By Jonathan Chevreau on August 20, 2026 Estimated reading time: 12 minutes

The Wealthy Barber retires 

By Jonathan Chevreau on August 20, 2026 Estimated reading time: 12 minutes

David Chilton is retiring at 65 after four decades in personal finance. He shares why he’s stepping back and what comes next.

At the end of this year, The Wealthy Barber himself, David Chilton, is planning to retire. Ironically, he will do so at the traditional retirement age of 65, which he’ll reach late in October.

He revealed this on his popular The Wealthy Barber podcast on June 10, 2026, which you can find here. Later that month, Globe Advisor reporter Deanne Gage devoted a full column to his retirement (paywalled). 

Chilton announced he plans to “shut down” at the end of 2026, including the now-two-year-old weekly podcast. But he will “continue to pump out our social media content” until early 2027. His main platforms are primarily visual media like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, although he also has a presence on X, the former Twitter. 

I interviewed Chilton for this Retired Money column early in August. He told me the podcast’s success was mainly generated by video shorts on Instagram and Facebook: “Some of these shorts will get half a million, 600,000 views. It’s crazy.”

A who’s who of Canadian personal finance

While the podcast does well on YouTube, the audio version gets more traffic on Spotify and Apple Music. In typical self-deprecating fashion, Chilton quips it’s because “people don’t want to see me.” Nor has his team attempted to monetize it: “We’ve never taken advertising money.” Initially the podcast was every second week, but it soon moved to weekly (on Tuesdays). So far, more than 70 episodes have aired, with perhaps another 20 scheduled before it shuts down. His guests are a who’s who of Canadian financial experts, but he has also interviewed a few Americans, including Motley Fool alumnus and author Morgan Housel. 

Chilton makes a point of mentioning key members of his team: his assistant Mo (Maureen Ross), who has been with him 30 years, and Aidan Stride, the driving force behind the podcast.  

Chilton fans have one more chance to see him on the speaking platform: he’s embarking this fall on one last major national media tour for private companies about “key lessons I’ve learned throughout my career.” There will also be a number of meet-and-greet book signings at Indigo stores.

Seeing as the Big Chill—as a mutual acquaintance calls him—is almost a decade younger than me, I must admit my initial reaction to his imminent retirement was one of surprise. After all, Chilton has been perhaps Canada’s preeminent personal finance guru ever since he published his pioneering financial novel, The Wealthy Barber, back in 1989. That book, which weaved financial advice into a story format, spawned several imitators, not least my own, similarly named The Wealthy Boomer. 

Milking his one great idea

Chilton was 25 when he got the idea, wrote it up and published it at 27. The book launched Chilton on a successful four-decade career as an author and public speaker, with a stint in venture capital via the CBC’s Dragon’s Den. Between the various editions (U.S. and Canadian) and the subsequent The Wealthy Barber Returns, Chilton says total North American sales are between four million and five million.

Article Continues Below Advertisement

Last year he released a completely rewritten Canadian........

© MoneySense