Reader Case Study: Plasterer and Social Worker in Manitoba Plan for a Baby

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Key Takeaways

• Bisky enjoying the dog beach at a campground Sam and Riley are a married couple living in Winnipeg, Manitoba in Canada along with their dog...
• Sam works as a plasterer and Riley is a social worker at a local college.
• The couple, both age 36, hope to have a child soon and are wondering how to balance that new financial responsibility alongside their curren...

Bisky enjoying the dog beach at a campground

Sam and Riley are a married couple living in Winnipeg, Manitoba in Canada along with their dog Bisky and two cats, Theodore and Greta. Sam works as a plasterer and Riley is a social worker at a local college. The couple, both age 36, hope to have a child soon and are wondering how to balance that new financial responsibility alongside their current goals of finishing up a Masters of Social Work (Riley) and changing careers to become a sprinkler fitter (Sam).

Additionally, they bought their first home in June 2022 and are still settling into the realities-and expenses-of home ownership. Sam wrote that they feel like a lot of things are up in the air at the moment and said, “We have so numerous ideas for ourselves but need help creating plans to execute them. We want to do all these things as soon as possible to increase our incomes, pensions, and employment options, while also having a child soon as we are both already 36 and feeling the pressure on that front too.” Join me in my 100th Case Study today as we help Riley and Sam plan for their future!

A note on pronouns: Sam uses he/him pronouns and Riley uses they/them.

What’s a Reader Case Study?

Case Studies address financial and life dilemmas that readers of Frugalwoods send in requesting advice. Then, we (that’d be me and YOU, dear reader) read through their situation and provide advice, encouragement, insight and feedback in the comments section.

For an example, check out the last case study. Case Studies are updated by participants (at the end of the post) several months after the Case is featured. Visit this page for links to all updated Case Studies.

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Please note that space is limited for all of the above and most especially for on-the-blog Case Studies. I do my best to accommodate everyone who applies, but there are a limited number of slots available each month.

The Goal Of Reader Case Studies

A beautiful camping evening

Reader Case Studies highlight a diverse range of financial situations, ages, ethnicities, locations, goals, careers, incomes, family compositions and more!

The Case Study series began in 2016 and, to date, there’ve been 99 Case Studies. I’ve featured folks with annual incomes ranging from $17k to $200k+ and net worths ranging from -$300k to $2.9M+.

I’ve featured single, married, partnered, divorced, child-filled and child-free households. I’ve featured gay, straight, queer, bisexual and polyamorous people. I’ve featured women, non-binary folks and men. I’ve featured transgender and cisgender people. I’ve had cat people and dog people. I’ve featured folks from the US, Australia, Canada, England, South Africa, Spain, Finland, the Netherlands, Germany and France. I’ve featured people with PhDs and people with high school diplomas. I’ve featured people in their early 20’s and people in their late 60’s. I’ve featured folks who live on farms and folks who live in New York City.

Reader Case Study Guidelines

I probably don’t need to say the following because you all are the kindest, most polite commenters on the internet, but please note that Frugalwoods is a judgement-free zone where we endeavor to help one another, not condemn.

There’s no room for rudeness here. The goal is to create a supportive environment where we all acknowledge we’re human, we’re flawed, but we choose to be here together, workshopping our money and our lives with positive, proactive suggestions and ideas.

And a disclaimer that I am not a trained financial professional and I encourage people not to make serious financial decisions based solely on what one person on the internet advises. 

I encourage everyone to do their own research to determine the best course of action for their finances. I am not a financial advisor and I am not your financial advisor.

With that I’ll let Sam and Riley, today’s Case Study subject, take it from here!

Sam and Riley’s Story

Greta under our Charlie Brown Christmas tree

Hello, I’m Sam, I’m 36 and I live with my spouse Riley (also 36) in Winnipeg, Manitoba in Canada. I was a chef and restaurant owner until 2019 when I came to the hard realization that I could not continue in that industry any longer and made the change to become a plasterer. Plastering was meant to be an in-between job until I found something more permanent, but I enjoy what I’m doing for the time being. My long-term goal is to switch to sprinkler fitting, since it’s a good union job with a pension and a higher rate of pay.

