Owner: wheredoesallmymoneygo.com URL:http://www.wheredoesallmymoneygo.com Join Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2007 20:37:01 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: One of the premier personal finance blogs for Canadians. Written by a Bay Street professional. Site statistics:Click here
Help Me Name This Post! 2008-03-11 23:05:29 Most other personal finance blogs that I follow have a weekly post dedicated to linking to other blogs that contain articles they think might be of interest to others. Up until now, I haven't really had a regimented weekly post doing such a thing - and the reason is stupid: I don't have a fancy title for such a weekly post!Bear witness:The Canadian Capitalist has a traditional Friday "This and That"The Million Dollar Journey has a "Weekend Reading"The Quest for Four Pillars has a "Saturday Weigh-In and Linkstuff"I've been trying to come up with something unique, and I'm open to suggestions. Some names I've jotted down (and feel free to add some creative suggestions):BlogwatchArticles of InterestWeekly WeedingsWeekend PotpourriI'm Not Allowed to Blog
Charitable Bequests in Your Will 2008-03-11 22:41:01
You can make a charitable bequest in your will - which means that the charity of your choice will receive your charitable donation upon your death similar to how the other beneficiaries in your will receive their inheritances. Normally, a donation can only generate a credit for your taxes up to 75% of your income for the year - but an exception arises when a charitable bequest is made upon your death - in this case, you are allowed to make a donation equivalent to 100% of your net income in the year of death. Additionally, if it is advantageous to do so, you can also carry back donations to the immediately preceding tax year and claim a donation of up to 100% of your net income for that year as well. (Your personal representative will have to amend your prior tax returns if you had al
A Lap of the Blogs 2008-03-14 17:49:01 A-ha! I have found my trademark name for a weekly post on linking back to the community! Let me explain where the name comes from: I was in the auto racing industry for a few years (open wheel) and of course you can imagine that not only did I like driving, I was also a fan of the sport. There was a video series called "Lap of the Gods" which consisted of footage of top Formula 1 drivers taken from on-board of some of the most famous racetracks in the world. See below for a sample on-board video (although not an F1 car, and not part of the "Lap of the Gods" series).Anyways, here we go through a "Lap of the Blogs
":The Canadian Capitalist reviews a survey that found people don't like free money.The Million Dollar Journey provides a plentiful resource on The
Breaking News: RESP Bill gets Killed 2008-03-14 08:59:09 The RESP bill proposed by Dan McTeague which would allow RESP contributions to be tax-deductible like contributions to a Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) has been effectively killed. The House of Commons passed a confidence motion yesterday to that effect.You can read more about the story here. Subscribe to the free Email Updates to learn more about personal finance.If you use a feed reader, you can click here to add my RSS feed.If you like this blog, you might like my book: RRSPs: The Definitive Book on Registered Retirement Savings Plans Read more:Breaking
, Killed
Donate $10,000 to Charity for only $718 using Flow Throughs 2008-03-13 21:45:10
You can substantially increase your donations to charity by using Flow-Through investments. If you understand that Flow-Through Shares or Flow-Through Limited Partnerships are volatile investments and you have a desire to give to charity, there is actually a common planning strategy that marries the two together. To summarize, a donor would first make a purchase of a Flow-Through Limited Partnership (or a Flow-Through Share, but I tend to stick with the LPs since they are more diversified) and once the liquidity event occurs, they would then donate the rolled-over mutual fund in-kind to a registered charity. The donor would first receive a 100% income deduction on the Flow-Through purchase and then again receive an eligible donation tax credit on donating the rolled over mutual f Read more:Donate
, Charity
Double Your Donations to Charity Through Employer Matching 2008-03-17 19:48:59
If you happen to work for a larger company, chances are they have a program where they will match employee contributions to charities dollar for dollar. So in other words you could double the amount of money you donate with no extra cost.It's one of those things where when you hear about it you think, "Hey, that's a great idea!" but then it gets filed away and forgotten. More often than not, when a company newsletter comes around reminding you of the program you think about the $20 or $50 you've given to charity and how you forgot to take advantage of the free-matching. You probably say to yourself, "I'll remember for next time!" and then next time comes, and you forget again. I remember that happening a few times when I first started working in the financial servi Read more:Donations
, Charity
, Employer
