After 10 yrs
~$1,400
$1,000 put in
Total invested
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What I’ve put in so far
Current value
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Across all portfolios
Yearly growth
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Money-weighted, all portfolios
First handoff
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Paid out at 18
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DPI: distributions vs. invested
Everyone's portfolio over time
Each line shows what one portfolio has been worth over time. Click a name in the legend to focus on just that person. Click more names to add them back in. Click the focused name again to show everyone.
Leaderboard
Coming up
Next 5 gift occasionsCost basis
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What I invested for you
Portfolio value
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Gain / loss
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Yearly growth
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Value over time
The line shows what your portfolio has been worth over time. The dashed line is what was actually spent. The gap is the gain/loss.
Your gifts so far
What you own
About what you own
🏡 House fund
Where this could go
These three paths are illustrations, not promises. Real markets zig and zag, and nobody (not even the pros) knows which path yours will follow. The middle one uses the market's rough long-term average; the other two show a slower and a faster decade. The point is the direction, not the exact number.
🏅 Badges
🎂 Birthday email preview
Why I started investing for you
Every birthday and Christmas, I’ve been tucking a little money into the stock market for you. Not the most exciting gift, I know, but on your 18th birthday it’s yours. Here’s the thinking behind it.
The reason
🏡 Houses cost way more than they used to
Money won’t make you happy. But it will buy you room. Room to say no when something isn’t right. Room to take a swing. Room to support loved ones who need you.
A house is the biggest piece of room most people ever buy. Unfortunately, housing has gotten a lot less affordable over my lifetime. In 1986, the year I was born, a Canadian home cost about three to four years of an average salary. Today that ratio is closer to eight.
Sources: Statistics Canada housing statistics and the Bank of Canada housing affordability index.
When a house takes that long to afford, people stay home longer.
Out of every 100 Canadians aged 25 to 29, how many still live with a parent
1986
15live with a parent
Lives with a parent
Doesn’t
2021
31live with a parent
In the 35 years between those two censuses, the share of young adults still at home doubled: 15.2% in 1986, 31.0% in 2021. Sources: Statistics Canada, living arrangements of young adults (1986) and Table 98-10-0137-01 (2021).
But first, do great work
💼 Investing is the encore
At the risk of being that uncle handing out unsolicited life advice: the most important thing you can do for future-you is develop your talents and put them to work in the world. Build skills, build habits, do good work, the kind that makes other people’s lives better. That’s what gets rewarded over a lifetime, and it’s the one thing nobody can give you.
Warren Buffett, who knows a thing or two about money, makes this point well: how much you earn over a career matters more than how cleverly you invest it. A great investor with no income has nothing to compound. A great earner with average investments will still do just fine.
So do good work first. Get really good at something. Be useful to people. Once that’s flowing, figuring out what to do with the harvest (the part everything below is about) becomes the easy follow-up.
Three rules that do most of the work
Rule 1 · Diversification
🧺 Don’t bet on one company. Own a slice of hundreds.
If one company has a rough year, the others pick up the slack.
That’s exactly what your ETFs do. Each share holds a piece of the 500 biggest U.S. companies: Apple, Microsoft, Costco, Google, Coca-Cola, the rest. One share, 500 companies.
Rule 2 · Dollar-cost averaging
💵 A little, regularly. Not a lot, occasionally.
Buy on a steady schedule. Don’t try to time the market. Nobody can, including the pros on Wall Street.
When you buy a little at a time, you accidentally pick up more shares when prices are low and fewer when they’re high. That’s what I’ve been doing for you: a bit every birthday, a bit every Christmas. No clever timing, just consistency.
Rule 3 · Compounding
🪄 The 8th wonder of the world
Money you’ve made starts making its own money. Slow at first, ridiculous toward the end.
Einstein supposedly called compound interest “the eighth wonder of the world.” Here’s what $100 a year turns into at a typical market return:
After 30 yrs
~$11,000
$3,000 put in
After 50 yrs
~$57,000
$5,000 put in
Same $100 a year. The last 20 years do way more work than the first 20. That’s why I started early for you. The clock will do the heavy lifting.
Said better, by people way smarter than me
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Don’t look for the needle in the haystack. Just buy the haystack.
John C. BogleInvented the index fund
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Just keep buying. As frequently as you can. For as long as you can.
Nick MaggiulliAuthor of Just Keep Buying
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Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.
Warren BuffettRuns Berkshire Hathaway
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The first rule of compounding: never interrupt it unnecessarily.
Charlie MungerBuffett’s longtime partner
The handoff
When you turn 18 and your portfolio is yours to manage
On your 18th birthday: I'll sell the ETFs I've bought for you and e-transfer you the cash so that you can drop it straight into an FHSA in your name. From there, you can decide how to invest it (ETFs are a fine choice) and keep growing it tax-free.
💡 What’s an FHSA?
The First Home Savings Account is built for first-time Canadian buyers. Two perks: your money grows tax-free inside it, and you get a tax break on what you put in (up to $8,000/year, $40,000 lifetime). The tax break means every dollar you put in comes off your income when you file your taxes, so you owe less or get a bigger refund. If you don't earn much yet, you can save the deduction and claim it in a later year, when your income is higher and it's worth more.
If you keep adding to your FHSA once you're earning, and invest it wisely (again, ETFs are a fine choice), you should be in a position to put 20% down on a home before most can. That's a smaller club than it used to be.
🔑 And $100 more if you do it
Open an FHSA account in your name and invest the money I hand off to you within thirty days of your 18th birthday, and I'll e-transfer you $100 to invest or celebrate with.
The hard part of investing isn't picking funds. It's starting. I'd rather pay you to start than have the money I send you sit in a chequing account.
Do it and the 🔑 FHSA opened badge unlocks on your page.
Demo data, four fictional kids · Prices via Yahoo Finance · All amounts in CAD.
Past performance isn’t a promise of future returns. This is a long game, hence the buy-and-hold approach.