My Story
Hi, I'm Levi Ewald, the founder of Smallbird Financial.
I grew up in Terrace, BC, and now live in Charlottetown, PEI, with my wife Katelyn. I'm a physiotherapist, an educator, and a financial planner.
Almost everything I've done for work comes back to teaching. Both of my parents are teachers, and I started early myself, teaching swimming lessons when I was in high school. As a physiotherapist, my days are spent taking something complicated, a diagnosis or a recovery plan, and explaining it clearly enough that someone can carry it out on their own. I've coached volleyball for years for the same reason. I've always enjoyed helping people grow, whether that be physically or financially.
Financial planning, done right, is the same job - understand the situation, lay out the options, agree on a plan, and work through the plan together.
Financial information is everywhere these days. My job is to simplify it and give you a clear path forward, so you can spend more time doing what you love.
Why I started Smallbird
When I was eighteen, I heard a Freakonomics Radio episode called "The Stupidest Thing You Can Do With Your Money." It explained how financial advice is currently given in the US and Canada.
Most investors get placed into high-fee, actively managed mutual funds, sold on the promise that the fund will beat the market. Most of them don't. Around 98% fail to beat the market over the long run, and picking the 2% that do, ahead of time, is almost impossible.
The part that blew my mind and upset me was the fees. The gap between a typical 2% mutual fund fee and a low-cost alternative sounds tiny year to year. Over the 40 years that many people invest, it compounds into something huge. Take $10,000 left to grow for 40 years. At 8% a year it turns into about $217,000. Drop that to 6%, which is roughly what a 2% fee does to it, and you end up with about $103,000. The fee takes a little more than half of what your money could have become.
Then I learned that Canadians pay some of the highest mutual fund fees in the world. Millions of hard-working people were paying more to do worse than a simple, easy-to-manage fund would have done for them, and losing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars over a lifetime to big banks and insurance companies in the process.
What bothered me most is how clear the evidence is. High-fee funds tend to do worse than their low-cost counterparts, and this has been true for many years. This information isn't shared with investors because cheaper funds don't make advisors and institutions as much money.
That doesn't make those advisors bad people. It just shows how the incentives in the system aren't lined up for the person getting the advice. I started Smallbird to work the other way around. My recommendations will never make me more or less money, so my incentives are to do what's best for you. No products. No commissions. Just advice.
How I think about money
My approach is simple. Clear goals first, then understanding your cash flow, paying down high-interest debt, and creating an emergency fund. Investing comes after that, and it should be the boring part. We don't want to be gambling with your retirement savings or your financial life.
If you've read The Wealthy Barber or spent any time around low-cost index investing, none of this will be new, and that's the point. The basics aren't complicated. Most people just haven't had them laid out in one place by someone who isn't also trying to sell them something.
Where I'm at
I'm currently pursuing the QAFP designation through FP Canada, and I'm a member of the Financial Planning Association of Canada (FPAC). I'm building this practice deliberately and openly, which means being upfront about the credentials I hold and the ones I'm still working toward.
If any of this sounds like the kind of help you've been looking for, I'd love to meet you.