This is part 2 of our episode on the only 4 ways to invest, where we discuss the pros and cons of each method, so that you can make an informed decision on the investing type that is best for you.

Ultimately, this decision on which of the 4 ways you pick has an enormous impact on your net worth and how early you can retire, as it can easily save and earn you an extra tens of thousands of dollars long term, and even hundreds of thousands of dollars for many investors through reduced fees, proper financial advice, and tax optimization.

In case you missed part 1, you can listen to it by going to buildwealthcanada.ca/50

Now after the last episode launched, we had a lot of listeners sign up for the free 30 min consultation with our expert financial planning guest John Kalos. One of the links that I had on the site to book the free appointment with John wasn’t working, but that has now been fixed, so if you had any trouble signing up for the free call with John, then definitely try again by going to buildwealthcanada.ca/john.

And if you haven’t booked a call yet, then definitely feel free to do so as there’s no obligation, it’s free, and it’s a great way to get some of your financial planning and investing questions answered by someone that has spent decades in this industry, and isn’t trying to sell you some high fee mutual funds or investment product, just because they get a commission or bonus out of it.

John doesn’t sell any investments, so he’s a great way to get custom advice specific to your situation, from someone that doesn’t have that conflict of interest from also trying to sell you something.

So that link again to book a free 30 min call with John is buildwealthcanada.ca/john, and when you sign up you’ll also get my PDF guide on 'How to Find the Right Financial Advisor in Canada', and the top questions to ask them.

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.

And lastly, don’t forget to claim your free 1-year digital subscription to Canadian MoneySaver Magazine (Canada’s largest personal finance and investing magazine).

The magazine features Canada’s top experts on personal finance and investing, and is a great place to learn best practices, and stay up to date on changes that will impact your investments and financial situation for years to come, specifically here in Canada.

To get that, all you have to do is open up a free savings account with my favourite bank (and the bank that I personally use, EQ bank).

The reason that I personally use EQ bank, is that they have one of the highest interest savings rates in Canada. In fact, over all the years that I’ve been with them, I’ve seen them consistently be almost double the interest rate compared to other online banks, and well over double the interest rate compared to the major brick and mortar banks that we have here in Canada.  

Plus it’s free to sign up and keep an account with them, so you’re not paying a monthly fee as you do with many of the other banks out there. As a bonus you also get 5 free Interac e-transfers every month!

So because of those reasons, I’ve been with them ever since they launched in Canada years ago, and it’s where I keep my entire emergency fund and spending money.

To get the free account and a 1 year free subscription to Canadian MoneySaver magazine, just go to buildwealthcanada.ca/eq, open the free account, and once you’re done, forward any email that you get from EQ to bonus@buildwealthcanada.ca and I’ll send you a coupon code that gets you a free one year subscription to the magazine.

Enjoy, thanks for supporting the show, and now let’s get into the episode.

Today we’re going to cover the 4 ways that you can invest. Now why is this important? Well first, the benefit you gain from knowing this will differ depending on whether you’re an investor just getting started, or someone that’s already been investing for a while.

If you’re a new investor, then it’s critical to know the pros and cons of the options available to you, so that you can make the best decision that’s right for you. In other words, you really want to look at the menu before deciding, as your decision can mean the difference between retiring early, and paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in unnecessary fees over your lifetime.

If you’re a seasoned investor, then it’s still good to know what the options are as maybe the option that you selected when you first started investing is no longer the best option for you. You don’t know what you don’t know, and you definitely want to understand the pros and cons of each option so that you can evaluate which one is a better fit based on the level of service you want, how much time you want to spend keeping your portfolio optimized, and how passive you actually want your investing to be.

My expert guest today is John Kalos who is a fee for service financial planner, which means he isn't one of those advisors that are really just there to sell you investments so they can earn their bonus or commission. He actually doesn't get compensated to sell any investment products so his advice is totally unbiased and he is instead focused exclusively on providing quality financial planning to Canadians.

