Canadian Capitalist

Last week, it was widely reported in the press that Telus was ordered to refund the “network access charge” ($2.95 per month) that was slapped on customers who did not use its long-distance network. The news is a reminder to check your phone bill and see if you are still paying a fee for the [...]

[Read more →]

A survey conducted by Sun Life Financial found that one in five Canadians who have access to a group RRSP in which the employer provides some sort of a match, do not take full advantage of the benefit. A bit of a head-scratcher from the survey: when asked why, 6% said they preferred to invest [...]

[Read more →]

With recent media reports indicating that the Virgin Group is planning to launch banking in Canada, the already crowded high-interest savings accounts marketplace is about to become more so. Here’s a long list of places where you can now park your cash:

E*Trade Cash Optimizer Account: The discount broker offers 4.15% on Canadian dollar and 2.5% [...]

[Read more →]

Qtrade is a bit of a mystery despite being ranked the #1 discount broker in the Globe and Mail survey for two years running. I personally don’t have an account with Qtrade, so I asked Evan, who has been a customer for about one year, if he would be willing to share his experience with [...]

[Read more →]

Both The Toronto Star’s Ellen Roseman (thanks for the mention!) and Financial Post’s Jonathan Chevreau have pointed out that the Canadian Tire’s One-and-Only account has an advantage that I had overlooked: the mortgage can in paid in full at anytime, whereas a conventional mortgage has limited prepayment privileges.
Personally, we have a fixed-rate, 5-year mortgage that [...]

[Read more →]

Canadian Tire has decided to offer more financial services and is now offering mortgages and a combined mortgage, loan, chequing and savings product (similar to Manulife One account) called the One-and-Only account in Ontario, Alberta and BC. The idea behind combined accounts is that by consolidating your debts into one account, you take advantage of [...]

[Read more →]

A few years back, ING Direct was pretty much the only game in town, offering online savings accounts with much higher interest rates than anyone else. Today, Canadians have such an array of choices available that ING Direct is not the de facto or the best option anymore. Here are some of the recent (and [...]

[Read more →]

Many of my fellow bloggers draw up their net worth statements and update us regularly on their progress. While checking your net worth every month is probably overkill, it is a valuable exercise to go through once every year, preferably on a particular date (personally, we do this on December 31st).
The net worth statement [...]

[Read more →]

We purchase our home, auto and life insurance policies from the same agent and we have been clients for about eight years now. Over the years, I’ve obtained quotes from the competition a few times and found that our agent’s rates are always within a $100 of the best available rate. This year the renewal [...]

[Read more →]

Every so often a business will fail to live up to your expectations for customer service. When that happens to you, you may want to write a complaint letter pointing out why you think you’ve been unfairly treated. A good business will take action to correct any problem and may even offer you a coupon [...]

[Read more →]