12-Minute Diet and Meal Planner (Revisited)

The 12-Minute Series was originally posted in 2012.

We’ve decided to republish it integrally because we believe it can still help as everyone aspires to make things better.

Let’s hope it stirs up the discussion and stimulates you to change the world 12-Minute at a time!

This article was originally posted on August 12, 2012

When it comes down to food, the 12-Minute Way can be quite useful to help you manage your diet and plan your meals. 

There’s more to it than the common dozen eggs.

Because approximately 40% of food goes to waste in America, an incredible opportunity for improvement exists in the vast food domain, an opportunity to save precious resources and money.

But also an opportunity to reduce stress and free up some of your schedule because, day after day, food preparation can sometimes be pretty hectic and time consuming.

Portfolio Update February 2017

Please note that our next update can be expected in about 12 weeks, in May 2017.

You can also have a look at our actual portfolio and previous portfolio updates here:

DIY Portfolio

Portfolio Update August 2015

Portfolio Update November 2015

Portfolio Update February 2016

Portfolio Update May 2016

Portfolio Update August 2016

Portfolio Update November 2016

Despite everyone’s fears after the US election, markets ended 2016 very well. In fact, this year usual «Santa Claus Rally» was replaced by a very nice «Trump Rally».

Will it last? Our typical answer prevails: nobody knows!

Markets still look expensive as they continue to hover close to record highs. In the latter part of January, we could sense markets were getting nervous about the first moves of the Trump administration. In fact, turbulences began around inauguration day.

DIY Outrageous Fees

Because of the new investment-fee disclosure rules in Canada, information on our annual investment statements have changed a bit. These changes also apply to DIY investors.

As a result, a couple weeks back, looking at one of our investment accounts 2016 annual statement, I was quite shocked. We are paying outrageous fees!

OK, I’m just being a tad ironic.

Despite the fact we made 6 transactions in that account last year (which is a lot because our average over the years is under 2) and that we paid the highest cost per transaction compared to our other DIY accounts, our annual fees still represented just 0.19% of our account value.

As we already discussed a while back, fees are probably one of the main reasons our DIY Portfolio is doing much better than popular funds.

Here’s the same chart we presented First in July 2015 and Again in November 2015. You can see that even though the gap has narrowed a little, we still remain well ahead.

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