I transferred some money over to my non-registered margin account on Questrade today from my non-registered BMO investorline account.  It took me a few days of procrastination, one day of trying to figure out why I couldn’t do a USD bill payment from my BMO bank account, and finally another day figuring out that in order to transfer USD, you need to do a pre-authorized deposit.

I actually searched my own blog on how to transfer USD and couldn’t find anything (I’m not narcissistic I swear! I just remembered that I posted about how long a USD transfer took back in January).  I finally figured it out today (after wasting about a total of 45 minutes of my life that I will never see again).  I thought I would actually post it and help you save 45 minutes of your precious time… and if I have a memory lapse again, I can search my blog with “great success”, as Borat would say.

The reason why you might do a USD transfer is because you won’t have to exchange your Canadian dollars into US dollars when the exchange rate isn’t favourable.  I don’t like losing money to currency hits AND conversion charges.  It’s a win-win situation.

So here is the low-down on how to transfer your USD to Questrade from your USD account, step by step:

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Hope everyone’s having a great weekend so far.  It’s beautifully sunny here in Vancouver and I can’t wait to get outside to enjoy some of that rare sunshine.

I finally got my act together and signed up for a self-directed RRSP Questrade account.  I’m transferring over the BMO investorline RRSP account to Questrade.  I found that I was hesitant to rebalance my portfolio in the BMO Investorline account because of the $29 trading commissions.  Also, I was getting sick of paying the $100 yearly administration fee (that the guy neglected to tell me about when I signed up a few years back) that they charge if your portfolio is less than $25,000.  I’m not even allowed to contribute more than $25,000 in RRSPs because of the pension adjustment I get.  I should have done this a long time ago, oh well- hindsight is always 20-20, right?

LOL I might as well change my middle name to Questrade.  I now have a non-registered margin account, a TFSA account, and an RRSP account with them.  You really can’t beat the $4.95 trades.

And the winner is…

youngandthrifty.ca had a giveaway of the book “Enjoy Your Money; How do Make It, Save It, Invest It, and Give It” by Steve J. Miller. I used random.org and drew the winner of the book giveaway.

And the winner is….Kevin! From Financiallypoor.com. Congrats, Kevin!

Some weekend Links:

• CanadianFinanceBlog examines how frugality can lead to happiness
• DeliverAwayDebt talks about how hiring someone to cut your grass isn’t really worth it (as I hear my neighbours getting their grass mowed)
• FinancialSamurai tries to give some reasons why East Coast living isn’t that bad (sorry, can’t give examples here because I’m a west coast girl!)
• Million Dollar Journey gives some tips on how to attract the best tenants
• The Financial Blogger calculates how you shouldn’t be scared into a fixed mortgage because of media hype
• Couple Money considers whether now is the time to by BP (let’s just say I feel bad for people who were holding BP before this disaster struck! Can you say.. OUCH?)
• MoneySmartsBlog (previously Four Pillars) tells you to Under Promise, Over Deliver
• Money Reasons reveals his Movie Secret Frugal Weapon
• Well Heeled Blog talks about how sushi can be an expensive culinary habit (mmmm me hungry now)

A few months back, I was perusing on Questrade’s site and saw a free workshop for “Learn to Trade” with Online Trading Academy.  I thought it would be helpful to pick up some tips as there was a free lunch.  I have trouble passing up free lunch and education! Online Trading Academy is an affiliate of Questrade.  One of the main reasons I went was that they said that the Professional Trader course is free and paid for by Questrade through a tuition rebate.  More on that later.

The Online Trading Academy has been educating traders since 1997.  They have multiple locations throughout the world.

So I signed up for their Power Trading workshop (a half day session).  In the workshop, we got to meet with a professional trader and an instructor of their Professional Trader 3-7 day course.  It was a good half day session.  The trader tells us that he does his thing on the market for 30 minutes before he goes to work, and then he’s done for the rest of his day (and goes to his regular job- that’s the great thing about living on the west coast–the time difference!).  I found that for myself, I’m more of a swing trader.  I hold stocks and trade them in a matter of days to weeks.  The Online Trading Academy was more advocating for a daily trade- they encourage not to hold overnight because you never know what might happen.  They exert a lot of control with their trades.  They teach you technical analysis and how to trade in any type of market (up, down, sideways).

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Just what the doctor ordered, an apple a day keeps the financial gremlins away.  Sorry that doesn’t really make much sense (what are financial gremlins, really?), but I felt like using the word doctor and apple together.  Since apples are the ‘theme’ of youngandthrify.ca  =)  Speaking of doctoring… the apples look a bit brighter, thanks to Forest at  Frugalzeitgeist.

