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Emergencies are easier with money

Emergencies are easier with money


If you haven’t watched Big Mouth, do yourself a solid and get on it STAT!

We knew that our car needed a new battery. Mr. Tucker was told this in the fall when we had the winter tires put on. He had planned to do it at the end of January when we were due to get the oil changed (this is what they call “foreshadowing”). So neither of us were shocked when it hit -35c this past weekend and the battery died on the car. Of course, we figured this out when Mr. Tucker headed out to warm up the car before taking The Youngest to roller derby but at least it gave him enough time to call a cab and get her there.

As he sat in the gym with a lukewarm coffee and his kindle, I suggested that since he was in the south end anyway that he should just rent a car from the airport (pro tip: in general, airports always have the cheapest prices on rentals). So he did just that and then ran the errands he wanted to while he waited for derby to be finished.

Renting the car meant that we could get The Youngest to her snowboarding job the next morning as well as get The Eldest and I to our skiing (her volunteering and me participating) commitment on Sunday. Without even blinking, I just thought, “throw money at the problem.”

You know what’s nice? Being able to throw money at the problem. I remember that there was a time in my life where a dead battery would have been devastating for me. Not only could I not afford to rent a car but I also probably would have not had the money to spend on fixing the battery. I would have just thrown it on credit and paid a premium to do so. Instead, we dropped The Eldest and her friend off on Monday morning at school (it’s exams this week), jumped the car with our rechargeable car battery jumper (everyone should have one of these), brought the car in, and then Mr. Tucker and I hit a diner for a hot breakfast date. As luck would have it, the car was done within the hour and so we nabbed it and dropped the rental off, swinging by on our way back to The Eldest’s school as she was finished writing her exam. It was all serendipitous timing and we were home by noon.

I am just so grateful that we are in a place in our lives where we don’t even have to think twice about spending money to make our lives easier. It’s so freeing to not have to live on the edge and worry about how you are going to get everyone to the places they need to be. I just wanted to take a hot minute and be thankful for this and I never want to not be grateful that we’re in this place in our lives.

Yuletide & Gregorian new year

Yuletide & Gregorian new year

Yet another Yule has come and gone. In November, I generally wrap up all of the gift-buying I need to do, head to a local greenhouse for evergreens to decorate our home and so I start December being able to focus on friends and family events. Besides, it is our family’s favourite time of year: Advent calendar season! My kids prefer microdosing Christmas with Advent calendars rather than getting big gifts on Christmas morning, so we put a lot of energy into that.

After a lacklustre experience with expensive store-bought calendars, Mr. Tucker and I started making our own last year and the kids LOVE them. The days are mixed up with more expensive treats (ie: a locally made jewellery tray) interspersed with less expensive things (bulk purchased face masks) and every day is a surprise – often to me, too, as I always forget what I’ve put in there! We also do the used book calendars for all four of us – keeping what looks interesting and then returning the rest to the used book store. This year I also nabbed a chocolate calendar from Ikea which was fun but I think next year I may opt for one from an actual chocolatier so that there is less marzipan (we all loathe marzipan).

The first weekend of December found me heading up to Almonte for their Light Up the Night event. My friend’s husband said it best, “It’s a family event that is cheesy in all the right ways!” We headed up to my friend Katherine’s place and nabbed a Swiss Chalet Festive Feast for dinner (a Canadian classic!) before heading downtown. It was actually a pretty lovely evening hosted by Wayne Rostad (I didn’t even know he was still alive) who opened with his song, “Christmas in the Valley” (which I had also somehow erased from my memory!). Almonte is a lovely little town that is famous for being Christmastown, USA in many Hallmark films.

The weekend was also slam-packed because I ended up taking two lovely craft classes with my friend, Kri. On the Saturday we made our own wreaths as a fundraiser for a local charity. On the Sunday, we headed to a local pottery studio with our daughters to create our own gingerbread house votive holders out of clay. Both were amazing days with friends and a great way to kick off the holiday season.

The second weekend of December found The Youngest kickstarting the snowboard season with a trip to Mont Blanc for some training. It was also the weekend to bake cupcakes for The Mission for their Christmas dinner on Sunday night. Locals sign up to bake approximately 3000 cupcakes every year and we’ve contributed for many years now. During the week was The Eldest’s winter band concert featuring such timeless winter classics as “Sharp Dressed Man” by ZZ Top and Camila Cabello’s “Havana”(WHAT?). The next day was my actual birthday so we went to AYCE Sushi with the kids as it’s their favourite (and I had already had my party the month before).

