Happy holidays! I hope everyone enjoyed their breaks and spent time with their families. 2025 was a great year in terms of the stock market. Just about everything was up!
On the blogging front, it was a great year. I continued to publish a new post on Monday. After 11 years, it has been more and more difficult to come up with new topics to write about. If you have any topic ideas, I would love to hear from you. I do want to thank every single one of you for all your support over the years. I really appreciate all the comments, emails, and encouragement you have given me.
What will 2026 hold? I can’t predict the future so I have no idea. What I know is that as investors, we need to invest for the long term and stay in the market, regardless of the market conditions. Focus on what you can control – your investing strategy, your income, your savings rate, and what you invest in. Remember, we can’t control the market!
I have been taking it easy for the last few days and plan to continue doing so until early 2026. For now, I’ll leave you with some of the best articles from 2025:
- Common TFSA Mistakes to Avoid
- Dividend Growth Investor Q&A series – Rob from Passive Canadian Income
- Q&A with Mark from My Own Advisor – Reaching FIWOOT
- Answering 3 Common Investment Related Questions from Readers
- Maximizing RESP front-loading without sacrificing Canada Education Savings Grant
- Visiting Taiwan for 20 days – our itinerary & experience (Part 1)
- Visiting Taiwan for 20 days – our itinerary & experience (Part 2)
- Visiting Taiwan for 20 days – our itinerary & experience (Part 3)
- Best Investment in the world & The Best Way to Invest
- Approaching FIRE with a balanced mindset
- All-in-one ETF showdown TD vs. BMO vs. iShares vs. Vanguard – Which one is best?
- The five worst investments we’ve owned
- Questrade vs. Wealthsimple Trade – A real user review
- Semi-Retirement Q&A with Mark McGrath
- Early retirement planning – steps we are doing and planning to do
- Would You Take $2 Million for 60-hour Work Weeks? Answering Life’s Toughest Money Dilemmas
- When to sell dividend stocks – my perspective
Here’s to a great 2026!
thanks for another year. we have 5 grandkiddies and 2 have turned 18 already, so we have given them $1000 to open a tfsa and explained about long-term investments. Hopefully when they are finished school they will continue Cheers to a great year
Hi Kevin,
You’re very welcome. That’s awesome that you’re helping out your grandkids with the TFSA contributions. Here’s to a great year.
Thank you for all you do Bob I read your blog religiously, I do learn quite abit from many of your blog posts. I also listen to you podcast every Tuesday on the way home from work, even though it’s been a couple weeks since a new podcast post. Hopefully you guys will still be doing the podcast in the New Year.
Hi Cory,
Thank you for following along on our journey. Appreciate it! Yes we’ll have new podcast episodes coming out in the New Year.
Thank you for all that you do, as others have echoed it is a great help to many! My favourite posts are the monthly updates where you provide some insight as to what you are considering buying or selling and why. I would also enjoy a post where you detail what stocks you are considering buying with your 2026 TFSA room and why. Keep up the great work!
You’re very welcome Stevey. Glad you enjoyed the monthly updates.
Hi Bob: Thank you for your persistence in maintaining this blog to benefit countless others, myself included.
There is a quote I remind myself constantly- “Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do- Jim Rohn” or “ Success is doing what others don’t want to do”
Continue Success to you and family in the coming New Year ! Cheers!
Thank you David. Happy Near Year to you too!
Hi & Happy New Year! I always enjoy reading your blog and I recognize and appreciate all the effort that you put into it. I really love the simple format of your website – not a lot of clutter and easy to navigate.
Topic ideas: I enjoy the interviews with other bloggers, Im finding myself with lots of inheritance questions these days while helping my elderly parents with their finances – how to tax effectively meltdown an RRIF, TFSA or non-reg accounts, tax impacts of family cabins, making accounts joint or not, how to simplify a seniors self-managed portfolio, also I always enjoy the life updates – it is important to enjoy, reflect and question why we are saving this money!
Thank you Stacey. Happy New Year to you too. Will see what I can do on these topic ideas.
This year I dipped my toe into US stocks a little bit. I am having trouble understanding the US tax consequences & jargon. My finances are simple & I do my own taxes so I don’t have an accountant. Any info or resources that would explain the basics would be very appreciated!