I wanted to update you on how the Tax Free Trading Account that I got with Questrade is doing.  My  Tax Free Trading Account portfolio was funded with $5000 at the end of January and to date, I have about $46 in distributions, and total equity including distribution is $5607.

That’s a 12% increase in about 1.5 months time.  Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.  Because I was able to keep the trading commissions low ($4.95 with Questrade) I was able to preserve more of my hard earned cashola.  I think this 12% definitely beats the 1-3% that a conventional Tax Free Savings Account offers.

It’s nice that the markets are cooperating these days!

Also in blog news, just wanted to share that Tom at Canadian Finance Blog kindly allowed me to guest post on his blog!  Thanks to the Yakezie group for making this happen!  This is my first guest post ever, so it is pretty exciting.  Please go over and check it out (especially if you’re a family with children under 18 and you think Colin Hansen, our British Columbia finance minister is damn sexy).

Happy Friday everyone!  I’ll be calculating my networth over the weekend and sharing my net worth on Monday.  Hope it’s wayyy up in the green!

PS If you want $50 in free trades, sign up for a Questrade account and put in “youngandthrifty” under the promo code.  You’ll be on your way to $50 a free trades and Questrade will credit you your money after 10 trades.

In addition to Questrade, the other online brokerage account that I have is with BMO Investorline. I have both an RRSP account and a non-registered account.  BMO Investorline has rave reviews (top ranked bank-owned online broker by Globe and Mail, #1 in customer email responsiveness, and an Ipsos Reid poll stating that they are the best in customer service).  Here’s what I think of BMO Investorline:

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Last year, in my 2009 TFSA, I held my $5000 in a principal protected HSBC mutual fund account, it is up about 6% to date so far.
For 2010, I decided to use the TFSA to shield the taxes from income trust distributions. I opened up a Questrade Tax Free Savings account (or Tax Free Trading Account, as they like to call it).

Since Investing In Canada had a great summary of what he ended up buying for his 2009 TFSA, I thought I would share what I ended up picking too.

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Okay just a quickie update on how long it actually takes for a USD transfer to go through. There’s been so many nebulous answers out there, and the Questrade site itself makes it sound like it’ll happen in an instant.. so I sought to test it out myself.

I saw the magic number that I deposited from my BMO USD account in my Questrade account yesterday (January 19). I sent my “e-signature” off January 11 (so give two or three days for our lovely Canadian Postal system to get it across the country); It took about 7 days for the transfer to go through (9 including all the mailing back and forth)

That’s pretty fast. Some people say it can take up to 20 business days.

I know I know, still not that fast. With BMO Investorline, you can just drop off some cashola at any BMO branch and have it transferred into your BMO Investorline account in a snap.

Okay enough about Questrade- I’ll talk about what I bought in my TFSA so far tomorrow.

So earlier, I posted a review on Questrade’s online brokerage. Generally, I am very happy with Questrade and their $4.95 max $9.95 trades. It’s very easy on the wallet.

Usually, their customer service has been excellent and I’ve been very happy with it.

Recently however, this one morning I was trying to contact them, this happened:

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I have been a Questrade client for a few years now.  Here’s a new Questrade promo code to give you $50 in free trades:  youngandthrifty.  If you make 10 trades, they’ll refund your $50 in free trades (from what I recall a few years back).  I was very very attracted to their $4.95 low commissions.  They are a good basic online brokerage.  They are ranked #1 in online discount brokerages by Globe and Mail.  I just signed up for another account with Questrade- a TFSA account (or tax free trading account).  So what do I really think of Questrade?  Well, let’s break it down:

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Just wanted to give an update on my status of my TFTA aka “souped up” TFSA.

I sent over my account signatures on Monday (the 11th of January) and I just got an email today (January 15) that my account has been approved and it’s waiting to be funded. I had already funded my account yesterday and am waiting for the money transfer to go ahead and be sent my new Webtrader password.

That’s pretty quick…

Hopefully I’ll get that password for webtrader soon. The stock market took a big dip today and yesterday and I want to get in on some of that buying action before it’s too late.

On a side note, I am still waiting for my USD pre-approved transfer to be approved. I put my signature of that paperwork in the same envelope, so they must have received it too. The money is still sitting my USD bank account.
I’ll keep you posted.

Edit: January 19, 2010: woo hoo! Got my webtrader password today-they were true to their word of 48 hours after fundage of account. Still no transfer of USD money yet to my other Questrade account.