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Another year of retirement over, and what a year it’s been!
2025 started off with US president Donald Trump’s return to power, and by April he had started a full-blown trade war with every trading partner and was threatening to annex Canada. Since then, we’ve seen the evolution of the Ukraine conflict into a grinding war of attrition powered by drones, and now the start of a whole new conflict in Venezuela. It’s been a dizzying flurry of news, all of which sounds big and scary.
So how has this all affected our investments?
To recap, here’s our portfolio.
Our main portfolio’s investments are evenly split between 4 asset classes: Canadian Preferred Shares, Canadian Equities, US Equities, and International Equities.
We also own a small amount of gold, but because that’s a temporary holding I decided to split that off into its own account and manage that separately.
So now let’s go through each component one by one and see how they did last year.
Preferred Shares
At the beginning of 2023, I moved our fixed income from a bond index to the BMO Preferred Share Ladder Index (ZPR). Admittedly, doing this was an act of active investing, so I was taking a bit of a gamble, but I was reasonably confident at the time that because interest rates from 5 years ago having dropped to zero during the pandemic, preferred shares would reset at higher rates.
So was I right about that this year?
Apparently, yes!
Today’s 5-year Government of Canada bond yield is paying about 3.5%, but back in 2020, that number was sitting at less than 1%. That means all the preferred shares renewing their dividend rates this year were forced to reset at higher rates. That meant dividends shot up.
As you can see, dividends started the year paying 4.5 cents per share. That increased to 5 cents per share in June, and then again to 5.6 cents in September. For those keeping track at home, that means their dividend yield went up nearly 25%.
And guess who loves dividend increases? The market does! This is reflected by the fund’s price rising. For 2025, this is what ZPR looked like.
ZPR went up 13.4%! That’s very unusual for fixed income to move this much, and that move looks even more pronounced when compared to a plain vanilla bond index like ZAG, which went slightly negative this year (shown in light blue).
Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.
Dividend increases are truly the gift that keeps on giving, since they reward you in the form of increased income AND capital gains.
That being said, ZPR isn’t a forever holding, since there will eventually come a time in which the interest rate outlook reverses and this fund will see dividends level off or even decline, but we’re not in that situation yet. In fact, these same market forces that pushed this fund’s dividends up should persist over the next year, so I’m planning on hanging onto to this position for at least that long. When the time comes to divest this holding, I will announce it on this blog.
USA
Now over to the equity side.
To be honest, when Trump returned to power at the beginning of the year, and especially when he started this trade war with everyone in April, I was convinced we were heading into a recession. However, last time Trump got elected in 2016, I was also convinced we were heading into a recession, and I was wrong that time as well. So rather than running into cash, we stayed the course, and here’s how VTI did.
Up 15.3%!
An impressive amount, especially considering the imposition of Great-Depression-level tariffs in April. This rise was mostly driven off the back of AI, which presents its own set of worries as a) the technology is unproved and could be in a massive bubble and b) a large percentage of the S&P 500 is now in tech companies, which creates a sector risk similar to the dot-com bubble of 2000.
And while there are still plenty of storm clouds ahead on the US market, including the still-coming inflationary effects of tariffs, the AI bubble possibly bursting, and now the geopolitical ramifications of American military action in Latin America, we have no idea when or how these factors will play out, so the best thing we can do is stay the course and remain diversified.
And speaking of diversification…
Europe, Australia, Far East (EAFE)
Me: Yo Europe. You up?
Europe: Oui oui!
How much you ask?
27.2% is how much!
I’ve been investing for almost 15 years now, and typically the US stock market leads the way, either in gains or losses, while EAFE lags behind providing a buffering force.
Not this year.
After decades of people asking “Why should we be investing internationally?” this is the year that finally answered that question.
EAFE crushed the US stock market. Plus, it paid a higher dividend of about 3% on top of that.
Why?
Lots of reasons. The Ukraine war didn’t have as much of an impact on the European economy’s earnings as investors originally thought it would for one. A massive increase in defense spending prompted by the US threat to withdraw from NATO pushing up defense earnings is another.
But mostly, EAFE benefitted from the simple fact that it was the only other major developed index to invest in that wasn’t the US. In fact, traders coined an acronym for this strategy called ABUSA, or “Anywhere But the USA.”
