The Wealthy Barber Podcast - #48 — Rob Carrick (Returns): Retirement, the Value of Financial Advice and the Canadian Economy

Episode Date: March 17, 2026

Our guest this episode is Rob Carrick — longtime personal finance columnist at The Globe and Mail and one of Canada’s most respected voices on money. Rob returns as our first-ever repeat guest after being a fan favourite back in episode #3! For 27 years, Rob helped Canadians make sense of investing, housing, debt and retirement through his widely read column at The Globe. He semi-retired in the spring of 2025 and now writes a Substack newsletter, does public speaking and contributes biweekly columns to The Globe. In this episode, Dave and Rob cover a wide range of timely topics — from Rob’s transition into semi-retirement and how people can successfully navigate retirement themselves, to the growing role of advice-only financial planners and why the quality of financial advice in Canada has improved dramatically. They also dive into broader economic issues affecting Canadians today, including inflation, mortgage renewals, household debt levels, the true cost of home ownership and whether Canadians should be counting on their homes to fund retirement. It’s a thoughtful, wide-ranging conversation with one of Canada’s most experienced personal finance journalists — packed with practical insights and big-picture perspectives on money in Canada today.   Rob Carrick's Substack: https://robcarrickpf.substack.com/   Show Notes: (00:00) Intro & Disclaimer (00:55) Intro to Rob Carrick (02:18) Rob’s Retirement From The Globe and Mail (04:47) The Power of Reader Feedback (06:39) Rob’s Impact on Readers (08:06) How to Successfully Transition to Retirement (11:05) Finding Purpose in Retirement in Key (13:27) The Rise of Advice-Only Financial Planners (17:25) The Quality of Financial Advisors Has Increased Dramatically (22:55) Why Almost Everyone Needs a Financial Advisor Near Retirement (25:41) Pros and Cons of Advice Only Financial Planners (28:30) The Power of Paying Yourself First (29:17) Should You Ask ChatGPT Your Financial Questions? (33:37) Inflation and Economic Worries (35:02) Does CPI Accurately Reflect Inflation? (36:43) Mortgage Renewals and Financial Strain (37:59) Canada’s Dangerous Debt Levels (39:41) The K-Shaped Economy (41:09) The True Cost of Owning a Home (44:53)  Counting on Your Home for Retirement and the Realities of Downsizing (48:30) The High Costs of Aging in Place (50:09) Conclusion

Hey, it's Dave Chilton, the wealthy barber and former Dragon on Dragonstant. Welcome to the Wealthy Barber podcast. Well, we'll be hosting some of the top minds in the world of personal finance. Yes, that's to balance me out. The podcast is about making the subject not just easy to understand, but dare I say, even fun, honest. Whether you're trying to fund your retirement, figure out how to build a down payment, save for your kids' education, manage debts, whatever, will be here to help you. You do it. Before we jump in, a quick but important note, nothing we discuss here should be taken as

investment advice. We don't know you and your personal financial situation. So we're not here to tell you we're specifically to put your investment dollars. We're here to educate, get you thinking, and we hope entertain. But please do your own research and or consult with your financial advisor before taking any action. Hey, it's Dave Chilton, the wealthy barber with the wealthy Barber podcast. Hey, today's guest does not need an introduction. He is our first return guest, backed by popular demand, quite literally, as he was one of the most popular episodes we put out. And to his credit, we had no momentum then. He was one of our very early guests. It's Rob Carrick, former personal finance columnist of the Globe Mail. I think he was there for 72 years,

if I'm not mistaken. In fact, when the Globe first launched, Rob was covering personal finance at that time. He, I would argue, he's maybe the most respected voice out there. I really mean that. Everybody in the industry loved reading his columns and, of course, the consumers, the readers of the Globe and Mail benefited dramatically from them. Outstanding communicator. Outstanding. Very nice guy. But I think Rob's biggest asset, too, really. He had great instincts about what the readers would care about. You know, he very much drew from his own life, friends' lives, neighbors' lives, and maybe most importantly, the feedback from readers to figure out, what do they want to know? Where are they headed? What are they up against? What are they worried about?

And that's what the article's addressed. And that's why he was so popular. So truly thrilled to have him back on. Rob, nice to see you. Good to see you, Dave. And thanks for that very kind introduction. Well, it's all true. I mean, you know, I'm probably your biggest fan and have been forever and read everything you ever put out. I'm a long time Globe subscriber. And you just did an absolutely wonderful job. But not all of our listeners will be aware that you retired from that job relatively recently, walk us through the whys, the adjustments of what you're up to now. I retired at age 62 on June 30th of last year and I've been thinking about retiring for probably about two years ahead of that. I saw I engaged a financial planner and my wife and I threw

all the numbers and said, you know, what do you think? When can we afford to go? And he said I could probably afford to go before I was actually ready to go. So I had to mentally prepare you. Like I I worked for the globe for about 27 years, and I had a great time doing it. But at a certain point, I thought, you know what, I feel like I'm sort of boxed in by the routine of it all. And it was a pretty demanding regime. I was working on, you know, I was producing copy almost every day. And I thought, I'd like a chance to take a breath and think about things a little bit more.

So I had the numbers on my side. Yes, you can afford to go. So I picked a date. I basically said in February, it was almost like a year ago. I put my papers in, so to speak. but I needed like a three or four month window to sort of wind down. And I did that. I took last summer off and I started to hit the ground running in the fall,

doing some speaking and some consulting. I started my own substack, personal finance newsletter. And I'm doing calls every other week for the Globe mail still, so I still have my voice in the globe. And I'm continuing to do a few episodes of the called Stress Test podcast. So I'm keeping busy, but not nearly as busy as I used to be. What's it like working on deadline every single? single day. Most of us can't relate to that. There must be a huge pressure, but also don't you

occasionally have to put in an article that you're not that thrilled with because you're up against the clock? Sure. Sometimes I'm doing a first draft article and I'm thinking I'll have to, as things evolve and I have more time to think about it, I'll probably write something more definitive on it. I thrived on the deadlines. You know what? I lived off the adrenaline and I think a lot of journalists would tell you the same thing that when stuff happens and it's really coming down and you got to engage and right quickly and be incisive. That's the adrenaline flows and you love it. But you can't make that a way of life for decades and decades, at least decades. At least I couldn't. And I need to sort of, I need to have time to think about things.

