You’re going to take on a 30 year mortgage but you can’t handle the equity fluctuation over 6 months? You shouldn’t be buying a home then. Or at least, you should have waited 6 months if you’re so confident in this prediction of yours.

You don’t need to try to outsmart the system. Just put your money in a HYSA, be happy with the home you get, and stay in it long enough that you build enough equity to where a little 6-month swing in equity won’t be that big of a deal.

Then I would probably spend that extra money on investments (either retirement or educational savings plan) if I were in your shoes.

I’m not familiar with the cost of that stuff in Canada, so I don’t know how much you need, but the S&P 500 historically has averaged ~10% (7% after inflation), so mathematically it likely makes more sense to invest the money instead of paying the car off early.

What is your retirement planning looking like?

If you have a 6 month emergency fund saved up, that’s great! And I get wanting to pay off the car, although that’s a pretty low interest rate. If you’re behind on saving for retirement, the stock market is pretty much guaranteed to average more than 3.4% over the long term.

But if your retirement is on track, you’ve got an emergency fund built up, and you don’t have any other savings goals at the moment (you already have a house, so the only other thing I might think of would be a 529 plan if you have kids and want to set aside money for college), then I would use your leftovers to pay down low-interest debt.

Love that you’re spending less than you make and saving each month, but saving should always have a purpose. If there isn’t a specific reason you’re saving the money, then I would pay down debt.

Ok but if time is so valuable to you, you could work 2 more hours a week and then she could stop working without changing anything about your combined income. And then you could open up a bunch more hours to be together while also giving more time to her to do her own stuff.

If that still doesn’t fit for you, then you might just have different views on how much time you want to spend with a partner.

Break up. You’re 40, you shouldn’t need Reddit to tell you not to be in a toxic relationship with a woman who puts you down and intentionally is trying to make you super insecure.

Walk away.

If he believes it’s in the nature of men to be sexually forceful in a way that sometimes overrides consent, then you’re going to be in for issues down the road.

And it’s not just whether he does something to you. He (hopefully) would never do something again like that event from last year. But there’s so many other situations where this comes up. What if a friend is sexually assaulted and he starts victim blaming? What if you want to do more SA advocacy and he starts making more arguments that you disagree? What if, down the road, you have kids…what is he going to teach them then?

This problem doesn’t seem like something you’ll be able to resolve, and consent seems extremely important to you and not something that you want to “agree to disagree” with your partner on.

Obviously you all don’t have as much quality time together as when you were 14, but you’re spending a lot of time together now. 4 hours a day is a good chunk, and I think it’s reasonable if she wants to be able to do some other things with her life.

I see two main options you could do. 1) you could pick up more hours with your photography so she can either not work or work part-time, and then she doesn’t have to choose between you or something else. And/or 2) you could plan ways to make your time more quality than just tv/phone/computer. You’ve got a good quantity of hours together, and if you did more meaningful stuff together 1-2 nights a week then she could go and have 1-2 nights where she is alone or does her own thing.

Everyone needs some space from their partner. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you or want to stay in a relationship, it just means that she has other things she also wants to do.

It’s actually better if the stock market is dropping as you’re just starting to put tons of money into the market. The market will go back up eventually, and it’s better to buy in while the market is low. If you’re < 40 you won’t be using your 401k/IRA for decades.

But yes, pensions were way better. They didn’t go away because they’re better for average citizens. They went away because it’s cheaper and easier for companies.