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I wanna say thanks to this thread for letting me know how incredibly expensive Canadian mutual fund fees could be. I had my meager assets set up with Questrade already, but reading the thread spurred me into action on unfucking my parent's retirement savings. They're both looking to retire in the next year or two, so it's definitely time. My mom somehow had 3 RRSPs and 3 TSFAs (though one was with the bank and had, like, $2 in it) across multiple advisors/companies, and they were all ripping her off. One fund she was invested in had an MER of loving 3.8%!  The rest were all in the high 1.X% to mid 2.X%. She thought she was doing ok, but when we compared the return rate I got last year with passive index ETFs to what little scraps her mutual funds passed on to her, she was pretty willing to switch. We're gonna see how Questrade's authorized trader system works so I can set up/rebalance her portfolio for her. That way I don't have to walk her through everything using Teamviewer or something.I haven't gotten to my dad's finances yet, but I'm not expecting much better there. He's with Investors Group.  When I think about how much better off they could have been if they'd switched to cheaper plans 15-20 years ago, I get pretty pissed, but at least this will make their humble savings last considerably longer. Thank god they both also have public sector pensions.
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Apr 12, 2017 03:10
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My company sets up TFSAs for employees to hold their shares with Canadian Western Trust, though recently CWT sold all our accounts to Computershare so I guess we're with them now. I didn't go that route because I didn't have TFSA room at ask time, but it is a thing that companies can do, apparently.
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Sep 22, 2017 16:48
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Baldrik posted:I haven’t been active on the forums for a long time and I’ve tried to play a bit of catchup before I pose my question for some of you more financially savvy Canadian goons. You may cringe about what I’ve done here. You could certainly cut your fees roughly in half by using a low cost mutual fund like with Tangerine or TD e-series, but I don't know if they have an automatic payout option so you'd have to be going in and withdrawing money yourself each month. You could also drastically cut your fees by opening your own brokerage account with someone like Questrade and buying and selling your own ETFs, but that takes a lot more time and consideration each month to manually sell stuff, wait for the sale to clear, and then transfer the money to your bank, then get it to yourself in Europe, all of which could take, like, 5+ business days if you're unlucky. However, with all those options you also have to trust yourself to not misuse your power over your finances and/or freak out when markets dive or soar and make bad decisions. It's all about how much hassle and responsibility you want to trade for that extra $2k~4k you could be saving in fees every year.
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Dec 12, 2017 17:03
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Reggie Died posted:I need to get my act together and set one up for my 11 month old. I've been meaning to look into individual vs family plans, ect, but life gets in the way. It's 20% of 2500 per year, so $500 per year. Plus any growth in the account is tax-deferred and then taxed at the recipient's tax rate, the recipient being a current student (or recent graduate), so probably low tax/no tax. At worst it's a guaranteed 20% per year return on investment for ~15 years, at best it's tax free growth on $50k+ over ~20 years. And you know all those limits are going to go up eventually. Get on that poo poo Square Peg fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Dec 20, 2017 |
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Dec 20, 2017 22:19
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Reggie Died posted:This I cannot dispute. And not sure why I posted $250; I think I knew it was $500. I think the only real significant difference is a family plan is only good until one of the recipients turns 31, so if there's a large age gap between siblings it can not work as well, but your kids will be close enough in age that it shouldn't matter. Just know you still need to make contributions to specified recipients within the family plan, and avoid group plans/scholarship plans as they're basically scams. Square Peg fucked around with this message at 06:06 on Dec 21, 2017 |
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Dec 21, 2017 06:02
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B33rChiller posted:Is there somewhere that I can set up a self directed RESP online? Tangerine doesn't seem to offer one, and I can't just set one up with my online banking at scotiabank. They direct me to head in to the local branch to set one up. If at all possible, I would like to avoid the sales pitches that inevitably come any time I speak to a real person at a bank. Questrade allows you to set up your own self-directed RESP, though I haven't done it myself.