Fears of the whipsawing trade war kept a lot of money from being invested in the US, and that money found its home in the EAFE index.
Their much lower PE ratios also made them look like much better deals, and when’s the last time you heard a European government in the news this year, versus the near-constant stream of provocations coming from the White House?
Exactly.
In investing, boring is good, because certainty is profitable.
Canada
Now let’s turn our attention over to our home country of Canada. We were among the first targets of Trump’s trade war as he ripped up the trade deal he negotiated from his first term, falsely accused us of sending fentanyl across the border, and threatened to annex us and turn us into the 51st state.
So how has the Great White North weathered this absolute battering?
Holy shit.
The TSX returned 29% this year, making it the highest performing asset in our portfolio, beating both the US and EAFE!
I have to admit, I was not expecting this at all. Like many market watchers, I assumed that our largest trading partner throwing up tariffs and threatening to invade us would be, you know, bad.
Add to that an historically unpopular prime minister and a surging far-right movement in Canada that was receptive to joining the US left plenty to be pessimistic about. But then, something strange happened.
Canadians united.
It was quite amazing to watch. Soon after the threats started, Canadians everywhere started boycotting US products, switching to Canadian (or at least, non-US) alternatives. We stopped travelling to the US and instead travelled to Europe, Asia, or within Canada for vacations. And we even rejected far-right extremism, as well as leftie idealism. Instead, we elected a centrist spreadsheet nerd, Mark Carney.
The results have been quite dramatic. Canada managed to avoid a recession, with our GDP turning positive in Q3 after a weak Q2. We ended the year with a trade surplus of $150 million due to increased trade with Europe and Asia. And our stock market has returned a stunning 29% (the second-best performance of any year, ever!) on the back of surging oil, financials, and gold.
Oh and speaking of gold…
Gold
Earlier this year, I made another active trade and decided to put some money into gold, in the form of the SPDR Gold Trust GLD. My rationale, as I wrote about in this post in October, was that the Trump administration’s policies would spike inflation and drive down interest rates in 2026, which would devalue the USD and cause gold prices to rise.
Here is how that bet went.
8.5% up since I made my initial investment on October 10.
Now, I’m not the only person who figured gold would be a good bet in 2025. Gold had a fantastic year, romping ahead 65% in 2025 (I only caught a piece of that near the end). What I wasn’t expecting, however, was how heavily central banks around the world would also start stockpiling gold.
Governments around the world, most notably China, India, Poland, and Turkey have been buying gold by the literal tonne for the same reason I outlined above: They’re worried about the USD devaluing and they don’t trust the greenback anymore.
And while the greenback still remains the world’s reserve currency for now, it seems that world banks are preparing for the day that’s no longer true, and that continued diversification away from the USD will likely keep prices elevated.
Dividends
And finally, let’s see how our dividends did ths year.
$80,765. This is a significant increase from the $70k we got last year, and is mostly driven by the dividend increases from ZPR.
This is also significantly above what FIRECracker reported we actually spent last year, which was $58k. So not only do we continue to be Dividend-FIRE, we aren’t even spending all the dividends we’re currently earning!
This may be an unpopular thing to say for a FIRE blogger, but I think it might be time for us to spend more money going forward…
Total
Now let’s put it all together. Here’s how my total portfolio performed in 2025.
Start (Jan 1, 2025) | Living Expenses Withdrawal | End (Jan 1, 2026) | |
|---|---|---|---|
Portfolio A | $1,689,904.00 | $45,676.00 | $2,052,985.00 |
Portfolio B | $712,437.00 | $24,324.00 | $847,421.00 |
Total | $2,402,341.00 | $70,000.00 | $2,900,406.00 (+24.3%) |
I know, I was just as surprised as you when I put this post together. Our investments, including dividends, are up a stunning total of 24.3% in 2025.
Portfolio A, which is million dollars we originally retired on, has now doubled to two. And Portfolio B, which is where we invested the money we earned after retirement, is now within striking difference of being a million on its own.
Even crazier is what this means in dollar terms. Because our starting portfolio was so large, this means our net worth went up $568k in a single year. This makes 2025 the year that our net worth went up the most ever, hands down.
