Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. None of this is financial advice. I encourage you to do your own research.

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.

Two hours and several espressos later we left Starbucks with a guaranteed apartment and a new friend. Having suffered through my share of crazy landlords in the past, Sam single-handedly restored my faith in Ontario landlords and quite possibly humanity. As the months rolled by and the appliances began to fail, no task was too small for Sam to drive out to Hamilton from his home in Toronto, sometimes late at night, to fix whatever was leaking under the sink.

“You guys,” he said one day as he dried off his hands with a rag, “the apartment is yours as long as you want it. But promise me one day you will buy a house.” Sam believed in property, and he wanted us to get ahead financially.

I felt a little guilty not telling Sam that while we were renting his one-bedroom apartment for $1,500/month we were both squirreling away thousands of dollars a year. In the down market of 2018, and the up market of 2019 we bought the same Canadian Couch Potato portfolio we had been buying since 2015, with the exception of bonds, which we both felt were no longer needed since we both had pretty good job security.

So far our plan had been working out swimmingly. At the end of 2019 my portfolio crossed the 400k mark. Combined with my company pension, I was now worth 500k. “Oh sweetheart you’re worth much, much more to me,” my Mom said when I told her the news. “Now why don’t you help set the table?”

But life in 2019 was not without its stresses. While my company had always promoted hybrid work, I was still expected to be in the office at least three days a week. On Sunday nights after a nice dinner with our families, Victor and I would drive the hour back to Hamilton, the stunning sunsets failing to dissuade my “Sunday scaries” for the week ahead. On Mondays I would work from our dimly-lit apartment, then commute to Toronto where I would subway into the office Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, returning to Hamilton on Friday nights. Then Victor and I would head all the way back to Toronto on Saturday to see our families…to say our lives were hectic would be an understatement. While I was overjoyed to be seeing Victor more frequently than ever before and thrilled with our stress-free rental situation in Hamilton, the back-and-forth was starting to weigh heavily on me. I wasn’t sure how long I could keep this up, especially as in-office pressures continued to mount. But I knew I had to keep working, saving and investing more than ever. Victor’s Hamilton posting was only for a year or two. He would be posted to a smaller city next, most likely far away from Toronto. His next posting could very well be the one that I joined him for, if my portfolio grew large enough. I doubled down and cut every lavish expense except our cherished vacations, and stuffed every spare penny into the index.  

Then, one day in March 2020, the whole world changed.

Repeatable steps I took that you can too!

  • Consider the benefits of renting vs buying. When you rent, your costs are fixed. You know exactly how much you will owe for rent and utilities. Your landlord will be the one spending money to pay property taxes, maintenance fees, replace broken appliances. Renting a nice, safe apartment can often leave some extra money for renters to invest and enjoy their lives. And you won’t be spending all your time fixing things.
  • Read Mr. Money Mustache’s blog post, ‘The True Cost of Commuting’ to understand the toll commuting can take on your wallet, mental and physical health, and the environment. In today’s world of hybrid work it may very well be worth it to live outside the city if you only have to commute every few days for a bigger paycheck. Still, commuting can take its toll. Can you negotiate to work remotely one more day a week? Stay downtown with friends or family so you’re not driving back and forth? Switch to the bus or train so you can relax instead of losing your mind in traffic?
  • When life gets hectic, remember why you started saving money in the first place. You likely started with a goal. Keep at it, keep investing. You can do it!