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Jan 4, 2018 17:31
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Risky Bisquick posted:How does the CESG work in self directed RESPs with regular contributions? I have my RESPs set up to be set and forget with some funds in target markets (ie divest canada forever) Here's Questrade's guide, so you don't have to give them your contact info to get the URL: http://media.questrade.com/downloads/manuals/Make_The_Most_Of_Your_Childs_RESP.pdf But it looks like they apply for the CESG on your behalf.
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Jan 4, 2018 17:54
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rouliroul posted:Not sure why no one ever mentions labor sponsored funds in any canadian investment threads and blogs anywhere. The extra 30-35% tax credit makes it a no brainer imo. I really don't have enough faith in small-to-mid-size Canadian companies to consider the tax credit worth the increased risk. Not to mention the management fees are usually high, even for Canadian standards.
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Jan 19, 2018 01:14
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I got my Fido card already, the one with the 4% back on foreign transactions (and 2.5% exchange fee for a net 1.5% reward). I ordered it a week ago.
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Feb 2, 2018 19:14
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Chillyrabbit posted:I mean I would like it if the historical data shows that it at least matched my tangerine fund. Basically that it grows a decent amount. I trust Vanguard to have what they say they have in those ETFs. I'm not really in love with how over-represented Canadian equities are in those ETFs, but I'll probably still use these for my parent's investments, as I'm already averaging 0.19% MER for their portfolio's and .03% is definitely not worth my time.
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Feb 3, 2018 00:29
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PhilippAchtel posted:What's the difference between a fund that tracks an index and an etf that tracks that same index? ETFs require the investor to buy/sell them through a stock broker or via a self-directed brokerage, whereas the buying and selling is handled by the fund managers with mutual funds. Is this reason enough to justify the very high fees charged by Canadian mutual fund managers? Hell no, but, well, Paying More is our National Pastime.
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Feb 23, 2018 21:46
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PhilippAchtel posted:RBC does charge a commission for purchasing ETFs ($35 + 0.05 per share) through a representative, but if you were investing a fair amount and not moving it around, that price would be negligible over time. I know you can get a cheaper rate trading online, but I do like my financial consultant, and there would be certain... political considerations with other members of my household if I wanted to do this without consulting our guy. What, are you married to the president of RBC? If you want the extra percent just open an account with Questrade, make some free ETF buys, Bob's your uncle.
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Feb 24, 2018 00:41
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PhilippAchtel posted:What is VGRO and VBAL? ETF funds with "Growth" centric and "Balance" centric allocations of funds (respectively) to stocks/bonds. https://www.vanguardcanada.ca/individual/mvc/loadImage?country=can&docId=12396 https://www.vanguardcanada.ca/individual/mvc/loadImage?country=can&docId=12397 http://canadiancouchpotato.com/2018/02/05/vanguards-one-fund-solution/ Edit:There's also a "Conservative" ETF fund, but unless you're already retired it's probably a bit too bond-centric https://www.vanguardcanada.ca/individual/mvc/loadImage?country=can&docId=12394 Square Peg fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Feb 24, 2018 |
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Feb 24, 2018 02:02
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I appreciate Questrade's "authorized trader" system, it's made it managing my boomer parent's investments easy so they don't have to pay mutual fund fees.
Square Peg fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Feb 24, 2018 |
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Feb 24, 2018 06:13
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Demon_Corsair posted:Can anyone recommend a good daily use credit card? I'm with tangerine right now, but since they dropped the cash back rates I've soured on it. I do a lot of shopping at Superstore and the combo of 3% back on their World Elite Mastercard at their stores (Shoppers, No frills, Esso, etc) and the "PC Optimum" points/coupon system gets me at least $20/month back on stuff I'm already buying.
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Mar 5, 2018 19:40
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The closest I came was shifting my bond holdings from VAB to VSC cause I was pretty sure interest rates were gonna rise.
