the history of Samhain (being pagan-adjacent as I am), I love marking the passing of the seasons, I love the aesthetic (being goth-adjacent as I am), I love the music, the scary tales, I love the costumes and I love Trick-or-Treating – one of the last vestiges of collective neighbourly behaviour. I love that you can enjoy it on so many levels – regardless of your race or religion – and lean into it as much or as little as you’d like to.

We lean in. HARD.

From the first pumpkin spice latte I consume in September to the end of All Souls Day on November 1st, I revel in the creepy, spooky, scary passing of summer into the beginning of winter. October is always full of activities fueled by apple cider and a good dose of the macabre.

Since in Canada Thanksgiving is the second weekend in October, we have been doing short road trips since the pandemic. In 2020 we quarantined and rented a cottage with friends in order to enjoy the last light of summer near a lake. We had lovely bonfires outside, a wood stove inside, and while Mr. Tucker made a Thanksgiving meal, we all played games inside the largest cottage. It was one of those weekends that just comes together perfectly. There were walks in the autumn leaves, I read a book by the lake and the kids just ran around being kids. The pandemic was in full swing at that point and it was good to just pretend that things were normal, even for a few days.

2020 was also the year that we started our 13 Days of Halloween Movies ritual, which we’ve continued until this day. During the month of October we watch 13 Halloween movies – new and old – and the kids give mini reviews which I share on a private Instagram that only has friends I know. My friends have told me that they get a kick out of what the kids say and my hope is that the kids can look back and have a laugh at how they felt about the various movies at the time. We couldn’t Trick-or-Treat in 2020 so instead we bought the kids each a box of candy started new rituals.

In 2021 with vaccines in our arms but still cautious, we ended up buying seasons passes to Canada’s Wonderland in Toronto. We bought them with the friends we traveled to the cottage with the year before because they were good for 1.5 years. That year we went to the Halloween Haunt for a couple of days where we bought the kids Fast Lane passes and set them free to do what they wanted (masked, of course). So again, for a few short hours they could just be kids again. Back at home, we had them over for dinner on the Monday where we ate, drank, and played games again. It was a great weekend.

2021 was also the year we took the kids to a local orchard who does a series of haunted houses and a haunted wagon ride. It was a bit of a hike outside the city and I was unsure if they would enjoy it but they LOVED IT. I was incredibly impressed by the set-up that had everything from the terrifying (jump scares in the houses) to the thematic but unscary (a Ghostbusters-themed car) so really everyone could enjoy it. We still did our 13 Days of Halloween Movies and went to a local pumpkin patch so that we could pick-and-choose our own pumpkins to carve so that was a fun thing we could bring back again. They also did end up Trick-or-Treating last year which gave them back a little bit of normalcy.

Of course now in 2022 we have almost gotten back to normal but we’ve kept all the little rituals: we went to the Halloween Haunt for Thanksgiving weekend, we did another farm with haunted houses and a spooky wagon ride, we went on a Haunted Walk tour with friends downtown, we carved pumpkins, and we finished our last movie from our 13 Days of Halloween movies last night. Sadly, our friends couldn’t make Thanksgiving dinner because they came down with covid but we had a nice meal at home, just us.

Tonight the kids will go Trick-or-Treating as far as their legs will carry them and as long as people’s pumpkins are out. A neighbour always does this amazing haunted house a few streets over so they won’t want to miss that. Then they will crash after their sugar highs and then groggily get up for school tomorrow.

As for me, I stupidly (smartly?) booked a dentist appointment for tomorrow morning. Other than that, All Saints and All Souls Day are always reflective days for me as I wind down from the chaos of the fall season and transition into the winter one. I generally plan a quiet day of writing, reading, and large cups of tea drunk in front of a fire. This is because I am now looking forward to another favourite time of year: Winter Solstice.

When you’re a saver, it’s hard to be a spender

When you’re a saver, it’s hard to be a spender

We have a lovely older couple who live across the street from us and who have lived in this neighbourhood since the 1970s. Our neighbour, let’s call him Bill, is almost 80 and is the caretaker of his developmentally disabled daughter and his wife, who has dementia. Bill is an absolute treasure and unlike so many people his age, he has a positive outlook on life. One of the things he always says is, “I see every day I am here as a gift!” His life isn’t easy but he is grateful for everything he has and he’s a real inspiration to us youngins’.

Bill doesn’t have a cell phone and will often just pop in for a coffee. Today he dropped in and the conversation turned to how expensive everything is with inflation. He laughed because his last pair of “good” shoes were 30 years old and they had fallen apart. He said that the last time he went to buy shoes they had cost him $29.99 and looking at a recent flyer that came in the mail, it looks like now he’ll have to pay $80 for a similar pair.

He then went on to tell us that he had spent his entire life saving money for a good retirement only to discover he couldn’t spend it. “I have enough for all of us to spend and live comfortably for a long time but there is nothing I want to buy,” he said. Bill lives a really good life, too. He doesn’t deny himself, he takes the odd trip with the family, and spends money to maintain his house and yard (with pool). “My wife used to buy all of my clothes but honestly, I haven’t needed to shop much for clothes for years because they have lasted.” Bill isn’t a miser, either. He often buys my children little gifts like backpacks for school, and flower kits you can grow indoors. He’s just discovered that he doesn’t need – or want – to spend money.

The New York Times recently wrote that research suggests that this is common.“As people age, they report less satisfaction from travel, as well as from new cars, clothes and appliances. The decline is strongest in people who say their health is poor. People who say they’re in excellent health say their enjoyment from travel and leisure is actually greater than it was six years earlier. People in excellent health also report more satisfaction from giving financial support, which goes against the notion that those who expect to live a lot longer are worried about running out of money.” I would also say that after years of saving and learning how to get the things you want on a reduced budget that you just continue this even when you retire. Bill is a retired teacher with a pension, his house is paid off, his car is paid off and he has enough for a really good life for the three of them. So his savings keeps growing while his lifestyle stays similar to what it has always been.

