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Build Wealth Canada Podcast

Build Wealth Canada Podcast

Kornel Szrejber: Investor

As one of Canada's youngest retirees at the age of 32, and after becoming mortgage-free at 29, Kornel interviews the top financial experts in Canada to help you optimize your investments, reduce your taxes, and help you accelerate your journey towards financial independence and early retirement. He also shares his own experiences and lessons learned in investing and as an early retiree and member of the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement to help you optimize your finances, specifically here in Canada.
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With the multiple interest rate hikes that we’ve been experiencing here in Canada, many Canadians have seen their monthly cashflow take a hit, whether it’s because you have a variable rate mortgage, a line of credit, or other forms of debt.

So what are your options if you’re paying more than you’d like on your interest payments, or maybe you have that mortgage coming up for renewal and you’re going to have to make that multi-thousand dollar decision on how you’re going to proceed?

Should you go with a fixed or variable rate mortgage when interest rates are high like they are right now?

Keep in mind too that if you have a mortgage coming up for renewal, then you won’t be able to get as good of an interest rate upon renewal, as you did when you first got that mortgage years ago, due to all these massive interest rate hikes that we’ve been experiencing.

To tackle all of this, I’ve brought on an expert that deals with these types of interest and mortgage related questions every day, and that is the show’s resident mortgage expert, Sean Cooper. Sean is who I go to and who I send friends and family to for any mortgage related questions. He is the bestselling author of the book Burn Your Mortgage, and he is an independent mortgage broker so he’s not tied to any one particular lender which gives him access to the top mortgages available in Canada.

Sean has also been kind enough to answer for free, any questions that you, the Build Wealth Canada listeners have. I’ve set up a special page for him so all you have to do is go to buildwealthcanada.ca/sean, and there you can send him a message with your questions, or, if you prefer, you can even pick a time on his calendar on that page for a phone or video call to get your questions answered with him live, for free.

Sean is a licensed mortgage broker too, so I definitely also encourage you to reach out to him if you’re looking to get a new mortgage or if your mortgage is coming up for renewal, as at the very least he’ll be able to provide you with a short list of the best mortgages that he’s been able to find across all of Canada from the 60+ lenders that he monitors.

None of this costs you anything, and there’s no obligation to get your mortgage through him or use any of those suggested mortgages.

That link again to get in touch with Sean to get your questions answered, and get his research on the best mortgages that he’s been able to find in Canada is over at buildwealthcanada.ca/sean.

Enjoy the episode. :)

Questions Covered:

  1. After pausing rate hikes since January, the Bank of Canada shocked many by starting to raise interest rates again in June. What was behind this? What does the future hold?
  2. Some homeowners in Canada are facing a doubling or more of their mortgage rates at renewal. What options do homeowners have?
  3. For those in that situation where they’ll be dealing with deciding between a fixed vs variable mortgage, how should they be approaching this dilemma, factoring in the current interest rate environment?
  4. When you and I spoke offline, you mentioned that there is a really big missconception that some people have when it comes to mortgages, that could really be causing them to overpay on their mortgages. Can you speak to that?
  5. With higher interest rates, it’s not all doom and gloom since tools like high interest savings accounts and GICs are now paying out more to us consumers compared to what they were offering when we had those rock bottom interest rates. Are there any tools or strategies that you are using yourself or are fond of, when it comes to taking advantage of these higher interest rates and how are you investing these days when it comes to the fixed income portion of your portfolio? (ex. HISA vs GIC vs Bonds).
  6. Are you buying more shorter-term or longer-term investments? (ex. short term vs longer term bonds/GICs etc.)
  7. If any of the listeners have some form of debt, and they suspect that maybe they aren’t paying the absolute lowest amount that they could be paying on that debt (it doesn’t have to be some kind of really high credit card debt, just any debt that they think seems high), what are the tools or options available to them, here in Canada, in terms of taking that higher interest debt and turning it into the lower interest debt?
  8. For anybody listening that has questions for you, or would potentially like to work with you or see your research on the top mortgages that you’ve been able to find here in Canada as a mortgage broker, can you tell us more what the process is for Build Wealth Canada listeners to get a ...
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Build Wealth Canada Podcast - How to Raise Money Smart Kids, Teens and Young Adults
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05/31/23 • 70 min

It’s graduation season here in Canada, so we thought it would be good to focus this episode on parents with kids, those with nieces and nephews, as well as those that are students or fresh out of school. This week, we cover the topic of how to best set up young Canadians and young adults for success, when it comes to money.

