The ‘Secret’ To Building Wealth 🤫

Good morning, and happy hump day! We hope that this email is a nice little midweek pick-me-up for you. 

It’s time for a new issue of Money Convos, and today we have a little bit of everything for you - we’re talking useful money topics, some timely reminders, and of course a spending check-in. 

Here’s what’s up in this copy 🤑🗞 

• Taxable Investment Accounts 101 💡

• Steph’s ¼ through her spending challenge 👀

• The secret to building wealth 🤫

• The stock market rollercoaster 🎢

• It’s time for some tax season tips 💰

Money Convo Of The Month

How I Keep Track Of My Taxable Investment Account

Last year, I hit a financial milestone that I was really excited about… finally being taxed on my investments! 

Honestly, it really was exciting - I had officially maxed out all of my tax-advantaged investment accounts (like my tax free, first home and retirement accounts), and it was time for me to open up a taxable investment account in order to continue my investing journey. 

A taxable investment account is basically a standard brokerage account that you can use to purchase investments inside of - but, like the name suggests, it doesn’t come with any tax advantages. Instead, you have to pay taxes on any income that’s earned from your investments inside of this account. 

Another difference with this account is that it’s your responsibility - as the investor - to keep track of, and report, the activities that occur inside of this account every tax year. 

Now, a lot of people don’t think too deeply about this, because most brokerages will actually provide you with a tax slip that details this information - but, the government, and most brokerages themselves, will often remind you in their FAQs and/or the fine print that it’s ultimately your responsibility to make sure that everything's accurate. 

In other words, if the tax slip that the brokerage gives you isn’t right, or if you’re using multiple brokerages to invest and the tax slip they give you isn’t the full picture… then you’re the one who’s responsible for that. 

The good news is that tracking your Adjusted Cost Base (ACB) - that’s the name for tracking the activities inside of your taxable account, btw - isn’t hard! It’s just a bit tedious. 

Adjusted Cost Base (ACB) = the total average cost of buying and ultimately owning an investment. 

The total average cost of investing in an ETF (for example), would include how much you originally bought the investment for (the initial purchase price), how much you bought the investment for every other time you re-invested in it (the average price), any fees and commissions you had to pay, and any external events that affected your ETF. 

Now’s probably a good time to mention that the reason we’re talking about this topic now is because March and April is a good time of year to do this activity - because it’s tax season, when you file your personal tax return. It’s also when companies and ETF providers have compiled all of the information that you’ll need in order to fully calculate your ACB! 

That leads us to the main question of the day… How do you actually calculate your ACB? 

Good question! We answer it thoroughly, and walk you through a step-by-step example using my real taxable investment account, in this YouTube video. 

It should be simple (but again, potentially tedious!), and we included several free tools that you can use to help you. 

If you have any questions about taxable investment accounts, and calculating your ACB, ask away in the comment section of that video…

…and remember, if you don’t have a taxable investment account yet, that’s okay! You’ll likely want to work on all of your tax-advantaged investment accounts, first.

$32,000 Or Less Challenge 💰

A new month means a new $32,000 or less challenge update! 

I’m officially ¼ of the way through this challenge, and so far I’d give myself a B-. 

On one hand, I’ve been overspending relative to the overall goal of this challenge - at the start of the year, if I wanted to spend $32,000 over 12 months, the monthly average I was technically aiming for was $2,666.67/month. 

But, so far I’ve spent $2,829.10 in January, $3,080.14 in February, and… well, I won’t spoil it, but I spent more than that in March, too. 

On the other hand, I’ve definitely been very intentional with my spending! I’ve spent less money through the first three months of 2026 than I did through the first three months of 2025, and I know I’ll have some lower spending months ahead of me. 

Before I get too ahead of myself, let’s take a look at how this past month went and get into my March results. 

In March, I spent $2,960.81, and here’s how it was split out -

That means that I have $23,129.95 left in my annual total to spend for the next 9 months of 2026. 

I now need to spend an average of $2,569.99/month for the next 9 months in order to hit my goal - but, like I said before, I still think that my goal is achievable! 

