Author: RobH

Significant birthdays for the DIY Investor

RobHLeave a comment

There are significant birthdays every DIY investor should be aware of. Did you know about all of them?

The list below is a gross simplification — like all things in the Canadian Tax code, the exceptions and caveats fill many pages, but this is roughly correct. I’ve included links so you can read the relevant sections yourself and see if you agree with my simplifications!

The day of your child’s birth

Per the feds, a birth certificate for your child is all you need to apply for a Social Insurance Number. And although their working days are far into the future, their RESP eligibility starts right away — but you can’t open an RESP for a child unless that child has a SIN. The lifetime limit for donations to an RESP is currently set at $50k/child. The sooner those contributions start, the sooner you can collect free money (the CESG, $500/year, $7200 per child lifetime), and the longer your contributions can benefit from the power of compounding.

Your 18th birthday

This is significant one for a number of reasons!

TFSA

Once you turn 181, you can open a TFSA and begin contributing. Even if you don’t start contributing, your TFSA limit starts to accumulate the year you turn 18. In 2025, that annual limit is $7000 per year, and it grows at the rate of inflation2. It’s cumulative, so it’s not a “use it now or lose it forever” kind of proposition. At the start of every calendar year, there are a flurry of announcements indicating the new annual limit.

You can contribute to your TFSA forever, even in retirement. I am!

CPP contributions kick in

If you’re over 18 and earn more than $3500 a year, you’ll have to pay CPP contributions. While current you may balk at this sort of reduction in your take-home pay, future you will appreciate the inflation-index adjusted salary you can collect later in life.

FHSA

You can open a First Home Savings Account on your 18th birthday…or maybe your 19th birthday3. And the year you open it, you add $8000 in eligible contribution room…which continues every year, to a maximum of $40000.

Your 19th birthday

The so-called “age of majority4” in Ontario allows you to roll in free money in the forms of GST credits, Trillium benefits5 (in Ontario) and carbon tax credits6 . The cost of admission is filing a tax return. No excuses — plenty of online providers offer free returns for “simple” returns and my friends at Wealthsimple offer “pay what you want” tax filing.

This is also a time you are eligible to open an RRSP7, which may make sense if you’re already maxing out your TFSA contributions.

Your 35th birthday (or later)

An RESP can only be open for 35 years.

Your 60th birthday

This is the first year you can choose to collect CPP; generally speaking, most experts recommend that you delay collecting CPP for as long as possible, for two reasons:

  • It may be the only inflation-protected income you have (this applies to me, I have no other pension)
  • You get more money the longer you wait. (you lose 0.6% of payment for every month you start before your 65th birthday. That adds up to a reduction of 36% if you start on the day you turn 60).

My tools page includes the very helpful CPP calculator, which can help you make a decision concerning your CPP start date.

Your 65th birthday

This is the first year you can choose to collect OAS. Experts are a little more split on whether or not to delay this one — the benefits to delaying to age 70 are not as strong as for CPP8. My plan is to delay, as it’s another inflation-adjusted benefit.

If you’re collecting any sort of pension (RRIF payments, CPP, employer pension) this is the first age at which you can split that income with your spouse. This can reduce your tax bill.

Your 70th birthday

You have to start taking CPP and OAS by this time.

Your 71st birthday

You can no longer contribute to an RRSP and you have to open a RRIF. Lots of the literature out there seems to imply that this is the ONLY time you can open a RRIF, but rest assured, there’s no minimum age for opening a RRIF — I’ve been collecting from mine since the start of the year 🙂

Your 85th birthday

This is the last year you can start collecting from an ALDA (advanced life deferred annuity) you have set up. The ALDA is a vehicle I just learned about, and need to do a bit more research. It may be a way to fund income in your later years when the complexity of managing withdrawals in a DIY fashion may be too cognitively overwhelming.

What birthdays are you thinking about? Let me know at comments@moneyengineer.ca.

  1. Or possibly 19, depending on where you live. ↩︎
  2. But only in increments of $500. Even though inflation is drifting back down to more usual levels, doing the math indicates that we should expect more frequent increases in the TFSA limits in the years to come. Adding $500 to a $7000 limit (a 7% bump)is a lot easier than adding $500 to a $5000 limit (a 10% bump) ↩︎
  3. Per https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/individuals/topics/first-home-savings-account/opening-your-fhsas.html “certain provinces and territories, the legal age at which an individual can enter into a contract (which includes opening an FHSA) is 19 years old” ↩︎
  4. This language is so opaque, it’s like a parody of government speak. Or maybe it’s a commentary on the aging demographic of Ontario? ↩︎
  5. Some of the benefits even kick in earlier ↩︎
  6. A limited time offer, presumably ↩︎
  7. Per CRA, there is NO minimum age at which you can open an RRSP. Contributing to an RRSP requires that you enter into a contract (meaning you have to be of an age that permits this, either 18 or 19) and you have to earn money. ↩︎
  8. It’s still 0.6% per month of delay, or 36% over 5 years. That’s pretty good RoI, in my view. ↩︎