I had deliverables every day. And I thought, man, I'd like to just take a day and think about things, read some things, send some emails out, talk to some people. And now I have that time. I did tell that so much before. How much did the reader feedback that I mentioned before help P.U over the years to evolve and become a better and better writer. I cannot describe how important it was. Yeah, I agree. A nominal. I had a, if my email made a pinging sound, every time emails came in, it would be ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, all day long. Overnight and then the morning rush people sit down at work and they send their emails or they sit down on the computers in the morning. I had it all day long. And you know what? A lot of it was, I'd say 95% of it was positive,

useful, helpful feedback from people, people who said, you wrote this, did you know about this and I think, no, I didn't. I'm going to have to get that in my next cold on that topic. Or here's what, or here's what's happened to me. Can I share an experience I've had? They would say, have you ever heard of this before? I mean, just this morning, I had someone say, have you heard of this before? It's actually an interesting one. It's an accountant trying to sell audit insurance to a client. I've heard of this before. So I have not heard of audits. Yeah, it's a client with a, like a retired client with some pension income, some riffs, some investments. What's the risk of being audited by CRA with an ABC return like that? I don't know.

live and learn. That's how that's my, I call them like my network or my posse, my readers who basically feed me with information all the time. And they tell me when you might not have this correct or you might need to sharpen your nuance on that. And I often take that to take that in the best spirit and go ahead and move forward and be smarter next time. And you and I do it in a very similar fashion because as you know, I test as I write the wealthy barber, I get it in people's hands. You need to hear your target demographic. By nature, you and I tend to be more knowledgeable. than the people are writing for. And therefore, you have to make sure that you're not assuming things that they may not know.

And to your point, we might be missing something. There's a lot of information out there now more than ever. So I think you did a wonderful job. I mean, this is going to sound a bit corny and like I'm setting you up because I consider you a friend, but I'm not. I actually am asking you a sincere question here. Are you quite proud now when you look back at the impact you had on people? I've had so many people tell me that your columns made a huge difference in the way they manage their money.

And before I answer, I'll throw one right back at you. And no book comes even close to the number of times people have mentioned the wealthy barber. And that goes back generations and it applies even to Gen Zads. People, the book resonates. I mean, you know what? If you remember you and I had a conversation in what was it, the early 90s, I was a young business supporter and you were a young author.

We connected then. And your book is sort of got me starting to understand what personal finance was about. Because previously all I'd had were, I knew, I'm sure you remember these books. They were books written by wealthy guys talking to other wealthy guys. And it was just like, I mean, and I had no idea what they were talking about. I had no inclination to learn. But your book, Open the Door. As for me, yes, I feel a lot of pride in it.

People still stop me on the street. A woman stopped me on the street like two days ago. It says, I hope you're enjoying your retirement. You deserve it. And how they recognize my face from that little picture in the globe, I don't know. But anyway, they do. And yeah, I've been stopped. I've been stopped in airplanes and airports.

I was stopped at an airport, you know, somewhere in Hawaii, plane over Vancouver. People come up to me in the shower at the gym. They just, they want to say thanks and they want to ask questions a lot of time too. But anyway, I'm grateful for them. Yeah, have you done a wonderful job. As I said earlier, everybody I know who read your columns benefited from them. Now, talk to me a little bit about retirement in a way that can help our viewers, our listeners.

How's the transition bit? For a lot of people, it's a challenge. And they don't do it very well in the first six months to a year. in particular. I've heard that a lot. I've heard a lot of the initial struggle after retirement because you, it's the great silence. No one wants you and needs you. There's no routine. There's no deliverables. There's no meetings. There's no emails to answer. There's no people who are looking to you for direction or your contribution. But I kind of anticipated that. And I'm very fortunate, you know what? I had people reaching out to me saying, would you be interested in doing this?

Have you thought about doing this? And I had a lot of things lined up for the fall after my summer off. But I had a lot of empty time as well. So I thought, how do I fill that to the level that works for me? And so that's why I started up my substack newsletter. I enjoy writing. I just didn't want to do it like, you know, 50 hours a week. So I still, this enables me to do a little bit every week. And my contributions for the globe are suit me just right. So I managed to sort of imagine like retirements in glass and you want to fill the activity level up to the level that suits you. I just kept pouring until I got to a point where I thought, yeah, that works. And that's where. I am now. But I'm fortunate to be among the group of people who had skills that could be scaled

down in retirement to sort of the amount of work that I wanted. And people that do hard physical work may not have that luxury. We can talk about, oh, like the phase retirement and the rewirement and all that stuff, but it really works for people with skills that are basically done at a desk. And if you don't have those. It's trickier. So I, um, you know, I've heard people saying, brother-in-law is talking about getting a job at Home Depot. He's very handy person, enjoys that sort of thing. Would I like happy to offer his wisdom to other people. So that's the kind of, that's something that other people are thinking about, but in terms of, it doesn't have to be a desk type of situation. But by and large, I was fortunate to be

able to say, I'd like to rebuild what I did working full time at a maybe like a 60% scale. And that's what I've got. Now, do you have a spouse at home? you? My wife, Teresa, is a consultant and she is continuing to work out of our, we have a two-bedroom condo with Dan, my office is here, her office is here. She's working full time and thinking about her future. Now, you told me at one point that you'd like to keep her working until she's in her early 90s. Have you stuck with that? No, she said she wants to do that. Oh, she wants that, yes. She's considering, she's considering her future. I think, you know, I think are you in it. Are you in it, Rob.

