![\"\"](\"https:\/\/frugalwoods.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Bisky-enjoying-the-dog-beach-at-a-campground-scaled.jpg\")
<\/a>Sam and Riley are a married couple living in Winnipeg, Manitoba in Canada along with their dog Bisky and two cats, Theodore and Greta. Sam works as a plasterer and Riley is a social worker at a local college. The couple, both age 36, hope to have a child soon and are wondering how to balance that new financial responsibility alongside their current goals of finishing up a Masters of Social Work (Riley) and changing careers to become a sprinkler fitter (Sam).<\/span><\/p>\n Additionally, they bought their first home in June 2022 and are still settling into the realities\u2013and expenses\u2013of home ownership. Sam wrote that they feel like a lot of things are up in the air at the moment and said, \u201cWe have so many ideas for ourselves but need help creating plans to execute them. We want to do all these things as soon as possible to increase our incomes, pensions, and employment options, while also having a child soon as we are both already 36 and feeling the pressure on that front too.\u201d <\/span>Join me in my 100th Case Study today as we help Riley and Sam plan for their future!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n A note on pronouns: Sam uses he\/him pronouns and Riley uses they\/them.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Case Studies address financial and life dilemmas that readers of Frugalwoods send in requesting advice. Then, we (that\u2019d be me and YOU, dear reader) read through their situation and provide advice, encouragement, insight and feedback in the comments section.<\/span><\/p>\n For an example, check out\u00a0the last case study<\/a>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/strong>Case Studies are updated by participants (at the end of the post) several months after the Case is featured. Visit\u00a0this page<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>for links to all updated Case Studies.<\/span><\/p>\n There are four options for folks interested in receiving a holistic Frugalwoods financial consultation:<\/span><\/p>\n \u2192Not sure\u00a0which option<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>is right for you? Schedule\u00a0a free 15-minute chat with me\u00a0<\/a><\/span>to learn more. Refer a friend\u00a0to me here<\/a>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Please note that space is limited for all of the above and most especially for on-the-blog Case Studies. I do my best to accommodate everyone who applies, but there are a limited number of slots available each month.<\/span><\/p>\n Reader Case Studies highlight a diverse range of financial situations, ages, ethnicities, locations, goals, careers, incomes, family compositions and more!<\/span><\/p>\n The Case Study series began in 2016 and, to date, there\u2019ve been\u00a099 Case Studies<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0<\/span>I\u2019ve featured folks with annual incomes ranging from $17k to $200k+ and net worths ranging from -$300k to $2.9M+.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019ve featured single, married, partnered, divorced, child-filled and child-free households. I\u2019ve featured gay, straight, queer, bisexual and polyamorous people. I\u2019ve featured women, non-binary folks and men. I\u2019ve featured transgender and cisgender people. I\u2019ve had cat people and dog people. I\u2019ve featured folks from the US, Australia, Canada, England, South Africa, Spain, Finland, the Netherlands, Germany and France. I\u2019ve featured people with PhDs and people with high school diplomas. I\u2019ve featured people in their early 20\u2019s and people in their late 60\u2019s. I\u2019ve featured folks who live on farms and folks who live in New York City.<\/span><\/p>\n I probably don\u2019t need to say the following because you all are the kindest, most polite commenters on the internet, but please note that Frugalwoods is a judgement-free zone where we endeavor to help one another, not condemn.<\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s no room for rudeness here.\u00a0<\/strong>The goal is to create a supportive environment where we all acknowledge we\u2019re human, we\u2019re flawed, but we choose to be here together, workshopping our money and our lives with positive, proactive suggestions and ideas.<\/span><\/p>\n And a disclaimer that I am not a trained financial professional and I encourage people not to make serious financial decisions based solely on what one person on the internet advises.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n I encourage everyone to do their own research to determine the best course of action for their finances. I am not a financial advisor and I am not your financial advisor.<\/span><\/p>\n With that I\u2019ll let Sam and Riley, today\u2019s Case Study subject, take it from here!