ETFs for parking your money safely

RobH20 Comments

Since my new DIY broker (Questrade) does not support the purchase of high interest savings accounts (HISAs), I need to find a free-to-trade alternative. 5% of my retirement portfolio is invested in what is characterized as “cash”, but I expect that money to earn some sort of return with essentially zero risk. (Another 15% of my portfolio is in the bond market, which, as we all learned in the last few years, has its downsides1.)

Questrade (like Wealthsimple) offers free trades of all ETFs. So it makes sense for me to go looking for ETFs that invest in safe havens. Here’s what I turned up for investments in Canadian dollars, based on some Google searches and some reading of similar questions posted in the public domain. Not all of them are what I would call “equivalent” to a HISA.

Fund SymbolFund CompanyWhat it invests inMERCurrent annual yield2Commentary
CASHGlobal X“high-interest deposit accounts with one or more Canadian chartered banks”0.11%2.68%This invests in the HISAs I currently invest in
CBILGlobal X“short-term Government of Canada T-Bills”0.11%2.88%Not a HISA but a safe investment
HISAEvolve“high-interest deposit accounts”0.15%2.71%Equivalent to CASH but with a higher MER
MCADEvolve“Canadian dollar high-quality short term debt securities (with a term to maturity of 365 days or less)”0.20%3.17%Very short term bond fund. 18% of holdings have due dates of less than 30 days
ZMMKBMO“high-quality money market instruments issued by governments and corporations in Canada, including treasury bills, bankers’ acceptances, and commercial paper. 0.13%3.6%Not a HISA but a very short term bond fund3. 31% of holdings have due dates of less than 30 days.
CAD ETF Candidates for investing Canadian dollars

Based on this quick analysis, ZMMK looks pretty attractive — a lot of very short term (and hence safer) debt as compared to MCAD, excellent returns. It is clearly a riskier investment than something like CASH or HISA. Between CASH and HISA I lean to smaller MERs every time, so CASH wins. CBIL might be a sort of happy middle ground…a T-Bill ought to be as good as a bank. All of these ETFs have a pretty stable NAV, either $50 or $100 per unit, so there should be little to worry about in terms of capital gains.

Since I hold a lot of USD, (not convinced this is a good idea), I need to do the same exercise for USD safe havens.

Fund SymbolFund CompanyWhat it invests inMERCurrent Annual Yield4Commentary
HISUEvolve“primarily in high interest US dollar deposit accounts”0.11%4.05%This invests in the HISAs I currently invest in
HSUVGlobal X“primarily in high interest U.S. dollar deposit accounts with Canadian banks…not currently expected to make any regular distributions”0.2%n/aGlobal X “corporate class” ETFs convert interest payments into capital gains. This sort of ETF makes sense in a non-registered account to minimize taxes.
ICSHBlackRock“broad range of short term U.S. dollar-denominated investment-grade fixed- and floating-rate debt securities and money market instruments”0.08%4.31%Not HISA but 46% is invested in debt with less than 30 days maturity
MUSDEvolve“primarily in U.S. dollar-denominated high-quality short term debt securities (with a term to maturity of 365 days or less).”0.20%3.49%Similar in strategy to ICSH, but only 20% in debt with 30 days maturity and only 40 holdings.
UCSHGlobal X“primarily invests in high-interest U.S. dollar deposit accounts, which provide a higher interest rate than a traditional USD savings account.”0.16%4.08%HISA-like, based on term deposits
USD ETF Candidates for investing US dollars

ICSH is the clear winner in terms of return, but, like ZMMK, a little riskier than a simple bank account. It has a nice broad portfolio (363 individual holdings) which makes it feel safer. HISU looks like the straight-up HISA replacement.

What ETFs do you use to park your cash? Let me know at comments@moneyengineer.ca.

  1. Excellent graphic of historical returns available at https://themeasureofaplan.com/investment-returns-by-asset-class/ ↩︎
  2. Take the latest monthly distribution, divide by the unit price, multiply by 12. If BoC holds their interest rates steady for the year, you could expect to achieve this rate for the next year. As of March 3, 2025. ↩︎
  3. “Commerical paper” refers to very short term debts, 30 days average maturity. Like a credit card debt, maybe. ↩︎
  4. US based funds like this one report a “30 day SEC yield”, it represents “interest earned after deducting the fund’s expenses during the most recent 30-day period by the average investor in the fund”. ↩︎

Changing your online broker: a guide

RobH7 Comments

I have succumbed to the offer of free money and am in the process of breaking up with QTrade in favor of Questrade1.

