Why We’re Not Buying A House (Yet) 🙃

Good morning, happy Friday and welcome to a new month! We hope this email brings some nice, positive energy to start your weekend, and the month of May as a whole.

In this issue we have a really interesting Money Convo Of The Month for you, along with some personal money updates and a useful money reminder. Let’s jump right in! 

Here’s what’s up in this copy 🤑🗞 

• Can you afford to buy a home and invest? 😬

• A little spending challenge update 🛍️

• How much we spent in Mexico City 🇲🇽🌞

• We got our tax refunds back 🤑

• Did you know… ⁉️

Money Convo Of The Month

Should You Buy A Home Or Invest For Retirement?

Buying your first house is a really interesting topic of conversation, because for a lot of us, our thoughts and opinions (for the most part) are formed based on what we’ve seen and heard throughout our lives. 

Whether it’s our parents, grandparents, friends or even coworkers, this is one of those topics that’s guaranteed to garner opinions, and for many, the questions that they're often left with nowadays are… Will I ever be able to afford a house? And how do I balance saving for a house while still investing for future me?? 

We know this first hand, because this is something that’s been on our minds all throughout our 20s, and if you’ve been tapped into our content over the years, then you know that real estate is something that we’re very interested in. For us, our thoughts on this topic have evolved gradually as we’ve grown our knowledge, but more importantly as we’ve seen the cost of entering the housing market go up. 

It’s actually kind of funny, because on one hand, you have multiple generations of people telling you that home ownership is one of the most important financial decisions you will ever make in your life - therefore buy a house TODAY… While on the other hand, you’re also being told that a house (depending on where you live) can cost about 6-7x the average income (!!!). Clearly there’s a disconnect with the traditional messaging and what most of us are seeing with our own eyes. 

In fact, first time home buyers have actually been disappearing over the last few decades, and not only has the number of home purchases from first time buyers gone down, but the average age for first time buyers has gone up significantly. Believe it or not, but in both Canada and the US, the average age of a first time home buyer is just under 35 and 40 years old, respectively. 

That may or may not come as a shock given where we are as a society from an economic standpoint, but the reality is that the road to becoming a home owner is far more difficult than it used to be. We recently did a YouTube video where we explored a new concept that looks to tackle not only the idea of buying your first house by delaying the purchase, but instead focusing on funding your investment accounts first and foremost. 

We acknowledge that times are different on all sides - yes, the cost of living is a lot higher than it used to be, but it's important to also highlight that people are choosing to live their lives differently in comparison to past generations. People are choosing to travel earlier in life, they’re changing jobs often and pensions are no longer a guarantee. This means that your priorities might have to change if you want to balance what you want now and how you want to live in the future. 

The idea is very simple - when it comes to the concept of being able to do both, so buying a house and investing for future you, you would simply flip the equation by investing first and buying a house later. 

If we think about compound interest - the reason why someone who starts to invest earlier is able to contribute less money to their stock market investments, and still make it out ahead of someone who starts later and puts in way more money, is because of time. Time in the market is one of the most important concepts to understand! 

No matter how you want to look at it, prioritizing your stock market investments in the earlier part of your journey could benefit you over the long-term. Contributing as much as possible, as early as possible, puts you in a place where you have the option to decrease or even stop your contributions altogether, and instead switch gears to an alternative goal - like saving for your first house. 

Keep in mind that there’s the risk of being priced out of a specific housing market over the long-term by delaying your purchase, but to us this offers a new take to a never ending debate on what’s more important. 

Check out this video to hear more of our thoughts on this topic.

$32,000 Or Less Challenge 💰

Okay, I’ve got good news, and less good news. 

The good news? I spent less money in April than I did in March! 

The less good news? I still spent more than the monthly average that I’m aiming for. 

I specifically overspent on restaurants and eating out this month - I spent $258.43, when my target budget is $150. I attribute this to us getting back into a routine post travelling at the beginning of the month, and I could’ve been a bit more intentional in this area. 

I also spent $226.29 on a rental car (plus gas, parking, etc.) this month, which I didn’t initially factor into my budget. 

Overall, it’s kind of the same old story - I’m not upset with any of my spending specifically, and I’m still being intentional with my expenses, but I really would like to spend a few hundred dollars less so I can hit my target budget. With that being said, let’s take a more detailed look at how this past month went and get into my April results. 

