Posted By 
By Alain Guillot
Special to Financial Independence Hub
I have been saving since I arrived in Canada 25 years ago. During my first year I saved as little as $10 month, but in general I saved about $25 during the first 10 years, then I increased the amount I was saving to about $500 per month and during the past 5 years I was saving as much as $1,000 per month.
Finally this year, I stopped contributing to my retirement accounts. Instead, I started taking out whatever I get as a dividend distribution from my non-registered account.
I have to tell you. It feels good!
I have accumulated over $500,000. According to the 4% rule, I can withdraw the equivalent of $20,000 per year, which is more or less my cost of living.
At this moment I am only withdrawing from 1% to 2% of my capital per year. I am withdrawing the dividend distributions from my non-registered accounts.
I see some cash siting on my broker’s account and I just transfer it to my checking account and I invite myself for dinner.
At the beginning of the year, I transfer the maximum allowed from my non-registered account to my TFSA. I have a feeling that the maximum allowed for 2024 will be $7,000. I will be ready.
Transferring capital from non-registered account to TFSA will allow to earn more and pay less taxes.
I am in the fortunate position where I don’t even need my retirement money right now. My part time job, which I love, provides me enough to live.
I think that I will use my retirement money to pay for some luxuries that I haven’t paid for myself before, like… instead of taking one vacation per year, I will take two vacations per year, one to my home country, and another to any other random country.
In the future, I may need a cash cushion in case, I become sick or incapacitated.
As for now, I feel happy inviting myself (and my friends) for dinner several times per month.
I am 56 right now and I already can live out of my savings. At age 60 I will start collecting my Quebec Pension Plan. At Age 65 I will be collecting my Old Age Supplement, since my income is low and most of my savings are in my TFSA and non-registered account, they don’t count as income and my declared income will be low.
In short, I will be earning more every year from now until I die. That’s cool.
Alain Guillot is a part time event photographer, part time Salsa teacher, and part time personal finance blogger. He came to Quebec as an immigrant from Colombia. Due to his mediocre French he was never able to find a suitable job, so he opened a Salsa/Tango dance school and started his entrepreneurship journey. Entrepreneurship got him started into personal finance and eventually into blogging. Now he lives a Lean FIRE lifestyle and shares his thoughts in his blog AlainGuillot.com. This blog was first published on his blog on Sept. 8, 2023 and is republished here with permission.