This got me thinking about our own budget. We currently save a huge chunk of our income for our house prepayment, retirement, and our children’s education – not including “planned spending” items like buying a new car every 10 years, which is more “saving to spend.” Our life is a really solid middle class life: roof over our heads, food on the table, bills are paid and there is money for extras. We also have a category for leisure and travel that is well-funded. But I do know from my calculations that once our mortgage is paid off next year, we will be able to easily live off of just the money I bring in.

According to research, we’re also in our peak budget years as the kids are t(w)eens. They will also be here for at least 5-7 years (more if they go to post-secondary in the city). That means our expenses are relatively high. We pay for very pricey activities and save a huge amount towards their RESPs – not to mention the basic costs of feeding and clothing them. We are so used to having this money go to them that when (and if!) they leave home, I wonder if we will feel like Bill. Having everything for a good life already, will we want to spend more?

Despite our current moratorium on air travel, we probably would like to travel a bit more in the future (PLS willing!). I suspect that over time we will find ourselves like the people in the above NYT article: unwilling to travel due to disability. We will also find room in our budget to help the kids as they try and build an adult life for themselves. Still, our coffee with Bill reminded me that having spent a long time saving for the future, we probably will find ourselves in the same position: having enough.

Eating out, value and tipping in a post-lockdown world

Eating out, value and tipping in a post-lockdown world

In the early pandemic restaurants pivoted to curbside take-out and delivery and at least here, they also had the option to sell alcohol which was a first for this province. In appreciation for the risk and to support local businesses people became more patient and tipped as they would have had they eaten-in. When restaurants re-opened they came out in droves, happy to get back to some semblance of a normal life. Patios everywhere were packed.

But all wasn’t well. Customers seemed to demand more from overworked staff who were working harder and longer due to staffing shortages while being burdened with ever-changing pandemic rules. So while the mentality was “back to normal” the reality was anything but. Then on top of this, the war in Ukraine started, inflation exploded as supply chains were strained & central banks responded by raising interest rates and suddenly everything got more expensive. Many restaurants plan to raise their prices by 10% to 15% this year.

We weren’t really comfortable eating out except for a handful of times but for Mr. Tucker’s birthday this year we wanted to try for a nice dinner with my stepson and his girlfriend. So we chose a high-end dining “steak and seafood” restaurant in The Market that had good reviews. Now, I spent 10 years working in restaurants, my stepson is a chef and his girlfriend is a server. Knowing the state of the restaurant business in 2022 we brought with us an incredible amount of patience. Still, we were only one of two tables the server had that evening and “disinterested” is the nicest way I could describe her. She took ½ hour to take our drink order, forgot a bunch of things we ordered, only took half of our dessert orders before walking away and came to our table so seldomly that we had to flag down other servers. The food itself was ok but the tasting menu was incredibly lazy: just smaller portions of things that were on the main menu. All the other staff were lovely, which is why I tipped well knowing that they were getting a cut. Still, I regret not tipping less because the service was so abysmal and I shouldn’t have sent the message that that was an ok way to treat customers. On top of this, the entire restaurant was infested with flies. Not just one or two buzzing around – which is expected for the summer – but throngs of them. It was impossible to keep them off your food.

In the end, the meal for 4 people was almost as much as my monthly grocery bill. Now, we love a good meal and I absolutely don’t mind paying for a fine dining experience. We won’t spend money on fast food but we will absolutely pay hundreds of dollars for an excellent meal with the service to match. As is usual for people who have worked in restaurants, we always overtip as well. But we were all just appalled at how absolutely lazy the entire experience was. Clearly, we will never go back there.

After that experience Mr. Tucker and I sat down and discussed how disappointed we were with the meal. We had eaten out at a few other places this year as well and while they were ok experiences we both agreed that they weren’t really worth the money we spent on them. I absolutely feel for businesses that are struggling with soaring costs and post-pandemic staff shortages but this was just such a terrible night out that we made the decision to stop eating out completely. We just don’t want to spend money to have a mediocre time, let alone a terrible time.

Then, the other evening, friends came over to hang out and catch up. We bought a family Shawarma platter for dinner from our amazing local Shawarma shop and it was $50 for enough to feed 6+ people (fatoush salad, potatoes, rice, hummus, toum/garlic sauce, pickled veg, pitas and you can do chicken, beef or a mixture of both – what a deal!). Of course, being a small local business we always tip around 40% because we feel their food is ridiculously underpriced and the service is always fantastic! Sure, tipping isn’t expected here as it’s a take-out counter, but they are so fantastically kind and the food is all made in-house so we like to show our appreciation.

Across the country, the tipping culture debate is heating up, resulting in articles about tip-flation. During the pandemic people were happy to pay a little extra for people who continued to work and serve people under dangerous conditions but now many people feel stuck like they should continue to overtip even though we are assured everything is “back to normal,” now. Combined with the higher costs of eating out, many people are feeling the sticker shock of post-pandemic dining when the basic tipping options on POS terminals are 15% to 30%. On top of that, provinces like Ontario are ending the disparity between the minimum wages of servers/bartenders and other workers leaving some people to eliminate tipping service staff altogether.

The friends who were over for dinner the other night mentioned that when buying dessert they weren’t even given the option to NOT add a tip to their bill at the bakery. The lowest option was 10% and they were made to feel guilty for asking to have an option to pay without a tip. It begs the question: we all agree that servers should get tipped but outside of that, the rules get murky: should we tip someone 20% for opening a beer and passing us a glass when we have to go get it at the bar? For someone who disinterestedly passes us an already boxed-up cake?

