Tag: saving

Categories
Investing

Questrade Mutual Fund Fee Rebate And Free Transfer Offer

Questrade discount brokerage has just come out with a great way for retail mutual  fund owners to save on high management fees by offering to rebate up to 1% of those  fees.

What’s the deal with the Questrade mutual fund rebate?

Questrade will rebate up to 1% of the management fee for any mutual funds  held at Questrade.  This amount has to exceed $29.95 per month for the  investor to get any rebate.  This means that you need to have more than $36,000 in mutual funds before the rebate kicks in.

How is this possible?

When an investor buys a mutual fund from an advisor then the advisor is paid  a “trailer” each year which is based on the amount of the investment.   Typical trailers for equity mutual funds are 1%.  Bond and money market funds  will be lower.  The amount Questrade will rebate will be equal to the trailer  paid on the funds you owned.

The problem is for a do-it-yourself investor who wants to buy retail mutual  funds is that they can only buy them through an advisor or a discount  brokerage and they are charged for the trailer even if they don’t have an  advisor.  With this new program the investor will be able to save most of the trailer amount.

How much will it cost to transfer my mutual funds to Questrade?

If you transfer before March 2, 2009 from a different financial institution and transfer at least $25,000 then it will be  free of charge.

How much are mutual fund trading fees?

Questrade charges $9.95 per mutual fund trade.

I don’t have $36,000 – is it still worthwhile?

Depends on the situation – if you are close enough to $36k (ie $30k or more)  and will be buying more mutual funds then it might be worth doing even though  you won’t get the rebate for a while.  At the very least it won’t cost you  anything.

Another situation might be if you have some back-end funds that you don’t want to pay commissions on.  If you are planning to just buy low cost ETFs then you might consider moving the mutual funds to the same institution.

Where do I sign up?

Click on the banner below or on any of the links you see in the article.

I demand more information!

Check out my Questrade discount brokerage review and my Questrade referral promotion articles for more information.

Is it really cheaper to pay $10 per trade rather than get my advisor to do it for me?

Let’s look at an example – say you have $100k in mutual funds with an average mer of 2.5% and the only service you get from your “advisor” is he completes 12 trades per year for you “free of charge”.

With the advisor you will pay a total of $2,500 per year for the fund management, the advisor’s services and the 12 trades.

With Questrade you will get a rebate of $1,000 (approx) and you will pay $120 for the trading fees for a grand total of $1620 for the fund management and the 12 trades.

$2,500 (current fees) – $1620 (Questrade fees) = a savings of $880 per year.

Personally, I’d rather invest in passive index funds and ETFs which are way cheaper (also available at Questrade) but for anyone who wants to own retail mutual funds – this is a great deal.

Categories
Real Estate

11 Things To Think About When Buying A House

Buying a house is a very difficult decision – there are large sums of money involved, the transaction costs and hassle of moving mean that you can’t just buy another house if you don’t like the one you end up with, and you don’t have enough information to make a completely informed decision. The best you can do is try to educate yourself in all aspects of the house hunt, keep a clear head and buy a house that fits your situation.

Here are some things for house buyers to be aware of when looking for a new home.

1) Location

  • How far is it from where you work? Can you handle the time/money involved in the commute?
  • If you have young kids or are planning to have them – how far from the grandparents from the house? They tend to be the best babysitters.

2) Budget

It’s nice to say “buy within your budget” but that might not realistic. Do a quick budget estimate, look at some houses that you might be interested in and then revise the budget or revise the houses. If you really can’t afford a house then don’t buy one. There is nothing wrong with renting.

3) Know your market

It’s critical that you know the market you are looking in. The asking prices for houses are often not indicative of their true value and the only way to be able to estimate a house value is to look at as many houses as possible. Take notes and find out what they sold for.

4) Don’t trust your real estate agent

I would suggest that most house buyers use an agent but keep in mind that although they may be very competent, their commission structure ensure a huge conflict of interest. Please read this post on why you shouldn’t trust your real estate agent.

5) Don’t end up house poor

Sometimes house buyers “fall in love” with a house or neighborhood or even just the idea of owning a house and they place too high a priority on it. This can lead to regret when the novelty wears off and you don’t have any money to do the things you like to do. Try living for six months on a “pretend” mortgage payment and see how it goes.

6) Take your time

Until recently, many buyers were afraid of missing out on future price gains or being “priced out of the market”. If you are renting and saving as much as you can, then you will be fine. Here are some tips for renters to be able to keep up (or down as the case may be) with their house owning friends.  Note – this one isn’t as relevant as it was last year!