This also marks the third straight year of double digit gains for our portfolio. In fact, since the beginning of the decade, this is what our investments looked liked according to our Passiv dashboard.
If you were a historian looking at these numbers 100 years in the future without any context, you might conclude that with the exception of 2022, everything must have gone great! But we know that’s not true. Heck, 2025 was the best performing year this decade, yet the news has never been more stressful.
Going into 2026, I’m not planning on making any changes to our target allocations, other than rebalancing. The forces that guided my decisions in 2025 persist in 2026, and if anything changes to that outlook that might affect my allocations, I will announce it on this blog before I do it.
So that’s how our 2025 went. Here’s to a prosperous year for all, and keep on investing!
How about you? How did your investments do in 2025? Let’s hear it in the comments below.
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Ditched my advisor (thanks in part your book), + best year of returns of my life = Retiring this year!
Woohoo! Great job Ivan! Welcome to the cult!
I held onto my ZAG allocation — and I hate it. I really hate ZAG.
That said, if the markets had pulled a 2008 on us, I’d probably love it.
ZAG is the only investment I’ve ever lost money on. With the price still down about 18% from where I bought it, my plan is to just keep it and let it run down as my fixed-income needs shrink to near zero over the next five years.
I got burned with my bonds a couple years ago and ended up cashing out. Bought fixed income GICs which were higher at the time. Since then, I’m not earning much but have Cash HISA and money market funds which basically cover inflation. This is my “safety fund” if the market crashes as I’m retired so I can live with lower returns until the market bounces back.
I was learning the DIY way and followed “The Simple Path” by JL as well as this blog and didn’t see the bond drop coming. No mention of it on this blog or anywhere for passive investors. It was a real gut punch. I honestly don’t trust we’ll give you the “update” here in time if you are following their approach.
Didn’t I mention it? I think I literally wrote an article about ditching bonds back in 2021….
Edit: Here it is: https://www.millennial-revolution.com/invest/is-it-time-to-ditch-bonds/
I think they did gave the update when they are moving the Bonds to Preferred share but i missed that post for some reason and the boat sailed by the time i realized the negative territory of my VAB (20% of the portfolio which is 200k).
Since then, i stopped the initial 5 Fund approach with 80:20 to all in equity XEQT.
Bonds are the first funds will sold when i retire which is in year. I too have almost 1.6k portfolio and 3 years cash cushion in HISA and some rental income to weather out if there is any crash like 40 to 50%.
Just waiting to pull the trigger (bit anxious and nervous)
With your fixed income buffer, you should sleep well. Consider always maintaining the buffer while it’s needed, drawing from your equity while the going is good. I have a five-year fixed income buffer that reduces as I get closer to various pensions coming online. My spreadsheet shows that my buffer need is reducing at a rate of $87 a day. In just under six years it’ll be zero as pensions and dividends will cover my income needs forever.
Good luck!
I mean, it’s not ZAG’s fault, all bond indexes acted the same way during that rapid rise in interest rates from a few years ago. But I get your point, I started looking into other places where I could find a decent yield and that’s how I landed on preferreds.
I’d highly recommend correcting the introduction of your post for inclusivity purposes and respect to your audience.
1. If you are going to call it a war, mention Gaza and Palestine.
2. It isn’t a war – this is recognized as a genocide globally, call it what it is
3. It hasn’t ended. Israel is still bombing Gaza, south Lebanon and restricting aid into Gaza. A simple google search will reveal how Israel is still demolishing Gaza. Palestinians in Gaza are living in terrible conditions. Please do some research
While I understand this is a finance blog, if you are going to bring up sensitive world events, please be careful with the language you’re using and do your research.
Thank you for this cogent, accurate comment.
Spare is your palestininist BS and share it with your leftist friends instead. Not the right forum for your delusions
Hi RD, I completely agree with you.
@Firecrackers I love your financial analysis and your generosity sharing your portfolio strategies, and it is important that your clarity applies as well to world events, if not for moral or political reasons, at least because these will affect the markets.
