Now that I have earned a Million Dollars

Where has all the money gone?

So this topic comes from a comment from my friend Michael James on commenting on my “self-pitying” posting of getting older yesterday. The quip is quite topical, I have earned well over a million dollars in my 20+ years of working. Where did all that money go?

If you think about it, where it always goes:

Taxes

• Federal Taxes which had to have eaten 10-20% of it over the years
• Provincial Taxes which ate about the same if not a little less
• GST and PST can’t even fathom how much I have paid for those little consumption taxes.
• Municipal Property Taxes, which keep going up as well. How much? 4-8% of my income is a good guess.
• Employment Insurance payments, and I have never claimed against this system (touch wood). That is money completely lost.
• Canada Pension Plan Payments (and a little QPP as well), hopefully I’ll get some of that back one day.

  That’s about 25-45% of the money, and I haven’t spent a cent yet!

• Living expenses, which might include rent and mortgage payments, must account for 10-20% of that money.

So I have about 40% of my income left and I haven’t fed anyone, bought a single coffee or gone on a wild spending binge?

It’s interesting just to look back and if I told myself when I started working that I’d have earned over a million dollars by now, but not be living in a villa on the Riviera, I don’t think my younger self would have believed it.

Tax Preparation Coming

It is that time of the year to start looking at tax software and start monkeying around with my taxes. Our friend the Canadian Capitalist is looking at Ufile instead of Quicktax this year. I’ve noticed that Quicktax is limiting the number of tax returns to just two. But before I decide whether to use it or not, I need to do some more research, as my oldest daughter is now earning an income. I’ll keep you posted, as I have a lot to say about this topic in the near future.