Thank you very much for all the info you share. I am enjoying your new podcast too 🙂
Yes, plan to cover some of that in the future. Generally speaking, to keep things simple, best to invest US stocks/ETFs in RRSPs.
Thank you for your comment. Investing in the US can get complicated especially when it comes to taxes. To simplify things it is best to invest US stocks/ETFs in your RRSPs.
Thank you for all the information you share with us, and all the best in 2026. I enjoy when you interview guest speakers and also when you share links to other blogs and articles of importance. I also appreciate you sharing tips and tricks on money saving travel, credit cards, etc.
Thank you Donna. Hope to do more interviews in 2026.
Happy New Year later this week to you and your family.
I enjoy your blog and like to read it every week. Some topic suggestions:
Mutual funds vs ETF’s – a discussion of the difference in their MER’s and the long term cost to the investor
Hedge funds—consider investing in or not?
Bitcoin vs Gold
Private capital investing, liquidity, fees, etc.
Portfolio management: having someone else manage your portfolio for a fee. As DIY investor for the last 40 years, I am thinking about handing over our portfolio to someone else to manage as I age. Could be a bank, trust company, insurance company, private investment firms, etc. What questions should I be asking (fees, track record, any input from me?).
Investing in real estate or the stock market or both?
When to pass on an inheritance and what to consider when doing so
Hope this gives you some inspiration.
Roger
I second the. topics:
Hedge funds, are they worth it and what should we be looking out for?
Should I invest in real estate to diversity (REITs, syndications)?
When to pass on an inheritance?
Also,
Thoughts/rules on selling assets (when and which ones)
Private debt, if/when we should consider buying?
I just wrote about when to sell stocks a few weeks ago – https://www.tawcan.com/when-to-sell-dividend-stocks-my-perspective/
Some of these topics are quite detailed and depends on your personal situation so might be hard to cover all the details. I’ll see what I can do. Thanks for the suggestions.
Hi Roger,
Thank you, these are great topics. I will see which ones I can cover in the future.
I like to wish you and your family a healthy and good 2026. I want you to know that I enjoy your columns. I appreciate the amount of effort it is to share with us. Although I am in my high seventies now and I am more focussed on the balance of enjoying my income and giving to my family and charities.
It would be nice to know your thoughts on preparing yourselves on the future with your kids such as housing and study costs for them.
Thank you again for all you do.
Thank you Ineke. Happy New Year to you and your family as well. Glad that you enjoyed my weekly articles.
Good topic idea on the future with our kids. Thanks for the suggestion.
Bob,
Appreciate all the information you put out, and the time it takes to write everything up for us.
#1 Is it ever advisable to cash out RRSPs, and move it over to TFSAs?
#2. Love my financial advisor, been with them for over 10 years, but now that I’m close to retirement, I keep looking at the fees and gag a little. I’ve been with Wealth Simple since it’s inception, want to move some funds over, but very conflicted, my money with the advisor has done very well, however those fee’s…
Hi Brian,
On cashing out RRSPs and move it over to TFSAs, it really depends on your income and situation. There’s no one size fits all solution but it’s a good topic to explore for sure.
Generally speaking I like DIY investing. I believe fees only advisors are great to use if you need some consultations. With so many discount brokers available and the great low cost ETFs around, IMO it makes very little sense to use an advisor for the investing portion. I do believe advisors are good to use for things like tax/estate planning.
Hi Bob,
maybe a series about different apps or websites that helpful. I.e. Stock unlock, snowball analytics
Hi Wendi,
Thanks for the suggestion, not familiar with those two apps you mentioned, will see what I can do.
thank you so much Bob for all you hard work and all the information you provide your readers and listeners . Wishing you all the best for 2026.
I would like to hear your thoughts on a comparison between your dividend philosophy/strategy versus just buying a major market index? Also, thank you for the ongoing content, and especially the family news. I think it’s important for us to balance our investing with what really matters in life, and I enjoy how you show this. Thank you, and Happy New Year!
JM
Thanks John. Will see what I can do on that topic idea.