John has been in this industry for over 25 years, and his lack of bias and general concern for the financial well-being of Canadians has made him one of the few financial planners that I actually trust and go to whenever I want an unbiased 2nd opinion or some analysis done on my investments and financial plan.

If you do have some questions for John or if you'd like to discuss potentially having him take a look at your financial situation, just like he did with my family, then you can sign up for a free consultation with him by going to buildwealthcanada.ca/john. It's totally free, and there's no obligation or anything like that.

Get 1 Year Free to Canadian MoneySaver Magazine:

I also have a special bonus for you where for free, you can receive a 1-year free digital subscription to Canadian MoneySaver Magazine (Canada’s largest personal finance and investing magazine).

The magazine features Canada’s top experts on personal finance and investing, is a great place to learn best practices and stay up to date on changes that will impact your investments and financial situation for years to come, specifically here in Canada.

To get that, all you have to do is open up a free savings account with my favourite bank (and the bank that I personally use, EQ bank).

Now the reason that I personally use EQ bank, is that they have one of the highest interest savings rates in Canada. In fact, in all the years that I’ve been with them, I haven’t been able to find a higher interest rate anywhere.

Plus it’s free to sign up and keep an account with them, so you’re not paying a monthly fee like you do with many of the other banks out there, and you get 5 free Interac e-transfers every month as a bonus.

So because of those reasons, I’ve been with them ever since they launched in Canada years ago, and it’s where I keep my entire emergency fund and spending money.

To get the free account and a 1 year free subscription to Canadian MoneySaver magazine, just go to buildwealthcanada.ca/eq, open the free account, and once you’re done, forward any email that you get from EQ to bonus@buildwealthcanada.ca and I’ll send you a coupon code that gets you a free one year subscription to the magazine.

Enjoy, thanks for supporting the show!

Today I have Gene Simmons on the show, from the rock band KISS.

Now while you probably first heard of Gene from his music, he’s also very involved in a multitude of investments and different business.

With decades of experience under his belt, I thought it would be great to pick his brain on what drives him to keep going after already achieving this high level of success. We also dive into how he selects his investment and business opportunities, how he maintains peak performance, and lessons he would pass on to a younger version of himself.

Links & Resources Covered

Gene’s Site

Invictus MD

Don't miss future episodes, giveaways, and free in-depth guides by signing up for free to the Build Wealth Canada Newsletter

Receive your free 1-year digital subscription to Canadian MoneySaver Magazine.

Question's Covered

1. You've already achieved a lot of success in different industries, and could have easily retired long ago. What motivates you to keep going, and continue to start and expand on your different ventures?
   
   
2. Tells us about your rags-to-riches story, and what were the key things you did, that you feel were instrumental in allowing you to achieve this higher level of success?
3. Do you have any morning routines and specific activities that you do, to ensure that you're always performing at your highest level in business and life?
   
   
4. I'm sure you're constantly bombarded with options for investments, projects and partnerships. How do you screen them initially, and then how do you decide which ones on your shortlist you're actually going to pursue?
   
   
5. What do you wish someone told you before you started in investing, and before you entered the world of business in general?
   
   
6. Speaking of opportunities, one company that you really decided to invest yourself and your personal brand in is Invictus MD. As someone that doesn't drink or do drugs, what made you decide to become so invested in a cannabis company?
   
   
7. There are lots of Cannabis companies out there that you could have partnered with. Why did you choose Invictus MD specifically, and what is the thought process you went through to make that decision?

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 Personal Finance and Productivity Tools here in Canada!

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 https://www.5iresearch.ca/blog/are-preferred-shares-the-worst-of-both-worlds

This is a special episode of the show as we are adding a new series of episodes specifically for investors.

The show will continue to go on just like it has, but in addition to the types of episodes that you're used to, I'm going to publish another new episode every month which will benefit you in two ways:

First, it's going to keep you informed on what is currently going on in the markets with your investments, and the investing world in general.  

