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.
January 28th, 2010 by
young
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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January 22nd, 2010 by
young
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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January 22nd, 2010 by
young
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.
January 20th, 2010 by
young
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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