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Mar 14, 2018 02:14
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Yeah, I think I have about 15-20% of the equity part of my portfolio invested in either industry specific ETFs or individual companies. A small enough amount that losing it won't ruin me, but enough that big upswings will help a lot. The important part is to remain disciplined enough to rebalance it at least once a year, even if you think your picks will keep going to the moon.
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Mar 29, 2018 19:20
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Bucswabe posted:This may be a really basic question, but I can't seem to find an answer through Google: As a note, at least in my experience, Questrade will report your full sell price to the CRA, but will leave the ACB as 0, so if you're doing your taxes with a program like simpletax or turbotax where it can import info from the CRA, it will bring in the information on the sale, but you'll need to go in and enter the ACB on the T5008 or it'll default to treating the whole sell price as a capital gain. Square Peg fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Apr 26, 2018 |
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Apr 26, 2018 00:53
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The Butcher posted:I would just like to note I am still super happy with Questrade since switching from TD a year or so ago, and highly recommend it for others as well. What stock do you use for the Norbert's Gambit, if you don't mind me asking?
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May 17, 2018 15:07
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TD definitely supports device-based 2 factor, we've got one of their little key generator devices where I work. Might be business client only, though.
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Jun 3, 2018 02:40
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Couch Potato guy's portfolio is way over on Canada, IMO. Considering probably your job and your house is also located here, having a third of your equity portfolio also be concentrated in our economically tiny nation also seems way unbalanced. I think the Vanguard portfolio ETFs are also over-weighted on Canada, so I balance them out with an all-world-equity-ex-canada ETF. Keeping 2 ETFs balanced is pretty easy.
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Jul 19, 2018 15:58
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VelociBacon posted:If she literally has zero risk tolerance just use fixed income stuff like this or something similar. Bond indexes still have some short-term risk, especially as interest rates rise, so shorter-term bond index funds like VSC have less short-term risk.
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Aug 3, 2018 15:43
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Femtosecond posted:I was thinking the other day about TFSAs, and if, in the case where you have non-registered investments and TFSA investments, if there is ever any scenario where it makes sense to withdrawl everything in the TFSA into cash, wait until you can contribute again, and move a bunch of your registered investments into the TFSA. If your tax rate is temporarily low and you need money why not just take it out of your RRSP? If you don't think your tax rate will ever be as low then there's no better time. Same for the travelling around the world. RRSP isn't strictly for retirement, taking money out whenever your tax rate is at it's nadir and you need income is good practice. TFSA on the other hand is much better to just leave untouched until retirement, as you'll get the maximum compounding tax-free return the longer you leave your investments in there.
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Aug 11, 2018 20:54
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cowofwar posted:If you had a TFSA, RRSP, and unregistered accounts would you go equities/growth 100% in TFSA? Depends on timeframe, if you lose money inside a TFSA it sucks hard as you don't get more contribution room due to losses so that room is gone forever. So if you're needing to pull money out of the TFSA in the next 5-10 years then full equity can be risky. Also, interest from bonds is taxed at your full rate (vs dividends which are taxed at a lower rate), so it might make sense to stuff them in registered accounts. I think it depends a lot on your situation, but as a young guy who won't be retiring for a long while, I personally try to keep my income/bonds in my RRSP, fill my TFSA with equity (especially international equity), and keep Canadian equity in my unregistered. However, keeping a proper balance should always be a higher priority than any tax advantages.
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Aug 12, 2018 00:05
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Less Fat Luke posted:I don't think that's really a good plan; the gains and dividends inside your RRSP are also tax sheltered and interrupting that potential compounding before you have to is not a great strategy IMHO. Well, the scenario is needing money and the choice of taking money out of either an RRSP or a TFSA. If you have the funds you need in an unregistered account, you should certainly use those first.
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Aug 12, 2018 02:50
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I'm also dealing with this right now, but I'm pretty sure my work let's me do a transfer once a year. I was elated when I looked up the balanced and diversified fund my contribution is going to has an MER of only 0.11%! But then noticed that on top of that the institution was charging me 0.5% every quarter. Hopefully it doesn't cost anything to get it over to my Questrade.
