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Back in 2016 when this blog was first starting to take off, I ran a weekly series of articles called the Investment Workshop, where I showed people step-by-step how to build and manage an ETF-based portfolio like the one we used to retire. The workshop ran for a year, with 52 articles, and after it was done, I figured we would move on to something else.
Little did I know that the Investment Workshop would become the most popular part of our site, with literally thousands of people learning how to invest from it, and even after many years people still write in to tell us how the Workshop has changed their lives. I continue to be blown away by the response to that series.
But…the workshop has been really showing its age lately. There are numerous references to the Trump presidency, and what I thought was the near-certainty that Obamacare was going to be repealed. Some of the links don’t work anymore, the rebalancing spreadsheet doesn’t work on modern versions of Excel. It was a mess.
So rewriting the workshop has been a top priority of mine. And then we had a baby.
But ANYHOO, enough with the excuses. It took longer than I thought it would, but I am happy to FINALLY announce that the NEW and REWRITTEN Investment Workshop is now LIVE!
I know, I know. I’m just as shocked as you are. And I did it while covered in baby spit. See? I can still be productive!
And please let me know if you find any problems, either through email or in the comments below. I really appreciate any and all feedback.
Peace out!
Your free workshop is how I started investing. I have sent the link to many people. Congratulations on the baby and thank you for this wonderful free resource!
Awww thank you! I’m glad you’ve found it so helpful 🙂
You are doing so much good in the world with this workshop. Offering it for free is amazing. Thanks
Your investment workshop is one of the best things on the Internet! Thank you for taking the time to create it the first time around and then again to re-vamp up 8 years later. You and FireCracker are awesome human beings and the world is better with you in it. 🙂
This!!!! A million times over 💕
Aww, shucks. We’re OK I guess :blush:
The investment workshop shows an allocation of 40% towards bonds.
What is confusing is that you yourself invest 0% in bonds for your own personal portfolio.
Instead, you have indicated that your portfolio is 25% rate reset preferred shares ZPR, 25% Canada VCN, 25% US VUN/XUU, and 25% developed nations ex North America XEF.
Why the difference between your own investment portfolio and what you lay out in your investment workshop?
Is this a do as I say not as I do moment?
I can see the portfolio you actually hold for yourselves is performing quite well ytd for 2024 while the investment workshop portfolio for Canadians is a very poor laggard. The same was true for 2023 as well.
I don’t know what his reply will be, but… I’ve done a massive amount of reading on personal finance in the last couple of years (hence having found Millenial Revolution and read their book), and personally believe that anyone under, say, 50, should or could have next to ZERO % bonds in their portfolio, IF IF IF, the equities part of it is in very well-diversified INDEX FUNDS. I’m 54, airline pilot, and have my 401k in around 20% bonds. This is probably even too much for me.
Quote; “If you don’t need the money for a while, your equity allocation can be higher since over time markets always trend higher. And if you don’t need the money for 15+ years or more, you may as well be almost entirely in equities since in that time period the S&P500 has NEVER lost money.”
That was one of the top issues I tried to addressed in the rewritten workshop. When I first wrote the original workshop, I wrote it with a 60%/40% portfolio in mind. Over time, my portfolio changed as my risk tolerance changed, but the workshop didn’t, leading to massive confusion.
The new workshop teaches people how to pick a portfolio allocation for themselves, makes clear that when we first started investing, we were 60%/40%, and then has a section explaining that our current allocation has changed, and links to our current allocation. As that allocation changes, that link automatically gets updated so that it’s always up-to-date.
That’s the solution I’ve come up with that keeps the workshop specific enough that people find it actionable, and yet dynamically updated so that every time I change my allocation I don’t have to go back and rewrite 50 articles.
Good response and of course it changed. IMHO I consider that once you have enough money built up that you can be comfortable you can then start adding some risk to the extra to amp up your overall growth. I did this with my own, however I have always been bullish with at least 90% equities. Now I have allocated the extra to a leveraged ETF (Nasdaq 100). So far so good.
Thanks for updating your workshop. It’s really an incredibly valuable resource!
Just wondering whether you can touch on the use of ETFs like XEQT and VGRO. I don’t know what they’re called, but they’re like all-in-one portfolio ETFs? I guess the idea is that you never need to rebalance and you just buy the ETF that matches your equity/bond risk tolerance every time you invest?
Thanks!