Riley is a social worker at a local college and they are weighing the feasibility of finishing a Masters of Social Work degree that they completed most of between 2015-2019, before dropping out due to the onset and diagnosis of systemic lupus. Riley’s had a couple of significant health leaves from work since then, also due to lupus, and has been fortunate to be covered by short and long-term disability insurance through their employer. This has resulted in only small decreases to overall income (although pension contributions were paused or reduced since they were based on employment income and not insurance benefits income). Overall Riley’s health is relatively stable now, but there are some challenges; recently they had to take a few weeks off due to Covid, which hit them harder due to their immunosuppressed status, but they seem to be making a gradual, full recovery.

Riley’s employer approved an education plan in which they will reimburse a portion of the tuition on completion of their MSW degree. They are awaiting final approval to transfer vacation time to have enough to use instead of taking unpaid leave during school, so Riley’s income should stay at the same level.

Sam and Riley’s Hobbies

Riley enjoys cross-country skiing and we both love riding our bikes and gardening. We try to get out camping when we can in the summer and enjoy seeing live music once in a while. We take care of our nephew, who just turned 5, every weekend. We have a dog named Bisky, who is a Shepherd/Husky rescue dog from up North. He’s a handful but keeps things lively around the house. He’ll be 3 this summer. We also have two cats, Theodore and Greta. They are excellent singers and love to cuddle. They are getting older, at ages 14 and 12.

The Wedding and The House

Riley and I married in September 2021, in a somewhat spur-of-the-moment decision to go through with a small ceremony, as we had a window of lifted pandemic restrictions and less transmission. We gathered a few of our closest friends and family in a park near a river and had a gorgeous (and affordable) wedding.

We bought our house in June 2022 and are head over heels for it. It has excellent character, lots of original wood, and a huge backyard with a lot of garden beds. We can’t wait to raise a child together in our home and hope to have a baby soon. We like having friends over for casual get-togethers on the weekend- brunch, bbq, bonfires, etc.-and it means a lot to us that our home is so conducive to hosting.

What feels most pressing right now? What brings you to submit a Case Study?

Right now there are so numerous things up in the air that we feel a bit tangled up and don’t know exactly the right order in which to do things.

Cupcakes we made for our nephew’s 5th birthday

Riley writes: In 2022 we made a larger combined income than ever before, and expect to make more in 2023. We are coming from periods of going in and out of debt as we struggled to manage expenses on lower incomes. Fortunately, the debt never became unmanageable and we were able to take advantage of low-interest balance transfers to pay it off quickly. We managed to start saving beginning in 2020-2021 when Sam shifted to plastering work and I increased from 4 to 5 days a week of work.

That helped us with the down payment and costs to purchase our home, but we still basically wiped out our savings buying the house and went briefly into debt from moving expenses. Not the smartest move, but fortunately we have quickly paid off those debts and are slowly rebuilding our savings again. Our car was totaled this fall, and it turned out to be a financial opportunity for us as we were able to take the insurance money from the car, pay off our car loan, and purchase a lower cost car we could afford outright, while still having some money leftover.

I think that was a significant shift in our thinking as we made the difficult choice to downgrade our car for the sake of not having a car payment any more.

It’s saving us several hundred dollars a month. We would like to look ahead now that we’ve reached the big milestone of buying a house, and set some bigger saving, investment, and retirement goals for the first time in our lives. Clarifying our goals will help motivate us to keep making frugal and smart financial decisions.

Sam writes: I want to make a career change but that will mean less money for a few years as I start out as an apprentice again. It will take about 2-3 years to make the same income I have now, and about 4-5 years to reach journeyperson status and max out the income for the trade. It will be worth it in the long run, especially to switch to a union job with an employer-matched pension.

Riley wants to complete their MSW which may mean more student de

Final Thoughts

Before you check out, double-check reader case study plasterer against current offers and any coupons you can stack. Small habits like this add up to real savings over a year.

Originally published at frugalwoods.com.