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Lmk if I should cut off the off topic discussion, but yeah, our consultant ran with our case on a clause in the conjugal sponsorship law that says immigration isn't supposed to be able to 'force' us to get married if we don't believe in it, but that didn't work out lol
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Aug 14, 2019 20:05
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I'm going on vacation in about five months, and I just realized I've been holding off on applying for that Fido Mastercard. I'm looking for another credit card that has no foreign exchange (I know that Rogers MC increased the cashback to cover the foreign exchange fees). Unfortunately, I found out that Fido card lowered the rate to 3% for forex transactions, leaving a net 0.5% cashback. Also, after hearing the stories here about Home Trust Visa, I'm not sure that's a good idea. Is there another card that can beat this? I mean, my current Simplii Visa is 4% for restaurants so that's fine, but is there a good overall card that covers the rest? I was looking at Scotia's Infinite Visa Passort card, but $140 annual fee is steep for the rewards covered. The lounge access is nice, but I'm not sure it's worth that when I travel about once a year.
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Aug 15, 2019 20:30
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Lemme know if this is the wrong thread for this but I couldn't find any more suitable so here goes. I'm moving to Canada from the US in 6 months. I have <$20,000 in a 401K and I'm trying to figure out what the best way to transfer that over to Canada would be. From the googlin' I've done my options are: A) leave it here, I probably won't be making any more contributions to it and when I'm 55 I can tap it. I did some quick back of the napkin math and if no further contributions are made (and I think I assumed like 4% annual return or something like that) then it'll be around $50,000. Which at that point is probably a year, maybe two worth of expenses in retirement? B) Withdraw it when I move, pay the 10% fee. If I then deposit the remainder into an RRSP I apparently get a foreign tax paid tax credit on my federal taxes. This is the part I'm kind of murky on. I guess it vests over a number of years so I'd basically get stuck paying my American taxes on my 2019 return but then over the next 5 years the amount I paid would be credited back on my Canadian returns? So I'd pay the 10% fee and there's the opportunity cost of paying ~28% or whatever up front and recouping it over the next 5 years but this still seems like a better option because at least my RRSP isn't starting out at zero while the 401K is receiving no further contributions. So am I about right or have I missed something? It seems like option B is what I should go with but it's just been so burned into my head not to ever withdraw your 401K early and I'm really just trying to not end up as a story in the BWM thread.
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Aug 16, 2019 15:49
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untzthatshit posted:Lemme know if this is the wrong thread for this but I couldn't find any more suitable so here goes. Some of the American early retirement blogs I've read talk about some 401k to Roth IRA conversion thing that lets them access money early without paying the 10% fee. You have to pay tax on the converted money, but can then (after a 5 year waiting period, I guess?) put that money into an RRSP and then get the taxes back, or potentially more if your income is higher. I don't know if it's still a thing but it could be worth looking into. https://www.madfientist.com/how-to-access-retirement-funds-early/
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Aug 16, 2019 16:14
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That makes sense, though all I'd be saving is the $2,000 penalty. Meanwhile the Roth and RRSP would be growing separately for that 5 year period instead of the RRSP compounding interest on a higher starting balance from day one. Maybe if I had a larger balance to transfer I'd consider going that route.
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Aug 16, 2019 16:51
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untzthatshit posted:Meanwhile the Roth and RRSP would be growing separately for that 5 year period instead of the RRSP compounding interest on a higher starting balance from day one. That's not how math works.
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Aug 16, 2019 16:54
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Yep you're right - I'm a dumbass. If both investments make the same rate of return it doesn't matter that I start with a higher balance in one and only make contributions in the other.
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Aug 16, 2019 17:23
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don't touch your 401k. you won't get any contribution room while a canadian resident but canada will also not ask you to pay taxes on any gains open an rrsp once in canada and contribute to that you probably don't want to contribute to a tfsa because the us will consider any gains normal (not tax free) gains and expect taxes. you may want to contribute to a roth ira if you plan on moving back to the usa in retirement but check with an accountant. i've heard mixed things about canada revenues treatment of roth ira gains
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Aug 20, 2019 04:50
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Canada Debt Bubble x Canada Finance Post Is there any way I can sell a bunch of equities in non-registered accounts for a down payment on a house and not have all that capital gain land in the same year? Seems like no? Property in Vancouver is dropping in value to the point where it's getting a bit more enticing to buy something if something cheap came along (will the last bear left turn out the lights?), but with the amount of equities in non-registered accounts I'd need to sell, the tax bill would be big. (I would not be touching my retirement RRSP account so no I'm not YOLO going all in on Vancouver housing)
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Aug 20, 2019 16:48
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Femtosecond posted:Canada Debt Bubble x Canada Finance Post Empty your maxed-out TFSA (which you definitely have, right?) and sell your non-registered equities over the next few years to refill it? And I know you said you're not touching your RRSP, but consider the Home Buyers Plan if you're eligible for it (borrow 25K from your RRSP, same idea as with the TFSA).
