Explore FI Canada

Happy New Year! We’re back and ready to bring you more Canadian FI content. In our inaugural episode for 2021, we’re featuring a long-awaited guest: Chris Istace, the Mindful Explorer.

Chris’s FIRE journey is particularly fascinating: he and his family went from living the high life in the oil industry to lean FIRE on Vancouver Island. Since discovering FIRE, Chris has fully embraced Mustachianism, mindfulness, and a focus on leaving a lighter footprint on our Earth.

We hope you enjoy his inspiring story!

Happy holidays everyone! We have a special episode for you today—a holiday mashup with our good friends over at the FI Garage!

Chrissy joins The Accountant, The Economist and Money Mechanic as they enjoy a round of beer and engage in their usual “joyful banter”. We discuss limiting money beliefs, how we survived the year of COVID, and what we’re looking forward to in 2021.

This will be our last episode for 2020—we wish you and your family all the best this holiday season and a happy, healthy new year. We’ll see you here again (bi-weekly on Fridays) starting January 8th!

In this episode, previous panellist and co-host Shaidah returns to the show—this time in her very own interview! We talk about her Mustachian tendencies (aka Shaidah’s Way), beekeeping, side hustles, frugality and real estate.

Shaidah and her husband show us the power of the basic tenets of FI and how intentionality and creativity can go a long way on the path to FIRE.

When Gean and Kristine met, she was $60,000 in debt. Having worked and saved hard to immigrate from Brazil to Canada, Gean already had a good handle on his finances. Together, they managed to pay off the debt and get on the path to FIRE—in just one year!

Listen in to hear how this remarkable couple turned their financial situation around with intentionality, dedication, and teamwork. We also discuss their investing strategy, the Smith Manoeuvre and Norbert’s Gambit.

Special thanks to listener Ashley M. who generously volunteered his time to edit the transcript for our show notes. Ashley, we’re so grateful for your help!

While we’re fortunate in Canada to have universal healthcare, we still have some out-of-pocket medical expenses. Do you have a plan to cover these costs once you reach FI? Tami Romanchuk from Shoreline Financial tells us what we need to know when considering extended health plans.

Robinson Smith is back! This time, he’s joined by Keaton Kirkwood—a Smith Manoeuvre-certified mortgage broker. On this episode, they answer some tricky Smith Manoeuvre mortgage questions—all sent in by you, our listeners. We hope you learn as much as we did!

Special thanks to listener Ashley M. who generously volunteered his time to edit the transcript for our show notes. Ashley, we’re so grateful for your help!

Norbert Kallai (aka Gnomadic Norbert) immigrated from Romania at the age of two—the second youngest of six children! He tells us how he went from scarcity to abundance; boot camp to budgets; and frugality to FIRE. We also discuss the perks of a career in the reserves (and what he’s planning to do with that military pension)!

Special thanks to listener Ashley M. who generously volunteered his time to edit the transcript for our show notes. Ashley, we’re so grateful for your help!

Are you tired of the hassles of rebalancing? Passiv can help! Brendan Lee Young and Brendan Wood from Passiv are here to give us the full rundown on what Passiv is and how it works. DIY investing just got a whole lot easier!

If pensions have you confused, this episode’s for you! Ed Rempel returns to the show to discuss DC and DB pensions, commuting, LIRAs, and more. Ed shares simple, clear info to help demystify the whats, hows, whys behind pensions in Canada.

**Special thanks to listener Kate, who provided us with the show idea and most of the questions for Ed!

Sandy Yong is the author behind The Money Master. Today on EFIC, she discusses her book and her journey into FIRE. Sandy also shares her experiences as a keynote speaker, real estate and stock investor, and financial coach—all of which she does on the side, along with her day job!

In this episode, Bob Lai from Tawcan.com shares his dividend investing knowledge with Money Mechanic and Chrissy. He tells us how to get started, what he invests in, and why he takes a hybrid approach by also investing in index funds.

Cici is a lawyer and mom of three who lives near Downtown Toronto. She and her husband are on the path to “I don’t fit into my last year’s clothes FIRE”. We discuss her financial superpowers, real estate investments, and more! We hope you enjoy Cici’s inspirational, down-to-earth story.

Today, we’re chatting with Matt McKeever—a FIRE and real estate YouTuber, CPA, and entrepreneur who achieved FIRE at age 31. Matt shares his journey to FIRE and tells us how he built his Canadian real estate empire to over 120 units!

That’s right, Explore FI Canada is celebrating its birthday today! One year ago, we launched this little podcast, and we recorded this special minisode to mark the occasion.

We hope you enjoy hearing about what we’ve learned, and how our FI journeys have changed in the last year. Thanks for being a listener—we appreciate every one of you!

In this episode, Money Mechanic and Chrissy interview Ricky Zhang from Prince of Travel! We talk miles and points in Canada, how to optimize your earning, and what to focus on now, during the COVID-19 pandemic.