This debate didn’t start with the pandemic and it will rage on for a long time, I think. Some people feel that tipping is a requirement in many cases and some people feel that it’s gotten out of control. Why do we tip hairdressers and not housecleaners? Baristas but not the people who bag our groceries? Others argue that a living wage would solve all of the problems but I’m not so sure. I can see why Europeans are rightly confused when they come here: there aren’t even rules to tipping culture! Of course historically when people complained about tipping the usual answer was to say, “well just don’t eat out then.” But unfortunately, the expectations for tipping have seeped through every industry it seems. In my case at the restaurant, I just couldn’t tip less than 20% because I felt badly for all of the staff who were doing a good job and were getting tipped out from our server. It wasn’t even tied to her horrible service, it was the guilt I felt for an overburdened and struggling industry.

In our post-lockdown world we are all grappling with questions about how things used to be, what things should change and how they should change. It will probably be awhile before we get things sorted. I was saying to Mr. Tucker that our entire trip to Toronto in the spring with friends cost less than the meal we had on his birthday. So, for us choosing not to eat out means we can redirect the money we typically allocate instead to small weekend trips over the next year. Trips we will make as a family and get real value out of. When you put it into that perspective, it only makes sense to treat the entire family to a couple of days away rather than blow it all on one meal (we typically get a hotel room with a kitchenette which makes feeding ourselves more cost effective). I do see a future in which we do eat out again – probably around the same time that we do more distance travel – but for now, we’ll stay out of the restaurants and pay down our mortgage instead.

Milestones – Registered Education Savings Program

Milestones – Registered Education Savings Program

I really try and not look at our investments in this bear market because it doesn’t change any of our savings behaviours and it won’t make a lick of difference to stress myself out like that. HOWEVER, I got to thinking about the things we save for and I wondered, “what does tuition at a local university look like now?” Some quick googling later and I realized that we have enough education savings for both kids to each do a four year degree at a local university (even with our market losses).

What is really interesting is how the savings is divided. Half of that half of that savings happened in the past 3 years when we had more money to put away. The other half of it was mostly all done in the 9 years previous to that! When the Sprout was born we opened an RESP at a bank and started saving $80 a month – $40 for each child. It wasn’t a lot but it was all we had. On top of that, we asked family to contribute to the RESP for birthdays and Christmas. The kids were young, probably wouldn’t remember anything that they bought them but we figured that they would appreciate being able to go to post-secondary without debt. So for years we added all the cash they got to their savings – until they were older and wanted to use the money for other things, of course.

We still aren’t finished saving for them as they are only 12 and 14 now. It is nice to know that tiny amounts saved over long periods have got us to the point where they won’t have to worry about student loans for at least an undergraduate degree.

So if you are a young family and thinking of saving in an RESP but are worried that you don’t have a lot to contribute, remember that $40 a month + gifts from family essentially added up to half of a degree for her by the time my eldest was 14. Of course, as soon as we made more we invested more and that covered the other two years. The takeaway here is that small amounts invested over long periods add up to big gains. The difference between taking a student loan for two years vs. four years is also huge in terms of time it will take to pay it back. If they get scholarships, great – you have enough to help with grad school! If they decide to not go to post-secondary, great – it can be rolled into an RRSP (contribution room willing).

To learn more about the RESP, check out the Government of Canada website.

When it rains, it pours (in the laundry room)

When it rains, it pours (in the laundry room)

Mr. Tucker has always had a tumultuous relationship with the appliances that came with our house. From my perspective, he has an overly inflated view of how well appliances should function in today’s age. In his view, if you pay that much for something, they should work flawlessly. Truth be told, we’re both partially right.

It started at our old house we replaced our 30-year-old top loader & dryer with an energy efficient Samsung washer & dryer. Within a year we had to call the appliance repair person who basically told us that they were garbage appliances. He came back thrice that year to fix something until finally Mr. Tucker just decided to completely replace the dryer.

Since we had previously had good experiences with Kenmore, the Sears brand, Mr. Tucker decided that we should buy that brand with one caveat: no technology! He wanted an old-school clicky dial and mechanical machine that wasn’t governed by microchips and touchscreens*. When he went to Sears (RIP *snif*) to buy one, the salesperson explained that while their machines had dials that clicked and felt like low-tech, old school versions, they still had microchips and were still riddled with technology. In fact, the chances of getting an appliance there that didn’t have a microchip in it was zero. Still, we bought the cheapest model and it went on to serve us well until we moved out of the house.

To be fair, the man who used to own The Mullet loved this house and put top-of-the-line appliances in. Some (like the Dacor gas range) work amazingly and other ones (the Frigidaire Gallery dishwasher and fridge) not so much. Overall though, the appliances have done us well over the past 5 years in the house. Still, all good things must come to an end and a few things have.

1 – Mr. Tucker gets furious with the ice maker in our refrigerator but it’s the cheap shelves that are the real issue for me. The glass shelves inside the fridge have started to crack their plastic holders, which is frustrating enough but all the door shelves have busted off too. The most exasperating part is that a door shelf is $100 – for like a 6″ x 15″ piece of plastic! That’s just bonkerstown.

2 – The wall oven died slowly over the course of the spring. In its defense, it was original to the house (built in 1962) so it didn’t owe anyone, anything. Avoiding the more common, inexpensive brands we ended up deciding to splurge on a low-tech, higher-quality Italian brand. The cost? Approximately $3000 with installation. Wall ovens are expensive though and a comparable common brand would have been $1500-$2300. We wanted to go with a quality product that would last though and hit the low-middle range of the higher quality products.

