XEQT for Skilled Trades: How Electricians, Plumbers, and Tradespeople Can Build Serious Wealth in Canada

I got an email a few months ago from a guy named Mike. He is a 34-year-old electrician in the IBEW, working out of Hamilton, Ontario. He had been reading this blog for a while and finally decided to write in. His message stuck with me because it was so blunt.

“I make over $100K with overtime. My buddies at the hall all drive new trucks and have ATVs and boats. I have a used F-150 and a Wealthsimple account with $87,000 in XEQT. Nobody at work talks about investing. They think I am weird. Am I doing the right thing?”

Mike, if you are reading this – you are not weird. You are building generational wealth while most people with six-figure incomes are building a really impressive debt portfolio. And you are doing it with the simplest possible strategy: one ETF, automatic contributions, no financial advisor.

This post is for every electrician, plumber, welder, carpenter, millwright, HVAC tech, ironworker, and pipefitter in Canada. Most financial advice is written for office workers with predictable salaries and 9-to-5 schedules. That is not your life. Let me give you a playbook that actually fits.

1. Why Tradespeople Are Secretly the Best Positioned to Build Wealth

Here is something that most people in the trades do not realize: you have structural advantages that office workers would kill for. The typical narrative is that white-collar professionals are the ones building wealth while tradespeople just “get by.” That narrative is completely wrong.

You start earning real money earlier. While your friends went to university for four years and came out with $40,000-$80,000 in student debt, you started earning during your apprenticeship at $18-$25/hour. By the time that university grad lands their first “real” job at 26 or 27, you have been earning – and could have been investing – for four to six years. That head start is enormous when compounding is involved.

Your income is higher than people think. A journeyperson electrician in Ontario makes $45-$55/hour. A Red Seal plumber or pipefitter in Alberta can clear $50-$65/hour. Add overtime, shift premiums, and living-out allowances, and plenty of tradespeople earn $100,000-$150,000+ per year. That is lawyer and engineer territory, often without the student debt.

Overtime is your wealth accelerator. When a salaried office worker stays late, they get nothing extra. When you work overtime, you get time-and-a-half or double-time. A single shutdown season can add $20,000-$40,000 to your annual income. Invest that overtime instead of spending it, and you are turbocharging your portfolio in ways salaried workers cannot match.

No student debt dragging you down. The average Canadian university graduate carries roughly $28,000 in student debt, taking years to pay off – years during which they are not investing. You skipped that entirely.

You understand delayed gratification. You show up at 6 AM in -30 weather because you know the paycheque makes it worth it. That same mentality – consistency, discipline, showing up even when you do not feel like it – is exactly what makes a successful long-term investor.

2. The Unique Financial Challenges Tradespeople Face

I am not going to pretend it is all sunshine and power tools. There are real financial challenges in the trades that make investing harder than it is for someone with a steady government salary. Acknowledging these is the first step to building a strategy that actually works for your life.

Irregular and seasonal income. If you are in construction, you know winter can be slow. Some trades are heavily seasonal. Your income might be $8,000 one month and $3,000 the next. Traditional advice like “invest $500 every month no matter what” does not work when your income swings that much.

Overtime is feast or famine. Shutdowns can mean 60-70 hour weeks for months, followed by stretches of straight-time 40s. The temptation during feast periods is to “reward yourself” for the brutal hours. You deserve some reward – but if every overtime cheque goes to toys and trucks, you are missing the biggest wealth-building opportunity of your career.

The apprenticeship years are lean. First and second-year apprentices are earning 50-65% of journeyperson rates. When you are making $20/hour and trying to pay rent and buy tools, investing feels impossible. It is not – but it requires a different approach than someone earning full rate.

Your career has a physical ceiling. This is the one nobody wants to talk about. Crawling through attics at 55 is different than crawling through attics at 25. Your knees, your back, your shoulders – they have a shelf life on the tools. Many tradespeople transition to supervision, inspection, or teaching later in their careers, often at lower pay. Your highest earning years may be your 30s and 40s, not your 50s and 60s. This makes investing during those peak years absolutely critical.

