Canadian Finance and Investing Thread - Paying More is our National Pastime

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Canadian Finance and Investing Thread - Paying More is our National Pastime

«‹›7 »

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Franks Happy Place posted:

Also, where are you getting 4.35% from? NSLC loans are prime + 5% right now; is yours from a private lender?

Yeah, my TD Student LoC that I never closed after graduating in 2010 has an interest rate of prime + 1.35% and a limit of 18k, and it can be used for my "dependant" according to the branch last year. I think I saw their prime rate set at 3% somewhere.

RBC seems to be offering a promotion of prime + 1 so that would be attractive as well.

Edit: That's a pretty crazy rate for NSLC. My PC Financial LoC (just a normal credit line) has a 7% interest rate.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2015 17:50

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 15, 2024 07:27

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Baronjutter posted:

So my wife's being doing a stock buy thing with her company because they double your contribution so hey free money right? They just changed the rules so you can only cash out once a year though as too many people were cashing out every month. Still, doubling your money is good right? She's got over 2 grand squirreled away so we're going to cash that out and throw it in my e-series poo poo.

She's still really not game on transferring our manulife stuff over to TD e-series because she wants that money to be "safe" but says we can start growing the e-series with other money. She still views it as a less stable/more risky thing

That's bizarre. Have you shown her a comparison chart of how much this imaginary security is costing you?

# ¿ Apr 2, 2015 19:18

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Isn't it your wife who thinks that index funds offered by financial companies like Vanguard and TD are less secure than mutual funds with high MERs offered by similar or identical companies? How's that going?

# ¿ Apr 25, 2015 20:31

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Lexicon posted:

Way too Canadian heavy for my taste. I'm 10% Canadian equity myself, and that's arguably too much.

Lexicon, I have like 20% Canadian equity, 10% Canadian bonds, 10% Canadian REITs. What's going to happen to me in the next like 5-15 years? :ohdear:

# ¿ Apr 25, 2015 21:23

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

sbaldrick posted:

Sell your REITs

I'm waiting for them to go on sale!

# ¿ Apr 25, 2015 23:57

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Baronjutter posted:

So I want to stick with these TD e-series funds but man is it a pain getting money from my coast capital account to the TD account, and the TD interface is pretty bad. I'd so love to keep everything within my credit union. They were trying to talk me into switching my mutual funds over to them giving me the whole eye-rolling speech about how banks are evil and greedy and charge crazy fees while credit unions are all about serving the members and give sooo much money to charity. My TD e-series dudes have .33 to .5% MER while, from what I can tell reading the prospectus for the coast capital options (and I don't even know if they are any good) they are closer to 1-3% depending on the fund, but I'm not quite literate enough to fully understand this pdf let alone judge if the funds are any good.

https://www.coastcapitalsavings.com/Resources/Documents/Prospectus/SEI_SimplifiedProspectus.pdf

Are any of these coast capital funds at all competitive with the couch-potato recommended TD e-series funds? I'm fine dealing with a bad interface and doing pre-authorized withdraws from my coast capital to TD every month if it means squeezing a few more percent of interest out of the funds, or a few percent less in MER robbery.

Advice?

Holy poo poo, that document is 136 pages long and someone had to loving write all that confusing poo poo.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2015 00:43

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Lexicon posted:

Am I the only one who doesn't give two shits about this nonsense? I want companies to focus on their job, obey the law and act in good faith, pay their taxes, and leave the philanthropy to individuals, charities, and foreign aid. These things are only ever the most token of efforts, which they go on to promptly tax-deduct and then use as interminable advertising fodder until the next big initiative kicks off.

You can make a pretty good case that individuals' donations shouldn't be tax deductible, but corporations' absolutely loving shouldn't be

</ old man rant>

I actively avoid contributing to this poo poo, and charities.

I pay taxes to balance out my privilege and make life better for everyone, especially people who need help. If a charity takes some of the load off of government services - which is what charities are designed to do since they come from the traditions of a pre-social safety net world - then the government can wash its hands of responsibility for the failures of that service. For example, if we didn't have such a powerful and well established network of food banks, and people started starving in the street, we would turn to the government to help fix the problem. Fixing the problem probably involves a huge reordering of education, labour laws, food subsidies, and municipal zoning practices. Instead, we can make ourselves feel a little better about the structural nature of developed world hunger every Christmas with a few cans of loving tomatoes in a box, and the government(s) can cut education, labour protections, practice free market nonsense, and render our cities even more uninhabitable.