3 – Then as we waited for 3 weeks for the oven install, the dishwasher died. At some point we will have our appliance guy out to look at it but until then the kids are washing the dishes by hand. They keep asking when we will have a dishwasher again and Mr. Tucker replies, “But we already have two dishwashers!” He’s definitely in his Dad joke years.

4 – The seal on the clothes washing machine somehow became twisted and we had a small deluge in the laundry room. Thankfully, Mr. Tucker caught it in time & it was something he could fix. Still, after all the other appliance drama I think that was the last straw and had we had to ALSO replace the washer he probably would have just walked out into the woods, never to return.

When we were in the thick of all the appliance drama, one night I tried to explain that unlike previous generations – even our parent’s generation – we tend to have an overly-inflated view of how much free time we should have and how much time we should spend on life tasks. Previous generations did more home and garden maintenance than we do, and even 100 years ago the expectation that you would have any free time was not a given except for a few moments snatched here or there. Life was work from the time you got up until the time you went to sleep. But for those of us who are Gen X or younger, we tend to think of most things outside of our work hours as free time. We hire people to do a lot of the maintenance around the house that previous generations did themselves on the evenings and weekends. So when things break – as they most certainly do in the age of Planned Obsolescence – we get angry at having spent money on things that are costing us precious free time when they were designed to GIVE us more free time.

So maybe that is why we are reluctant to call the appliance repair person yet AGAIN to look at the dishwasher: the kids are washing the dishes and it is working well enough for us so why spend the money? We also made the decision to not replace the shelves in the fridge – although I did float the idea of making some out of wood. I guess the situation isn’t, “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” so much as it is, “if it’s broke – do we really need it?” and “if we really need it, can we spend the money on something that won’t break down soon?” My final thought on this is something we should all consider: have I RTFM** and maintained the appliance properly? Chances are, that’s where the issue started.

*Hilarious for a man who works in IT and who used to believe in technology’s power to change the world. As the great Ella Fitzgerald once said, “What a difference a day makes.”
**Read the fucking manual

The History of work & the fallout

The History of work & the fallout

On our flight back from Puerto Rico in March, I ended up watching a documentary on overwork. It’s a very basic overview on the issue but I found it a good primer. It’s only 50 minutes long and you can find it online here:



Until I was diagnosed in 2018 I ran a blog that was loosely based on early retirement. Even before that, I had a livejournal that was personal but that also discussed frugality and Simple Living. I think I was lucky in the fact that when I was 18 years old and poor as shit, I came across The Tightwad Gazette which led me to Your Money or Your life – the de facto standard on early retirement. Since then, it was my goal to work as little as possible, save as much as possible and hopefully be out of the rat race fairly early in life.

I mean, GOAL ACHIEVED! C’mon, you HAVE to laugh: the universe has a cruel sense of humour.

(I have already discussed this origin story in this post if you are interested in the long version)

Of course, I would have loved to have continued working and been able bodied for a long, long time but given that this wasn’t an option, being able to keep some semblance of a salary plus benefits was a close second. As Tyrion Lannister said, “If you’re going to be a cripple, be a rich cripple.” While I’m not rich, I am also not struggling which is a gift.

So once we adapted to this we started working on Mr. Tucker’s escape from work but then he changed his mind. Since then, he’s received a promotion with a substantial raise, which is great considering how much inflation we’ve seen lately (and our appliances are dropping like flies, which is a post in itself).

Still, I am still interested in the idea of early retirement and working less because I feel it’s something that our communities (and the society at large) as well as the environment need. I think it’s absolutely bonkerstown that we can’t figure out how to make permanent part-time work…work. It’s interesting to watch Canada move towards universal dental care in the next couple of years with universal pharma care maybe not far behind it. These stressors are what make people panic about not working full time even though if more people worked part time there would be more work for everyone. Of course, since it’s an employees market right now, there may be room to negotiate these better hours for people.

The pandemic has really shone a light on how much we are stuck on that idea of workplaces as factories. There has been a battle between employees and employers over the past two years and despite the success of WFH some people still want to go back to the office. Employees who’ve generally enjoyed their time and money back from not commuting, not buying food out, not buying work-related clothes would like keep some flexibility in working from home. Employers on the other hand are still stuck in this 9-to-5 panopticon office mentality where they feel everyone should “put in their time.” The problem is that studies have shown that for knowledge work, it’s mostly task-based, not time based and that not all hours of the day are productive ones. It seems to me that if you are getting paid for your education, experience and output, that it is completely backwards to treat the workday like a factory you have to punch in and out of.

Of course, the flipside is that a lot of knowledge workers work in tech and tech has a vested interest in you sitting at your desk for as long as possible. People lauded Google for supplying their employees with such benefits as free meals, in-house doctors, hair cuts, oil changes etc. but as a friend who worked there once said to me, “Do you know why they do that? Because if you need to go to an appointment, that is a couple of hours of you not going “ticky-ticky” on your keyboard for the company. It’s cheaper to provide these services to employees to ensure they aren’t away from their desks for too long.”

In Ontario, where I live, they treat knowledge work like factory work – with the exception that there is no overtime pay for certain workers: IT, law, accounting, medicine and the entertainment industry. Also of note, many manual labourers who work in agricultural settings such as growing mushrooms and various other plants and trees for the retail trade (which is usually piecemeal work done by labourers brought into Canada on agricultural visas). Oh, and of course teenagers. So I question the factory model of “putting in the hours” when it’s clear that the output should be the yardstick of successful work.

But watch the video. I found it interesting and I especially enjoyed David Frayne’s The Refusal of Work for more comprehensive introduction to work theories. My only wish is that he had explored more of the case studies in the second half of the book.