Liam in Toronto
Personally, I think that those all-in-one ETFs aren’t worth it since you can basically reproduce them in 10 minutes using the tools in the workshop.
Check it: https://www.millennial-revolution.com/invest/how-to-build-your-own-all-in-one-fund-using-passiv/
I look forward to learning more!
Great job on the updated version. You guys definitely put a lot of work in it and all for free. I learnt quite a few new things especially difference between expat and travel insurance. Thank you.
Thanks! It was a lot of work, but I’ve been blown away by how many people found it so useful. Glad you’ve enjoyed it!
I reached the 16th episode and yesterday found as everything changed and was so uncomfortable, haha!
I should restart again I believe
Yeah, probably. 🙂
The Empower link isn’t working. I’d like to sign up through your blog site. Can you guys check on that?
Which link is broken? Can you tell me which page?
Hi Wanderer love your book … retiring to hotels …. you may like to interview these folks for your blog … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMQaflLaTVI
I am angry at you! Why? Because you never made this available when I was in high school. Please invest some of your riches into scientific research, invent a time machine, and come see me at Seaside High School. I’ll be hanging out at lunch with my friend Joe on the lawn at the landmark we called The Greek Theater (for some odd reason).
Standing by decades ago.
Dan V
Taipei, Taiwan
I’m sorry! Our time machine prototype broke when I crashed the DeLorean 🙁
Bummer, dude!
I won’t be joining the workshop
The “workshop” is a series of publicly-available blog posts. You can read it or not (and if you read it, follow the advice or not) but there isn’t any “joining” to do.
Thanks for doing this Bryce! I started glancing through, and realized quickly that you have done a LOT of revision work.
Looks like you’ve cut out including an emerging markets ETF entirely. Is this for performance reasons? I’m happy to still keep holding XEC in order to have some Chinese industry representation in my portfolio, but if you have more to say about this change, I’m very interested to hear it.
(Also, unrelated: I got notification of this blog post while on vacation in Cuba, wanted to read it immediately, but the site wouldn’t open over the hotel wifi. I have a suspicion that the Cuban gov’t blocks anything with “revolution” in the name. How funny!)
Yes, I noticed XEC is missing from the new workshop and am interested to hear the rationale.
But more importantly, a massive THANK YOU to Wanderer and FIRECracker for all your work writing this blog. I first discovered it in 2016, and it’s been a game-changer. I have your book as well and loan it to anyone willing to listen to me rave about it.
I started house hacking in 2022. Is there anyone in here on the same boat. Looking to interact with a community of like minded individuals. Thanks
best information thanks for sharing with us
Every time I talk to people about investing I refer them to the workshop. It is hands down the best way for anyone to gain confidence and learn.
I would like to add a viewpoint about the refresh that I didn’t read yet, which I tell new investors when I tell them about the workshop.
I went through the workshop in real time when you guys wrote it. You used to have an article a week, I think it was in Wednesdays, and every other week was be a buy week. I used to follow the buys with you – I set up an automatic transfer of money to my Questrade account, logged in, and did the buys.
***
For me, the biggest value of the workshop was feeling the monotony of investing, the psychology of ignoring the news and developing the habit.
***
Whenever I tell people to go through the workshop I tell them to read up to the part of the first buy, and then go back and read the next article once a week, instead of binge-reading.
The reason is so that the new investor can develop the same patience, monotony and ignore-the-news mental skills which are harder when you binge read everything. It is almost better to do the workshop now thanks to the old references. Reading about Trump or Obamacare or the housing market in retrospect proves the point of ignoring the news. Those were such big topics at the time and made no difference to the return of the portfolio.
I was showing the workshop to a new friend today and noticed the revamped version, which has 25 articles. What missing the most of the “buy” at the end of the article on the buy days.
I am happy that under the “binge read” section you still have all the originals. Please keep those there! I recommended to my friend to use the versions under the “binge read” and follow along with the buys, as again, the biggest advantage for me was the hand-holding down to the buying-on-schedule.
Cheers!
Cheer
I follow the general approach in your workshop, but recently I’ve been getting invitations from Wealthsimple to add “alternative” investments, such as private equity and private credit, to my portfolio. They offer these to clients with over $100K, and they seem to have pretty good returns. I wonder if private credit, for example, could take some of the place of bonds in a passive investing portfolio. Or maybe they aren’t diversified enough? Any thoughts?
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