Sadly, if you’re my generation or older then you probably got zero education about money when you were in school or fresh out of school. Yet, those are the crucial years where you either establish good or bad money habits, and there are so many things that can lead a young person astray.

Heck, knowing how to keep your investment fees low can literally save you hundreds of thousands of dollars over your investment lifetime, so why wouldn’t you want to know about these things as a student or upon graduation so that you can set yourself up for financial success?

To help me with this topic, I have Canadian author, Douglas Price on the show. Douglas has written the book “Seventeen to Millionaire” a personal finance book for teens and young adults, specifically here in Canada, aimed to help them become financially literate and establish that strong financial foundation to set them up for success.

Enjoy the interview. :)

Questions
  1. To kick things off, can you tell us about your book and why you decided to write it?
  2. Whether we’re a child, teenager or adult, learning to manage our cashflows is a critical skill that we have to employ our entire lives. What process do you recommend to ensure that we are managing our income and expenses appropriately and not overspending?
  3. When someone is entering the world of investing in the markets for the first time (whether it’s someone that just turned 18, or an established adult that is now learning how to navigate the world of investing), where do you stand on using something like a robo advisor vs a single asset allocation ETF vs buying multiple individual ETFs vs other options (ex. mutual funds, using an advisor at a bank, etc.).
    • Follow up question: Do you have any advice on how to prevent overwhelm when teaching someone this for the first time?
  4. Your book focuses on helping teenagers learn about money and how it works so that they can have that strong foundation for the rest of their lives, but what are your thoughts about how parents of younger children can best educate them and set them up for success when they are still in elementary school, or early high school?
  5. When it comes to kids or teenagers learning about money, what have you found that they struggle with the most, where us parents or educators need to spend some extra time on?
  6. What would you say are your top ‘best practices’ that us parents can do to ensure that our kids are set up for success when it comes to their financial lives?
  7. The world is obviously a lot different now than it was when you and I were kids. Are there any areas that have changed a lot when it comes to money that us parents need to be cognizant of when trying to set our kids up with that strong foundation when it comes to financial literacy?
  8. One of the things that I found impressive in your book, is that you hired high school students to test out your book to ensure that the lessons were communicated in a way that is engaging and digestible for them. Did you learn anything from those feedback sessions when it comes to how to best teach your kids or teenagers about anything, as a parent or educator?
  9. I’d really like to thank you for clearly putting in a significant effort to help educate young Canadians when it comes to financial literacy. Can you tell us again where we can get your book and where we should go to learn more?
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Build Wealth Canada Podcast - How to Save Money: Top Lessons From Teaching 100,000+ Canadians
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09/18/21 • 79 min

Our guest today is Arian Beyzaei, the Vice President of Enriched Academy, one of the most successful companies to be featured on the show Dragon’s Den.

Over the past 6 years he has travelled around the country teaching students and entrepreneurs how to get smarter with their finances. He has presented to over 10,000 people and has been the keynote speaker for several corporations.

Arian has also been featured on the Financial Post, The Globe and Mail and many more providing personal finance tips and strategies.

What’s really neat about Enriched Academy is that they are definitely one of, if not the largest financial literacy educators in Canada. They have over 100,000 students, so I thought it would be useful for Arian to share some of the top money saving lessons learned, after teaching that many students, here in Canada.

In other words, what can really move the needle for all of us, when it comes to making a dent in our spending?

What are the highest impact savings strategies that we should be focusing on, to really drastically increase the extra cashflow that we all receive month to month?