* * *

I ended up taking out some of the books written by the interviewees of this documentary as well. So far, I have received:

– Team Human by Douglass Rushkoff.
– The Refusal of Work by David Frayne.
– McMindfulness by Ronald Purser (which I haven’t started yet).

I haven’t read anything by these folks also featured but will in the future:

– George Monbiot (whose website seems to have some interesting blog posts).
– Guy Standing who writes a lot on Universal Basic Income (UBI). A list of his books can be found on his website
– Jason Hickel who focuses on global inequality etc. website.
– I’ve seen a lot of Carl Honoré’s work because his books are pretty popular. His website.
– Faiza Shaheen has a book coming out in 2023 titled Know Your Place: how society sets us up to fail.
– Grace Blakely who writes about leftist politics in books and for the New Statesman
– Bredan Burchell (who hasn’t really written anything recently but is a professor at Cambridge).

People I couldn’t find any info on:
– Margaret Anderson, University of Michigan

Harvest apple galette

Harvest apple galette

I do plan to post all of the canning and preserving recipes here for posterity but since I am knee-deep into apple season I thought I would post a simple dessert recipe. Unlike a pie which requires shaping, a galette is a free form pie that is more rustic. Because I use butter in this recipe, expect the crust to not be as silky as a crust made with seed oils or lard. Butter makes it more crumbly but has a lovely taste comparatively.

Essentially, I have based my recipe on this Mixed berry galette recipe but because I wanted something easier, I took some shortcuts. Instead of 8 small galettes, I made one large one. I also adapted it for the stand mixer (can you tell that I am lazy?). Also, keeping with the rustic (read: lazy) theme, I don’t peel my apples. That way, I can whip this recipe up in about 20 minutes of hands-on time.

Sweet Shortcrust Pastry:

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
¼ tsp fine sea salt
¼ cup granulated sugar
½ cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
1 large egg, lightly beaten
2 tbsp heavy (35%) cream

Add all of the dry ingredients into the bowl of the stand mixer. Using the paddle attachment, let the machine run on the lowest setting for 1 minute. Add the butter & continue to let the machine run on low for 1 minute & then switch to 3 until the mixture is well blended and the butter is the consistency of small peas. Add the egg and mix on low until incorporated then add the cream and run the machine until the pastry comes together. Wrap the dough and put in the fridge for ½ hour to let rest.

Filling:

4 cups of chopped apples
¼ cup of brown sugar
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice (about ½ of a lemon)
Grated zest from 1 small lemon (about 1 tbsp) – optional (but I like the zing it gives)

Add sugar, cornstarch & zest into a bowl and mix well. Toss in the apples & juice and mix well.

Assembly:

Roll out the crust to about 12 inches in diameter. Remember, this doesn’t have to be perfect so it’s ok if the edges are scraggly. I like to roll out the dough in between a Silpat and a piece of parchment paper with the finished product ended up on the parchment paper. Lift the parchment paper/dough onto a baking tray & center it. Take your apple mixture and pile it into the centre of the dough, leaving at least 2 inches around the outside. The juice from the apple mixture may leak over the dough, don’t worry about it. Start to fold up the edges of the dough around the apple mixture, working your way around the circle until it’s all folded up like a little basket. I find it helpful to lift the parchment paper up & over the apple mix as you work your way around the circle to let gravity help the dough roll over.

Bake in a preheated 350F oven for 30-35 minutes. Serve warm with ice cream or whipped cream.

It’s been a hot minute – what I am up to

It’s been a hot minute – what I am up to

WELP. The idea of writing consistently here this year as a New Year’s resolution didn’t happen. Still, I’ve not really spent a lot of time on social media this year and I have definitely kicked my facebook habit (and replaced about 50% of it with an Instagram habit – oops!). Of course, the pandemic is still out there pandemicking but the kids are back in school so that is nice. We had a great summer of outdoor socially distanced hangouts, and now we are settling in to have a lovely autumn full of fun fall activities. But first, maybe a roundup of what has happened in the past 6 months since I last wrote:

Cottaging on Manitoulin island: we have probably shut the door on camping/cottaging with the two other families. Since Sprout was 2, we’ve either Glamped in Quebec parks or we’ve rented cottages. This year we had a lovely week in Dominion Bay where the kids could run around, play games and go for long walks. My friend S did her yearly craft camp for the kids & there was woodburning, leaf painting & other projects completed. I mostly read, and we even headed out to an outdoor farmer’s market (a pandemic first for me!) where I bought cozy wool socks for me, rings made out of antique spoons for the kids, and a pepper grinder from a woodworker for Mr. Tucker.

Unfortunately, during the pandemic there was a run on cottage rentals and even though we tried to book for next year early this summer, there was really nothing to be had that wasn’t $3000 a week – a bit steep. Also, our kids are much older now: Sprout is going to be 12 next year and the oldest kids will be 16 and will probably have jobs. It’s been a good run but it’s time to move on. Not all is lost though! More below!

Gardening: this was our garden’s second year & like the first year we kind of took the “set it and forget it” approach. Still, we got a lot out of it despite the chaos and have learned that we can probably sow an early spring garden, a summer garden & a fall garden. We did end up sowing a fall garden but a little later than I would have liked so who knows what will happen? Despite the cold, the tomatoes are still producing and the basil is going strong. Heck, some of our herbs – like lavender, coriander & dill – have re-seeded and are producing again. Since our goal is to bring those herbs inside for wintering under grow lights, I am happy to see it!

Hopefully we will get some cool weather crops before the snow flies! Then we will pull the dying plants, lay on our home made compost and let the beds winter. Otherwise, we have garlic to plant for next year before the winter sets in.