The third weekend had The Youngest take her three-day course to become a snowboarding instructor – she passed the teaching, but failed the riding. She will do a retest day soon. The Eldest had to also take a tethering training course as she is volunteering this year with Canadian Adaptive Snowsports (CADS) as a ski instructor. I also made a bunch of cookies for the kids to give away to friends. I made: chocolate chai, peppermint, London fog with white chocolate, pistachio, chocolate espresso swirl, and Skor chip.

We also hosted our yearly Winter Solstice party where we did collage bookmarks as a craft and tossed our wishes for the upcoming year into the fire. Winter Solstice is one of my favourite days of the year that I get to spend with some of my favourite people. It was an absolutely wonderful night full of food, friends, warmth…and a nice sprinkling of sparkling wine with a shot of summer fruit-infused brandy. I love that my children and my friend’s children all lean into how special Solstice is.

Of course, heading into the forth weekend, we hit Christmas proper en passant. For Réveillion we have my Dad and his partner over along with my cousin and his partner. We keep it simple, usually ordering Chinese food and laughing over drinks. Unfortunately, people are onto us and are also ordering Chinese food on Christmas Eve so it was a two hour wait. Next year I think I will just do a bucket of chicken or maybe just go with the more traditional Tourtière. In our efforts to uncomplicate family hangouts we have inadvertently made the food portion take too long. It was fine, we exchanged gifts, told stories and laughed but the lack of food had us in our cups way too early (lesson learned!).

Christmas morning saw Mr. Tucker and I get up early, make a fire, light the tree and enjoy a quiet morning with our mugs of coffee while our teenagers slept. We finally got them up around 10:30am and they got to open their gifts. Now, The Youngest only wanted ONE thing for Christmas and OF COURSE they don’t ship to Canada (they used to but with the tariffs everything became so complicated that they stopped). BUT one of my oldest friends, ShanBoo was coming up from Connecticut for Christmas to visit her parents. So on the 23rd, her, her husband, their tween and two dogs drove north in a snowstorm for 12 hours delivering Santa’s good cheer. So on Christmas Eve we drove to her parent’s place (bearing gifts of scones because they deserve it!) to pick it up. The Youngest was so sure that we couldn’t make it happen that she was over-the-moon (the Crooked Moon, in fact) to discover that Santa had pulled a miracle out of his butt and delivered the RPG she coveted. We spent the rest of the day eating leftover Chinese food and reading books. Since we made the decision to not do a huge family Christmas anymore and instead just hang out just the four of us it has really brought back my love of the day.

On Boxing day, the Stepson and his girlfriend came over for our little Christmas get-together. Every year Mr. Tucker and the Stepson cook a special meal together on Boxing Day and we drink way too much wine and catch up. I had bought them some liquor and wine from my trip to Prince Edward County in November (which I haven’t written about but I should!), including a lovely strawberry vodka and a red sparkling wine. While the men cooked, the kids, his girlfriend Kim and I all played Euchre. They also brought caviar but it was a HARD PASS for me as it’s not my cup of tea.

The forth weekend saw us heading out to a hockey game and starting to settle in to the Twixmas season of nothing days. I, personally, needed a recovery from all of the heavy food and wine as I had been mostly eating chocolate, meat and cheese. So I have been spending a lot of time by the fire, drinking tea and reading books (I have many library books out – as usual!).

Of course, everything came to a head on New Year’s Eve. Mr. Tucker and I headed out to the produce store to load up with fresh fruit and veggies so that we’d start the new year off right. Then I took a nap (I am 50! I can’t stay up until midnight without a nap!) before we headed out to our friends – The Shelidans – place for a trivia-themed party! It was an incredible night and I had a wonderful time. I met some new people and joined their team (which gave us +25 stranger points!). The team was so well rounded with everyone knowing almost all of the questions. In the end – WE WON! Even without the stranger bonus we won by 4.5 points so I am not mad about it! I think it helped that I was sober because some of the rounds went super quick. It was so well organized, everyone was lovely and it was the perfect way to ring in the new year.

New Year’s Day and we were just lazy. Today I booked Mr. Tucker and I in for massages (to start the new year off right!) and tonight will be – you guessed it – fire, tea and books. I am, afterall, predictable. I will at some point do a review of the past year and discuss the year ahead but for now I am just going to chill out, eat some vegetables and catch up on some reading.

