The Wealthy Barber Podcast - #53 — Brian Orlando: The Case for Keeping Your Finances Simple

Episode Date: April 21, 2026

Our guest this episode is Brian Orlando — CPA and creator of the fast-growing Canadian personal finance account @CalmMoneyCoach. Brian has over 15 years of experience across accounting, finance and tech, before recently leaving the corporate world to pursue financial coaching full time. His mission is simple: reduce money stress and help people build plans they can actually stick to. In this conversation, Dave and Brian explore why simplicity is often the most powerful strategy in personal finance — from automating savings and avoiding high-fee products to cutting through common misconceptions around RRSPs and investing. They also dive into real-world challenges Canadians are facing today, including the rising cost of living, lifestyle inflation and the pressure to “keep up.” Along the way, Brian shares practical insights on everything from the Smith Maneuver to employer RRSP matching, renting vs. buying, insurance decisions and how to make smarter financial choices in your 30s and beyond. If you’re looking for straightforward, no-nonsense financial advice that actually works in the real world, this episode is packed with practical takeaways you can implement right away.   Show Notes (00:00) Intro & Disclaimer (00:55) Intro to Brian Orlando (The Calm Money Coach) (02:26) Brian’s Background & Career Path (05:37) How Brian Grew His Audience for Calm Money Coach (07:55) Why Simplicity Beats Complexity in Investing (11:03) Automating Savings & Paying Yourself First (11:54) The Downside of Fintech Platforms & Expensive Investment Products (13:52) The Rising Cost of Living & Financial Desperation (16:10) The Smith Maneuver Explained (23:08) Financial Advice for Canadians in Their 30s (27:55) Canada is Lucky to Have Great Financial Educators (29:59) RRSP Misconceptions & Tax Efficiency (32:59) Getting Good Advice for Retirement is Financially and Emotionally Beneficial (36:30) Will People Get Married in Retirement for the Tax Advantages? (37:50) Rent vs. Buying a Home (43:45) The FHSA & Its Triple Tax Advantage (44:21) Term vs. Whole Life Insurance (47:10) Employer Matching on Group RRSP & Fees (49:46) Overspending on Cars & Lifestyle Inflation (52:32) Conclusion

Hey, it's Dave Chilton, the wealthy barber and former Dragon on Dragon Stand. 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, podcast. You know, today is a very interesting guest because I sought him out. Brian, I'll introduce him officially in a moment. He and I do not know each other. We just spoke for the first time. And I grabbed him for the show because I'm a fan. He produces financial education content and he is good. He is very good.

He first started hitting my algorithm about six months ago, a little skeptical to be honest, just because you see some not so good educators. I watched the first couple and I thought, wow, This guy is knowledgeable. He's an outstanding communicator. He covers off the nuances of all of this very well. The exceptions. I kept watching. I love his material. In fact, sometimes I watch his short videos on Instagram, wherever else. And I go, this guy is better than I am, which really annoys me, to be perfectly honest. Like, he is very solid. You're going to benefit dramatically from having him on. It's Brian Orlando. Now, we have a lot of Southwestern Ontario viewers. This is not Brian Kissimmee. Okay, I know that you always have Kissimmee on the mind when you hear Orlando. This is Brian Orlando. He's a CPA. His father, I think,

was a teacher and that drew him into the educational end of things. It's interesting. Brian works in a traditional job. He works for a sonos, isn't it? I actually just left Sonos just this last month, but I was transitioning out of it. I gave them a lot of head head rumor and everything like that. But yeah, I've just started like doing this business for real now just in February. Well, you're doing a wonderful job. Before we talk about financial. education and you and I get involved in the back and forth, etc. Tell a little bit about how you got involved in this because it is a bit of an unusual path. I think just my family growing up and everything like that, if you don't mind me doing like a little bit back.

No, of course not. I like it. I like it. I was born in Montreal. I actually lost my biological father to non-Hodzhen's lymphoma just when I was one, which is quite an unusual circumstance, obviously. So my mom, she worked in sales and oil and gas. She put herself through her mask. She put herself through her master's program, grinded her tail off in the 90s, especially sales and oil and gas is not an easy environment. Very cyclical, that's for sure. 100%. I get a lot of my work ethic from her.

I just admire her so much. She's been a huge inspiration for me. And then we moved to Nova Scotia. She's met my dad, my stepdad, I just called my dad, of course. He's a teacher, high school teacher, football coach for a million years. Such a community focused person just took such an interest. in his students over the years and everything like that. Love it.

I took accounting at St. Mary's and I went to PwC, got my CPA. After doing that for about four years of grinding my tail feather off too, I decided to take a consulting job down in the U.S. I mostly did deals for Johnson and Johnson, mostly divestitures, a little bit on the buy side as well. They lived out of suitcases and just, you know, that's really where I saved all of my money, started to invest, started to get interest in this work. world of personal finance and everything like that.

I think I read Rich Dad Poor Dad at some point around that. So that just got me motivated to maybe go into entrepreneurship later down the line. And then eventually I decided to have a little bit more foundation and just stop moving all the time. Then I went into corporate finance at So No's. I flipped around roles in the company multiple times. I eventually decided to get a little bit out of accounting and finance and go into more automation, implementing AI, which is a hot button issue for everyone.

