We DON'T Invest In The S&P 500 😳

181 days down, 184 days left to go! We’re pretty much halfway through 2025, and we’re officially in the summer months where life slows down a little bit. 

It’s also July 1st, which is why we’re back in your inbox with another issue of Money Convos - this month we have a few fun updates, a few money lessons, and a few financial tips for you. Let’s jump in! 

Here’s what’s up in this copy 🤑🗞 

• We don’t invest in the S&P 500 🫢

• Money lessons that we learned in our 20s 📝

• Our biggest splurge of the year 👀

• Our first ever hosting gig 🎙️

• It’s time for a mid-year money check-in 💰🔍

Money Convo Of The Month

We Don’t Invest In The S&P 500… Here’s Why

Okay, before we get too far into this, that’s technically not true - we do invest in the stocks that are included in the S&P 500… but we also invest in thousands of other stocks, too. 

But let’s back up for a second - you’ve hopefully noticed that when we talk about investing, we’re specifically talking about passive, long-term investing in the stock market. 

One way to passively invest in the stock market is by investing in passively managed ETFs - passive ETFs copy, or match, a specific part of the stock market.

For example, the S&P 500 is a specific part of the stock market - it’s the part of the stock market that looks at the 500 largest public companies in the United States. So, if you wanted to invest in the S&P 500, you’d purchase an ETF that has those 500 largest public companies in the United States inside of it. 

Wait a second… Doesn't that mean that investing in the S&P 500 is a way to passively invest in the stock market?

Yes, it is - but, there’s still the long-term part of the equation, and when you’re a long-term investor, it’s really important to have a diversified portfolio. 

Diversification = spreading your money out among multiple different investments, to reduce your overall risk (aka not having all of your eggs in one basket). 

When you invest in only the S&P 500, you’re only investing in the United States, and only in 500 companies (and those companies are mostly concentrated in only a few different industries). That means that you’re getting some diversification (500 companies vs 1 company, multiple industries vs 1 industry), but you're not diversified geographically. 

Geographic Diversification = investing in multiple different countries to, again, reduce your overall risk, and benefit from the global stock market’s returns. 

When you invest in globally diversified ETFs, you’re spreading your money out among multiple countries, even more industries, and among thousands of companies (including the same 500 stocks that are in the S&P 500!). 

Keep in mind that the United States is the largest market in the world, so when you invest in globally diversified ETFs, the US will still make up the majority of your investment portfolio - but, over the long-term, it’s important to have that exposure to other global markets, as well! 

We plan to talk more about the topic of global diversification in our upcoming YouTube videos, but we wanted to share the high-level info re: why we personally don’t [only] invest in the S&P 500. 

For now, if you want to hear more about this topic, check out this Instagram post.

20 Money Lessons That I Learned In My 20s 🎂

In case you missed it in the last issue of Money Convos, we’re now both officially in the last year of our 20s…

…so, naturally, we started a new series on our channel called ‘20 Money Lessons That I Learned In My 20s’.

We’ve shared six different lessons so far, and we wanted to give you a recap of them! 

1. Money is involved in everything we do - This is something that we learned really early on in our personal finance journeys. The decisions that we make every single day (even the small, seemingly insignificant ones) involve money in some way, shape or form. So, you can either ignore that fact, and let your money control you… or you can be in control of your money.

2. Spending more money to live in the city is worth it - We did the math, and it turns out that we’ve spent $150,000+ combined over the past 7 years to live in Toronto… but it was worth it for the opportunities that the city has brought us. We’ve paid an average of $1,870/month (which is a great price for downtown Toronto, but a lot of money in general), but if we lived in a lower cost of living area, we wouldn’t have had so many of the experiences that shaped us throughout our 20s (who knows, maybe we wouldn’t even have quit our jobs and become self-employed!). 

3. Living in a small apartment is one way to keep your expenses low - Now, just because we’ve lived in the city doesn’t mean that we haven’t kept our fixed costs low! We’ve lived in the same tiny, rent-controlled apartment for 7 years now, and it only costs us 22% of our monthly income. It can be tempting to upgrade your space (and sure, a real front closet would be nice), but a few more square feet isn’t worth thousands of extra dollars at this point in our lives. 

4. You can have anything, but not everything - This lesson was probably the one that impacted our money mindset the most. It’s important to remember that you don’t have to save money… you get to save money for future you (if you’re in the position to do so). You can actually buy pretty much anything that you want to, but every choice that you make is a trade off with something else. What’s actually worth it to you? Make those decisions, and save the rest - your future self will be thankful.

