I started my investment journey in 2021, at the age of 23. However, long story short, hardship since end of 2025. The start of 2026, I have been getting positive $$ now and wanting to continue to do so. Keeping this for future me to thank myself and not pull out this time. Just hold, contribute, forget and let it grow!
Hi Community, I thought Iâd share some thoughts on my portfolio. I changed jobs in Feb of this year and the new employer doesnât have a Group pension plan. So, Iâve been on a very steep learning curve on how to be my own fund manager. I have about a 10 year window before retirement. I have a LIRA from my previous employment. Opened an RRSP into which I put my monthly contributions. A TFSA and just started building a margin account. Sounds like a lot but I run different strategies on each. Iâll share my thoughts on my RRSP. Core holding: XEQT + DRIP for global diversification. 50% of new deposits allocated to this. Wheel options strategy: TSLA.TO affordable, reasonable open interest, with enough volatility to make good premiums. Premiums kept in cash. LEAP Call strategy: XIU.TO slow, steady, upward grinder. Buy LEAP 2 years out, sell after 1 year. Buying ENB to wheel. Price is slightly higher than TSLA.TO. Large cap Canadian holding, great dividend and options premiums. 50% new deposits allocated to this. Core holding is the only DRIP. All other dividends and premiums kept in cash. Rebalance at the end of the year. LEAPS sold new ones bought and accumulated cash re-deployed. Well that is the strategy. Iâll keep you posted certainly at year end. Iâm happy to share the strategies on the other accounts if you want to hear them. read more
When I developed my investment thesis for retirement, I looked at both fundamental and technical analyses. Technical are the investors' footprints reacting to fundamental. To me, there is no bigger fundamental variable than population. A country's population pyramid determines a country's future. The boiling point will hit different countries at different times. There is no better place to watch this playing out than here in Japan. The ratio between pensioners and workers will drop further from current 1:2. Foreigner workers are being pushed out before they can start pension payments. Full refund payments are impossible. AI, robotic automation cannot arrive faster. You can draw your own conclusions for your portfolio. To me, I would trust a CEO on SP500 or Nasdaq than a money-printing politician. This is why I rely on cash from cc ETF instead of bonds. This video has a good explanation between population and debt. https://youtu.be/_rwFYNlKtEc?si=cGLco1nK9yr8JDrd
Nice Blog post from a QAFP (Fee based Planner) đ https://boomerandecho.com/when-the-rrsp-meltdown-doesnt-melt/ Amazing what a low cost Portfolio ETF ($VGRO in this case) can do in retirement when markets cooperate. No need to over complicate. đ€ No need to generate excessive cash flows. đ°đ°đ° No need to pay higher product fees to have managers send your money back in the form of distributions. đž No worries about âshare countâ. 𧟠No concerns about market timing. đđđ Just a planned systematic monthly sell/trim and withdrawal to hit the annual pre-planned withdrawal target (8%). đŻ Markets wonât always be so accommodating but itâs likely our plans, portfolios and decisions donât need to be so complicating either. đĄ Just more proof that simple can work. And a good reminder that all plans need to be revisited every once in a while. Do whatâs best for you. đread more
Never Turn a Blind Eye to the Bond Market If youâre a stock-market investor, especially a retired investor, itâs easy to ignore the bond market. Stocks are exciting. Bonds? Not so much. But hereâs the thing: You ignore the bond market at your own risk. The bond market is one of the biggest signals we have for whatâs happening with interest rates, inflation, economic growth and, ultimately, where money may flow next. And you donât have to own a single bond to pay attention to it. Why should stock investors care? Because interest rates matter. A LOT. When bond yields move significantly, they can affect: đ Stock valuations đŠ Bank profitability đ Mortgage rates đ° Dividend-paying stocks đą REITs ⥠Utilities đ Growth stocks đ” The Canadian dollar đ Government borrowing costs The bond market can sometimes start sending a message before the stock market catches on. Watch the 10-year One of the simplest things I keep an eye on is the 10-year government bond yield. Why? Because it gives you a pretty good indication of what the market expects for future interest rates, inflation and economic