From https://www.questrade.com/about-us/programs-promotions on Feb 28, 2025

I had no illusions about making the switch; I knew it was going to be a bunch of work to get it done. But as a retiree with no other sources of income, I figured I could spare the time2.

Switching DIY brokers, on the face of it, isn’t terribly complicated:

  1. Create a login on the new provider
  2. Open appropriate accounts on the new provider
  3. Fill out transfer forms to move accounts with the former provider to the new provider
  4. Set up ways and means of moving money in/out of your new provider
  5. For RRIFs and TFSAs, make sure the successor/beneficiary information is accurate3.
  6. Wait for step 3 to complete
  7. Resume investing and/or decumulating

Here are the things I needed to complete each of the above tasks as I went through the process of opening ten (yes, 10!) accounts4 on Questrade.

Step 1: Creating the login(s)

You’ll want a unique and strong password to do that, and using a password keeper of some kind is the best way to do that. Most providers also offer (or require) two factor authentication, and they usually require a cell phone number 5that they can text. Do set that up at the same time, this stuff is important to protect as best as you can.

If your spouse is joining in on the fun, you’ll need a second login for that.

Step 2: Opening the accounts

There will be some series of provider-dependent steps you will need to go through to identify what kind of account you want, and who will own it. And in order to do that, you’re going to need to have a full understanding of what kind of accounts are at your old provider — what vehicle (e.g. RRIF, RRSP, TFSA) and what owner (me, my spouse, or joint) ?

The owner(s) of a given account are easy enough to determine if you refer to your (monthly, quarterly, annual) statements: the name of the owner will be right up on top. In the case of a joint account6, both of your names will be visible. I’m not aware of any way to change the ownership of an account in the process of a transfer.

This step will be rather tedious. Lots of repetitive form filling, and depending on the sophistication of your provider (and, I think, your province of residence matters), you may have to print (!) and sign — with a pen — documents. In my case, the amount of printing was minimal at this step because Questrade makes good use of DocuSign. But other providers may make you print/sign/take pictures/upload7 instead.

Step 3: Fill out transfer forms

There is usually some delay — a day or two — between step 2 and step 3 since there’s usually some sort of back-office approval process involved8. This will give you the time to make a list of all the account numbers associated with the existing accounts and their rough market value. You’ll need those for the forms.

For me, this step involved a lot of download/print/sign/take pictures/upload9. So make sure you have a working printer, sufficient paper, a way to get forms back to your computer, and patience.

You will have to make an important choice at this step: whether to move the funds as cash, or whether to move them in-kind. “Cash” means you’re authorizing the receiving institution to sell your stuff at your old provider before moving it10. “In-kind” means you’re wanting to keep exactly what’s in the old account already. You can also choose to do a partial transfer at this step, but that’s not something applicable to me.

I chose in-kind since I hate being in a cash position for any period of time. But if you hold GICs or mutual funds (I do not), you should really check to make sure you are able to move those in-kind; many providers have restrictions on that sort of thing.

After the fact, I discovered that Questrade does not support HISA accounts. I am hoping that this does not create unintended consequences or delays.

Step 4: Set up ways and means to move money in/out of your accounts

Different providers do this differently. In my experience, most support online bill pay to get money into the accounts (like, for example, to make a TFSA or RRSP contribution), and EFT to get money out (like, for example, a RRIF payment, something rather important to me).

To set up an EFT transfer, you’ll need your banking details (institution number, transit number, account number) and a void cheque. Most banks have a way to do this directly online, no need for an actual physical cheque, if anyone still uses those.

An increasing number of providers11 seem to support direct credential connection between their platform and your banking platform using a third party like Plaid. I freely admit this sort of thing gives me serious heebie-jeebies, and will default to using upload of void cheques whenever possible.

Step 5: Make sure successors and beneficiaries are named for RRIF/RRSP/TFSA accounts

This will make the life of your heirs much easier and deny the government some of the $$$ associated with estate administration fees since properly documented successors and beneficiaries are NOT considered part of the estate. Read all about it in my previous post.

Step 6: Wait

The claim I am getting from Questrade is to allow 20 days for assets to move. This seems totally ridiculous on the face of it. I’ll report back on how long it actually takes. 1-2 weeks is more typical in my limited experience.