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Aug 28, 2018 05:15
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Professor Shark posted:Someone I know mentioned that dentists often refuse to open on Fridays because the way that they are taxed as a business means they would lose money were they pushed into the next tax bracket and cited business taxes being different than personel when I asked about the first $x being taxed at one rate with the remainder taxed at another. Well, the small business tax deduction on the first $500 000 of income is phased out as total income goes between $10M and $15M. One of the companies I used to work for split itself into like 9 distinct entities to ensure it would keep getting the deduction. It made accounting a nightmare.
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Sep 20, 2018 14:49
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Subjunctive posted:But even so, without the numbers in front of me, I don’t think there’s a circumstance where earning another dollar will net you less in the final result. Taxes are nice to businesses. Yes you're right. Dentists are worse with money than even doctors, and that's saying something.
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Sep 20, 2018 15:06
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If it's Investors Group I can almost guarantee the MER is over 2%. Run from them like your money is on fire.
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Oct 15, 2018 14:26
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Boy I really wish Questrade would stop going down any time there's even a moderately busy trading Monday morning.
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Oct 15, 2018 16:00
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EKDS5k posted:So...where do I start? I agree with pokeyman, take your time and do your research. canadiancouchpotato.com is a great resource for learning about low-cost investing, and this thread is great for answering any specific questions. Right now the most important thing is that you don't start inflating your lifestyle to match your new income. It's very easy to convince yourself that your new big paycheque means you deserve a new big expensive truck or a larger house or to start going out for food or drinks way more often, but it's important to keep in mind that you have a lot of catching up to do with regards to your savings. Maybe once you've filled up your and your wife's TFSAs and ploughed a couple hundred grand into your RRSPs then you can start to let the dollars fly a bit more, but right now you need to just appreciate the sense of relief that not living paycheck-to-paycheck brings all on its own. Also if you plan to send your kids to post-secondary school, you should start putting money into RESPs for them, but be mindful of the rules regarding contribution matching. You can only "catch up" 1 extra year at a time. https://retirehappy.ca/resp-contribution-rules/ Also, if you don't feel you have time to learn all about DIY investing, then start by learning what the account types you might have available to you are and how they work (TFSA, RRSP, RESP, LIRA) and what is meant by Balanced, Conservative, and Growth investing, and then you can look into a roboadvisor that will take care of the actual investing part for a much lower fee than you'd pay with a bank mutual fund. Check out https://autoinvest.ca/calculator/ for some options. Square Peg fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Oct 29, 2018 |
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Oct 29, 2018 15:45
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Subjunctive posted:You can spend RESP money on more than university tuition. It’s fine for colleges, professional education, equipment for self-teaching, etc. Not with CST you can't. It's heavily restricted on what you can take money out for. I think you get penalized if your kid does anything other than a 4 year degree. Combined with the astronomical fees (I read something like 20% of contributions go to fees) and braindead low-return investments (almost all bonds), CST is dogshit. They only thing they're good at is marketing. Depending on how old your kids are EKDS and how much you've invested you would likely be better off cutting your losses and switching to a regular low-fee index-based RESP. EKDS5k posted:Just to make sure I understand spousal RRSPs: The idea is that I should contribute equally to both of them, so we have two smaller RRSPs, so ideally we get taxed less when we start withdrawing? Is that the gist of it? You can spread your RRSP contributon limit over as many RRSP accounts as you want, regular or spousal, and the total contributions get deducted from your gross income for tax purposes. However, if you contribute to a spousal plan, and then don't contribute to it (or any other spousal plan) for 3 years, that money can then be withdrawn by your spouse at their tax rate. So a common practice is to dump a bunch into the spousal RRSP to lower your taxes and then pull it back out 3 years later at a lower tax rate.
