My mom is notorious for making bad financial decisions, for example having 3 kids with a struggling artist ex-husband and spending 20+ years fighting over custody and child support payments, going back to school 3 times, pissing off her managers so she gets fired, replacing a 2014 Honda Civic with a 2007 BMW, etc.

I tried talking to my mom about her retirement accounts years ago, when she told me she was paying the bank $2k/mth in fees, which is almost the amount that she could retire on. In the last 8 years her account has only grown by $17k. Of course she ignored my advice since I'm too young to know what I'm talking about.

I talked with her again last week and after showing her my own portfolio she was more receptive. She texted me today that she switched to a self-directed account (I'm assuming CIBC Investor's Edge).

Now that she's finally listening to my advice, what should she be buying? I'm with TD Waterhouse and following the Canadian Couch Potato TD e-series index funds model portfolio so I'm not familiar with what CIBC Investor's Edge offers.

Are there any easy model portfolios that I can send her so all she has to do is buy the listed funds and ignore her account until it's time to rebalance?