019: Community Feedback 2

Ryan: Welcome guys to Explore FI Canada. I’m your host, Ryan Myricks. I’m from Kitchener, Ontario. And joining me is Chrissy from Vancouver, BC. Hey-oh.

Chrissy: Hi, Ryan, how are you doing?

Ryan: I am fantastic. And joining us from Victoria BC is the Money Mechanic. Hey, buddy.

Money Mechanic: Hey, nice to be back on the show with all three of us. Seems like it’s been a while.

Ryan: I know. I know. We had to do the last community episode without you. So I’m glad that you can round off the trio here.

Money Mechanic: Yeah, well, I’m kind of glad that time of year’s passed and we can get back to business.

Ryan: Yeah, it also helps that you’re Coast FIRE right? Oh, am I supposed to say that?

Money Mechanic : Yeah, stay at home dog dad for a little while.

Ryan: So guys we’re talking directly to our loyal fans today, the listeners who’ve been with us from the very beginning, or the new ones that have hopped along the way because they’ve just found an FI podcast in Canada.

We want to read a bunch of feedback that we’ve gotten, the good and the bad. We do read everything that we get so we do just want to give a bit of a shout out to the listeners that are, you know, hoping to hear maybe their own reply or or just their own comments being aired, right?

I think it’s important for people to have that kind of outreach and to be able to get that type of feedback. And we’re also gonna reply to a bunch of the criticism we’ve gotten, you know, sometimes the people who write us nasty things and then hide their email and a different domain name, and we can’t respond to them. Okay, maybe we will respond to those people, I don’t know.

But we also have an important announcement to make concerning third party advertisers. And we want to be completely transparent with everybody about how the show is going to make money and become sustainable as it grows. And, guys, I think we should just launch right into that because I think that’s, that’s quite a topic.

Money Mechanic: Yeah, I think it’s important everybody knows what page we’re on and the reason why and, and that we’re behind what we’re advertising.

Ryan: It’s actually really important to us that you know what kind of ads we’re going to place on the podcast, on the website or what have you, we just want people to know that we do take it very seriously. This is not a whoever shows us money and then we just all fight to grab it at the same time.

Money Mechanic: Exactly.

Chrissy: Yeah, not at all.

Money Mechanic: Yeah, I think one of the things that’s really important to me is that the item being advertised has some value for our listeners. I don’t mind if it’s, if it’s something specifically that we use within the FI space in Canada, then I think it adds value.

But I definitely don’t want to come across as somebody that we’re monetizing just for the sake of monetizing. I mean there is some underlying costs to all of us for running the show. And we do enjoy it, love it and bringing the content to Canadians, and be nice to have our web hosting paid for that’s kind of where we’re going to start with I think.

Chrissy: And additionally, we would like to eventually pour money back into the podcast in order to further grow it, whether it be for outsourcing some of the work that we do or to improve our equipment or get better hosting.

Whatever it may be we we would like to continue to grow and expand so that we can reach more Canadians with our message.

Money Mechanic: Yeah, we’ll definitely start a crowd funder to get Ryan a microphone stand or arm.

Ryan: I currently have a little shoe box with my microphones stood up on it on top of my laptop, so I can actually type or do anything. This is awesome. Yeah, these are the sacrifices people that I’m making.

Okay. I want to bat around this idea a little bit further, just because I think it’s good for audience to kind of hear us go back and forth on it. So when we first started out, we said that we wanted to be the Choose FI of Canada.

And as I’m sure everybody who listens to this podcast and also listens to choose a file it know that they don’t run ads, essentially, they don’t have third party advertisement. I think they run ads all the time. It’s just for their own affiliate links and their own content.

I mean, there is a incredible amount of self promotion that goes into pretty much every single Friday roundup that they release, but they don’t offer, you know, meal kits or anything like that. And so I wanted to get your guys’s opinion on, you know, is that should that be the only way that we should be monetizing or our third party ads?

Money Mechanic: Okay. Well, my thought on that is that, you know, really when you start talking about affiliates, and and I’m totally on board with that, and I see it a lot in the Facebook groups where somebody says, Hey, use my Orange Key or use my Public Mobile key. I think that’s great.

And I think having ours on our website is, is excellent. If people would like to support that way. It’s fantastic, but it comes straight down to numbers. The fact of the matter is, if we can be paid a small amount to put in an audio ad in each episode, then that’s consistent income.

