What if the biggest financial planning mistake has nothing to do with your investments?

This week on The Free Lunch Podcast, Colin sits down with Lori Curtiss, a fee based financial planner with a master's in financial psychology, to dig into the money story playing in your head and how it quietly shapes every decision you make, from the grocery aisle to your retirement plan.

Colin and Lori get into the debt traps that are easier to fall into than ever (wait until you hear the rolled over car loan numbers), the real answer to "should I pay down my mortgage or invest," and why the questions you're too embarrassed to ask are far more common than you think.

Because knowing you're going to be okay starts with being willing to look.

What does a $175,000 chuckwagon tarp have to do with your portfolio? More than you'd think.

Fresh off Stampede season, Colin and Jacob take on one of Calgary's flashiest marketing traditions and ask the question nobody at the rodeo is asking: where does that money actually come from? Colin runs the math on what a six figure sponsorship might really require in revenue to support it, and the number will surprise you.

From there, the conversation gets bigger. Why do some of the wealthiest people drive modest cars? What can Costco's concrete floors teach us about building real value? And why does Colin believe every dollar in a business, just like every dollar in a portfolio, has a job to do?

It's a fun one with a serious point: looking successful and being successful are not the same thing, and knowing the difference might be the most valuable skill in investing.

Get rich quick and get skinny quick have a lot in common. Neither one works.

This week on The Free Lunch Podcast, Colin and Greg welcome Phil McInnis, Chief Investment Strategist at Avantis Investors, who compares building wealth to building fitness. In his view, it's not the shortcuts that matter, it's the boring basics done consistently over decades.

From goal setting to factor investing to why your brain isn't wired for market swings, Phil shares what he thinks investors with 10, 20, or 30 years ahead of them should focus on.

The World Cup isn't just great TV, it's one of the best crash courses in investing you'll ever get. In this solo episode, Colin breaks down what championship soccer teams can teach us about building a championship portfolio: why the best team doesn't always win on any given day, why bonds are the unsung goalkeeper of your portfolio, and why chasing last year's hottest stock is a lot like betting on last year's Golden Boot winner.

Plus, why "home field advantage" might be quietly costing Canadian investors returns. Whether you're watching every match or don't know a striker from a midfielder, this episode will change how you think about risk, discipline, and playing the long game.

Great companies do not always make great investments

With AI stocks grabbing headlines lately, Colin and Greg ask the question a lot of investors skip: what are you actually paying for that future growth?

In this episode of The Free Lunch Podcast, they talk through market concentration, the Magnificent Seven, and why a diversified portfolio usually beats chasing the next big theme, whether that's AI today or dot coms back in 2000.

What if "higher for longer" just means normal?

That's the question Colin and Jacob dig into on this week's episode of The Free Lunch Podcast, and it's one worth sitting with.

For most of the last decade, ultra-low interest rates felt like the baseline. But historically? They were the anomaly. Colin and Jacob talk through what the new Fed chair's first meeting signals, why the bond market matters more than most people think, and what today's rate environment actually means for retirees, homeowners, and long-term investors.

Colin and Greg had one of their most honest conversations yet on The Free Lunch Podcast this week, talking through IPO mania, the current wave of AI and space company offerings, and why the strategies that sound disciplined on paper often fall apart in practice.

Their take? If you want to put a small slice of your portfolio into something speculative because you find it interesting, that's very different from betting your future on it.

The single biggest lesson from 30 years in the industry? Markets reward ownership, not prediction.

In this episode of The Free Lunch Podcast, Greg sits down with Jacob for a mentorship-style conversation about what actually works in investing and what consistently fails. They dig into why so many investors hurt themselves trying to outsmart the market, and why staying invested and diversified tends to beat almost every clever strategy people try.

Greg puts it simply: the real challenge in investing isn't intellectual. It's behavioural.

Estate planning isn't just for the ultra-wealthy. It's for anyone who owns a home, has kids, or simply wants to make a hard time a little easier for the people they love.

In this episode of The Free Lunch Podcast, Colin and Blair break down what estate planning actually looks like for everyday Canadian families, including the tax surprises most people don't see coming, why your beneficiary designations might be quietly working against you, and what Blair calls "the most important document you'll ever have."

As Blair puts it, estate planning is really an act of care. It's not about paperwork. It's about the people.

What is likely to work in investing? According to Colin, it's the advice nobody gets excited about.

Stay diversified. Rebalance consistently. Cut your tax bill. Understand your own behavioural blind spots. None of it is glamorous, but the data generally backs it up.

Colin and Greg get into all of it on this episode of The Free Lunch Podcast, including why "which stock should I buy" may be the wrong question.