We’ve had some problems with our hosting – you might have noticed the blog has been down all day. I’m not too confident the blog will stay up so I’ll wait a bit to post again (ie tomorrow).
If you are considering switching from one discount brokerage to another – you should try to get the new broker to pay for the transfer-out fees. Most brokerages in Canada will pay these fees as long as you have enough assets to make it worth their while. I believe in most cases $25k in assets would be enough but check with your new institution to find out the exact deal.
Follow through with the transfer fees
Recently I switched from Questrade to RBC Direct to take advantage of their 1% deal (no longer active). Part of the offer was to pay for any transfer fees that are normally charged by the relinquishing institution. I had assumed this would be taken care of automatically and had forgotten about it until I recently was looking at my Questrade statements for tax purposes and noticed the $125 transfer fees. I decided to check my RBC account for any credit for the fees and sure enough – there wasn’t anything.
I phoned RBC and they told me I had to fax a copy of the statement showing the transfer fee before crediting my account. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is normally the case for where transfer fees are being covered. For anyone else who did the RBC deal then the fax number is 1-888-722-238. Indicate your rbc account numbers on the fax.
Summary
Get the new brokerage to pay for any transfer fees.
Follow up and make sure they pay the fees – send documentation if necessary.
First off – a reminder of the free trend analysis service available from INO. I wrote about this service a while ago in greater detail. It’s free, it’s fun, it’s healthy and will undoubtedly extend your useful life!
The weight
184.5 pounds! Porkorama! The emergency diet and exercise program has been activated and I’m hoping to get back down to 180 ASAP!!
The contest
If you haven’t already entered, definitely check out the Four Pillar’s Great Canadian Book Giveaway. It’s possible to get two entries, so if any of the books look interesting, get your name in! Contest runs until Saturday, Feb 7 at 8:00pm EST.
On with the links
One of my favourite readers Nicolas, shared this video – it’s a time-lapse photography video of a small baby playing. The person who created it condensed 4 hours of video into 2.5 minutes. Rather entertaining I thought. The whole video is just showing the baby playing so feel free to cut it short if it starts getting boring.
Good Financial Cents has a pretty good post on investment risk.
Time for another big book giveaway – this time we have a number of books by Canadian authors (except one) and will be giving them away to several lucky Canadians.
Rules:
You can enter two ways (do both for 2 entries):
Leave a comment on this post.
Get the secret phrase from the end of the RSS feed or the email feed and email it to qffpillars at gmail dot com.
The RSS feed is a great way to follow several blogs – instead of going each blog hoping for a new post, you can just go to your reader page and it will have all the blogs newest posts ready for you to read. This is a great explanation of the RSS feed.
The email feed is a good way to follow a small number of blogs – just subscribe by email and all new posts will be in your email inbox.
Your Money and Your Brain by Jason Zweig – I thought this book was excellent and Mr. Cheap thought it was pretty good. Zweig isn’t Canadian however one of our favourite readers (Nicolas) donated it for the giveaway so I thought I’d make an exception.
Thanks a lot to the various authors for donating the books and in some cases paying for the shipping.
When a parent is describing a toy/item they bought for the child and they say it is “essential” or a “life saver” – what they really mean is that it worked well for them and their child. While it’s good to hear positive reviews, don’t assume you will get the same results.
Buy The RESP Book on Amazon
Another item to consider is real estate – a lot of these baby devices take up a lot of space, so if you live in a smaller house with smaller rooms, you have to make hard choices about what stuff to get.
On with the list
Swing – This is one of the items that is often most highly praised by new parents – I know several who said it was best thing they had for keeping the kid occupied/quiet for a while. However – not all kids like the swing. Our son for example, wasn’t that keen on it – we had borrowed one from friends and tried him out on it several times, but in the end we decided to give it back.
Playpen/Pack’n’Play – I would say these are essential for travel, assuming your child can sleep on their own. They fold up into a relatively small package and are easy to set up. Some people use them to keep the kid contained, but we found the exersaucer was a better device for that purpose.
Baby carrier – This is another item where different baby carriers and different babies can make all the difference. Our son liked being carried as a newborn, but his parents were never that comfortable with using a carrier, so he mostly rode in a stroller. Our second child refused to be in a stroller for the first 4 months, so she got carried in a Snugli carrier which worked out well. We also tried a baby Buddha carrier, but our daughter didn’t like it very much.
Playmat – I’m not too keen on these at all. We purchased one for $70 for our son and he didn’t really like it. The fact is that a newborn is happy just looking at normal items and doesn’t need a “special” learning mat for development. We have a small living room and the mat takes up a lot of space. Another problem now is that it is hard to use the mat with our daughter because my son (2) is running around a lot and is a danger to anyone (ie my daughter) on the playmat.
Jolly Jumper – We had one of these, but never even bothered to set it up. I’ve seen babies use them and it can be very entertaining!
Exersaucer – We found this quite useful for our kids since they were both entertained by it. It’s great for containing the child if the parent is busy for a few minutes. This device has a limited time period – you can’t put the kid in if they are too young and once they start crawling around/walking they will be a lot less interested in being trapped in the exersaucer.
Bumbo – This is the biggest ripoff since pet rocks. $65 for a piece of shaped foam? We bought one of course and although we did get some use out of it – I would recommend not buying one unless you can get a used one very cheap. We were able to sell it for $30, so it wasn’t a total loss.
Booster seat – This is the seat you strap onto a chair and the baby sits in it. We found these to be awesome because they take up a lot less space than a high-chair. The baby needs to able to hold their head up by themselves before using.
