I want to tell you about two meetings with my financial planner, separated by exactly one year. The first one made me question everything I’d ever assumed about retirement in Canada — the timeline, the number, the whole picture. The second one made it real. The First Meeting (September 2024) It was supposed to be…
Let’s skip the preamble. You’re here for the numbers, so here they are. As of September 2026, my registered accounts look like this: Account Balance (CAD) TFSA $77,300 RRSP $310,300 LIRA $46,400 Total $434,000 Just over $434,000. Not quite half a million yet — but closer than I ever expected to be. Excited? Yes. Terrified?…
It started, as many questionable ideas do, with a glass of red wine and an internet connection. It was spring 2025. I was somewhere between my second and third glass when I typed what felt like a perfectly reasonable search query: cheap European cities to live in, in countries with a tax treaty with Canada…