Category: Audience

News: Canada and US both lower prime rate

RobH2 Comments

To the surprise of no one, both the Bank of Canada and the US Federal Reserve lowered their headline interest rate by 1/4 of a % (that’s 25 basis points if you want to be fancy about it).

Official statement from BoC sets the policy rate at 2.5%, down from 2.75%.

Official statement from the US Fed lowers the “target range for the federal funds rate by 1/4 of point”, which puts the range between 4.0% and 4.25%1

Anyway, to the DIY investor, this will no doubt lower the rates available by the HISA providers, last captured here. A quick spot check shows no change yet2, but that won’t last, I predict. The rates have now been lowered and I’ve updated the September table accordingly. The next meetings for these orgs happens at the end of October, so this means stability for the next 6 weeks on the interest rate front.

  1. why is it range? I have no idea. ↩︎
  2. insert joke about “banker’s hours” here ↩︎

News: Bread for Bread

RobHLeave a comment

“Bread” is apparently1 common slang for “money”, although it’s a word you won’t hear me use in that context.2 Anyway, in case you missed the news, Loblaws and Weston conspired to fix bread prices, were caught, and now Canadian adults who bought bread between 2001 and 2021 are eligible for up to $25 in free money. I figure that’s about one loaf of bread for every 2.5 years3 the conspiracy lasted.

The claim is easy to submit; the hourly rate if you get the full amount is rather decent. (And I would suggest you set up autodeposit for e-Transfers if you haven’t already done so).

Go and submit your claim over at https://www.canadianbreadsettlement.ca/. You have until December 12, 2025.

  1. https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang-terms-for-money/#:~:text=least%20the%201990s.-,bread,-The%20word%20bread ↩︎
  2. I prefer “dosh” ↩︎
  3. There’s a lot of choice at various price points over at https://www.loblaws.ca/en/food/bakery/bread/c/28251 ↩︎

News: Upcoming changes to S&P 500, S&P/TSX Composite

RobH1 Comment

As a dedicated low-fee ETF investor (new to ETFs? read more here), most of my holdings are actually tied up in various index funds; as of right now about 26% of my retirement savings are tied up in the S&P 5001 (largely by holding AOA and XGRO, two of my ETF all-stars), and another 11% are tied up in the S&P/TSX capped composite2 (a lot of which is due to holding XGRO)3.

Beyond making sure I keep my asset allocations in line (read more about that concept here), there’s not much to do. But this doesn’t mean that what I ultimately hold isn’t always changing!

I was reminded of that fact when I noted the latest announcements from S&P, who on a quarterly basis, rejig their indices to add new stocks and drop others. It’s not something I’ve typically paid any attention to, but I share it with you because I found it interesting.

S&P 500: AppLovin, Robinhood & Emcor added, MarketAxxess, Caesars and Enphase deleted

Effective, September 22, 2025 per the press release.

Newly added: AppLovin seems to deal in the world of online advertising, Robinhood is a notorious4 online broker, and Emcor looks to be a construction company.

Newly booted: Marketaxess sells a platform to financial services companies, Caesars operates casinos, and Enphase is a solar energy product company5.

S&P/TSX Composite6: 5 added, 2 deleted

Effective September 22, 2025 per the press release.

Newly added: Aris, Discovery, Perpetua and Skeena who are all involved with precious metals production7 and Curaleaf which is a weed dispenser.

Newly deleted: Enghouse (software and services, based in Markham) and Pason (products and services for oil and gas based in Calgary).

If ever you want to see what’s in either of these indicies, then check out this chart for the S&P 500 and this chart for the TSX composite.

  1. You can read about this index right from the source if you like. ↩︎
  2. There’s another 6% in the S&P/TSX60 index, which are the 60 largest Canadian firms. The 10 year return of these two indicies is nearly identical — 7.98% for the capped, 8.06% for the TSX 60. You can read about the capped composite here. ↩︎
  3. You may wonder where the rest of holdings are. There’s 15% in various bond indices, 5% in cash, and the rest are in an assortment of international indices (largest are MSCI World ex-US at 10% and MSCI EAFE IMI at around 5%) and lesser-known US/Canadian indicies (like FTSE all-cap Canada or S&P total market US). In the Canada/US case, I’m rather certain that an all-cap index has a very high correlation with the large-cap indices; I could have bundled it all together I suppose. ↩︎
  4. Notorious because they are associated with meme stocks. ↩︎
  5. It’s probably not a good time for any US company in the renewables business, sadly. ↩︎
  6. I wondered when the last change to the TSX 60 was. I couldn’t find one after September 2019! ↩︎
  7. Perhaps a “why I don’t need to buy gold bars from Costco” comment is apropos here ↩︎

How to share an RESP among multiple kids

RobHLeave a comment

In a previous post, I shared my approach for investing in an RESP, and I promised I’d show you how I share the funds therein between my kids.

To me, it didn’t seem fair to split the cash value of the RESP between the kids. My kids (I have two) started higher education at different times, years apart, and so needed the money at different times. The investments in the RESP continue to grow even after decumulation begins, so how to account for that?

The way I track it is in this Google Sheet.