Donating Investments Instead of Cash to Charity Has Big Tax Advantages 2008-03-16 18:30:01 If you have a capital gain on some of your investments in your non-registered investment account and you are planning on donating to charity, you should know that instead of donating cash you might want to look at donating the investments directly to the charity instead (an 'in-kind' transfer). Recently the government legislated that any capital gains on investments donated directly to registered charities (or other qualified donees) would be free from taxes on the gains of the investment. Let's examine how this would be of benefit:Suppose that you had stock that was worth $50,000 today for which you only paid $10,000 ten years ago. Let's also suppose that you are planning on selling that stock and giving the proceeds to charity. Your capital gain on that stock is $40,000 (Today's val Read more:Charity
, Donating
, Investments
, Instead
, Advantages
Using Life Insurance to Increase Donations to Charity 2008-03-18 17:55:50
If you donate to a certain charity on a regular basis you may want to consider using life insurance to generate a substantially larger gift. Let me give you a quick example. If we had a 40 year old who donated $30/month to his favourite charity and we assume that he lives to the ripe old age of 100, he will have donated a total of $21,600 to this charity. Additionally, his out of pocket cost would be closer to $13,600 since he would be entitled to the charitable donation tax credit for his contributions.If he had instead taken out a term-to-100 life insurance policy (this is the cheapest form of whole-life insurance you can get), a $30/month premium would provide almost $100,000 in death benefit to the beneficiary of his choice. Even better still, it is possible for the monthly premiu Read more:Donations
, Charity
Jim Cramer Controversy Over Bear Stearns... 2008-03-21 23:01:27 If you are a fan of late night television you will have no doubt seen the countless video replays of Jim Cramer
(of Mad Money fame) pounding the table that "Bear Stearns
is fine" just days before Bear Stearns
collapsed. I don't know the actual figures, but I'm sure there are just as many people who watch Cramer for stock picking advice as there are those who watch him for pure entertainment purposes.Before I get to the controversy, I will point you to a post by Michael James On Money that discusses analyzing Jim Cramer
's picks as an investment strategy.But now on to the controversy. You have probably heard that the U.S. investment bank Bear Stearns was acquired for a measly $2/share after recently trading in the $160/share range only 1 year prior. The collapse of this bank h Read more:Controversy
A Lap Of The Blogs 2008-03-20 22:25:34 I have to apologize for not posting yesterday as I was tied up with my day job from 7am until 10pm and fighting a case of minor food poisoning to boot! However, we now return to our regularly scheduled programming...Investing 101The Motley Fool explains the basics of stocks. Interesting Articles Thicken My Wallet shows us how to Increase our chances of obtaining a loan.Larry MacDonald thinks it's time to do some due diligence on potentially snapping up some shares in Google and makes a case as to why.Mr. Cheap from The Quest for Four Pillars met Bill Gates in Boston... or did he? :) The Million Dollar Journey did a book review on "Rich Dad's: Increase Your Financial IQ". I had errently pointed to the book giveaway post before, but the contest is now closed.The Read more:Blogs
Win a free DVD! Money Movie Giveaway Contest For March is On! 2008-03-23 19:33:41 It's time for Round 2 of the Money
Movie Giveaway on WhereDoesAllMyMoneyGo.com! Our Winner from January selected 'Boiler Room' so that is off the list for the remainder of the year, but everyone else will have the opportunity to win one of the five remaining movies from the following list. All you have to do is enter a comment on this post for a free entry!1. Wall Street2. Boiler Room Selected by January's Winner3. Casino4. Trading Places5. Glengarry Glen Ross6. Ocean's Eleven (The original from 1960)Every two months in 2008 WhereDoesAllMyMoneyGo.com is running a Money Movie Giveaway Contest
where the winner has their pick of a movie on the above list. Once a winner picks a movie, it will be removed from the list. To enter this month's contest, you just have to leave a comment on this Read more:March
Donating Old Life Insurance Policies to Charity Instead of Cancelling Them 2008-03-25 19:33:39
Note: Don't forget to enter the Money Movie Giveaway for March! Click here to enter (all you have to do is leave a comment on the contest post) If you've read my post on Charitable Gifts of Life Insurance, you'll know that you can substantially increase your donations to your favourite charities with life insurance policies. However that post dealt with initiating a new policy specifically for charitable giving. It is also possible to donate an existing life insurance policy that was originally purchased for other reasons.As you get older and your assets grow, eventually you might reach a point in life where you are self-insured or otherwise no longer have a need for life insurance. Some people will cancel any existing policies while others will continue paying the premiums since Read more:Donating
, Policies
