A portfolio that sleeps well.

DCA (Dollar Cost Averaging) means investing a fixed amount at a fixed interval — $200 every two weeks, say — no matter where the market stands. When prices fall, your amount buys more shares; when they rise, it buys fewer. The average price smooths itself out.

Why it works psychologically:

• No decision to make — you remove the “is this the right moment?” question that paralyses most investors.
• No temptation to time the market — historically, missing a decade's 10 best days has cut away a large share of the total return.
• Automatable — a scheduled transfer plus a recurring buy, and the strategy runs without you.

An honest caveat: in a market that rises over the long run, investing a lump sum at once has often produced a better result than spreading it out. DCA shines above all for investing an income over time — which is most people's reality.

Simulate your DCA in the Tools →

FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) is less a recipe than a framework: build capital whose sustainable withdrawals cover your annual spending. The classic rule of thumb — the “4% rule” — suggests that capital of roughly 25× your annual spending can support an initial 4% withdrawal adjusted for inflation.

• Your savings rate is lever number one, not your return. Going from a 10% to a 30% savings rate shortens the horizon far more than one extra point of return.
• The 4% rule is a heuristic, drawn from US studies of past periods — not a guarantee. Many planners use 3 to 3.5% to be safe.
• Variants exist: Lean FIRE (frugal), Fat FIRE (comfortable), Coast FIRE (capital already invested is enough to compound until normal retirement).

Work out your FIRE number in the Tools →

The longer your horizon, the more equity volatility you can stomach; the shorter it gets, the more the stability of bonds is worth. The old rule of thumb “100 minus your age in equities” (age 30 → 70% equities) captures the idea, even if longer life expectancy pushes many toward “110 minus your age” or more aggressive still.

• It is not only about age — your job security, your emergency fund and your real emotional tolerance (the one you have during −30% drawdowns, not the one on questionnaires) matter just as much.
• The Polaris investor profile exists precisely to place your archetype before you pick an allocation.
• All-in-one ETFs (XEQT, VGRO, XBAL…) deliver a target allocation, maintained automatically, in a single holding.

If your target is 60/40 and a good year for equities takes you to 70/30, your portfolio has become riskier than what you chose. Rebalancing means bringing the weights back to target — which mechanically amounts to selling what rose most to buy what rose least.

• Once a year is enough for most portfolios — or whenever a weight drifts more than 5 points from its target.
• Use new deposits first — steering your contributions toward the underweight class avoids selling (and avoids triggering tax in a non-registered account).
• Discipline beats intuition — rebalancing forces you to do the opposite of the crowd, without heroics.

Use the rebalancing calculator →