The idea behind it is pretty simple. You create a “mutual fund” on the day the first withdrawal happens with a fixed number of units. (I used 1 unit = $1, but you could set your unit value to whatever you like). Then, each child (if you want to be fair) gets the SAME number of units on that day. Children sell their units as they request money from the RESP. The unit price fluctuates depending on the value of the RESP overall.

So say you have a $10000 RESP divided among 4 kids. On launch day, you create the fund and create 10000 units, each priced at $1. You give each of your 4 kids 2500 units on that day. On that day, that means they also each have $2500.

Kid #1 needs $5000 for tuition, and this means they spend 5000 units. That’s row 17 in the example sheet.

Time passes, and Kid 1 needs more money. The wisely-invested RESP continues to grow, and has nearly made back all the money that was removed from it, valued on December 1 at $99,800, which is entered in column B. The unit price has increased as a result, from $1 to $1.05 (that’s an automatic calculation).

So Kid 1 has 20,000 units, each worth $1.05. The other kids still have all 25000 units, but they are now worth more money, $1.05*25000 =$26,250.00. Kid 1’s $3000 request costs 2885 units thanks to the growth, and Kid 1’s unit balance is updated accordingly.

This continues on, and all you need to do is fill down more rows as you need them, entering the values in the yellow cells yourself. You can even withdraw for multiple kids on the same date.

I’ve been running our family RESP fund since August 2018; unit price was $1. I just completed a transaction for kid #2, and the unit value was $1.46. The last two years have been exceptionally kind to this fund.

If you have questions or comments on this method, hit me up at comments@moneyengineer.ca!

HISA and HISA-like ETF Table for September 2025

RobH3 Comments

HISAs, for those in the know1, are “High Interest Savings Accounts” and offer a nearly zero risk, highly liquid2, way to earn some interest on your cash holdings. If your broker doesn’t give you access to HISAs (or you have to pay large transaction fees to acquire them3), then there’s also ETFs that fit the bill, and some of them are now in this table, too.

ProviderFundLinkRate SheetRate
RBCRBF2011, RBF2021, RBF2031, RBF2041RBCLink2.30%
ScotiabankDYN6004, DYN5004, DYN3065, DYN3055, DYN3075ScotiabankLink2.45%
Equitable BankEQB1001, ETR1001Equitable Bankn/a2.30%
TDTDB8151, TDB8156, TDB8158, TDB8160TDn/a2.30%
RenaissanceATL5071Renaissancen/a2.30%
Home TrustHOM101,
HOM201		Home TrustLink2.40%
B2BBTB101B2B Bankn/a2.40%
ManulifeMIP610, MIP810Manulifen/a2.15%
National BankNBC200, NBC6200, NBC8200NBI Altamira CashPerformern/a2.30%
Global XCASHCASH Fact Sheetn/a2.55%4
EvolveHISAHISA Fact Sheetn/a2.45%5
BMOZMMKZMMK Fact Sheetn/a2.76%6
Canadian HISA and HISA-like ETF rates, last updated September 24, 2025

As both Canada and the US lowered their policy rates last week, the interest rates you see here are lower than what you could get last month7. US rates remain quite a bit higher than Canadian rates, which I took advantage of recently.

CASH and HISA are ETFs that hold HISAs; I’d expect their rates to drift lower next month. ZMMK is a very short-term bond fund that carries more risk than a HISA, but gives a slightly better return as a result. ZMMK appears in my ETF All-Stars list.

Since I hold a substantial amount of USD-denominated ETFs, I also track US interest rates.

ProviderFundLinkRate SheetRate
RBCRBF2015RBCLink3.90%
ScotiabankDYN6005,
DYN5005		ScotiabankLink3.90%
Equitable BankEQB1101,
ETR1101		Equitable Bankn/a3.80%
TDTDB8153TDn/a3.90%
RenaissanceATL5075Renaissancen/a3.90%
ManulifeMIP611Manulifen/a3.05%
National BankNBC201NBI Altamira CashPerformern/a3.90%
Global XUCSHUCSH Fact Sheetn/a4.18%8
EvolveHISUHISU Fact Sheetn/a3.99%9
iSharesICSHICSH Fact Sheetn/a4.53%10
USA HISA and HISA-like ETF rates, last updated September 24, 2025

UCSH and HISU invest in HISAs exclusively; I instead use ICSH which is a rough equivalent of ZMMK in terms of portfolio makeup. Like ZMMK, I enjoy a slight premium in yield as a reward for taking a bit more risk.

  1. You can read an intro over at Earn money with your cash: The HISA table February 2025 ↩︎
  2. I don’t like GICs for this reason. And they tend to not be very portable between brokers, either. ↩︎
  3. For example, Questrade, my current go-to broker. ↩︎
  4. As of August 29 distribution. ↩︎
  5. As of August 27 distribution ↩︎
  6. As of August 28 distribution ↩︎
  7. Except for the ETFs I track…they are a bit more volatile month to month, which makes sense given what they hold. ↩︎
  8. As of August 29 distribution ↩︎
  9. As of August 27 distribution ↩︎
  10. As of September 2 distribution ↩︎