And then just this last year, I started kind of posting online and I always wanted to do education and do some consulting as well, potentially. And just this last month, I transitioned full time into this job and everything like that. But I always wanted to do some sort of teaching just for my dad and everything like that. And my favorite job was coaching kayaking actually as a teen. So it's been really rewarding. Well, you're good at it. Like, honestly, you've got a real natural flair and you come across as a very calm, caring person. in the videos and I think that it makes people warm up to you and trust you having a CPA

obviously serves you well. Plus you're not selling product at all. You don't have any natural biases tied in. Just for our listening audience, when Brian is in the M&A space doing the buy, sell, et cetera, when he says he's working hard, that is a true 60 hour week, sometimes a 70 hour week. We often hear people exaggerate how many hours they work. When you're in M&A and you're involved in those deals, you really are working 10 and 12 hour days quite frequently. It's a tough go. And it's something, it's easier for younger people. I did a little of my 50s and holy smokers, I was too old for that. Like, that's a lot of hours. So I love what you've done and now you've transitioned and your current business, you're doing some coaching, we'll talk about later,

but mostly right now you're creating content. Yeah. You're getting out there as an educator on the conventional platforms. How did you grow your audience? You didn't have an established brand. How did you get the falling just through really resonating with people and then having the algorithms pick you up? Pretty much. I started just posting. It was around when you found me actually is when I started posting and I I chalk up a lot in life just to luck and everything like that. But I just have such a strong interest in this area. I think I get a lot of it too of just like ideas or concepts for my own family where I see my mom struggling. She's always dealt. There's always one person in the family deals with the finances. That was my mom. And she's having so many.

challenges with personal finance in general later in life. And she's worked so hard for her money. It's a shame to see so much of it kind of get lost in translation with some of these larger mutual fund products or, you know, these oil and gas pension plans and stuff like that. So part of it was just posting on some frustrations and everything like that. And then I also just ask people like what they're looking for. Like what do you guys not understand? I just take feedback from people all the time. And that's how I get, you know, I just write them down in a word document, nothing fancy. I'm like, hey, what topics are you guys looking for? And I find just asking people straight up and then kind of taking a step back, trying to share a little bit

more of the nuance and things like that, because sometimes things don't get a fair shake. I mean, RRSs and TFSAs and things like, there's so much bias towards either online. And I'm like, they're just both great tools in general and you can use them in different circumstances. And let's be honest, there are a lot of people who don't study the math carefully enough, obviously with your accounting background, you tend to be a bit anal about all of that, as you should be, because we're out there educating. We have to know the subtle nuances, et cetera. So, no, I think your stuff's interesting. And not only that, you've got a broader range of material than many and that you're doing Canadian personal finance, but you've also gone into some macro themes and tried to make things like

the carry trade more understandable. You'll look at the current economic situation and talk a little bit about it and how it could ripple impact and affect people's lives. So I think that it's just fun and interesting stuff to watch. One of the things that jumps out of me watching your videos is that you very much emphasize simplicity over complexity, very much wealthy barber like. One of the things I find a lot of people don't understand is you and I aren't doing that just because we think it's more likely to resonate. It's also what works.

So yes, it's easy to understand, but it's also what's effective. The complex stuff, the tricky stuff tends to put people going backward. Do you not agree? Yeah, 100%. It's kind of one of those things when, you first start off learning about this personal finance space and there's so much out there and it feel and there's people online too that tell you like you need to complicate a you know a simple investing in index funds is dead and all this stuff and guess what I have a course to sell you

that can help solve all these problems on investing and I'm like investing really can be quite simple I know that's frustrating to hear by some people but it's kind of one of those like Jedi tricks where it's like the more you know, the more you kind of go back to simplicity. Because just adding complexity over time of just like all these different accounts, I find the more people make almost, it's like there's more different things trying to steal everyone's money of like everything's a drag on people's, you know, funds and white life insurance and different products and people trying to get people involved in all these leverage schemes too of leveraging up. I agree with everything you just said.

And I had a friend Jim Murdoch. He's now retired, was an excellent financial advisor in the KW area. And he used the expression, simplicity on the far side of complexity. And he would talk about how a lot of people started out doing the basics, the wealthy barber type stuff, the stuff you're teaching. And then they felt, okay, I've taken full advantage of those. Now I'm going to go to the more complicated things, didn't do well, went backwards, got poor returns, and went back to the basics, just doing more of them. And that is a path you see a lot. And I wish people would just skisks. up the metal section and stick with doing the basics. Even in like a very advanced optimizing situation, you're talking about like 0.2.5% extra returns using account optimization. And it's like, that's great if you have, you know, millions of dollars I can start to add up. But really, if you're under 250K, just keeping it so, so simple. Using any of the shelters, honestly, is a great idea. Well, I remember there was a line in the wealthy barber returns where, were the person says,

should I go the RSP route or the TFCA route? And the guy says, yes. Right. Okay. They're both rocks solid. They're both very good. Just do them. Like save money and do them.

And to your point, we're getting so caught up in the optimization. And I'm guilty of that on occasion as well, especially with that particular comparison. But in general, people throw themselves into that. And I think it's interesting is the industry has become stronger in some ways. We have so many great, smart people at the top of the industry. that problem is actually compound a little bit because they naturally are looking for the two decimal places, the way to optimize and it can confuse the situation. You almost get this paradox of choice setting in where all these different optimization options can overwhelm

people and get them away from the core. You are very good, I think, at saying automate. So if we're trying to keep it simple, let's take human nature out of the equation, let's take discipline to some extent out of the equation. Let's go back to the ultimate guide. Pay yourself. first. Yes. How do we do it and let's automate? Walk us through some of your thinking there. Totally.

I think what you just hit on paying yourself first is literally one of the best ideas. It's, it's foundation. Everything's foundational. I'd say a lot of this stuff I even hit on with like investing and optimizing and all these things and just education in general about all this area of personal finance and wealth building and keeping more of your money. It goes back to having, having the skills first, having a good job, actually investing. in yourself, and then every paycheck, just taking a chunk off of that, automating it,

putting it into one of these tax shelters. There's so many great online, low-cost brokers now. I mean, it's easier than ever. Their UI or user interface is so straightforward and simple. And I'm so grateful there's all these tools and everything out there for people to use. Again, some of them are trying to actually promote things, I think, that are trying to take more of people's money, sadly over time and some of these products again. Well, let's expand on that.

