Right after the final, final deadline of Wealthsimple’s last free money offer, it appears that Wealthsimple is now offering spousal RRIFs as an account type for the DIY investor (they’ve had them for quite a while in their robo-advisor accounts).
This had always struck me as silly, especially since they have offered spousal RRSPs for a while now.
With this development, Wealthsimple is nearly a viable option to host all of my retirement funds1. My needs are pretty simple:
support for all the account types I need (RRIF/Spousal RRIF, TFSA, joint non-registered, individual non-registered)
zero cost ETF buy/sell
support for Norbert’s Gambit (which implies support for USD accounts, naturally)
Norbert’s Gambit is planned in early 2026 for Wealthsimple, per the very limited info found here.
So, if you’ve been on the fence about Wealthsimple, here’s one more reason to consider them. Once Questrade’s free money gravy train ends for me in March 2027, they become a personal serious contender, especially if they are willing to throw free money my way, which, historically, has certainly been a recurring theme. On that note, if any reader wants to give them a whirl, I have referral codes, just shoot me a note at comments@moneyengineer.ca; if you act quickly2, there might be some free Apple gear in it for you too.
QTrade and Questrade both offer all three. There may be others. ↩︎
Online brokers are busily throwing money around to attract new customers; a quick search reveals many active promotions as I write this from Webull Canada, RBC, TD, QTrade, Wealthsimple….All of it has a bit of “if this seems too good to be true, it probably is” flavour to it.
I asked this same question on Reddit and the consensus seemed to be that this is the new normal in the online brokerage world, just like it’s normal for telcos/cablecos/ISPs to throw around big discounts in order to steal customers from one another.
But yet, I feel a little uneasy how money for nothing has become the norm. For DIY investors like me, it’s hard to see how my providers make any money off of me. I did a bit of research into the best proxy I could think of…Robinhood.
As I mentioned in a previous post, Robinhood is now part of the S&P 500 lineup; this is no fly-by-night company. Their quarterly results are public, and it was quite illuminating. Robinhood’s most recent quarter’s results are shown below.
So it looks pretty straightforward; revenue is coming from three sources, and their average revenue per user (ARPU) is a pretty healthy $151 dollars. Let’s look a bit further:
Transactions: Options trading and Crypto trading make up the bulk of the revenues here, but roughly 15% of their transaction revenue comes from basic equity trades ($66M in Q2’25).
Interest: a large chunk of this is interest made from margin ($114M in Q2’25), but a growing percentage comes from credit card interest charges.
“Other”: not elaborated further, but it’s small, so we can ignore it. Perhaps this accounts for the revenue from their 3.5M “Robinhood Gold” subscribers1
The transaction revenue was surprising to me since equity trades are free on Robinhood, yet they are still finding a way to make money. Further reading indicates that the exchanges are sharing some of their bid/ask spread revenue with Robinhood, which seems like a win/win/win: Robinhood makes a tiny bit of revenue on each trade, the exchange gets more volume which allows them to make more spread revenue, and the customer gets free trades2.
So, assuming the Wealthsimples and Questrades of the world are following Robinhood’s lead, they are making money off of me every time I place a trade. (Sorry, I don’t trade options, I don’t trade crypto, I don’t trade on margin, and I don’t run a balance on any credit card I use). Since switching to Questrade (and getting free trades) I can tell you that my own behaviour has changed; I have always hated seeing non-productive cash in any of my accounts, and so with free trades, I can freely buy one share of something to clean up the last dribs of cash I may have in any given account. My “getting paid in retirement” strategy also requires a monthly flurry of trades (see the details here).
All this to say I feel less uneasy about the free money being thrown around; Canada’s online brokerage community seems to be following a successful playbook:
Get lots of customers, even if you have to pay them to get on board
Expand your offers, especially profitable offers, and entice as many of your army of fans to use them (crypto, margin trading, options trading, credit cards, subscription offers)
Invest just enough in your platform to not lose too many clients; switching online providers can take a lot of work (I know, I did it: read more here)
So my advice is to absolutely take advantage of the free money out there and enjoy the gravy!
Perhaps serving as the inspiration for Questrade Plus? ↩︎
What seems to be normal nowadays is to have online brokers write cheques to investors in an attempt to attract new money. I wrote about Wealthsimple’s latest offer yesterday, and now I see that QTrade is the latest broker to try to entice investors to move their money. I’ve been a QTrade client for many years (you can read my take on them here), but this year moved most of my holdings to Questrade1 (my take here).
Anyway, the maximum possible free money you can earn is $2000 with this latest QTrade promotion. All the details are captured here, and the fine print is found here.
