Building Wealth

For the first 30 or so years of working, saving and investing, you’ll be first in the mode of getting out of the hole (paying down debt), and then building your net worth (that’s wealth accumulation.). But don’t forget, wealth accumulation isn’t the ultimate goal. Decumulation is! (a separate category here at the Hub).

The Ultimate Guide to Podcast Promotion: Tasks, Timelines, and Success Strategies

 

Image courtesy Canada’s Podcast/unsplash royalty free

By Philip Bliss

Special to Financial Independence Hub

Launching a podcast is an exciting endeavor, but the real challenge lies in promoting it effectively to build a loyal audience. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll break down the essential tasks, timelines, and strategies to help you successfully promote your podcast.

  1. Pre-Launch Phase (4-6 weeks before launch):

Tasks:

  • Define your target audience: Clearly identify who your podcast is for to tailor your promotional efforts effectively.
  • Craft a compelling trailer: Create a teaser episode or trailer that highlights the value of your podcast and sparks interest.
  • Design eye-catching cover art: Invest time in creating visually appealing podcast cover art that reflects your brand and attracts potential listeners.
  • Develop a content calendar: Plan your initial episodes and create a schedule for consistency.

Timeline:

  • Week 1: Define target audience and create a content calendar.
  • Week 2: Craft a compelling trailer and design cover art.
  • Week 3-4: Set up social media profiles and teaser campaigns.
  1. Launch Phase (Week of launch):

Tasks:

  • Submit to podcast directories: Ensure your podcast is available on major platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts.
  • Utilize a launch strategy: Leverage social media, email newsletters, and your website to create anticipation and drive initial downloads.
  • Encourage listener reviews: Ask friends, family, and early listeners to leave positive reviews to boost credibility.

Timeline:

  • Day 1: Submit to podcast directories and launch teaser campaigns.
  • Week 1: Implement launch strategy on social media and encourage reviews.
  1. Post-Launch Phase (Ongoing):

Tasks:

  • Consistent content creation: Stick to your content calendar to maintain a regular release schedule.
  • Engage with your audience: Respond to listener feedback, comments, and questions on social media and through email.
  • Collaborate with other podcasters: Guest appearances and cross-promotions can expand your reach.
  • Utilize social media: Regularly share engaging content, clips, and updates to keep your audience connected.

Timeline:

  • Ongoing: Stick to your content calendar, engage with the audience, and actively collaborate. Continue Reading…

Then and Now on a low-cost ex-Canada ETF: iShares’ XAW

Geographic breakdown of iShares’ XAW ETF

By Mark Seed

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Welcome to another Then and Now post, a continuation of my series where I revisit some older blogposts and either rip them to shreds (because my thinking has totally changed on such subjects) or I’ll confirm my position on some subjects including some specific stock or ETF investments.

Today’s post is yet another departure from any top-stocks that I/we own.

Here are my thoughts and current postion on low-cost, ex-Canada ETF: XAW. This includes how I might add more of this ETF in 2024! I’ll come back to that. 🙂

You can read about my previous Then and Now posts on certain stocks (good and bad!) at the end of this post.

Then – XAW

Long-time readers of this site will recall I really ramped up my DIY investing journey, around the time of the Great Financial Crisis. I’ve managed this blog and chronicled my/our journey to financial independence ever since ….

Even before that market meltdown, I was transitioning to becoming a DIY investor and My Own Advisor following the tech/dot-com crash that occurred about a decade prior. It was during that crash that I learned a few valuable personal finance lessons:

  1. Nobody cares more about your money than you do/you will. 
  2. The same assets that could make you wealthy could also make you poor. 

What I mean by #2 is you can have too much of a seemingly “good investing thing.” I can’t tell you specifically what stocks will rise or fall in value over time. I don’t know what inflation may or may not be next year. I have no idea what new taxation rules or legislation could be years down the line – although my hunch is taxation will get higher and more complex to navigate!

via GIPHY

Jokes aside, unlike Warren Buffett of late, I believe diversification matters. 

There are simply too many unknowns for me as a DIY investor to go all-in on Apple, let alone all U.S. tech stocks, let alone just the U.S. market.

For fun, I’ve compared the returns of U.S. tech (via QQQ ETF), vs. our top-TSX stocks (via XIU), vs. a popular U.S. international index fund that many experts tout. See below.

The financial future will always be cloudy but hindsight can be a wonderful woulda, coulda, shoulda game…!

Then and Now - XAW pic 2

Sources for charts: Portfolio Visualizer.

I started off my DIY investing journey, and chronicling our path to financial independence, with a focus on buying and holding Canadian and U.S. stocks that pay dividends, although I’ve always had some international assets in our portfolio too. I simply don’t disclose everything I own. Continue Reading…

How to deal with uncertainty in Investments and in Life

By Alain Guillot

Special to Financial Independence Hub

“I will invest in the stock market when things calm down,” said my friend Mercedes after the market crashed following the COVID pandemic.

