Pape - Sleep-easy investing: your stress-free guide to financial success

Praise for Sleep-Easy Investing

Expect a few surprises in Papes list of sleep-easy investments. Income trusts, ETFs, and even common stocks do not make the cut.

Jonathan Chevreau, Financial Post

Canadians are searching for simple solutions. Many want to handle their own investments, but theyre turned off by the complex products and services offered to them. Gordon Pape cuts through the clutter in this new book and brings the sleep-easy approach to people anxious to hear about it.

Ellen Roseman, personal finance columnist, Toronto Star, and author of Money 101 and Money 201

Gordon Pape does a superb job the advice he provides is sound.

Tim Cestnick

Nobody makes investing easier for Canadians to understand than Gordon Pape, and he proves it again with Sleep-Easy Investing. You dont need to know a bond from a bicycle to grasp the wisdom of his wordshis chapter on understanding and evaluating risk is worth the price of the book alone. Its a valuable resource reference for anyone concerned about their financial future.

John Lawrence Reynolds, author of The Naked Investor

Stellar insights, decades of experience, and proven successes: Gordon Pape shares them all in this book designed to help you simplify your efforts and achieve the results you want from your investments.

Evelyn Jacks, president, The Knowledge Bureau, and bestselling author of Essential Tax Facts

Also by Gordon Pape

INVESTMENT ADVICE

The Retirement Time Bomb

Get Control of Your Money

6 Steps to $1 Million

Retiring Wealthy in the 21st Century

The Complete Guide to RRIFs and LIFs (with David Tafler)

Gordon Papes 2004 Buyers Guide to Mutual Funds (with Eric Kirzner)

Gordon Papes 2004

Buyers Guide to RRSPs

Secrets of Successful Investing (with Eric Kirzner)

Gordon Papes Investing

Strategies 2001 (with Richard Croft and Eric Kirzner)

Making Money in Mutual Funds

The Canadian Mortgage Book (with Bruce McDougall)

The Best of Papes Notes

Head Start (with Frank Jones)

Retiring Wealthy

Building Wealth in the 90s

Low-Risk Investing in the 90s

Low-Risk Investing

Building Wealth

CONSUMER ADVICE

Gordon Papes International Shopping Guide (with Deborah Kerbel)

HUMOUR

The $50,000 Stove Handle

CHRISTMAS(with Deborah Kerbel)

Quizmas Carols

Family Quizmas

Quizmas: Christmas Trivia Family Fun (www.quizmas.net)

FICTION(with Tony Aspler)

Chain Reaction

The Scorpion Sanction

The Music Wars

NON-FICTION

Montreal at the Crossroads (with Donna Gabeline and Dane Lanken)

Your Stress-Free
Guide to
Financial Success

Gordon Pape

PENGUIN CANADA

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Canada Inc.)

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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in a Viking Canada hardcover by Penguin Group (Canada), a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 2008

Published in this edition, 2009

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (WEB)

Copyright Gordon Pape Enterprises Ltd., 2008

New Introduction Gordon Pape Enterprises Ltd., 2009

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This publication contains the opinions and ideas of its author and is designed to provide useful advice in regard to the subject matter covered. The author and publisher are not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services in this publication. This publication is not intended to provide a basis for action in particular circumstances without consideration by a competent professional. The author and publisher expressly disclaim any responsibility for any liability, loss, or risk, personal or otherwise, which is incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and application of any of the contents of this book.

Manufactured in Canada.

ISBN: 978-0-14-305526-6

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication data available upon request to the publisher.

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Visit the Penguin Group (Canada) website at www.penguin.ca

Special and corporate bulk purchase rates available; please see www.penguin.ca/corporatesales or call 1-800-810-3104, ext. 477 or 474

To all my faithful readers over the years, thank you.

When the first edition of this book was published in early 2008, I had no idea how timely it would turn out to be. At that point we knew that the subprime mortgage mess in the United States was serious, but no one could imagine just how dangerous it really was. As the months passed, the poison it spread throughout the global banking system brought us to the worst financial crisis the world has experienced since the Great Depression. Before the year was out, stock markets had melted down, giant banks and insurance companies had been partly nationalized or gone bankrupt, and governments around the world were scrambling to stave off a complete economic collapse.

For many people, the result was the loss of their jobs, their savings, even their homes. We havent seen financial misery on this scale since the bread lines and soup kitchens of the 1930s. I hope we never do again.

If theres anything good to have come from this, its a realization that the old-fashioned virtue of living within your means still makes a lot of sense. Much of our grief can be traced to two root causes.