I'm in it. Oh, you're in it. Good. Okay. Five minute. I've heard that couples retiring at the same time is not always optimum. Yes. I make sense to me.

That makes a lot of sense. Especially two people trying to solve this giant problem or meet this challenge at the same time. Yeah. Be comparing each other and bump it into each other. So the staggered way is working for us. And I, I reckon, though. When my father retired, he was a really hard worker.

And then he went home. He was a high school principal. and all of a sudden there's nothing there. My mother worked out of the house. And after about six months, she said, if you don't develop a lot of hobbies quickly, I will kill you. And she meant it. I am quite true.

Yeah, he was hanging around her all the time and she did not like it. Yeah, I bet though he was probably thinking, what's happening here? He was. Yeah. What am I doing? I need to be busier. I've heard people say that the finding purpose thing is really big. When you've had a job in a rewarding career and they're,

you transfer into retirement, I'd want, like I ask people all the time who are retired. What's your tip? What's your advice? Because I'm curious. I think everybody's different respects. And one person was saying that they felt they had to have something every day that they could say, I did something of worth or no today. I like that. It'd be big, but it got me thinking that, that, that resonate. That's one of the pieces of advice that really resonated with. My father, I think, struggled with being a leader all of his life. And then all of a sudden, you don't have any followers. And I think that really created a void. And he did a really good job over about a 12 to 24 month, a period of filling it in. But I've had friends who were surgeons, a judge, those people have had a lot of trouble

transitioning to retirement because they identified themselves to a large extent by their job. They enjoyed it, the challenges, the impact and everything else. And as you say, all of a sudden, you don't have that. And people aren't necessarily asking for your opinion. All of that is tricky. It takes time. I think people should do a little more reading. And as you say, you had fought it through ahead of time. I did things through ahead of time, but it was kind of, like, it was funny. I spent like 27 years for the global mail telling people about retirement. And I did actually absorb enough to help me navigate it because it would have been pathetic if I didn't. I did a lot of thinking about it. And I urge people to do that too. I recently wrote a substep piece about

some things people should be doing about five years ahead of their targeted retirement data. One of them is thinking, what the heck am I going to do when I'm retired? It isn't, some people think it's just going to be an extended vacation and I really like my vacations. That gets old after a little while. And so I think the money aspect of retirement is so vital. It's the underpinning, the foundation. It basically sets you up and it gives you the freedom to think about what you want to do. But it isn't the day to day. That has to be planned as well. No, I couldn't agree more. Speaking of which, you did so many good things, but one of the things you did probably ahead of anybody else is you shone a light on the advice only segments of the financial planning industry.

You wrote about that group of people, small group at one point, as you know, and you kept on top of that over the years, et cetera, and you really are only source in the media that really exposed that group. Well, now it's growing. And I would go as far as to say it is drawing some immensely talented people. In fact, we'll talk more about that in a moment. Have you stayed on top of that and what do you think by this new movement where it's making up momentum. I think that it is still in its infancy. I think there's so much more room for

growth. The fee for service planners out there are filling a massive hole in the advice investment world. But they need to up their game in terms of figuring out how to connect to people. There's way too many people out there bursting with questions and willing to pay to have them answer. And they don't know that they can hire someone on an hourly or flat rate basis to answer everything they ever want to know about their money and their finances and their future. There's, there are search engines out there. There's websites and spreadsheets. And I've personally distributed that John Robertson spreadsheet about a million times. If I only had a commission for a dollar on that, I'd be, I'd be far wealthy. But I think that I, you know, and I can tell

by, I could tell by the flow of questions I got at the global mail and the flow of questions that still find their way to me, people, want someone to sit down and take all the details and say, you're okay. Right. You're not okay, but you're this close to it. And if we do steps, A, B, and C, you will get there. They want that desperately. And so they start emailing strangers like me, like you. Absolutely, every day. Exactly. Exactly. So why are you emailing a stranger? There's experts. It's like they don't, they don't email medical call and this. They go to doctors. So why are the fee for service planners not connecting? That's a logistical conundrum. I'll leave them to Saul. But I think they

need to raise awareness and customers will come to them. And what I love about fee for service plans is a million different models. There's the ones who sell small scale consultations, the ones who only do the full meal deal and ever, you know, with estate planning, etc. There's ones that will, let's say, you can afford to buy a house, you can't afford to buy a house. Here's how I'm going to map out your child rearing ears, that sort of thing. I think it is evolving into this world of advice for everybody. And I think it's fantastic. And, And what I laugh at is all the people who told me early on, oh, it won't work. Even a few people who tried to be fee for service planners.

Yeah. It won't work. People won't pay for financial advice. That's not true anymore if it ever was. They'll happily pay. And they'll pay four-figure amounts for it. And I just think they need to raise the awareness of the fact that they exist. What's interesting, you're right.

They will pay. And I find a lot of the better planners now. They aren't necessarily great marketers, but they don't need to be because. they have more people coming to them than they can handle. So they don't want a lot more business because it doesn't scale in a fantastic way that business. There's a lot of personal involvement. What you said is true to the extent that the really good ones have long waiting lists. They do. They basically say, they're basically saying, I don't really have room for you as a client, but I'll put you on my list. There's a lot out there that are building their businesses that have room,

they're newcomers to the business. And I don't think that there's this huge risk that you're going to get a terrible one. You know what if they've got a CFP, a certified financial planner, they won't trade. They know what we're doing. And they're not selling investment products. So the conflicts of interest have been washed out of the system. So if you have a rapport with this person and a consultation, and you ask them some questions and you see how they relate to you, I think that's a good basis for perhaps maybe hire them to do something for you. Yeah, I agree with all that. You know, it's interesting. I can sometimes be critical on the podcast of some of the advice that I see out there. But wow, are there ever a lot of good advisors, not just in the advice-only model, the fee-only model, to use your