We'll both stay diplomatic, but let's be honest, a lot of the platforms when they first came out, people like you, the Dave Chilton's of the world, we were drawn to them because they did make all this much easier. The fees weren't too, too high. And we knew margin suppression would come in and the fees will go down. And it's all been wonderful. And to your point, the interfaces are well done. The challenge is those same businesses obviously are looking to optimize their own profits and

are now looking at all kinds of products that I think are taking people down the wrong paths and they're very adept at marketing and they do such quantities trying to get people to trade options and commission free option trade well don't trade options is the best advice you'll ever get on the option trading front and I'm worried now that a lot of the people who went to these platforms for the right reasons are going to get swayed by all the aggressive marketing I see that with I mean Robin hood in the US is like a great example and of just launching so many products to retail investors of you can do everything you can leverage up, you can basically take debt in multiples now and buy stocks or do option trading.

And these things get complex and, you know, unless you have a really deep understanding of these. And even for people who do have a deep understanding of these, I look at the research all the time. And even with like option trading and the wheel strategy and everything like that, your best case scenario, you're landing somewhere back around the index fund. And if you're doing that not in a tax shelter, you're getting eaten up by all this drag over time. And I think it's just such a shame of like all these products launching of like so many people are struggling in Canada. It's such a shame to see. And so many people are tight for money.

Cost of living has risen incredibly over the last, you know, 20 years. And all of this stuff is like people are trying to figure out all these extra ways to make money outside of like their day to day job. And I feel for them it's like, you know, if I just follow this person or just get this advice from this thing online or just in. invest in this, gold mine, whatever it is. Like, there's all these things, right? That people are just like very desperate for looking for an edge or something that's going to give them, you know, wealth to retire and escape. It's tough. I've said, and then these numbers are literally pulled out the top of my head, but I've said in a few interviews that when I used to help people and sit across the kitchen table, they show you their numbers, their spending summaries, etc.

And the bottom 15-ish, 18% in income, it was going to be tough to do the wealthy barber. type things. They're just trying to survive and pay the bills. I get it. I think it's now the bottom 40-ish percent, maybe even higher because the cost of living has risen so dramatically, to your point, the last 20 years specifically since COVID. And it's making it very difficult to pay the bills and also save the 10 to 15 percent and take advantage of the types of things you teach. Hopefully over time, we'll have more economic growth around productivity growth so that incomes can exceed inflation and we get back to where it's more possible to do all of this. But you're right, it creates an atmosphere of almost desperation where people are willing to take on more aggressive

risks or buy into stories. I mean, you and I have both been around long enough to know that when people are saying, I'll sell you a trading course for $299, well, if they could successfully trade, they wouldn't need your $299 clearly. And most of these are just disasters for people. You mentioned very briefly the amount of leverage that you're seeing, especially stateside by a lot of the retail investors. Where I see it playing out now is when you see speculative securities go down 5 to 7% within Iran war with anything, they almost by nature now have to go down 15, 20, and 25 because there's so much force selling that sets in quickly because the amount of leverage across all these securities. Yeah, it's a bad situation to be margin called where it's like you're

already down and then you're forcing yourself to sell your position at a loss and then liquidate this this debt. And I see so many Canadians that are using like debt for Smith like maneuvers to invest or buy other properties. And, you know, sometimes it could be an okay strategy. But again, keeping it simple, it usually wins. And I see it too stretch thin where these people are already kind of just making it buy, not really having much of an emergency fund, just trying to generate a little bit more income. And it's just not the situation to do it in. Walk us through the Smith maneuver. We haven't talked about that in the podcast, interestingly.

What is the basis of it and how often is it used? What do you see as it's pros and cons? Yeah, I mean, I see it's far too frequent by a lot of people. You and I agree. Really, what's happening is someone's taking out debt and they're investing that debt into an income producing asset and then deducting that interest. And so hopefully the income producing asset grows and returns over time. And, you know, they're kind of managing this debt and interest and that's tax deductible and everything like that.

But it's really, I mean, it really is an advanced maneuver. If someone is doing already quite well, it can kind of add to their situation if they're doing fine financially. But I see a lot of people just leveraging up on debt that are barely paying the bills and then also doing the situation and then investing in, you know, whatever it is, like covered call ETFs and stuff like that, which are, which are debatable. by the CRA as well, whether they're actually sufficient to be income producing, because a lot of it's actually return of capital. Return of capital for sure it is. So it's a lot of these things. And people are getting audited by the CRA in a lot of these positions.

Maybe it's getting called away where the CRA is saying, actually, you can't deduct this interest because you didn't set this up right. You didn't actually trace your funds. You're actually doing a lot of trading in this account. And it's really hard to follow through like this debt that you borrowed. And then you've bought this and then you sold that and then you bought this. And really, I think a lot of people are adding a lot of complexity, a lot of risk, especially with, you know, Cape being so high right now to the U.S.

It's hard to anticipate returns to continue as strong as they have. Again, I'm not calling for a crash or anything like that. But it's just these situations where people are ever increasing complexity, cost of maintenance to maintain these positions. I think it can be a benefit if you're already in such a good financial situation. in and you're just looking maybe to optimize a little bit more, but I see a lot of Canadians doing it in situations where it just does not make sense because they're kind of living paycheck to paycheck, not saving, not maxing other tax shelters, not doing the basics. I would always recommend

to do those first. For listeners, when Brian talks about Cape, it's a cyclici adjusted price earnings ratio of the entire market. And basically right now, like all valuation metrics, it's saying the market is expensive. Now, neither here, I are smart enough to call for market topics. market bottoms or anything else, but it does suggest that the returns in the next 10 years are unlikely, not impossible, but unlikely to be as good as they have been the last 10, 15, and 20 years. So it's perhaps an odd time to be taking on a lot of leverage. You use the expression they're tracing what you're up to. That is so important. When you're going to get involved with any of these that involve taking the tax rate off in the interest, you have to chronicle

all of this extremely well. You could get audited and CRAI have actually found is quite reasonable when they've come in to audit these situations, but they need to be able to track what you're doing in a very efficient manner. You've got to lay all that out very, very well. My big observation about a lot of this, not as it applies to the Smith maneuver specifically, but just leverage to buy equities, for example,