<\/span><\/p>\n Hello, I\u2019m Sam, I\u2019m 36 and I live with my spouse Riley (also 36) in Winnipeg, Manitoba in Canada. I was a chef and restaurant owner until 2019 when I came to the hard realization that I could not continue in that industry any longer and made the change to become a plasterer. Plastering was meant to be an in-between job until I found something more permanent, but I enjoy what I\u2019m doing for the time being. My long-term goal is to switch to sprinkler fitting, since it\u2019s a good union job with a pension and a higher rate of pay.<\/span><\/p>\n Riley is a social worker at a local college and they are weighing the feasibility of finishing a Masters of Social Work degree that they completed most of between 2015-2019, before dropping out due to the onset and diagnosis of systemic lupus. Riley\u2019s had a couple of significant health leaves from work since then, also due to lupus, and has been fortunate to be covered by short and long-term disability insurance through their employer. This has resulted in only small decreases to overall income (although pension contributions were paused or reduced since they were based on employment income and not insurance benefits income). Overall Riley\u2019s health is relatively stable now, but there are some challenges; recently they had to take a few weeks off due to Covid, which hit them harder due to their immunosuppressed status, but they seem to be making a gradual, full recovery.<\/span><\/p>\n Riley\u2019s employer approved an education plan in which they will reimburse a portion of the tuition on completion of their MSW degree. They are awaiting final approval to transfer vacation time to have enough to use instead of taking unpaid leave during school, so Riley\u2019s income should stay at the same level.<\/span><\/p>\n Riley enjoys cross-country skiing and we both love riding our bikes and gardening. We try to get out camping when we can in the summer and enjoy seeing live music once in a while. We take care of our nephew, who just turned 5, every weekend. We have a dog named Bisky, who is a Shepherd\/Husky rescue dog from up North. He\u2019s a handful but keeps things lively around the house. He\u2019ll be 3 this summer. We also have two cats, Theodore and Greta. They are great singers and love to cuddle. They are getting older, at ages 14 and 12.<\/span><\/p>\n Riley and I married in September 2021, in a somewhat spur-of-the-moment decision to go through with a small ceremony, as we had a window of lifted pandemic restrictions and less transmission. We gathered a few of our closest friends and family in a park near a river and had a gorgeous (and affordable) wedding.<\/span><\/p>\n We bought our house in June 2022 and are head over heels for it. It has great character, lots of original wood, and a huge backyard with a lot of garden beds. We can\u2019t wait to raise a child together in our home and hope to have a baby soon. We like having friends over for casual get-togethers on the weekend\u2013 brunch, bbq, bonfires, etc.\u2013and it means a lot to us that our home is so conducive to hosting.<\/span><\/p>\n Right now there are so many things up in the air that we feel a bit tangled up and don\u2019t know exactly the right order in which to do things.<\/span><\/p>\n Riley writes:<\/strong> In 2022 we made a larger combined income than ever before, and expect to make more in 2023. We are coming from periods of going in and out of debt as we struggled to manage expenses on lower incomes. Fortunately, the debt never became unmanageable and we were able to take advantage of low-interest balance transfers to pay it off quickly. We managed to start saving beginning in 2020-2021 when Sam shifted to plastering work and I increased from 4 to 5 days a week of work.<\/span><\/p>\n That helped us with the down payment and costs to buy our home, but we still basically wiped out our savings buying the house and went briefly into debt from moving expenses. Not the smartest move, but fortunately we have quickly paid off those debts and are slowly rebuilding our savings again. Our car was totaled this fall, and it turned out to be a financial opportunity for us as we were able to take the insurance money from the car, pay off our car loan, and buy a lower cost car we could afford outright, while still having some money leftover.<\/span><\/p>\n I think that was a significant shift in our thinking as we made the difficult choice to downgrade our car for the sake of not having a car payment any more.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s saving us several hundred dollars a month. We would like to look ahead now that we\u2019ve reached the big milestone of buying a house, and set some bigger saving, investment, and retirement goals for the first time in our lives. Clarifying our goals will help motivate us to keep making frugal and smart financial decisions.