We hear a lot of doom and gloom in the media, there's a lot of misinformation, and it's very easy to become worried about your investments when you hear all the negativity and speculation. Without the right information, it's easy to become emotional, and maybe make a rash decision based on some news we hear, only to regret it later.

Therefore in this episode series, the goal is to be the voice of reason and tell you what you need to know, with no biases or conflicts of interest (we're not selling any investments here), so that you can make an informed, rational decision that serves you best.

The 2nd purpose of this new series of episodes, is to answer listener and reader questions from Canadian investors.

I know I get more questions than I can possibly get to from the show, and as you may know I partner with 5i Research and they've literally been asked  thousands of questions over the years and so I thought it would be great for us to answer some of the listener and reader questions that we receive on both our sides.

If you'd like to ask a question, just go to buildwealthcanada.ca and sign up for the email newsletter right on the main page. You'll get a free gift when you do this, you'll be informed when new episodes are released, and when you sign up you'll get an automated email from me so all you have to do is reply to that email with your question and we'll do our best to have it on the show.

Now I do want to set the expectation with this new series, that despite us talking about the markets, and about the topics that are currently on the minds of investors, and answering questions, this isn't going to be a series about timing the markets, or day trading, or completely speculative get-rich-quick investing. Instead, it's meant to keep you educated and informed on what is happening in the markets, so that you can be an educated and informed investor, with a long-term outlook on your investments, while hopefully getting some of your investments questions answered too.

My co-host for this series is Ryan Modesto. He is the CEO of 5i Research which is an investment research company that provides unbiased research on Canadian stocks and ETFs. Ryan holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation (CFA) and is frequently featured on The Globe and Mail, the Financial Post, and you've probably seen him on TV as he's frequently a guest on BNN too, providing his latest research and insights. Ryan and his team have also answered over 75,000 investing questions from Canadians across the country, through their Q&A service, and I'm thrilled to have his expertise on the show.

As a listener of the build wealth show, you can get full access to all of Ryan's and his team's research for free, for an entire month.

You’ll get full access to all the stock and ETF recommendations, all their model portfolios, as well as their database of over 75,000 answered investing questions. I definitely encourage you to check it out as at the very least you’ll learn a ton and it’s all free anyway.

And if for some strange reason that’s not enough, I’ve also arranged for build wealth Canada listeners to get two extra bonuses:

The first, is that when you sign up for the free trial, you’ll also get a 1 year, paid digital subscription to Canadian Moneysaver Magazine, absolutely free.

This is the exact same magazine that you see at Chapters and other stores all over Canada, it's the largest personal finance and investing magazine in Canada, I actually write for it too, and you get the entire subscription, for free, for an entire year, no strings attached, just for signing up for the free 30 day access to 5i.

The 2nd bonus, is that you’ll also get 1 questions credit for free, on the 5i Research site, so you can actually ask 5i’s Research Team your most pressing investment question and they’ll answer it for you, using the knowledge and investment tools that you and I simply don’t have access to.  

Enjoy, it’s all free, you’ll learn an absolute ton, and you can get it all by going to http://www.buildwealthcanada.ca/research.

I also have some exciting news as my favourite bank that I've been using and recommending for years has agreed to sponsor the show, and you can now get one of the highest savings rates in Canada for free, by going tobuildwealthcanada.ca/eq.

So the reasons that I've been recommending EQ Bank to anybody that's asked me is because over the time that I've been with them (which is ever since they first started in 2016 in Canada), they have consistently had one of the highest interest savings rates compared to all the other banks. It’s also totally free to join with no monthly fees, and as an extra perk, EQ Bank will give you 5 free Interac e-transfers every month.

And just to put things in perspective, at the time of this recording, their Savings Plus Account automatically gives you 2.30% interest while the online banks in Canada are offering a maximum of 1.25% and if you're still banking with one of the larger banks, then you're getting less than 1%. In other words, by using the bank that I use, you're going to almost double the interest you get from your chequing and savings accounts, for free, and this is why I've been using and recommending them for years to anybody that's asked, and even before they became a sponsor on the show.

