Why do you live frugally? | General financial discussion | Discussion forum

It looks like you drive very few kilometers per year, so it will not be worth it to buy a new electric car. Better to keep your old, fuel efficient Corolla going as long as possible and buy a used electric vehicle in the future when their costs go down.

I drive 50 km round-trip to work everyday
a $35 000 -$8000 tax credit Tesla Model 3 will probably pay itself with the gas saving over 10 years

You say you spend less than 10% of your yearly income, but have three children? Your tax rate would indicate you have a modest income. Please detail your budget as it seems highly improbable.

I keep all my income in my corporation and pay 22.5% on this tax bracket. Income is 650k annualy. My wife makes 63k a year from RQAP regime every year off she had from work and we live on her salary so I don't have to pay a salaray to myself.

I do not disagree with your frugal approach, however living on beans is not my idea of a life well lived.

we usually eat fish 4 times a week, veal once a week, and other protein sources come from beans since they have the lowest rate of atheroslerotic hearth disease. We should avoid red meat since the unsaturaded chains of fats are the most inflammatory for coronary artery disease and colon cancer. More of that, methane tends to be 10 times more powerful at creating greenhouse effect since CH4 is 10 times more potent than CO2 from ICE engines.

How much are you saving per month and what are you saving it for? Please detail your investments and growth rates.

I'm saving 30k a month for the future of my children, I created a family trust and they will manage it as they wish as a family council when they reach majority. I invest in stock market on 20 different stocks of the most trustworthy companie according to my finanacial adviser. He managed to grow between 6 and 18% with a -2% during 2008 of course. Averaging 12% annualy for the last 20 years. Last year we had 8% interest rate on the 400k we managed to save on a yearly income of 650k after tax deductions and expanditures. I am currently in the process of saving and building my retirement plan.

@SavingIsGood
maybe you want me to buy a Porsche 911 Targa 4s quarterly to spend all my income instead of living on the same expenditure I have been for the last 10 years. I've been on these forums for 8 years, maybe you don't like the fact that I live on a $89,000 family combined income with my wife working 52 weeks as electrical engineer and benefeting of the 1 year RQAP as a stay at home mom before she goes back to work but we all pay for that in Quebec on our paychecks. Maybe you'd like me to pay for the 2 days my 10 months old baby spend in the ICU because he had head trauma injury falling from his highchair while pushing with both of his feet on the dinning table. Maybe I should pay for the treatment for skull fracture, subdural hematoma and cervical spine injury even if I already pay 150k in taxes a year for our health system, I should pay for everything I use too.

That's the problem of someone who used to do 65k a year and now jumps off to 650k working 110 hours a week, money is seen as a bad thing and you get judged either if you spend everything and ride a AMG C43 Mercedes if you keep the same car becuase you're waiting for electric cars to stop polluting the planet. Now don't ask yourself why you don't have friends who are millionaires, maybe you judge them the first time you speak to them.

And if it takes 7 millions to start my private surgery clinic for total hip and total knee joints, how the hell do you want me to do so if I pay 375k in taxes on my income every year. That's exactly what I'm using it for, not to buy a 2.5 Million house and a 400k Ferrari. I still drive a Corolla and have a modest house in a part of Montreal with a lot of families in the midclass. My kids go play with their friends at the park and they do bicycles with their friends and we don't snub them because they don't do the same salary as I am.

You know how much are tuitions for Harvard Med school? You need 400k in your bank account. Engineering at Stanford? 250k. Make it 5 and calculate. If I had the opportunity to go study anywhere in the world as personnal experience and to make contacts, I would have done so. You can say you don't need that but Mark Zuckerberg met Edouardo Saverin in Harvard dorms and Elon Musk and Kimbal his brother went in the Silicon Valley to found x.com and hire guys from Stanford to create Tesla.

Life is not made for all of us to work at 30k yearly salary and wait to retire and travel to Cuba once a year. If I can give the best life my children want to shape the future, it's not gonna be working at McDonald's like I did every week-ends till midnight like I did. You need to learn C++ and Java and how to code, that's what this Millenia is about. If I can give the opportunities to my kids, I will gladly do it.

Sorry if my income makes me an asshole. I dunno if going at 1 AM or 4 AM to fix hip fractures and save people's legs for necrotizing fasciitis while I didn't sleep for 48 hours is exploiting peoples weaknesses. But by working 90 to 110 hours a week to help people in pain, I hope to think I'm a good person even if you say I "cannot be having honest profession".

@Bill
that's exactly what is happening to one of my collegue which is no 62 y.o. had 5 kids living at home with 3 grand children that stopped studying and who are living exclusively at the expense of their grand father who bought Mercedes for every single child and grandchild he has.

Now, they stay at home and even if he tried repeateadly to push them out to find a job, they quit after 1 month because it doesn't pay enough and they don't have the motivation to do so.

My parents were middle class stay-at-home mom and my father was upholster in the aeronautic industry so all the friends I have come from middle class and can't understand my situation. Wealth is a good but dangerous thing for social relations. As you say, it's better kept secret in the family and friends. However, I don't mind being envied by jealous people on online forums, this doesn't affect my social life.