conditions. If bond yields rise sharply, suddenly a 5% or 6% risk-free return starts looking pretty attractive compared with taking significant equity risk. That can put pressure on stocks. On the other hand, if yields fall substantially, money can start looking for better returns elsewhere. And that can be very positive for equities, REITs and other income-producing investments. And hereâs where it gets interesting⊠As a retiree, Iâm not looking at the bond market because I suddenly want to load up on bonds. Iâm looking at it because I want to understand what the market is telling me. There is a massive difference. You can be 100% invested in equities and still benefit from understanding whatâs happening in bonds. Think of the bond market as the weather forecast for your portfolio. You donât necessarily have to change your plans every time the forecast changes. But youâd be crazy not to look out the window. The bottom line The stock market gets all the attention. But the bond market is enormous, sophisticated and incredibly important to the financial system. So donât turn a blind eye to it. Watch bond yields. Watch the yield curve. Watch inflation expectations. Watch what the market is pricing in. Then decide whether it actually changes anything about your investment strategy. Because sometimes the smartest thing you can do isnât reacting to the bond market. Itâs simply listening to what itâs saying. Not investment advice â just another piece of information I think every investor, especially retirees, should have on their radar. Hang in there!read more
The 4% rule gets a lot of attention in retirement planning. But thereâs another number I think retirees should care about: 0. As in: how many times do you want to be forced to sell stocks after theyâve fallen? Thatâs where I like the bucket strategy. It doesnât eliminate sequence-of-returns risk. It gives you a plan for managing it. Hereâs how Iâd think about it. Say you retire with $1 million and need $40,000 a year from your portfolio. Thatâs a 4% initial withdrawal rate. The 4% isnât a return target. It means your portfolio needs to provide $40,000 in your first year. Iâd then build the buckets around that $40,000. đȘŁ Bucket 1: $80,000 Two years of portfolio withdrawals. Cash, HISA, money-market funds or short-term GICs. This money isnât there to maximize returns. Its job is to pay you when the market is having a terrible year. đȘŁ Bucket 2: a secondary reserve I wouldnât automatically use bonds here. If you donât like bonds, you could use a GIC ladder or other lower-volatility assets youâre comfortable owning. The amount depends on your circumstances, particularly how much of your spending is already covered by CPP, OAS, a pension or other reliable income. đȘŁ Bucket 3: the growth portfolio Everything else. $XEQT This is where your diversified long-term investments live. And this is important: The bucket strategy doesnât mean making your entire retirement portfolio conservative. It means protecting enough near-term spending that you donât have to make your long-term portfolio pay the bills during a crash. Now letâs see how it actually works. What if the market crashes? You retire with $1 million. The market falls 30%. You still need your $40,000. But you donât have to sell $40,000 of equities while theyâre down. You take it from Bucket 1. If the downturn lasts longer, you have your secondary reserve. Youâre giving your growth portfolio time. But what if the market has a great year? This is the part I really like. Suppose your portfolio grows from $1 million to $1.15 million. You take your $40,000 withdrawal. Then, while markets are strong, you can harvest some gains and refill Bucket 1. So you have a simple operating rule: Market up â harvest gains â refill the bucket. Market down â spend from the bucket â leave equities alone. Market recovers â rebuild the reserves. Youâre not trying to predict the next crash. Youâre creating a system that doesnât require you to. And the size of the bucket shouldnât simply be a percentage of your portfolio. It should be based on what your portfolio actually needs to provide. If your retirement spending is $60,000 but CPP, OAS and other reliable income provide $35,000, your portfolio only needs to provide $25,000. At a 4% withdrawal rate, thatâs a very different situation from someone who needs the entire $60,000 from their investments. Morningstarâs bucket framework similarly starts by subtracting reliable non-portfolio income from spending needs to determine the amount the portfolio must fund. (Morningstar) And I wouldnât necessarily wait until the