Questions Covered:
  1. We talk a lot about increasing our wealth through investing on this show but a higher income, or return on investment, is only one component of growing our net worth. The other of course, is saving and not incurring unnecessary liabilities. To kick things off, why should finding ways to save money be on our radar? As opposed to us just focusing on maximizing our income and returns?
  2. When it comes to saving money on things that really move the needle in increasing our financial wellbeing, housing and transportation come to mind as the top areas to optimize. Can you give us some insights and advice on these two areas?
  3. While housing and transportation are definitely high priority areas due to their high price, another area that can have a large impact is those smaller but recurring expenses that we sign up for, which end up draining our cashflow on an ongoing basis. Can you give us your thoughts and strategies on those?
  4. While mortgage rates are relatively low these days, they are nevertheless a very large monthly cashflow drain for most Canadians. Can you talk about some of your favourite mortgage tactics to help us save money?
  5. If someone is looking for a little bit of extra income this year, without an enormous time commitment, do you have a favourite go-to’s that you found many Canadians can benefit from?
  6. When it comes to debt, how are Canadians doing vs the rest of the world, and what are your favourite strategies that we can use to lower the interest on our debt?

Resources Mentioned In the Episode:

The free tickets to this year's Online Canadian Financial Summit are here: http://buildwealthcanada.ca/summit

The free assessment call mentioned on the episode is available here: http://buildwealthcanada.ca/call

The Ultimate Phone Script PDF is available for free download here: https://buildwealthcanada.ca/script

The financial literacy for kids educational program is available here: https://buildwealthcanada.ca/kids

The Mortgage Broker mentioned on the episode (to get your mortgage questions answered for free) is available at: https://buildwealthcanada.ca/sean

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Build Wealth Canada Podcast - How to Be Your Own Money Manager - Passiv + Wealthica
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07/21/21 • 51 min

Today we’re going to focus on how to best track your investments, as well as your net worth.

This is of course critical, as you need this data to determine:

1. How much more do you need to be financially independent and retire?

2. Whether you are trending in the right direction(i.e. Is your net worth actually growing to get you closer to that early retirement and financial independence number?).

Tracking your net worth and investments is no longer something that you have to do manually, by tediously entering your numbers from all your different accounts into a spreadsheet. You also don’t have to do that boring data entry over and over again, every time that you want an update.

So for this episode, I brought on the creators of two free tools available to Canadians. The first is a net worth tracking tool called Wealthica. While the second is an investment tracking and automation tool called Passiv (which I’ve already been using for years to manage, automate, and get reports on my investment portfolio).

Questions Asked:
  1. We’re going to be talking a fair bit about tracking our net worth in this interview, and how we can automate it. But before we get into that, how should we be defining “net worth”, and how do each of us actually benefit by tracking it?
  2. It used to be that in order to track your investments and net worth, you’d be stuck with whatever your banking or investment provider gave you, and oftentimes you had to use a spreadsheet to get a holistic view of all your accounts. It seems that now, we are transitioning to more open banking where that is no longer necessary. Can you speak to what’s been happening in regards to this, specifically here in Canada?
  3. For anybody that hasn’t heard of your tools before, can you each take us through what it does, especially when it comes to saving Canadians time, and helping automate some of the more tedious parts of being a do-it-yourself investor, and net worth tracking.
  4. Looking at your sites, there seems to be some overlap in terms of what you each provide. Can you take us through the differences between Passiv and Wealthica? Is there a specific type of investor that each tool is more suited for?
  5. One of the big developments that many of us have noticed is that your tools are now integrated with each other. Can you take us through what that means for us the end users? And how does that helps us be more efficient and save more time with our investments and net worth tracking?
  6. Brendan, when I spoke with your team offline, they mentioned that users get more functionality if they use one of Passiv’s brokerage partners like Questrade. Can you speak to what users can and can’t do depending on which brokerage they are currently using?
  7. Some of us get nervous about using tools where we need to enter our login credentials for the different companies that we bank with or do our investments through. Can you talk about the technology that’s being used here to keep everything safe? And are we potentially breaking the terms of service with some of these institutions we bank with by entering this private information?
Resources:

You can click here to open up a free Passiv account (Questrade members also get the free upgrade to the Elite Member Plan.

You can sign up to Wealthica for free here.

Free tickets to the Canadian Financial Summit: Sign up anywhere for free on buildwealthcanada.ca to get free tickets to the digital event once they are ready (the annual event is on September 22, 2021).