Christmas gifting rules

Christmas gifting rules

A relative used to say this all of the time when I was growing up. She didn’t invent it, I don’t know where she originally got it from but it’s guided my gift-giving habits. I thought it may be useful for you as well:

Something they want,
Something they need,
Something to wear,
something to read.

Hope that helps. Stay sane out there!

Wintering

Wintering

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.”

– Albert Camus

Fire. Book. Dog.

It’s beginning to look a lot like…tax season

It’s beginning to look a lot like…tax season

It’s winter sports season here at The Mullet*. Our front hall is jam-packed with snowboard and skiing gear plus my scooter for when we go and see the PWHL games. Mitts, and hats, and a variety of winter and waterproof gear…oh my! If you are going to stay in Canada for the winter, you really have to embrace Canadian winters.

I had to print out a physical schedule because between the hockey games, the Eldest’s two jobs, and the activities for the youngest, we had way too much to remember off the top of our heads. The actual ice and snow sport season only really runs from January – March (until March break), so 8-10 weeks. But the season feels long because we are super busy with the regular lessons and sports of the year as well. At least, the pure chaos is interspersed with books and a roaring fireplace.

Speaking of books, I have been reading non-stop lately. I finished What we Knew (mentioned in Morgan Housel’s book, Same as Ever) in less than 24 hours. While I generally avoid WWII stuff unless it’s a Ken Burns offering (and I certainly avoid fiction based in that era) I do love stories and storytelling from a first person perspective. WWK is based on a study that spanned ten years in which they interviewed survivors from Germany – both Jews and non-Jews as well as officers who were in the German army. It’s a fascinating book of detailed – and varied – experiences and I highly recommend it. I am now onto The Great Depression (also mentioned in that book). It’s a series of journal entries by a lawyer who lived through the Great Depression and who tried to make sense of the economy while it was happening. Both are Interlibrary Loans so I needed to finish them up before they are due. So I spent yesterday just reading and avoiding the internet entirely. I’m not mad about it.

Link (yes, singular)
One article today due to the doubling-down on book reading recently: Judging by the people around me, chances are they won’t have even close to the “recommended” amounts of retirement savings suggested by the financial industry. I just don’t see the majority of people sitting on millions when they have started late, feel more comfortable working with FAs who take a percentage, and prefer low-risk investments. Still, looking at history they may be ok, anyway. Boomers: the retirement crisis that wasn’t.

We’ve achieved our goals 6 months early!
In January 2021 I wrote a post called The Three Year Plan. I went back today and realized that it was really the 2.5 year plan! We managed to do all of the things on the list: pay off our mortgage, max my RDSP, fully fund the kids RESPs (ongoing because there is a yearly max for matched contributions), and we met our goal of how much we decided to invest in Mr. Tucker’s RRSP before he could retire. We met these goals last July.

I suppose the only addition here is that we are selling the condo. We hadn’t foreseen the drama there (you can’t anticipate everything). We only really kept it because a relative needed a place to go (…and no good deed goes unpunished). Until it sells though, we can’t have Mr. Tucker retire as the mortgage/condo fees come out of his pay while it is on the market. Otherwise, we are pretty set up & we won’t need to touch our investments for 15ish years. We will also have a good amount tucked away for emergencies, travel and future spending.

Drawdown plan
While I adore people who get down into the nitty gritty of the numbers, I am more of a lacklustre financial traveler: I aim my boat in the direction it needs to go in and adjust periodically. I don’t obsess about market timing, watching my investments like a hawk or the minutiae of planning my taxes perfectly. Should I? Maybe. But I just don’t want to be that person.

TFSAs vs. RRSPs**? We all know that the answer is, “ideally, both.” But for us the answer has been RRSPs. Why? Because Mr. Tucker’s plan is to retire early and so he will go from a high salary to no salary (the year after). So reducing that up front was the best case scenario, in my opinion.

The goal is to draw down the Basic Personal Amount (BPA) – which is the amount of money that you can make (or withdraw from an RRSP) without paying taxes – and then flip it into our TFSAs in the 20 years between when he stops working and when the government forces him to transfer his RRSP to a RRIF (Registered Retirement Income Fund) where he is forced to draw out a percentage every year. Because we didn’t have enough money to contribute to both the RRSP and the TFSA at the same time, we prioritized today’s tax burden.

Yes, we may take a hit on our investments (but we may gain as well) by doing this and the government will hold back 10% on the first $5000 and 20% on the next $10000 but we will see that as a tax refund the following year. Yes, I know refunds are not ideal but the goal is to drawdown the RRSP and then load up the TFSA so that when we are 71, we won’t have much left in the RRSPs for them to tax at 20%+. The money will keep growing in our TFSAs tax free over the years, and when we go to get our CPP/OAS at 65+ the withdrawals from our TFSAs will also be tax-free.