day you retire. Iâd start building the structure as retirement approaches, particularly because the first several years of withdrawals are when sequence risk matters most. One more important point: Buckets arenât magic. Research doesnât show that bucketing automatically produces better returns than a simple systematic withdrawal strategy. (Morningstar) Thatâs not why I like it. I like it because it creates rules for the moments when emotions are most likely to take over. âš Good market? Take some money off the table. âš Bad market? Donât sell just because you need a paycheck. Thatâs not market timing. Thatâs retirement risk management. You donât need to predict the next bear market. You just need a plan that works if one shows up. Not advice, just my opinion. Do your own research.read more
We spend a LOT of time talking about what to invest in. But are we missing some of the stuff that actually matters more? Thatâs the idea behind a new video series Iâm starting with someone a lot of you already know here on Blossom @williamwang23 Will I finally got to meet Will in person at BlossomCon in Vancouver this summer. Weâd already connected through Blossom, but once we started talking in person, we just clicked. And if you know Will, you know the guy LOVES talking about finance. His wife @jesswang even jokes about how much he talks about it. Of course, I can relate. But hereâs something I really like about the way Will approaches money. Heâs built an incredible portfolio at a relatively young age, but he hasnât put his life on hold to do it. Heâs still living his life. Heâs made some really good choices with money, heâs built wealth, and heâs managed to find some balance along the way. I think thatâs important. Because we can spend hours debating what to invest in and trust me, weâre still going to talk investing but thereâs so much more to getting your finances right than what you own in your portfolio. Thatâs where I think these conversations with Will are going to get interesting. Iâve always shared my own journey because I hope someone else can learn something from it. Will loves sharing what heâs learned too, and heâs got a LOT of ideas. Weâre also at completely different stages of life. So at some point it became pretty obvious: Why arenât we recording these conversations? Well⊠now we are. Our first one is up: We Talk About Investing⊠But What Are We Missing? https://youtu.be/J9yj7PZgezs And since weâre just getting started, Iâll throw this one out to you: What do you think we spend too much time talking about when it comes to investing⊠and what donât we talk about enough? read more
So if you had $1 million saved for retirement on 31st December 1999, invested it in the SNP 500 and withdrew 4% in the first year and adjusted for inflation each year after that. you would have ZERO dollars left before 2026. By 2010 your balance would be $438,076 with an inflation adjusted withdrawal of $52295. By 2020 your balance would have improved but not caught up with inflation at $329,874. With an inflation adjusted withdrawal of $62061. Even with the crazy bull markets of the last 6 years the withdrawal rate as of 2025 is up to $96550 and the money would of ran out this summer. Was the 4% rule calculated for 30 years in a worst case scenario? I hear people talking about 7% or 8% being the new norm? How frightened would you of been come 2010 with over have your money gone đł read more
You Can Make Almost Any Retirement Plan Work You can make almost any retirement plan work on a calculator. Just keep increasing the expected return until you get the answer you want. When I started seriously planning for retirement, I first had to figure out my end goal. Then I used a retirement calculator to determine what it would take to get there. In my case, a big part of the answer was contributions. Thereâs nothing wrong with running different return scenarios. I do it all the time. For my own planning, I generally assume my portfolio will grow at 5% annually over the long term. Iâm not saying 5% is the right number for everyone. I use it because Iâd rather be modest with my expectations and have the market outperform them. But hereâs the important part for me: I canât control what the market returns. I can control what I contribute. So I try to build my plan around the amount of capital I need and assumptions I think are reasonable, rather than needing a particular investment return to make the numbers work. This is also why I think itâs important to separate yield from return when weâre planning. If an ETF is yielding 15%, that doesnât mean I should assume my portfolio will compound at 15%. If itâs yielding 20%, a 20% distribution doesnât suddenly make a 20% long-term return a reasonable planning assumption. Yield isnât return. Different investment strategies can absolutely have different goals, and income can certainly be one of them. My point is simply that I donât want the yield of an investment determining the return assumption I use to plan my retirement. So Iâm curious: Have you figured out how much you actually need for retirement? And is your plan built around the things you can control, or does it require a certain return from the market to get you there?read more