When we have a huge amount of website traffic, then, you know, the click ads or the affiliate ads, that’s where you can generate some revenue for to build out the website and feedback then, you know, give money back to the community.

So I think it’s just a question of numbers at this point and for us, it makes sense to have a short audio ad within our podcast that for a product or service that we all believe in.

Chrissy: I agree. And that is the same process that I go through when considering monetization on my blog. It’s always for products or tools that or services that I truly believe in that I think will actually be valuable to my audience.

And it’s the same with the podcasts, we would never bring on an advertiser, or any affiliates, sponsors where we didn’t think it would sit well with our audience, or that we don’t genuinely either us or believe in the product. So we’re very careful about how we’re approaching this.

And we understand that our relationship with you is valuable, and that is of the utmost importance to us that we continue to build our trust with you. So this is why we’re discussing this today to hopefully help you understand why the monetization is important for our show. And for it to continue to grow.

Money Mechanic: Yeah, and I think we can all safely say that none of us started this project as a quote unquote money making side hustle. This is a passion project. So any any funds will be going straight into the podcast itself.

Chrissy: And to be clear, we’re still a very small show. And so we can’t command the big bucks

Money Mechanic: Whoa, whoa, whoa!

Chrissy: We’re still growing! There’s lots of potential!

Ryan: I see this podcast as large and in charge.

Money Mechanic: It’s the number two FI podcast in Canada.

Chrissy: Hey!

Money Mechanic: Only I’m allowed to say that.

Ryan: Who has the number one FI podcast in Canada?

Money Mechanic: I’m not even gonna say it.

Chrissy: So going back to my thoughts on monetization, I see it from both sides both as a content producer and a content consumer. I am a podcast listener and a blog reader.

And I see monetization all the time on the blogs I visit and in the podcasts I listened to, and I do not object to any of it, because I feel it’s an easy and free way for me to support these content producers. Because it’s a ton of free content that I’m getting in return.

And I don’t have to spend a dime to access their knowledge and to learn about what their guests are sharing all of that I get it all for free. And if I have to listen to a few ads or scroll through some display advertising on their blog, that’s fine with me.

And I think Julie from FIRE Drill Podcast actually mentions this when she talks about blog and podcast monetization that it’s it’s a nice and easy way to support the people that you like to follow.

Ryan: I think there is something to be said about that. Ads don’t always have to apply to you or apply like super directly to your audience, right? I mean, if we get an ad running for popcorn, right, I mean, like that has nothing to do with FI in Canada but I don’t see that as something like horrible right? I would consider that much much better than a BMO mutual fund.

Money Mechanic: I’m gonna struggle if you get us a Tim Hortons sponsor.

Ryan: It’s in the works, I swear. All right. I think we should move on to the reviews. I think we’ve talked a lot about the monetization. I think everyone’s happy with us. Woohoo. Let’s talk about some podcast reviews from Apple. And you guys want me to start?

Money Mechanic: Yeah, we love having Apple reviews.

Ryan: Are we still a five star podcast or no? Did someone give us four stars.

Chrissy: I think we may have had a four and a half star.

Money Mechanic: You know what? And that’s totally fine. Why is it the people like who cares? Like, you can’t always be five star.

Ryan: I want my fake internet points. I want my five stars Damn it.

Money Mechanic: You’re such a millennial.

Ryan: Very important to me.

Chrissy: We have a single four star and the rest are five.

Ryan: I’ll take it. Screw it. All right. First review that we want to read out comes from Little rooster 2016: “Very excited. Great to see a financial podcast geared towards Canadians.”

Awesome. Yeah, we don’t think there’s enough Canadian content out there, especially in the FI space. There’s only one other crappy podcast you can listen to.

Money Mechanic: Let’s not go down that road!

Chrissy: So our next review is from TNT daRoza: “I wish there was this information and movement when I was young, the retired I still enjoy listening to your podcasts and promoting it to young people. I know. Keep up the great work.”

Money Mechanic: I think it’s awesome their promoting it to young people. I mean, I couldn’t ask for anything more than that.

Ryan: Definitely.

Money Mechanic: Okay, we got one from Modern FImily: “Love this podcast. I love how casual you guys are and the focus on Canadian content. Keep it up. Thank you.”