Another friend said something similar after the terrorist attack of 9/11.

The thing is that in the markets and in life, everything is always uncertain.

Even when everything seems calm, there might be a surprise the next hour. And when everything is chaotic, long periods of peace and calm may follow. Between WWI and WWII, there were 20 years and 9 months of peace and prosperity.

After WWII there have been almost 80 years of economic, scientific, and technological improvement.
* Countries like China, India, and Brazil took millions of people out of poverty.
* The information technology changed how business, governments, and people communicate.
* There have been medical breakthroughs for various diseases which have improved global health.

Dealing with uncertainty in the stock market isn’t too difficult. At my age (56), I have seen a few economic cycles. I know that markets go up and markets go down. The best action I can take is to sit on my hands and do nothing.

In our regular life, it’s more challenging. Life also works in cycles, but these cycles can be more difficult to discern, and we don’t always know what to do.

Market cycles

How to deal with uncertainty in Life

These are some tips from our community on how to deal with uncertainty:

Kelly Bron Johnson, IDEA Advisor Supporting Businesses to Create Completely Inclusive Workplace Cultures: I won’t lie – it makes me feel very destabilized. It affects all my planning. For example, right now the teachers are on strike and my kids are home from school. We don’t know how long it will go for. It’s hard to make plans and to work without knowing how long the strike will last. I just try to take one day at a time and one task at a time and keep going. Continue Reading…

Real Life Investment Strategies #1: Will Geopolitics Ruin my Financial Plans?

Lowrie Financial Canva Custom Creation

By Steve Lowrie, CFA

Special to Financial Independence Hub

Now that we’re well into 2024, it’s time to turn the page on last year’s “Play It Again, Steve – Timeless Financial Tips”.

To shift gears, I recently polled my blog post readers, asking them what was on their mind and, although specific topics were varied, the underlying question resounded:

Timeless financial tips are well and good – but how do they apply to my investment decisions in real life?

To address that question, I’m launching Lowrie Financial’s “Real Life Investment Strategies.” Each post in this new series will use case studies to illustrate the choices real people are making, as they contemplate money management concerns in real time.

Active Concerns around Geopolitical Events and their Impact on your Financial Future

In our blog post readers survey, there were several responses with a clear theme:

  • worrying thoughts about current events,
  • what the geopolitical climate may mean to your money, and
  • what investment strategies to avert setbacks for your financial future

So, let’s address some of the more worrisome flash points looming large at this time: the world, its politics, and its politicians.

Of course, it’s natural, and advisable, to want your investments to weather the market storms wrought by geopolitical forces. The catch is there’s always a crisis going on somewhere and we never know for sure how it’s going to play out, until it has. That’s true whether it is history repeating itself, a new and unexpected upset, or (usually) a blend of both.

The other reality is that the most significant risks, with the greatest negative financial impact, are those you don’t see coming.

For example, in the last 25 years, we have had to deal with these three and unexpected and significant events:

If there is any good news in these events, which I realize is a stretch, they only come around every ten years or so.

That’s why I’ve long advised the best way to protect your wealth during each crisis du jour is to avoid getting tossed around in its waves. We seek to accomplish this by building — and maintaining — a steadfast, globally diversified portfolio designed to skim across the rough surfaces toward more dependable destinations.

Let’s use a couple of case studies to illustrate how we manage real-life portfolios in the face of ever-evolving, often unnerving current events. Although my stories will be drawn from real conversations and actual investor experiences, they will be fictionalized to protect individual privacy. In particular, names are not real.

The Accumulators: Suzie and Trevor Hall

Financial Accumulators Suzie and Trevor Hall

Meet the Halls

Suzie and Trevor are hard-working professionals in their late 40s, with two teenage children. They own a home, which is almost fully paid off. While they intend to stay in their home long-term, the place could definitely use some renovations.

Current Lifestyle: The Halls have been good about living within their means, while also sustaining a satisfying lifestyle. They take occasional vacations, but they’ve also diligently saved excess cash flow over time.

Financial Goals: The Halls hope to retire within 15–20 years. They also want to fully fund their children’s education, as well as complete those home renovations before they retire.

Investment Profile: Suzie and Trevor consider themselves to be conservative investors. They would like their portfolio to continue to grow. But they also worry: what if today’s global crises really do a number on their nest egg? They think they should avoid experiencing much more than a 30% hit during any given market downturn.

Suzie and Trevor’s Financial Planning Action Items

Here’s how I might advise the Halls moving forward:

  1. Start with planning, not investing.

 “How will the 2024 U.S. presidential elections impact our investments?”

Except in hindsight, the only correct answer is, “Who knows?”

