Deadlines are looming again (FYI if you didn’t know it is February 29, 2012) for your contribution to be counted towards the 2011 tax year.

I’m curious to know (you know, because I’m nosy like that), for those that contribute to an RRSP,  when do you contribute?

Do you contribute in a lump sum in early 2011?
Do you contribute throughout the year in 2011?
Or do you wait until the first two months of 2012 to put in that big chunk of change in?

What I do (and there’s no rhyme or reason or method to my madness) is I contribute a set amount per month and then if I have room left over, I’ll contribute a lump sum to max out my RRSP afterwards.  After I finish paying back my Home Buyer’s Plan, I’ll likely stop contributing to my RRSP’s (unless I have oodles and oodles of money after contributing to my TFSA already) since I plan to have a defined benefit pension plan.  However, who knows, I might be desperate to decrease my taxes in which case I’ll probably contribute to an RRSP as well.

Speaking of RRSP’s, I had the lovely opportunity to talk to Bryan Borzykowski from Moneysense.ca (I idolize Money Sense so it was pretty awesome to be mentioned in it) and he interviewed me about my strategy for my RRSP’s.

Here are some RRSP posts that might pique your interest  in case you’re not sick of seeing RRSP stuff just yet.

• RRSP versus TFSA: Head to Head Comparison
• RRSP’s Holdings Part 1
• RRSP Holdings Part 2: What to Keep in and Out of your RRSP (I loved writing this post but no one commented on it, sadly.  I wrote it when my blog was a baby in blog years)

Have a fantabulous weekend!

Pf Blog Love

• This blog has been featured in the Jenny Pincher’s Blog Carnival (woohoo!)
• My Own Advisor talked about the retirement goals of Gen X and Gen Y (and no one is thinking about being 67)
• Free Money Wisdom got engaged and WON their honeymoon (that is so awesome!!)
• Million Dollar Journey my blogging idol posts his net worth updates- he’s killing it and I know he’ll make his goal
• Dividend Ninja also weighs in on the TFSA or RRSP debate
• The Financial Blogger asks you where are you… where do you stand?
• My University Money asks whether you feel more satisfied earning or saving (for me it’s both lol)
• Boomer and Echo talks about the hot Boomer topic, of the OAS age increase from 65 to 67
• It’s not too late! Crystal from Budgeting in the Fun Stuff shares her New Years Resolutions
• Financial Uproar ponders the question.. why are people scared to be rich?
• Financial Samurai asks those who are interested in quitting their jobs to blog full time to read this first

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Since I’m going back to school in September, I have started to reminisce about the good ol’ times of my undergraduate degree, when I had absolutely nothing to worry about except to get good grades, work at my care-free retail part-time job, and party on the weekends to try and score free drinks from boys.  I had a pretty balanced student lifestyle, I was active in the school clubs and committees, I worked, I studied, got some scholarships, and I partied.  It was a pretty fulfilling undergrad.

I regret that I partied so much and wasted all that money I worked so hard to make.  But hey, you’re young only once, right?  However, there is something else I regret.

I wish I had started investing earlier.  I met a guy in college who was passionately involved with stock picking and trading (can you say HELLO what a turn on??) and his passion rubbed off on me.   He would do this instead of working a part-time job earning $9.50 an hour like I did, and he paid his way through university with his investments.  Inspired, I bought one or two stocks through my mom’s BMO Investorline brokerage, because at the time I didn’t have a brokerage account.  Thinking back, it was my first lesson in investing, don’t take hot stock tips from friends and acquaintances, especially if you don’t understand what you’re buying!

But I digress.  The old days of expensive brokerage accounts and commissions have vanished.  Things have changed, fast forward to 2011 and young Canadians these days are so lucky- they have the option of contributing to a TFSA.

In case you haven’t heard, a TFSA is a Tax Free Savings Account introduced by the government a few years back.   In a nutshell, you have to be 19 years and older to contribute to one and you can contribute $5000 per year of your after tax income.  You can withdraw the money any time but must wait until the next calender year to put that money back (only if it exceeds your combined contribution limit) or else you’ll be dinged with over-contribution charges.  If I were 19 now and a student, I would invest in a TFSA rather than an RRSP, that’s for sure.  I would also enjoy my beautiful youthful looks too HA!

As a student, you may think you’re at a disadvantage because you ARE a student and are relatively income-less, but you have time on your side.  Time my friend, is a very beautiful thing.

Here are the TFSA options:

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$132, 262 (+ 2.4%)

Some of you might have noticed that I haven’t done a net worth update in a while.  At first, I decided to stop posting my updates because of all the negative comments I was receiving on my home purchase.  Then I decided to compromise, because really, a personal finance blog isn’t personal if I don’t share some detail with you all   As silly as it may sound to some of the readers that are bearish on real estate, I am planning to live in this home for 5-10 years (or maybe more, who knows) and did not primarily purchase it for investing reasons.  We just wanted a place to call our own.  The thought of this piece of land being “ours” really hit home when I decided to grab a shovel last weekend and dug up a garden in the back yard.  It was quite a surreal experience.

The renovations and everything are all done to the money pit house and now we’re in the process this month of finalizing everything and finding a tenant for downstairs.  We just have a few minor things to do before we can start taking pictures of the suite and getting it ready for Craigslist.

Okay, so here’s the breakdown for this quarter:

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Here’s part three of the five part series on what I’m holding in my TFSA. We’re halfway through, so just one more Wednesday of putting on your thinking caps and guessing what equity I bought and it’ll be back to my regular posts.

In this series, I am sharing what my holdings are (or what I bought) in my Tax Free Trading Account for 2011. I had income trusts in 2010 and sold them all off due to being weary about what might happen come January (which is now a few months ago– time flies!) when they slash their distrubutions due to them being incorporated.

The last two weeks, I talked about EIF.TO and then JE.TO both doling out huge dividends (8-9% annually). This week, you can try to guess the next holding I have in my small TFSA portfolio.

Here goes- put on your thinking caps:

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Alright, I promised that I would share the other 4 equities I bought to hold in my TFSA aka Tax Free Trading Account. With the markets plummeting these past few days, it might be a good idea to load up on some stocks you have been keeping an eye on. The volatility is back.. stocks are on sale (that’s how I like to think of it, anyway).

Like last week’s post, I had you try to guess what the equity I bought in my TFSA was. So I’ll try and do the same again this week.

I had bought a very small amount of shares of this income trust before 2011 rolled around.  With the newly added money ($5000) I put in last month, I added more shares to equal 100 shares.  When I get more money in my TFSA from my tax refund, I plan on buying more of this stock.

Alright, here goes, time to put on your thinking caps:

• This is another big dividend payer- 8.28% annual yield  (that’s $0.10333 per share per month or $1.24 per share a year)
• They didn’t decrease their payout to investors even though they converted from an income trust to a corporation (one of the few ones that didn’t).  This says a lot since the government changed the tax structure, so they are being taxed and still paying the investors the same amount.  That says a lot.

• (more…)

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