Chrissy: Thank you, Court.

Ryan: She was on Episode 10 and Online Meetup 2 and probably future ones from now. She loves talking for sure. Not just talking in general maybe. But she really loves this podcast. So it’s a very nice review. Thank you.

Okay, we’re on to Eastern Ontario listener: “Loving this podcast. Thanks for putting this together. I discovered your podcast a few days ago and now I’m itching for more content. My part and I live Raleigh and are trying to develop a homestead while saving to retire early. Our goal is more fit as we want to run a small scale farm business in the early years of ‘retirement’.” (She put retirement in quotes, he or she.) “We’re really just starting on our path and we’re searching for guidance. Is there any chance that you could find and bring on a guest that gone down this path out of us in Canada?”

Never heard of one I know in the US I believe Montana Money Adventures did that that? Is that Jillian?

Chrissy: Did she?

Money Mechanic: She didn’t do… I didn’t think she did homesteading. I thought that was the…

Chrissy: That was the Frugalwoods.

Ryan: Yeah, the Frugalwoods. Yes.

Chrissy: But they don’t have a business. It’s not a business, they just have a homestead.

Money Mechanic: I’m pretty sure we can find somebody that’s, that’s living an FI lifestyle on a small scale farm. And I also got some comments from Eastern Ontario Listener on FI Garage and it’s fantastic what they’re doing in their small homestead that they have going already. So might be interesting just to talk to Eastern Ontario Listener if they’re interested.

Chrissy: If anyone knows someone or if you are someone who runs a small scale farm business, let us know.

Ryan: Yeah. There was actually a post on ChooseFI Toronto not too long ago. Maybe it’s the same person but I don’t think so. But they had a bit of acreage on their property and they set up a bunch of like skids and like kind of like obstacle kind of things and like tires everywhere and they basically want to buy some laser tag kind of equipment and basically just get some like parties going on their property where people can make run around because they have like a barn and all that kind of stuff.

I thought that was like I thought it was kind of neat, right? You know, like, just buy eight pieces of, you know, like laser tag equipment and just go on Kijiji or Facebook marketplace and just advertise like a cool little course that you know, you and your friends can go up and run around and thought that’d be fun.

Chrissy: There’s actually a lot of farms in the Vancouver area in the Fraser Valley actually, like Langley, Abbotsford where they actually, I guess you could call it monetize. They monetize the farm by not just selling their crops but also by having areas for families to visit.

Like they have children’s climbing areas and nice shops that you can go into to buy food or to buy prepared goods and it’s they’re just awesome. They’re really well done.

We love visiting in the summertime to pick blueberries and some of them have trampolines and zip lines where you can take the kids. It’s a great way to not only make money but to include the community and welcome to the to the farm and let them experience some of what you do.

Ryan: You had me at zip line.

Chrissy: Yeah, that’s at Maan Farm.

Money Mechanic: It’s mandatory to have a zip line in your laser tag farm.

Chrissy: Okay, so let’s move on to the next review on Apple podcasts. This was left by Physio for FI and they commented on our episode for show notes saying:

“Awesome podcast. I just stumbled across the site searching for more info on the Smith Manoeuvre. Super good to hear more about a young person using it for real estate and other asset types as well. I’m in BC as well (North Central) with a few rentals and working on learning more about index investing, etc. I was kind of wondering if there were more Canadian FI podcast/folks around behind the scenes, super excited to listen to the other episodes and connect with others in the community. Thanks again.”

Thank you. That was a great review.

Money Mechanic: Mm hmm. And yes, there are other Canadian FI podcasts and folks around.

Ryan: None that are important for this conversation. Really drawing a divide here between us that I really shouldn’t be. I’m thinking of crossover episode is well overdue and it’s a bad way to get us all together if I start trashing your podcast, so it’s all good.

Money Mechanic: We’re all friends in this space.

Ryan: I do want to say something about that review though, because if you guys have ever looked at our stats before we had an episode with Megan called Using the Smith Manoeuvre to Achieve FI and it was our episode four.

And it is actually by far our most downloaded episode today. So people are hungry for the Smith Manoeuvre. I think people want to know a lot about real estate and about life cycle investing. There’s tonnes of content out there for the Smith Manoeuvre, but I don’t think a lot of FI podcasts have really like, done it before.

