Category: Announcements

Another week and another great review of my book.  I’m really happy about how extremely positive all the book reviews are thus far.  When bloggers review other blogger’s books – it’s a bit like stock analysts and their buy and sell ratings.  You will probably never see a bad review, but if the blogger doesn’t like the book, they will do a “non-review” where they just mention the book, include some text provided by the author and never directly endorse the book.

This review is clearly not one of those – MapleMoney has this to say:

I could have found this information on the government’s website, but frankly, it’s not always written in an easy-to-understand way. The RESP Book is. There are lots of different examples and specific case studies so that you can really get a grip on how the RESP rules work.

MapleMoney is giving away a free copy of The RESP Book – contest is ending this Saturday, Oct 30, so hurry up and enter.

I love the fall. Last weekend we went to a pumpkin farm and watched pumpkins being shot out of a cannon. It doesn’t get much better than that. 🙂

Next week, I’ll be unveiling a post which I’ve been working on for a few months – stay tuned.

Have a great weekend everyone!

On with links

Canadian Couch Potato introduces the Cheapskate’s portfolio.

Million Dollar Journey did an indepth review of my RESP book.

Oblivious Investor goes over different types of annuities. I’m not sure if the exact same terms are used in Canada, but the different types of annuities are still applicable.

Canadian Personal Finance thinks that TD has a lot to learn about RESPs.

The Financial Blogger says he’s changing directions with his blog.

Canadian Capitalist likes US-listed ETFs. So do I.

Michael James on Money says that modest investment returns are ok. Real returns are the key.

Cash Money Life gives us 5 guaranteed ways to get fired.

Larry MacDonald notes that when the economy goes down, stocks go up.

A couple more book reviews this week – both sites are hosting book giveaways as well, go on over and enter to win.

• Grocery Alerts wrote an extremely flattering review of the book. Check out the review here.
• Michael James on Money wrote a great review. His giveaway is ending soon.

If you are holding off on buying the book because of the various giveaways, then be aware there will be quite a few of them over the next three weeks or so.  Keep an eye on this blog, because I’m sure some of the giveaways will have pretty good odds.

I’ve got two exciting RESP book announcements today.  Is anyone getting tired of hearing about book announcements?  Good, me neither!  🙂

MoneySense interview

First up – I was interviewed a while back by Dan Bortolotti, who runs the Canadian Couch Potato blog.  Dan also writes for MoneySense magazine and interviewed me for an article he wrote about couch potato investing in RESPs.  MoneySense is my favourite magazine, so it was quite an honour to be quoted in an article.  The article is on page 17 of the latest issue and is called The smart way to save for school.  I got my copy today and took a picture of part of the article.

Million Dollar Journey Book Review and Giveaway

The second bit of news is that Frugal Trader from Million Dollar Journey did an extensive book review of The RESP Book.  He is also hosting a giveaway contest which is open until this Friday, Oct 20 at 5 pm EST.  Go and enter in the contest.

I had the pleasure of reading another review of The RESP Book over at the Landlord Rescue Blog.  The review was very positive and quite hilarious.  You can also see a cute picture of her son.

Rachelle had this to say:

It’s like a breath of fresh air for information starved people looking for an RESP. It took me about 2 hours to read (I read at the speed of light) and had all the information it took me 6 months to learn. Every single thing you need to know about RESP’s is in there, written in an easy to understand manner, instead of in 9pt type by a lawyer.

She suggests that you should buy 10 copies of the book, instead of just one.  I say, why stop at 10?  How about 50?  🙂

Make sure you read the entire article.

I would like to draw your attention to the very first reviews of my book – The RESP Book.  I’ve been busy sending out review copies to bloggers all across the land, so it’s nice to see that they are starting to be delivered.

Review #1

Larry MacDonald of Canadian Business wrote a review which you can read here.  Larry had this to say about the book:

It would make a useful addition to the book shelf as a reference for RESPs in their current form.

Review #2

Mike Piper from the Oblivious Investor posted his review this morning and had this to say:

If a yank with no prior knowledge of RESP accounts can understand the information in the book, I imagine it’ll be thoroughly understandable for Canadian investors. If RESPs are a topic you’re looking to learn more about, go check out the book.

Thanks a lot for the great reviews!

Lots of posts on MSB this week – I thought maybe instead of one good post, I would publish three average ones instead. 🙂

I ordered quite a few review copies of The RESP Book, and after a couple of weeks of deliberations, Amazon has finally shipped them. I’m hoping this means you will see a few reviews of the book around the interwebs in the near future.

Another book announcement

Jacob from Early Retirement Extreme has released his book, Early Retirement Extreme. Jacob is a very intelligent blogger, who saved a very high percentage of his income and retired at 30. His blog is well worth checking out, even if you are not an extreme saver.

On with the links

• Rob Carrick from the Globe and Mail discusses some online money management sites. He also mentions the post I wrote about Optimize.ca.
• The Globe and Mail had an interesting article about deceptive marketing practices.  Be careful when claiming “free” stuff online that you don’t accidentally buy anything.
• Boomer and Echo talk about ROWE – results only work environments. Sounds good to me.
• Michael James says that mutual fund disclosures are futile. You can hit people over the head with the fees and they still won’t get it.
• Canadian Personal Finance Blog gives us the lowdown on bank account overdraft fees.
• Canadian Couch Potato thinks that PC Financial index funds are not a good deal. I agree.
• Larry MacDonald talks with super saver Jacob Fisk of Early Retirement Extreme fame.
• The Financial Blogger reveals why he borrows so much.
• My Own Advisor had an interesting dividend stock story.
• Million Dollar Journey had a guest post 4 Critical mistakes in retirement planning.
• Preet from WDAMMG talks about holding your mortgage inside your RRSP.
• Canadian Capitalist explores a new commodity ETF.

I hosted a book giveaway of Pensionize Your Nest Egg by Moshe Milevsky and Alexandra Macqueen this week.

And the winner is….

#6 – Myke. Congratulations!

Here are my favourite links from the week

Thinking of starting a business?  Make sure it’s not a coffee shop.

Theresa is a real estate agent who makes videos about house stuff.  Check out this video where she references this blog and talks about the value of renovations.

Congrats to Krystal of GMBMFB, who started a regular column at the new site Moneyville.ca.  She wrote about how she hit rock bottom.  Maybe her next step will be to rename her blog “Krystal at work”.  🙂

Check out Do Not Wait! A new retirement website.  Great contest going on there right now – you could win an iPad or even better, a copy of my new book!

Canadian Couch Potato wrote about High-yield bonds and your portfolio.

Free From Broke is tired of hearing “It’s for the kids!“.

Cash Money Life thinks about how to teach kids the value of money.

Oblivious Investor covers one of the ideas in Pensionize Your Nest Egg with Planning your retirement spending.

TMW explains what debt-to-income ratio means when applying for a loan.

Landlord Rescue explains about Screening tenants.

Madison thinks it’s possible to cook once a month.  Not in my lifetime!

Preet from WDAMMG wrote an excellent piece for the Globe called Why no one uses the RRSP life long learning plan. Couldn’t agree more.

The Financial Bloggers reveals all in A Day in the life of a financial planner.

Canadian Capitalist really liked the book 10 things I wish someone had told me about retirement. Book written by Jim Yih.

Michael James says there are barriers to rebalancing. Too many accounts is one of them (I can relate to that).

Larry MacDonald urges caution on commodities after reading The Great Reflation.

Million Dollar Journey discusses the Canadian Apartment Investment Conference.

Studenomics explains why online banks are killing big banks.