Welcome. 1,000+ readers from all walks of life.

One mission: earn more, spend less, invest the difference.

This journal is built around a simple idea: the financial industry profits when you feel confused and scared. I’m here to do the opposite: simplify, sharpen, and help you build a real foundation.

Quick update for long-time readers: I’m tightening the format. Going forward, most issues will focus on one core section each week. Easier to digest, apply, and easier to forward to someone you care about.

Vamos.

Personal Finance

There are three common ways to invest.

The last one is the way I do it, and recommend you do too.

1. Bank platforms

These are old school, clunky, often hard to navigate platforms with alot of historical investment in their infrastructure. This leads to higher fees for you in order to cover their inflated cost structures. This means less money in your pocket.

No - I do not recommend you use the bank platforms.

2. Wealth Managers

You could go with a wealth management firm / investment advisor. This is OK, I used to be one.

The issue is that many of them say they have your best interest at heart but in reality most Investment Advisors are salesman; the most important incentive is to ‘grow their book of clients’ since they charge based on your portfolio value.

Therefore, once you become a client, you become less important as they move to prospect the next client. It’s unfortunate, but this happens everywhere.

One appreciable service is ensuring you stay invested (according to your investing policy) and avoid making grave mistakes - like selling all your stocks during COVID only to miss out on the sharp rebound and +100% increase since 2020.

Higher fees & lower returns is the cost of keeping you on track - if needed. Mostly useful for people with significant net worth that are more interested in keeping their money safe and not necessarily maximizing long term upside.

No / yes - I do not recommend you use investment advisors when you are young and able to invest for 30+ years and risk should be “on”. Yes to people nearing retirement if they are willing to sacrifice return for safety and have a high quality advisor on their team.

3. Wealthsimple - this is what I do

This is like the Apple Store.

Built with a tech-first perspective, none of the clunk of the old legacy institutions but with the same regulatory protections (important!).

Clean, intuitive, easy to use. No fees.

You can do automatic purchases, automatic contributions, automatic dividend reinvestments.

They have cash-back chequing accounts and have just rolled out the cash-back visa.

They have TFSAs, RRSPs, RESPs, First Home Savings Accounts, Corporate Accounts - you can even apply for a mortgage. Everything one could need.

Yes - I highly recommend you use Wealthsimple.

→ Forward this email to someone that doesn’t have an investing account yet. And get $25 when you start with Wealthsimple. Use my referral code: PRGS3Q

1 Quote

“People will forget what you said... but never forget how you made them feel”

—Maya Angelou

A Question

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Markets at a Glance

_{Footnote: Price Data embedded from stocktwits.com. One day % change is based off the previous day’s close price vs price at time of publication.}