Money Smarts Blog

Should You Sell Your House And Avoid The Market Crash?

Mike Holman — Tue, 15 May 2012 09:00:14 +0000

Rob Carrick wrote about a Vancouver couple who sold their house recently with the idea that they would rent for a while and then buy back into the real estate market after the coming crash. I know a couple who did this same move in Toronto. They might make out like bandits in the end, [...]

How To Win A House Bidding War

Mike Holman — Tue, 01 May 2012 09:00:40 +0000

There are some hot real estate markets in Canada, namely Toronto and Vancouver. One of the results of a hot market is a tendency for sellers to underprice their houses in order to create a bidding war. This benefits the seller because it speeds up the selling process and they might get an above-market sale [...]

LinkStuff – Model Train Show Edition

Mike Holman — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 09:00:48 +0000

Recently, I took my family to the Model Railroad Club of Toronto show. If you ever get a chance to attend this show or something similar in your city, I strongly urge you to do so. I’m not really into model trains myself, but the club has been working on their display since 1938 and it [...]

How To Find A Lost Locked-In Retirement Account

Mike Holman — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 09:00:04 +0000

I received a very interesting email from Sandra recently [edited for privacy and to combine several emails] who is trying to locate a locked-in retirement account from 20 years ago: Hi Mike…How can I find a lost vested pension when I don’t know who the RRSP account was with? I worked at Company A until [...]

LinkStuff – Valentine’s Day Edition

Mike Holman — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 10:00:24 +0000

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, I thought I would share this true love story: My daughter (age 3) tells me every day: “Daddy, I love you. I don’t love you as much as I love Mommy, but I still love you a lot”. I’m thinking an appropriate response might be “Honey, I love you. [...]

Who Controls Withdrawals From RESP Account?

Mike Holman — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 10:00:53 +0000

Leah asked the following RESP question: When my daughter was 6 in 1999 she did some acting and her dad put $21,000 in an RESP with his name as subscriber and her name and her two younger brothers as beneficiaries. The fund dropped dramatically (Science and Technology) and years later she is almost 19, studying [...]

LinkStuff – Andrew Hallam, Millionaire Teacher Edition

Mike Holman — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:00:18 +0000

Andrew Hallam is a Canadian teaching in Singapore who wrote a best selling book called Millionaire Teacher. I had the pleasure of meeting up with Andrew recently in Singapore and even went running with him several times. Andrew is a pretty good runner, but he was nice enough to slow down, so I could [...]

The RESP Book Kindle E-book – Half Priced Sale

Mike Holman — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:00:28 +0000

I finally got around to getting an e-book version of The RESP Book created and it is now available from the Kindle store on Amazon.com. Note that you can read a Kindle book on your computer – you don’t need an e-book reader. I’ve decided to have a special sale for my readers only and [...]

My Online Opinion On Online Opinions

Mike Holman — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 12:00:17 +0000

I’m on holiday this week, so I thought it would be oh so much fun to republish an ancient post (Sept 2008), which most readers haven’t seen before. Enjoy! Online opinions and reviews are everywhere. If you are doing some online shopping, it’s almost impossible to go to a site offering merchandise that doesn’t allow [...]

RESP Canada Learning Bond (CLB) – Why Aren’t More People Claiming it?

Mike Holman — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:00:48 +0000

Part of the Canadian RESP program is a grant, inappropriately named the Canada Learning Bond (CLB). The “Canada Learning” makes sense, but I have no idea why the word “bond” was used. In actual fact the CLB is a grant and the big difference between this grant and the regular RESP grants is that no [...]