7) Make a decision

Previously, I said to look at lots of houses to learn the market. At that point you should be able to purchase a house fairly quickly. If you are looking for the perfect house or trying to time the market then you will never buy a house. I know people who did ten year house searches which is a big waste of time. The reality is that you will be happy with a good percentage of all the houses you look at, so as long as you can eliminate the worst choices then you will be thrilled with your new home.

8) Don’t worry about the down payment

Yes, I know – it sounds pretty shocking in the sub-prime era to suggest that a down payment of less than 20% is acceptable, but in my opinion, the ability to make the mortgage payments is the main factor for affordability. In other words, it’s the size of the mortgage that matters. Of course you can get better rates with a larger down payment so it’s better if you have one, but don’t sweat it if you have a small or zero down payment.

9) Don’t blow your budget on renovations and furniture

Most people end up buying a house that has mortgage payments large enough that the buyers have to “make the payments fit” into their budget. While this is not the best way to buy a house, some of these buyers then make things worse by spending more money on renovations and house decorations. Unless you buy a total wreck of a house, you do not need to spend big bucks on renovations. You can live with the non-granite kitchen counter and the couch set that doesn’t fit the room perfectly. I don’t care if the house has full-on 70’s decor – you can live with it for a year or more until you can fit the extra expense in your budget.

10) Be careful of flip properties

There are people and contractors who will buy a house, fix it up very quickly and turn around and sell it for profit. The problem with these houses is that they tend to look very good on the surface ie nice paint, trim, granite counters etc, but on the inside they are pretty ugly and might have substandard electrical, insulation etc.

If you are interested in one of these houses then make sure they have closed permits and check with the inspector to see if their inspection notes. Better yet, just don’t buy one.

11) Don’t buy the perfect house

If the house is livable and you have a good life, then you will be happy with whatever house you end up buying. If you spend more money on a “better” house, then you will quickly get used to it and will be no happier than if you had bought an “average” house.

My opinion is that it’s just a house. The people inside are what make it special.

Summary

Learn as much as you can about real estate, your budget and your local house market, but be prepared for the fact that buying a house is all about compromise, incomplete information and a lot of doubts! If you keep at it however, the odds are very good that you will end up with a home that suits your needs.

Other posts

10 mistakes I made as a first time home buyer.

Categories
Investing

Free Stock Trend Analysis By Email

This service by INO offers a free trend analysis of any stock you desire to help you with your technical analysis. All Canadian and American stocks are eligible – all you have to do is enter the stock symbol or name, your first name (Homer?) and an email – that’s it!  No cost or obligation.

I thought it would be fun to try it out on one of my latest purchases (BCE) and see what it says.  According to the email I got – there is a strong downtrend in place (no kidding) and the last price is below the 20 day moving average.

Given that the BCE deal just fell through – this probably wasn’t the best stock to do submit for analysis, but it was fun to see what the service would provide.

You can sign up to receive stock trend analysis on as many stocks as you like.  A stock trend analysis email will arrive in your inbox after every trading day.

Also – check out my write up on free stock trading videos.

Categories
Investing

The Death Of Index Investing And Other Silly Stats

I recently came across yet another post on investing which goes something along the lines of “If you invested 10 years ago in the Dow then you would have earned exactly nothing in that time”.  I hate to pick on any one blogger since I’ve read these articles all across the blogosphere but this one is the latest and he also had the temerity to tie in poor index performance with the death of index investing.  Of course all the stock pickers out there ALWAYS beat the index so poor market are no concern to them…!  I want to emphasise that Jacob at Extreme Early Retirement does a great job with his blog and I don’t want to sound like I don’t like the blog – just that one post!  🙂

What about the dividends?

Usually these posts look at the point value of an index at a previous time, say 10 years ago and compare it to the present index point value.  This is incorrect because they are missing dividends.  Published index returns always included reinvested dividends and any type of analysis on index performance should always include the same.  Admittedly, if you are looking at a 10 year period where the index point value hasn’t changed, the addition of dividends isn’t going to change the argument very much but it should be there.

Selectivity of stats

Why is it that all the articles always pick the worst peak to trough period to illustrate their rather suspect point that maybe equity investing or even index investing is evil?  Have you ever heard of such a person who invests all their money on the same day the markets peak and then doesn’t invest any more?  Doesn’t seem all that likely to me.  Most people invest their money over time because that’s how they earn it, then save it, then invest it.  Picking one particular time period to prove or disprove a theory is like measuring your gas mileage one mile at a time and then using the best or worst mile to prove your point.

Investment performance

And what about active stock pickers – did they all do better than the indexers over that period?  Or did some of them do better, some of them the same, and some of them didn’t do as well?  I’ve asked many bloggers and non-bloggers who claim they can beat the index by picking their own stocks to prove it – measure their performance and let me know if they did better than the market or not.  You know what?  Not one of them has ever shown that they can beat the market – oddly enough, most of them don’t even bother to measure their performance.  How can someone who doesn’t even know how their own investment method measures up criticize someone else’s?