expression, but the AUM model, the assets under management, there are so many top-drawer people now compared to 10, 20, and 30 years ago. They have got all the designations, they're outstanding communicators. We've had a lot of them on the show. And I mean, it's funny. When you go back 30 and 40 years, I really think I could have gone toe-to-to-to with anybody in the country on personal financial knowledge, even the subtleties of the tax code, etc. These people have gone past where I used to be like they are just into this to the endth degree. I am blown away, frankly, by how good some of them are. And I think what's happening is because they're getting together more, they're on different platforms, social media wise, they're raising the bar. And this group of 20 and 30 and 40 outstandingly

well qualified people is going to raise the entire industry up. It's wonderful. Industry is so much better than it was when I started writing. A great personal place. When I started writing for the globe. One of the first surprises I got was how many people were writing to me about to complain about their advisor. I was just inundated. You know what? I lost money. Things were way too aggressive or inappropriate for me. Didn't tell me about all the fees or I wanted to sell my funds and I had to pay these big deferred sales charges and it was just endless complaining. And I thought, well, great, advisors are terrible. I don't have shot. And I kind of thought I'm going to be this customer advocate. I am going to rip into this profession, and I did. And then I started to meet the

good practitioners. No one emailed me to say, I have a great advisor. Here's their name. You can meet them and find out about what they do. You only hear the negative stories. So I needed to have my ad properly adjusted by meeting some good people. And I did. And then I started to meet the people you're talking about. And you're right. The number of those people has increased massively. The field still has it's conflicts of interest and it's hidden or obfuscations on fees and it still has people selling a lot of junk, especially in a bull market like we have today. But the median level of professionalism of client first attitudes, I'm not going to say fiduciary because that's tricky, but also extremely well informed and really thinking things through instead of just have your

top doctor, RSP, that kind of business. Yeah, it's the best it's ever be. And I'm optimistic that it'll get even better. I am too. Like, I think the training is getting better. And again, these people are demanding of each other. They share best practices. They share new ideas. They share communication skills. This is the example I use. Try it. And I am really impressed. And I'm not that easily impressed, to be honest with you. But I see some of these plans now and I go, holy smokes is this good. And they've learned how to use, obviously, software to their advantage. AI will add. We'll talk about that in a moment. So no, I think the trend is on side. But to your point, there's still a lot of junk. When you and I met back in the early 90s. Do you remember there was one firm that came out,

shall remain nameless, but they were one of the first firms to use the RAP account. So they were charging 125 basis points, 1.25% to manage the money. But then they were putting the money in to high cost mutual funds inside the RAP. And some of the international funds were like 3.5%. So the client was paying 4.75% to have their money managed. And you're just pulling out of your hair going, what is going on here? For a little while, I did videos. You were gracious enough to come on one time. And part of the videos I did was a little series called Portfolio Checkup. But I'd say to readers, send me your portfolios and I'll get some advisors who I really trust.

They'll have a discussion by Law and Anonymous. And I was just stunned at some of them. Humorist almost like three different precious metal funds or four balanced funds in the same portfolio. So you've talking about the expensive stuff. And I'm talking about the slack jog stuff. Just layering junk in there. They didn't know what they're doing. just this haphazard mix of things like it's just gold is good. Let's have three different gold funds.

They don't know what they're doing. They're just chasing trends. Did a fund wholesaler just come by and talk up a product so they shoved it right in there, but they already had something in that asset class? That kind of stuff is the advice business of about 20 years ago, 20 plus years ago. But through regulators and through people writing about what they do and through more demanding customers. They've reformed themselves quite a lot. Yeah, you and I are on the same page with all of this. And I look back at those days and you're right, it's almost quite humorous some of the things that you used to see. You remember our balanced funds in Canada, our bigger balance funds, this is still true to some extent, but they were literally twice as expensive as every other

country's balance funds, not somewhat more, literally twice as expensive. I do remember that. And some of them, they remain expensive. And you can get the same product in an exchange traded fund format for a tiny fraction of the cost. I'm a bit okay with that because I think the greater good is served if they're in a balance fund rather than making guesses on their own and trading stocks or hold and stuff. Also, that expensive balance fund is better than not investing. It's better than being in a GIC and that sort of thing if you're a long-term investor. So, you know, I'm a bit more forgiving of that sort of thing. And also, the prices have come down on actual ones have come down a lot. Like there is competition. They do realize that the ETF world is offering comparable products at a far lower

cost and they have adjusted somewhat. Yeah, somewhat. You're right. And I think the trend again is on side. Okay, before we leave the advice business, one more question. I've been saying to everybody, I'm old now. I'm 65 this year and a lot of my friends are 55 to 75. You need to get a financial advisor if you don't have one when you're getting within a few years of retirement. There are so many moving parts, so many different sources of income from CPP, to find benefit. pension plan if you're lucky to have when your RSP, your RIF, your TFSA, etc. Putting all this together in the most tax optimal way is very challenging to do without software, without experience, without asking the right questions.

I'm getting more and more aggressive, especially now that I'm seeing these well done plans in saying to that group of people, pay somebody, get a strong advisor. And if your advisor's not doing that, if they're not doing the comprehensive tax planning, a state planning, get a new advisor. Agree? Oh, totally agree. Totally. And especially because the advice only planners will just look at your retirement. They're not asking for you to bring your portfolio over and to disrupt your investing life. You can still do that. You can still run your own portfolio or keep some investment advisor you like. But this is, the people don't understand that the investing is in service of the plan. The plan is the big story here. And the investing will help you meet those goals. Well said. And the plan is so important. And I think you need to have what. You know what? I was, if you'd ask me 10 years ago, would I have a financial planner like managing everything?