As we’ve covered before in the 2020 blog, Should I Change My Investments During an Election?, leading with these kinds of queries steer the Halls’ conversation toward the market’s concerns, instead of their own.

They are better off considering geopolitical volatility in a more manageable context:

  • What is your expected retirement date?
  • Other lifetime goals?
  • Personal investment style? and so on.

True, personal goals may shift over time. But defining manageable targets helps us define desired saving targets, rate of return expectations, and asset allocations for meeting them. As the Halls’ own circumstances and larger world events evolve, we can review and update their progress annually.

  1. Establish a spending plan.

Next, I’d advise the Halls to use their available cash flow to support their three key mandates: saving for their kids’ education costs, completing their home renovations, and investing toward retirement. Three goals, calling for three different investment amounts, return expectations, and timeframes.

  1. Invest systematically.

Next, we can invest systematically across future unknowns. For example, whether Russia and Ukraine remain at war indefinitely or eventually reach an accord, global markets are expected to trend upward over time; we just don’t know when or where the growth spurts will occur. For the Halls, I may recommend adding assets monthly, so they can dollar-cost average across varied market conditions. If (or more likely, when) another crisis occurs and prices decrease, they may even want to increase their saving and investing during these “buy low” windows of opportunity.

  1. Do a lifeboat drill.

Suzie and Trevor had said they wouldn’t want their portfolio to ever drop by more than 30% as they pursue expected market returns. But would they really be ok with that much of a drop? I like to replace vague percentages with real dollar declines. We would look at past market downturns and corrections, how long they lasted from start to finish, and how long the Halls’ target portfolio would have taken to recover from each. This “life-boat drill” helps them use realistic numbers for withstanding real future declines.

  1. Remember, it’s priced in.

How will today’s heightened Middle East tensions play out for Suzie and Trevor’s investments? Once again, we don’t know; we can’t know. But I do know, whatever happens next, “by the time you’ve heard the news, the collective market has too, and has already priced it in” (as we wrote in our first timeless tip, Play It Again, Steve – Timeless Financial Tips #1: Repeat After Me: “It’s Already Priced In”). Besides, since the Halls are still in their wealth accumulation years, a price decline could even come as welcome news. Lower prices today give future market prices more room to grow over time.

In our next case study, let’s look at how today’s geopolitical pressure points may impact a couple closer to retirement.

Almost Ready to Retire: Jim and Carol Oates

Financial Almost Ready to Retire Jim and Carol Oates

Meet the Oates’

Jim and Carol are in their early 60s. Jim owns a business and Carol manages the household. They became empty nesters when the youngest of their three children recently moved to British Columbia. They own their principal home outright and are considering purchasing a winter property in warmer climes.

Current Lifestyle: To pursue a satisfying retirement, the Oates were careful to avoid lifestyle creep during their career years. Now, Jim is making moves to sell his business, and their retirement days are fast approaching. They expect to support their retirement lifestyle with the proceeds of Jim’s business sale, along with their investments. Will they be ready to loosen up a bit? Yes … and no. Maybe? They wonder whether they will have enough to do so.

Financial Goals: The Oates would like to make significant travel plans, after many years of shorter getaways, closer to home. (A business owner is never fully “off duty.”) Plus, if the sale goes well, they’d like to help their children buy into today’s housing market. Continue Reading…

Dividend investing vs Index Investing (& Hybrid strategies)

By Bob Lai, Tawcan

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

 

Ahh, the age-old debate… dividend investing vs. index investing. Is one better than the other?

Well, like any good debate, there is much evidence that can support both sides of the argument.

For example, dividend investors will quickly point out that over the long term, dividend stocks return better than non-paying dividend stocks.

SP500-and-SP-500-with-Dividends-Reinvested-Returns-Chart

On the other hand, index investors will point out that dividends are irrelevant.

I’m not going to argue which one is better on this post, but you can probably figure out where we stand given we are hybrid investors.

When it comes to investing, it’s super easy to just take all the numbers, plug them into the different formulas, and analyze the results to the nth degree. There have been a lot of books on how to invest based on mathematical formulas or theories.

They are all good and all, but I would argue that investing in real life is very different than running mathematical analysis.

30% investment strategy vs 70% psychology

In my short +15 years of DIY investing career, I have come to realize that investing in real life is not just about investment strategy and analysis. Rather, I believe investing in real life is about 30% investment strategy/theory and 70% psychology.

Psychology plays an important role in deciding whether your investment is going to be a success or a failure. It is also the number one reason why people end up buying high and selling low even though they should be doing the complete opposite.

When your hard-earned money is melting away faster than ice cream on a sunny day, all you care about is preserving whatever money you have left, so you end up selling low on emotion. On the other hand, when stocks are going higher and higher and you’re seeing everyone and their dogs making money hand over fist (and paw ha!), you want to get in on the action as well, so you end up buying high on emotion. Continue Reading…