The lifestyle inflation trap is real in the trades. When you go from apprentice wages to journeyperson money – especially with overtime – the income jump can be dramatic. Suddenly you can afford the $80,000 truck, the side-by-side, the boat. The culture in many trades encourages spending on gear and toys. There is nothing wrong with enjoying your money, but the guys retiring comfortably are the ones who invested the difference between apprentice habits and journeyperson income.

3. Union Pensions and XEQT: How They Work Together

A lot of tradespeople – especially those in the building trades unions like IBEW, UA, Carpenters, Ironworkers, and Labourers – have union pension plans. If you have one, that is a serious benefit. But it does not mean you can skip personal investing.

Your union pension is your foundation, not your entire house.

Most union pension plans in the trades are defined benefit (DB) plans, meaning you get a guaranteed monthly income in retirement based on your years of service and hours worked. Some are defined contribution (DC) plans where employer contributions go into an account that you invest.

Here is the thing: union pensions are based on hours worked. If you work 1,800 hours a year for 30 years, you will get a solid pension. But how many tradespeople actually hit consistent hours every single year for three decades? Slow winters, layoffs, injuries, downturns – these all reduce your pensionable hours and shrink your eventual pension. XEQT fills that gap.

Why XEQT complements your union pension perfectly

Think of it this way:

• Your union pension = the stable, guaranteed part of your retirement income (like bonds)
• Your XEQT portfolio = the growth part that gives you flexibility, early retirement options, and a cushion

Because your pension already provides that stable floor, you can invest your personal savings aggressively in 100% equities through XEQT. You do not need a balanced fund or bonds in your personal portfolio – your pension already fills that role. This is the exact same logic I covered in the employer pension guide, and it applies perfectly to union pensions.

What if you do NOT have a union pension?

If you are non-union or in a trade without a pension plan, then XEQT is not optional – it is essential. Without a pension, your retirement income is just CPP and OAS, which combined total roughly $19,000-$26,000 per year. If you are used to living on $80,000+, that gap is massive. You need to be your own pension plan, and XEQT is the simplest way to do it.

4. How to Handle Variable and Overtime Income with XEQT

This is where the rubber meets the road. Your income is not a straight line, so your investing strategy should not be either. Here is a framework built specifically for the way tradespeople actually earn.

The Base + Overtime System

This is adapted from the system I recommend for self-employed Canadians, tweaked for the trades.

Step 1: Set a base investment amount. Look at your straight-time, 40-hour-week take-home pay. Commit to investing 10-15% of that as your base amount. This is the amount you invest every single month, no matter what. If your straight-time take-home is $4,500/month, your base is $450-$675. Set this up as an automatic recurring buy on Wealthsimple.

Step 2: Create an overtime rule. Decide in advance what percentage of overtime pay goes to investing. I suggest 50% of all overtime income goes to XEQT. You worked hard for that double-time – reward yourself with half, invest the other half. This way you still get to enjoy the extra money, but you are also building real wealth.

Step 3: Seasonal lump sums. Shutdowns, turnarounds, or travel jobs that generate big lump sums get the same treatment. Half for living and enjoying, half into XEQT.

Here is what this looks like over a year for a journeyperson electrician:

In this example, the electrician invested $14,450 in one year despite having wildly variable income. The base amount kept them consistent during slow months, and the overtime rule captured the boom periods without requiring them to give up everything.

That $14,450 invested annually, growing at a historical average of 8%, turns into roughly $710,000 over 25 years. That is a serious retirement fund, built on top of whatever pension they are accumulating.

For more on handling irregular income, check out our guide on investing with variable income.

5. The Apprentice-to-Journeyperson Investing Roadmap

You do not need to wait until you are a journeyperson making full rate to start investing. In fact, starting during your apprenticeship – even with tiny amounts – gives you the biggest advantage of all: time.

