I think if your goal is to match market performance it might not be worth your while to manage your own portfolio. The skills you need to effectively buy and maintain a portfolio are much more than buying a broad range of etf's based on some portfolio model. Diversification through etf's is essentially leading lambs to slaughter. If you're doing it yourself your goal should be to beat the market and those skills, while simple, are not easy. If you're going to do it, do it right. Doing it right will one way or another cost you money. So either pay the manager or pay for the education.
On the other hand, stocks are not the only thing out there. Mortgages provide great returns with lots of security. You can do it yourself via a lawyer of course or through a private lending company or through a mortgage investment corp. I've found borrowers on kijiji, through lending corps and I've bought publicly traded MIC's on the stock market. Super easy. Super safe. Easy to understand. It's amazing how many people are happy to pay 12% for a first mortgage with 70% LTV. It's not very tax efficient but I like it.
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