    Canning, preserving & gleaning: we did most of the things we had done last year that we had enjoyed,

– Horseradish dill pickles
– Tomato sauce
– Spicy dilly beans
– Strawberry and raspberry jam
– Sundried tomatoes

    Some new things,

– Both dill and sweet mustard relish (made when our cucumbers turned yellow)
– Red onion and beetroot chutney
– Marinated eggplant

    Some boozy things,

– We made Nocino from friend’s black walnuts
– We made a bachelor’s jam for Winter Solstice/Yule
– We are now trying our hand at plum wine from our friend’s plums

I am going to do an entire post on all of the things we did & some recipes sometime soon. What’s notable though is what we didn’t do: salsa or tomatillo salsa. We really weren’t going through it as quickly as I thought we would, so we focused on tomato sauce instead.

Money Mondays: this is still going strong! We’ve done sessions on a bunch of things such as the Disability Tax Credit, had a guest speaker to do a presentation on wills, and next week I am doing one on budgets.

Health: the good news is that the ALS clinic told me that I am doing well enough that I only have to come in once every two years! The nurse told me that this was the first time she’s heard the doctor tell someone that so I am pretty proud. Still, I could be doing more work on my health to be quite honest.

– Mr. Tucker and I are taking long walks (I bought a yellow tricycle, which is what I usually take) weekdays. We grab the dogs in the morning, walk Sprout to the end of the street, then we walk the Bean to her bus stop & then we head down to the river for a longer walk (or just through the neighbourhood on busy mornings). It’s been really good for us both to be forced to get up, washed, dressed and out the door. Otherwise we just lounge around the house in our jammies.
– I plan to do #folktober next month to work on my fine motor skills with painting. I bought some nice watercolour paints and I need to encourage myself to use them. Wish me luck!
– I need to clean out my knitting basket to make it more user-friendly. The Sprout reminded me that I said I would teach them to knit and I still haven’t. So again, in the interest of my fine motor neuron skills (and keeping my promise) I should pull that out again.
– My vitamin regimen has made my cycle much better and that in turn has also helped my spasticity.
– I haven’t had alcohol since October 28th, 2020.
– My skin has been just awful so yesterday I was tested for a bunch of things (celiac, thyroid) and my GP is making me appointments with two dermatologists, so we will see how that will play out. I figure this may be an ongoing saga for awhile as appointments are sparse due to the pandemic.

Finances: shockingly, Mr. Tucker has made the decision to work longer in order to put more money into some house-related projects. This means we’ve eased up on our intense budget and instead we are buying more things that bring us joy. For example, we are trying to rehire our old housecleaner again as we’ve decided that our weekends are probably not best spent arguing with the kids over chores. They both know how to clean an entire house so we’ve done our job here. They’ll still have chores, just less of them.

I have also increased our a> grocery budget; and b> our pocket money. We are still saving at an amazing rate but we aren’t as intense as we were for most of this year. We hit our prepayment amount for our mortgage & will contribute to Mr. Tucker’s retirement accounts (but to a lesser degree).

Instead we are also going to…

Travel: both near and far. When we were on Manitoulin Island this summer we made the decision that if cottages were going to be $3000 a week that we would be better off booking a trip down south instead. So that is what we have done. We have tentatively booked a vacation to Jamaica next winter (covid willing!). We booked our flights & house rentals but we did manage to get good cancellation policies so we will see where the world is at come winter.

We also have decided to treat the kids & take them to Canada’s Wonderland for the Halloween Haunt. We ended up buying season passes with another family in the hopes of going back for a couple of days next summer as well.

I would like to also do more things close to home such as heading to various Halloween-themed (outdoor) events in our area. After a year and a half of being stuck at home, I am eager to spread my social wings!

So that is about it for changes around here. Mostly my days are spent reading and parenting & watching shows or playing games as a family. I think we’ve turned a corner on covid – at least in our area of the world – so I hope that stays steady. Overall, life is pretty good.

RRSPs vs. TFSAs

RRSPs vs. TFSAs

We have a motley little group of people who get together for what we call Money Mondays. Last week I spent 8 hours doing the write-up below & accompanying deck. It isn’t edited & it’s meant to give an overall view, so it is very lean on details. However, I thought some people may enjoy it so I’m posting it below.

Having said that, I have also recently come across these three interesting articles on retirement, which I found super informative.

Running out of time before running out of money

Most retirees will never spend down their portfolio

Why retirees go broke

TFSAs vs. RRSPs

Basically, the way you should look at them is as if they were buckets. They are just holding places for where you put your money. On their own they are nothing – just places where you can stick money. If you put $100 in each of them today, you would have $100 in 20 years.

BUT, within the buckets you can hold almost any kind of investment: bonds, index or mutual funds, GICs, etc. (OBVZ not real estate) and the investments are allowed to grow tax-free within these buckets.

Lexicon issues

Part of the confusion surrounding these two (buckets) is the way the finance industry speaks about them. For example, “my RRSP made $1000 in interest last year” is technically correct but what it really means is, “the investments INSIDE my RRSP made $1000 in interest last year.” Some people think they can just stick money into the bucket and leave it. You can but you won’t make any interest on it. Unlike the low interest you may get in chequing and savings accounts, TFSAs and RRSPs generate ZERO interest on their own. You need to choose an investment to generate interest.

What the hell is a pre-tax dollar? The language around RRSPs is often confusing with many articles stating that you will “get half of the money back” when you contribute to an RRSP. That *can* be true – if you are a high-income earner – but it is generally much less than this.

A pre-tax dollar means that you can save money in an RRSP BEFORE the government taxes your salary. So if you make $55000 a year, and you put $6000 into an RRSP, the government treats your income as if you had made $49000 instead. So the government returns the taxes that you “overpaid” on that $6000 when you contributed to your RRSP.
With Group RRSP plans and Pensions, your Pay & Benefits department usually already adjusts your salary based on your contribution. So you get more in your pocket every pay but you won’t see as much of a “return.”