So I think we should bring more audio content to this manoeuvre to our listeners, because I think you guys want it so we’re going to do it. We’re going to get really technical with it too.

Money Mechanic: Yeah, the new book that Robinson Smith just put out, Master your Mortgage is very good. I have read it. And it does have some some new, well it runs new numbers and has some new content that’s more applicable today and he will be interviewed on FI Garage shortly and he has been interviewed on Tom Drake’s show.

So there’s some content out there but I totally agree with you, Ryan. We do need to get into some of the real estate and some of the more technical side of the Smith Manoeuvre.

Ryan: And just for anybody listening Tom Drake is behind Maple Money podcast that you can check out.

Money Mechanic: Yes, thank you for that. All right. We also had some great comments from our show notes. And it’s always great to start your discussion there and notice quite a few of them have some good banter going on back and forth with our listeners.

And it’s great. We do love engaging with you. So in episode number three, we talked about the 4% Assumption and the comment from Megan, who was our guest in episode four about the Smith Manoeuvre respond to Ryan’s comment, “F CPP.”

That was bound to get a reaction! So she’s got a long comment in there that you should go and read, but the gist of it is that the ongoing myth that CPP is unsustainable and won’t be a significant source of income for retirees.

Megan busts out the facts and counters counter argues that these myths are untrue and the CPP is safe, reliable and should be factored into our FI plans. So great comment Megan and I personally agree with you on that one, but Ryan might have more to say.

I do agree. Well, I do agree, though, that it totally depends on how I what your age you’re at. Because the older you are the closer to fit you are, you might you probably do need to factor that in if you’ve had a long working career. But if you’re planning on being fired when you’re 30, you’re not going to have much at CPP to draw. So it again, that’s going to be a personal situation.

Ryan: Well, exactly. And that’s what I was going to speak to is that there is a gap between your early retirement and collecting CPP and OAS. And the bigger that gap is the less you’re going to get from CPP, right. So anybody retiring in their early 30s. I mean, like Millennial Revolution would be like a perfect example. Right?

Like for them to factor in the CPP would be absolutely nuts and crazy and also very, very hard to do. Right? because they’d be like 30 something years away from ever collecting it. So who knows what the future of everything is going to look like, right? Yeah, but I will say that saying, you know, F the CPP. Yeah, I didn’t do it just to get attention. I honestly I don’t really care for it at all.

But I am young and therefore I am biased. So if you are older, especially if you’re in your 50s and you’ve been working that entire time and been a resident of Canada and all that CPP eligibility stuff then by all means factor it in. But for me and all the young ‘uns out there, screw it.

Chrissy: Well, thank you, Megan, for leaving that comment. It was very detailed as as I said, so it’s worth everyone checking it out because she provides a lot of helpful info there.

And I’ll move on to our next Episode Six: Value Busters. And I received a message directly from Kris, a blogger in San Francisco and he blogs over at Chronicles of a Father With Cents, and he said:

“Hi, Chrissy, listened to your podcast on the commute home episode six about what places you refuse to spend money on. Fun listen, I believe one of you mentioned a used clothes store for kids Once Upon a Child. They have a few locations in the Bay Area. Never ever heard of them before. But thanks for mentioning them. Now, we may take a trip over there to see if we can find some bargains.”

So I know that’s a story that Ryan loves. And it’s great that we helped a reader discover them, or listener, I should say. Sorry about that.

Ryan: Yeah, we have listeners, not readers. I’m really glad that Kris got value from that because it is some used clothing stores, I think have a lot of stigma attached to them. And I don’t think they should because they use clothing stores don’t send everything that they take back out simply because they hardly ever take a lot of stuff.

And if anyone’s ever tried to sell their clothing to once upon a child or or where have you a lot of the times they won’t take anything that has been dirtied or appears dirty or you know what I mean?

Like it’s it just doesn’t seem like it’s going to be saleable. I mean, they have very much the same standard that you would find in Walmart or, oh, gosh, I was gonna say Sears that’s not a thing anymore. Zellers. Oh wait that’s not a thing. Target? No that’s gone as well. What do you still have here in Canada

Money Mechanic: Winners.

Ryan: Winners! There we go. So, you know I do think it’s I do think it’s a great place for you to shop for your kids and I know a personal goal of mine is to actually shop at say Value Village or Goodwill or something like that for for clothing for me I’m still stuck on Old Navy for whatever reason and I’m not sure that buying new clothes is all that practical, but I haven’t really assessed the other options so I know that’s a personal goal for me.

