These are some of my favourite advertisements to date, both due to the skill of the actors and due to the truth of each reality.

Two or three months ago, I put out a tweet thread discussing the reality of saving for retirement for my millennial generation. In short, I believe most couples have to save $750 per month for about 40 years and earn a return of around 6%-7% annually in order to achieve a large enough retirement savings balance to meet your wants and needs for 20+ years of retirement.

This doesn’t include saving for a rainy day, saving to leave behind a legacy, helping to pay for your children’s weddings, or helping to pay for your children’s post-secondary educations. (Not everyone wants to help their children do these things — I get that. Different strokes for different folks.)

But you can do more with information than without. Maybe $750/month is impossible. Maybe it’s peanuts. Regardless, paying yourself first each paycheque should be priority number one. Every dollar now is worth $15 in the future. Literally, every little bit counts.

I opened our daughter’s RESP account with Wealthsimple and I’ve been fairly pleased with the results so far. Wealthsimple beat the market in 2018, losing less than the NYSE and TSX, and it beat my own self-directed portfolio as well (but only just barely, hence “fairly” pleased).

I think Wealthsimple’s best advantage over self-directed — other than setting it and forgetting it — is that cash is deployed at all times, rather than having to accumulate before being deployed. If you save smaller amounts where trading fees carve a large chunk out of your investment, consider Wealthsimple for better deployment of your cash.

Tomorrow begins today.

I love these advertisements:

• Flame Out
• Legacy
• Wedding
• Free
• Retirement
• Academic

This is utterly heartbreaking to read.