A commonly held view in the do-it-yourself investing community is that to maximize returns one simply needs to cut ties with their expensive advisor and manage their own portfolio. On the surface, this makes sense. Costs matter, so if you can slash your investment fees from 2% down to 0.5% or lower your returns will…

Hopefully by now my financial planning clients and blog readers have been conditioned to ignore short term drops in the market – even big ones like we experienced this past week. The reason why stocks have such attractive long-term returns is because they ARE risky to own in the short-term. That’s a feature, not a…

A new report issued last week by condo research firm Urbanation Inc. shed light on a problem that has plagued real estate investors for years – the vast majority of rental property owners are bleeding cash flow. According to the report (G&M subs), which looked specifically at new condo investors in Toronto, more than 80%…

Global stocks continue soaring to new all-time highs, with US large cap growth stocks (aka Big Tech) leading the way. Even the TSX is getting in on the action, finally surpassing its March 2022 high earlier this year. Big returns are all around us, and it’s only natural for investors to feel a bit of…

Robo-advisors have been around for a decade and, while its promise to disrupt the traditional financial services model has so far fallen flat, the concept of an automatically rebalanced, low-cost portfolio of index funds is still incredibly sound. The investing landscape continues to evolve and when Vanguard introduced its suite of asset allocation ETFs in…

When I first create a financial plan for a client I tell them that this is my initial interpretation of their current situation and future goals mapped out over time. It’s a projection or road map based on their current trajectory. I’m looking for clues, patterns, red flags, and opportunities. The numbers are telling a…

You might not have a hot clue how much you plan to spend in retirement, especially if those days are still a decade or further away. Even those nearing retirement may not have a good sense of their desired retirement spending amount. A good rule of thumb is that you’ll likely want to enjoy the…

Some readers were appalled to learn that my wife and I completely drained our TFSAs in 2022 to fund a larger down payment on our new house. Okay, maybe not appalled – but it did raise a few eyebrows. Remember, inflation was running hot and interest rates started to rise in March of that year.…