leverage to buy any kind of risk-oriented is that people's risk-tolerance level is difficult to assess at the best of times, but it is really tough to assess how they're going to handle volatility when it's borrowed money that they have invested. it. In general, sitting back at my advanced age, I found people don't handle it well. If you think it's stressful watching your own money go down in value, try watching the bank's money go down and

value. People are more inclined to panic, want to stop the pain, etc. One of my staffers has been through it and made that exact mistake at selling low because she did get a little panicked about all of this. So I think you really have to know the client well, know yourself well. The problem is it's hard to know how you're going to react to extreme volatility with borrowed money. Now, going back to the Smith maneuver, it often ties into the mortgage in some way, shape, or form. In essence, it's used to try to make the mortgage interest tax deductible. Again, walk us through that. So essentially, you're building up equity as you pay down your mortgage. It's not as efficient, let's say, just because it's personal debt, so you can't deduct that or anything. But as you build up

that, build up your equity in your home, you're taking out a home equity line of credit on your equity that you've built up over time, you know, creating that line of credit and then taking that chunk of money from the line of credit and then moving that into some income producing asset. A lot of people do real estate, obviously, with that money. There's cash damning strategies too as well. But I've seen a lot of people just taking that and investing it in non-registered accounts in Canadian dividend payers for the most part, but a lot of return of capital style option, like covered call ETFs. No, I agree. Now, when you talk about cash damning, that's an expression you're hearing more and more. Define that for our listeners.

Really, what you're doing, again, is taking your, your rental property. And you're kind of like you're instead of taking the funds from the rent itself, you're actually increasing the debt on that property over time. As you're paying off the mortgage and everything like that, you're flipping that mortgage down payment back into a home equity line of credit. And then it's a really long term play. I mean, This is so minimal, these little chunks of debt that slowly add up on this home equity line of credit on your rental over time. Over 10 years, that interest right off of deductible interest can add up. But again, it is like a really, really long-term strategy. And you want to have everything in order. That one tracing becomes even more challenging, having a separate bank account set up. There's just a lot more moving parts to trace through. Those ones are a little bit trickier when you get into an audit situation and involve a lot of tracking.

and involve a long time frame. So you kind of have to stick with this strategy, whether it's you or your partner doing it, you kind of have to be aligned over a really long time period. And, you know, when you're talking about 10 years, there's going to be, you know, a downturn in the market at some point in that period, again, that you just hit on. And it's one of those situations where you think you can handle the smoke and the fire. And now that things are comfortable, but then when the market dumps or drops, you know, 10, 20, 30%, it does get tricky. It's scary and headlines are going crazy and everything like that. And

you just kind of have to maintain these positions, keep the maneuver going and everything. No, it is. Psychologically, it can be very, very challenging. Okay, you're dealing with educating a group of 30, 35-year-olds, Canadians, normal income, maybe even a little bit higher than normal income. What's the starting spot? If you had to say to them, look, here's the one or two or three things I really want you to focus on going forward. What are you looking at? Honestly, just creating a plan of like, Figuring out with someone what their goals are, why they're trying to build this plan, a lot of people have that goal of retiring early and everything like that. So it's like, okay, you have this dream of retiring early.

Let's kind of back into this. Again, just setting up those simple accounts, whether it's FHSA, TFSA, RRSP, paying yourself first, actually setting up the schedule. I think it's important to budget and save, of course, right? And, you know, have an emergency fund and everything like that. But a lot of people, I don't think of like why they're doing it or what point they're trying to get to. Everyone just wants to back into some magic number of, okay, I take 4%, and I want to, you know, have $80,000 a year. So I divide that by 4%.

And I'm like, okay, I need $2 million or whatever. And then I get to retire early. But actually, what does that look like, that plan to get to a point where you could look at retiring early? I think purpose goes a long way too. and I think people should always have some purpose in life and retiring early as kind of a pipe dream somewhat. But really just paying yourself first, automating it, doing a low-cost broker, using your tax shelters, just investing in really simple, low-cost, broad index funds, globally diversified. These all-in-one ETFs are pretty amazing to me, where it's kind of, again,

it's like the more you learn, it's like you kind of just go back to this. I really like it personally. Like, it's, it's so nice to rebalance. Rebalancing is a painful thing to do over time in different accounts. So painful. When you own, like, even just owning like five or six ETFs, which you kind of have to do to really balance things out okay overall, you're like developed and emerging and international markets. And then you have the U.S. market and the Canadian ETF. And you're like, how do I balance all this? Again, when you're just starting out to invest and make a little bit of money and save, just setting up that plan, automating it. using a tax shelter. Again, when you're just starting, it doesn't even matter. Or true, like, when I look at the math long term, once you start making more and more, of course, it starts to matter on the math and everything. It's interesting, though, like you're so right about the all in one ETS.

You get a couple and they're putting $7,000 a year each into their TFSA and they're buying one or two all in one ETS. Let's say they're predominantly using heavy equity exposure because they're young and they have 30 and 40 and 50 years ahead. They've got the geographical diversification, the rebalancing, is taking care of for them. The fees are very low. Obviously, the portfolio has tremendous diversification. These are wonderful products. Now, they're still going to be volatile. They'll still be extended downturns. But over the 20 and 30 and 40 years, holy smokes, I wish these were around when I was a young guy. Me too. Yeah. I mean, it's a young guy. You can't say that.

Fair, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's amazing. I mean, just doing that instead of, you know, sports spending or whatever you're doing every month. Just doing a hundred bucks in one of these things is an awesome strategy. Again, like, I know people maybe think there's like, okay, let's meet. Then you tell me some secret strategy. It's like, no, I'm putting it out. Like, I'm putting it all out there. Like, that is the strategy. It's hard to believe. Like, I mean, the thing about compounding even, too, is it's, our brains are really bad at thinking about that. The exponential returns we really struggle with for sure. It's why I think a lot of us miss some of the tech opportunities. Right. Because we really didn't understand what happens when you have exponential technologies

plus the network effect and how all this can couple in ways that are beyond powerful. I mean, yes, the Meg 7 have tremendously high valuations and have led to big market concentration, but they're also wonderful businesses, incredible models where you have a very low cost of goods sold, a zero marginal cost in some cases, and they compound It's just absolutely amazing what we've seen. And again, it's because to your point, we're not wired, really, to understand the exponential functions at all. And I think that's why in the wealthy barber and when I'm on stage, I always use two and three compounding examples. Just still trying to reinforce to people.