If you want to see me talk more about this in video form, check out this video.

The Secret To Building Wealth 🤫

The secret to building wealth is that… Well, actually, there isn’t a secret to building wealth. 

Sorry to break it to you, but as a couple who’s working on hitting a net worth of $500,000 this year, there isn’t just one tangible secret that you can learn that will allow you build wealth fast (aka there isn’t a foolproof ‘get rich quick scheme’ that everyone can simply follow). 

But, we can tell you the two things that you need to have in order to build wealth… and those two things are 1) consistency and 2) good habits. 

When we talk about good habits, we mean things like making a budget, putting a set amount of money into your savings and investments, and learning more about money and how to hit your personal financial goals. 

Starting to take those steps - and build those habits - early on is really key. It’s easy to say that you’ll wait to invest until you make more money… or that you’ll create a budget once you buy a house (or some other specific benchmark)... but the reality is that you won’t magically have good money habits once you hit a certain level of ‘financial success’. You need to build good habits over time. 

That’s really where consistency comes into play, as well - once you build those good money habits, you have to be consistent over a long period of time. For example, we set the habit of investing every single month early on - for Steph, she started investing $25/month at age 21… now, at age 29, she’s consistently invested every single month throughout her 20s (give or take a year back when we quit our jobs!). 

Keep in mind that everyone has different variables that impact their amounts and timeline - we ourselves are a testament to that! The two of us had different starting points (I had ~$50,000 in student loan debt and Steph graduated debt free), and have different family backgrounds when it comes to money (which has an impact on your financial picture in various ways). 

But what’s been clear to us is that, even if your timeline is different from someone else’s, if you want to truly build wealth, you need consistency and good habits more than anything else. 

Check out this video to hear more of our thoughts on this topic.

It’s (Not) Time To Panic 🚨

In case you haven’t noticed… the stock market’s been very up and down so far this year. 

If you have noticed, and you’re feeling concerned about your investments, we have a quick - but important - reminder for you. 

If you’re a long-term investor (aka if you plan on having your money invested for multiple decades), then these short-term market fluctuations shouldn’t impact your decisions. 

The philosophy behind long-term, passive investing is that you invest consistently over a long period of time, both when the market is up and when the market is down. 

So, if you’re seeing changes in your portfolio’s returns, and/or if you’re seeing news that’s concerning you, as long as your investment portfolio reflects that of a long-term investor, then it shouldn’t cause you to panic and make any immediate changes. 

If you want to learn more about this topic, check out this video we shared during last year’s market downturn.

PSA: It’s Tax Time! ⏰

It’s April, and that means that it’s officially tax season! 

Hopefully you’ve either already filed your taxes, or you have a date set in your calendar to file them within the next few weeks before the deadline hits (BTW - the deadline for most people in Canada is April 30th, and the deadline for most people in the United States is April 15th). 

Once you do file your taxes, then it’s time for you to make a decision… What should you do with your tax refund (if you get one)?

We like to bring up this topic every tax season, because we often hear people refer to tax refunds as ‘extra’ money that they ‘weren’t expecting’... so, they treat it like a bonus. 

But, it’s important to remember that getting a tax refund actually means that you’ve given ‘too much’ money to the government in the form of taxes throughout the last tax year. So, really, if you receive a tax refund, you’re actually getting money back that was already yours (hence the term ‘refund’!). 

With that being said, you’re allowed to do whatever you want with your money - but, it’s our job to give you a few suggestions on how you can use your tax refund to benefit you as much as possible. 

So, here are some things for you to consider - 

• High Interest Debt - Do you currently have any high interest debt (example: credit card debt where interest rates are typically 20%+)? If you do, consider paying this down. 

• Emergency Fund - Do you have a fully funded emergency fund right now (aka a set amount of money set aside in a high interest savings account)? If you don’t, consider filling this up. 

• Long-Term Investments - If your high interest debt is paid off, and your emergency fund is full, then consider investing your tax refund. Adding an extra lump sum of money to your investment account, on top of your monthly contributions, can really add up over the long-term! That’s what we did last tax season.