The genocide of Palestinians is still ongoing, because Israel is on a landgrab craze in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel is also bombing and attacking other countries in the region (Lebanon, Syria, Iran even though it’s quite far away) and destabilizing the area with the same intent. Maybe if they manage to change their leadership they will stop, but that is not the case right now at all and it does affect how money moves in that area.B
Good points. International media is also restricted from entering Gaza, but the footage that does manage to get leaked out is absolutely horrific. We’re talking IDF sniping kids in the head, civilians burned alive, paramedics gunned down…
IS THIS THE FORUM FOR GAZA LEFTIST DELUSIONS and other liberal fantasies?
I’m unsubscribing . I’m sick of this BS
World to God: yes, please unsubscribe
I feel like I’m missing some math from portfolio A cause that doesn’t add up to $2M? Where’s the other +$200k come from??
Sorry replied to wrong thread
Actually I am wondering about the same thing. It’s obvious that some significant cash amount was contributed to the portfolio. So what is the actual investment return?
Spare is your palestininist BS and share it with your leftist friends instead. Not the right forum for your delusions
That was my reaction too – the “war” isn’t over and it is a one-sided genocide. Totally rubbed me the wrong way. Get your facts straight!
I’m just going to remove that reference. It’s not materially important to this article anyway, and it just gets people riled up.
Thank you for removing that reference, and happy to provide tips on ways to discuss the middle east respectfully and in a way that’s relevant to a FIRE / finance audience, ensuring only facts are being presented.
Unfortunately, my very neutral, factual comment got a few negative responses that do not make this a safe space for Palestinians, Arabs, or those who care about the human rights of all people. I’ll have to monitor comments closely moving forward as I simply cannot be part of any community that tolerates discrimination.
As I am sure you must be aware, the Israel-Palestine conflict is highly controversial, and is perhaps the most intractable conflict in the world today. Your post was not neutral, the “facts” you provided were actually your opinions, and it is completely inappropriate to bring up this issue in this blog.
If you can’t get off your high horse and restrict your comments to FIRE and personal finance topics, IMO you should not be part of this community.
✨ don’t let the door hit you on your way out ~ good luck in your inclusive, safe space with 106 genders 🤣
Since when did Arabs started caring about human rights of all people.
Wooo that’s why we shouldn’t feel bad about Palestinians children blown by pieces. Nice. Very progressive of you.
Bye!
i’m sad Wanderer felt the need to modify their article based on some retarded comments. you see this is the problem with bending to these people. the moment you give them an inch, suddenly they think can go on any blog and bitch about why you didn’t say this or that, and didn’t include this or that group. these people are cancer and should simply be ignored and quietly banned. honestly, fuck these people.
Bitch please 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Thank you RD. My thoughts exactly. I really like the general content of this blog but I’m a little put off by the flippant references to world events that are truly devastating to those experiencing them. The genocide in Gaza is absolutely not over.
You wrote, “This may be an unpopular thing to say for a FIRE blogger, but I think it might be time for us to spend more money going forward…”
Your statement actually captures what is wrong with at least part of the FIRE movement, which is the adherence to traditional personal finance philosophies, such as you typically find in the older Bogleheads community who are now fixated on things like 30-year TIPS ladders.
That philosophy is to (1) oversave; (2) underspend — ALWAYS AND AS A PRIORITY; and (3) accumulate until death as the #1 default financial priority. This is, in fact, what almost all your older mentor types actually do in their own financial lives. You know who they are.
There is no reason this kind of hoarding philosophy needs to be part of the FIRE movement, and in fact, it is really anathema to living one’s best life.
So to the extent you have not already broken from it, it’s probably time, as the years are going to start speeding up as your child grows.
All this requires is a little courage and a willingness to grow and change with your times.
I am definitely noticing this as well. I think it’s because being efficient with our money is such an ingrained part of our identity.
I keep telling FIRECracker “OK, this is the budget for the month.” But then she keeps coming in way under because she just legitimately enjoys finding deals.
The key idea to employ here is called “Satisficing”, which means taking the first acceptable option and not wasting a lot of time optimizing essentially trivial decisions. And the more money you have accumulated, the more trivial many of those decisions become.
Satisficing is actually one of the keys to living a better and happier life, and is particularly good for your close personal relationships, as it makes you feel to other people like a more relaxed, warm and generous person than you otherwise might be. So it tends to maximize positive personal relationships and avoid one of the main Five Regrets of They Dying.