âI donât have enough money to invest.â I hear versions of this even here on Blossom. Weâre already investors, but I often hear people say they just donât have enough money to make their portfolio really grow. But what if it isnât always about how much money we have? What if itâs about how we VIEW the money we have and what we could eventually turn it into? I didnât start seriously investing until I was 50. Looking back, could I have found $25 a month when I was 18? Absolutely. And I think thatâs something I completely missed when I was younger. I thought investing required having enough money for it to actually matter. But look at what even small amounts can potentially become. Starting at 18 and investing every month until 60, at a hypothetical 7% return: $25/month â ~$80,000 $50/month â ~$160,000 $100/month â ~$320,000 $250/month â ~$800,000 Now compare that with what happened to me. I didnât start at 50 with nothing. Laurie and I had accumulated about $220,000, and to give credit where itâs due, the vast majority of those savings came from her. Thatâs a HUGE head start. But hereâs what waiting cost me. If I took that $220,000 at 50 and wanted to turn it into $1 million by 60, even assuming a 7% return, Iâd still need to invest roughly: $3,223 EVERY MONTH for 10 years. Almost $39,000 a year. Thatâs the difference time makes. Iâm obviously not suggesting every 18-year-old can invest $250 a month. The point is to find the first $25. Because youâre probably not going to have the same earning power at 18 that youâll have at 25, 35 or 45. Start with what you can afford. Then as your earning power grows, maybe $25 becomes $50. Maybe $50 becomes $100. And eventually maybe you find $250. I had to do almost the opposite. Because I didnât take investing seriously when I had decades of compounding available to me, Iâm now using my higher earning years to put MUCH larger amounts into the market. And thatâs changed the way I look at money. Laurie and I still travel. We still buy things. We still enjoy our money. But Iâve learned to find ways to put more of it to work without feeling like weâre sacrificing the life we want to live. Maybe thatâs earning more. Maybe itâs a side hustle. Maybe itâs finding expenses you realize arenât actually that important to you. Whatever it is, you start looking for the next $25. Everyone talks about how difficult it is to build the first $100,000. But nobody starts by finding $100,000. You start by finding the first $25.read more
As my first post in the retirement topic, I wanted to revisit an important foundation for both new and old investors: You should always plan for a much longer retirement period than you think. Most people, and especially the younger investors, severely underestimate how long theyâre going to be investing for. âInvesting for the long-termâ is what most people say theyâre doing, but when you ask how long that is theyâll usually say 10-30 years. While thatâs for sure a long period to invest for, your investments should continue much longer than that. For someone in their 20s who starts investing, did you know theyâll be investing for 60+ years? Thatâs a massive difference between what you might hear people say. If you own the S&P 500 it might be through an etf like $VFV, which has only been around for just over a decade. However, 60+ years of investing is as if you invested from the 1960s all the way until today. Or holding $VFV from now until 2086. Most publicly traded businesses havenât even been around that long. If a 20 year old only invested for 30 years, heâd sell everything at 50 and likely run out of money before theyâre 80. Thatâs not a great strategy is it? Now for someone whoâs approaching retirement maybe in their 40s or 50s, those investments have to last you all the way until death. Assuming you donât have a pension (and not counting CPP, OAS, etc. at the moment), you need money all the way until the end. According to the Canadian life expectancy stats, the average life expectancy