Money Mechanic: Right on, we also had a comment from Harrison on Facebook on this episode and he said: “Love the episode guys. I am happy other people like ranting like I do. Ha ha ha it always reminds me of Peter Griffin from Family Guy.

Clip from Family Guy: “You know what really grinds my gears?”

Ryan: Right on. Alright, well let’s move on to Episode 10 which is Moving from Florida to Alberta with Court, or it should be named USA vs. Canada. So we did have some interesting back and forth between Court and two listener, Not a Name and Dale Roberts about her withdrawal strategy and questions about holding so much of her net worth in US dollars.

So Court actually did a lot of very thoughtful replies to all this. So if you guys want to go and read it if you happen to be a dual citizen, Court is a huge, huge wealth of knowledge for this type of stuff. So definitely go to the Episode 10 show notes to take a look.

Chrissy: Yeah, she’s very well read and she I think her plan is very extremely well thought out more so than most people. So I think her replies to Dale and Not a Name were excellent and really showed how much planning she’s, how much time she’s put into her FI plan on her withdrawal strategy, so definitely worth checking out those comments there.

Ryan: What I really like about Court’s plan as well, not do anything with her American citizenship, but she also factors in CCB, which is the childcare benefit into our fire number. And I think that’s actually a really smart thing to do. Because as your income lowers your CCB goes up. And that’s a huge amount of money that’s being paid to you for having kids, right?

So if you’re factoring in the expenses of kids to your fire number, and then you’re thinking that you need to make all that income and outside sources, you might not have to maybe this will be able to ride all of that for you. So that’s actually something really valuable and something I completely overlooked. And now I’m factoring into my own FIRE calculations.

Chrissy: And we also received a comment from Tara on our Facebook page. She says: “I love this format. Ryan, we can invest just like Americans we can buy VTI, 0.03 MER and USD.” And she goes on about how you can use Norbert’s Gambit. And there are other US versions of Canadian-held ETFs. So I won’t read the whole thing. It’s a bit long but you can go to our Facebook page to check it out.

Money Mechanic: I just want to add into the the comment about investing just like Americans, I see this all the time talking about buying VTSAX or VTI. And it is totally possible for Canadians to do that using Norbert’s Gambit . But I feel that people get really wrapped up in this thinking that they’re going to save a whole bunch of money.

And that is true once you’re into six figure investing, but I don’t think it’s worth a lot of your brain bandwidth when you’re just starting out or you’re just at the beginning of your investing journey. keep it as simple as possible. And then once you get down the road, you can really run the math on this once you’re like I said into six figures but don’t get wrapped up and it’s just not worth it at the beginning.

Chrissy: But thank you. Tara. Because a lot of us are interested. I am a hyper-optimizer and I did do Norbert’s Gambit and I, I fully agree with doing it once you’re in the bigger numbers because it can save you a lot of money.

Ryan: Get the hundred grand first you’ll do yourself… more optimised path to FIRE. If you earn more money rather than trying to save everything, you got to increase your income. That’s number one.

Money Mechanic: Alright, Episode 11 Real Estate Investing in Canada with Mr. Prairie FIRE. Great having him on the show. And there was a lively discussion with listener TW who brought up the risks and volatility of real estate investing. And I think that’s very apparent in Saskatchewan where Mr. Prairie FIRE lives.

And there was also a long, long Twitter discussion between the Mindful Explorer Chris and Mr. Prairie FIRE, who are both Saskatchewan real estate investors, which was really interesting for me to follow along with because yeah, apparently, you know, the, the thought process that a lot of people have that real estate never goes down is currently untrue in Saskatchewan and there’s a lot of people holding real estate that is the same or less value than what they bought in the past so interesting.

There’s also a comment from Sam, who wonders if Mr. Prairie FIRE could go into more detail about how he got to where he is with real estate investing. So as we mentioned before, I think real estate is an interesting topic for everybody in this community and something we’re going to explore more and thanks again to Mr. Prairie FIRE.

We always enjoy talking to him and he’s always engages in the Facebook groups and in comments, so check out his blog too, if you haven’t already.

Chrissy: He’s a great friend of the show. So thank you, Mr. Prairie FIRE for all your support and engagement.