If you can just do this for 25 and 30 years, you'll be astounded at what can happen. And to a point you often make on your videos, if you can do that protected from taxes inside the RSP, inside the TFSA, protected from high fees by using these all-on-one ETFs, truly magical things can happen. And I hate to use that word, but it's true. Yeah, it's just looking. I mean, people ask me all the time about not using a tax shelter too. And I'm like, okay, well, let's look into that.

Let's look at the non-register. I reference PwL Capital all the time. I know you've had two- Yeah, they're outstanding. They're amazing. Ben is a hero of mine. Like, he really is. I love his stuff.

His deep dives and he's a great communicator. I'll even, when he does his videos, I'll even go read a lot of the papers he references after because I'm a social loser, but also because when he's doing it, I know it's worthwhile reading it. And I like to see how he puts together his thinking and backs it off. But he's such a unique animal in terms of his combination of smarts and communication skills and passion. You know, he's got those three things coming together. And, you know, I've said many times, if you look at the plain bagel, you look at what Ben is doing. There's many others, too.

We are so lucky in Canada, have a lot of the. people online. I think they're better than any of the U.S. people I see. I think so too. I mean, the amount of research, I'm always going. I mean, that's really how I first found found them out, was just like looking up some research on some of these topics. And just the givingness of their research that they put out in papers all the time, I reference them like every day. Second day, I feel like, because even this non-register stuff I was looking into, I'm like, okay, let me start with anything they put out first. Oh, okay, they've actually found. this out, okay, there's, oh, you need a 13% difference in retirement before non-register can start

to be RRSP. I know that sounds crazy, but it's just when you start thinking about shelters over time and 1% drag of cost over the years and what that adds up to, again, it's like we're fighting for one or two percent gains or benefits or optimizing in these different accounts. And just by using a tax shelter compared to non-register, you're saving so much over time. Can you imagine when I used to have to do all those calculations with no computers? I can't, no. Like, that's how old I am. So I literally do pen to paper to prove all of this stuff.

And it's absolutely crazy. I think you've done a very good job, by the way, of talking about tax efficiency. You do more of that, probably with your CPA background, you're naturally wired to think that way than many of the other financial educators, me included. it. And I think you've really brought home again that trying to compete with these registered accounts with non-registered money, holy smokes, it is difficult to do. In fact, let's be honest, it's impossible to do if you're using the same investments within the two. It doesn't make any sense. You're not going to be able to keep up. We still battle misunderstandings around RSPs and the fact

that people don't realize they are as good as they are. Walk us through some of your thinking there. Yeah, I've found even just putting out a video on paying yourself sound. from a court versus dividends. There's such a debate around that because you can dodge some, you do you dodge CPP if you pay if you pay out dividends. There's a little bit lower tax. You end up with a little bit more cash in your pocket right now if you pay dividends from your court, but you're not creating that shelter space, not creating that contribution room in your RRSP. And you can get the refund from that as well. And people online are so negative I find on the RRSP. It's crazy. It really. It's crazy. It is. It, it, this is.

all started about 10 years ago, I would say. And it's picked up momentum. And now you have some really smart people like you, Mark McGrath out there explaining, no, you're, you're off on this and RSPs aren't perfect, but they're still for most people very, walking people patiently through the map and they still get hammered. People still go in the comment section, say, you don't know what they're talking about. I have to go on there sometimes say, actually, they do know what they're talking about. They've got this right. I don't mean to be rude, but you don't know what you're talking about. But for the most part, people just have locked in now on because I'm going to pay tax eventually. I don't like these things. And the TFSA, finally enough, a great product. We all love

the TFSA has made the RSP look bad even though it shouldn't. And so that's created some of this issue too. But I'm glad that young people like you are out there now trying to hit these themes and say that the RSP can still add a lot of value to people's lives. Totally. And I think getting financial planning help and retirement. It is kind of confusing like with LERAs and pension plan. Like there's so many different plans out there. A lot of them do. have different rules depending on the provider and everything like that. But RRS, you really can kind of keep it simple, even under do-yourself methodology of like just doing a basic meltdown strategy as soon as you retire and your low-income years,

start pulling out as soon as possible, keeping it simple. If you want to start stuffing your TFSA, that's a great strategy as well, especially with the estate planning side. But really, you have so much time. And when you think about the tax brackets, too, what you can pull out just from 65 to 70, if you defer CPP and OAS, you're pulling out almost 15K a year tax free actually from the RRSP. It's quite nice. There's income splitting benefits if you have a spouse and everything.

Like you have pension tax credit as well. So, you know, the RRSP is very manageable as long as you have a little bit of a plan and strategy. Okay. So we're going to move office because we've probably hit it too hard in another podcast. But I want to wrap up by repeating what you just said. It's very manageable. And so by getting proper advice, once you're going to. you turn, say, 55 and you start laying out the foundation for what you're going to do down the road,

you can often end up with quite a low tax rate on those RFP withdrawals. Obviously, if you were to die, and they all came out that year and you didn't have a spouse especially, that's problematic. But with proper planning, some good things can be done. When you speak to the retirement income experts, the top people in the country, they all say for the vast majority, not all, but for the vast majority of their clients, the money is coming out of the RSP at a lower tax bracket on average than it went in, making the RSP a pretty darn good thing. But again, a lot of people just don't want to hear it. So I love the way you said with management. I think it's the one time in your life you have to get financial planning advice for sure. Even if you're a good DRWyer, you want to watch

the Dave Chiltern's, you want to watch Brian, et cetera. You're still sitting down with an expert, having them look at all of these accounts. To your point, there's a lot of them. I think that's a no-brain. or move from most people. 100%. It really does add up. I mean, it really does. Even just paying for a one-time fee and everything like that for an advisor's help and just setting a plan, actually like removing that veil of ignorance, I call it a little bit of

like, I find a lot of people are just a lot more comfortable knowing they have a plan in place. And it's not perfect. You kind of have to reassess it every year. All these numbers change. There's a lot of judgment and everything that goes into it. But really, it's just like, oh, I can be strategic. Oh, okay, year by year.