Here is the background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing
If you are looking for a rule of thumb for what is a trivial expense for you, use Nick Magguilli’s 1/10000th rule. Any random expense in one day that is less than 1/10000th of your net worth should be considered a trivial expense and should be either ignored as an issue or satisficed away. For a $3M net worth, that would be $300. That’s the trivial number for you today. Try it out and see how you like it.
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Makes total sense. Not sure this is a problem that needs solving unless it’s actively impinging on your life enjoyment, which doesn’t seem to be the case. Now, if you were doing something along the lines of what one of my older relatives is doing, which is refusing to go get a hearing test and hearing aids due in large part to not wanting to spend the money, despite being able to quite easily afford it, that would be different!
Interesting. I’m based in Europe and my portfolio is not largely dissimilar to yours but I didn’t see anything like these gains – because the dollar ate shit and I’m in euros. Effectively my portfolio grew the same as yours less 10% because of the dollar value. So on paper it looks like a fairly mediocre year to me. If the dollar regains against the euro, I should see the value shoot up again but it’s an interesting phenomenon to watch how much a sudden currency swing can make a massive difference to your portfolio. One good result of this is that I’m still pumping cash into the S&P500 and effectively getting a discount because my euro buys more than a dollar would. It just feels funny listening to a lot of commentators saying how good 2025 was in the markets…. not if you’re in euros it wasn’t!
Oh that is interesting.
You know what? Thank your lucky stars that you can invest in Euros because if the world starts to look for a new reserve currency to replace the USD, the Euro is the only one that could credibly replace it. If I could replace my USD holdings with Euros, I would, but the brokerages in Canada aren’t set up for that.
My long-term investments eked out 10%. I apply a momentum factor which lags sharp market moves, plus I briefly shifted into PDBC for diversification which diluted returns.
Trading account was up 36%.
I honestly thought 2025 was going to be much worse for performance!
Oh me too. I was convinced after the announcement of tariffs that we’d be heading for a recession, yet here we are. :Shrug:
I feel like I’m missing some math from portfolio A cause that doesn’t add up to $2M? Where’s the other +$200k come from??
Oh that table’s just reporting the end of the year balance. I didn’t put the capital gain in there, so it’s not supposed to add up.
Nevermind. Had it in reader view and it was formatted all weird. I’ll see myself out
Great topic! It is tradegy when people save all the time and accumulate when they do not need that any more. Start spending on things and experiences you and your family truly enjoy! Maybe buy half million house in suburbs of Canada! Time goes very fast after 40. Start enjoying it more! Do not count every penny. You did great job already!
Aww thanks. Still not sure about buying a house (we just love the freedom of renting so much), but definitely working on spending more and enjoying life.
Thank you for sharing. Regardless of the negative comments. I appreciate your honestly and thoughtfulness so we can follow along. 🙂
You’re welcome!
And I don’t sweat negative comments these days. I’ve actually had people send me death threats. It’s just a cost of doing business on the internet.
That’s crazy!! I am now curious now as to why perfect strangers would send you death threats and about what. Your blog is not political or religious or about any specific ethnic group or rights movement. Maybe you should write about the negative side of blogging and revealing your identities to the world over the years. Has it become worse? Do you get confronted when on your travels and how do you deal with it?
omg death threats? That is truly terrible for people who just want to share information.
The frugal FC just loves finding deals how funny! Thanks for sharing all this, and what a phenomenal result. While it seems strange to those starting on the FIRE journey, it is actually a question how to adjust drawdowns when time goes on and especially if things go in a positive direction – like it has for you. I’ve been re-listening to your book and trying to work out how to implement the yield shield for my circumstances. Keep on keeping on – all the best.
I love a good deal too – especially coupons! Not using a coupon is like throwing money away. A dollar saved using coupons is a dollar I can spend on something else. 😉
I only visit one of our local grocery stores to buy only the items on their weekly mailer advertisement. Then I stock up! It can get very frustrating though, since it seems like the majority of the time the prices don’t ring up correctly! It pains me to think of all their customers (the store is very popular with the college student crowd due to many upper level educational institutions nearby) who may be much less financially well off then I am (I really don’t NEED to use coupons or wait for a sale) but are being ripped off by the company because the prices aren’t entered correctly in the store’s pricing database. *SIGH*
I also use their add to treat myself. Blueberry muffins on sale? Looks like I get a blueberry muffin for breakfast this week rather than my usual Cinnamon Raisin English muffin. Ben and Jerry’s pints on clearance sale for $2.77 (rather than their regular >$6!)??? SCORE! LOL
Thankfully “God” is unsubscribed. Good ridence to ignorance. Hello to having a conscience.
