Posts by Robb Engen
Weekend Reading: Conscious Spending Edition
Like a lot of money nerds, I’ve always loved a detailed budget. There’s comfort in seeing where every dollar goes, especially when life throws its usual mix of irregular income and surprise expenses. Still, I was curious: what would happen if I ditched the details and looked at our finances the way author Ramit Sethi…
Read MoreHow I Invest My Own Money
*Updated for Aug 1, 2025* Regular blog readers know that I’m a big proponent of passive investing with low cost, globally diversified index funds and ETFs. Why? Low fees are the best predictor of future returns. Global diversification reduces the risk within your portfolio. Index funds and ETFs allow investors to hold thousands of securities…
Read MoreLet’s Not Turn Our Kids Into Mini Warren Buffetts (Just Yet)
Lately I’ve been noticing a familiar pattern among parents: they want to get their kids investing early. Like, really early. The dream is to harness the power of compound interest so little Kale or Kyla can coast into early retirement before they’re even out of high school. Look, I get it. Starting early is great.…
Read MoreWhy We Stopped Saving So Much and Started Living
One lesson I’ve learned from my retired clients is that it’s human nature to feel anxious about spending money – especially when the paycheque stops and you’re drawing down your own savings and investments. After decades of watching account balances go up, it’s deeply uncomfortable to watch them go the other way. It just doesn’t…
Read MoreShould You Take a Flyer on a Penny Stock?
Every now and then, I get a note from a reader whose spouse or friend has gotten excited about a stock tip. Usually, it comes with a backstory: someone they know bought a few thousand shares of a penny stock and now claims to be sitting on a massive gain. Naturally, the question that follows…
Read MoreWeekend Reading: Mid-Year Market Update
Exactly three months ago my Weekend Reading update was all about staying the course amidst a big stock market sell-off. I got into it with a bearish reader in the comment section who labelled my advice too naive as Trump set fire to long-standing alliances and global trade. Well, well, well, how the turntables… Zooming…
Read MoreNet Worth Update: 2025 Mid-Year Review
Happy Canada Day! It has been an absolute rollercoaster of a year so far. Canadian and US stocks started the year hot before plunging by 13% and 20% respectively from the end of January to the beginning of April. Now we’re back to all-time highs again as global stocks have soared by 20% since April.…
Read MoreMental Accounting: When Your Money Mind Plays Tricks on You
We like to think we make rational decisions with our money. But time and again, we fall into predictable traps—especially when it comes to how we frame our finances. One of the biggest culprits? Mental accounting. It’s a behavioural bias where we treat money differently depending on its source, use, or location—even though, on paper,…
Read MoreReckless vs. Reliable: Rethinking Risk in Your TFSA
A client of mine recently opened up about feeling behind. He’s 32 years old, has yet to contribute to his TFSA, and only just started getting serious about his finances. The good news? He’s motivated. He wants to start saving $2,000 per month. That’s an incredible habit to build at any age, let alone…
Read MoreWeekend Reading: The Problem With Retirement Spending Rules Edition
Some of my clients are surprised to learn that I don’t follow specific spending rules, like the popular 4% rule, when building out retirement income projections. My problem with spending rules stems from the fact that life doesn’t just move in a straight-line, AND we don’t have one pot of money called “retirement savings”. Indeed,…
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