Your Mortgage Questions Answered: Since it's real estate season here in Canada, we also mentioned our resident mortgage expert who can answer your mortgage questions for free. You can sign up for a free call here (there is no cost and no obligation to select any of the lowest cost mortgages that he's able to find in from the 60+ lenders that he monitors.

Investing Course: The investing course was also mentioned in the intermission, which you can try risk-free for 60 days here.

If you liked the episode sign up for free to receive all new episodes as they get released, news on giveaways, and the free guide on the Top 5 Perso...

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Build Wealth Canada Podcast - Investing Tips: Market Declines and Marijuana Stocks
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10/17/18 • 30 min

Canadian investors are having a pretty eventful time in the markets right now, as the legalization of marijuana is happening today as I record this episode. Also, let's not forget the hit that the markets took last week.

For a long time now we've seen very little volatility in the markets, and it's been a relatively smooth and enjoyable ride. Well finally, last week, we finally got to experience how markets can behave (in the negative sense), and I think how you felt during this period is a good sample of how much you can stomach volatility, and stay invested, when you have some media making it look like the sky is falling.

We can and will experience drops even worse than that in the future, but I think it's a good self-discovery event where you learn if for example, that 100% stock, 0% bond portfolio allocation is something that you really can have and still sleep well at night.

Because of the marijuana legalization and the recent dip in the markets, I thought it would be great to have another Investing Tips Episode like we did last month, where I speak with 5i Research's CEO, Ryan Modesto about what him and his research team are seeing in the markets with the recent declines, as well as address the subject of marijuana stocks and investing in that industry.

Future episodes, giveaways and guides:

Of course, don't miss future episodes, giveaways, and free in-depth guides by signing up for free to the Build Wealth Canada newsletter over at buildwealthcanada.ca. There you'll receive some exclusive educational content that's only available to Build Wealth Canada newsletter subscribers, there's never any spam, and it's totally free.

It's also the best way to ask questions that you want to be answered on future episodes of the show, and suggests any guests that you'd like to come on the show. That link again to sign up for free is buildwealthcanada.ca.

Bonus: Free one-year subscription to Canadian MoneySaver Magazine

Alright now before we start the interview, today's guest, 5i CEO Ryan Modesto is also offering a 1-year free digital subscription to Canadian Moneysaver Magazine (Canada's largest personal finance magazine) when you sign up for free 30-day access to 5i Research.

There you'll receive over 70 company reports (perfect if you like to sometimes invest in individual stocks), three model portfolios, and answers to over 75,000 investing questions, along with the ability to ask your own directly to Ryan and his analysts.

Ryan and his team at 5i don't sell any investments, and don't get any commissions or bonuses from suggesting stocks and ETFs. Because of this, I've been a long time partner with them as they are one of the VERY few companies in Canada, that are truly conflict-free and unbiased when it comes to their research and suggestions on stocks and ETFs.

You can get free 30-day access to all their research and resources over at buildwealthcanada.ca/research, and as a "thank you" for trying them out, you'll receive a free 1-year digital subscription to Canadian MoneySaver Magazine, Canada's largest personal finance magazine.

I encourage you to check 5i out, it's a great place get some truly unbiased insights on your investments (whether it's stocks or ETFs), and you'll learn an absolute ton.

Questions Covered
  1. Let's start off with a market update. The markets have clearly been hit pretty hard lately. What's the 5i Research team seeing, and should we be worried?
  2. With the legalization of marijuana in Canada, the industry is expected to experience rapid growth. For investors interested in investing in this industry, what should they be looking out for?
  3. I sometimes hear investors say things like “I think industry x is going to grow in the future, so I’m going to invest in it”. For example, the cannabis industry, or AI, robotics, etc. What is the error in using that reasoning as your sole decision to invest in an industry? (i.e. the potential growth already being factored into the price)
  4. What is the difference between common and preferred stocks, what should an investor consider when choosing between the two, and should a company offer both?
Resources Covered:
  1. The marijuana industry report mentioned is available by signing up to the free 30-day 5i access over at buildwealthcanada.ca/research. As a bonus, you'll also receive a 1-year free digital subscription to Canadian MoneySaver Magazine.
  2. The preferred shares article mentioned can be found at
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Build Wealth Canada Podcast - How to Invest in Dividend Paying Stocks in Canada
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11/01/17 • 44 min

Today I’m excited to have Mark Seed on the show, who runs the popular Canadian blog, My Own Advisor. On the blog, Mark documents his journey and lessons learned as he invests towards achieving an early retirement, and works on growing his portfolio to 1 million dollars.