Now even if you love your current bank just for regular day-to-day use, why wouldn't you at least keep your emergency fund and any extra cash that you're not investing in your savings account over at EQ? That way you're at least earning over double the interest on your chequing and savings accounts compared to your current bank. And that's actually what I did when I first started with them years ago, and since then, I've actually transitioned to them now being our primary bank.

So, I definitely recommend that you sign up and take advantage of this for free by going to buildwealthcanada.ca/eq. You'll get one of the highest interest rates in Canada, and have my sincere gratitude for helping support the show, at no cost to you. So that link again is buildwealthcanada.ca/eq.

And just as an aside, they've also recently launched their own GICs where you can actually get up to 3.52% interest, which at the time of this recording is also one of highest rates available in Canada for GICs. So if you're willing to lock-in your money for a bit, you can actually get that even higher rate of up to 3.52%. And to learn more about that, go to buildwealthcanada.ca/gic. 

Today’s guest is Alex Grodnik from Wall Street Oasis which easily one of the largest and best sites out there, for anybody looking to have a career on Bay Street or Wall Street.

Alex also hosts their podcast which is called “Moving Up”, but what’s also really interesting about him is he actually quit his really well-paying job on Wall Street to start his own business, so I thought this would also be a great episode for anybody who's maybe a little dissatisfied with their job, and is considering a career transition.

We talk about why he decided to quit, his top advice for somebody looking to earn some money on the side through their own business, how he’s learned to handle rejection really well and use that to propel his career, and much more.

It was an absolute blast to talk to Alex, the interview went great, and I’m sure you’ll like it.

In other news, I wanted to tell you about something that’s actually pretty time sensitive, and that is that I’ve been asked to speak again, at the Canadian Financial Summit and I have free tickets for you!

This is a fully online personal finance and investing conference, so you don’t have to travel anywhere or buy anything. You can just watch the speakers in your pyjamas if you want and stream the talks right from your computer, tablet or phone.

This is the biggest conference of its kind in Canada, and has just about every big hitter in the Canadian personal finance space speaking at it. For example, there will be Rob Carrick from the Globe and Mail, Preet Banerjee from CBC’s The National, Ellen Roseman from the Toronto Star, Robb Engen from Boomer and Echo, and many more.

It’s a real honour to be included again in this group of top experts, and for a limited time I have free tickets for you! To get your free tickets, go to buildwealthcanada.ca/tickets, and there you will find the link to the free tickets.

Now what they’re going to be doing soon, is transitioning to regular paid tickets so if you’re even a little bit interested in attending any of the talks, then go to buildwealthcanada.ca/tickets right now, and secure your tickets. I have absolutely no control over how long they’ll be letting me give you free access to the tickets so jump on your phone or computer right now to do it so you don’t miss out. All they need is your name and email to send you the tickets so it’ll literally take you maybe 20 seconds to do.

My talk will be on the three pillars that my wife and I used to become financially independent at 32, so I’ll be sharing lots of tips and strategies that have worked well for us in the areas of reducing our spending, increasing our income, and how we optimized our investments to pay the lowest fees and tax which let us reach that financial independence number a lot faster.

I hope you will join me, and that link again to get your free tickets for a very limited time is buildwealthcanada.ca/tickets.

See you there!

Kornel

Today, we’re going to tackle the debate of whether you should focus on growth vs dividends when it comes to your investing. Dividends are of course very popular. Everybody likes having that passive cashflow show up in their accounts, but are we limiting our net worth if we focus too much on dividends, as opposed to choosing a more balanced and growth-oriented portfolio?

In this episode, we’ll also talk about how to best withdraw money from your investment portfolio, and how to decide if you should be withdrawing from your equities, your bonds, or your cash cushion instead.