I would have said, no, I'll just do it myself. But you got to a point where I thought, I don't really have the time or interest at the end of the day after I've been writing about personal finance invested all day long. And now in the evening, I'm going to manage my own stuff. I don't want to do that. And in retirement, I didn't want to be Mr. Personal Finance man with all my spreadsheets and calculations and stuff.

I thought I like to write about it, but I want to dip in and out. I don't want to have to be one of those retirees. What's leader who opens up their spreadsheet every day? You know, I spent $5 yesterday and I took $6 out and those are, there are those people. I wanted to be free of that. So I got myself a planner and I'm very happy with the results. We've consolidated, like between my wife and I, like over a dozen different accounts. I tended to accumulate accounts that I tried out for my work and stuff.

And this is stupid. How am I going to run all these accounts? Like, how do you have an out allocation when you've got like all these different accounts everywhere? Also, what if something happens to me? How does my wife find where everything is? Now, it's all with our guy and we each have equal access to it. So whatever, anything happens to either one of us, it's a seamless transition. And we've asked him a million what ifs.

We've said things are different this year than they were two years ago. Can you please recalculate, feed in new information and then press entering those Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing, and everything pops up with fresh numbers. I love that. Oh, for sure. I mean, let's be honest. Doing this without software in retirement is so difficult because, as I said, there's so many moving parts, so many different sources of income.

You know, a lot of the top end, AUM firms, and admittedly, they only work with people or say have a net worth of half a million more type thing, but they're also doing a wonderful job. They do the estate plan, the tax plan. They have some of the most qualified people I've seen. They have expertise in every area. But again, the average Canadian can't necessarily gain access to them because of that threshold amount.

That's why I love the advice only planning because they don't say, well, how big your portfolio, Mr. and this is so-and-so. They say, here's my alacart menu of services. What would you like? Pick the service that you can afford. And that's it. That's the cost. There's no hidden fees.

There's no commissions. There's no training commissions. There's no deferred sales charges. There's nothing. It's that. And people will think, I am accustomed now to paying for help. I have interior decorator. I have a personal trainer.

There's so many relationships in life now where we pay someone for expert service. They're wide open to it. And I think that even if you don't have, a half million dollar portfolio, even if you have 100,000 portfolio or 50,000, maybe the planner says you, you have 50,000, you need to have a lot more and they'll get you, they'll help you figure how much more you can add and then you'll build your portfolio, but they're not going to penalize you and say, you, your assets are so small, we're not really interested, which is something that a lot of advisors are saying in their heads as you walk in the door. I agree. Have you seen a lot

in the U.S. now, there's a new model where the advice only planner, the fee only planner, then sends you out to people to help you implement, to make sure that you actually follow the advice, but they don't get a kickback. They don't get any monies coming back in their way. They want to stay clean. They don't want to look at their compromise, but they send you to competent, honest people. They know we're going to help you on the implementation front. I think we'll see more and more of that in Canada because one of the downsides with the

fee-only model is that sometimes people take the plan, a very well-done plan, but don't act on it. I spent a lot of time hearing from people who wanted validation. Right. You know what? They said, I'd rather, this is my situation and will I be okay? And I'm thinking, yeah, you'll be okay. You're like stint and rich. But some people aren't. And when they get the advice, that's work. Yeah. And I don't know if I want to do that. Or I don't do it right now. I don't feel a sense of urgency. So that's why the plan, so maybe the implementation aspect is would be very important because people

don't want to do things they don't want to do. And a plan sometimes asks that of you, you need to carve out $200 more a month to put into your savings if you want to have any hope of retiring on your target date. Where am I going to find that? I don't know. I don't feel like cutting. Maybe I'll wait for I'll get a raise. Next year I'll do it. No, you need someone to work with you to say, we're going to take that 200. I'm arranging an automatic transfer into your investing account and it's automatically invested in these investments. You get paid on Friday. The money's coming out on Friday. You'll never have your hands on it. You won't miss it. That's what we're doing. That kind of added onto a plan would be really good. Now, I agree. It's interesting, by the way, you chose that particular

example, in essence, pay yourself first. As you know, the updated version of the wealthy barbers out. And I just was doing a video writing today about how incredible it is, how powerful that particular piece of advice remains. I would still say pay yourself first is the most important commandment, all of personal finance. You know what, Dave, that is what put me on the road to financial comfort is paying yourself first. And it's not even close. The number is too. two, three, four, and five are way off in the distance. You know, I never was a budgeting guy. I mean, I understand a lot of people are budgeters,

and I'm happy to name software packages that people can look at if they want. But pay yourself first and spend the rest down to the last penny. That's how I rule. Now, you and I are on the same page. Okay, let's move over to AI. We're seeing tremendous developments, especially the last six months in the AI space. How is it going to impact the financial planning field

and more importantly, our listeners, the consumers of financial planning advice. Are you using the chat GPTs, the clods of the world ever, to ask questions on your own personal finance front? I had been using chat GPT for about more than a year. My first go-round, let's say 12 to 18 months ago, and I thought, it's like written crayon, basic silly stuff. It reads like a bank's, you know, brochures that they used to have on the rocks and the branch. chat level of generality. But last time I checked, I asked you to question about delaying CPP, and I asked the question about variable rate mortgages versus fixed rate mortgages. In the answers I got were nuanced. They correctly outlined the different aspects. They didn't fall into some of the

easy traps that I thought were out there. And I thought, okay, this is, I think this is net benefit to people. And so I think that there's no reason not to consult CHAPT for a financial planning question. I would always double-thorced. Yeah, absolutely. Can I give you a quick example? I use it frequently in Claude as well. I like testing it. I'll ask it some tricky questions. It's dramatically improved. All of the LLMs have. But interestingly, it made three mistakes in a row on relatively straightforward RESP questions a few months ago. Then Marine, my assistant, was feeding it a question about CPP OAS and it had CPP OAS not being taxed in the one example that it's set back. So there are still some mistakes, often math-oriented, but the general improvement's crazy.