What’s very interesting about Mark, is that he is a hybrid investor meaning he doesn’t just invest in one particular way (for example, he doesn’t just buy the index with ETFs). Instead, he uses ETFs to hold US and international companies, but when it comes to the Canadian portion of his portfolio, he holds individual stocks of strong dividend paying companies instead of just holding a single ETF that captures all the major companies in Canada.

This is a bit of a different strategy than what I’ve been doing, so I thought it would be great to have Mark on the show to broaden our view by seeing how others invest, learn why he invests in that way (the pros and the cons), and see if maybe it’s a good fit for the way you invest.

Links and Resources Covered
  • Top Tools and Resources for Financial Independence (for Canadians): Sign up anywhere on www.BuildWealthCanada.ca for a free guide on all the top tools and sites that I’ve personally used to help us achieve financial independence in our early 30s. They’re also what we use now to optimize and manage our finances, and ensure that we’re paying the lowest fees while getting solid returns on our investments.
  • Kornel's investing course with free sample lessons at www.BuildWealthCanada.ca/invest
Questions Asked During the Interview:
  1. What made you decide to be a hybrid investor instead of just sticking with index investing or just dividend investing?
  2. What is your process you take for selecting which dividend paying companies to buy?
  3. Once you’ve done your due diligence on the company, what analysis do you do to determine whether now is the right time to buy? For example, how do you decide whether a company is currently overvalued or undervalued?
  4. How do you deal with the risk that you are investing in individual companies? As opposed to hundreds or thousands of companies through an ETF. For example, let’s say you’re holding CIBC. How do you deal with the worry that something might happen at that particular company and it could potentially never recover back to its previous stock price? (ex. Nortel, Blackberry)
  5. What made you choose to buy individual dividend paying companies vs buying something like the aristocrat ETF?
  6. Once you choose to retire, how do you plan on changing your asset allocation, if at all? (i.e. Going from an asset accumulation stage, to an asset decumulation phase).
    1. What if you retired early?
    2. What if you did a traditional retirement where CPP, OAS, and your pensions kick-in right away (or almost right away).
  7. If you did a much earlier retirement where CPP and OAS don’t kick-in yet, would you move all or most of your investments to stable Canadian dividend payers partially due to the dividend tax credit?
  8. Speaking of asset allocation, what are your thoughts about using bonds as part of your portfolio, especially in retirement? Many Canadians are feeling reluctant to use them due to their low returns, and are expecting their prices to drop due to their fear of rising interest rates here in Canada. What’s your take on this?
  9. A common criticism against the Canadian index is that we as Canada are too concentrated in just a few sectors (i.e. energy, financials, materials). I imagine you run into the same challenge with Canadian dividend investing. Do you do anything to offset this in your portfolio? Have you come across any good solutions?
  10. Do you have any other advice for dividend focused investors? (or investors in general)
  11. Tell us more about My Own Advisor and what’s the best way to hear more from you?
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Today I’m excited to have Sean Cooper on the show. There’s a good chance that you’ve already heard of Sean whether it’s on the radio, TV, or the internet as Sean is the guy that bought his first house when he was just 27 and paid off his mortgage at 30 in 3 years.

As you may know, my wife and I also paid off our mortgage early at the age of 28 and 29 (you can learn more about it by checking out past episodes of the show). But what makes Sean’s story interesting, is that he did it in Toronto (which as we all know has some of the highest real estate prices in Canada), and he did it with a single income. That to me is really impressive, so it was fun to pick Sean’s brain about how he did it, and the strategies he uses and recommends to save money and get out of debt.

UPDATE: Since publishing this episode, Sean has become the show’s Resident Mortgage Expert. If you have a mortgage question, you can speak to Sean for free over at www.BuildWealthCanada.ca/sean

A bit more about Sean: He’s an in-demand personal finance journalist, money coach and speaker. His articles have been featured in publications such as the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, MoneySense and Tangerine’s Forward Thinking blog.

