Hello everyone!

Love the back and forth lately. Keep it coming. I answer every email. Hope it’s one part entertaining one part educational and not a complete waste of your time. Cheers.

Personal Finance

Question from Mr. H last week:

Hello I live in Ontario, read your email every Friday, was wondering your thoughts about investing / selling our farm for $4,000,000 that has debt of $700,000. What would you do with rest of money? I spoke with Scotia Bank Wealth Management. Should I take your course invest myself or any suggestions? Thanks

Hi Mr. H, thanks for reaching out—and for reading the Friday emails!

Without knowing much more about your situation (i.e. age, income, expenses, dependents, other assets—liquid or illiquid, nor any idea of the farming business itself), the fact that you’re sitting on roughly $3.3 million in potential equity puts you in a great position.

A couple of thoughts:

1. Scotia Wealth: As you know, an advisor typically charges around 1%—which on $3.3 million is about $33,000 per year. But if that fee is what convinces you to invest rather than sitting in cash (where inflation erodes value), it could be worth it.

2. DIY investing: It's far cheaper and surprisingly easy these days with platforms like Wealthsimple, Questrade, or even Scotia iTrade (though Scotia’s platform has a few more fees). A simple, 100% ETF portfolio might cost you just 0.10% per year—about $3,300 annually on $3.3 million. That’s a big difference in cost.

3. For a primer on the value of DIY investing vs an Advisor, please read of this: Debating the Good and Bad of Financial Advisors. This was one of my most popular issues as I tried to present a balanced perspective of both options having been on both sides of the aisle.

Whichever route you choose, I’d highly recommend the investing course. It’s C$200, self-paced, beginner-friendly (but also valuable for experienced investors), and I’m available for support along the way.

That small investment gives you the confidence to manage it yourself—or at the very least, the knowledge to have meaningful conversations with your Scotia advisor and know what you are really paying for.

Here’s the link to learn more: https://www.edwardgudewill.com/invest

Happy to chat more if you'd like—let me know.

Best,
Eddie

→ For other readers of the Journal, send through any questions you have and I will see if I can help.

I used to help manage a large $700,000,000 portfolio for 200 families, interact with brand new and extremely savvy investors, completed hundreds of financial plans, advise on asset allocation, investment due diligence, account structures, taxes, etc.

So, humbly speaking, I think I have a decent perspective on money management. And whether you have an Advisor or not, learning the basic ropes of financial management and investing is essential.

It’s C$200 bucks, cheap as chips and a minuscule investment compared to the potential earnings you will command by increasing your financial literacy.

And those of you that have said to me “Eddie, I need to learn about this stuff” — it’s about time you realize that delaying that decision one more day won’t do you any future favours.

Sorry for the self promo, but sometimes it needs to be said.

💝 Newsletter subscribers get 10% off the Simply Investing course with the code: SIMPLYINVEST

🎁 Get $25 when you open a Wealthsimple account. Use my referral code: PRGS3Q

Stock Markets

Almost two year’s ago exactly, my wife became a Great Investor.

She had never heard about compound interest, and we were discussing how to make money work for you. 

I showed her the US S&P500 and said: 

• "Don't just consume products. Own the businesses that sell the products, too."

In 5 minutes, she opened her first investing account from her iPhone, and with one click, she bought shares of XSP (iShares S&P500 ETF). 

Immediately she started investing in the 500 best companies in the United States.

• diversified portfolio

• no more losing to inflation

• investing in the innovation machine that is Capitalism.

Her S&P500 was up 22% in the first year.

Great timing, March 10, 2023 for her first purchase, maybe a bit lucky. She knows 10% is the long term return to expect. Not 22% year after year.

It was up another 25% in the second year.

And even though this 2025 “correction” is down 17% 6% YTD, her S&P500 is still up 36% overall.

This is how you make your money work for you: Time in the market. Not timing the market.

Anyways, food for thought. Seasoned investor or absolute beginner - owning a piece of Innovation using low cost ETFs is a game changer.

See the video we made and how easy it is to do it yourself here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CpWG58RgdCG/

Real Estate

Recirculating this PDF guide for the benefit of many new subscribers since it was published. Guide to Real Estate Investing - an LP Perspective.

Hope it’s useful for those interested in the Private Real Estate investing world. Let me know if you have any comments or questions!

1 Quote

“It's remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.”

Charlie Munger

Quote submitted by a reader, thank you.

A Question

Do you donate to Charity? Did you know that you can donate shares of stock instead of donating cash? Do you know why this is a far better strategy than donating cash? I am writing about this for next week’s letter, curious if anyone here is already doing this. I suspect only a handful.

_____________

If you enjoyed this issue, please forward this email to your friends to subscribe.

Thank you

Eddie Gudewill, CFA

Investing Course

If you want to learn everything you need to know to be a great investor, consider my self guided ETF investing course. 

Customer review:

"Hey Eddie - your course is precisely what I have been missing and has been so helpful in giving me more confidence to invest myself" - 30 year old MBA student.

What you get

✓ 2 hours video content

✓ Take at your own pace

✓ Training by a real portfolio manager

✓ Excel templates i.e. budget, retirement calculator, rebalancing spreadsheet, and more

✓ Unlimited lifetime access, and all future updates at no cost

✓ 100% money back guarantee. If you don't like it, let me know and I'll give you your money back.

I'm trying to make you a millionaire - not sell you some junk.

You will transform from being unclear and apprehensive, to a capable and confident investor.

Learn more here