- My Own Advisor

Benchmarking my portfolio

Posted on May 31, 2016 by Mark | 37 Comments

Benchmarking my portfolio Investors tend to gravitate to financial products before financial plans. I believe that is a mistake. I believe regardless of whether you own mutual funds, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) or invest in some individual stocks for passive…

Why I Chose Passive Investing

Posted on May 30, 2016 by Mark | 9 Comments

This post is by a passionate reader of My Own Advisor who recently started her own blog. I became interested in investing after I got my first pay cheque after college. I was lucky that my parents paid for my…

Weekend Reading – Investment fee calculators, beating the index, priorities and more

Posted on May 26, 2016 by Mark | 10 Comments

Welcome to my latest Weekend Reading edition friends, where you can find some of the best personal finance and investing articles from the blogosphere. Earlier this week, I shared our latest dividend income update on our path to early retirement…

Can you Beat the Index? Yes, and Ross Grant proves it.

Posted on May 24, 2016 by Mark | 63 Comments

Can you Beat the Index? Yes, and Ross Grant proves it. Could you actually Beat the Index? Yes, and Ross Grant did. You can too! Ross Grant is an engineer by trade and like most engineers he likes figuring things out.…

April 2016 Dividend Income Update

Posted on May 23, 2016 by Mark | 20 Comments

Welcome to my latest dividend income update. For those of you new to these posts on my site, every month I discuss my approach to investing focusing on dividend paying stocks and how reinvesting the dividends paid from the Canadian…

Weekend Reading – Smiling savers, emergency funds, cheap tickets and more

Posted on May 19, 2016 by Mark | 13 Comments

Welcome to my latest Weekend Reading edition. I hope you had a good week… Earlier this week I told you we reached a milestone when it comes to our emergency fund and I finally got around to deciding what to…

What did I decide to do with my old car?

Posted on May 17, 2016 by Mark | 22 Comments

If you’ve been reading my site for any length of time you know my dilemma. I own a 16-year-old car. I bought this 2000 Mazda Protégé days after I moved to Ottawa from Toronto. The car was brand new and…

We did it – why we have a $10,000 emergency fund

Posted on May 15, 2016 by Mark | 36 Comments

We did it – why we have a $10,000 emergency fund A few years ago on this site, I wrote about stashing away a modest emergency fund. Here are my reasons for doing so which remain valid today: It provides…

Weekend Reading – Millions not enough, home insurance, ETFs, and best cash back credit cards

Posted on May 12, 2016 by Mark | 11 Comments

Welcome to another Weekend Reading edition friends, I hope you had a good week. It’s been very busy week at work but I did manage to sneak in a few articles on my blog: Smarten up with The Smart Debt…

Consider a Canada-cation or Staycation to Save Money and Still Have Fun

Posted on May 11, 2016 by Mark | 5 Comments

Who doesn’t love travelling? Who doesn’t love to save money, earn rewards and take advantage of great deals when travelling? That’s what I thought. Unlike computer hacking, travel hacking is perfectly legit and fun. Then again, you don’t need to…