Author: RobH

Doug Dollars for the Dead?

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I’m the executor for my Mom’s estate (she died about a year ago). On Friday last week, I got a cheque in her name1 from the Government of Ontario. Premier Ford’s handiwork, it seems. My Mom’s estate just got $200 richer.

Anyway, per this Star article, it seems like I’m not the only one. And, apparently, the right thing to do is to deposit the cheque, thus adding it to the estate — which I will do, once I pay a visit to my local branch2.

  1. Not “The Estate of” which is a sign that the sender is working from less-than-current information. ↩︎
  2. All transactions involving an estate require a physical visit to a bank branch. As an online native, I find this confounding, perplexing and irritating. ↩︎

What broker(s) do you deal with?

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I hang out a bit on Reddit1 to see what people are talking about. Often times, the post reads something like

“I am new to investing, I have $x to invest, who should I use ?”.

The crux of every 5th question posted to r/PersonalFinanceCanada

Personally, I find this kind of question a bit odd. “Investing” is a noble pursuit but it’s a term that means a lot of things to a lot of people. For me, “investing” is reserved for retirement savings since the timelines are long and I don’t need immediate access to the funds therein. A lot of people who ask this question want very near term access to the money, and to me that’s not investing. It’s saving. Timeline matters. The answer I’d give to a saver2 is a lot different than the answer I’d give to an investor.

I suppose the amount of money involved may influence the decision of platform provider (especially if there are freebies associated with having a balance above a certain amount, a common-enough practice), but it’s not the first thing I’d have in mind. Here are the main things I think about when it comes to choosing a financial provider, either for the first time, or if you’re thinking about making a change.

Does the provider have the account types you want?

Any provider I use has to offer Investment accounts, RESP, TFSA, RRIFs and spousal RRIFs. USD options for Investment accounts and RRIFs would be useful to me as well. Your own circumstances will offer up a different list. But don’t dismiss the RRIF if you’re nearing retirement. You may want one sooner than you think!

Does the provider have the products you want?

My needs here are really simple. I need access to trade a handful of ETFs on the US and Canadian markets, and I need a way to get a good interest rate on cash holdings. My assumption is that every major provider has a way to accomplish this. I don’t need access to bond markets3, options trading, fractional trading, margin trading or crypto. You might.

What fees that matter to you are charged by the provider?

The list of fees for any provider can get pretty long, but I only consider the things that impact me in my normal usage of the platform. The things I look for and expect are:

  • They don’t charge anything for “account maintenance”
  • The don’t charge fees for trading the ETFs I care about4
  • They need to offer a way to access daily interest rates in the neighborhood of the Bank of Canada overnight rates (some do this by paying good rates on any cash lying around your accounts, some do this by offering access to purchase HISAs, and as a last resort, there are ETFs that buy HISAs, too5)
  • They need a “much more generous than the bank”6 way of doing forex7

I’ve used QTrade8 as my main provider for the last 15 years or so. They offer the things I need. But for the first time, I’m seriously considering making a switch to Wealthsimple9. I’m test driving them now with part of my retirement portfolio, but I’ve found at least one show-stopper that make them unsuitable for me — they don’t offer spousal RRIFs10 in their self-directed product offering!

Switching providers can be quite onerous, so it’s not something I take lightly, especially since my holdings are paying my monthly salary! The DIY market is getting more competitive, so it can pay to take a look around. What do you like/dislike about your current provider? Drop me a line at comments@moneyengineer.ca.

  1. Specifically, r/PersonalFinanceCanada mostly ↩︎
  2. Put your money in the highest interest rate savings account you can find, or buy a GIC. ↩︎
  3. Beyond bond ETFs. I don’t need to own individual bonds. ↩︎
  4. Had I written this phrase 5 years ago, I would have said “low fees”. However, in today’s competitive landscape, many brokers charge nothing to buy and/or sell ETFs. If yours does, maybe it’s time to take a look around. ↩︎
  5. e.g. CASH by GlobalX, HISA by Evolve ↩︎
  6. Most banks happily tack on 1.5% to spot rates on currency exchanges, just like most credit cards do ↩︎
  7. Norbert’s gambit would apply here, although it’s somewhat cumbersome. I’ll cover forex in some future post. ↩︎
  8. But I’m also somewhat familiar with BMO Investorline, Interactive Brokers and Wealthsimple. ↩︎
  9. Free ETF trading, good interest rates for cash holdings, just-launched zero fee FX transactions for amounts over $100k, and their currently running promo are all rather attractive features. ↩︎
  10. And, as I write this, I get a friendly email from Wealthsimple support confirming this, with a promise to let the development team know about it. ↩︎

Roaming: Is your provider ripping you off?

RobH1 Comment

I’ve been using cell phones1 since their early days2, and the one thing I hate more than bank fees is carrier fees. In bygone days, every US vacation we took involved a trip to the ATT or T-Mobile shop for a cheap travel SIM. All this to say it’s been ingrained in me to make unusual communications preparations in advance of travel.

Back in my working days3 I had a company-reimbursed cell phone plan4 with Rogers. My job involved travel now and again, usually to the USA. And I usually made use of Rogers’ “Roam Like Home” feature. When this feature was first introduced, it was pretty innovative; before it existed, you normally had to contact the carrier to temporarily add roaming to your plan, which was a hassle. The idea behind Roam Like Home was attractive. It was automatic, it allowed you to use your phone in exactly the same way (no need to keep track of your “roaming minutes” or “roaming data usage”)5. And, at launch, it was a reasonably priced, at $5/day for US roaming. As most of my travel was of the day or two variety, this seemed like a perfect fit for the business traveler.

But surprise, surprise, Rogers got greedy. As a shareholder6, I approve, but as a user, their now $12/day charge is nothing short of robbery.