We also talk about changing interest rates, and the impact that you can expect them to have on your portfolio, as well as some tips on what to choose for the bond portion of your portfolio.

For this episode, I'm excited to have Ed Rempel back on the show, who is one of the top financial planners that I go to whenever I have questions or need a second opinion about my investments, financial planning or on how to minimize my taxes. He's been a Certified Financial Planner (CFP®) Professional for over 22 years, and he’s been a professional accountant for over 33 years with a CPA and CMA designation.

Personally, I found that when I ask him questions, his decades of experience as BOTH a financial planner AND a professional accountant really helps me feel secure that he has all the bases covered, as he has a holistic view from both of those worlds due to all that experience. He’s also written nearly 1,000 financial plans for Canadians over that time so he's truly as experienced as it gets in this field, and he has extensive knowledge on some of the higher-level investment strategies out there.

We hadn't had an entrepreneurship/small business episode for a while so I thought it would be great to have the CEO of CanSpace on the show to share some best practices on running your own site, and top mistakes to avoid.

This episode is for you if you already have, or are considering having your own online business, a blog, or even as a place to showcase your portfolio to recruiters and companies that you may want to work for.

Now I definitely consider having your own business on-the-side as one of the core pillars of personal finance. When we were first getting started, I used a small online business as a tool to help us get financially independent and pay off our mortgage quicker, because we could use the profits from that business to help pay for our vacations and discretionary spending. This way, my income from the day job could go towards investing or paying down the mortgage.

Because of how much having a side business has helped us financially, this is definitely a subject near and dear to my heart. With this episode, my hope is that it'll help you prevent some of the mistakes that I made when first getting started.

Today we’re going to talk all about dividend investing for Canadians, including shedding some light on using dividend investing as part of your investing strategy. We’ll take a look what to look for, and of course the different types of dividend investing available to Canadians.

Now if you’re a long time listener of the show, then you know that there are quite a few investing strategies out there. Dividend investing is definitely one of the really popular ones, especially among those that like the idea of their investments spinning of passive cashflow on an ongoing basis, as opposed to you having to sell-off some of your ETFs or stocks to generate the cashflow you want.

And so today's guest is Nick McCullum from the site Sure Dividend. They specialize in dividend investing whether it’s through ETFs or individual stocks so I thought it would be great to have him on the show, so we can learn and to help us make an informed decision on whether having a dividend focus within our portfolios is something that may be a good fit for you.

Nick and his team do a ton of research on dividend investing, and specific dividend investing stocks and ETFs so if this is something of interest to you, and something that you’d like to learn more about, then you can check out the resources page that Nick actually created specifically for Build Wealth Canada listeners where you can actually do a free trial to see their research and advice, and really see if this type of investing is the right fit for you. To learn more and get a free trial to any of their newsletters, you can go to the custom page that they created for us, over at suredividend.com/kornel.

Today I’m excited to have Edward Kholodenko on the show who is the CEO of Questrade.

If you’re a long time listener of the show then you know that I actually use Questrade to buy all my investments. So, when Questrade reached out to me about interviewing their CEO I thought it would be a great opportunity to ask him the questions that I have, and that I know a lot of the listeners have about their brokerage.

I currently save at least $480 per year in fees by using Questrade so needless to say I’m a big fan, especially since they let me purchase ETFs for free. At the time of this writing, they are the only brokerage in Canada that I know of that offers this.

It’s worth mentioning that this episode is not sponsored by Questrade, or anything like that. I’m simply a big fan of what they offer, have been using them for years, and thought this would be a great opportunity to ask their CEO some top questions that you should know the answers to, when choosing a brokerage for your investments.

Links & Resources From the Episode

• Open a free account to receive a $25-$250 bonus here. This is part of the refer-a-friend bonus which you can learn more about here.
• Learn more about the Build Wealth Canada Investing Course Here
• Get the latest unbiased investment research by signing up for a free 30-day trial of 5i Research. You’ll also receive a free 1-year digital subscription to Canadian MoneySaver Magazine (Canada’s largest personal finance magazine).