in Canada is around 83 (both genders included). That means on âaverageâ, most Canadians last until 83 years old. Sounds great right? Live a long life and plan to have your investments last until 83. Hereâs the problem, what happens if you live past that? Maybe you have a grandmother who went until 100 or you have really healthy genetics, what happens when youâre now 83 years old? Or 85? Or 90? Or even 95 and above? Thatâs a whole 10+ years you didnât plan for. This is why retirement planning is so important, itâs easy to plan your retirement if you die sooner, but what about it happening later? The risk of undershooting your life expectancy leaves you with 10+ years of potentially no money. This is where proper planning exists and how things like withdrawal rates or sequences of returns come into play. A number one rule is to plan for a longer retirement period than you expect. If you make the mistake of over-withdrawing from your portfolio in retirement, you may not have enough left for later potential years. There are many strategies to withdraw from your portfolio including from the kinds of accounts, but the key is to use as little as possible to match your desired QOL and lifestyle. This is why being flexible with your investments is key. A straight percentage for withdrawal may actually do you more harm. Markets have been very good and might lead some investors to over-withdraw thinking itâs sustainable. 8% withdrawal rates have been possibly lately, but what happens when the sequence of returns doesnât come in your favour? Anyone whoâs just starting retirement has likely seen their account increase far past what they withdrew. They might think this is sustainable for 20 more years, but what happens when that 20 years turns into 30 or 40? The longer your retirement, the more guaranteed you are to see a period of drastic underperformance from the market. Multiple years of double digit negative returns are very possible. This is where not undershooting your life expectancy matters. If you only plan to retire until 80 or 85, what happens if all of a sudden you live until 95 and that 10 year period is negative returns? Many worry about having bad years right when they retire, but what about the other years like nearing the end? If you undershoot your retirement, having horrible returns in those final years may be just as detrimental. If you withdraw too much too early, you might be stuck withdrawing far less or even not enough in those final years. This is why flexibility and changes in investment style/type is important. I see many investors planning a flexible withdrawal strategy such as taking out more in good years and less in bad, but I have one level of thinking deeper you should also consider: You shouldnât just take more out because you made more. The question should actually be is taking out that extra money providing you with more memories, better QOL, or overall a better life? If the answer is no to all of those, then you likely should actually keep some of that money still invested. The larger your nest egg, the safer you are from sequence of returns risk. Retirement is complicated, and itâs important you get a full picture with as much estimates as you can. Something you should consider is actually learning about your familyâs life expectancy to take into account into planning. And of course understanding your guaranteed versus supplemented income. Always ensure you know your CPP, OAS, Pension, etc. and how they mix with your own investments you drawdown. Hopefully this wasnât too long-winded and provided some insight for those who are retired or planning for it, if anyone has specific retirement topics theyâd like me to research and discuss Iâd be happy to hear from you. As always, do your research and happy investing! read more
Roth Conversions are available for a reason. It is a tool that can be used depending on what your income sources are what your retirement budget is, and when you plan to withdraw from your TSP or IRA. I retired in the last year and can live comfortably on my SSA and pension. I plan to make a series of TSP In Plan Conversions to Roth. I will keep my total taxable income within a lower bracket and repeat the process each year. After the Roth Conversion settles, I will rollover the Roth TSP to a Roth IRA giving me the ability to invest that Roth money with lifelong tax-free on the investments and all gains and income. That will work very well with a Dividend Growth strategy. Just saying, let investors find a strategy that works for them and do not proclaim that Roth Conversions are not a good plan.
