The Value of Simple: A Practical Guide to Taking the Complexity Out of Investing

The Value of Simple: A Practical Guide to Taking the Complexity Out of Investing is a plain-language how-to guide to investing for Canadians.

Canada has the highest investment fees in the world, as well as a confusing tax system that features four-letter words like RRSP and TFSA. Fortunately there are low-cost index funds that make it easy and rewarding for you to become a do-it-yourself "couch potato" investor. With a focus on developing good processes to minimize the room for human error and step-by-step instructions, the book will walk you through the elements of managing your finances for the long term: how to devise a savings plan, stick to it through automation, determine how to allocate funds balancing risk and reward, invest using low-cost index funds, track your investments, and deal with the inevitable issue of taxation.

Putting your money to work can look suspiciously like math at times, but this book lays out a simple approach that anyone can follow. Inside you will find tools and templates, along with easy suggestions and rules-of-thumb to help prevent analysis paralysis and get you started fast. Control what can be controlled; minimize fees and effort. Investing doesn't have to be complex to be successful. Keep it simple and you will succeed.

This second edition is updated with revised processes at each of the three example institutions, as well as an introduction to a new alternative for Canadians: robo-advisors.

"This is simply the best book to read if you want to start investing and feel overwhelmed." --Chris Enns, Financial Planner, ragstoreasonable.com

"I highly recommend this book to anyone who feels confused about how to invest." --Michael J. Wiener, michaeljamesonmoney.com

"The 'explain it like I'm 5' (ELI5) guide to investing. No other book has a step-by-step guide when it comes to making your first investment so you really have no excuse for not getting started." --Barry Choi, moneywehave.com

"No more excuses, Canadians. With The Value of Simple, John explains not only the theory behind the best way for you to invest, but also provides easy-to-understand step-by-step guides to show precisely how simple it is to implement these investing strategies. The book gives everyday Canadians easy-to-implement ways to invest that will take you from procrastinating neophyte investor to confident portfolio manager in an afternoon or two of straightforward reading. If my high school students can immediately understand these Canadian-specific ways to invest, so can you!" --Kyle Prevost, Co-author of More Money for Beer and Textbooks

"The author describes the investing process in a way that's rarely explained - taking a step-by-step approach to show investors exactly what they need to do in order to start building and maintaining a portfolio of low-cost index funds. This book is for investors who are looking to take the plunge into DIY investing and want a guide to help walk them through the process from start to finish." --Robb Engen, Finance Columnist and Financial Planner, Boomer & Echo (boomerandecho.com)