Investing simplified part 2: Why I switched teams from WealthBar to WealthSimple

If you haven’t read Part 1: How I got my investment life back on track, it would be worthwhile to get the full backstory and go read that first.

I’m switching to WealthSimple for a number of different reasons, although all might not apply to you. WealthBar might make more sense for you, it really depends what your circumstances are and what you’re saving toward.

1. Their fees seem to actually work out better for the stage of investing I’m in and my plan for the future.
2. For those larger near term purchases, their savings account has a higher return than I could find elsewhere (2%).
3. Their backing is far stronger (3B in funding vs 275M).
4. Their technological infrastructure seems far better, from the user experience and speed of the app to how quickly you can open an account. They even integrate with Mint, something I’ve sadly been unable to use for budgeting until now.
5. There are a few oddities with WealthBar that doesn’t match industry standards. For example I recently went through the process of opening a joint account with WealthBar. Once we’d finally gotten it setup I discovered that I was the only one who was able to interact with the account (make deposits, withdrawals). This runs contrary to every other financial institution’s concept of a “joint account” I’ve ever dealt with. WealthSimple on the other hand adheres to industry standards.
6. Their rewards program lets you get part (or all) of your money managed free for a year. For example if you refer/are referred by someone you’ll both get $10,000 managed free. They’ve even incentivized things like downloading the app or making your account more secure with rewards. And all reward stacks on top of previous ones.

I’m sad to be leaving WealthBar. I really liked their support infrastructure (chat) compared to WealthSimple (email). It also felt great to be supporting a local Vancouver company, but I can’t deny the usefulness and time/money savings of WealthSimple.

If you’re interested in learning more, go check out WealthSimple’s website. They’ve got a tonne of great, easy to digest content on investing. If you’d like to try investing with WealthSimple, use this referral code and we’ll both get $10,000 managed free for a year.

The last thing I’ll leave you with is a book recommendation: 5 years ago I was gifted a book with a terrible title all about how to develop proper saving habits. Moolala is a phenomenal book that shaped how I think about investing. No matter what stage you’re at, from swimming in credit card debt to understanding the differences between RRSPs or TFSAs to investing in the stock market, it’s a worthwhile read. The world of investing can be daunting, but Bruce Sellery explains it with enough context in a way that’s easy to understand.

Beyond robo advisors

Robo advisors area great way to get your investment life back on track. If you get a little crazy you can start investing in ETF funds on your own and drop your fees down even further. That’s more effort than I want to deal with right now since it requires manually rebalance my portfolio regularly. I might try it in the future though and luckily WealthSimple has a free trading platform that would support it.