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Name, age: Riley, 31
Annual income: $130,000 plus $58,800 in condo income
Debt: $575,000 combined mortgage
Savings: $65,000 in savings; $75,000 in TFSA; $25,000 in RRSP
What she does: Freelance accountant and realtor
Where she lives: Toronto
Top financial concern: “I want the freedom of not having to work. I want to travel.”
Paycheque Project is a non-judgmental look at how young adults in Canada are spending their money.
Even though Riley has two demanding jobs – she’s a freelance accountant and a realtor – she wants to live life on her own terms. “I like to stay up past midnight, get up at 9 a.m., take it slow, take my dog to the dog park. Then I start work,” she says.
“My clients want me full time – but I don’t want full time,” Riley says. Eventually, she hopes to have even more freedom. “I’m trying to work really hard to not work hard.”
As a freelance worker with multiple jobs, her earnings fluctuate from month to month. “In December I billed nothing – and last week I billed 30 hours,” she says.
Riley makes a good living, pulling in $100,000 a year as an accountant, plus $30,000 as a realtor. She’s also a landlord, having purchased two condos with financial help from her family. She bought her first condo in 2019 for $680,000. She and her parents each covered 25 per cent of the cost with money from savings. She accessed another $22,000 through the First-Time Home Buyers’ Plan, which allows homebuyers to withdraw up to $35,000 from their registered retirement savings plan (RRSP) and put it toward the purchase of a first home. You do eventually have to repay it.
She bought her second condo, a studio apartment, in 2021 for $380,000. Monthly, condo fees for both properties set her back $700 and $300 respectively. And insurance costs for both properties are $83 a month, plus $458 for property taxes. Then there’s the odd repair. “One tenant punched holes in the walls,” she says. “We had a leak in August because a washing machine broke.”
Although the combined mortgage for both properties stands at $575,000, which amounts to $2,800 a month, Riley rents one as an investment property and lives with two roommates in her primary residence. This brings in rental income of $4,900 a month. “I live for free,” she says.
With her condos essentially paying for themselves, Riley enjoys treating her friends, spending on restaurant meals to the tune of $1,000 a month and meal kits, which cost $460 a month. Once a week she sees her personal trainer whose sessions she prepaid two years ago. She also travels extensively. “I spent $7,000 on travel in the last six months,” she says. “I’m going to Calgary in February and Paris in April. I want to travel.”
She is currently saving for a laser eye surgery, which will cost $9,000.
Riley also saves and invests extensively, using a variety of bank accounts to make sure she doesn’t dip unnecessarily into her savings, which stand at $65,000. Her TFSAs total $75,000, and are invested in GICs, mutual funds and stocks. She also has $7,500 in foreign currency.
In the coming years, Riley wants to purchase another condo in a trendy part of Toronto. “Condos are easy to rent out and easier to manage,” she says. She’s also weighing selling her three-bedroom condo, listing it for $900,000 to see if she can make a profit, which she could use to upgrade to another property.
“Timing-wise, it would be nice to cash out now.”
Her typical monthly expenses:
Investment and savings: $406
$100 to TFSA. “I set up an auto $100/week into my Wealthsimple TFSA.”
$167 RRSP. “I’ll invest $2,000 this year.”
$139 to Home Buyers’ Plan.
Household and transportation: $5,086.34
$2,800 to mortgages. “For my primary residence, a three-bedroom condo downtown, I have a small mortgage, with a five-year fixed rate of 2.64 per cent. For my investment condo, the mortgage rate is also a five-year fixed at 1.94 per cent. It is a studio unit that’s 250 square feet.”
$458.34 to property tax.
$83 to property insurance.
$1000 to condo fees. “It’s $700 for my first condo, and $300 for the second.”
$200 to utilities.
$225 to realtor property management expenses. “I’m a new realtor.”
$200 to parking spot. “It’s cheaper to rent than to buy.”
$0 on car insurance. “It’s a 20-year-old Mercedes. Dad is a micromanager and wants to handle all that, and doesn’t ask me for money. I’m an occasional driver.”
$50 on parking. “I pay for parking and parking tickets.”
$20 on transit.
$50 on cellphone. “I’m paying $50 for 27G of data.”
$100 on pet. “He’s a Pomeranian husky mix. He doesn’t eat much. When he was a puppy we did training and more frequent vaccines.”
$0 for subscriptions. “My roommates are all subscribed to something so I don’t need to pay: Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, Crave, Disney.”
Food and drink: $1,760
$460 on meal kits. “This is for prepackaged cooked food. I don’t want to cook.”
$300 on groceries. “This is on fruit, chicken, perogies and snack food.”
$1,000 on eating out. “I like sushi. And I like to treat my friends.”
Miscellaneous: $3,443.33
$2500 on taxes.
$100 on accounting licences.
$250 on realtor licences.
$0 on clothing. “I spent $0 on clothing last year. I just don’t feel like buying clothes right now.”
$10 on manicures. “I go every six to eight weeks.”
$583.33 on vacations. “I’m trying to prioritize travelling – I took four trips last year, including PEI, New Orleans and Ireland.”
Some details may be changed to protect the privacy of the person profiled. We want to thank her for sharing her story. Are you a millennial or Gen Z who would like to participate in a Paycheque Project? Send us an e-mail.
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