Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Video: Toronto!

For any Canadian it is hard not to believe that Toronto is not the center of Canada, but it isn’t (it’s barely 1/3 of the way through Canada), and as a former Montrealer, Toronto-the-Good is even more annoying (knowing that a lot of Toronto’s glitz came from Montreal).

This interesting NFB short shows Toronto in 1951 growing and changing, and this is before the boom of the 70′s, where the Financial Center of Canada moved from Montreal down the 401 (can you tell I am bitter?).

Enjoy this interesting view of a Metropolis before it became “The Big Smoke”.

Random Thoughts: Back to RESP Week

Back to School

As you could tell the topic of back to school, and more specifically back to University was on my mind this week, with two posts about RESPs, and the situation that I have been having is not resloved yet in terms of how and where I can remove funds from my kids’ RESP accounts, stay tuned on that one.

My actual posts this week were: RESP Money to Get Money,  RESP the Old Switcheroo, RESP Withdrawals REDUX, and an interesting question about Half Price Products.  The RESP story is an interesting one and hopefully good reader you are learning from my “case study”.

With Labour Day looming on Monday, I will most likely not be doing a post on Monday, although it might be a Best of we shall see whether the muse hits me early enough in the weekend or not. I will be traveling around getting ready for the new school term, one day I will go back to enjoying the Labour Day weekend as a time of rest, but it is not likely in the next few years. As for my comments post on Saturday, again, we shall see if time permits for that as well.

My hope is that in a week or two life will get into a more formal pace, which will make it easier to work on things, but then again, it may well stay chaotic for the entire fall, I can never tell.

That was the week that was

In the blogosphere at least, here are some of the hot topics being discussed by other Personal Finance bloggers out there:

• Michael James and the Canadian Capitalist showed that numbers are fun to play with, but aren’t the only part of the Finance answer in Fun with Numbers CC shows how you can get a little optimistic about things, whereas, Michael James posts More Realistic RRSP Contribution Expectations where he points out that numbers can be deceiving.
• Ellen Roseman points out that Mortgage Paid off? Ask for Home Insurance discount is a good idea. Hopefully one day my house will be paid off and I will remember this helpful hint.
• Preet points out there is a New Tool to Search Advisor Background and History however, it does not really track that many advisors, but the ones there you can read about.
• Financial Highway points out 7 Fees the Credit Card Companies Are Getting Sneaky With, like they needed new income streams?
• Money.Smarts brings up an interesting angle on the whole RESP issue with Relatives Battling Over RESP – Who Gets it? in my family, I do pure and simple.
• Larry MacDonald asked an expert Where are mortgage rates headed and the expert said they look OK for now, but also hedged his statements, as well all do in this area. Best mortgage rate is the one you don’t have because you have paid your house off.
• Nancy Zimmerman had a chance to grill Jack Layton with Live Blog: Jack Layton NDP whistlestop in Yellowknife where she even used a question I tweet’ed to her about pensions, Cool.
• Echo at Boomer & Echo, seems to be in love with Dividend Growth Investing and he also seems to enjoy DRIPing as well, which is good to see.
• Bible Money Matters makes the poignant statement 5 Things About Money I wish I would have Known When I was Younger, which is always lamentable, but if you learned from your mistakes that is what is important (i.e. don’t do the same mistakes over and over).

Weekly Reminders

Remember that I also micro-blog on Twitter, where you can see a whole plethora of good articles and pithy comments by me as well. Twitter feed where I re-tweet many great articles by some of my featured writers (and make the occasional odd or off colour commentary on life (in 140 characters or less)).

Also remember my RSS feed is available too, for those who enjoy reading without looking at my archaic page lay out, and I have added an RSS Comment Feed as well.

Remember that this site is iPhone Friendly (and Android & iPod Touch Friendly), enjoy it on the go, in a readable format for the device. If you are reading with an iPhone or Android device, drop me a comment and tell me if this needs any improvements. This site is also in the Kindle US Blog list, if you are interested, not available in Canada yet (because no Blogs are available in Canada on a Kindle?!?).

Half Price Products

Where Do You Draw the Line

Previously I have written about 50% off meat in fact Michael James has even asked if Cut Rate Meat is Safe , and my wife and I have expanded our cut rate shopping to the 50% off rack of various goods that our local grocer has, and enjoy getting some treats for a very cheap price.

Our grocer has in fact made it very easy to see the items he has slashed the prices on, as the product usually has a triangular flaming pink label with the words 50% Off emblazoned on it, so there is no danger you might miss these good bargains. Typically these items are about to reach their best before date , so you are taking a little chance here, but so far we have not run into any issues with any of these products (even the meat).

A few days ago we had to run in to get one or two things, and I needed Anti-perspirant, so we went up the aisle that this product is on, and it is next to the Family Planning section of the small pharmacy in our local grocers.  I quickly chose a manly smelling fragrance, OK, I found the cheapest one I could find but then noticed something odd out of the corner of my eye.

A large 50% Off label on boxes of Condoms

I’ll let that one settle in for a second, yes it was not just one box it was a group of about 8 boxes of various condoms that were 50% off.

Who, in the name of Dr. Spock (the baby doctor, not the Star Trek guy) would rely on birth control that they picked up for 50% off? I leave this as a question to my good readers, would you trust 50% off condoms? Would you buy them for your kids?