check the box of like, this is my RRSP. Maybe I'm pulling a little bit from non-register or TFSA. But, you know, just having that plan just makes people, it's almost like a sigh of relief for people. It really is worth it. Just emotionally, too. It's really helpful. Okay, I want to really hit this because I just had this happen a couple weeks ago with a good

friend of mine. grew up with him. High school on. Send him to one of the top fee only, advice only financial planners. He said exactly what you did there. Not only is he in a better position, knows what he can do, mathematically, he just feels so much more at ease. Psychologically, having a plan, seeing the numbers, having a contingency plan, all of it has made him, this sounds dramatic, happier. He's enjoying

his retirement more because he's much less stressed about money. And I don't know about you. I don't know how many plans you see, but man, a lot of these advice only planners have gotten good. Holy smoker's. Like, I see some of these plans and I think, wow, this is impressive from the tax planning, to the estate planning, to the insurance needs analysis, it's all there. And I look at the cost, which is only a few thousand dollars in most instances. And I think this seems to me to be a fantastic deal. It pays for itself, honestly, just over a few years. And again, just having that emotional stability. And it is weird. You're accumulating your whole life. And then flipping that mindset to decumulating and drawing down and seeing those numbers go down. And there's a lot of

craziness obviously in the world. Someone would say more than ever for sure. So it's tricky of like almost spending that money in retirement, especially if you don't have a plan, I think it would be very stressful. I think that's what I hear from a lot of people. It is very stressful. And that's one of the things the plan helps. It frees up people psychologically to spend some of the money. They should be spending mathematically, but can't bring themselves to. So you and are on the same page. Okay, this is a really weird question. But when you look at retirement plan, And again, you've got a tax background. There's pretty significant advantages to being married, you know, with the income splitting,

etc. Do you think we're going to see some people later life who aren't necessarily in love, they're not romantic partners, get married with a pre-up in place to provide access to some of the tax advantages that being married provides? I do. I could definitely see it. I mean, I hear from people so frustrated in my comments all the time that are divorced, widowed, whatever. There's a million life circumstances or just single in general. I think everyone's

looking for somewhat and everyone's talking about all the benefits and everything like that and putting it out. I could definitely see that happening. Yeah. What I laugh is a huge advantage. Just income splitting alone is massive. Massive. Like you and I agree on this totally. We'll see it. In fact, it's probably already taking place. I just haven't had it across my desk. But I laugh because when you put out these things about income splitting, you're right. The comments, people are annoyed. they're actually mad at us. Like, why are you not teaching income splitting for single people? Because you can't split when you're single.

It doesn't work that way. And I always point out to people, I live alone. Like, I'm not married. So don't get mad at me. I didn't set the rules. But there is a big advantage. And so, yeah, I can see it. I definitely think, in fact, some people will come up with ways around that.

All right, let's move over to the real estate market. Always a difficult thing to talk about because it's very much regionalized. And it can be very positive and growing in some areas and scuffling in others like Southwestern Ontario where I am right now. I put out there over the last year or two, as I've done a lot more research on this, rewriting the book, that man, it's expensive to own a home. Holy smokers. Like when you add up not just the mortgage cost, property taxes, insurance, upkeep, all of these different types of things, it is really costly. And a lot of those things, property tax and home insurance are good examples, have been rising at a greater than CPI pace and therefore a greater

than income pace over the last little while. What are your thoughts there? This is more, you anecdotal, not even based on the research, but I had a rental property that I sold off this last year. It was a house that I lived in. I moved into this condo now, me and my partner, partly just, it was just the cost of maintenance was driving me insane and looking at what I could be earning in the market and just simplifying so much compared to having this property on the side was just so frustrating. And I see it too just across the board. Rising cost of living. Renting really is not a bad choice for a lot of people. I did a rent versus buy on my condo unit. Actually, it's like, okay, if I did move from here, maybe I'd hold it and rent it out. I bet I was looking at the numbers and it really

just does not make sense with the property, the property tax and everything like that. The cost of maintenance and everything. Like, there's, there's so much cost. Anytime I come on this podcast, and say that in some instances, renting is an all right way to go. I get hammered. So I'm glad to Brian said it. Okay, just remember it was him that said it. So when you comment below, say, that guy, that guest is an idiot, Dave. Don't say it about me.

But in some cases, the math favors that I've said fairly boldly. This isn't right for everybody. I'm talking about for me personally. If I were in my 30s and I wasn't going to have kids, and I mean, neither are true. I've got to and I'm old. But if I were my 30s and I wasn't going to have kids, I'd rent. I think the flexibility would mean a lot to me and I actually like the math of it a little bit. And people get annoyed when I say that.

And again, I'm not saying everybody else should. Even people under their 30s aren't going to have kids. I'm saying me personally. If I were in that situation, that's the road I would take. I do own a home, by the way, and I'm glad I do. And from a lifestyle perspective, it's provided great joy to me and comfort. I do dislike the fact that when you rent, you can be forced out. And that can be extremely inconvenient.

But especially when you have kids and their friends are local. or school is local. That can be very tough to manage. So I'm pro-home ownership for many, for most even. But I see the other side of the coin that many are blind to. I just look at home costs too in general. It really does make it challenging to save. I'm so grateful we have the first home savings account and things like that.

