It’s easy to demystify investment statements

Here are 3 areas to read to better understand how your funds are doing

I knew early that if I wanted a bright financial future, it was up to me to learn to grow my money. So, I started investing when I was10 years old by purchasing a $100 Canada Savings Bond with money my grandparents had given me for my birthday.

In my teens, I earned money through babysitting and other jobs. I contributed those earnings towards mutual funds. At 18, I started to purchase stocks. I then used my investments to pay for a large portion of my university costs and make a down payment on my first home. I learned early to pay attention to the following three areas when my investment statements arrived. Know what you own and why

Investments are contained within accounts — RRSPs, TFSAs and nonregistered accounts are most common. The names of your investments are listed on your statements and they can be stocks, bonds, mutual funds, index funds or ETFs. Often, investors let their advisers choose specific investments on their behalf or they invest with a robo-adviser. In both cases, the investor might not fully understand what’s in their investment portfolio. Take time to understand what investments you have and why you own them. If you own funds, look them up at MorningStar.ca. There, you’ll find a description of the fund, a ranking of its performance, rate of return, fees and more. If you understand why you have the investment in your portfolio, great. If you don’t know why you own it, speak to your investment adviser or call your robo-adviser’s help desk for answers. Rate of return

Are your investments keeping up with the market? If not, you need to find out why. The point of investing is to make money. That requires you to earn a positive rate of return in the long term. Rate of return is what you earn on your invested money and it shows up either as dividends, interest payments or growth in the price of the investment. All of these returns appear on your statement, and they are calculated as a rate of return (ROR). Your statements should show the ROR since you purchased the investment, and over the past year, and over the past three years. Markets go up and down every day and that's why you don’t want to pay exclusive attention to short-term returns. It’s the long term (fourplus years) that counts. Fees

You will pay fees to invest. How much, though, is completely dependent on the level of service you are receiving and the types of investments you choose. Fees will be displayed on your investment statement generally near the ROR. If you receive personalized investment advice, you’ll pay your adviser generally between 1 and 2.5 per cent for their services. Then, you’ll also pay fees on any type of fund you buy. Mutual funds are the most expensive followed by index funds and then low-cost ETFs. If you use a robo-adviser, you’ll pay a combined fee of about 1 per cent. If your fees are too high and you’re not earning a ROR that, at a minimum, matches the market ROR, you’re not getting good value. So much has changed with the markets since I started my investing journey, but, what hasn’t changed is the 30-minute monthly review of my investment statements. Because I am 100 per cent responsible for my financial future, when I have questions aboutmy statements, I find answers.