And that’s when I discovered the world of travel eSIMs. An eSIM allows you to install a 2nd, virtual SIM card in your phone so you can benefit from MUCH cheaper roaming rates. I’ve been a long time user of Airalo for my travel eSIMs. And a quick look at the prices will show you why. The $12 Rogers charges me daily would pay for two weeks of typical US travel using Airalo.

Like all things, there’s no free lunch here. A few warnings that may make eSIMs not for you:

  • Your phone has to support eSIM technology. Most phones purchased in the last 5 years do. But do check.
  • The very cheapest eSIMs don’t support voice calling or SMS. Just data7. So if talking on your phone is important, then make sure your eSIM supports voice8. With the plethora of apps that allow texting and voice (WhatsApp, Messenger, Signal, Facetime) and the prevalence of free apps like TextNow, my world hardly ever needs voice or SMS, at least not with friend groups. YMMV.
  • Setting up an eSIM can be a little intimidating the first time; the instructions are clear enough, but you do have to mess around a bit in settings menus you may not be very familiar with

I’ve used Airalo successfully on multiple US trips, in Europe (Germany, Switzerland), and in Asia (Hong Kong, Thailand). Never had a problem.

Airalo isn’t the only one out there, it’s just the only one I’ve personally used. Their focus is more on short-term travel needs with plans as short as 7 days. An alternative provider my trusted neighbour Steven swears by is eskimo. Their focus is on bulk, so if you frequently travel to the same place, it may be a better choice for you.

If you want to give Airalo a spin, mentioning my referral code will get you $4.50: ROB1033.

  1. AKA mobile phone, smart phone, handy ↩︎
  2. And in my very first use of same, the first words I uttered, with no small amount of delight, from a bag phone (remember those?) were “Guess where I’m calling from?” ↩︎
  3. Which ended last month, just to be clear. ↩︎
  4. My current provider now that I’m paying the bills is Fizz, Videotron’s low-cost carrier. So far, so good. My referrer code on Fizz is INSWI, in case you want to get some free cash 🙂 ↩︎
  5. It was not uncommon in those days to hear a tale of woe involving a roaming charge of several hundred dollars charged to a less-attentive traveler. ↩︎
  6. I own Rogers via XGRO since it’s part of the S&P/TSX 60 ↩︎
  7. Be very careful, Apple iOS users. The Messages app is either SMS or a data service, depending on the colour of your bubbles. Blue bubbles — it’s a data service, green bubbles means it’s an SMS. ↩︎
  8. But again, careful. An eSIM with voice comes with its own phone number. That’s fine if you’re the one making calls, but not if you’re the one expecting to be reachable on your usual phone number. An answered inbound call is roaming, I’m afraid. ↩︎

Cheapskate Computing with ChromeOS Flex

RobHLeave a comment

I am writing this blog entry from a Acer Aspire 1551, released about 15 years ago, a time when Windows 7 was the state-of-the-art PC OS. When I took this laptop out of the closet, it had Windows 10 on it, and was essentially unusable because the poor CPU1 just couldn’t eke out enough hamster-wheel turns to make it go. It looked like it was headed to the great bit bucket in the sky2. This caused me a bit of pain, since, after all, I had paid good money for that laptop3.

But then I discovered ChromeOS Flex.45 It seems capable of turning just about any old hardware (PC or Mac, I’ve done both) into something quite usable, if not terribly feature-rich6. Simply put, it’s the operating system used on Chromebooks that have been widely deployed to students everywhere.

And installing it really is quite easy. You just need a USB stick, some other internet-connected computer, and about 30 minutes7 to complete an installation. You can test-drive an installation before committing, too, since you can boot right from the USB stick. All the steps are outlined here.

The result is (more or less) a Chromebook with support for a modern browser (Chrome). And since I write this blog using WordPress, all the tools I need to build this site are accessible from that browser. And of course with Google Sheets, Google Docs and Google Slides (all quite feature-rich from the browser), I have no need for Microsoft Office, either8.

The only investment I made (and even this probably wasn’t strictly necessary) was to purchase a new SSD to replace the creaky old spinning hard drive in the original model. Total cost: $30. The keyboard and mouse are from Value Village9 (about $10 total) and the external monitor I had lying around.

So what’s a ChromeOS Flex machine good for? Off the top of my head,

  • Writing a blog
  • Inexpensive bare-bones laptop to take when traveling
  • Simple laptop/desktop for a favorite relative

If you want to breathe new life into old hardware, then I declare Chrome OS Flex cheapskate-approved. You can see it in action, below:

The Money Engineer’s Retro-Tech Design Environment
  1. An AMD Athlon II Neo X2 K325, no less. I think it had a flux capacitor. ↩︎
  2. City of Ottawa has alternatives: https://ottawa.ca/en/garbage-and-recycling/recycling/waste-explorer ↩︎
  3. The cheapskate refrain! ↩︎
  4. There are of course a plethora of Linux distributions out there for the more adventuresome and/or those with a lot more time on their hands. I’ve played around with a bunch of those, too. But ChromeOS Flex is the simplest installation experience I’ve experienced on a range of computers. On some computers, you can actually get a working Linux shell underneath ChromeOS Flex. ↩︎
  5. “Chrome OS” is what Chromebooks run. “Chrome OS Flex” is what I’m talking about. Similar, but different. Google carefully. ↩︎
  6. You’re probably not editing your Hollywood movie on a Chrome OS Flex machine. ↩︎
  7. Google’s instructions say 5. I think it took me that long to remember how to get into the BIOS so I could boot from the USB stick. ↩︎
  8. Full disclosure, I own shares in Alphabet, Microsoft and 10000 other companies. ↩︎
  9. A most excellent place to get vintage hardware. ↩︎