Here is a stage-by-stage roadmap:

Pre-Apprenticeship / Year 1 (50-60% of journeyperson rate)

Income reality: $18-$25/hour. Money is tight. You are buying tools and maybe paying for trade school.

What to do:

• Open a TFSA on Wealthsimple (it is free)
• Set up an automatic buy of XEQT for $25-$50 per paycheque – yes, that small
• This is about building the habit, not the portfolio. The habit matters more than the amount

Year 2-3 Apprentice (65-80% of journeyperson rate)

Income reality: You are earning more, maybe $28-$38/hour. You might still be in school blocks (with EI or reduced income).

What to do:

• Increase your automatic buy to $100-$200 per paycheque
• During school blocks when income drops, reduce to your minimum but do not stop entirely
• Start learning about dollar-cost averaging – this is your strategy, and it works perfectly with biweekly paycheques
• Resist the urge to buy a brand-new truck the second you can afford the payment

Year 4 / Journeyperson (100% rate)

Income reality: You just passed your C of Q or Red Seal. Your income jumped significantly. This is the most dangerous moment financially, because lifestyle inflation hits hard.

What to do:

• Keep living roughly like you did as a senior apprentice for at least 6-12 months
• Increase your automatic XEQT buy to $400-$600 per paycheque
• Implement the Base + Overtime System from the previous section
• Max your TFSA contribution room (you have been accumulating room since you turned 18)
• Start thinking about your RRSP – at journeyperson rates, the tax deduction starts getting valuable

Established Journeyperson (5+ years at full rate)

Income reality: You are earning top rate plus overtime. You might be a foreman or supervisor. This is your peak wealth-building window.

What to do:

• Max your TFSA and RRSP contributions annually
• Overflow into a non-registered account if both are maxed
• Increase your overtime investment percentage from 50% to 60-75%
• Check out how much you should be investing monthly to make sure you are on track
• Start thinking about your long-term plan: stay on the tools, move to supervision, inspection, or teaching?

6. The Head Start Advantage: Tradesperson vs Office Worker

This is the comparison that should get every tradesperson excited about investing. Let me show you the raw power of starting early.

Read that again. Same monthly contribution. Same investment. But the tradesperson ends up with $460,000 more simply because they started six years earlier.

That is the power of compound growth. Those first six years of contributions have the longest runway to grow, and they end up being the most valuable dollars you will ever invest.

And this comparison actually understates the advantage because the office worker likely spent years paying off student debt before investing $600/month, while the tradesperson probably earned overtime that allowed for additional contributions beyond $600.

The head start you get by entering the workforce early is your single biggest financial advantage. Do not waste it. If you are a first-year apprentice reading this and thinking “I cannot afford to invest” – even $50 a month starting at age 19 grows to roughly $125,000 by age 55 at 8% average returns.

7. Why Tradespeople Do Not Need a Financial Advisor

I am going to be direct about this, because the trades culture values straight talk over sales pitches.

You do not need to pay someone 1-2% of your portfolio every year to tell you what to buy. Your financial situation is straightforward: you earn income, you need to invest it for retirement, you want it to grow. You are not managing stock options or deferred compensation. Your financial picture is simpler than most professionals, which means the solution is simpler too.

XEQT IS the advice. A globally diversified portfolio of 9,000+ stocks across 49 countries, automatically rebalanced, at 0.20% per year. A financial advisor would charge 1-2% per year and often recommend something similar – or worse, put you in high-fee mutual funds that underperform.

The math on advisor fees is brutal. A $500,000 portfolio with a 1.5% annual advisor fee costs you $7,500 per year. Over 20 years, those fees plus lost compound growth could cost $200,000-$300,000. That is a cottage. A paid-off truck. Years of retirement income. Gone.