This effect is directly observable, if only tangentially related, in the use of lottery funds to subsidize social services. Poor people get taxed for their misunderstanding of math, those taxes go towards social services needed by the poor and corporate taxes get cut to make up the balance.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2015 17:26

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

bzw posted:

Just send all the unemployed into the military, that seems to sort things out. Then they can invest in their truck equity while looking down at the disabled who couldn't make it in. I personally have full confidence in government agencies not spending significant portions of their budgets on an extremely well-paid, inefficient, corruptible bureaucracy. Another thing I believe is the rational examination and implementation of effective education systems by tribal democracies.

That's why I don't believe in charities, and tell everyone else that they shouldn't either.

Yeah, you're right. Privatize welfare, what's the worse that could happen!

# ¿ Apr 30, 2015 18:23

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Is there any catch to the H&R Block free online tool?

# ¿ May 4, 2015 22:17

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

HookShot posted:

Well if you're self employed and pay EI and CPP as well there's 10k right there. I only pay CPP so it's just like 5k.

I think my net income to owe 22k total was in the high 80s.

A couple years ago I had a really good year and owed 75k in taxes. Thank God I actually saved up that much for them instead of spending all my money on things like ipads.

Holy poo poo, what do you do?

# ¿ May 6, 2015 17:03

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Man, I was going to get a sick return according to H&R Block until I entered my wife's tax stuff. Now I owe like 1400 and she owed 15 bucks. How does that work? I thought taxes were individual.

# ¿ May 8, 2015 02:59

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Rick Rickshaw posted:

Although that's what I do.

Same. But I haven't touched an emergency fund for anything except like a car repair once in five years. A month or three of 7% interest < the 20% investments have been making that whole time, or the ~15% my debt was costing for three years.

# ¿ May 12, 2015 14:56

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

I don't think it matters. Right now we have... Two Amex cards, two mastercards and two visas. If anything, the rock bottom utilization rate is awesome.

# ¿ May 13, 2015 14:58

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Jeff Bezos can have all my sins if he wants. :swoon:

# ¿ May 13, 2015 18:44

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

We have like 30k in our joint chequing. No admin, no worries. Come at me.

# ¿ May 18, 2015 19:39

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

sbaldrick posted:

I"m not saying PC points aren't useful, I have like 80 bucks of them (because I always get the offers) but too much of the stuff doesn't earn you points and it annoys me to give up some of my shopping habits for points.

What does that mean?

Like, buy things you wouldn't normally buy? Or essentially sell the data on your habits for points?

# ¿ May 26, 2015 00:10

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Crossposting from the BFC chat thread:

Are there any calculators online that tell me how much money to contribute to an account to rebalance?

I want an allocation of, say:

Fund A: 30%
Fund B: 30%
Fund C: 40%

Because of market fluctuations, it's currently at something like:

Fund A: 22%
Fund B: 36%
Fund C: 52%

I don't want to sell anything because that's how Questrade collects fees, and I have some cash to invest so I want to know how much to transfer then invest to balance all that poo poo out. I'm tired of going through this manually.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2015 02:42

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

So, Bernstein says to treat your whole portfolio as one account. I have an RRSP and TFSA and they're both pretty out of balance at this point. I don't want to contribute to my RRSP for awhile and I don't want to sell funds and incur fees, does Bernstein's advice mean I can just throw money into my TFSA and "overbalance" my allocation there to make my whole portfolio balanced, provided both accounts contain the same funds?

It seems dangerous because of the difference in tax treatment and balance of both the accounts. The RRSP has much more money in it and I don't want most of my money to be exposed to too much risk because of a skewed allocation, but maybe I'm just thinking of this the wrong way? There's also the concern that later I'll have to pay tax on the RRSP balance.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2015 18:35

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Reggie Died posted:

I currently don't have any RRSP accounts open, but plan on doing so before the end of the year / 2015 contribution deadline.