, Charity
, Instead
What My Broker Terminal Looks Like 2008-03-24 17:07:31 I thought I would share with you what my broker terminal looks like. The screen below is a direct feed provided by Reuters through their BridgeChannel software. In the morning this is the first thing I load up on my terminal at work to survey where the market is going to open and to survey what's been happening in the overnight markets, etc. The software is very versatile and can provide more data and types of analyses than you can imagine (I still don't think I've seen every screen). All data is provided in real time. The particular screen shot I took shows a chart on BCE. The drop-down menus on the left can be expanded and can bring up screens such as earnings estimates, mutual fund ownership of the security in question, option prices, RSI spreads, pre-market activity... even the pr Read more:Broker
, Looks
A Lap Of The Blogs 2008-03-27 13:02:57 If you would like a chance to win a free Money Movie DVD, don't forget to enter the contest I'm running by entering a comment in the Contest Entry Post. It's free to enter and your odds are much better than winning the lottery. :)I'm FamousNot really, but I was fortunate to have articles appear or linked to from two of the largest Canadian Blogs
in the blogosphere. The Canadian Capitalist hosted a guest article written by yours truly on Charitable Remainder Trusts. Meanwhile, over at the Million Dollar Journey on Monday was this week's edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance which included a link to my article on the Jim Cramer Controversy over Bear Stearns.Other Interesting Articles From Around the BlogosphereFinancial Jungle wrote about a stock trading simulator that lets you ad
Revocable or Contingent Life Insurance Beneficiary Designations for Charitable Giving 2008-03-26 19:28:00
If you are considering using life insurance to donate to charity but aren't quite ready to irrevocably assign the policy ownership to charity or irrevocably designate the beneficiary, you have a couple of options:1. Name the charity as a contingent beneficiary2. Name the charity as a revocable beneficiaryBoth options are not final and can be changed at any time (before death!). By naming the charity as a contingent beneficiary (which you can do right now), you are basically providing for the possibility that your first intended beneficiary either pre-deceases you or even dies at the same time (i.e. you both die in the same car accident). In this case, if you had no other beneficiaries, then your charity of choice will receive the death benefit.By naming the charity as a revocable (as Read more:Giving
Dying Intestate with No Living Blood Relatives? Your Estate Goes To The Government 2008-03-30 19:11:09 There are many Canadians who don't update their will and estate plans on a regular basis or upon significant life changes, but even worse there are those of us who do not have a will at all! I thought I would point out that if you die intestate (without a "last will and testament"), and you have no living blood relatives then your entire estate goes to your provincial government.Suggestion: write a simple holograph will (a will written and signed by you in your own handwriting). It doesn't require witnesses, but there are some drawbacks if your estate is complex and if you make directions that are not accurate or allowed. You can name me as the beneficiary of your estate (after-tax please!). Or, you know, a charity or a friend.I think these are all better options than leavin Read more:Dying
, Living
, Blood
, Estate
, Government
RIMM Releases Stellar Earnings Report, Up In After-Hours Trading - But Not As Much As Usual... 2008-04-02 19:33:24
Research in Motion (RIM on the TSX, RIMM on NASDAQ) released their Q1 earnings after the closing bell today (April 2nd, 2008) and reported that quarterly profit was up over 100% from a year ago. However, after-hours trading yielded an increase of "only" around 5% with RIMM reaching around $123 before ending at $121.30. I say "only" because previous quarterly earnings had caused double digit increases in after-hours trading before.Perhaps people are still a bit cautious given the climate of the US economy or they are wising up to the fact that the price pops a bit with each successive earnings release? Investor psychology plays a part in stock price movements and one could posit that after seeing all the news reports on TV tonight that many people will be bidding up Read more:Stellar
, Earnings
, Hours
, Trading
Winner of March's Money Movie Giveaway! 2008-04-01 17:32:39
I'm happy to announce that Mike (comment #6) is the winner of March
's Money
Movie Giveaway contest! Congratulations Mike! I will be contacting you via email to get your address and your movie will be in mail this week.There were a total of 24 comments and 195 people who purchased The RRSP Book directly from the secure book purchase website who were eligible to win. A random number generator picked number 201. Mike has his pick of the following movies:1. Wall Street2. Boiler Room Selected by January's Winner3. Casino4. Trading Places5. Glengarry Glen Ross6. Ocean's Eleven (The original from 1960)Every two months in 2008 WhereDoesAllMyMoneyGo.com is running a Money Movie Giveaway Contest where the winner has their pick of a movie on the above list. Once a winner picks a movie, it w