Now that Blossom has made a dedicated "retirment" topic I'd thought ill share some reverse engineering numbers about my retirment goal. I think a lot about what retirement, in fact my wife @jesswang would tell you that Ive been talking about retirment in my early 20s. Right now, there is $933K invested in the markets and Iâm adding roughly $3,000/month. If I leave it invested for the next 14 years: 7% return â ~$3.3M 8% return â ~$3.8M 9% return â ~$4.3M So $4M by 46 isnât some crazy number anymore. But with the investments Iâll also have my RCMP pension, which I'm projecting to be around $63K/year at age 46. If I eventually have $4M invested and use a 4% withdrawal rate: $4,000,000 Ă 4% = $160,000/year Add the pension: $160K from investments +$63K pension = ~$223K/year Thatâs the number I keep coming back to. That number will help me reach Fat FIRE and would give my family options. I started investing at 22 without really knowing where investing would take me...thats why I love how life changing this stuff really is..seeing young people starting early is amazing. $1M is the next milestone. $4M is the long-term goal. 46 is the retirement target...or maybe earlier? There.... my first retirement post in the "Retirement Topic" as a 32yr old lolololol. read more
My plan is to attain fire đ„ in about 2 years from now⊠(by DEC 2028). I will be 43.5 years old then. That means I will attain my retirement before 21.5 years⊠1. Regular monthly cash flow: This is probably the biggest advantage. If your portfolio produces enough sustainable cash flow to cover your expenses, you donât need to decide every month which investments to sell. My plan: Portfolio: $600,000 Covered-call distributions: 17% = $102,000/year Living expenses: $50,000/year You could potentially live on the cash distributions while reinvesting the excess of 50,000$. This can make early retirement feel more like receiving a salary. 2. Less psychological pressure during a market crash: Imagine you own a traditional index portfolio worth $1 million and withdraw 4%. If the market falls 30%, your portfolio could temporarily fall to $700,000. Selling investments during that period can be psychologically difficult. A covered-call strategy may continue generating option income and distributions even during volatile markets, although distributions and NAV can still decline. Covered calls can provide some downside cushioning but do not eliminate market losses. 3. Potentially easier budgeting Monthly distributions can match monthly expenses: Covered-call distributions â Bank account â Rent, groceries, bills and other expenses. This creates a simple retirement cash-flow system. 4. You may avoid selling assets during specific market conditions: With a traditional withdrawal strategy, you may need to sell investments to generate spending money. With an income-focused portfolio, distributions can provide some or all of your required cash. This can reduce the number of discretionary sales you make. $USCL$QQCL$ENCL$HHIS$MSTE$HBTE$BANK$UTES$BIGY$EASY$QDAY$SDAY$CDAY$YTSLread more
Historically, when the S&P 500 enters a midterm election year stronglyâup 10% or more Year-to-Date (YTD) heading into Labor Dayâthe subsequent performance from Labor Day to Election Day has generally been flat to slightly positive, bucking the severe seasonal drawdowns often seen in weaker midterm years. Since 1950, there have been exactly five midterm election years matching this exact "strong start" criterion. Below is the historical performance breakdown from the close of the day after Labor Day to the close of Election Day: đ Historical Breakdown by Year 1954: Up strong YTD into September. The S&P 500 tacked on an additional +2.4% between Labor Day and the midterm elections as the post-WWII economic expansion continued. 1958: Entering September with large double-digit YTD gains following the 1957â58 recession recovery. The index gained +4.1% during the pre-election stretch. 1986: A heavy bull market year. Despite typical September/October election volatility, the S&P 500 finished the window up +1.2%. 1998: Driven by the dot-com boom, the market was up significantly into August, suffered a sharp correction in late August, but then clawed it all back right into the midterms, finishing the Labor Day-to-Election Day window at +5.3%. 2026 (Current Cycle): The S&P 500 entered September up roughly +12% YTD, defying the traditional negative seasonal script for early midterm years. Historically, this sets a strong cushion, but market participants remain highly focused on whether late-September volatility or policy clarity ahead of the upcoming November 3rd elections will drive the typical historical script. đĄ Key Historical Takeaways No Catastrophic Drawdowns: While the average midterm year sees an average intra-year drawdown of about 18% (often bottoming in September or October), years that enter September up 10%+ YTD have never suffered a net loss over the full Labor Day-to-Election Day window. Average Return: Across these specific setups, the S&P 500 has averaged a solid +3.25% return between Labor Day and the midterms. The Post-Election Boost: Regardless of how they performed before the vote, the S&P 500 has historically been higher one year after every single midterm election since 1950 (18 out of 18 times), averaging a massive +14.5% to +15.4% gain. read more
