The coronavirus pandemic has shaken up all aspects of life. Whether you still have a job or are currently unemployed, one thing that the pandemic has brought into stark relief is the importance of having an emergency fund and properly planning for the future. In fact, the pandemic has been a major wake-up call for many. As a recent article in The Atlantic put it, “the COVID-19 crisis has revealed the brokenness of America’s institutions,” including, but not limited to, “precarious employment for an in-debt population getting by month to month.”
All of this stress has made many people take their personal finances more seriously, especially when it comes to their investment portfolios. If you’re looking for a painless, low-effort way to make money in the stock market, you may have come across the Couch-Potato Portfolio, also known as the Canadian Couch Potato portfolio. But what exactly is the Canadian Couch Potato approach to investing in the stock market, and is it good or bad investment advice?
After all, there are a lot of unhelpful articles on the internet when it comes to the financial planning topic, and when your money is at stake it’s important to make the right choices. Read on to learn how to invest the couch potato way and whether or not it makes sense for you and your financial situation.
What is the couch potato method?
Put simply, the Candian Couch Potato approach to investing in index funds is based on building a portfolio utilizing a mixture of index mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, also known as ETFs. On the Canadian Couch Potato blog, blog readers can get practical advice about how to set up their own couch potato portfolio, including information about which funds make the most sense for your investment portfolio.
At its heart, the Couch Potato methodology is a simple, yet effective, way of building a diversified stock portfolio with very little maintenance required. Best of all, since you aren’t paying a portfolio manager or financial advisor a percentage of your gains, you’re able to beat the pros and maximize your returns in the long run. Also known as passive investing, the Couch Potato strategy helps you pick a mixture of ETFs and index funds that help you ride the broader returns offered from the stock and bond market.
What’s the best way to implement the couch potato investment strategy?
If you’re interested in using the Canadian Couch Potato investment strategy in your own portfolio, one of the best ways to set up your specific investment portfolio is to use a portfolio management tool. Portfolio management tools take a lot of the complexity out of setting up your own portfolios and can ultimately make you a better investor, thanks to the fact that they have other tools that keep your portfolio on target. This can be a major boon for someone new to investing, since getting started is the most important thing to do if you’re serious about improving your financial situation.
For example, one incredibly popular investment portfolio manager is Passiv. Passiv has tons of features that make it a great option for handling your couch potato portfolio, including a tool that quickly and efficiently lets you know about any possible trades you could make to maximize your returns and align your portfolio more accurately with your overall investment goals. Passiv links automatically to your brokerage account, so if you’ve set up your couch potato portfolio with a Questtrade account, it’s a simple process to link the two systems together. From there, you can set up pre-authorized deposits and let Passiv handle the rest, giving you the success you need as an individual investor to retire in style.