Weekend Reading – Preparing for early retirement, best ETFs, how to dump your advisor and more #moneystuff

Weekend Reading – Preparing for early retirement, best ETFs, how to dump your advisor and more #moneystuff

Hey Everyone,

Welcome to my latest Weekend Reading edition where I share some of my favourite articles from the week that was across the personal finance and investing blogosphere.

This week, it’s all about preparing for early retirement, understanding the best ETFs to own, how to dump your advisor and more!

This week, I published this:

How to obtain financial independence on a teacher’s salary.  Now, some folks might say “I don’t feel sorry for teachers…” with all their summer vacation time, workplace benefits, and in Canada for the most part, a fat government pension.  Fair.  On the counter to that however, I would say you don’t live in anyone else’s shoes but your own.  Furthermore, when it comes to workplace pensions for professionals or otherwise, I would also add it’s very easy to assume things in life.  To assume just because an individual has contributed to a workplace pension and should be wealthy from that doesn’t always mean that’s true – although the odds might be in their favour.  I would encourage folks when they read something that might not align with their immediate conclusions to sit back, pause, reflect, and understand there is often much “more to the story” than what can be written in any one blogpost about any financial independence story or otherwise.  

Weekend Reads

Cut the Crap Investing highlighted the benefits of investing with Justwealth for RESPs.

Thanks to at least one reader question/email this week, I thought I would share three (3) steps for how to dump your big bank financial advisor and become a DIY investor – if you are just starting out.

Just starting out – how to become a DIY investor and build wealth here.

Robb Engen is quitting his job and becoming a full-time entrepreneur.  Kudos to Robb for making the leap.

The Dragons on Fire are preparing for their early retirement.  Well done!  Nice to meet you at FinCon and see you next year!

I’m striving for financial independence myself. 

We continue to believe having this much invested in our personal portfolio at this age (beyond our existing workplace pensions, and of course, NO debt) will be “enough” for us to start working part-time or at least on our own terms. 

Based on the above, there is absolutely no way I want to be in this financial position – ever:  47% of Canadians struggle to pay for the basic necessities of life.  They might need to borrow money for expenses > just $200.  That’s insane if true.   “A slightly greater proportion (48 per cent) of respondents said they have less than $200 remaining at the end of the month after covering living expenses and debt payments; that was up four percentage points compared to the previous survey in June.”

How much cash should you have in your portfolio?  MoneySense provided some ideas.

I’m eventually going to go with about 5% or so in cash (beyond any small emergency fund) when we stop actively contributing to RRSPs, TFSAs and our non-registered account; when we open up the investing taps to deliver a never-ending income stream in semi-retirement.

We keep our emergency fund around this amount at all times – cash in a savings account.

Kim from The Frugal Engineers read Playing With Fire – a book about the #FIRE movement I would like to read at some point.  The concept about making a top-10 happiness list has always intrigued me and would be a good exercise to publish on this site. 

Reader question of the week (adapted for site):

Hey Mark,

Can you share how you opened your own discount brokerage account?  Do you have any step-by-step guidance on that?  Thanks very much!

Awesome question.

Here is my primer about opening your discount brokerage account.

Basically, I would do the following in the coming weeks to open your self-directed RRSP, TFSA or other discount brokerage account:

1. Do some research on all discount brokerages available via that link above.
2. Consider what self-directed account or accounts you want to open.
3. Don’t worry about making any investment choices right away, you can open the accounts by depositing cash.
4. Keep reading and ensure you subscribe to My Own Advisor! Some kidding aside (although not really…) I have a number of articles that discuss what to invest in and why (once you have some cash invested inside your account).  Here are just a few examples:

Here is my ETFs page – dozens on articles on this subject.

Top Canadian dividend ETFs

Top U.S. dividend ETFs

Top International dividend ETFs

What are the best low-cost ETFs for your RRSP?

What are the best low-cost ETFs for your TFSA?

If and when your RRSP and TFSA are full, meaning completely out of contribution room, consider taxable investing this way here.

That should keep you busy and better still, well informed, and even better still than that – wealthy.

All the best.

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