And let's be honest, within 12, 24, 36 months, it's going to be wonderful. They'll figure out how to avoid a lot of these mistakes and people will have an essence of financial planner in their hand. I think they will. I think it's great. I remember how when Google came along and you wanted to ask a financial question. Like the early search engines, you got, oh, my search results, RBC, TD, Bank of Nova Scotia. That's all I got.

And Google helped me get into the blogs and the other content. out there, that was worthwhile. And all of a sudden, I was getting worthwhile hits on my searches. And now ChatGPT is in its own way getting better and reforming this idea of turning all the junk on the internet into useful information that answers my questions. I think it's going to get better. I think we should all use it. I think the double sourcing is important. There's the errors of information. There's also the hallucination. Yes. Where things, it's saying things are exist that don't. But I do think that if you're willing to consult a few other sources of information to do a double check, it's going to be phenomenally useful. And I do think that we're probably going to get to a point where somebody is going to build a framework of plugging in some basic variables and having an AI platform give you some sort of the plan.

But it's not just going to be the numbers. It's going to be the commentary that goes along with it and explaining the transitions how this amount of money that you're saving based on this rate of return, which has been. based on something that we've seen as a long-term average for the markets is going to have you ending up with this much. The software is great, but it has to be explained to people. And that's why I think humans will always have a role in personal finance. It's me telling you what's happening has a lot of value versus looking up on my computer speed or my phone and seeing a bunch of numbers.

I just find it's much more resonant when a human with experience tells you what's going to happen with your money than all these numbers and images online. Numbers and images online, there were bombarded with them all day long. It's the human contact that's rare now. You and I agree in all of that. And it's interesting, I'm seeing some of those programs come out now. They're not quite there, but they're getting very close. But a lot of them are a lot more beneficial for the under 45 market, the wealthy barber target audience, where you have a lot of similarities.

When you get to be that 50-55, I've already talked about the number of moving parts, the number of income sources, having a true expert who's been through all this before and can say to you watch out for this, but also can read you a little. little bit. Read your body language, read your fears, your hopes, all of these types of things. I think it'll end up being a great tool for the competent financial advisors in that space. It'll help them to be more efficient. For the under 45 crowd, I do think it'll substitute in to some extent, but who knows where it's all going to go? Do you think much about the ripple impact on investing on financial planning? For example, what happens if it does bumper unemployment rate from its current 6.something percent level to 10, 12? What happens to things like real estate? What happens to the markets, et cetera?

Where are we heading on all these threats? Or do you not worry about it because we can't control it? I think AI is one of several things happening in the world today that could cause all the effects you're just talking about. And like, I look what's happening as we talked. It's worse flaring up in the Middle East. And I'm just reading some economic reports this morning. And the word inflation keeps popping back up again.

And I'm thinking, oh, no. I don't know about you, but I think inflation, influx inflation was the worst, one of the worst things I've ever seen happen in personal finance in my whole career. Like the amount of upset that has caused is catastrophic. It is just, people are just angry as hell about it. Still, the inflation rate's 2.3% normal, but 8% is just burdened their brain and the

grocery prices and the gas prices and everything else. The anger, the upset, the way interest rates had to spike because of that. And so, AI, sure, I could cause all those things you said, but I'm just as worried about inflation. I'm worried about oil prices. A lot of stuff. So AI in particular, it's on my radar for sure. I have two young sons.

I wonder, well, how will that affect their life in the workforce and all that stuff? You're early in their careers. I do worry about it, but I can't say it's number one on my list. Do you think that the CPI accurately captures what most people are up against on the inflation front? Well, I have talked to people at Statistics Canada, and they, in good faith, believe it does. And I think that I put some stock in what they've told me over the years. But I think that for many people, groceries are ground zero for cost of money. They give them a big psychological waiting for sure.

Right. And I don't think the CPI does the same. It doesn't give them the same waiting that it does psychologically for people. So I don't think in practical terms it reflect the way people feel about inflation. And the grocery store is like getting punched in the face every time. you go in. I look at things and I think, how, what, why? What? Like, it's just like a box of pseudo for $9. And that happened. And I think, I'm fortunate my wife and I with the two of us and we're spending, my little retirement expense spreadsheet, we're spending way more on groceries.

There's a bunch of reasons for that, but one of them is groceries cost a lot more. But what if we had two teenagers? Like our boys are three years apart. We had two hungry teenage boys in the house. Like our grocery goals would be probably, I'm thinking, 60 to 100% more than they were in our day. And if you're sort of a lower, lower income or a middle income family and you've had these extra costs injected into your life, wow. So when the CPI says, oh, 2.3% good news, you don't feel that. I think in your case, you're pushing your wife to work into her 90s. Why don't you ever get a second job? I think that would more than take care of these grocery charge is not a concern. I may let her let her go at 89 or three. What's interesting too is that a lot of

people are having their mortgages renew this year at a higher interest rate. And of course, you add that squeeze to the grocery store squeeze and you get a very challenging situation. The mortgage thing is very interesting because I have read a few bank economists. Of course, you can take that. That's an important bit of insight of why the voice is shaped the way it is. But they're saying that the big mortgage renewal thing isn't hitting people as hard as was feared maybe 24 months ago that people were going to be like walking away from their houses or run off the earth. They wouldn't be able to afford groceries because their houses went up so much, but even $100 a month, I agree. I think that hurts.

I mean, like, I remember when my wife and I had our mortgage, we were fortunate to live in the area of constantly falling mortgage rates, but they were never much below 4%. But I remember just, oh, it's renewal time. We're just living dread of do we have to pay more. Now, I never really seemed like we had a big hit to pay more. But I was worried about that because I thought, our finances are pretty tightly segmented. Pay yourself first. I was like fenced off the savings.