I’ll save you the trouble, the details as I see them:
To be eligible, you can be a new or existing client, but you have to open a new account23 with QTrade before November 30, 2025 using the promo code QTRADE20254
Fund your account5before the end of the year to be eligible for your free money
5% matching on the first $15k (total possible: $750)
1% matching on the next $125k (total possible: $1250)
No matching after that (i.e. the total reward is capped at $2000)
Keep your money there until December 31, 2026 and get paid in a lump sum in February 20276.
If you’re also a new client, you get free trades7 until the end of the year
Comparing Wealthsimple’s latest offer to QTrade’s offer might be fun. In the table below, I’m ignoring the margin account bonus offered by Wealthsimple and the impact of free trades offered by QTrade8.
QTrade’s offer is the clear winner for amounts up to $200k, but Wealthsimple wins if you’ve got more loose change. One big difference is how fast you get your hands on the bonus money. Wealthsimple starts paying out 1/12 of your bonus 60 days after the money lands, whereas QTrade makes you wait a whole year (and then some) before giving you the money.
As a certified cheapskate, I’m always happy to take advantage of free money, and more and more providers13 seem to be taking this route in an effort to attract new customers. It’s a good time to be a DIY investor!
To take advantage of THEIR free money offer, naturally ↩︎
My interpretation of the Ts and Cs is that opening multiple accounts will NOT increase your ability to collect free money. The limit is $2000 per client, across all new accounts opened by that client ↩︎
There’s no restrictions that I see on the type of account. QTrade provides all of the ones you might care about: TFSAs, RRSPs, RRIFs, RESPs, non-registered. They also support USD accounts. ↩︎
Speaking as a current QTrade client, opening a new account takes only a minute or two. I would expect it take a little longer for a new client, but this step needn’t dissuade you. ↩︎
Has to be “net new” money, so my thought of shifting from one account to another isn’t eligible. Darn. ↩︎
Paying out bonuses month by month seems to be a more common way of doing this, but to each his own I guess. ↩︎
It’s probably not news to most of you that charitable giving in Canada attracts tax breaks that reduce your tax owing to the CRA. It’s a nice deal — support the causes that are meaningful to you while saving a bit of tax owed.
But for those of you with non-registered accounts holding stocks and ETFs, did you know there’s even a better option that can save you even more tax? By donating shares in-kind to your chosen charity, you get the same donation credit AND you avoid paying capital gains tax on the shares donated!
The differences can be sizeable depending on the unrealized capital gains you have in your portfolio.
Here’s a quick example: let’s say I bought $10,000 of XGRO1 5 years ago in my non-registered account. Per this dividend calculator featured in “Tools I Use” I see that it’s currently2 worth $15,850.
Say I want to donate $1000 to a charity — selling $1000 of XGRO today would generate a capital gain of $369. That’s taxable at 22.48% marginal rate in Ontario in 20253, so I have to pay an additional $83 in taxes4.
If I instead donate the shares in kind to the charity, I pay nothing on the capital gain, and I keep $83 either for me, or for additional charitable works.
So how do you do this? Well, it will depend on the online broker you deal with, but generally the steps are something like:
Let the charity know you’re intending to do this. Larger charities will have a published process, for example the Ottawa Food Bank’s is here5. Smaller charities can still benefit if you use a service like CanadaHelps6.
Let your broker know your intent. Every broker will have a different process, usually including some kind of form. Here’s some examples I found:7
And that’s it. The receiving charity will issue a donation receipt reflecting the market value of the donated securities for your tax filing. The nullification of the capital gain is done using form T11708 when it comes time to file your taxes.
I plan to do this more systematically for the charities I support; it’s admittedly a bit more effort than automated contributions. Since Questrade (my current broker) charges me $25 every time I do this, I’ll have to be a bit more strategic about amounts and timing.
XGRO is a significant part of my portfolio, and as such it is included in my ETF all-stars page. What is also true is that I don’t hold much of it in my non-registered portfolio, but that’s just a historical investing habits showing up. ↩︎
5 year return, WITHOUT dividends reinvested as of July 17, 2025. Not reinvesting the dividends means my cost base is clearly $10k, useful for the example that follows. ↩︎
Per https://www.taxtips.ca/taxrates/on.htm for taxable income between $114k and $150k. Don’t forget that capital gains are only taxed at 50% of the value of the gain. ↩︎
Ignoring the tax savings generated by the charitable donation in the first place since that’s the same in both scenarios. ↩︎
Googling “donate securities” <charity name> is helpful ↩︎
They do keep a portion of the donation to offset their expenses, so it may not be a good idea for small donations. ↩︎
Sorry Scotia iTrade users, I did my best but could not find their form. Let me know if it’s available somewhere and I’ll update. I’ve successfully used the process with both BMO and QTrade. ↩︎
i’m not an accountant. Consult a professional if you have concerns. ↩︎
DIY investing also means DIY decumulation. I recently completed a change in online broker from QTrade to Questrade and this is how I get paid in retirement; I’ll refer to the letters in the diagram below so you can follow along.