What the hell is an after-tax dollar? That is basically money from your NET pay. You’ve already been taxed on it.

Two notes

Tax brackets: If you will notice in the above example as well, an RRSP contribution can bring you down a tax bracket:

– On the first 0-$49020 the tax rate is 15%
– On the next $49020 to $98040 the tax rate is 20.5%
– By contributing to an RRSP, that (appx) $6000 is escaping the fate of being taxed at 20.5%

(we can discuss how progressive taxation works another time)

A note on pensions: You will notice that above I mentioned that Pay & Benefits departments usually reduces your tax-payable at the source when calculating how much tax to take off of your paycheque. That is because Pensions and RRSPs use the same contribution room calculations. So if in 2021 you contribute $20000 to a pension (if you are in the max RRSP category), you will only have $7830 left in contribution room should you decide to contribute to an RRSP. It’s all treated as retirement savings.

So how do I choose which one to contribute to?

The basic rule of thumb (I hate rules of thumb) is that if you make less than $50000 you should contribute to a TSFA and if you make more than $50000 you should contribute to an RRSP. But those rules only apply if you DON’T have a pension.

If you do have a pension? Likely, a TFSA (unless you want to retire early).
If you don’t have a pension? Ideally: both. If you can’t do both, RRSP.

The reason for this is that the RRSP is actually a TAX DEFERRAL PROGRAM. The way it works is that you contribute to your retirement during your high-earning years and receive a tax incentive to do so. Between now and retirement your nest egg will grow significantly & tax-free until you go to take it out. The logic is that when you retire your income will be reduced significantly so that when you take money out of your RRSPs you will be in a smaller tax bracket.

A very simplistic example

So let’s play with an example. Say you make $65000 a year and because you are super diligent and amazing and basically don’t exist, you max out your RRSP from the time you are a wee bairn with their first job. So you contribute the maximum – $11700 a year – until you are 65. Give yourself a pat on the back, you non-existent person you!

To make it easy for our example, we are going to assume that nothing changes (no raises, no tax bracket changes, market doesn’t crash etc.) but guaranteed all these things will change. Still, we put our money into index funds which make us a return of 5% a year, compounded for 25 years. So it looks like this:

$11700 x 5% with $11700 added every year and compounded over 25 years = $621353

Another rule of thumb (ugh) is that you need 70% of your working salary as your retirement salary. In the case of this example, that would be a gross income of $37310*.

So without getting into the niggly details, let’s assume that the government is going to give you $18000 a year** meaning that if you want to hit that $37310 amount you are going to have to take out $19310 from your RRSP. Luckily, you have it!

But the devil always gets his due, WHOMP WHOMP and you find yourself paying taxes on that $19310, which means you have to actually take out $22207 to pay off your $2897 tax bill.

Still, when you were working you had been paying 20.5% on any money you made over $49000 so you got a bit of a break there and you saved yourself 5.5% in taxes on the $11700 you put into your RRSPs, so it’s a minor win.

Still, even when the tax brackets don’t switch or the amounts are marginal-to-poor, the biggest boon is the ability to have your money grow and make money within the RRSP without paying capital gains on it***. Had you saved the $11700 a year and not invested, you would have $292500 – a far cry from the $621353 above!

*Wait! Why not $65000 x 70% = $45500?! Because I am calculating it on $53300 because that is what you were living on BEFORE as you had actually put $1170 into RRSPs every year: 65000 – 11700 = 53300.
**They won’t
***Capital gains are when you make money on something, 50% of the amount you made is added to your salary and taxed at that tax rate.

We’ll get to more on Pensions, TFSAs and taxes in a minute but wait, there’s more…

A note for Chicken Littles…

A lot of gums flap about how programs like CPP/OAS/GIS won’t be there or will be bankrupt when we go to retire. Honestly, CPP itself is in a pretty healthy state so far which is also why you are seeing the rates go up a lot. I love when I see old, cranky Conservatives go on about how THEY PAID INTO IT and how they want more but none of us really pays what we put in if we live to a ripe old age (some of us will die early and thems the breaks!). CPP is at its core a pyramid scheme so as long as people are working and paying, the longer it will exist.

Also, if these programs go POOF likely the entire economy – or maybe society itself – has collapsed and we’ll have bigger worries than this. I think the finance industry has a vested interest in convincing us to save more by convincing us we can’t rely on it.

Screw rules of thumb, a diatribe

So you aren’t – and I am certainly not – average. A friend and I have discussed our retirements together and she can’t see her expenses going down by 30% at all! So she will need to adjust for that shortfall.

In fact, this is the case for a lot of retirees who often travel, take up hobbies, help grandkids etc. Also, more and more people are heading into retirement with debt be it a mortgage or consumer debt so a reduction just isn’t feasible. We won’t even speak about disability or the price of an LTC!

Conversely, in my household we are spending a lot of money raising two kids as well as saving for their educations. When the girls leave so many of the categories in our budget will go down, from clothes to food to entertainment. Even still, our family is currently on an extremely tight budget for the next three years and we are saving over 50% of our income. What this tells us is that when Mr. Tucker retires, we can reduce our budget exponentially in a couple of different ways and still leave us a pretty good life.

So look at your situation and see if you fit into the industry’s perfect idea of a retiree, I bet you may not!

Choose your own adventure! I have a pension:

If you have a pension, you don’t want to have a HUGE RRSP (unless you plan to retire early but that is an ENTIRE presentation in itself). That is because pensions replace 70% of your income already and when you take money out of an RRSP that gets tacked onto your taxable amount. That’s not particularly bad if you want to take out a few thousand a year but once you hit 71, all hell breaks loose.

