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DIY. Or Don’t

09.23.25 // Markets & Investing // Blog Article

I have no issue with DIY investors. You can manage your own investments and stick to your financial plan without a professional. It just requires the right amount of grit, resolve, humility, and a lot of hard work.

I sometimes get lost in the Canadian DIYers network on Reddit. It’s fun to see what people are thinking and arguing about.

Here’s what they get right:

  • Keep costs low.
  • Stay diversified.
  • Legally avoid taxes whenever possible.
  • Match your investments to your time horizon and liquidity needs.
  • Market timing doesn’t work. If you got it right, it was luck.

Here’s where they go wrong:

  • Assuming all financial professionals are terrible.
  • Arguing endlessly about which broad-market ETF is the best.
  • Believing a single ETF equals a financial plan.
  • Obsessing over $5 trading fees when you’re a buy and hold investor.
  • Thinking success with your own portfolio qualifies you to manage your family’s and friends’ money.

I bring this up because I’ll be writing a lot more over the coming months and years. Expect case studies, primers on CPP/OAS, my distaste for real estate investing, and what a solid investment portfolio should look like.

My goal isn’t to convince DIYers to hire me. It’s to share planning insights in plain English.

When I mentioned this plan to a few colleagues, their response was: “if you’re giving everything away for free, why would anyone hire you?” That got me thinking about the real value good advisors provide.

Here’s where I think our value comes from. Some advisors make ‘value proposition’ lists that go into the hundreds. Don’t worry. I won’t do that here (and I think they’re out to lunch when they get into the hundreds). I like keeping things to five, here it goes.

1. Simplicity

Personal finance and investing content is filled with so much unimportant garbage. My job is to cut out everything that doesn’t matter. And most of it doesn’t (i.e., forecasts, opinions, models, what might happen).

2. Planning > Plan > Product

A portfolio is just the tool. A glossy “Financial Plan” binder is useful for maybe a year before it becomes a doorstop. But regularly reviewing your cash flow, net worth, retirement plan, tax and estate plans, insurance (ugh), and how you view risk is paramount to success. Especially tax and estate planning. We call that the planning process. It’s what drives financial success.

3. Execution

Knowing what to do is easy. Actually doing it is hard. We provide the structure, deadlines, and reminders, and we follow up diligently to make sure things get done. We take most of it off your plate.

4. Behaviour

As I’ve said in plenty of posts here: the biggest risk to your financial goals isn’t the market. It’s you. The market drops 30%+ every five or six years. You’ll probably hate me when that happens. But I won’t let emotions blow up your financial goals. You can thank me in retirement.

5. Peace of Mind (a.k.a. Outsourcing)

You’ll still need to gather the occasional document, but for the most part, we handle everything. Your time has value, and you get it back. That’s peace of mind.

Reddit or YouTube won’t give you that. And ChatGPT will just agree with you.

DIY investing works if you’ve got the discipline, the stomach, and the time. Most people don’t, though, and that’s where good advisors come in.

My goal here isn’t to convince DIYers not to DIY. If you’re doing well, please keep at it. But thoughtful planning is full of nuance and takes up a lot of time. If you can learn a bit from these posts and still go it alone, perfect. If you’d rather outsource the headaches, give me a shout.   

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