Build Wealth Canada Podcast

RRSP season is upon us (the last day is March 1) and to help you avoid the top RRSP mistakes that Canadians make, I've brought back the financial planner that my family and I use, John Kalos. We had a live webinar where we went over these top mistakes, and it gave everyone a chance to get their questions answered live.  What we cover in this episode: •How to use RRSP season to save you thousands in taxes (it ends March 1st!) •How to make RRSPs work for you to boost your net worth, instead of just making it profitable for the banks (at your expense) •The top tricks that the banks use to get you to invest with them (revealed by an ex-banker). •What you can do right now to maximize your tax return, by properly using your RRSP. Download the webinar recording: You can download and stream the webinar recording by going to the show notes at: Buildwealthcanada.ca/53 Ask John Your Questions: Even though you missed the chance to ask John your questions live during the webinar, you can still chat with him 1-one-1 for free for 30 minutes and get your questions answered by going to buildwealthcanada.ca/john. Get Your Free 1-Year Subscription to Canadian MoneySaver Magazine 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! 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, and thanks for supporting the show! Kornel

Today we have author and Canadian investor, Larry Bates on the show. Larry is the author of the book “Beat the Bank”, where you shows (specifically for Canadians), how you can build a larger retirement nest egg by switching from high-cost mutual funds to more efficient, low-cost investment products. He also explains how you can do it in just a couple of hours per year. He talks about some of the secrets in the investment industry that many Canadians don’t know about, he decodes some of the mystery that is prevalent around investing here in Canada, and he provides a simple, step-by-step guide to investing. Just like me, he believes that you don't need to be an expert to start investing successfully...you just need to know the basics. Larry is a former banker turned investor advocate. He spent 35 years in banking, has since retired from that, and now spends his time increasing financial literacy for Canadians, specifically in the area of investing. Book Giveaway! To kick things off on a good note for 2019, I’ve arranged a book giveaway with Larry where you can enter for free for a chance to win one of 3 signed copies of Larry’s book. This is obviously for a limited time, the giveaway ends at the end of February 2019, so be sure to sign up now for a free chance to win. To enter the giveaway, just go to buildwealthcanada.ca/beatthebank Get Your Free 1-Year Subscription to Canadian MoneySaver Magazine 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! 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. Questions Asked During the Interview: Tell us your story and what your new book is about? What inspired you to write the book? Now that you’re retired, what do you personally hold in your portfolio?  Let’s talk about doing passive index investing through ETFs vs selecting individual stocks. What do you see as the pros and cons of these approaches and what do you personally do? When it comes to evaluating individual stocks, a common concern that investors have is what if the stock they are considering is overvalued, and they end up overpaying for it. What precautions, due diligence and research do you personally do before investing in any particular stock? If you were instead doing a much earlier retirement, like in your 30s or 40s, how would you tweak that strategy? For the bond portion of your portfolio, what kind of bonds do you recommend? Long vs short term? Canadian vs international? What are your thoughts on the criticisms of the S&P TSX (i.e. The Canadian Index). For index investors, should we be adjusting our portfolio for the shortcomings of this index? (i.e. The sector concentration). Adjusting for this inherently adds complexity to our portfolio, so is it worth it? What are your thoughts on using bonds vs GICs vs a combination of the two, particularly for those in traditional retirement and early retirement? What are your thoughts on the 4 percent rule and safe withdraw rate for traditional retirement age retirees vs early retirees? Going back to your book, one of my favourite parts was how you broke down investment portfolio optimization to just 6 core areas to focus on. Can you talk about each of those? Where can we get your book, and how can we learn more about you and see more of your work? 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 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 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? 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? 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? 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? What do you wish someone told you before you started in investing, and before you entered the world of business in general? 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? 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 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? 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? 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) 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: 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. 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.