I'm moving to Spain TODAY! 🇪🇸😱

Issue 4: 9 min read

🚚 Dani’s Doings: A recap of my year and my 2024 plan

💸 Money Matters: Pay transparency laws, Black Friday shopping stats (spoiler: people are dropping $$$$$), and more

✈️ Travel Tings: 2024 travel trend predictions, a popular cruise sold tickets to customers without actually having a ship 🤨, and more

🫶🏽 Community Corner: Products to stay safe on your travels, plus recommendations for some other awesome women to follow in the Canadian personal finance space

2023 is the the year that everything changed for me.

A recap of my 2023:

January: I put my first home, in Liberty Village (Toronto), up for sale on the market. It sold in a few days for ~97% of my asking price.

March: I went on an 8-week stress leave from my tech job after experiencing severe burnout. Also, the sale of my home closed and I moved out of my condo into my mother’s house in the suburbs.

May: I returned to work after my stress leave and was part of a mass layoff of ~2,000 people, 4 days after my return. I also went to Europe for one month (France by myself, Portugal with my besties, and Spain and Greece with my partner. That’s when we decided Malaga was a go!).

August: I started my journey as a full-time entrepreneur, focusing on Creator work and consulting in the marketing space. I decided I want to try this entrepreneurial route until at least 2025 to see if I can make it work because a traditional 9-5 isn’t for me right now.

September/October: My partner and I applied for our visas to move to Spain, and got approved in about a week. We leave today (Dec 2)!

2023 was the year I learned that you can’t pour from an empty cup. It also taught me that if you don’t choose a time for your body to relax, your body will choose a time for you. It was very difficult for me to decide that I needed to take a leave of absence from work to focus on my health, but I am SO glad (and proud) that I did.

What I’m focusing on for 2024:

• Health and wellness: This will always be my top priority (especially over work). If something disturbs my peace or my body just isn’t up for it, it’s a no for me.

• Growing my audience as a content creator: Many folks wonder what it’s like to spend a year abroad, and I think my time in Spain will be the perfect opportunity to transparently share my experience (including all the ups and downs), plus share monthly recaps of how much I spend and how it compares to the cost of living in Toronto.

• Going with the flow: As an INTJ/Personality Type 1 Perfectionist, I tend to (over)plan every detail of my life and go above and beyond with everything I do (sometimes to my own detriment, because perfectionism isn’t healthy!). In 2024, I plan to cut back on that and let life come naturally in its waves 🌊. In 2019, I met a nomad in Thailand that said “If you fight the flow of life, you’ll drown”. That always stuck with me.

I’m so excited to see how 2024 will turn out for me! If you are too, follow me on Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn so you can get all the updates. I promise to always keep it 100.

• Pay transparency laws are FINALLY coming into effect in Canada. “At a time when many companies are posting record profits, it is only fair they communicate transparently about how they pay workers” said the Ontario Labour Minister. Source. The U.S. has similar laws to this and companies still find creative ways to get around it, so we’ll see how it goes 🤔.

• Black Friday shoppers spent $9.8 billion in U.S. online sales, which is up 7.5% from last year. Source. In Canada, according to Shopify, Canadians spent an average of $171.60 over the Black Friday weekend. Source.

• Did you know that when taking inflation into consideration, a product that cost $1,000 CAD in 2020 would now cost $1,153.45 CAD?! Wild. You can play with the calculator here. This is your sign to raise your rates/negotiate your salary for 2024 accordingly.

• Canada’s 2023 Economic Fall Statement was recently released. Read it here. My fave takeaway was that as of Oct 31 2023, 250,000+ Canadians have already opened their First Home Savings Account. If you’re unaware of the FHSA (or want to see if you’re eligible for one), read about it here.

• TD Bank announced yesterday that it’ll be laying off 3,000 employees from its global workforce (3% of their global workforce). Source. On that note of layoffs, 253,629 employees have been laid off from 1136 tech companies in 2023. Source. I was one of them 🙋🏽‍♀️.

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• Do you remember that 3 year/135 country world cruise that was announced earlier this year? Plot twist: The company behind it said it doesn’t actually have a ship and has been forced to “postpone” it just weeks before it was supposed to depart 😬. Source.

• Expedia dropped their Unpack 24 “Trends in Travel” report. They share cool stats like trending flight paths, such as demand from Lisbon to Toronto being up 125% and Los Angeles to Tokyo being up 430% over the last year. Source. AirBnb also dropped a summary of their holiday travel trends and 2024 travel predictions for Canadians here.

• In a recent Forbes article ranking the world’s most 20 best cities to live in according to expats, Malaga ranked NUMBER ONE! What a coincidence (or my partner and I just did some great early research). Source.

• India finally resumed electronic visa services for Canadians recently. Source. My partner and I were supposed to go to a wedding in India in January that was cancelled/relocated due to complications associated with this 😞.

• While I’ll be living in Spain, I’ll still be working on brand partnerships, facilitating workshops, and doing 1:1 sessions. Feel free to respond to this email if you’d like to get in touch 🤙🏽.

• I shared the door alarm I use on all of my trips to stay safe (especially while travelling solo) on Instagram and Twitter and everyone loved it (and also didn’t know such a thing existed!!), so I’m sharing it here too! They’re 2 for $20. I also use this portable door alarm.

• I got to meet up IRL (in real life) with some fellow Canadian personal finance content creators in Toronto last month, and it was awesome! You should follow them all: Ambitious Adulting (Liz), The Right Success (Ashley), Two Sides of a Dime (Eduek), Black Girl Rich (Lianne), Financial Fix Up (Rochelle), Reni, The Resource (Reni), Steph and Den (Steph). Also, my friend Alyssa (MixedUpMoney), who is another excellent Canadian personal finance creator, just quit her job to pursue her business full-time and I’d highly recommend you follow her, too!

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