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This and That

March 22nd, 2007 ·

  1. The Toronto Star’s Ellen Roseman grades the tax breaks in Budget 2007.
  2. Many thanks to the reader Mark for sharing the link to an article, which recommends that you should keep a list of basic financial information (like bank account numbers) and tell your spouse where it is.
  3. This column in The Star surveys some of the more surprising ways by which credit card companies are picking our pockets.
  4. Another column in The Star highlights some of the ways in which banks take advantage of unsuspecting customers. The common thread in all the stories is that it is entirely up to us to become smart about our finances.
  5. Investing Intelligently made an excellent post on the effects of foreign exchange costs on USD investments within a RRSP. Is E*Trade even going to offer the ability to wash trades? I guess I will just have to move my accounts to TD Waterhouse.
  6. Million Dollar Journey reports that RBC has a new high interest savings account with an interest rate of 4%. However, before you jump at the RBC offer, read the fine print: the offer is only until July 31st after which the rate will be an under whelming 3.25%. E*Trade’s Cash Optimizer still offers the best rate at 4.15%.

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Tags: Miscellaneous

13 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Dave // Mar 22, 2007 at 11:01 pm

    The E*Trade people seem to be telling me that they will offer wash trades in the future. In the best case, they are just implementing this right now in software and it will be available are soon as they are done. The worst case is that they are just telling me that and they don’t care. I am hoping that the plaintiff wins this case:
    http://www.investorvoice.ca/Regulators/PI/RRSP_FX/RRSP_FX_Index.htm
    and all the brokerages start offering wash trades.

    About E*Trade’s Cash Optimizer account…I really should start using mine. I had my monthly cash contributions going into my RRSP (because I wanted the deductions for April) but I should put them into the Cash Optimizer instead until there is enough to transfer to the RRSP. Or, I could put the cash into the RRSP every month and by a mutual fund temporarily…only problem there is I have to observe the 90 day no-sell rule or else pay the penalty… decisions…decisions…

  • 2 David // Mar 22, 2007 at 11:41 pm

    Regarding point 4: I don’t understand people’s sense of entitlement! It would appear that each of the account holders was notified of the status of the account, but chose not to act upon it. As CC states: It’s up to us.

    Why should we expect someone else to look after us?

    David

  • 3 Dave // Mar 22, 2007 at 11:59 pm

    Regarding point 4: how did they get all those coins to balance like that?

  • 4 Canadian Money Blogs Reviewer // Mar 23, 2007 at 1:05 am

    one note on point 5 that affects the calculation: the currency conversion spread is probable lower ..here (http://forums.canadianbusiness.com/thread.jspa?threadID=9233&messageID=162834) it says 1.5% and I’ve seen 1% in other places … I guess a call to Etrade would be the best way to get a straight answer

  • 5 Mark // Mar 23, 2007 at 8:17 am

    Heh, first comment on a blog ever!
    I should give a hat tip to lifehacker though:
    http://lifehacker.com/software/finance/make-a-personal-finance-cheat-sheet-201515.php
    Their finance tips can be handy, though often directed at a US audience. cheers!

  • 6 Steve Heath // Mar 23, 2007 at 9:28 am

    The one that gets me the most is the guy that didn’t bother reading his statements because he thought they were junk mail but then expected them to contact him, just because they would if he owed them money.

    If they owe you money, it’s YOUR job to chase it and keep an eye on that. But besides that, it’s completely idiotic NOT to at least glance through every statement you get sent by any company you deal with, because for seldom used credit cards that will often be your first indication of any kind of fraud problem.

    I think it’s 30 days after your statement you have to notify them of a problem, so if someone has your card number and is going to town, if you don’t even glance at your statement, you’re paying for it.

  • 7 Canadian Capitalist // Mar 23, 2007 at 10:43 am

    Steve: My favourite is the guy who has $220K in cash and put it in a no-interest account and wants the bank to contact him with high-interest alternatives! Its his money and if he doesn’t care about it, why would his bank?

  • 8 Philip // Mar 23, 2007 at 4:28 pm

    It is the consumer’s responsibility to manage their own money. People are so quick to blame someone else for their own idiocy.

  • 9 Steve Heath // Mar 24, 2007 at 9:35 am

    CC: That was my second favorite, and the only reason I felt that was more understandable than Mr. “Don’t mail me, call me” was because the bank actually does that, and with much smaller sums of money.

    For a while I was holding some money in trust, in an account specifically named when opened, “TRUST ACCOUNT”, which because of the nature of the requirements (lots and lots of small payouts) wasn’t worth making a regular savings account. And then because of something unforseen it grew to about 100,000 for a while, but the trust rules were that I couldn’t move anything temporarily to a high interest account, the money must remain in the trust account until properly redeemed. Every month I had a call from someone at the bank “we notice you have a large amount of money sitting idle in this account and would like to let you know about other products we offer that could get you more interest”… At least a dozen times in the next year and a half. Always the way, when you DON’T want the service, you get it like crazy :)

  • 10 John // Mar 25, 2007 at 12:14 pm

    TD are hiking the cost of using an ATM outside Canada. “For foreign currency withdrawals performed at ABMs outside of Canada, the exchange rate includes an amount equal to 2.5% of the converted amount. Applicable transaction fees also apply.” That’s up from 1.0%, on top of a transaction fee which was $5 on my last outside Canada transaction. If Ben Franklin were around today he would surely be writing “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death, taxes and bank fees.”

  • 11 Phil S // Mar 25, 2007 at 6:30 pm

    When I was recently on vacation in the Cayman Islands, I used an ATM down there to take out cash in US dollars. Currency implications aside, I was charged $3 on the transaction (showed up on my BMO statement), which seemed reasonable to me. It’s not like I do a lot of banking in the Cayman Islands on a regular basis… Although I certainly wish I did! Haha…

  • 12 Phil S // Mar 25, 2007 at 6:34 pm

    I don’t know about the wash trades issue since I have accounts on both a $USD only account and $CDN accounts. But that E*Trade deal of 100 free trades & $9.99 thereafter sounds REALLY REALLY good to me. I just can’t muster up the $50K to meet the qualifying minimum unless I collapse my current trading account. Hmm… Is it worth the trouble? It may be. I haven’t decided yet.

  • 13 Dave // Mar 26, 2007 at 12:55 pm

    Phil, the wash trades thing has to do with RRSP accounts. The cash portion of an RRSP account must be CAD dollars.

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