<\/span><\/p>\n Sam writes:<\/strong> I want to make a career change but that will mean less money for a few years as I start out as an apprentice again. It will take about 2-3 years to make the same income I have now, and about 4-5 years to reach journeyperson status and max out the income for the trade. It will be worth it in the long run, especially to switch to a union job with an employer-matched pension.<\/span><\/p>\n Riley wants to complete their MSW which may mean more student debt. However, their work will reimburse a portion of the tuition upon completion of the MSW.<\/span><\/p>\n We want to have a child, which means parental leaves from work and reduced incomes (we want to take close to a year off). The Canadian government Employment Insurance (EI) provides 15 weeks of leave for the parent giving birth, and up to 40 weeks of standard parental benefits that can be split between both parents (55% of income to a max of $650\/week).<\/span><\/p>\n We are looking at starting IVF by the end of the summer if we\u2019re not pregnant by then; the medication costs of $5,000-$6,000 would be covered at 80% by Sam\u2019s health insurance; the other costs would be around $14k. There is a provincial fertility tax credit<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>that would return 40% of the cost to us; we can also claim medical expenses on our\u00a0federal taxes<\/a> <\/span><\/strong>but it would reimburse a smaller amount (the lesser of 3% of net income, or $2,479). We have an unused line of credit with $10,000 available to help with the upfront costs.<\/span><\/p>\n Riley\u2019s employer also tops up their income to 90% (including the EI benefit) for 17 weeks. If Riley becomes pregnant soon, they would be in school when they have the baby. The implications of that are: the employer top-up would be reduced because it would be 90% of the 80% income during school. The EI may be less depending on the timing; EI takes your best paid 22 weeks from the last year to determine the income the benefit is based on. And we would need some extra help to allow Riley to finish the program with a newborn, and it\u2019s really hard to predict how the postpartum period will go. But we do have friends who live nearby and family who would be able to help a lot. If Riley goes back to school, tuition will take some of our savings that would otherwise go toward supplementing our income during parental leaves, and their income will be a bit less during school so we will be saving less during that time.<\/span><\/p>\n The rush to complete the MSW is because previously completed credits are starting to stale-date, and have to be assessed for currency.<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n If Riley can complete the degree in 2023-24, only a few courses will have to be re-assessed (and repeated if not found to be current). If more time goes on, more courses will have to be assessed. So, it feels like the last chance to complete this degree. If not, they could go back to school to re-do it or do a different master\u2019s program sometime in the future. The motivation is to have more confidence in trying new roles in their current job and to have more job options if they want to make a job change in the future.<\/span><\/p>\n We want to retire as soon as we can. Although realistically, we expect that won\u2019t be super early based on where we\u2019re starting from, but even age 55 or 60 would be nice to aim for. We do our best to keep our expenses low and live a frugal lifestyle.<\/span><\/p>\n I suppose this is where you come in. We have so many ideas for ourselves but need help creating plans to execute them. We want to do all these things as soon as possible to increase our incomes, pensions, and employment options, while also having a child soon as we are both already 36 and feeling the pressure on that front too.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Other short-medium term expenses are that our aging cats could start to have additional costs, a car replacement (hopefully the Mazda can hang in there another 3-5 years) and dental surgery for Riley (not urgent but in the next 1-2 yrs, about $2,000-$3,000).<\/span><\/p>\n We recently bought a new bike for Riley and a second-hand trail-along bike for our nephew for a total of $900. Riley\u2019s been biking to work and we\u2019ve been taking our nephew on bike rides every weekend.<\/span><\/p>\nWhat\u2019s a Reader Case Study?<\/span><\/h3>\n
Can I Be A Reader Case Study?<\/span><\/h3>\n
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The Goal Of Reader Case Studies<\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a>Reader Case Study Guidelines<\/span><\/h3>\n
Sam and Riley\u2019s Story<\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a>Sam and Riley\u2019s Hobbies<\/span><\/h3>\n
The Wedding and The House<\/span><\/h3>\n
What feels most pressing right now? What brings you to submit a Case Study?<\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a>Starting a Family<\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a>Retirement Plans<\/span><\/h3>\n
What\u2019s the best part of your current lifestyle\/routine?<\/span><\/h3>\n