FirHarborUse this as a progress list, not a rigid prescription. Skip or reorder items that don’t fit your life. FirHarbor is education—not financial advice.
1. Cash buffer
- Estimate one month of essential expenses (housing, food, utilities, transit, minimum debt payments).
- Decide a starter emergency target you’re comfortable with (often a few months of essentials—your number may differ).
- Keep day-to-day spending money in chequing; don’t leave the whole buffer earning ~0%.
2. High-interest savings (HISA)
- Open or identify a HISA (or equivalent) with no junk fees for your use case.
- Confirm how fast you can move money to chequing when needed.
- Note whether deposits are CDIC-eligible (or credit-union equivalent) at your institution.
- Automate a payday transfer into the HISA until your buffer feels real.
3. TFSA & RRSP basics
- Check your TFSA and RRSP contribution room (CRA My Account / Notice of Assessment).
- Know the one-line difference: TFSA = after-tax in, tax-free out; RRSP = possible deduction now, taxable out later.
- Open the account that fits your next dollar (flexibility vs deduction vs employer match).
- Avoid over-contributing—especially if you withdrew from a TFSA and plan to re-contribute the same year.
4. First simple investing (after cash is set)
- Confirm high-interest consumer debt has a plan.
- Only invest money you won’t need for several years.
- Pick a simple diversified approach (e.g. all-in-one ETF, robo-advisor, or low-cost balanced fund)—compare fees.
- Automate contributions into your TFSA and/or RRSP.
- Write one personal rule: you won’t panic-sell on scary headlines alone.
5. Hygiene
- Use unique passwords / a password manager for bank and CRA login.
- Enable multi-factor authentication where available.
- Ignore unsolicited “investment coaches” and get-rich-quick DMs.
Want the guides behind each section? Start with cash & HISA, then TFSA vs RRSP, then first investing steps.
Checklist content also lives as cad-money-checklist.md for a future downloadable PDF/Markdown pack.