While waiting, I’ll complete the forms to make sure I have trading authority over my spouse’s accounts. This should allow me to see all the accounts she owns from my login. This is handy, since I’m the one who does most of the mechanics of making this whole “getting paid in retirement” thing work.

Step 7: Resume investing/decumulating

After making sure everything moved from your old provider to your new provider, as expected, of course.

You’ll probably want to ask your new provider to refund you any transfer-out fees charged by the old provider at this step.

Given Questrade doesn’t support HISAs, I’ll have to find an ETF alternative, which, thankfully, are plentiful. Other than that, I’m not anticipating big changes in the portfolio or the approach.

At this point, I’ll also have to (probably) close out the QTrade accounts and figure out how I’ll get my tax slips from them next year.

All this probably took 8 hours over the course of a few days. So not a trivial amount of time, but the promotional bonus will make it worthwhile12.

  1. And while both brokers start with the letter “Q” and are frequently confused with one another, I can assure you they are different. ↩︎
  2. And the resultant hourly rate if all goes well is better than what I made when I was paid a salary… ↩︎
  3. I covered that topic in this post. ↩︎
  4. For me: Investment account, RRIF account, Spousal RRIF account, TFSA. Same for my spouse. And then there’s one more joint firewalled investment account that we use for VPW’s cash cushion. That retirement decumulation strategy was covered in a previous post. And a family RESP. ↩︎
  5. Not the most secure or even convenient option; Questrade also offered using a standalone app like Microsoft Authenticator, which made me happy. ↩︎
  6. Here I hit a bit of a wrinkle: QTrade has joint non-registered accounts, but Questrade only has joint non-registered margin accounts. I am hopeful (but unsure) that I can successfully transmogrify one to the other. ↩︎
  7. My workflow for this: take picture on iPhone, Airdrop to Macbook, convert .HEIC files to pdf (and possibly, re-export to reduce file size), upload. This step alone would defeat many folks. ↩︎
  8. In my case, TFSA/non-registered was almost immediate, but 2 days in, I’m still waiting for the RRIFs to be approved. There are some extra regulations involved with registered accounts, it seems. ↩︎
  9. This is probably dependent on both providers involved as well as the type of account involved. The RESP transfer requires some CRA form to be filled out. ↩︎
  10. Possibly attracting high transaction charges — you may want to liquidate the assets yourself instead. ↩︎
  11. Questrade and Wealthsimple to name two ↩︎
  12. Note to the political class — maybe it’s time to take a look at the regulations here to streamline this process? Eight hours of effort to change a provider does not seem like it’s in the consumer’s best interest ↩︎

Mini-Review: Fizz Mobile US Roaming Test

RobH1 Comment

I’ve been a Fizz Mobile user for a few months now, now that I have to pay for my own mobile phone plan. With Rogers, my 10G plan was something like $80/month ($10 of that to pay off the value of my iPhone SE1). I rarely used much more than 1G monthly (I am a habitual WiFi user), but Rogers kept throwing more data at me, so why not2?

Anyway, after a bit of research (and here https://www.planhub.ca/ontario was helpful), Fizz popped up to the head of the list. Fizz is owned by Quebecor/Videotron and is expanding throughout Canada (see their coverage map). They support physical SIM cards ($5, available at Circle K in Ontario, or, lately, via eSIM for free) and the migration from Rogers to Fizz was easy and quick. It goes without saying that I got to keep my phone number. And I got to cut my normal monthly spend to $20 for3 for Canada-wide calling, unlimited texting, and 3G of LTE 4data. What’s especially nice about Fizz’s data plan is that

  • Unused data rolls over
  • You can gift part of your unused data to a Fizz friend

Which seems very…um…fair5?

I ventured to the US this past week and instead of using my trusty Airolo eSIM, I chose instead a cheaper option: a data travel add-on for my Fizz account. Fizz offers better deals on roaming data in the US than even Airolo, which is a nice bonus. Airolo’s eSIMs have very limited time duration (7 days, 14 days, 30 days), but Fizz’s add-ons last throughout your current — and next — billing cycle, giving you up to 60 days with which to use your roaming data — even better, since I will make a return visit in the coming weeks…

Fizz’s travel add-ons are either data only, text only, or voice only. I typically use data-only, since I can use my free burner phone number from TextNow6 if I really need to send a text or have a traditional phone call. This means it’s not quite “roam like home”, but at a fraction of the cost, I’ll take it.

Anyway, I really have nothing to report. Everything just worked. I crossed the border, Waze navigation kept working, and I’m a happy camper. You can still receive SMS messages while roaming7, but you cannot send them8. I can’t tell you what happens if someone calls you since it didn’t happen while I was on the go.

