Weekend Reading – More dividend raises, cannabis stocks and ETFs, robo advisors and more #moneystuff
Welcome to my latest Weekend Reading edition – where I share some of my favourite articles from the week that was across the personal finance and investing blogosphere.
These were my posts from the last week!
Should you invest in the cannabis industry? I might via an ETF.
Here are a number of links to retirement income articles on my site – and – how I intend to generate retirement income in a few years. What are you doing?
Vanguard is launching some actively managed mutual funds in Canada – why? You can read my take on that here.
Congrats to Daniel who won the Retirement Income for Life book with this giveaway on my site. Thanks to all participants. I look forward to giving away more free stuff later this year to you.
Enjoy the following news and these articles!
BNS hiked their dividend to $0.83 per share. Another raise!
Yet another raise – TD bank increased their dividend by a juicy 11.7%! So, while the TSX is under water so far in 2018 and it will probably stay that way, my income for retirement has grown.
Jonathan Chevreau sides with many other bloggers and financial experts, robo advisors offer great benefits in terms of modest fees and professional money management advice.
On the subject of investing fees and money advice, did you know I can get you $50,000 managed FREE for one year?! It’s true – thanks to my offer with this leading robo-advisor. You can even take a free trial when opening an investing account with ModernAdvisor.
Rob Carrick informed Canadians that full Canada Pension Plan (CPP) benefits are tough to obtain. You may recall from this article on my site about the CPP pension formula and why you should bet on receiving average CPP income if you’ve worked most of your adult life until age 60 or 65.
Leo shared some good money problems to have.
Tawcan wrote about his frugal (weird) thoughts.
How To Save Money highlighted his favourite travel credit cards. I like cash back cards myself but the list is good and as always, very thorough!
Million Dollar Journey highlighted some all-in-one Vanguard ETF solutions.
Can $1.7 million last this couple a lifetime? Geez, that would definitely work for my wife and I.
Have a great weekend!
Mark
My name is Mark Seed - the founder, editor and owner of My Own Advisor. As my own DIY financial advisor, I'm looking to start semi-retirement soon, sooner than most. Find out how, what I did, and what you can learn to tailor your own financial independence path. Join the newsletter read by thousands each day, always FREE.
I read that Harvard is so well funded that most of the students get financial assistance. To be verified.
Rn, all the big name universities are slightly different. But most look at total assets that the parents have, including equity in your home. Verified by income tax returns and other documentation. At some, including Cornell, you have to be very poor with almost no assets to be funded. Harvard is a bit more forgiving, you can find the criteria online. They do sell tuition insurance in the USA, something I had never heard of in Canada.
I think one of the cons to have kids at an older age is that you will have big assets when the kids go to university and it will not be so easy to get financial assistance.
Good problem to have though May! 🙂
There are excellent universities in canada at a fraction of the cost in usa. Both sfu and ubc are great universities. Even in other canadian cities there are uni of Calgary, u of Toronto, McGill to name a few. Kids here in Canada are spoilt for choice. Why spend more to go usa? If they want an overseas experience, go europe. In the france and germany, tuition fees are only a few thousand dollars a year. They have degrees programs in english.
I personally had a great experience going to U of O.
I do want them to go to universities here. But you never know what the kids want. My friend’s son got full scholarship from UBC, but he decided to go to university of Pennsylvania instead. He got need based financial assistance, so the cost about same as in Canada without scholarship.
Just in case, if my kids get accepted by Harvard, and did not get much financial assistance, should I support them or not? That will be the million dollar (literally) question I would rather not to face.
May, when my oldest was 12 months old, we were visiting relatives in Pennsylvania. We took a few days away driving around and visited Princeton, NJ. What a beautiful little town! So I said, oh I want our son to go here.
LOL, I had no clue how much it cost for Ivy League universities. And obviously we could not afford it having 3 kids on one income when the time came, and besides I couldn’t bear the thought of my son being so far away. He went to UBC instead. Even before he left for grad school I cried for months, but once he was gone I was okay.
Wow, you have done great job. Two kids are already so stressful for me.
Good point parents would like to keep kids around. I have never been apart from them yet. Will try to enjoy them the most while they are still at home.
I agree wholeheartedly that a university education in Canada is comparable to anywhere in the world. It is not the institution per se that qualifies as the best or worst education but what our sons and daughters invest in the learning experience themselves.
My daughter took Poli-Sci at McGill, became a newspaper reporter in the US and is now a communications officer for Interpol.
My son took business at Western, cut his teeth working for Canadian banks, PWC and now owns his own financial consulting firm.
Just encourage your children to get the most out of the experience and to come away with the the skills to succeed.
Great stories to share – thanks for those and good on your kids!
May, let your kids wait and do grad school in the USA instead, much more affordable that way. Undergrad tuition at Cornell is US$50,000 per year….ouch. My son is doing a PhD there and they pay him, he makes about the same as his girlfriend who works full time. USA income tax on low earners is much higher than in Canada (son has to pay USA tax, but also has to file in Canada and pays zero here).
Pros and cons of doing your schooling in the US vs. Canada I think. If you can get a scholarship state-side, that’s great.
Congrats on your son. I studied for master here in Canada and I was paid too. Yeah, I think undergraduate in Canada and graduate in USA is the best way financially.
Mark, you will do much better with $1 million portfolio with than people with $2 million portfolio but no pension. I am not even sure I will be comfortable to retire on $2 millions. I had discussed with my friends yesterday a little bit of the possibility that kids may want to go to USA for university and I was depressed right away. Hopefully my kids will be happy with SFU or UBC.
I feel $60K is a little bit low for a family with two kids. That will cover recurring expense for sure. But you also need to travel and prepare for unexpected big expenses like when your water pipes broken.
Really? $2 M? That’s easily $60k per year, every year, for life – without touching the capital and without CPP or OAS or selling your home!
Play with this calculator here:
https://www.taxtips.ca/calculators/rrsp-rrif/rrsp-rrif-withdrawal-calculator.htm
$2 M in the bank, withdrawn at age 60, earning just 6% over 30+ years – you can take out $80,000k per year indexed to inflation and still never run out of money at age 99! By the time you are 80 are you withdrawing $170,000 per year!
My wife and I can easily live off $2 M in the bank now and in another 20 years. Now, if inflation goes to 10% – that’s an issue.
From what I recall May you are doing great…keep it up!
Aiming for $2M and originally thought I will be able to retire then. On second thought, have some doubt. Maybe I am lack of security financially.
I think if you get to $2 M you’ll “be good” when you add in CPP and OAS. I would be happy to share your story on my site if you wish…I think you have some great experiences to share with my readers 🙂 Let me know!
Congrats on your raises. Td is my 2nd biggest holding so the boost was great!
Have a good weekend
Cheers
That was a nice, juicy raise!
lol…I read Bob’s “weird” thoughts, I do all that too! I even calculate the cost per meal on home cooked stuff. A big batch of chili makes X number of meals. A roasted chicken will provide for original meals, sandwiches AND a casserole. When I buy something, what is it going to do for me and what did I have to do to make (pre-tax) that amount of money. This just seems like good sense to me.
As for the increased dividends this month…Wow! What a month ($1.4K on an annual basis going forward)! Combine these increases with a receded market (if it holds like this) and the compounding of earnings is substantial. Having said that, the recent turmoil in trade rhetoric is concerning.
Loved the additional raises 🙂