What is average?

One of the criticisms of indexing is that you will only achieve “average” results – again – will I do better by randomly picking stocks or paying someone lots of money to pick them for me?  One thing about indexing is that you will get the index return minus a very small fee – you will never beat the index but more importantly you won’t underperform the index (except for the small fee) either.  Active pickers can certainly outperform the market but they can also underperform as well – sometimes by a huge margin.  I like making money – if I thought it was possible for me to beat the market then you can rest assured that I would give it my best effort.

Dividends, smividends

Ok – one more rant… I like getting dividends just as much as the next investor but I really think there is an over-weighting on the importance of dividends in the blogosphere.  Yes, the idea of living off your dividends is nice but investment performance measures total return which is capital gains plus any reinvested dividends and interest payments.  That’s it.  I don’t care in what form the company pays out in the end – if the total return is higher, then its a better investment.  If that includes dividends, fine – if not, that’s fine too.

Categories
Personal Finance

Tax Free Savings Account (TFSA)

The Canadian government recently announced a new type of tax-free savings account (TFSA) available to Canadians which is similar to the Roth IRA account available to Americans. Here are some of the details:

What is the TFSA?

A type of account where you make contributions but don’t get any income tax refund. While the money is in the account there are no taxes applied to any kind of earnings such as interest, dividends, capitals gains. Any withdrawals from the account are not taxable and won’t count against any government programs ie GIS, OAS.

How does the TFSA work?

  • You can contribute $5000 per year to this account for the years 2009 to 2012 and $5,500 for year 2013 and beyond.
  • The contribution room is carried forward.
  • No taxes on any earnings.
  • No taxes on any withdrawals.
  • When you withdraw money from the account, the contribution room available gets increased by the amount of the withdrawal – please note that this new contribution room is not available until the following calendar year.

When can I open up a TFSA account?

January 2, 2009 was the first day you could deposit funds into a TFSA.  Most institutions allowed customers to set up accounts prior to this date however.

Why do I want to open a TFSA account?

Any money that you might be saving for emergencies or upcoming large purchases will have a constant tax drag in an non-registered account. With the TFSA, this tax drag no longer exists so you will end up with more money for your purchase or emergency.  Here are some more benefits of the Canadian tax free savings account.

More information on the TFSA

Tax Free Savings Account (TFSA) Basic information for Canadians

TFSA contribution limits

TFSA Over-Contribution Penalty Fix

Tax Free Savings Account refresher for Canada

ING offers TFSA refresher for Canadians

Using the Tax Free Savings Account (TFSA) for Canadians as an emergency fund

Categories
RESP

RESP – Keeping It All In Perspective

This post is part of the Big RESP Series. See the entire series here.

See the previous post on How To Get Started.

Since the government started giving grants for RESP contributions in 1998, the RESP program has become quite well known and has become a new source of stress for new parents. I know a lot of friends who have set up RESPs for their kids which is great since most of my friends are older parents and have reasonably good finances. For someone who is younger and/or doesn’t have great finances, RESPs should probably be a lower priority to things like lowering debt and saving for retirement. It’s important to make sure your own finances are in good shape before saving for a future expense when you don’t know how much that future expense will be or if it will even occur. There is no point in making RESP contributions and then later on you have to withdraw the money to pay for the mortgage.

Try not to listen to the hype from investment companies – the same people who write the ads that try to scare you into investing with their company (you need 70+% of your income to retire or you will be living in a cardboard box) also create the ads for RESPs. Investment companies often come up with fairly “worst case” scenarios for their projections of how much post secondary education will cost in 18 years or so. They try to make it sound like your child’s education will cost a certain large amount and if you don’t have that much saved up when they finish high school then they won’t be able to go on to post secondary school.

The reality is that most parents (hopefully not me) are still working when their kids go to school so they always have the option of diverting some of their income to make up any shortfall. The investment company ads also don’t seem to include the fact that most students work during summers and can offset a portion of their schooling that way. The last point I want to mention here is that like most things in life, post-secondary education involves choices that cost more or less money. If a student can live at home and go to school, that is much cheaper than going to school in a different city. The student may not like that choice but sometimes money (or lack of) can help simplify the decision making. Other factors that I can think of are housing – do they live in a dorm, shared accommodation or their own apartment? Do they have a car? All these choices will play a significant role in the amount of money required for the students education.

Summary

RESPs are a good thing but they are not as important as your family finances. You are not doing the child any favours by maxing out the RESP grants but they can’t participate in some activites because you don’t have enough money.

Establish your family finances first, then worry about the RESPs. You can carry forward the contribution room so there is no rush to start the account as soon as the child is born.