He makes regular appearances on national radio and television shows to discuss personal finance, real estate and mortgages. He’s also the author of the new book, Burn Your Mortgage, which helps anyone —from new buyers to experienced homeowners — pay down their mortgage sooner and live well while doing it.

Links and Resources
  • Get a free one-on-one meeting with Sean to get your mortgage and home buying questions answered at www.BuildWealthCanada.ca/sean
  • Top Tools and Resources for Financial Independence (for Canadians): Sign up anywhere on www.BuildWealthCanada.ca for a free guide on all the top tools and sites that I’ve personally used to help us achieve financial independence in our early 30s. They’re also what we use now to optimize and manage our finances, and ensure that we’re paying the lowest fees while getting solid returns on our investments.
  • Kornel's investing course with free sample lessons at www.BuildWealthCanada.ca/invest
Questions Covered:
  1. To start things off, tell us your story and the steps you took that got you mortgage free at such a young age.
  2. Tell me about the moment when you realized that you need to write a book. What motivated you to write it in the first place?
  3. With the house prices being where they are, and the frenzy that we seem to be experiencing in the real estate market right now, do you think it still makes sense for millennials to buy a home? (as opposed to renting for a lot less and investing their excess cash flows). Are there exceptions?
  4. Are there some creative ways that you recommend Canadians (and millennials in particular) can get into the real estate market?
  5. Tell me about the internal dialogue that you had in your head, with yourself, when deciding whether you should pay off your mortgage quicker or invest.
  6. Now that you are debt free, are you also financially independent? Tell me your definition of financial independence.
  7. If yes, how do you structure your investments, cash flows, etc.?
  8. What are you doing with the cash flows that aren’t going towards your mortgage anymore? -What are you investing in? -Your strategy. Reasoning? -How are you using registered accounts? Are you using non-registered too?
  9. Have you considered doing a home equity line of credit (HELOC) on your property and using the proceeds to invest?
  10. Are you thinking of buying more rental properties?
  11. What’s next for you?
  12. To finish things off, tell us more about your book and what we can expect to learn from reading it.
  13. Where can we follow you if we want to learn more?
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Build Wealth Canada Podcast - How to Save Thousands at Your Bank – Secrets of an Ex-Banker
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10/11/16 • 65 min

Today we have a very special guest who has worked as an advisor for some of Canada’s largest banks, giving him some great insider information on how we can all save money when dealing with the Banks.

His name is John Kalos and he is an unbiased, non-commission, fee-for-service financial planner. John is the financial planner that I used before executing our early retirement, and he offers all Build Wealth Canada listeners a free 30-minute consultation so that you can get some of your financial questions answered too. You can sign up to speak with him for free over at www.BuildWealthCanada.ca/john

Links and Resources
  • You can get a free 30 minute call with John to get some of your questions answered by going to www.BuildWealthCanada.ca/john
  • Top Tools and Resources for Financial Independence (for Canadians): Sign up anywhere on www.BuildWealthCanada.ca for a free guide on all the top tools and sites that I’ve personally used to help us achieve financial independence in our early 30s. They’re also what we use now to optimize and manage our finances, and ensure that we’re paying the lowest fees while getting solid returns on our investments.
  • Kornel's investing course with free sample lessons at www.BuildWealthCanada.ca/invest
Questions Covered:

When it comes to safe investments, what are the options we have as Canadians, and how can we get the best rates at the bank? (ex. if we’re saving money for education, a downpayment, a car, etc.)

Do you then keep them within an RRSP or TFSA account at that bank? (ex. If you’re saving for a downpayment)

When it comes to negotiating with the bank, in what areas do the banks tend to have some flexibility? How hard can you generally push them to get the discounts, and do you have any tips that can increase the chance of them agreeing? (ex. Showing comparable mortgage rates at other lenders).

Areas to discuss:

    • Mortgages
    • Lines of credit
    • Bank fees
  • Investment products

Are there any marketing/sales traps to look out for? (ex. Being offered life insurance together with your mortgage)

You mention in your podcast that there is potential conflict of interest between banker/advisor and their clients. Can you elaborate on this and give us a few actual examples?