Ryan: Yeah, you’re awesome.

Chrissy: So we’ll move on to our next show. This was a polarising one.

Money Mechanic: I got trashed on it, basically. I apologize I ranted a bit too much.

Chrissy: So this was Episode 12 Value Busters 2, where Money Mechanic joined in and shares his value busters. So this is where we got some pretty negative feedback. And we’re open to that. We are not saying we don’t want negative comments, we just want them to be constructive.

So let’s read what we got as far as negativity for the show and we already responded to this, but we want to address it on the air as well. So a commenter named On the Road said:

“There was not a whole lot of value in your value busters. Holier than thou rents followed by, “But we’re not here to judge anyone” ring hollow. I listened through the entire episode hoping some value would come of it, but all I got was frustrated.”

And then they gave an example of where they prefer homemade bread and how they could make it sound either judgmental or turn it around to sound more like a personal choice, and then they finished with:

“If you want to feel superior to the rest of us keep ranting about frozen food, pop, fast food, and electronics. If you want to produce helpful content, consider leaving the rents for your buddies after you’ve had a few beers.”

Ryan: That already sounds like the podcast Money Mechanic has.

Money Mechanic: Well, fair enough. Yeah, I mean, I don’t know, I don’t really have a whole lot to say to this other than that, you know, our The show is is our opinion and, and I don’t think anybody should be comparing themselves to us or anything that we say and, and I guess I there’s no point saying we’re not here to judge anyone because that was never the intention anyway.

So yeah, this is this is an opinion type show, right? You’re not here to listen to our advice. So take it with a grain of salt.

Chrissy: Yeah, we actually should have the legal disclaimer, we’re not experts. So don’t listen to us. Don’t take our advice!

Ryan: We’re also humans, right? I mean, we have our opinions. I mean, it would be a very bland show if we just read what all the stats say, you know, and we just talked all in very plain voices, and we all wore the exact same thing like Oh, just be a very bland world to live in. Like, yeah, Money Mechanic has his own opinions, right. He’s not gonna buy bottled water, he’s going to go to the tap, you know, so be it, let him do what he wants.

Money Mechanic: Well and I think you know, what happens a lot of the time is in in the community is there’s so much out there that where we can we know how to make the big changes, right our housing or transportation or food, and that’s fantastic. Those are all there. But then you get to the point with, “Okay, what’s next?”

And I think that’s kind of where we’re at with those value busters episodes is the what’s next and and some of those items are kind of polarising, because a lot of people won’t agree and and that’s totally fine. Right? But those are those are our specific choices where I choose to not spend money.

Chrissy: Yeah, and like you said, we don’t all agree and that’s okay. We just live and let live. We tried to make it a fun episode. We honestly did not want to step on anyone’s toes or make anyone feel judged. So we’re sorry if you took it that way.

Money Mechanic: Well, I’m not sorry, because it was my opinion.

Ryan: I was gonna say I apologise for nothing.

Money Mechanic: Yeah, and Jolie commented that she enjoyed our ranting So, and I’m sure a lot of people did enjoy it, and there’s probably people who didn’t. So moving on.

Chrissy: And before we move on to the next show, I just want to mention a comment. Actually, it’s a post that Harrison left on our Facebook page about value busters too, and he wanted to share his recipe for sports drink users that is even cheaper than the crystals.

So he gives a recipe, it’s called Nancy Clark’s homemade sports drink. And if you want to check it out, it’s under visitor posts on our Facebook page. It sounds pretty simple and sounds yummy too. So it’s worth a try next time you’re, you have a need for Gatorade.

Ryan: It’s amazing where people find their value busters right? I would have never thought that. You know, Gatorade was a value buster.

Money Mechanic: I think it is though. I mean, for my thinking I thought the crystals were a value buster. But taking it one step further to homemade is even better. Because every time you see somebody with a big bottle like I was travelling on the ferry the other day and I see somebody with a giant bottle of Gatorade and maybe they really needed the electrolytes. I’m not judging them bit. But I’m looking like, Oh, that’s a $3 bottle. Anyway, moving on.

Ryan: And on to Episode 15, which was our first online meetup. This is where we talked about Choose FI, Explore FI Canada and TFSAs. We got into a bit of our holdings, and Jordan at Money Maaster, and that’s master with two ‘A’s, asked us to share a holding strategies and returns on what we use to benchmark our returns.

