Canadian Personal Finance Blog

That is pretty much the onslaught I am expecting for February, as the deadline for buying RRSPs is February 29th this year (yes a whole extra day, thanks to the Leap Year).  I note my TD branch has their Ketchup Bottles out, reminding us how important it is to Catch Up (or Ketchup) on your RRSP contributions.

Putting money into your RRSP is important (if you are planning on retiring) but is it worth doing in February? Yes and no, yes it is good to put money in your RRSP (if you can afford to do it and you are also fighting your debt load), but No, don’t just do it for the sake of doing it.

The hype for the RRSP Season (which is much like Valentine’s Day, a made up event to make lots of money) is really what gets under my skin. Many folks go out and buy any and all kinds of investments and end up like me, holding some Mutual Funds that you have no idea why you bought it). Simply buying something because an ad campaign implores you to do so, makes advertising companies money (and banks), but does it do you any good?

I must chuckle that when I do buy Index Funds or the like on line using the TD Waterhouse system, I get a receipt of my transaction and there is a “Trader ID” associated with the transaction (so they must make some money on it too). Maybe the ID is actually for the guy in I.T. that takes care of their servers (I certainly hope so, but I think it  is unlikely).

Are you planning on doing some last minute RRSP Mutual Fund purchases on February 29th?