How I get paid, April 2025
A: QTrade? What?
I know I started by saying I completed the transfer from QTrade to Questrade, but due to an unexpected snag, I still have 4 accounts with QTrade which are currently paying a monthly obligatory RRIF-minimum contribution to my salary. I talked about the snag here, but suffice it to say I could have moved these accounts too, but at the expense of foregoing monthly payouts for the remainder of 2025, which I didn’t think was worth it.
Next year, those accounts will disappear and Questrade will handle the RRIF minimum payments.
B: Yes, there are multiple RRIF accounts
When I started the paperwork to open RRIF accounts, I was surprised that the same choices were offered as were offered for RRSPs — individual and spousal. I’m sure that some of the reason is due to the attribution rules for spousal RRIFs, but anyway, there are 4 RRIF accounts generating 4 individual payouts every month. This is automatic, so I have to make sure that there is cash available in the 4 accounts each month, or else my provider will happily charge me an arm and a leg1 to do the necessary asset sale.
The asset sale takes a few seconds; and with T+1 settlement, the cash is available the next day. Right now I try to do all my moves on the 22nd of the month, but admittedly, this is more time than strictly necessary.
C: Opening the RRIF account includes providing your banking information
I don’t know whether there is any provider out there who permits RRIF payments to be paid to a non-registered account, but so far it seems that they all prefer to make EFTs into a bank account. That’s not a problem for me but this may not be what you’re expecting. The money just shows up like a paycheque on or near the last day of the month.
D/E: The sum of all RRIF payments isn’t enough to fund my desired lifestyle
I’m withdrawing RRIF minimum payments and funding the rest of my monthly paycheque by liquidating assets held in my non-registered account. Another approach would be to increase the RRIF payments, but then that attracts withholding tax, which I hate. The monthly liquidation of assets in my non-registered account generates taxable capital gains each time, naturally. The advice I got from my retirement planner suggested I should be able to maintain an overall 15% tax rate by making sure that I have a mix of favorable taxable income (capital gains and dividends) along with the unfavorable2 RRIF income.
I keep an eye on my 2025 tax bill by using the tax calculator I mention on https://moneyengineer.ca/tools-i-use/. I can always choose to switch gears if needed.
In Questrade, movements of cash are done from their aptly-named “Move Money” menu. Setting up your bank account in Questrade was a bit clunky3 and relied on some app like Plaid to get the job done. Moving funds in this way isn’t instant, expect a delay of at least two business days in each case.
Another oddity with Questrade is that any joint non-registered account is set up as a margin account, which means it’s shockingly easy to borrow money you don’t have4.
One unknown with Questrade — I was able to move money instantly after an asset sale. It’s not clear to me whether this uses margin or not5. I’ll know more once I get my April statement, I guess. If I get charged margin interest, I’ll have to hold off moving money until the day after the asset sale.
F: Variable Percentage Withdrawal (VPW) requires the use of a cash cushion
I described the methodology I use to calculate my take-home pay in a previous post, but in essence my salary is related to my real-time net worth, filtered through a 6-month moving average so an anomalous month on the stock market doesn’t impact my take-home pay quite so quickly. VPW makes a “suggestion”, this suggestion is added to the cash cushion, divide by 6, and presto, the “suggestion” is converted to a monthly “salary”.
In any given month, the cash cushion is either being augmented by the sale of some assets in my non-registered account (the suggestion is larger than the salary), or the cash cushion is being depleted to make up the shortfall in my calculated salary (the suggestion is less than the salary). All of those movements are manual. Transferring cash between non-registered accounts is supported by Questrade, but it wasn’t supported by QTrade6.
All in all, this process should take less than 15 minutes a month. The first time included a learning curve and extra setup, but now that pre-work is done. Next step is making sure my spouse knows how to do this, too!
Unfavorable because it’s treated as straight income, and since RRIF-minimum, no witholding tax. I’m expecting a decent tax bill come April next year. ↩︎
Bank accounts showed up in my mobile app but not on the web portal. To get them to show up there I had to set up my account — again — and successfully transfer a nominal amount. Only then would the web app remember my bank accounts. ↩︎
Which I inadvertently did, paying myself from the wrong non-registered account. Sigh. ↩︎
Since the transfer isn’t instantaneous, and since the cash really is available the day after, one could make the case that this doesn’t require margin. But I really have no idea. ↩︎
For QTrade I had to use my bank account to get around this restriction. ↩︎
The Money Engineer 