The three-step plan is all you need:

1. Open a TFSA and RRSP on Wealthsimple (commission-free, no minimums)
2. Set up automatic purchases of XEQT
3. Never sell. Keep buying. Increase contributions when you can.

That is the whole plan. If you are brand new and want the basics, check out XEQT for beginners.

8. The Red Seal Advantage: Higher Income Means More Fuel for the Fire

If you have your Red Seal certification, you have two investing superpowers that non-certified workers do not.

Higher earning potential. Red Seal tradespeople consistently out-earn non-certified workers. That extra $3-$5/hour adds up to $6,000-$10,000+ per year in additional income – all of which can go straight into XEQT.

Interprovincial mobility. When work slows down in Ontario, Red Seal holders can chase projects in Alberta, BC, or wherever the demand is. Travel jobs come with living-out allowances ($100-$150/day tax-free), camp jobs include free room and board, and remote premiums can add 10-20% to your hourly rate. These extras are pure wealth-building fuel.

Here is the strategy: when you take a travel or camp job, your daily living costs are covered by the LOA. That means your regular paycheque is almost entirely investable. Transfer 60-70% of your net pay directly to your Wealthsimple account during travel jobs. You are not home to spend it anyway, and these concentrated investing periods can add tens of thousands to your portfolio in a single season.

If your employer offers RRSP matching, make sure you are taking full advantage. That is free money on top of your already-high income.

9. TFSA vs RRSP: Which Account First for Tradespeople?

This depends on where you are in your career:

The key insight for tradespeople: your income varies year to year. In a big overtime year, prioritize the RRSP because the deduction at a high marginal rate is extremely valuable. In a slower year, focus on the TFSA. This flexible approach works perfectly with variable trade income. For a deeper dive, read our TFSA guide and RRSP guide.

10. The Tradesperson’s Investing Checklist

Here is your action plan, in priority order. Print this out and stick it in your toolbox.

1. Build a 3-month emergency fund in a high-interest savings account. Non-negotiable.
2. Open a TFSA on Wealthsimple. Free, commission-free, takes five minutes on your phone.
3. Set up an automatic recurring buy of XEQT. Even $25 per paycheque. Automation matters more than the amount.
4. Implement the Base + Overtime system. Base from straight-time pay, 50% of all overtime income invested.
5. Max your TFSA. You may have $50,000-$70,000+ in accumulated room. Fill it.
6. Open an RRSP once income exceeds $55,000-$60,000. Buy XEQT in there too.
7. Increase contributions with every raise and apprenticeship level. Do not let lifestyle inflation eat your raises.
8. Invest aggressively during shutdowns and travel jobs. These are your wealth-building sprints.
9. Ignore the noise. Coworker crypto tips, foreman stock picks, YouTube gurus. Just keep buying XEQT.
10. Review once a year. Adjust your base amount, confirm automation is running. Then close the app and get back to your life.

The Bottom Line

Here is what I want every tradesperson in Canada to understand: you are not behind. You are actually in one of the best positions possible to build serious, life-changing wealth.

You start earning earlier than almost any other profession. You have the potential for high income with overtime. Your discipline translates directly to investing success. And with XEQT, you do not need a finance degree or a stock broker to make it work.

Mike, the electrician who emailed me, is not weird for investing instead of buying toys. He is the smartest guy at his union hall. In 20 years, when his coworkers are wondering how they are going to retire, Mike will be choosing whether to keep working because he wants to or walk away because he can.

That choice – the freedom to decide – is what XEQT buys you. Not a flashy return. Not a get-rich-quick scheme. Just the steady, boring, powerful accumulation of wealth that comes from buying a globally diversified portfolio every paycheque and letting compound growth do what it does.

You build things for a living. Now build your future. Open an account, buy XEQT, automate it, and get back to work.

Related Reading

• What is XEQT? A Complete Guide for Canadian Investors
• How Much Should You Invest in XEQT Monthly?
• XEQT vs Your Employer Pension
• XEQT for Self-Employed Canadians