I'm not going to attack that. And if we have to pay more for the mortgage, what gets cut? Are we cutting our funding for going out to D, going out, taking a vacation, paying for stuff for the boys, all that sort of stuff. And like, families today are cutting or they're resorting to debt. Let's go into the debt. I mean, obviously our debt levels in Canada, you look at our private debt relative to disposable income relative to GDP.

It's off the charts. I mean, record setting, depending on how you measure it were the highest in the world or second highest in the world. I'm seeing it all the time now. When people send through their personal finances, they're going, holy smokes, they are really in trouble. If rates ever went back up again, they'd be in bigger than big trouble. But also, they have squeezed out their savings. Their debt servicing costs so much, they can't pay themselves first.

There's truly nothing there. I mean, I'm worried. Are you not worried about, say, the bottom 50% in income right now? I'm worried about them because of high mortgage rates, renewing houses at higher rates and maybe because of groceries. I'm worried about them because of the economy and, you know, what's going to happen with hiring and opportunities for promotion and raises and bonuses. And I'm worried about them finding enough money to save for retirement.

And what are their RSPs going to look like and their TFSAs at age 50 when you're in sort of like the retirement's on the horizon and you're starting to think I have this much and I want to retire at this age. How does that all work together? I'm thinking, wow, I'm not in the zone at all. And I'm going to have to work to 70. And I'm, you know, I think we need to stop holding out working longer is a bad thing. I think we need to say that's a lever you can pull to, to give yourself.

a little more time in the workforce, you'll be at peak earnings, you know, you'll be able to like stuff a lot. Ideally, have you mortgage paid off? You could stuff a lot of money into your retirement savings. But I do think that everybody's, you're right, discretionary savings is, it's a shrinking pool, it's being attacked from all these different directions. I know if we had a booming economy and everybody was getting good raises and there was competition for hiring and people were offering bonuses, I'd say, okay, there's ways to pick up that money on the margins, but I don't see that right now. No, you said all that very well. I mean, I normally don't like simplistic analogies to describe an economy, but the K-shaped economy that you're hearing about,

there's a lot of truth in that, maybe more so stateside, but even here, because you've got this top 30, 40, 40, 50 percent in income, not only are able to save, but they've been able to put it into the asset markets and the stock market, real estate market have done very well for the most part, pulled back lately in real estate, whereas the people on the lower end are not only up against this inflation and can't save, they therefore don't have any of the assets. And the divide is getting wider and wider. I think it's accurate. I think it is too. And I worry about people in the lower leg of the K, how do they elevate themselves? What's going to be the factor out there? You can't get into the housing market so you can't at least have the mental satisfaction or emotional satisfaction

seeing your house equity rise. The job market is frozen up like investment and like corporate investment in Canada is not thriving right now because of trade uncertainty. The unemployment rate isn't dramatically high, which is a good thing, but there's not a lot of hiring. There's not a lot of opportunity for young people. I remember after the financial crisis, 0809, there was this, remember the gig economy? All these young people were trying to get into the workforce. There were no jobs for them. They were being invited to take unpaid internships and get one-year contracts. I feel like we're moving back into that for the latest cohort of grads. And that's a hell of a way to start your career. Like, you're in suspended animation. You can't get any traction in the

economy. And that's just going to feed into that lower leg of the K. I agree. And I think AI is going to compound that challenge. So I'm worried about that. Here's something that I I feel like a bit of a lone wolf. I've been talking about this now for five to 10 years, but as I see people spending summaries, I think I'm on the right track. Man, is it ever expensive to own a home?

And for our listeners, I am not saying don't own. I own. My daughter owns. I think my son will. I'm not saying don't own. I'm just saying even experts tend to underestimate how expensive it is to own a home.

I'm not talking to mortgage payment. Property taxes, home insurance, small upkeep, rentos. I can go on and on. If people actually track all that action, it adds up to a ridiculous number, but especially now, because almost all those things are

rising at a greater than CPI pace in the last five years. My line on this has always been, people say that owning a home is a force savings plan. I've always said it's a forced spending plan. I'm stealing that, Rob. I'm stealing that. Yeah, I'm going to tell people you, and I'm going to tell people you stole it for me. I'll happily give you authorship of that if it penetrates. Okay. You know what? No one's ever honest about cost of of owning home because if we were honest about the true financial experience, no one would ever want to own one of these things. Like everyone has stories just like, you know, I'd get a nice tax refund and something would happen in the house and just like we're just sunk up every drop of it. Plus,

you know, and it was it was just maintenance to get back to status quo. Wasn't that grandiose improvement. Owning a house is just a massive financial outlay and no one has ever really told the full story of it in technicolor so that people can go. on getting into this house and I now understand that every spare piece of money probably should go into my eyes. I won't, but it should. You should repair the blank and then you should upgrade the such and such. You're going to have to do it eventually. And it's just a matter of accepting that. But you don't really go in mentally prepared. You don't. And by the way, I love to your expression. No one's ever really explored it in technical. Because I think that's what some of these new spending summaries are doing. Now as people are chronicling how they're spending their money. A year in, they're going, oh my gosh, my house is expensive. And I've forgotten. I had to buy a hose.

And then we were lucky enough to get a hot tub, but then we had to build a deck. And then we had to change the plumbing. And it's just on and on. And every time you're going through something like that, you think it's a one-off. But when you have 71 one-offs, they're not one-offs. They're just a series of events you're going to have to deal with. And again, I'm not to do not at me, all the listeners. I'm not saying don't buy a home.

I'm saying be prepared. And this is why I always say, whatever you think you can afford, buy less. You know what else is a problem here is that housing is expensive. But there are factors in play making it even worse. And that is like the whole social media experience, the idea of the beautiful home and the great renovation is so true. And fantastic lights up. So houses are expensive and everything we said it's just true.

But now we're being exposed to all the cool things everybody else is doing to their home. And we're not. And what's wrong with us? And why aren't we doing a rental? Our kitchen doesn't have an island. Or maybe islands are out. We should get rid of our island. I don't know.