What does a financial planner do at a bank vs someone like a fee for service or fee-based financial planner?

What are the top ways you recommend to save money on your investments?

What do you recommend to your clients? (ETFs? Individual stocks? Focus on dividends,? growth? etc.)

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Today I’m thrilled to have Peter Hodson on the show who is the owner of 5i Research, the Canadian MoneySaver Magazine, and in his investment career, has managed over $1-billion dollars in assets. He's also been called "The Warren Buffett of Canada" by the Globe and Mail.

I’ve always wanted to have Peter on the show to pick his brain about investing best practices here in Canada, and see what he learned over his decades of professional investing.

Peter and his team have also been generous in providing Build Wealth Canada listeners with a special offer where you can get your investment questions answered, and learn more investment best practices by getting a free trial membership over at www.buildwealthcanada.ca/trial. As a "thank you" for taking a look at their research, you'll also receive a free 1 year digital subscription to Canadian MoneySaver magazine (Canada's largest personal finance magazine).

Links and Resources
  • Free 1 month trial plus free 1 year subscription to Canadian MoneySaver Magazine: www.buildwealthcanada.ca/trial
  • Top Tools and Resources for Financial Independence (for Canadians): Sign up anywhere on www.BuildWealthCanada.ca for a free guide on all the top tools and sites that I’ve personally used to help us achieve financial independence in our early 30s. They’re also what we use now to optimize and manage our finances, and ensure that we’re paying the lowest fees while getting solid returns on our investments.
  • Kornel's investing course with free sample lessons at www.BuildWealthCanada.ca/invest
Questions Covered:
  1. Can you start by telling us your background, and your story from your days on Bay Street, to now running 5i Research and owning Canadian MoneySaver magazine?
  2. In Canada it seems that investors fall into one of 5 main categories. They either:
    1. Buy mutual funds
    2. Buy indexes
    3. Buy individual stocks for growth
    4. Buy individual stocks for dividends
    5. Buy a combination of the above.

Can you walk us through these options and how do we decide what type of investing is right for us?

  1. Before we dive into more detail and talk about 5i, what are some key investing lessons that you’ve learned over the years that we can apply to our own investing lives?
  2. Let’s talk about 5i Research. For those Canadians that haven’t heard of 5i, can you tell us more about what it is that you do, and how is 5i different?
  3. You have a model portfolio for growth, and another for income on 5i. Can you explain the difference between the two and how do we know which one to follow based on our situation?
  4. How do we choose between a growth vs a balanced portfolio?
  5. How have these portfolios been performing compared to the index?
  6. Why don’t I just invest in indexes instead of following the 5i portfolio? Is it just because of the potential for higher returns or are there some other advantages or disadvantages? (ex. greater diversification among different industries)
  7. What if I don’t want to be researching and analyzing individual companies. Is 5i still a good fit for me? (i.e. can I just model your portfolio and not do anything else other than re-balance?). Or, do I need to be actively researching the companies you suggest after your initial recommendation to ensure that they are still a good fit?
  8. Is your portfolio just for Canadian companies? If so, what sort of asset allocation do you suggest outside of Canada for diversification purposes?
  9. Would you recommend using the 5i portfolio completely for the Canadian portion of our portfolio, and then use ETFs for international exposure?
  10. ETFs that model a broad market index can now be purchased for free from certain discount brokerages here in Canada. If we are to follow the 5i portfolio, then we now have to deal with paying transaction costs every time that we purchase a stock. If somebody would like to invest a set percentage of their salary every month, what’s the step-by-step process that they should take to do it most efficiently and to minimize fees while still being diversified (which is hard to do if you’re only buying one company or two at a time)?
  11. Would this workflow/strategy change depending on how much someone has to invest every month? What if we have a lump sum to invest?
  12. Should I use my TFSA or RRSP for the 5i portfolio? What about using an unregistered account? Should I ever be using that instead? (i.e. preferential tax treatment on dividends). Does this vary based on whether I follow your income portfolio vs your growth portfolio?
  13. Your portfolio has done really...
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We’ve all heard of high interest savings accounts that we can open up at our bank. But is that always our one and only best option when it comes to where we keep our short term cash?