Question’s Covered

1. One of the reasons that I chose to use Questrade for all my retirement accounts is because you let your customers buy ETFs for free (or almost for free if we include ECN fees). Is the ability to buy ETFs for free through Questrade something that you see your company offering long term, or is this more of a short to mid-term offer that’s temporarily being used to attract new customers?

2. I imagine you get your fair share of potential customers that are reluctant to keep their investments at an online discount brokerage like Questrade, vs at one of the largest brick and mortar Canadian banks. Can you speak a bit about the security that Questrade uses compared to some of these largest banks?

3. What if there was a scenario where Questrade got hacked, or if somebody’s account got hacked because their password was compromised (through no fault of Questrade). What kind of protection or insurance is provided in those scenarios? Would the $10 million in private insurance cover the customer in these cases?

4. Can you give us an overview of the state of the online brokerage space in Canada? In particular, what trends and developments are currently happening, where do you see things are heading in terms of technology and innovation, and what can consumers expect in the coming years? Are there certain things that Questrade is really prioritizing for the coming years as one of Canada’s largest discount brokers?

5. Can you talk about the lack of financial transparency when it comes to fees that Canadians are paying on their investments? There have been rules that have come out (CRM2) to help with this but is there more that Canadians should know?

6. As far as I know, Questrade doesn’t provide some of the more ultra safe investment options such as GICs. For those that want that high level of safety (despite the lower returns), what options do you suggest for them?

7. You probably hear a lot of myths from potential customers about online investing. Can you share some of the most common and critical misconceptions that Canadian have?

8. Please tell us a bit more about where we can learn from you, and learn more about Questrade.

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 Personal Finance and Productivity Tools.

This is part 2 of the series on how to execute an early retirement, with financial planning veteran John Kalos.

In this episode, we use our financial plan as a case study so that you and other Canadians can get some insights on how to execute an early retirement.

The goal is to give you a better understanding of what a financial plan should include, what it can do for you, and give you some insider tips from a real ex-banker on what to look out for when you encounter a financial planner or advisor trying to sell you a service like that.

If you do have some questions for John (the financial planner we used), or if you'd like to discuss potentially having him take a look at your financial situation too just like he did with my family, then you can sign up for a free consultation with him by going to buildwealthcanada.ca/john. It's totally free, and there's no obligation or anything like that.

Links and Resources Covered

• Receive a free consultation with John and have your questions answered at www.buildwealthcanada.ca/john.
• Kornel's investing course with free sample lessons at www.BuildWealthCanada.ca/invest
• 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. 

Questions Asked During the Interview:

1. You and I went through the entire financial planning process together, with you as our financial planner. After you created the financial plan for us, one of the insights that came out of it, which goes against what we hear in the media a lot is that if you were to retire or semi-retire right now, you don't necessarily always need a 1 million dollar or more investment portfolio to pull it off.For example, our portfolio wasn't at $1 million and all the numbers supported that we still have enough for a full retirement right now. Why do you think we often hear in the media how you need that $1 million dollar portfolio, and why is this not necessarily always the case?
2. To give everyone listening some actionable things that they can do when searching for a financial planner that's right for them, what are the red flags to look out for when meeting with a financial planner/advisor?
3. I really like the process that you and I went through when you did our financial plan, and I think it's a really good example of what the process should be like. So now that we've talked about the negative things to look out for and what we don't want, can you give us a brief overview of your process?. I know this is something you've been optimizing for 20+ years so can you also highlight the critical pieces in the process that everyone should have when working with a financial planner?
4. When you did my plan there were several critical components that you made sure you factored in that could really make a huge impact on whether someone can retire early or not. For anybody looking to do an early retirement, what were these key components that can really shorten the number of years that you need to work?
   
