Money Smarts Blog

LinkStuff – High Definition TV Edition

Mike Holman — Fri, 24 May 2013 09:00:30 +0000

I finally upgrade to high definition tv and have been pretty happy with it. Hockey is pretty good in HD (although it would be a lot better if the Leafs were still playing), but the best improvement has been cycling. I’m currently watching the Giro d’Italia (Canadian Ryder Hesjedal was the winner last year) and the [...]

LinkStuff – More Money For Beer Edition

Mike Holman — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 10:00:12 +0000

I did a book giveaway earlier this week for the awesome More Money for Beer & Textbooks book and the two winners were Judy and Siu (who also won the funniest comment award). If you know someone who is in post-secondary education or about to enter – please buy the book for them. It’s really good. On [...]

Great Money Advice For Canadian College & University Students On How To Avoid Student Loans

Mike Holman — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 10:00:17 +0000

I recently had a chance to read the book “More Money for Beer and Textbooks” which is a book written for students in post-secondary education or in their last year of high school or CEGEP. It was written by Kyle Prevost and Justin Bouchard who are both educators and managed to get through their own [...]

Best Canadian High Interest Savings Rates For Ally Replacement

Mike Holman — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 10:00:15 +0000

Updated April 21, 2013. The high interest savings account market in Canada is pretty diverse. On one hand you have the established big banks that offer modest interest rates because most of their customers either don’t have enough cash to care about the rate or can’t be bothered shopping around. On the other hand there are [...]

RRSP Myth – Retirement Income Has To Be Lower For RRSP Benefit

Mike Holman — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 10:00:56 +0000

Given that we are approaching the end of RRSP season, I thought it would be fun to dispel the most common RRSP myth that I see repeated over and over again in the media. Related - 2012 RRSP contributions limit and deadline Since the invention of the TFSA, there have been many articles written comparing [...]

2013 RRSP Contribution Limits

Mike Holman — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 10:00:43 +0000

The maximum RRSP contribution limit for the 2012 tax year is $22,970. There are other factors in calculating the limit, so read on! Remember that the RRSP contribution limit applies to the previous tax year. Some rules to calculate your 2012 RRSP contribution limit Your RRSP contribution limit will be 18% of the previous tax [...]

When Does The New Year Of RESP Contributions Start?

Mike Holman — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 10:00:19 +0000

An RESP question I frequently get at this time of year is along the lines of: “I maxed out my child’s RESP grant last year in [insert month here] – do I have to wait 12 months from that time to get more grants?”. In other words – they want to know when a new [...]

Should I Have An Open House When Selling My House?

Mike Holman — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 10:00:20 +0000

There was a recent article in the Globe & Mail where a real estate agent was interviewed about her opinion on holding open houses if you are selling a house. To summarize, the agent thought that open houses were a waste of time with only nosy neighbours dropping in to check out your belongings. I [...]

LinkStuff: Online RESP Chat With Globe And Mail Today

Mike Holman — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 10:00:54 +0000

Announcement – I’ll be doing an online chat on RESPs with the Globe & Mail today at noon to 1pm, so if you have any RESP related questions, please check it out. And unlike most of the questions asked through this blog, I promise not to ignore any of them. Here is the link. On [...]

2012 Investment Portfolio Returns – A Good Year

Mike Holman — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 03:33:45 +0000

Time to take a look at the 2012 investment returns. You can usually tell the performance by how early in the year this post appears. When the market has done well, I can’t wait to calculate the return and see how much more money I have. In bad years, I tend to delay performance calculation. [...]