I had planned on going the TD e-series route, but they have fee's attached to RRSP accounts under 25k. Conversely, there are no fee's for TFSA accounts.

Should I hold off creating an account and contributing until I have the 25k in hand? If so, I'm assuming just holding cash in a high interest savings account is my best bet? (my regular banking is with a credit union with horrible interest rates right now, but opening accounts and transfer fee's probably make it pointless in chasing interest rates for the next few months).

Conversely, I could pull the difference from my TFSA, and re-contribute that in January. This option might make the most sense as I just recently maxed out my contributions last month, but have only been buying $2000 chunks of ETF's. So I could transfer $6k in cash without having to sell anything, and most likely reach the min requirements within a few paychecks.

Also, can you defer claiming RRSP contribution over the course of multiple years (ie, 5k of the 25k lump sum in 2015, 8k in 2016, 12k in 2017) or can you only defer a single contribution once?

The account I started with TD was their version of one without fees, then it was converted to an eseries account. You don't want a waterhouse account, just a straightforward RRSP that they can convert with TD mojo and paperwork to an eseries account.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2015 16:04

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Reggie Died posted:

Is there no fee once it's converted to e-series?

I actually set up the TFSA e-series in person, and had inquired about the e-series RRSP at the same time. The fee came up, and it was too close to the deadline to confirm it would be set up in time, so at that point I left it for the time being.

The kneejerk reaction of a teller when asked about eseries is to respond with information about self-directed accounts. Self-directed accounts are usually Waterhouse accounts that have fees based on balance. You don't want that, you want a straight up RRSP without fees. Once you have that, you want to convert it to buy eseries funds. This will maintain the fee structure of the RRSP and allow you to buy the low-MER funds that you want.

In my experience, most tellers don't really know what eseries is beyond a category of mutual funds that are available to Waterhouse customers.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2015 17:13

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

cowofwar posted:

Sounds like lovely deal. No e-series plus a fee? There are plenty of no fee brokers in canada.

Waterhouse allows you to buy eseries and/or any ETF you want(afaik). It's arguably better to go with ETFs at a certain point.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2015 20:38

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

quaint bucket posted:

Is being Investment-Poor a real thing?

Kinda like being house poor but with real investments like RRSP, mutual funds, TFSAs.

E: I'm hoping to get some advice or at least some direction about how to deal with our current new situation of being significantly debt free and having $1300/month cashflow freed up. Should I make a new thread because of how somewhat complicated the situation is or is here ok?

It's basically the following:
RDSP
RRSP
TFSA
First Time Home Buyer Plan
Pensions
Savings
Childcare/employment

And financial/personal goals

Just no debt other than the fear of being in debt again.

The situation doesn't sound complicated. Just save up a nice emergency fund totaling like six months of expenses or secure low-interest credit in case of emergency and start a TFSA from like Questrade (hands on and complicated but very cheap) or TD eseries (relatively simple but still pretty cheap). Max out your TFSA then your RRSP.

The TFSA first advice only stands if you're close to the beginning of your earning curve and expect to make significantly more money later in your career. If you're just doing a 200k/year job for five years before you go live on an organic farm or something, then maybe the RRSP should take priority. Don't rely on a pension because the world is going to poo poo and the rich will eat your money.

Ed: don't use the homebuyer plan or the education plan to dip into your RRSP. It's a losing bet because you probably won't match compounded market gains with your house or degree, and a comparable loan while keeping your investment will probably, historically, have you break even between interest payments and market gains.

tuyop fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Mar 6, 2016

# ¿ Mar 6, 2016 18:26

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 15, 2024 07:27

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

sbaldrick posted:

I'm getting laid off from my lovely government job and given my pension will amount to 200 bucks a month when I hit 65 I'm pulling it despite the pension.

Is the TD eseries the best place to park that money long-term, given the thread seems to like there service?

I put my locked in portion in eseries because it needed much more effort to deal with the pension folks than Questrade was able to do, but I imagine it would be simpler to move it to QT from TD now.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2016 02:00

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Canadian Finance and Investing Thread - Paying More is our National Pastime

«‹›7 »