In April, I spent $2,831.06, and here’s how it was split out - 

That means that I have $20,298.89 left in my annual total to spend for the next 8 months of 2026. 

I now need to spend an average of $2,537.36/month for the next 8 months in order to hit my goal. I definitely need to prioritize having a few low spend months in a row, so that’s going to be my focus looking ahead. 

If you want to see me talk more about this in video form, check out this video.

How Much We Spent For 10 Days In CDMX 🇲🇽

Last month, we took a 10 day trip to Mexico City - aka Ciudad de México (CDMX) - and we loved it! 

Mexico City is the largest city in North America, and it’s also fully land locked (so basically it’s not a coastal or resort town - it’s a full on city that has many restaurants, museums, and a lot of history). 

We went there to meet up and explore with some friends who don’t live in the same city as us, and we got up to a lot. Of course we want to share our expense breakdown with you, so here’s exactly how much we spent on a 10 day trip for x2 people.

If you’re planning on going to Mexico City, the highlight of our trip was the sunrise boat ride through the canals of Xochimilco that we did with a company called Arca Tierra. We booked our excursion through this website if you’re interested in checking it out - https://www.devoured.com.mx/tour/xochimilco/. Please note we have no affiliation with the organization - we just loved the experience! 

If you want to see more behind the scenes of our trip, we shared a video recap that you can check out, and we have a highlight called ‘Mexico City’ saved on our Instagram page.

What Would You Do With $11,000? 👀

Now that it’s May 1st, tax season is officially behind us (see ya next year [insert tax-filing-platform-of-choice and/or your accountant’s name]). 👋🏿👋🏻 

This year, we both received a tax refund. 

Tax Refund = a reimbursement from the government that you receive when you’ve ‘overpaid’ your income taxes throughout the year. 

A tax refund isn’t automatically a good thing - in theory, you don’t want to be overpaying throughout the year… it’s more ideal to keep your money yourself as you’re being paid! But, there are certain scenarios where a tax refund can be viewed as a good thing. 

In our case, we’ve been consistently contributing money to some of our investment accounts that allow you to use those contributions to reduce your taxable income (from a very high-level, this means if we contribute $10,000 to our retirement account, we can take $10,000 off of our taxable income for the year, allowing us to effectively owe less in taxes). 

So, because our taxable income was lowered, we were owed a tax refund - and this year, we received ~$5,500 each. 

Our plan is to invest the entire amount - $11,000 combined. Why? Because that’s always what we aim to do with any ‘extra’ money that we receive. 

And in this case, the $11,000 isn’t really ‘extra’ money… it’s money we’re receiving specifically because of the money that we chose to invest - and, in order to fully benefit from those original investments, the idea is to re-invest the money that we get back. 

A question for you to ask yourself is - What would you do with an $11,000 tax refund? Would you invest it, put it towards another financial goal, or would you spend it? 🤔

Did You Know? 🤔

Did you know… that most people say that they spend more money in the summer, compared to any other time of year? 

It makes sense to us - when the sun is out the vibes are high, people are happy, and it’s a little bit easier to spend more time outside tapping your card than inside checking your budget tracker. 

With that being said, there are a few things that you can do in advance (like right now - early May is a good time to start thinking ahead!) in order to keep yourself on track and avoid a potential financial hangover once September hits. 

Here’s your pre-summer money prep list - 

• Create a summer budget - Do you have a few bigger, one-time expenses that you know you’ll be spending on throughout the summer months, that aren’t already captured in your annual budget? If you do, add those to your budget now!

• Make a priority list - Remember our favourite saying… You can have anything, but not everything. It helps to decide in advance what expenses are an actual priority for you (Is it experiences, or eating out more, or buying material items? Maybe pick one of those categories to up the budget on, but not all three). 

• Prepare to plan ahead - If you’re going to be on-the-go more, you might find yourself in more situations where you’re not home at regular meal times, and end up grabbing food out last minute. Instead, you could take some time to plan ahead and pack snacks, or even a full meal, to take with you. 

• Review your money goals - Refresh your memory and remind yourself of your financial why. It’s easier to stay focused on your goals when they’re at the top of your mind, and you remember the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’. 

We know that the summer months are going to fly by, so take some time now to prepare, and then make sure you enjoy the season that you’re in!