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Aug 20, 2019 17:46
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the talent deficit posted:don't touch your 401k. you won't get any contribution room while a canadian resident but canada will also not ask you to pay taxes on any gains Yeah now I see I should just leave the 401K alone. As for the TFSA, I'm actually a Canadian citizen, I've just been living in America for the past 13 years as a resident alien. If I move back is the US really still going to be able to tax me on gains/etc in Canada? I was assuming since I'm not a US citizen I'd just be paying Canadian taxes after the first year after my move.
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Aug 20, 2019 18:00
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untzthatshit posted:Yeah now I see I should just leave the 401K alone. As for the TFSA, I'm actually a Canadian citizen, I've just been living in America for the past 13 years as a resident alien. If I move back is the US really still going to be able to tax me on gains/etc in Canada? I was assuming since I'm not a US citizen I'd just be paying Canadian taxes after the first year after my move. Did you get American citizenship, or were you just working on a visa?
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Aug 20, 2019 18:55
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I've had a green card since '08 - never went for citizenship.
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Aug 20, 2019 19:05
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untzthatshit posted:I've had a green card since '08 - never went for citizenship. I think if you have a green card you have to officially surrender/abandon it, otherwise you still need to file taxes in the US every year.
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Aug 20, 2019 20:16
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Yeah, that's true and that was my plan. I don't see myself deciding down the road to move back stateside, at least definitely not in the next 8 years - which is how long until my current green card expires and I'd have to prove US residency to renew it. So there's no point in holding onto it "just in case". Especially if I'm paying taxes in two countries.
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Aug 20, 2019 20:52
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untzthatshit posted:Yeah, that's true and that was my plan. I don't see myself deciding down the road to move back stateside, at least definitely not in the next 8 years - which is how long until my current green card expires and I'd have to prove US residency to renew it. So there's no point in holding onto it "just in case". Especially if I'm paying taxes in two countries. Well, you'd probably want to look into how abandoning your green card might affect your ability to access your 401k then, and I don't know the answer to that one.
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Aug 20, 2019 22:17
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BMan posted:Empty your maxed-out TFSA (which you definitely have, right?) and sell your non-registered equities over the next few years to refill it? And I know you said you're not touching your RRSP, but consider the Home Buyers Plan if you're eligible for it (borrow 25K from your RRSP, same idea as with the TFSA). Ok this was basically my plan but of course since Vancouver prices I'd need to dump some of my non-registered too. Ok I'll just have to brace for the tax bill. 
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Aug 21, 2019 16:07
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Femtosecond posted:Ok this was basically my plan but of course since Vancouver prices I'd need to dump some of my non-registered too. Ok I'll just have to brace for the tax bill. They also may ask you to pay installments for the next year if you have a hefty bill for the current one, so bear that in mind.
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Aug 21, 2019 17:50
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Oh, awhile ago I asked for suggestions for accepting regular payment from the US with a minimum of fees, and someone (James Baud?) suggested a US checking account from e.g. RBC Bank. I did that and it works great! Can receive ACH payments no problem (after convincing the accounting department to actually try it). In case anyone finds it useful, the full extent of this Rube Goldberg machine is: ACH payment to RBC Bank checking account 👉 cross-border transfer to RBC Royal Bank USD e-savings account 👉 transfer into RBC Direct Investing account 👉 Norbert's Gambit 👉 transfer into RBC Royal Bank CAD chequing account. Whole process takes about 60 hours. Total fees are US$4/month plus CA$4/month for the chequing accounts, plus one US$10 and one CA$10 commission per iteration of Norbert's Gambit. Don’t have to talk to anyone on the phone or submit any support requests or anything like that. Also, as far as I can tell, ACH payments (US version of direct deposit) are basically text files on an FTP server, which is hilarious.
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Sep 2, 2019 20:25
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That's my setup, yeah. If we're micro-optimizing, you can probably use the money market savings account on the US side and close the checking to eliminate the USD monthly fee (may require modest minimum balance?) In my case I have the checking but it has no monthly fee because I am somehow incorrectly flagged as RBC staff. Not complaining!
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Sep 2, 2019 22:36
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James Baud posted:That's my setup, yeah. If we're micro-optimizing, you can probably use the money market savings account on the US side and close the checking to eliminate the monthly fee on that side (may require modest minimum balance?) Good to know! I might do that after this one year waived fee is up.