Or you can pull from the RSP to fund a home. But again, it becomes a tougher proposition to retire long term by not saving and investing and pulling that money and putting it a home. And, you know, I'm not calling. Again, for any market crash or anything like that, but it's just when I look at the cost of homeownership and then the cost of value increase over time, again, it's not necessarily a terrible investment or anything, but it really does make it challenging to retire. And even in situations where I look at people who have rentals and they're asking, you know, mathematically, if I just took that equity and invested it, I would do better off. It's just hard because you can't just sell that home and liquid. So the asset's not liquid and then there's all these costs to sell.

So a lot of the time it's like, okay, it actually is beneficial for you to keep it, but it's one of those things where it's just not a liquid asset. No, you're right. The friction costs are high enough that they can't be ignored in the analysis. That's for sure. Yeah. If they were zero, then you're right, moving on could make some sense. And of course, we've got such a dynamic and unusual market in so many areas.

We've had real estate going up fairly steadily since the early 90s in the vast majority of spots in the country and now suddenly in certain areas. certain areas. Again, southwestern Ontario, a good example. It's going down fairly significantly from the peak in some areas down 30 and 35%. But again, I'm pro real estate as an investment for long-term investors, so know what they're doing and I own my own home, but I think you have to think all of this through. I really got on to this, funnily enough, when I'd stepped away from being the wealthy barber for a few years and ended up just looking at spending summaries that would come through to me and seeing what it costs to own a home in terms of upkeep and everything else. And I think

a lot of people lose track of that. They forget that they just always seem to have one problem. Once every few months, something's going wrong with a home. I laughed. We had Rob Carrick on the podcast recently, yeah, one of my all-time favorites. And he had such a great line. He said, everybody says that owning a home is the ultimate force savings program. He said, that's fair, but it's also the ultimate force spending program. You're always writing a check for something. So all of this is tricky. And again, striking all the right balances, the answers vary from person to person. Yeah. And again, I think just diversify. It's like not putting all of your eggs in one basket.

And if you can do both, it's like, okay, great. And you're going to do that long term. I think it's nice. Again, like with RSP or TFSAs, why not both? You know, if you're going to do homeownership, try not to get in over your head as far as what you're purchasing. I see that a lot too. Me too.

Home prices are insane. I get it and people want to have like a certain standard. But if you are buying a home, there are sacrifices to even just even downsizing or going a little bit below. I really tried to hit that hard in the book. I really pushed that hard in the updated version of the book that if you stretch to the ultimate level to buy a home, you're going to be in trouble in many instances. And what's good is I think the stress test, which takes some criticism, but I think it played a positive role there. It took away of people's ability to go to the max borrowing level and made them spend a little bit less on their home. But you're right,

downsizing, buying a little smaller. These are all very important things. Okay, let's go before we leave this, the FHSA, is it not one of the greatest things you've ever seen? It is. It's amazing. There's a triple benefit. You get the tax advantage going in. You get a tax shelter and you get a tax advantage coming out. I mean, truly, if you could use it for things other than a home, it would win outright compared

to everything. No, it is the best of the accounts we've ever seen in Canada for people who can qualify for. There's just no doubt about that. As I've said, it's the best of the RSP with the best of the TFSA. It's like their love child has come together and is an IQ of 160 and a great athlete. This whole thing is perfect. Okay. Young people, they are trying to put monies in a TFSA and an RSP.

They're maybe trying to whittle away at non-deductible debt. Could be mortgage, could be car loan, whatever. They also need insurance. Are you an advocate for term insurance in most of those instances? Yeah. I think just looking at the research, especially well, and then if you can get disability coverage or whatever, through an employer's. I always, always look for that for sure.

Just because during your erring years, you really do want to make sure you're covered if, God forbid, anything happened. But when I look at, you know, there's simple by-term, invest-a-difference type analysis you can do. And just, again, investing in low-cost, broad index, ETF funds, again, using your shelters. For me, term covers you for your life, especially if you have kids and things like that, it is nice to get covered. Whole life, it can make sense in very specific. situations for sure. If someone, you know, has someone with a disability in their life,

very high earner in basically the highest tax bracket. Sometimes in a corporation, it can make sense. Again, I'm not trying to tell people exactly what to do. They can. No, but I agree. occasionally, you can see it in a corporation where they have excess retained earnings. They're doing it for estate planning reasons. They've optimized all of their personal good like TFSA. I agree with you. Occasionally it can make sense. But for mainstream Canada, who's got young children, etc. You're just better to go with the term insurance, make sure you have proper coverage. Going back to your disability comment, it's interesting. A lot of the work plans, I think, are certainly better than nothing, but the definitions are either so vague or so one-sided that I think it's a good

idea for many to show that to somebody out in the field and make sure they shouldn't be buying an individual policy as well. Yeah, totally. I think it is one of those things where it's worth looking at an expert for just who's independent. I mean, I did it for a gentleman recently who would just trusted me. And he's like, can you just help me look at this? Well, it was a whole verse term. And the difference was insane. Yeah. For the analysis as far as term versus whole life for them. There's an incredible incentive for people to sell whole life insurance. The commissions range sometimes 50 to 100 percent of the premiums. And, you know, just the incentives are a little bit misaligned. I find of the industry in general. And I think there are a lot of great insurance people out there.

I see them in my comments. There are posted on insurance. And, you know, There's a few of them like, they're like, I totally agree with this and thank you for comment. I'm like, this is a great person you want to probably reach out to when you're looking at life insurance because I hope they are. Like, I think the best ones hopefully do educate people of some of these differences of just, just actually saving some of that money that you're not spending on that premium and putting it in these things. And all in one ETS, it really can be that. You know, all the things we've spoken about. All right, let me ask you before we wrap up about two of my pet peeves, there's still. so many Canadians who have a chance to get a match contribution from their employer for

group RSP who don't do it. And it's sometimes dollar for dollar, not even 50 cents on the dollar. And, you know, obviously you pull your hero when you see that. I'm really trying to hit that hard now, whether I'm on stage or on page. Come on. Are there any negative to take advantage of this? I was just like a gentleman just asked me about this actually for his plan. He's just frustrated. He's like, this pension plan that I'm buying into, they're charging, Two and a half percent, whatever, two to two and a half percent in fees, MER each year. Yeah. And I get, I get it.