Be prepared, I have the ultimate story that my friends know, but my good readers have only had me hint at, that may come out one day, about my Failed Vasectomy, so NO I would not trust cut rate Condoms, ever!

RESP Withdrawals Redux

Hopefully the Last Post on RESPs (for now)

I went to the bank with our Free letter from my middle daughter’s University (the nice one in Nova Scotia), which was e-mailed to us, and finally the entire RESP story came into crisp and clear focus. It can be summed up with a simple phrase that we will call the Big C8j Customer Service Rule:

People who work in phone centers for banks (or any financial service) do not know how things really work, in the bank branch.

What do I mean by this? Remember all that ranting I have done about getting letters to get money, and having to pay $12 to get them (and YES that DOES piss me off), well that’s not how it all really works.

How it Really Works?

We showed up at our local branch, with our Letter of Enrollment in hand, and I had no idea what to expect, but luckily Good Providence, Karma or whichever way the Universe works, smiled upon my wife and I. The “teller” we spoke to first was the Branch Manager, this made the whole process much simpler, and smoother running.

First we discussed what needed to be done with this Letter of Enrollment that we had received from the University (this is the Free one that was simply attached to an e-mail). The Manager said it was sufficient to withdraw funds from my daughter’s RESP, HOORAY! HUZZAH! WHOOP! WHOOP! I was hoping for confetti to drop out of the ceiling, however, this is not the end of the story.

The Manager then said if I wanted to make the withdrawal, I could make an appointment with one of the Mutual Fund Experts and then I could get the money.

Insert the sound of screeching brakes, the Process was about to be derailed, because there was no way I wanted to make an appointment to get at this money (sit down for another 1/2 hour with an Expert, later in the week?!? NFW). I pointed out that I usually did all of my banking on line, and if the Manager was able to set the “She is Going to School For Real Flag” on my daughter’s RESP account, couldn’t I simply do this all on line? The Manager thought about it, and agreed this might all be possible, but he was not sure (a small sigh of relief the process was not completely derailed).

The Manager then pointed out that normally I should have made an appointment to bring in this letter, because a normal bank teller cannot do this, hence the statement: People who work in phone centers for banks (or any financial service) do not know how things really work, in the bank branch. I explained that I had been told on the phone this was all do-able with a normal teller,the Manager said no they can’t, but because I was lucky enough to get him as my Teller, things would all work out nicely.

The Manager then pointed out that, in fact, since he was the one setting the “She is Going to School For Real Flag” on my daughter’s RESP account, I didn’t really need a Letter of Enrollment at all, the branch in fact will take a Proof of Payment (i.e. a receipt from the school), a copy of my daughter’s schedule, or a Transaction number which shows the amount was paid to the University (or a canceled cheque I assume).

Let me repeat that important rule I have stated twice now: People who work in phone centers for banks (or any financial service) do not know how things really work, in the bank branch. So, for my oldest daughter’s RESP all I need to do is bring in my proof of payment, and her RESP account will be freed up to have money extracted from it, I will be doing that very soon.

Is It All Over Now?

Not quite,  as a Caveat, I have not attempted to take money out of either RESP account on line yet, so this still may all end in tears, when I attempt to withdraw money from the accounts, I hope this is me being paranoid, but I suspect there are still a few more interesting twists in the road before I reach the promised land. I have also noticed that on the allegedly fixed RESP account on line, there is no button to REDEEM MUTUAL FUNDS, only two buttons to BUY or SWITCH them, which is not good news.

RESP: The Old Switcheroo

Wait a minute, Good Service?

After my tirade Money to Get Money from yesterday one of the schools involved in my RESP escapades suddenly got very sensible, and I must somewhat retract some of my commentary.

My middle daughter is going to a smaller school in Nova Scotia, and she had not noticed anything on the web site stating about how to get a Letter of Enrollment or such, which might be needed for an RESP, so she sent the Registrar for the school an e-mail asking what steps needed to be taken to get a letter like this and how long it might take.

This e-mail was sent on Sunday night, Monday morning the school registrar replied with an e-mail that included a scan of the official letter asking my daughter if this was sufficient? No money was spent, no forms filled out, no fuss, no muss, no worries, they just sent it. All I can think now is that in smaller Universities they have not taken the courses on how to get as much money as possible from your student population, or the large banks have not contacted the school yet about how their part in the Great RESP Sting is supposed to work.

I was flabbergasted to see this e-mail in my inbox, and now I can go off to my bank and see whether it is sufficient to start extricating funds from one of my daughters’ RESP, I am hopeful that this might do the trick, but if not, I am confident things can be put right quickly.

What is interesting is that I have paid some of this daughter’s fees (a sizable deposit), but that was sufficient for the school to send me a letter of Full Enrollment, which was good of them. The other University I deal with took great pains to point out that they would not send out any letter of enrollment until fees were paid in full, but I have done that now, and I now await to find out how they deal with my request for a Letter of Enrollment (don’t worry good reader, you will hear more about this as soon as it happens).

I guess the only question is, what will I write about when my kids finally go off to school? Don’t worry good reader I actually have a large backlog of articles for your reading pleasure.