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Sep 2, 2019 22:39
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I've spent this summer living in Ontario but working for a company based in Quebec. Are there resources out there for how to file when tax season starts? My boss says it's not as big of a worry as I think but I'd just like to get ahead of the game here
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Sep 5, 2019 12:51
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Taxes are filed based on where you are resident. If that is Ontario, it doesn’t matter where your employer’s (or customer’s, if you’re a contractor) locations are. Note that your employer is likely computing your deductions under Quebec terms, so you might have some mismatch with Ontario’s tax resulting in an amount owing/owed. You can resolve that by changing your deductions (easily if you want to increase them, and with a letter of authority if you want to decrease them).
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Sep 5, 2019 13:09
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Specifically too, your province is determined by which province you lived in on December 31st of that tax year.
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Sep 6, 2019 20:16
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I (finally) paid off my student debt and have some discretionary income. Housing is completely unaffordable so I'm looking to invest, apologies for any stupid questions about to come your way. To start off: - Is there any downside to having a bunch of different RRSP/TFSA accounts at different places (TD, Tangerine, Vanguard, Wealthsimple are some I've looked at) and socketing small sums (say about 1-2k) in each? Or should I stick with one place? - The advice I've seen so far says that RRSPs are better if you're in a relatively high tax bracket, and also better if you can contribute to your spouse's (when you withdraw it comes out at your spouse's tax bracket) if they're in a lower tax bracket. Both these conditions currently apply to me. However, I believe myself to be in an extremely bubbly sector of the economy, and have zero guarantees I'll be earning at the same rate this time next year. Should I still look into an RRSP over a TFSA? - Probably a dumb question, but I'm also thinking of maybe holding high interest savings accounts in an RRSP/TFSA. To do this, do you have to open the registered account at the place that offers the high interest savings account, or can they be held cross institution?
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Sep 19, 2019 15:18
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mila kunis posted:I (finally) paid off my student debt and have some discretionary income. Housing is completely unaffordable so I'm looking to invest, apologies for any stupid questions about to come your way. mila kunis posted:- Is there any downside to having a bunch of different RRSP/TFSA accounts at different places (TD, Tangerine, Vanguard, Wealthsimple are some I've looked at) and socketing small sums (say about 1-2k) in each? Or should I stick with one place? mila kunis posted:- The advice I've seen so far says that RRSPs are better if you're in a relatively high tax bracket, and also better if you can contribute to your spouse's (when you withdraw it comes out at your spouse's tax bracket) if they're in a lower tax bracket. Both these conditions currently apply to me. However, I believe myself to be in an extremely bubbly sector of the economy, and have zero guarantees I'll be earning at the same rate this time next year. Should I still look into an RRSP over a TFSA? mila kunis posted:- Probably a dumb question, but I'm also thinking of maybe holding high interest savings accounts in an RRSP/TFSA. To do this, do you have to open the registered account at the place that offers the high interest savings account, or can they be held cross institution?
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Sep 19, 2019 16:01
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So I just transferred my Mutual Fund RRSP over to Questrade. Should I be holding off and be waiting for the potential market drop before buying a bunch of XGRO, or since it's a fund tied to the market and not an individual stock, does it really not matter?
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Sep 21, 2019 14:00
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kuddles posted:So I just transferred my Mutual Fund RRSP over to Questrade. Should I be holding off and be waiting for the potential market drop before buying a bunch of XGRO, or since it's a fund tied to the market and not an individual stock, does it really not matter? I'm not a financial professional but I recently did the same thing and got advice about it - I think basically I was told that you want to minimize time out of market, and for a stock like XGRO/VGRO/XBAL/VBAL that basically trends with the market it doesn't make a lot of sense to reinvest over time (with a normal equity stock you might want to dollar cost average by buying a set amount over a period of time).
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Sep 21, 2019 14:10
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kuddles posted:So I just transferred my Mutual Fund RRSP over to Questrade. Should I be holding off and be waiting for the potential market drop before buying a bunch of XGRO, or since it's a fund tied to the market and not an individual stock, does it really not matter? Time in the market > timing the market.
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Sep 22, 2019 00:37
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You may want to check your funds to see whether you face any sort of deferred sales charge upon selling them before a certain period of time and, if so, whether you might be near some anniversary date on your holdings that would reduce the charge. That's about the only reason you may want to delay a bit.
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Sep 22, 2019 04:18
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Lol passiv sent out an email to users asking if they want the platform to support crypto and what they'd want from that. I responded with a great big nope.
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Sep 25, 2019 21:36
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Thinking of transferring my general savings account from Simplii to EQ bank @ 2.3% https://www.eqbank.ca/personal-banking/features-rates Any downside? I am fairly diversified in my TFSA/RRSP/LIRA/Investment accounts and want a place to put some straight cash. The 2.3% is far better, obviously, than 1.1% @ Simplii. Reason not to? Equitable seems to be legit.