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Nov 1, 2018 15:43
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Give a read to section 4 of A Review of Registered Education Savings Plan Industry Practices conducted by Human Resources and Social Development Canada(2008) (nice, catchy title) for all the fun and horrifying details, as of 2008. I don't imagine they've gotten much better.
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Nov 2, 2018 00:00
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EKDS5k posted:According to their prospectus they average 3-6%. Since I'm not maxed out for my RESP contributions with them, would it make any sense to open a separate RESP and invest that money into higher returning stocks? I plan on basically following the CCP method of having a balanced portfolio anyway, so wouldn't that balance out the lower returning bonds from CST? If you're not getting the max Canada Education Savings Grant return then you should absolutely set up RESPs for your kids and top up to the $2500 contributions per kid. There's nowhere else you'll get an instant 20% return. And given that you're starting the plans later, definitely do individual RESPs rather than a family RESPs. Individual RESPs don't need to be emptied until the plan turns 31 years old, whereas family RESPs need to be emptied out by the time the oldest beneficiary turns 31 years old. And individual RESPs can be easily transferred to blood relatives if one child doesn't use it. Nobody said CST is fraudulent, they're just a very very bad investment vehicle. Square Peg fucked around with this message at 15:41 on Nov 2, 2018 |
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Nov 2, 2018 15:19
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I just got this e-mail from my Fido mastercard, I guess soon you won't have to call and request a credit once a year anymoreRedeeming just got a whole lot better posted:Dear Square Peg,
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Nov 28, 2018 00:50
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Postess with the Mostest posted:jm20 what is happening right now, should I transfer my vun to vab for a bit? everyone seems pretty gloomy about their rrsps. That's the opposite of how you rebalance. Stocks are on sale, might as well load up!
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Jan 7, 2019 19:40
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Yeast Confection posted:The financial advisor that got me on it obviously doesn't want me to cancel it. Whole Life policies have come up here before as being generally bad? Whole life insurance is basically just a high-fee low-growth mutual fund tied to a regular term insurance plan. I think there are some mild tax advantages, but you'll almost certainly come out ahead taking the extra you're paying over a term plan and shoveling it into VBAL or some other low fee etfs, especially if you still have RRSP or TFSA or RESP room.
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Jan 14, 2019 15:25
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just another posted:I'm contributing $3600/year to my kiddo's RESP and I think with the 20% CESG matching, that puts me on track to hit his contribution limit when he's around 12. Assuming the money is going into savings either way, what do you guys think makes more sense: Yeah, I think the penalty for pulling out unspent income/gains from an RESP is 20%, on top of your marginal tax rate. Contributions can be taken out tax free though, but unspent grant money goes back to the government. Better to use a TFSA for any excess if you have the room, or otherwise a spousal-RRSP if your partner doesn't work. With a spousal RRSP, just stop contributing to it 3 calendar years before sending the kiddo to school (i.e. if they start in September 2025 stop contributing by Dec 31 2022) and the money can be withdrawn at your spouse's tax rate.
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Jan 16, 2019 17:02
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Sadly from what I've seen most of the ethical funds available still include oil and gas. They also exclude nuclear power generation, so that's a double "gently caress-you" to the environment I guess. There are some that do though, and all tend to exclude tobacco, gambling, military weapons, and the like. http://blog.modernadvisor.ca/socially-responsible-etfs/
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Jan 20, 2019 17:41
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NZAmoeba posted:I actually came in to ask a similar question. I have my RRSP with matching at work, but I have an option to transfer away from it once per year without penalty, so basically after it gets it's match, I can transfer to the fund I actually want. And what I actually want is an ethical investment that invests in solutions, not causes of problems. You can open an RRSP at a discount broker like Questrade, transfer your funds to it, and then invest those funds into any of the ETFs that were on the page I linked in my last post Edit: ETF =/= EFT, thank you pokeyman Square Peg fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Jan 24, 2019 |
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Jan 23, 2019 23:44
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