I feel like this is a fairly easy or way too complex thing to answer, because as you probably would guess, a lot of us are index investors. So our benchmark is the benchmark. Not really a huge difference.

Of course, there’ll be a tiny variation, but you know, depending on where you want to allocate certain risk and whatnot, right, I mean, I know my Money Mechanic is finally dipping his toes into the whole second mortgage aspect, right.

So you can expect that his returns could be a bit higher than others, but he’s taking risks to account for that. So as to just sharing our holdings and all that. I’m not sure if all of us are really interested in sharing our holdings?

Chrissy: I have no issue with sharing it. My issue is that I’m too lazy to bother really doing an accurate job of it. And that’s why I do index investing. It’s just easy and I don’t have to worry about it.

And I think Jordan might be more of a dividend investor and I appreciate that. I honestly, I don’t have the patience or the time to be heavily invested in dividend stocks. It does require more effort than index investing. And so I think coming from that world, it is important to track your returns and benchmark them do all that but for me, it’s just not the approach that I use and so I am very passive with my investing.

Money Mechanic: Yeah, I think this is an interesting discussion in the community because it’s a bit polarising. There are lots of dividend hybrid investors that use index and dividends. And Jordan writes over at moneymaaster.com. So check out his blog there, he does talk a lot about dividend stocks. And I think it is important for people that are using that kind of strategy to look at their returns to compare against an index.

So his he did write his into the comments here, and he was 24% in TVC, and 15% in the RSP. So, you know, good for him. That’s awesome. I did some rough numbers on mine. And again, I’m a little bit I should track a lot closer, but I get a little lazy because I’ve got things spread around a little too complicated, but my TFSA was 20% this year, and RSP was 16%.

So those were my returns, they’re not the best but I’m happy with it. And like you said it, it all depends what your strategy is, how much time and effort you want to put into it.

Chrissy: Okay, so let’s move on to a couple of extra Facebook page comments that were left for our intro to high school. So Harrison said: “Exciting episode I am really looking forward to the series especially the travel hacking info. I just assumed it wasn’t really possible in Canada to do.”

And so in my response to Harrison I mentioned that it’ll be a while till we get to the travel hacking episode. So I recommended in the meantime that he check out Prince of Travel which is one of our favourite Canadian travel hacking websites. And I know that Prince of travel doesn’t like to call it travel hacking, so I should call it credit card rewards.

Ryan: Yeah, he’s part of the bandwagon that’s if that’s afraid of using the term hacking because the old people who work at the banks that you know, approve all the marketing stuff will see the word hacking go home. “Oh, gosh, we’ve been robbed.”

Money Mechanic: Yeah, we have one last one from Kevin: “Very cool. Love that you guys are putting out more regular shows.” And that’s probably thanks to Ryan for starting the online meetup series so we can get some more regular shows and eventually he’ll do it in a West Coast friendly time so Chrissy and I can participate.

Ryan: Like that thinly veiled criticism.

Money Mechanic: You know what? Chrissy and I are going to do our own online?

Chrissy: No Ryan!

Money Mechanic: No Ryan allowed, just put it up there.

Chrissy: Okay, so we have a Twitter comment from an international listener. We just want to read it out because it was really nice to receive it. So Farid said:

“Explore FI Canada, I was listening to your latest podcast and I can confirm that Sam from episode nine is not your only international listener. Awesome stuff. Love from Dubai. I’ve been listening to a lot of FI/FIRE content, mainly US based yours is my favourite amount of experience a pinch of humour with real life examples. Don’t stop. It’s an underserved niche. Been looking for good Canadian content for a while.”

So thank you! That was such a nice comment.

Ryan: Yeah, thanks Farid.

Money Mechanic: Alright, well, thanks a lot to all the listeners who made comments. And before we go, I have one little plug for a new FIRE blog in Canada. Everyone’s always looking for some more content. So we met a new blogger on Twitter where we’re active.

And this is Canuck on FIRE and you can find his new blog or the new blog. I’m assuming it’s a man I shouldn’t. It’s canuckonfire.wordpress.com and there’s one blog post up there. So yeah, we’re always happy to have new fire content creators and Canada. So congrats on and hope that goes well.

Chrissy: Yes, welcome to the Canadian blogosphere.