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Oct 28, 2019 03:40
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slidebite posted:Thinking of transferring my general savings account from Simplii to EQ bank @ 2.3% It's fine. No reason not to.
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Oct 28, 2019 04:20
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I’ve had an EQ Bank savings account for a couple years now. The experience has been wholly unremarkable (in a good way). And they’ve been at or near the top of the savings account rate table the whole time.
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Oct 28, 2019 05:15
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OK. I really like the idea of being able to use CIBC with Simplii, but since the general savings is rarely touched, other than every few months another lump deposit, it's not a big deal. Thanks, I'll probably open one up.... unless there is someone else I should be considering?
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Oct 28, 2019 14:14
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Motive's currently top of the rate pack but I’ve never used them.
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Oct 28, 2019 23:36
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I've never gone to that website before, thanks for the link. B2B bank is offering 3.3% https://b2bbank.com/saving/high-interest-savings-account
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Oct 29, 2019 14:23
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General q: for a coach potato at what level of savings/what point nearing retirement would you start looking at diversifying into investments with more short term stability? When you're five or ten years out from a target retirement date? Never? It's not really something I need to worry about for another 30 years but I'm curious. Also, I'm 28 and literally my entire portfolio is 3 different vanguard index funds split 1/3 1/3 1/3 ish (Canada, S&P 500, Global excl NA). I only have a quite small amount of money in my TFSA so far, 2.5K, so I figured I'd keep it extremely simple until I have enough money that splitting things up more is more viable. Every month I toss in another 500 bucks into some assortment of those three things. Should I be looking to diversify more? Is there a recommended number of funds for a couch potato? I'm extremely lazily trying to cover the global market but I'd imagine that you're probably suppposed to have a few more funds than I do. Or are you?
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Oct 29, 2019 17:23
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CRISPYBABY posted:Also, I'm 28 and literally my entire portfolio is 3 different vanguard index funds split 1/3 1/3 1/3 ish (Canada, S&P 500, Global excl NA). I only have a quite small amount of money in my TFSA so far, 2.5K, so I figured I'd keep it extremely simple until I have enough money that splitting things up more is more viable. Every month I toss in another 500 bucks into some assortment of those three things. Should I be looking to diversify more? Is there a recommended number of funds for a couch potato? I'm extremely lazily trying to cover the global market but I'd imagine that you're probably suppposed to have a few more funds than I do. Or are you? You can achieve maximum laziness and maximum diversification by buying one of these asset allocation ETFs. They are about 0.1% more expensive than holding the multiple funds yourself though. https://www.vanguardcanada.ca/individual/etfs/about-our-asset-allocation-etfs.htm
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Oct 29, 2019 17:56
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CRISPYBABY posted:General q: for a coach potato at what level of savings/what point nearing retirement would you start looking at diversifying into investments with more short term stability? When you're five or ten years out from a target retirement date? Never? It's not really something I need to worry about for another 30 years but I'm curious. I’ve heard or read a million different answers to this question and the common theme is "it depends". The main goal is to have enough money to live on while not loving your future self over. Stock markets in the aggregate can be losers for years at a time, so if you’re 100% stocks and the market enters an unprecedented 15 year slump the day you retire, you’re not gonna make it. Whereas if you're 50% bonds and you have your next five years' expenses in a GIC ladder, you’re in much better shape. Add another ten knobs you can twiddle and you’ll see how there’s a lot of different answers here. Might be nice to have a lil collection of strategies to peruse. I’m similarly far off from actually having to do anything but curious what I might do when the time comes. quote:Also, I'm 28 and literally my entire portfolio is 3 different vanguard index funds split 1/3 1/3 1/3 ish (Canada, S&P 500, Global excl NA). I only have a quite small amount of money in my TFSA so far, 2.5K, so I figured I'd keep it extremely simple until I have enough money that splitting things up more is more viable. Every month I toss in another 500 bucks into some assortment of those three things. Should I be looking to diversify more? Is there a recommended number of funds for a couch potato? I'm extremely lazily trying to cover the global market but I'd imagine that you're probably suppposed to have a few more funds than I do. Or are you? To diversify you want to increase your number of holdings, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you personally. As mentioned, you can invest in one fund and get basically maximal global diversification. Or you could swap out your S&P 500 fund for a total US market fund, keeping you at 3 funds while boosting diversification. So no, I’d say you’re not "supposed" to have more than 3 funds. If I was starting today I would likely pick one asset allocation fund and call it done. In fact, if I hadn’t promised myself not to gently caress with allocations for at least a couple years, I’d probably switch over to an asset allocation fund right now.
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Oct 29, 2019 18:59
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