28 Feb 2012 8 Comments
Warning! There are going to be calculations and numbers in this post, but bear with me as this is an interesting dilemma that many may face, especially since the RRSP contribution deadline is tomorrow! If you had $5,000, would it be better to pay down your credit card debt or invest in a RRSP to [...]
by Vicky in Personal Finance
25 Feb 2012 14 Comments
Hey, I had to peak your interest somehow. Taxes, taxes, taxes! Everyone’s favourite time of year! In previous posts, I commented on how I wanted to hold certain types of investments in specific accounts. The reasoning behind this is how the investments are taxed, and I want to hold it in the most tax efficient [...]
by Vicky Vo in Level 5: Taxes, Mutual Funds
23 Feb 2012 5 Comments
I know you have been following along faithfully (of course!) and have set up an Automatic Savings Plan (ASP) that is currently going into investments. That means, each month, you are contributing a set amount of money into your accounts (RRSP, TFSA or non-registered) and investing them in either low-cost index mutual funds or Exchange [...]
by Vicky Vo in Level 4: Investing
21 Feb 2012 12 Comments
We first met our case study two months ago; you can compare this with last month’s update to see their progress. The following net worth summary is based on information that was accessible at our last meeting. You will notice that some numbers are unchanged as new information was not yet available. February 2012 Assets [...]
by Vicky Vo in Case Study 1
16 Feb 2012 10 Comments
Anyone else a bit frustrated that the market has gone up since January? Anyone at all? To be fair, it definitely boosts my net worth value, but I’m looking to do a bit of purchasing so I’m waiting for it to drop a bit. Yes, I know, you’re not supposed to time the market. Yes, [...]
by Vicky Vo in Portfolio Updates
14 Feb 2012 5 Comments
Building a balanced portfolio with ETFs is pretty straightforward. Similar to mutual funds, as their popularity started rising, companies started providing pretty nifty sector-based or currency-based ETFs. If there is a certain type of market or sector you want to target, there is probably an ETF for it. That being said, the MERs for these [...]
by Vicky Vo in ETFs, Level 4: Investing
14 Feb 2012 4 Comments
Now that you’ve had time to read (and absorb hopefully!) all the wonderful information about mutual funds, you must be wondering what ETFs are, and why I prefer them over a portfolio of cheap index mutual funds. What are they? ETFs are very similar to mutual funds as they are essentially a portfolio of stocks [...]
by Vicky Vo in ETFs, Level 4: Investing
10 Feb 2012 5 Comments
In retrospect, I might have been better off posting a 2011 income summary instead of a December summary, since December is definitely not the norm for my portfolio. I need to manage expectations better! At the very least, it has started friendly competitions which I am pretty excited about. We will see how 2012 pans [...]
by Vicky Vo in Income update
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