My opinion is that the TFSA is a much better savings vehicle in general unless you are a high-income earner. If I made under the $111,733 I would definitely prioritize the TFSA followed by the FHSA (the First Time Homebuyers Savings Account) – regardless of whether or not you want to purchase a home. Why? Because you get a tax credit for money you put into a FHSA so it reduces your taxes today. On top of that, then it can sit in investments for 15 years making money. If you go to buy a home with it you get to withdraw all the deposits and interest tax free but if you don’t end up buying a home, you can transfer the money to an RRSP without affecting your RRSP contribution room.

The other fun game would be to mix it up. If you make $65000 you may want to contribute $9133 to an RRSP to bring your taxable income down to the lower tax bracket of $55867 netting yourself a cool $1872.27 back on your tax return, as you don’t have to pay the marginal tax rate of 20.5% on that $9133. Then you can toss that into your TFSA, getting you the best of both worlds.

It’s always fun to play with the numbers and see what the best option would be for your own particular situation. Since it is the beginning of the year AND we are about to head into Tax Season, maybe it’s time to plan for the upcoming year? Here are the tax brackets for 2024:


*To see the front and to see the back of my house is to know why we call our house The Mullet
** I am going to assume that everyone is familiar with both Tax Free Savings Accounts and the Registered Retirement Savings Program

Subscription cleanup

Subscription cleanup


The Amaryllis is finally blooming

Saturday was Epiphany or 12th Night. The kids cleaned the house and put away all of our Yule-related decorations for another year. The house is clean and looks a little empty now but it’s a tabula rasa as we get ramped up for school to start. The snow has decided to join us for winter, which is great because The Youngest started their snowboarding season yesterday and The Eldest starts her new job as a ski instructor tonight. Today is also the first day back at school and as I anticipated we all dragged our feet after two weeks of partying, over-indulgence and sleeping way too late. The season of merriment has come to an end.

Speaking of cleaning, around this time I do a bit of subscription clean up. I don’t necessarily DO ALL THE THINGS right on the first of January but as the hubbub of the holiday season starts to die down & I ease into the quiet blanket of winter, it’s easier to have a good, hard look at all of the things vying for my attention. I hate how much time it takes me to delete things I am no longer interested in, so I try and take stock of these things in January.

Email sign-ups
I tend to sign up for more email lists in the fall of every year as I sign up for discounts on gifts or to get free shipping. I am pretty good at unsubscribing quickly but there are always one or two I forget. Truth be told, I also subscribe to my old union’s mailing list and I should just say goodbye. I don’t know why I haven’t in the past few years…but it’s time to let go.

Newsletters
I have a few newsletters I enjoy reading but some have either a> gone paid-only & I don’t find the content relevant enough to pay for it; or b> it’s information I don’t really need or haven’t been reading. For example, I’ve signed up for newsletters from a major newspaper that I also subscribe to. I realized that these were just articles I had already read in the physical paper. I unbsubbed.

Paid subscriptions (digital)
This is where things get a little tougher. I have a few content creators that I like to support and I wonder if I should actually review and then maybe even add some new ones. Money is super tight right now (fixed income! *jazz hands*) but should ease up shortly when the condo sells, so I am making a list of creators to consider.

We have basic subs for the house, namely Netflix and Spotify. We get these for the kids. Mr. Tucker’s work also paid for a year of Disney+ so we have that until next fall as well. I’m happy with these.

Paid subscriptions (analog)
OOF. This one hurts. It’s hardest to consider my magazines and newspapers because I love them so much. The reality is though that I need to cut back:
– I am way behind on reading The New Yorker, Canadian Notes & Queries and The Canadian Literary Review. These I am giving up for sure. I just don’t have the time.
– I picked up Celtic Life International this year and it’s been lovely, so I will keep that.
-The Walrus is only a few times a year but it’s quality content, Canadian and I do get a partial tax rebate as a subscriber.
-The New Escapologist. I love this magazine. I will keep it. I would subscribe to The Idler as well if the price point for non-digital was reasonable. (Brexit man, boy howdy!)
– The Globe and Mail. This one is super hard for me. On the one hand, I do want to support legacy media because I feel like once it’s gone, there will be no more (mostly) neutral coverage of events and I do enjoy reading a paper front-to-back and not being spoon fed my own opinions back to me like an algorithm does. I don’t want news to just be what I want to hear rather than things I should consider outside of my own echo-chamber. I mean yes, there are different political slants to all legacy media but generally you will find conflicting viewpoints. The problem is the price: $32 a month for 4 skimpy papers is about what I pay for an entire year’s worth of The Walrus. For now I will keep it, if only because Andrew Coyne is one of the most infuriating opinion columnists…and mostly never wrong. Also: tax rebate.