What about for things like our emergency fund, or when we are saving for something expensive like a car and we want that money to be available immediately when we need it, and not be subject to the sometimes large day-to-day fluctuations that we see in the stock market?

In this episode, you are going to learn what your options are, here in Canada, when it comes to that short term cash that you want to be readily available, without you having to worry about incurring any massive day-to-day fluctuations that you would typically see in the stock portion of your investment portfolio.

Today’s guest, Matt Montemurro is going to take us through the different options that we have, as Canadians, and he’s going to take us through the pros and cons of each of these options so that you can make your own educated decision on which option is the best one for you, based on your situation and risk tolerance.

Spoiler alert: The best solution isn’t always the traditional high interest savings account at your bank.

Make sure you stick around because there are actually some regulatory changes happening here in Canada, which are going to be impacting high interest savings ETFs.

A lot of Canadians have been investing pretty heavily in these, and now it’s gotten to the point where the regulators have started to take notice, and they are about to implement some pretty significant rule changes that can negatively impact some of your investments, if you purchase or are considering purchasing high interest savings ETFs.

A bit of a background about our guest:

Matt is a specialist when it comes to fixed income. He is currently the team lead for all fixed income portfolios managed by BMO ETFs, which is the largest Canadian ETF provider.

In his role as portfolio manager and trader, Matt and his team are responsible for all segments of the fixed income market, both in Canada and internationally. He has over a decade of experience in this field and holds an HBA and MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario and is a CFA Charter holder (definitely a very difficult designation to get).

I’m thrilled to have him on the show, and I must say, speaking with him during this interview actually made me re-evaluate where I keep my short term cash.

I really wish we were all taught this back in school, as it’s important for us to know what our options are here in Canada, along with the pros and cons of each, instead of just always automatically defaulting to a regular high interest savings account at our bank.

Enjoy the interview, I learned an absolute ton, and I’m sure you will too. Let’s get into it.

Questions Covered:

  1. The high interest savings account is something that most of us have heard of, and this is often the default choice for many of us when we’re saving for something, or using it as an emergency fund or as an account that pays for our day-to-day expenses. However, there are also high interest savings ETFs. What is the difference between those, and a high interest savings account that we would open up at a bank? Can you take us through the pros and cons of these two options and why wouldn’t someone just put their cash in their existing high interest savings account at their current bank?
  2. There seem to be some changes coming up in 2024 when it comes to high interest savings ETFs. Can you take us through what those are, and how it will impact us regular Canadian investors? Follow up questions: Now that we know the significance of this, what should we do or start thinking about regarding these rate changes? Is a consequence of this that we should also expect to see the rates offered at banks for high interest savings accounts to drop?

3. For those of us that do invest in high interest savings ETFs, can we expect a drop in those ETFs coming Jan 2024 because of a potential sell off?

Follow up: If not, how do sell-offs work when it comes to ETFs? For example, when there is a sell-off of a specific stock, we know that the price of the stock will plummet. But does it work differently with ETFs because ETFs consist of many different underlying assets?

4. How is a high interest savings ETF different from a money market ETF? Can you take us through the pros and cons?

5. How does using something like a high interest savings account compare to using something like a money market ETF instead (i.e. what are the pros and cons)? And for anybody not familiar, can you define what it means when an ETF is considered to be a “money market” ETF

6. For something like a money market ETF like ZMMK or a high interest savings ETF, would you expect the capital gain to b...

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How many episodes does Build Wealth Canada Podcast have?

Build Wealth Canada Podcast currently has 128 episodes available.

What topics does Build Wealth Canada Podcast cover?

The podcast is about Retirement, Investing, Podcasts, Fire and Business.

What is the most popular episode on Build Wealth Canada Podcast?

The episode title 'How to Live Off Your Investments in Canada - Kyle Prevost' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on Build Wealth Canada Podcast?

The average episode length on Build Wealth Canada Podcast is 57 minutes.

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Episodes of Build Wealth Canada Podcast are typically released every 28 days, 1 hour.

When was the first episode of Build Wealth Canada Podcast?

The first episode of Build Wealth Canada Podcast was released on Aug 4, 2014.

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