At 71 the government forces you to turn your RRSP into an RRIF. We can discuss those in detail at a later date but what is important to remember is that in a RRIF the government FORCES you to take out a percentage of the money every year. The amount increases the longer you live (you can see a chart here) from a 5.40% withdrawal rate at 72 to a 20% rate at 95 or older! So if you have a pension bringing in $60000 a year and you are 80 years old with a RRIF worth $600000, the government will force you to take out 6.82% of your RRIF bringing your taxable salary up to $100920! OUCH IN THE TAX PLACE!

So this is why it is recommended that people with pensions hit up the TFSAs first. If you were 18 before 2009 you have $75500 worth of lifetime contribution room and it goes up (appx) $6000 each year. The money still grows tax free from your investments in the TFSA bucket but the difference is that you aren’t taxed on the money when you take it out. So you won’t get fucked in the butthole by the forced RRIF withdrawal rules.

Different situations:
– It could be worthwhile to contribute to RRSPs as well, especially if you feel you want to top up that 30% that your pension doesn’t cover. I would do the math to figure out the TFSA vs. RRSP contribution amounts.
– If you have a common law partner without a pension, you can income split at 65. You can also split RRIF income so if your spouse made significantly less than you during your working life, spousal RRSPs or splitting RRSP/RRIFs may be right for you.
– If you plan to go to school in the future you may want to contribute to an RRSP to get the tax benefit and to take up to $20000 out for the Lifelong Learning Plan (LLP). The LLP can be used for you OR YOUR PARTNER. You have to pay it back within 10 years but it’s better than a loan.
– If you plan to buy a home and want to use the Home Buyers Plan (HBP). You have to be a first-time home buyer to use the HBP (there are exceptions such as disability) and you can take out $35000 and have to pay it back over 15 years. Again, good if you want to take the tax break and buy a home.

In both the above scenarios, even having $55000 to get an education and buy a home won’t drown you if you have to use an RRIF down the road so it may be a good idea to have some money in RRSPs even if you have a pension.

Choose your own adventure: I don’t have a pension & don’t make a lot of money:

The TFSA was really a program brought in to allow low income earners to save money and reap benefits that the high-income earners got with the RRSP. Since you don’t save a lot in taxes when you are a low income earner, the only real benefit of the RRSP before the TFSA came along was the lack of capital gains on what your investments made.

The TFSA works well because the amount you take out of it isn’t clawed back by the government programs. If your primary source of income is going to be CPP/GIS/OAS using TFSAs means that when you take out money without having your primary source of income reduced. When you use RRSPs, that changes your calculation of your yearly income thus reducing the amount from government programs.
Right now – let’s assume you have never contributed to a TFSA – if you were 18 in 2009, you have $75500 in contribution room in your TFSA. You will also get $6000 worth of room for the next 20 years. Assuming that you decide today to max out your TFSA by the time you are 65 and you are 40 now, you will need to contribute $9020 or $752 a month for the next 25 years. At the end of that 25 years at 5% compounded, you will have $479225.

I admit, that is really high for a low-income earner in after-tax dollars. But let’s do the math with various amounts:
$100 – $63729
$150 – $95593
$200 – $127458
$300 – $191186
It could also just look like you using your tax return to fund your retirement.

Choose your own adventure: I don’t have a pension but I make a good salary:

This is where RRSPs truly shine! You want to max that 18%, baby! Did you already do that? Let’s hit up that MOFO TFSA for some investment action! Honestly, you can’t really go wrong here. Just put all the money in all of the things, is your motto! I think it’s unrealistic to think you will have $33830 to max them all out but maybe you do? I don’t know your life!

Your situation is similar to the non-pension low-income earners except you probably have a more high-falutin’ lifestyle you will need to support. So you are better off taking the tax break now, having more money down the road, and accepting the clawback on government benefits.

The HBP and the LLP are both great programs that you should take advantage of if you want. A strong caveat that if you can both save for a house/education AND max out your RRSP you should do that. Losing 15 years of interest payments can really hurt the end result of your retirement strategy.

You can also pension-split RRSPs/RRIFs when you are 65 so it may be worthwhile to run the numbers on how to fund an RRSP. For example if the husband’s 18% is $20000 but the wife’s entitled to the maximum of $27830 and you only have $30000 the smarter thing would be to fund the higher-income earner from a tax perspective because you can income split down the road AND you are probably dodging the highest tax bracket.

Choose your own adventure: I don’t have a pension but my work has a group RRSP:

Max it out. It’s free money. Don’t ever say no to free money.

Most employer-sponsored plans have rules such as:

– Company will match 100% of your contributions up until 3% of your gross salary
– Company will then match 50% of your contributions up until another 3% of your gross

Honestly, it’s the best deal going. Turning it down is like saying no to a 4.5% pay raise.

So which is better TFSA or RRSP?

This argument has gone on forever with some people claiming that they are equal and some claiming that one is better than the other. I feel like it’s splitting hairs but here is a really long and complicated article detailing everything you need to know about TFSAs/RRSPs/OAS/CPP/GIS. Sadly, the answer is always: DO THE MATH.

At the end of the day just save something, anything, somewhere, hopefully in an investment that AT LEAST beats inflation.

One of my favourite quotes is “The best time to plant an oak tree was 20 years ago. The second best time to plant one is now.” If you are feeling overwhelmed and behind right now please don’t, you are not alone. At the end of the day doing something is always doing nothing and even if you don’t manage to get a million dollars in the bank would you rather be 65 with $100000 in the bank or 65 with nothing? It may not seem like a lot of money in the grand scheme but it is money that could dig you out of a very big hole if you need it!

Note: I use The Calculator Site but if you want to use your own, YMMV.