I get it's frustrating. I don't like that either. I don't, I don't love that. It's a, I wish there is better products, some of these huge, um, plans offered for lower cost fees. And they could still make their money to, right? I don't think they need to charge as much as they do. But again, it's just you can't beat free month.

It's just, I've seen people with like, even crazy plans where they're putting in five percent and they're getting 10 percent. They're getting like double the match. And I'm like, again, you're starting dollars. You really just, you know, 2% fees annoying for me. If I'm buying an ETF or anything like that, I'm going to go low cost every time. But in these plans, if you're getting a free extra dollar for every dollar you're putting in or half a dollar, you really can't beat it.

I mean, those fees aren't going to eat that up over time. I agree. And you know, you were saying some extreme examples. I saw a few when I was doing a lot of work in the States with 401ks back in the 90s. And a story I've told often as I went to a robot. firm in Boston. Don't ask me where they got this formula, but for every dollar you put in, they put in $495 into the 401k. And then the CEO says to me, Dave, we have still still some people not doing that. What are you going to say to them? And I said, you should fire those people.

If they're not smart enough to do that, they are not adding value at this robotics firm. And I told the audience that too. Like, that's just insane. But you make a very good point about the fact that a lot of these plans in Canada, more so than the states, are still full of high, high fee products, MER products. I think we'll see that change over the next five to 10 years with consumer pressure, media pressure, et cetera. But one of the things that I pushed people to do is that maybe just get involved in that plan to the level of the max, match part of me. And then with your other monies, put it into the RSP or TFSA outside of the plan. Plus, in many instances, at some point, you can transfer the money out of that RSP. Once it's already in there, it's already matched.

You have to check the rules of the company over to an RSP, a self-directed RSP, and gain access to much lower fee products. And that can make a huge difference. 100%. I agree. Okay, here's my last one. My biggest pet peeve, I think it's the only thing that I rant and rave about is what a lot of people, not all, but maybe 30% of the people I deal with spend on cars relative to their incomes. So we have a lot of younger people in their 20s and 30s and 40s who I would argue legitimately can beef that the cost of living is crazy and it's making all this very difficult. But in that group, we have a subset who, well, while they're making that legitimate beef, are buying cars that don't match their incomes at all.

How do we finally get people to see this all differently? It's so frustrating. I saw it when I lived in California, too. And in Irvine in Orange County, everyone is driving a flashy car. And I know what they're making. I was doing these deals with Johnson & Johnson. Like, I could see people's salaries within this company. And they're making, you know, good money for what they're purchasing and this,

this expensive life habits of like flashiness and everything like that. I think it's like a little bit of a culture thing where it's like you really don't need to be that flashy. I'm not really much of a flashy person myself, but. Well, you're an accountant. I mean, how flashy can you be? Really. Let's be honest.

Let's be real. I've been driving my Nissan Rogue forever. Like, I've driven it for, you know, nine or 10 years now. And I'm going to keep driving it until it doesn't make sense. At some point, it really won't. But it's hard to get bought into that mentality of like, please save a little bit of, your money and invest it and just getting like these crazy car programs that are, I don't know, whatever, zero percent financing and extending yourself beyond your means. It just eats that paycheck,

especially in your best earning years. You talk about compounding. It's like the benefit of just saving a hundred bucks when you're, you know, really young, you're starting off your career. It really does add up. I mean, saving 100 bucks a month over your entire career can can lead to a very good situation. You've nailed it. It's one of the reasons why I get frustrated. when some people in the financial media are going, oh, you know what? Yeah, a lot of people in their 20s and 30s are losing some money by buying meme stocks

and being too aggressive and trading options, but they'll learn a lesson and at least they're young. Remember, the money they're losing at that age because it had decades of compounding ahead of it. Oh, my gosh, in some respects, that's the worst money to lose. You lose a few thousand when you're older. That's not as big a deal as losing it when you're young

because of the foregone compounding. But, no, your thoughts on cars are bang on. shake my head. I think the car industry has done a wonderful job of selling us that the cars to some extent define us. And we've all bought into that. And I see a lot of couples now where they're stretched financially, but they have two really nice cars. And just making one change there with free enough money to, let's say, optimize an RSP or a TFSA contribution. Crazy. Anyway, really enjoyed having you on. Where can our listeners and viewers find more of you online? Yeah, I'm just on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, all under the handle.

money coach. And I post. You are calm. Oh. You are. No, you are. Like, you're not lied. You're a very calm guy. There's no question. Yeah. Well, I noticed you didn't mention Facebook. Like, are you too young to put your stuff on Facebook? So I did start. I, I, I've integrated Facebook now. My girlfriend. I've looped her into my business just from an admin perspective. So my Instagrams do post a Facebook on. Is this just your income splitting? Is this you getting an income splitting early now? Here we go. Here we go. You are a true scheme. I think. You are a true account. All right, listen, I really enjoyed having you on.

And what I said in the intro is true. This is one where I reached out to you. You did not reach out to us. I've watched your material. I think it's excellent. I've learned things watching your videos. There's good variety. There's good pacing in them.

I really recommend people check you. Oh, you're excellent at this. Thanks so much, Dave. I can say, I don't want to get into a compliment off, but you're amazing. Oh, you do huge inspiration for me, just in general and really appreciate what you've given. Back to the community. over so many years, just the trust in everything you've built. So I really appreciate it.

Thanks, Brian. Also, you're one of maybe four or five guests now who's had better hair than I do. And I, in other words, you will not be back on. Exactly. Okay, this will be your last visit to the wealthy. One and done. You did a good job, but you're not coming back. That's it.

All right. Thanks again. Okay. Thanks so much.