If you want to give Fizz a whirl, using my referral code (INSWI) will net you (and me) some free $.

  1. As always, there’s no free lunch. ↩︎
  2. It’s not like they were going to LOWER my monthly fees or anything… ↩︎
  3. After buying out the rest of the cost of my phone, of course. ↩︎
  4. not 5G. Not a big deal to me. ↩︎
  5. It is difficult for me to write the word “fair” about anything involving carriers or banks, but I managed… ↩︎
  6. Free means ad-supported, a minor annoyance for having an actual phone number that works just fine over WiFi or cellular data services. ↩︎
  7. Handy since so many 2FA logins rely on SMS (sigh) ↩︎
  8. Unless you use the aforementioned burner phone app ↩︎

What’s the deal with AOA?

RobH4 Comments

As mentioned elsewhere, I rely heavily on all-in-one ETFs in my retirement portfolio. New to all-in-ones? Read a bit about them here.

Previously, I covered what’s in XGRO, which is an all-in-one you can purchase on the Canadian market. Because I also happen to have a lot of US dollar-based retirement savings, I have the majority of those funds invested in AOA. AOA is an 80/20 fund 1 offered by BlackRock. It seems that this sort of all-in-one is not as popular in the US as Canada, not sure why2. I see offerings from State Street that sound similar. BlackRock has other members of their asset allocation family with different equity percentages — there’s something for everyone!3

I thought it would be interesting to see what, exactly, is underneath every $100 you invest in AOA. So by reading AOA’s ETF description, following the ETF descriptions of what’s inside AOA, and doing a little math, I came up with the following breakdown4:

FundWhat is it?How much?Colour Commentary
IVV US stock coverage that tracks the S&P 500 Index, 500 of the largest US companies $46.44 of your $100 investment

(of which ~3$ is in each of Apple, Nvidia, and Microsoft, another $2 is in Amazon and Alphabet and $1 in each of Meta and Broadcom)		The Magnificent 7 and 493 other companies
IDEVBroad international (ex-US) developed market stock coverage that tracks the MSCI WORLD ex USA IMI Index, about 2250 companies $21.90 of your $100 investment

(of which SAP gets 29 cents ASML gets 28 cents…)		This also includes a tiny slice of Canada…top holding is RBC at 16 cents of your $100
IUSBBroad US Bond market exposure, about 16,000 bonds from government and corporate entities$16.37 of your $100 investment

(of which $6.29 is in US Treasury, $1.42 is in the Federal National Mortgage Association…)		12 month trailing yield is 4.07%, not too shabby
IEMG3500 or so international companies from emerging markets, following the MSCI Emerging Markets Investable Market Index $8.37 of your $100 investment

(of which 72 cents is in Taiwan Semi, 36 cents is in TenCent..) 		27% China, 19% Taiwan, 18% India, 10% South Korea…
IAGGAbout 5800 international bonds tracking the Bloomberg Global Aggregate ex USD 10% Issuer Capped (Hedged) Index5$2.83 of your $100 investment

(of which 5 cents is Chinese T-Bills)		Trailing 12 month yield = 4.27%, even less shbby
IJHUS Midmarket stocks that track the S&P MidCap 400 Index$2.67 of your $100 investment (of which 2 cents is in Williams Sonoma)21% Industrials, 18% Financials…
IJRUS Small Cap stocks that track the S&P SmallCap 600 Index $1.87 of your $100 investment
(largest holding is Hims Hers Health — 2 cents)		IJH+IJR+IVV is sort of similar to ITOT
Main components of AOA as of February 2025

Like XGRO, investing in an all-in-one like AOA provides you with exposure to a bunch of different asset types across many different geographies in one product, including all of the “hot” stocks you read about ad nauseam. Diversification under one banner.

The big difference from XGRO is the very tiny representation of Canada overall. I worked it out to about 2.5% of the overall number, which makes sense given the size of Canada on a global scale.

I came across the “Three Fund Portfolio” popularized by Bogleheads over 15 years ago. AOA and its family members is more or less that concept.

  1. Shorthand for “80% equity, 20% bonds”. There remains a lot of disagreement about the appropriate asset allocation, e.g. https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=210178 ↩︎
  2. Instead, I see a lot of “target date” retirement ETFs, which are in some ways similar, but lower the equity percentages as you get closer to the target date. ↩︎
  3. There’s also AOR (60% equity), AOM (40% Equity) and AOK (30% Equity) ↩︎
  4. Compare with the XGRO breakdown at https://moneyengineer.ca/2025/01/30/whats-the-deal-with-xgro/ ↩︎
  5. That’s a mouthful. ↩︎