Financial Planning Simplified
I’m Robb — the guy behind Boomer & Echo. I’ve been a personal finance blogger since 2010 and an advice-only financial planner since 2015. I help regular Canadians with regular problems make smarter decisions about their money — without selling them a thing.
My philosophy is simple: Money shouldn’t be complicated.
You don’t need 17 bank accounts, 12 ETFs, or a side hustle to retire comfortably. You just need a good plan, grounded in what really matters to you.
By reading this website you're joining more than 250,000 people who stop by here every month to get tips on how to save money, invest well, and retire comfortably. And, if you choose to subscribe and receive new posts by email, you'll join a growing list of more than 12,000 email subscribers who are the first to get these tips sent straight to their inbox.
New Articles from Robb
Weekend Reading: Retirement Mistakes To Avoid Edition
Robb Engen | September 14, 2024 |
Retirement is often put on a pedestal – the pinnacle of achievement after a decades-long career. But the transition from full-time work to full-time leisure can be challenging, both financially and psychologically, if you're not prepared to meet them. I've witnessed these challenges firsthand working with hundreds of retirees over the years. Here are four…
Two Types Of Overconfident Investors
Robb Engen | September 8, 2024 |
I started investing in individual stocks shortly after the Great Financial Crisis ended in 2009. I picked an investing strategy that closely resembled the Dogs of the TSX, buying the 10 highest yielding Canadian dividend stocks. As you can imagine, the share prices of these companies got hammered during the stock market crash so I…
Why You Should (or Shouldn’t) Defer OAS To Age 70
Robb Engen | September 3, 2024 |
I’ve long advocated that anyone who expects to live a long life should consider deferring their Canada Pension Plan to age 70. Doing so can increase your CPP payments by nearly 50% – an income stream that is both inflation-protected and payable for life. If taking CPP at 70 is such a good idea, why…
Top ETFs and Model Portfolios for Canadian Investors
Robb Engen | September 2, 2024 |
The investing landscape has certainly evolved for the better over the past two decades. Gone are the days when the only way to invest was to work with an expensive broker or mutual fund salesperson. Self-directed investing platforms, robo-advisors, and all-in-one ETFs have democratized investing – making it cheap and accessible for investors to build…
How To Choose The Right Asset Allocation ETF
Robb Engen | September 1, 2024 |
Nobel laureate Harry Markowitz famously said that diversification is the only free lunch in investing. A portfolio concentrated in just a handful of stocks, or one that holds only Canadian or US stocks, may have a much wider range of outcomes than a more broadly diversified portfolio that includes stocks from every country. Most investors…
Why It Would Be Ludicrous To Invest In These Model Portfolios
Robb Engen | August 29, 2024 |
Arguably no one has done more to educate Canadian do-it-yourself investors than the PWL Capital teams of Dan Bortolotti and Justin Bender, and Benjamin Felix and Cameron Passmore. It began more than a decade ago with Dan's incredibly popular Canadian Couch Potato blog and podcast. Since then, Dan teamed up with PWL's Justin Bender, who…
