In some of the long-running posts on this blog (for example, see Is a Group RESP Plan Right for You?), Group Registered Education Savings Plan — usually referred to as scholarship plans — cheerleaders (often sales people) continue to post comments on how Group RESP fees are a bargain compared to bank MERs. These cheer [...]
It costs a lot of money to put a child through University these days and Registered Education Savings Plans offer one of the best ways to save for a child’s education. In today’s post, Mike Holman, the blogger behind the Money Smarts Blog and author of The RESP Book (available on Amazon) explains the basics [...]
In The RESP Book (review here), Mike Holman points out the reasons why parents should avoid Scholarship / Pooled / Group RESP plans: Very, Very expensive. There are large upfront sales fees paid to the salesperson, which are paid from your contributions, and very high ongoing fees. They have restrictive rules that can mean getting [...]
Compared to Registered Retirement Savings Plans (RRSPs) or even the relatively new Tax-Free Savings Accounts (TFSAs), Registered Education Savings Plans (RESPs) are a low priority for the mainstream financial institutions. The reason is quite simple: relatively speaking RESPs are small fry for the big financial institutions. While Canadians hold more than $600 billion in their [...]
Parents could be forgiven for going into sticker shock after reading press reports on the release of a TD Economics Report titled The Future Cost of a University Degree. Media reports gave prominent coverage to the headline numbers: an average cost of $137,013 for an undergraduate degree for a student living away from home and [...]
Reader Tim managed to jump through the hoops to set up a TD Bank e-Series Funds RESP account for this two children and has the following question: My plan is to invest approx $100 to each of the 2 plans every two weeks in order to qualify for the maximum government match. I want to [...]
Despite charging some of lowest fees, the TD e-Series mutual funds may not be suitable for everyone because TD Bank RESP accounts are not set up to receive the enhanced Canada Education Savings Grant available for lower income Canadian families. Reader TS who had RESP accounts at TD sent the following note (slightly edited) about [...]
Ellen Roseman’s recent column and blog post on group scholarship plans generated a lot of comments, including the following from a group RESP seller on how the fees of group RESPs stack up against bank mutual funds: Banks promote their family of mutual funds as the investment vehicle for just about anyone who wants to [...]
After reading Rob Carrick’s article in the Globe and Mail on a study commissioned by the Federal Government on Registered Education Savings Plans, I went looking for the report. Fortunately, it is available online (Update: The report referred here is no longer available online. Contact me with request for industry_practices.pdf if you need a copy), [...]
While chatting with a friend, I found out that it is not common knowledge that if you didn’t contribute to a Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP) in previous years, you can catch up on contributions and possibly still get the lifetime maximum Canada Education Savings Grant (CESG) of $7,200 that your child can receive. It’s [...]