Time to rediscover that passion for fancy handbags, lol
Thanks to God for unsubscribing. Yes, the world is a messy place.
Oh, no, Firecracker! Do NOT go back to obsessing over designer handbags! That stuff will just weigh you down and then you will HAVE to buy a house with at least one extra bedroom to convert into a storage / display closet for those things.
Love your blog!
Don’t you find it just amazing that you retired at $1 million and now you’re at almost $3 million, had such an amazing retirement, AND you’ve helped SO MANY of us along the way?! Thank you!
Yes, we too struggle with spending vs. efficiency, finding good deals, getting value for our money, not wanting to spend too fast. It’s the Super-Savers’ ongoing struggle.
It boggles my mind that my personal portfolio that I’ve been withdrawing from since July 2018 (with a starting balance of ~$2.4M) is “only” down ~$0.2M (as of YE 2025), after making just over $1M worth of withdrawals (please don’t judge me FIRE people!). Thus not only have I been “living Fat FIRE free” for the past 89 months, my portfolio is UP ~$0.8M considering my outrageous amount of withdrawals. How on earth does that happen?
My plan of lowering my tax deferred balance during “lower” tax rate years before my RMD age arrives does not seem to be working. LOL
My wife and I started FIRE in late 2024 after I retired with an equity payout from my company. We had the benefit of not only have about a $1m in investments prior to this payout but used that payout to dollar cost average into the market over the last 15 months. Unfortunately, a larger portion of those purchases were prior to April 2025 but we were still able to take advantage of buying some of the dips. Our overall portfolio grew roughly 18% but that doesn’t include $500k in commercial real estate investments that were made throughout 2025 that should return around 7.5% cash on cash until those properties sell. Overall, on the year, after expenses (roughly 5% withdrawal), our NET equity (NET worth minus personal and commercial real estate) grew roughly 13% in 2025 ($3.36m to $3.82m)
I read on a forum that somebody in bay area, ~50, with 9 million dollar net worth and feeling very anxious not finding another “mediocre” tech job of 400k after being laid off. Are we living in parallel universe? I am considering pulling the plug at some point because the so called balancing work and family is stressing people out. Today’s white collar work is much more stressful than decades ago and nobody could sustain 30 years by any means, I guess Warren Buffet and his buddy could but those are rare.
We love you guys! We had a good year in retirement too, not as good as you, but we still bought everything, went everywhere we wanted and still had 70% of our investment income left in 2025. Maybe we will add more international funds this year maybe not. I don’t usually try to fix what is not broken. We are very interested to hear about everybody’s money moves for 2026!
Hi Bryce/Wanderer, great post! Thank you so much! I really appreciate you breaking down your portfolio and being so transparent. It is really encouraging for my wife and I as we’re mid-way through our FI accumulation journey (we have reached $1 million but with 2 kids, we would like to have $2 million to generate the 4% that ensures it covers our total expenses). I understand that you have a portfolio B. Could you tell me what do you have invested in this portfolio? Much appreciated. Cheers!
We hold pretty much the same as the ones we have in portfolio A except we recently added 5% of emerging markets
I’m just wondering with the market / your portfolio going up or down hundreds of thousands of dollars every year and it’s totally out of your control.
Do you ever become detached from your money? Like at some point does it no longer feel real anymore? and just numbers on a screen like a video game or score.
I feel like I’m at a point where how much I spend or don’t spend is irrelevant to my long term financial success. We naturally don’t spend much but when a 10% swing either way is 100k or more it starts to feel unreal like a form of money dysmorphia.
If I go out for dinner or buy the organic food or a new iPhone even for that matter in the big swing of things is completely irrelevant compared to the damage a brutal bear market can cause or on the reverse in a year like last year how much I spent was pretty much papered over daily with market gains. It just all seems out of my control I can’t work hard/save enough to make a difference in my portfolio vs the swings in the market.