Social media
I cleaned up a bunch of accounts that I follow that a> are dead/haven’t posted in a while, b> I am not longer interested in, c> deleted me from their followers. As for the last one, it’s mostly self-styled “influencers” who add an account and then delete them as soon as they follow back to fudge their numbers (to make it look like they have more followers than they do, ergo get more free stuff). I do still follow accounts that don’t follow me back if the content is great. What an age we live in!

The 8 weeks of the winter sport season is always just chaos here at The Mullet. Mr. Tucker does the bulk of the running around and getting the kids to places. The Eldest has two jobs this winter plus early morning band and harp lessons across town one night a week. The Youngest also has activities on Saturday and of course snowboarding on Sunday. The next 8 weeks are just pure survival for us but it does break up what would otherwise be a gloomy, cold, dark period of time. As for me, I will organize things the best I can, making sure dinners and lunches are planned and other than that I think I will sit by the fire, drink tea…and try and get through the backlog of magazine subscriptions!


The lemon tree has giant lemons. In the background, winter

Blue Monday and January

Blue Monday and January

I am simultaneously jealous of all of the sunny destination pictures my friends are posting on social media and not envious of all the people getting stranded, delayed or otherwise inconvenienced by airline issues. When we made the decision to stay home this winter I should have also made the rule to stay of social media to avoid the lovely pics. Today is a beautiful, sunny winter day but when it’s this sunny it also means it’s super cold. It’s beautiful from the inside, I keep telling myself as I wrap another blanket around me.

It’s funny to see how accessible travel is these days for the average person. When I was growing up in the 80s almost no one traveled south or overseas in the winter. The odd person may have driven down to Disney or traveled home to see relatives but travel wasn’t as ubiquitous as it is today. I remember having one friend who went to Greece when I was about 10 years old and it felt like a crazy adventure to me! The 90s saw travel had ramp up a bit but by the 2000s it had exploded. Even after 9/11 when travel took a dip due to fear and increased security measures, I was on a plane a month later visiting a friend in Ireland and traveling to Scotland with her. By the end of the decade, it felt like everyone was hopping on planes to vacation.

Now I miss it if we don’t go away in winter but there was a time that it wasn’t even on my radar. I am trying to bring that feeling back: the feeling of moving with the seasons and coping with the weather around me; changing my activities to suit the season; embracing winter sports and staying indoors by the fire with a cup of tea and a good book. Still, like a petulant child I find myself having temper tantrums in my head because I can’t go somewhere warm. It’s amazing how humans adapt: what was once a rare treat available to few, I now feel somewhat resentful for when I can’t have it – even though it’s self-imposed! Having two kids at home who are invested in school has also meant that they don’t want to take any school off to travel, either. It’s strange to me but clearly I am weirdly proud of their dedication. In the end there are so many factors that keep me grounded – in every sense of the word!

But back to poor, misunderstood January! Yesterday was Blue Monday, which is said to be the most depressing day of the year. But it can’t be all that bad because New Order has an excellent song by that name. Also, January is apparently National Breakup Month. Oooof, poor January.

BUT!

January is also the best time to reflect and go inwards. I don’t know how people in the southern hemisphere feel but up here the cold, dark days post-December revelry is a good time to stop, reflect and take stock of things (especially after all of that feasting and merriment). It’s a period of calm after the chaos that allows you to just be calm for a bit and maybe dry out, eat better and give new routines a whirl.

As for myself, I am trying to catch up on reading all of my library books (who am I kidding: I have never been able to balance these! If I read one, one more gets added to the pile. It’s truly an embarrassment of riches), get back on the meal planning train (the #1 tool in my arsenal to not waste and to save money), and I’m keeping an eye on our budget as EI and CPP start getting taken off of Mr. Tucker’s paycheques again just as I am trying to load our RRSPs in time for the tax season.

In the meantime, for those of you who are having difficulty embracing the cold, dark days of January, I highly recommend Katherine May’s book, Wintering to help you see that even the colder months are special and have something to teach us.