   Also, let's break this question down into 2 parts. First, let's talk about the controllable factors (ex. Spending, part time work, etc.) which we can all focus on that have the biggest impact on how early we can retire.And then after that, let's talk about the factors that we can't directly control, but that absolutely need to be factored into the financial plan, no matter who your financial planner or advisor is, because they have such an enormous impact on our ability to retire early (ex. Inflation, CPP and OAS).

5. What I really liked in particular was the summary page that you produced where it talked about things like what's the most we can spend annually and still have enough to stay retired? And how much we actually need to retire? Using our actual numbers and financial plan as a real life example, can you speak to what the results for us were in the context of, what are the answers that we should have from our financial planner when getting a financial plan like this done>

Early retirement execution questions:

1. Now that we have all the numbers we need from doing a financial plan, let's switch gears and talk about how to actually execute an early retirement or semi-retirement once you know you have enough in your investments.To start, how should our portfolio change when we move from an accumulation phase (where we're working full-time, saving and investing), to the decumulation phase where we're not working at all or only working part-time.
2. When in retirement, should Canadians tweak their portfolio to generate more yield and try to live off that? or do you suggest just selling-off a percentage of the portfolio every year during good years and keeping a cash cushion during that bad years so that we're not selling our investments when the markets are down?
3. For the fixed income portion of our portfolio how do you decide between using bonds vs doing a GIC ladder?
4. What size of a cash cushion do you suggest for people in retirement or semi-retirement?
5. How should early retirees deal with moving money out of the RRSP early?
   (Explain what the basic personal amount is here too please)
6. What type of investments should you keep in each of your accounts to help minimize your taxes?

In this episode, we use our financial plan as a case study so that you and other Canadians can get some insights on how to execute an early retirement.

The goal is to give you a better understanding of what a financial plan should include, what it can do for you, and give you some insider tips from a real ex-banker on what to look out for when you encounter a financial planner or advisor trying to sell you a service like that.

If you do have some questions for John (the financial planner we used), or if you'd like to discuss potentially having him take a look at your financial situation too just like he did with my family, then you can sign up for a free consultation with him by going to buildwealthcanada.ca/john. It's totally free, and there's no obligation or anything like that.

Links and Resources Covered

• Receive a free consultation with John and have your questions answered here.
• Kornel's investing course: Free Sample Lessons
• Top Tools and Resources for Financial Independence (for Canadians): Sign up anywhere on that page for 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. 

Questions Asked During the Interview:

1. You and I went through the entire financial planning process together, with you as our financial planner. After you created the financial plan for us, one of the insights that came out of it, which goes against what we hear in the media a lot is that if you were to retire or semi-retire right now, you don't necessarily always need a 1 million dollar or more investment portfolio to pull it off.For example, our portfolio wasn't at $1 million and all the numbers supported that we still have enough for a full retirement right now. Why do you think we often hear in the media how you need that $1 million dollar portfolio, and why is this not necessarily always the case?
2. To give everyone listening some actionable things that they can do when searching for a financial planner that's right for them, what are the red flags to look out for when meeting with a financial planner/advisor?
3. I really like the process that you and I went through when you did our financial plan, and I think it's a really good example of what the process should be like. So now that we've talked about the negative things to look out for and what we don't want, can you give us a brief overview of your process?. I know this is something you've been optimizing for 20+ years so can you also highlight the critical pieces in the process that everyone should have when working with a financial planner?
4. When you did my plan there were several critical components that you made sure you factored in that could really make a huge impact on whether someone can retire early or not. For anybody looking to do an early retirement, what were these key components that can really shorten the number of years that you need to work?
   
   Also, let's break this question down into 2 parts. First, let's talk about the controllable factors (ex. Spending, part time work, etc.) which we can all focus on that have the biggest impact on how early we can retire.And then after that, let's talk about the factors that we can't directly control, but that absolutely need to be factored into the financial plan, no matter who your financial planner or advisor is, because they have such an enormous impact on our ability to retire early (ex. Inflation, CPP and OAS).