I’ve felt the same way at times. I’ve come to the conclusion its all in my head. Your spending really does matter in my opinion because it is within your control. If the numbers say you are good and the market crashes that spending will actually matter. At least that is what I tell myself so I can stay somewhat sane.
At the end of the day you can only control what you can control so my philosophy is get to a head space where the thing outside of my control don’t matter to me.
Yes this might lead to some people accusing you of not caring about “important” issues, but if they don’t personally affect you how important are they really?….See troll comments internet wide. I would rather keep my blood pressure down than worry about things I can’t control 🙂
Thanks for the update! Any thoughts on preferred for the US investors? ZPR isn’t available. PFFV was an option but it started to go down recently so I switched back to bonds for now since BND finally stoped going down.
Any thoughts ?
Hey guys, thank you so much for all the info, the is all truly great. I didn’t join in when you guys switched bonds to preferred shares and wished that I did. Is there any benefit to switching over now, even if it’s only going to be for a year? I know you’re no fortune teller but would love your input.
Also, is your portfolio simply the four ZPR, EAFE, ZCN and VTI? And the additional ones in your dividend chart are from your initial portfolio? I thought I went through your investing workshop but this seems simpler now than that. Could be wrong though. Thanks again!
Thank you for the update!
As a fellow Canadian, I’ve been following the classic Couch Potato strategy using TD’s e-Series index mutual funds for over a decade. I currently have a CAD 620k index portfolio with a target allocation of 25% each across U.S. equity, Canadian equity, international equity and Canadian bonds, which I currently replicate within each of my TD Direct Investing accounts.
I also hold about CAD 60k in a single stock in my taxable account (remnants of an employee share purchase plan), which I plan to sell and reinvest into index funds in due course.
Portfolio breakdown:
Registered accounts (RRSP, TFSA, LIRA, FHSA): CAD 370k
Taxable (non-registered) account: CAD 250k, with CAD 46k in unrealized capital gains
I’m debating whether to switch to ETFs to reduce fees, but I’ve hesitated—especially as someone who has only ever used e-Series funds. Historically, ETFs at TD also carried a CAD 9.99 trading commission, though this now appears to be removed for select ETFs, including many Vanguard ETFs.
A few questions I’d really appreciate your perspective on:
Q1. e-Series vs ETFs today
I recall that early in your journey you also held e-Series funds before transitioning to ETFs, and Quit Like a Millionaire seems to lean toward ETFs over mutual funds. Given a portfolio of this size and long-term comfort with e-Series, how would you think about staying the course versus making the switch today?
Q2. The tax trade-off
If switching makes sense, would you generally move only the registered accounts to ETFs and leave the taxable account in e-Series to defer capital gains? Or does the ongoing MER reduction typically justify realizing gains at this scale?
Q3. Precision vs simplicity
My target allocation is a strict 25% split across the four asset classes. Asset-allocation ETFs like VGRO are appealing for their one-ticket simplicity and automatic rebalancing, but they don’t mirror that allocation. At this stage, would you personally favour simplicity (VGRO), or continue slicing with either e-Series or individual ETFs (for example, a 25% split across VAB, VCN, VUN/XUU, and VIU) as outlined in your Investment Workshop below to maintain tighter control?
https://www.millennial-revolution.com/investworkshop/investment-workshop-06-choosing-your-etfs/
Thanks again for continuing to share your thinking—it’s been incredibly helpful over the years.
If you would consider holding Euros instead of USD because of the currency risk, why wouldn’t you also decrease your US equities allocation?
I’m struggling hard with what to do about my exposure to US equities and bonds. I know we shouldn’t adjust our allocations based on the news, but when MM say they would rather not hold USD, that seems serious!
I still believe in the SP&500. Sp&500 exist before Trump and will outlast him…. so overall I think current market is giving a discount for SP&500 index funds at the moment.
Being a mother of two, I have also started on my FIRE journey early last January and at the same time closely observing the financial markets but could not find some one who is been sharing their investment details till today. Now, thanks to you I could also start making an investment to the financial markets that would eventually help me with my FIRE journey.
Thank you for your awesome book and posts! One question: do you think that IEFA might be slightly better than EFA? Thank you!
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