Welcome to another Weekend Reading edition – and we rush towards the holiday season.
Earlier this week I wrote the following articles I encourage you to check out:
What’s part of your workplace insurance benefits?
These are some 2016 year-end tax tips
Learn all about credit scores here including how to get your free score and free report!
Thanks for reading and sharing My Own Advisor – 50,000 pageviews a month strong and growing. I hope you have a great weekend!
The term financial “adviser” vs. “advisor” can have great meaning.
How To Save Money posted my article about home ownership costing plenty of money.
All About The Dividends shared his dividend income update.
Roadmap2Retire recently asked me for a stock pick for 2017. You’ll have to read his site to find out what I told him. As for this year, it seems my pick for 2016 did very well – Bank of Nova Scotia has increased in price by 35% and paid a dividend every quarter.
Ryan Modesto from 5iResearch provided some suggestions for how get people taking money matters more seriously.
Here is a list of the best investing books – from a U.S. perspective.
Life can mess up the best laid plans according to Michael James on Money.
Why invest in the first place? Check out this latest video by Preet Banerjee.
Canadian Budget Binder wrote about what debt freedom feels like.
Here’s how to deal with Uncle Frank the financial expert in your family over the holidays.
Half Banked believes there are no money goals. We’ll still have some financial goals for 2017 though – stay tuned for those.
My friends at ModernAdvisor are introducing custom portfolios. You can learn more about ModernAdvisor and a hassle-free way to invest here.
Mark
My name is Mark Seed - the founder, editor and owner of My Own Advisor. As my own DIY financial advisor, I've surpassed my goal and now investing beyond the 7-figure portfolio to start semi-retirement with. Find out how, what I did, and what you can learn to tailor your own financial independence path. Join the newsletter read by thousands each day, always FREE.
Home ownership costing plenty of money: of course it does! Duh! But “home ownership” has been spun into some kind of fanciful fairytale by certain entities over the last 60+ years (definitely over the last 30+ years). Even the two words, ‘home’ and ‘ownership’ are not true representations of the actual condition as both play to our emotionality in order to get our money. I did the cost analysis of renting (and investing) vs buying (and mortgaging), and the two came out to roughly the same figure over the long run. Lifestyle was the deciding factor. Speaking of the long run, residential real estate appreciates in and around the same level as inflation (probably below). Think again about a house being a great “asset” (hint: it’s not), especially in the future environment (hint: the major factor behind the long rise in RE prices has been the long decline in interest rates; that driver has dried up).
Adviser/Advisor: not at all shocking that people working in the money sector take advantage of legal minutiae to worm their way to more money and less accountability. Reminds me of Bubba’s zinger: “It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”
List of the best investing books: still chuckling. Even the very best information is laid waste by our hugely fallible brains. Exceptionally few of us will actually translate the information and theories into permanent and profitable practice. It’s no use trying to control the world around when we have so little control of the world within us. As commented, “ETFs and robo advisors…”.
5iResearch: Agree on every point, esp. parroting my mantra: “Simply putting the information out there” (see above). Teaching basic money matter is about the most practical lesson ever — from the poorest of poor to who’s ever #1 on the list, money is in all our lives. Forget about self-publishing more useless books or starting up a new PF blog, if you truly want to instigate lasting and effective socio-economic change, spend that time lobbying your government — from local MLA to school boards — to put mandatory financial literacy courses in school, K-12. The only problem is that the more complex the material becomes (e.g. investing), the more bias is introduced; I have my doubts that a high school teacher would have even a fraction of a Roche-like outlook/understanding of how all the pieces of money fit together. And what texts would be used? Egad! Never a perfect solution, but it has to begin.
(Interesting side note from the article: “If everyone is able to save and invest better, the net worth of the nation (and individuals) should rise…”. At the start of the month I posted a link about this very thing, the research finding “Canada’s real per capita comprehensive wealth grew by just 0.19 per cent annually between 1980 and 2013…” Massive fail considering the ever-declining rates coupled with the largest-ever bull market. Financial literacy is bigly important. On that note…)
My pick for 2016: My best buy in 2016 was Manulife (MFC) — up 37% with a 4% dividend. Thanks Trump.
Life can mess up: It’s a bit odd to read MJ’s take on this. I’m going to have to lightly disagree for reasons of probability.
It’s a chilly -2 here…might get down to -3…BRRR! We might not have towers of snow and extreme cold weather warnings, but we do have a bumper crop of stupidity in the shape of free house down-payments (http://business.financialpost.com/personal-finance/mortgages-real-estate/vancouvers-interest-free-loans-for-homebuyers-risk-fuelling-debt-binge-and-hiking-prices) and a fentanyl craze (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/fentanyl-bc-deaths-november-tally-622-so-far-2016-1.3901731). Woo hoo!
Regarding renting vs. buying – pretty much my thesis as well….lifestyle and emotional attachment to a house are bigger factors than the math in some cases.
That’s a good quote from Bubba…
I was wondering if you’d comment on that book list 🙂
We certainly don’t need any more PF books…more behavioural adjustment. There is no way any high school teacher would have the knowledge and insight comparable to Cullen. I enjoy his site – thanks for sharing it with me.
Hey Mark,
Congrats on the page views that’s great news. Thanks for sharing and Happy Christmas to you and your family. Here’s to the New Year.
Thanks for the support once again. Best wishes Mr. CBB.
ModernAdvisor: “When it comes to investing, we truly believe that simple is better. And for most Canadians, a simple, well-diversified portfolio of low-cost ETFs is the best long-term investment strategy available.”
Couldn’t leave without commenting on this one. Quote from Connolly Report: “ETFs, with exceptions, of course, have four fatal flaws: a lot of mediocre securities, too many holdings, not enough holding (the ‘T’ for trading, in ETF) and little or no increasing yield. In the total scheme of things, ETFs have not been around very long. Ben Graham wanted twenty years of continuous dividends before he purchased a stock. Few ETFs have a track record over a decade”.
“To truly build wealth, you have to build a portfolio yourself with individually selected dividend growth stocks. There are only a few dozen great Canadian dividend growth stocks. ETFs have too many mediocre stocks”.
I continue to believe for investors that don’t have the time, skill, inclination, discipline nor general interest in better managing their money – ETFs and robo advisors that help retail investors are great.
Now, that said, I enjoy using some of my time, skill, interest and discipline to DIY invest – so I do!
Guess “All About Dividends” isn’t all about dividends, as he is still of the Buying & Selling philosophy.
Have a great Xmas Mark and your family, All the best of the season to everyone who enjoys your site! Off to Arizona to get away from the cold.
Yes, he does more trading it seems, far more than I do but I’m very boring when it comes to money – I just save, invest, and let the dividends just roll in. BOOORRRIIING 🙂
Thanks for the mention, Mark. Those picks for 2017 are pouring in from the community and as usual, some great picks all around.
Looking forward to sharing the post in the new year
R2R
Good stuff! Best wishes.
Thanks for the mention on this frigid weekend before Christmas. We all have that family money expert, but how to deal with them over Christmas ?
Definitely avoid giving Uncle Frank booze!