Ramit Sethi says skip the $3 questions — here are four $30,000 questions Canadians need to answer, instead

For Canadians, four of those questions come up again and again: Have you negotiated your salary? Are you capturing your full employer RRSP match? Are you using your TFSA room? And have you actually shopped your mortgage at renewal? Each is a bigger lever than a year of skipped lattes — and each is easy to leave untouched.

Have you negotiated your salary?

Average weekly earnings in Canada reached $1,333 in March 2026, up 3.5% from a year earlier, a number that moves mainly through broad wage growth rather than individual negotiation. Robert Half's 2026 Canada Salary Guide found 83% of employers agree that professionals with specialized skills are paid more than peers without them in the same role, and 54% say they're most willing to raise pay specifically for candidates with specialized skills or certifications. In this hypothetical example, a professional who negotiates just one $5,000 raise early in a career and invests the difference rather than absorbing it into lifestyle costs ends up with a meaningfully larger nest egg decades later, simply because that money had more time to compound. Accepting whatever number is offered is the $3 answer. Asking whether the offer reflects what the role — and the skills attached to it — are actually worth is the $30,000 one.

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Are you capturing your full employer RRSP match?

About 22% of Canadian employers offer no retirement benefit at all, according to the 2024 Canadian Employer Pension Survey conducted by Angus Reid Group on behalf of the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP). Among employers that do offer a group RRSP, the value only flows if an employee contributes enough to trigger the match. An employer contribution of 50 cents to a dollar for every dollar an employee puts in is, in effect, a guaranteed return before any market performance is even counted. Both an employee's own contributions and an employer's match count toward the same Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) RRSP deduction limit — 18% of the previous year's earned income, up to $33,810 for 2026 — so it's worth checking available room on a Notice of Assessment before increasing contributions. Skipping the match isn't a one-time $3 mistake. It's a recurring $30,000 one.

Are you using your TFSA room?

Tax-free savings account (TFSA) room is the other recurring leak. The annual TFSA dollar limit is $7,000 for 2026, and anyone who has been eligible since the account was introduced in 2009 and has never contributed has $109,000 in cumulative room available. Unlike RRSP withdrawals, TFSA withdrawals aren't taxed, and unused room carries forward indefinitely — so the cost of leaving it idle isn't a missed deduction, it's years of tax-free growth that never happened. In this hypothetical example, a Canadian who contributes the full $7,000 every January instead of spreading it out through the year captures close to a full extra year of tax-sheltered growth on that contribution, repeated across a working life. That's a bigger gap than any line-item budget cut will close.

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Have you shopped your mortgage at renewal?

About 60% of Canadian mortgage holders renewing in 2025 and 2026 are expected to see a payment increase, with the average payment roughly 6% higher in 2026 than in December 2024, according to Bank of Canada analysis. Roughly 75% of borrowers facing an increase hold a five-year, fixed-rate mortgage.

Some borrowers can offset part of the increase — the Bank of Canada's own modelling suggests that about half of affected borrowers could eliminate their payment increase by extending their amortization by five years. Renewing automatically with the existing lender, without comparing rates elsewhere, is the $3 habit. Asking a broker or a second lender for a written quote before signing — particularly for anyone renewing a five-year fixed term taken out at pandemic-era rates — is the $30,000 one.

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What to do now

• Ask HR for the group RRSP match formula and confirm you're contributing enough to get the full amount
• Pull your latest Notice of Assessment to confirm your actual RRSP and TFSA room before increasing contributions
• Set a calendar reminder 4 to 6 months before mortgage renewal to request quotes from at least one other lender or broker
• Before accepting a raise or offer, check whether it reflects current market rates for the specific skills involved, not just tenure

None of these four questions requires a windfall or a side hustle. They require a phone call, a Notice of Assessment, or a written quote — the kind of unglamorous admin that's easy to postpone in favour of a faster decision about lunch. The lowest-effort one is usually the RRSP match, since it requires no new money, only enrolment paperwork. The $3 questions will always be there to think about later. The $30,000 ones expire.