That's big. And you know what? There was always keeping up with the Joneses and all that stuff. But I didn't, we weren't. into the Jones's kitchen. Now we are. And we can see what they're doing. And we're thinking our kitchen's looking a bit shabby. And I find that's like turbocharging, the spending impulse and the spending imperative when you're home. No doubt. I mean, absolutely. Instagram has really affected a lot of this. Look what it's done to weddings. You've got a challenged economy in many parts of the Western

world. And the wedding business has never been stronger. It's crazy how strong the wedding business is now. And it's because I think Instagram has pulled the spending in, the expectations Some people rise above it, but let's be honest, a lot of people don't. Yes, like the two worst, worst together personal finance are destination wedding. That's so true, isn't it? No, it's so true. It really is. Listen, you've been great to have on.

I'm going to wrap up with an interesting point. And I want to get your feedback on it. I've seen a lot of interviews lately where the interviewer has said to the expert, oh, people are really counting on their home to get them through retirement. Now prices have dropped in many parts of the country by 10, 20, 25 percent even. How are people handling that? What's interesting is that hasn't been my experience. When I've sat across the kitchen table from people, they're not normally counting on

their home to get them through retirement. In fact, they don't want to move from their home. Their plan is to stay there. So I'm not seeing that on the front line. I'm seeing it in the media. Your thoughts? That's a really interesting observation, Dave. The retirement is my home.

I worked hard to make people try and get around that, think, know your home is where you live. But I have heard a lot of people say to me, my retirement is my home. And what do you think they mean by? that. Do they mean that they are going to sell it? They mean somehow, I don't have a lot of savings, and I'm going to have to figure out a way. It's very abstract for them. My home is an asset. I know it's worth X number of $100,000. Somehow, in some vague, unformed way, I'm going to convert that into money. I will sell in a downsize. I will get a reverse mortgage. I'll access, I'll use my home

equity. I'm going to somehow, the dollar value of equity, I'll create a flow of money that will help me out of that. I don't think they've thought it through. They don't know the cost of doing this. The inconsiderable cost of a reverse mortgage or a he lock or how hard downsizing is. It's not an easy thing to do. It doesn't, like there's many piff falls there. Well, and let's expand on that for a second because let's be honest, we both have friends downsize it never ends up being a downsizing. It's crazy how many friends say I'm going to downsize and end up buying an even nicer place. It may indeed be a little smaller, more convenient to take care of, but because it's so nice, and then you count the commission, the land transfer attack, the hassle factor, the move,

they didn't free up any money. That is absolutely a thing I've heard of. You want to downsize. It's like a cut in lifestyle. Unless you have an extremely valuable home and you are willing to live in a somewhat nice place, then you can reap a lot of money. But are you going to move to a much smaller town where the real estate is a lot cheaper? Are you going to move to somewhere that is in a much less desirable neighbor?

These are ways to create gaps between the salary price of your family home and the price of your next place. Renting in retirement is an interesting thing. But I'm not sure a lot of people are, it's going to be the answer for a lot of people. You know what? You don't want to have to move because your landlord is changing. That's right. Doing something with the place. You know, there's dedicated rental places.

A lot of new buildings. Luxury rental. My wife and I looked at one. And they're nice, but wow, are the expensive. They really are. I think they're beyond the vast majority of. The vast majority, so they've got very affluent young people and very affluent boomers who I guess just need a pad in town and they're not around a lot. But for the masses, no way. I was blown away like

3,000 and up and then you have to add on extras for parking and a storage locker and stuff. And I just didn't see the value in it. So I think the renting thing isn't ideal either. So using your house for retirement, I think that at the end, you might be able to sell your house and use the proceeds for long-term care or that sort of thing. We told our financial plan, keep our house separate. Yeah, I don't know what we're going to do with it. But it's a thing. We're living in it. And let's not factor it in. I don't know where it's going to go or what we're going to do with it. But I don't want to have to align. It's not liquid. So it's not very useful. No, I think that's advisable. And I also think, again, that's what I see a lot is people are to your point. They think, yes, it is there. Maybe they

access it. But they don't want it as part of their financial plan because they don't know what their future efforts are going to be. You know what, by the way, it's interesting. You talked about the human part of this entire planning process. Do you ever see it here because grandkids play such a huge role in decisions around where am I going to live? Am I going to move down? How long am I going to go to Florida? Grandkids are a huge part of this thinking process. You mentioned something earlier about wanting to stay in the home. And that's really interesting because I have a 97-year-old mother and I have some mid-80s in-laws and staying in the home. You think you want to stay in the home just wait until you see what come. Okay. You know what?

Let's talk about the incredible cost of owning a home. There's the even more incredible cost staying in the home. It's a handful. And I think people who are imagining they're going to do that, they might want to spare a few minutes to look around and see what the cost of care will be and of retrofitting will be and all that sort of thing because owning a home in your 80s and 90s and all that stuff is fine for some people. Some people are in very good shape and they retain the ability to stay on top of things,

but lots and lots of people don't. And, you know, I've had an inside look at some retirement homes lately, and I thought they're doing a nice job. And there's a lot of people in there and they're in the right place. I couldn't agree more. I mean, we've gone through with my father and you have to get outside help in. It is a crazy expense of a lot of the assisted living facilities are actually quite nice. There's, you know, accurate criticism. They're inconsistent, but a lot of them are quite nice.

But all this is tricky. And if we keep living longer and longer and longer and longer and if AI has medical breakthroughs, oh, my gosh, it's going to be tough figuring out all this going forward. I think you've got the right idea. just keep your wife working indefinitely and you should be fine. That's my big takeaway from today is that's the big. Well, we all do what we can do. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, thanks so much for coming back on.

You're one of my favorite people in the field. You're a gentleman and a very sharp guy. So thanks again. Glad to do with date anytime.