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By the spring of 2023 the markets were green year-to-date! We were still far from our historic highs of December 2021, but with the bear market of 2022 in the rearview mirror and inflation coming down, 2023 was shaping up to be positive. Around this time, on a warm Sunday morning Victor and I were getting ready to leave on vacation. After years of Covid-related travel restrictions we had booked a dream trip to Greece. I was busy checking everything off my list to shut the house down for two weeks. Clean out fridge and empty garbage, check. Turn the air conditioner off, check. Make sure back door is locked, check.

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What is a bear market like? If a bull market is marked by its bull-like tendencies, your portfolio aggressively raging upwards in a sex-crazed rampage, then the bear market is much like a bear itself. It’s scary, temperamental, and your portfolio goes into hibernation until further notice. Like a mama-bear protecting her cubs, investors sell off their stocks and desperately search for what they believe to be safer assets, like gold and consumer staples. But the damage is already done, with equities having crashed anywhere from 20-30 percent. Your portfolio is cooked, and you have one long winter ahead of you.

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Around this time I started to think about early retirement. I looked at my budget and I compared it to my healthy portfolio now bursting at the seams. I had been working towards financial independence for a while now, basing my plans for early retirement on the Trinity Study. I recalled from reading JL Collins, that based on the study, you can safely withdraw 4% of your portfolio annually, indexed to inflation, and you will have a 96% chance of not running out of money over a 30 year time period (source). For example, if you have $1,000,000 invested in a mix of stocks and bonds, based on the study you can safely withdraw 40k/year and let your portfolio do the heavy lifting while you’re frolicking in fields of dandelions, enjoying early retirement (source).

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In the meantime, as I attempted to fix more broken appliances, the stock market continued to soar to new heights in 2020 and 2021. Despite the Covid bear market in early 2020, the S&P 500 gained 18.4 percent in 2020 and went on to reach even newer highs in 2021, returning 28.71 percent by the end of the year! Covid had sadly ravaged small businesses and inflicted pain among sectors of the economy like the service and travel industry. But corporate America was alive and well and several factors ensured both the stock market and housing market continued to thrive. Lowered interest rates, pent up consumer demand and a shift to digitalize work and play were driving up the prices of stocks –  and real estate.

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Could I still achieve financially independence and embrace minimalism as a first-time homeowner? Or would the stress of mortgage payments and ongoing home maintenance affect my finances and mental health? I was about to find out.

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By August, after the military movers loaded our belongings onto a truck and we drove four hours to start our new life, the stock market had fully recovered its 30% loss and was marching higher. Ever since the stock market had bottomed just four and a half months earlier, I had continued to invest vigorously with every paycheck, only making a one-time withdrawal from my RRSP to cover part of the down payment on our new home. As a result, my portfolio was now in the green and larger than ever as I had continued purchasing index funds at fire-sale discounts.

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The big 3-story pine tree was the first thing I saw when we rounded the corner and drove half-way down the hilly street on that rainy Monday morning in June. Behind the giant tree stood the house, a 2001 raised bungalow with a grey brick facade, large windows and a for-sale sign staked into the freshly cut lawn.

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“Folks, I’ve declared a state of emergency in the province of Ontario…” flanked by a team of concerned policymakers, our fearless premier of Ontario solemnly announced through our television that he was taking measures to “stop the spread” of the respiratory virus Covid-19. For two weeks businesses, libraries, childcare centers, bars and restaurants would shutter. Essential businesses like grocery and liquor stores would stay open. Across the room my laptop made a ‘woosh’ sound with the arrival of a company-wide email alerting us that all offices would be closed until further notice.

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One day in summer of 2018, Victor and I got our wish. After three years in Winnipeg and one year of officially being married (!), he was being posted to Hamilton, Ontario, a 45 minute drive from Toronto without traffic, an hour and a half with. We managed to snag one of the last available apartments, a coral-colored one-bedroom in a low-rise condo building next to the military center in the heart of downtown. Our landlord Sam, a 60-something man from Cyprus with a thick accent and warm smile, practically ripped up the formal lease before we had a chance to sign it, insisting that he was ‘old school’, and there was no need to check our references.

“Let’s get a coffee instead,” he suggested.

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When I ran out of things to cut, I started to learn everything I could about personal finance and growing wealth in the stock market. I read and listened to The Canadian Couch Potato blog and podcast. I read A Random Walk down Wallstreet, The Millionaire Next Store, The Wealthy Barber. I binge-read Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE) blogs like JL Collins, Mr. Money Mustache and Millennial Revolution, which all encouraged me to look for peace and happiness in experiences instead of stuff.

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