Budgeting

I recommend using a Spreadsheet to budget your spending. Each sheet should be the year, and on the horizontal axis, have each months. On the vertical axis, have gross, taxes (maybe even CPP), and net income. Add expense lines items. After the savings amount, also note which accounts the savings is transferred to. At the end, have a list of liquid net worth based on those accounts. For example: Cash, FHSA, TFSA, RESP, RRSP, High-Risk Investments.

Bank Account and Foreign ATM - WealthSimple or KOHO

• Wealthsimple
  • no monthly fees
  • second highest cash interest rate without promotions, tied only with Neo Financial (4% in 2024)
  • 1% cash back on debit card
• KOHO
  • Essential plan ($4) monthly fee waiver
    • Ensure there’s a $1,000 deposit every month and you get this plan for free
    • 1% cash back on debit card
  • Earn annual interest rate comparable to CORRA on account balance (5% in 2024)
  • Other plans
    • Extra: $9/month for 1.5% cash back, not really worth it given next section
    • Everything: $19/month for 2% cash back

I switched to Wealth Simple today, I’m not going to spend the time to get KOHO when I don’t plan on keeping much money in the account anyways. The only thing I cared about was getting away from RBC’s $11+ monthly fee.

Credit Card

The credit card you pick should be based on your spending habits and thus your income. This is because free credit cards are most likely not going to beat Wealth Simple, but which credit card would you want to pay an annual fee for?

Credit Card Genius takes into account your monthly spending to offer you a good idea of which credit card to purchase. To pay off your credit card, you can setup a pre-authorized debit, or you can e-Transfer from your wealth simple account to the credit card account.

To be honest, when selecting a credit card, I would choose one where the minimum reward net of annual fees is 1% with additional non-cash benefits. For example, maybe you know you will take 2 round-back trips or 4 flights a year. Therefore, lounge access at Toronto Pearson Airport may be good. I’ll would do a quick example of a credit card excluding sign-on bonuses, but honestly, there’s so many credit card deals that you should switch credit cards every year until to extract more than 1% in reward benefits. Then when there’s no more credit cards, just settle on the one that has the best earning potential.

My thoughts are to go through credit cards in this preferred liquidation order: AMEX, RBC, BMO, Scotia. Once you go through all of these, just settle on Amex or RBC.

Domestic Cash Withdrawal - EQ Bank

ATMs have a max daily withdrawal limit of $500/day, so e-transferring from Wealth Simple to EQ Bank and then using the EQ Bank card is pretty good. Lastly, if you need higher cash withdrawals, I recommend joining a credit union such as FirstOntario, Meridian, Vancity, Coast Capital Savings Federal Credit Union. Really shop around though seeing what satisfies your needs. For example,

Business

Like I said earlier, credit unions might be your best bet. The problem with the big banks are that they eat you up on transaction fees. With credit unions, not only will you encounter a lower monthly fee for good service (e.g. $6/month at RBC versus $5/month at Meridian). The goals of a business account should be as follows:

• ease of mobile and web banking
• digital transactions or waiver of monthly fee equivalent to transactions per month
• ease of debt financing