The Equity Monetization Strategy 2008-03-31 20:33:31
With the recent fall of Bear Stearns and the not too distant collapse of Enron, the concept of not holding all your eggs in one basket often gets mentioned. If you work for a certain company and own many shares of the company that have been acquired over decades of service you are putting yourself into a very precarious position! Scores of people who worked for Bear or Enron not only lost their ability to earn an income (their jobs), but they may have simultaneously lost the bulk of their retirement savings - a crushing blow to say the least.Some people who own a large number of shares in a non-registered account may feel that they do not want to realize potentially significant capital gains even though they understand they are poorly diversified. Conversely, if the stock falls in va Read more:Equity
, Strategy
A Lap Of The Blogs 2008-04-03 18:26:51 It seems like this week really flew by - and I'm glad because I've been dying for the season premiere of Battlestar Galactica (yup - big nerd!). My girlfriend and I have been watching seasons 1 through 3 on DVD for the last month or so and we're actually all caught up. I wasn't ever into the series until after Christmas because our family had the actor who plays Dr. Gaius Baltar and his wife over during the holidays - and it piqued my interest to see his work after meeting and chatting with him. He was also in the Bridget Jones' Diary movies. I was a big Star Trek fan as a kid and never thought anything would compare, but I have to admit Galactica blows Star Trek away for me. Anyways, enough of my geekdom - behold the musings from around the blogosphere. (Gee that doesn't sound any le Read more:Blogs
The Basic Types of Derivatives Explained 2008-04-06 21:27:51 Many investors are familiar with mutual funds, stocks and bonds to a certain extent. I think a less well understood category of investments are derivatives which get their name because they are "derived from other underlying investments" or because the value of the specific derivative investment fluctuates in value based on changes in value of something else (investment values, interest rates, exchange rates, etc). There are actually only two main types of derivatives: option-based and forward-based. Either type can be traded on a recognized exchange or OTC (Over The Counter). The exchanges are public and provide for standardized, liquid contracts whereas the OTC market is private and allows for much more customization of the individual contracts between parties.Option Based Read more:Basic
, Derivatives
Double Exposure Exchange Traded Funds 2008-04-08 17:40:10
If you ever watch BNN you're bound to see Howard Atkinson promoting Horizons BetaPro ETFs which allow you to "profit or protect" in an up or down market. Their lineup of ETFs are more than just index tracking exchange traded funds - they also return 200% of the daily performance of the indices in question. Not only that, they offer a Bull and Bear version of each "double exposure" ETF. The Bull version gives you 200% of the daily performance of the underlying index while the Bear version gives you 200% of the INVERSE daily performance. (Horizons BetaPro are not the only company offering double and double inverse exposure ETFs.)What does this mean? Let's say your index goes up 1% today. The Bull version of the ETF should be up 2%. The Bear version should be DOWN 2%. Read more:Exposure
, Exchange
, Funds
If You Are An Executor Of An Estate, It Might Be Better Not To Take An Executor's Fee 2008-04-07 20:30:03 If you have been named the executor (or personal representative or administrator) for an estate for someone who has died you may know that you may be entitled to an executor's fee. The fee can be specified in the will, or it may not be explicitly addressed in which case the executor can charge a percentage of the value of the estate (up to certain limits).In either case, there are certain things to consider when you are also a beneficiary of the estate. If you receive money from the deceased's estate as directed in the will, you do not pay tax on this amount. If you claim an executor's fee, you must include this on your tax return as taxable income and pay tax on it.So you can see that if you were the only beneficiary of the estate, it might not make much sense to claim a fee at all s Read more:Estate
Investing In Bear Markets - A Conversation 2008-04-09 20:16:16 The author of one of my favourite blogs (Thicken My Wallet) and I had another conversation - this time about "investing in bear markets, high-dividend yield stocks and all matters investing in these uncertain times." Instead of both parts appearing on his blog, this time we are splitting the hosting duties and he has published Part 1 on his blog (to be published at 5:00am on April 10th) and this is Part 2. As before, his comments appear in italics...PPNs and ETF’s Let’s talk about two popular investing products: principal protected notes (PPN’s) and exchange traded funds (ETF). We seem to have creeping fees in both products which is pretty mind-boggling for PPN’s given how high fees are already. Even ETF MER’s are creeping up to above 0.50%. Is Read more:Investing