5. Being ‘rich’ is more than just buying ‘stuff’ - We often hear people say that ‘budgeting is restrictive’, and we’ve even been asked ‘when are you going to stop budgeting?’, and our answer was… never? We don’t budget to restrict ourselves - we budget so that we can be intentional with our money, and so that we simply know where it’s going. To us, being rich doesn’t mean being oblivious about our money… it means having freedom, and budgeting (for life!) is a part of making that happen.

6. Someone else’s timeline doesn’t have to be yours - This is a money lesson that’s pretty personal to us! We’ve been a couple for 8 years, we’ve been living together for 7 years, and we’ve been sharing our lives - through the POV of our financial journey - online for 6 years. So, you can probably imagine how many comments we’ve gotten about getting married! The thing is, someone else’s timeline doesn’t have to be yours. We’ve been growing as individuals, and as a couple, throughout our 20s, and that’s included building a business together and working on the foundation of our relationship. We’re working on our own schedule, and we’re excited for what’s around the corner! 

We hope that you’re enjoying the start of this series! We’re going to be sharing a new money lesson a few times per week until we reach number 20, so keep an eye out for future lessons here.

Our Biggest Splurge Of The Year 🤑

Even though we invest 50%+ of our income, we still spend a little extra money on a fun expense sometimes.

Technically we paid for our biggest splurge of 2025 last December, but we finally got to experience what we paid for a few weeks ago when we went to the GNX Tour (aka Kendrick Lamar & SZA’s concert) in Toronto! 

We’ve only been to three concerts together in the almost eight years that we’ve known each other (and I think the tickets were only ~$150 each for the other two concerts that we went to), so clearly it was a special occasion for us to actually splurge and buy these tickets…

…because they cost us $659.35/ticket or $1,318.70 total (!!!). 

Yes, we know - that’s an expensive concert! So, why did we decide to go? 

We actually have a ‘Should We Spend Money On This?’ checklist that we use to decide if an ‘unnecessary’ purchase is worth it to us personally.

Should We Spend Money On This?

• Affordability - Is this something that we can afford to buy without going into debt / impacting our money goals? 

• Urgency - Is this something that we ‘have’ to buy right now, or can it wait? 

• Value - Is this something that we’re willing to have as our ‘one big expense’ for a specific period of time (aka are we willing to say no to different big expenses over the next few months on behalf of this purchase)? 

• Timeline - Is this something that will provide us long-lasting enjoyment (aka extended use, memories, etc.)?

In this case, we could afford the tickets, we had to buy the tickets now (because the concert had set dates!), we were willing to make this our main ‘big expense’ for the start of the year, and it was something that was going to bring us long-lasting memories. 

If you want to see more of us at the concert, check out our full breakdown here!

We’re Going To Be Hosts 🎙️

We wear a lot of hats as entrepreneurs, business owners, content creators, etc… and last month we were able to add one more title to the list! 

We were asked to host a few episodes of a new YouTube show, where we’d interview different couples about how they handle money in their relationship. Of course we said yes, and last month we were flown out to Los Angeles for a multi-day shoot! 

We had so much fun meeting the couples and filming the episodes, and we can’t wait to share them with you once they’re released - stay tuned. 👀

If you want a sneak peak, we shared some behind-the-scenes clips, and broke down how much money we spent on this work trip.

We were also able to bring Dennis’ mom to LA with us, which was so much fun - it was her first time in California, and we were so happy she was able to join! If you want to see what we got up to with her - and of course find out how much money we spent during our extra days in LA - check out this video here.

Mid-Year Money Check-In 👀

We’re officially halfway through 2025, and that means that it’s time for a mid-year money check-in!

Hopefully you take some time to review what’s going on with your money every month, but if you’ve fallen behind, don’t sweat it - now’s the perfect time to get back on track! And, even if you are up to date, now’s a great time to reflect on how you’re feeling about your money situation so far this year. 

Here’s your mid-year money check-in to do list - 

• Update your budget - Are your budget categories still accurate? Are you consistently spending more, or less, in any specific areas? Should you update your budgeted amounts? 

• Track your spending - How much have you spent overall for the first six months of the year? How does it align with how much you planned on spending? If the results aren’t what you hoped for, don’t be upset - this exercise will help you adjust as necessary moving forward! 

• Review your money goals - Do you remember your 2025 financial goals? Review them, and see how you’re tracking against them - if there are any goals that you want to add or remove, now’s the time! 

• Rearrange your money - Do you have any excess money built up in your bank account(s) that you can transfer to your investments, instead? Or are your bank accounts looking a little low, and need to be topped up? 

• Reflect and reset - Based on the above, how are you feeling about your money in 2025? No matter how you feel - whether you’re going to celebrate or shake it off - move forward with a fresh start for the second half of the year.

We know the next six months are going to fly by, so make sure you take some time for your mid-year money check-in now, and set yourself up for success! 

You can also watch our mid-year money check-in on YouTube here.