5. What I really liked in particular was the summary page that you produced where it talked about things like what's the most we can spend annually and still have enough to stay retired? And how much we actually need to retire? Using our actual numbers and financial plan as a real life example, can you speak to what the results for us were in the context of, what are the answers that we should have from our financial planner when getting a financial plan like this done>

Early retirement execution questions:

1. Now that we have all the numbers we need from doing a financial plan, let's switch gears and talk about how to actually execute an early retirement or semi-retirement once you know you have enough in your investments.To start, how should our portfolio change when we move from an accumulation phase (where we're working full-time, saving and investing), to the decumulation phase where we're not working at all or only working part-time.
2. When in retirement, should Canadians tweak their portfolio to generate more yield and try to live off that? or do you suggest just selling-off a percentage of the portfolio every year during good years and keeping a cash cushion during that bad years so that we're not selling our investments when the markets are down?
3. For the fixed income portion of our portfolio how do you decide between using bonds vs doing a GIC ladder?
4. What size of a cash cushion do you suggest for people in retirement or semi-retirement?
5. How should early retirees deal with moving money out of the RRSP early?
   (Explain what the basic personal amount is here too please)
6. What type of investments should you keep in each of your accounts to help minimize your taxes?

Today’s guest has written over 1,000 financial plans for Canadians and is truly as experienced as it gets in this field. He has extensive knowledge on some of the higher impact investment strategies that can really help accelerate our returns such as the Smith Manoeuvre and how to use an RESP properly. We also cover how to structure your investment portfolio and what investments to buy.

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 Covered:

1. To start things off, tell us a bit about yourself and how you got into financial planning.

2. One of the strategies that I wish I knew about back when I was younger was how to make your mortgage tax deductible. Our friends in the US are able to easily deduct their mortgage interest against their taxes, whereas this is generally not allowed in Canada. However, you suggest a strategy called the Smith Manoeuvre for Canadians which when properly structured and deployed, lets Canadians deduct their mortgage interest as well.

Now you’ve set this up for many Canadians within you financial planning practice. Can you start off by taking us through what the Smith Manoeuvre actually is, how it makes all this possible, and how much money can actually be saved by doing this. In other words, is this actually worth our time to look into?

2.1. I get the impression that Canadians use this with their primary residence a lot, but what if somebody has their mortgage paid off or has a rental property. Is it highly beneficial to use this strategy then too? (ex. taking out equity from the home using a HELOC and using it for leveraged investing?)

3. I’ve researched the Smith Manoeuvre a fair bit and a common theme seems to be that you have to be very careful with how it’s set up so that the Canada Revenue Agency doesn’t flag you and treat this as tax evasion where you end up paying all sorts of fees. Can you talk about what to be careful of, and what the common mistakes are when Canadians try to set this up?

4. A lot of Canadians hear about the free money you can get from the government if you put money in an RESP. I remember when we had our daughter I got numerous calls from companies that were trying the “help” us with setting up an RESP.

To kick things off, can you explain what an RESP is, and is this something that we need a company to set up for us?

When you work with clients, at what point do you advise them to start moving the investments to something less volatile like bonds once their child starts approaching the age when they start their post-secondary education?

Do you start with a diversified, all stock portfolio, and then use a formula to know how much to move into bonds every year?

5. Let’s say you had to retire tomorrow with a $1,000,000 portfolio. You have no debt, a paid off house, but no work pension. How would you structure your portfolio and what investments would you buy so that it would last you indefinitely?

Would you change your investments and portfolio structure at all once you hit 65 (assuming that’s when you choose to start receiving CPP and OAS from the government).

6. Traditionally, the general accepted rule has been that the older you get, the more you should put towards bonds to keep your portfolio less volatile. You wrote a very interesting article talking about how loading up too much on bonds isn’t actually the sustainable thing to do. Can you talk about your findings and research.

7. Tell us more about where we can learn more from you?

8. What are some of the most common questions and problems that you tackle for your clients?