, Markets
, Conversation
Refinancing Homes in The United States 2008-04-11 08:28:10 Note: This is a paid reviewWith real estate prices melting down in the UnitedStates
, I've seen fewer and fewer commercials for the mortgage refinance companies on TV. But so long as you have equity in your house and your mortgage interest rate is substantially lower than your credit card interest rate - you should look into consolidating all your debt into one tidy payment if you never seem to make head-way on your credit card debts. This is also known as a home refinance.Here is the basic concept:Let's suppose we have someone with a $300,000 home and an outstanding mortgage of $200,000. If you are paying 6% with 25 years remaining on the mortgage your monthly payment is about $1,169. Let's also assume that you have $30,000 in credit card debt that you pay 19% interest on. So far you Read more:Refinancing
, Homes
A Lap Of The Blogs 2008-04-10 21:16:17 Well it's Friday again, and that means its time for the weekly edition of Lap Of The Blogs
. I hope everyone has been enjoying the weekly racing videos. I'll get right to it as I forgot my battery charger at the office and the battery in my laptop is on it's last legs! :)From Around The BlogosphereIn case you missed it, Part 1 of the conversation between Thicken My Wallet and myself on Investing in Bear Markets is here. The Canadian Capitalist had a very valuable post on a website (a free website) that allows you to opt out of a whole slate of telemarketing lists that will NOT be covered by the new Do Not Call Registry which is supposed to come in to effect later this year. Check out CC's post on iOptOut.ca.Frugal Trader from the Million Dollar Journey has some great back to basic
Scaramouche, Scaramouche - Will You Do The Contango? 2008-04-13 16:17:52 Yes, "contango" as opposed to the Bohemian Rhapsody's "fandango". My girlfriend treated us to tickets to the musical 'We Will Rock You' over the weekend to celebrate our one year anniversary and if you've heard of the legendary band Queen, you'll understand the reference in the title of this blog post.Contango is a word used in the futures market. Before I define contango, it would be best to get a basic feel for how a futures contract is priced. At the very basic level a futures price should be equal to the spot price (current price) plus an amount equal to the cost of storing, holding and insuring the underlying asset until time of delivery. So in other words, let's say that gold is currently $900/oz. A December 2008 futures contract on gold might be priced at $9
Relative Benchmarks and Absolute Benchmarks 2008-04-15 19:54:37
Zahid Jafry of Onus Consulting Group made a great comment on one of yesterday's posts (Picking a Meaningful Benchmark). For those that didn't read Zahid's comment, he brought up the point that a relative benchmark allows you to compare your portfolio against a meaningful benchmark whereas an absolute benchmark allows you to monitor your progress towards a certain goal.If you like, it might be better conceptually to think of an absolute benchmark as a desired rate of return. For example, if you (or you in tandem with your advisor) determine that you need to earn an annualized average of 8% in order to retire at 65 then this is your absolute benchmark (for this goal).While it is possible to do a great job in picking your individual investments such that your portfolio meets or exceeds y Read more:Relative
, Absolute
Distance Learning With Kaplan 2008-04-14 20:50:25
Note: This is a paid review.Kaplan
Distance Learning
asked for a review on their UK Distance Learning product. You may have heard the name Kaplan before as they are a very popular preparatory course offerer for graduate school admissions tests and the like. The company itself is quite large and is in fact owned by the Washington Post.The particular website they asked me to review was for their online foundation degree courses:1. Business and Management Foundations Degree2. Entrepreneurship Foundation Degree3. Marketing and Sales Management Foundation Degree4. Internet Marketing Foundation DegreeThese degrees are aimed at those who are already in the workforce who are looking for an educational program that can accomodate today's hectic schedules. For those who feel like they are stuck
Picking A Meaningful Benchmark 2008-04-14 18:07:47 Every now and then I'll run across someone comparing the performance of their portfolio against the incorrect benchmark. For example, if your portfolio was only blue-chip Canadian stocks and you surmised that your investing prowess is superior because your portfolio's returns were better than the S&P 500 over the last decade your reference is almost meaningless. In this case your benchmark should be the S&P/TSX 60 Index.But what about those who have a portfolio consisting of some US stocks, Canadian stocks, some international stocks and a smattering of domestic bonds? How do you know if your portfolio measures up? In this case you must create your own weighted-average benchmark.For example let's assume that our investor has 35% of his stocks in blue-chip Canadian stocks, 25% Read more:Picking
, Meaningful
, Benchmark
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