Canadian Capitalist

A column in last weekend’s Globe and Mail implores readers to stop procrastinating and start saving money as soon as possible. A typical example is provided to show the power of compounding: Mr. Early invests $5,000 every year for 10 years and ends up with a larger nest egg compared to Mr. Late who started [...]

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A post on Sitting Pretty reminded me of an old post on saving on groceries by avoiding wastage. To recap, many studies have shown the American households waste an average of 14% of their food purchases, worth about $590 every year. I am guessing that Canadians waste a similar amount of food and our household [...]

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It is amazing how competitive the online high interest savings account marketplace has become. The Financial Post reported the other day that even mighty Wal-Mart is planning to enter the crowded field. Here’s a long list of places where you can now park your cash:

ING Direct: The pioneer in online savings account no longer offers [...]

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According to Statistics Canada, 6.1 million taxpayers contributed an average of $5,016 to a RRSP in 2005. The median contribution was $2,630. Despite cheery headlines (”RRSP Contributions reach all-time high”), taxpayers used up a mere 7% of available contribution room.
Statistics Canada also reported that 7.8 million taxpayers reported an average of $4,423 in investment income [...]

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There is little concrete information on what tax measures we can look forward to in the next budget in the fiscal update that the Tories tabled in Parliament today. The finance minister updated the estimate for the 2006-07 federal surplus to $4.2 billion, compared to the previous estimate of $3.6 billion.
Mr. Jim Flaherty also said [...]

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E*Trade Canada has announced that it will be offering an online high-interest savings account offering 4.15% for Canadian dollar accounts and 4.75% for U.S. dollar accounts. The accounts can be used to park cash temporarily from an investment account instead of buying a money market fund. E*Trade’s interest rate is one of the best around [...]

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Finance Minister Jim Flaherty will present the fiscal update to Parliament on Thursday and there is intense speculation about what tax cuts are planned in the next and future budgets. Mr. Flaherty has hinted that he is considering income splitting for couples, cuts to the capital gains tax and income tax and a further 1% [...]

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I picked up a copy of this book at Costco and I am thoroughly under whelmed after plodding through its 330 pages. It is very nice to know that in exchange for a mere $21.19, Mr. Trump and Mr. Kiyosaki want us to be rich beyond our wildest dreams but if you are looking for [...]

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This week will mark the second anniversary of launching this humble blog. The blog has come a long way since its launch: more than 500 posts, nearly 1800 comments, over 88,000 visitors and a few mentions in the national press.
I would like to sincerely thank my readers for their comments, kind words via email and [...]

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I have railed against mutual funds so many times that you would find it surprising (perhaps hypocritical) to find that a mutual fund is one of the top ten holdings in our combined portfolios. The mutual fund I hold is Leith Wheeler Canadian Equity Fund and I have some very good reasons for breaking the [...]

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