Time to look back at some of the best articles from the personal finance and investing blogosphere. Enjoy this Weekend Reading edition, for your August long weekend.
Canadian Capitalist estimated the cost of not having a U.S. Dollar RRSP Account. An example of a brokerage that doesn’t have this type of account is TD Direct Investing. On an RRSP portfolio north of $300k, the annual cost of dividend conversion is around $160. This was a great article; more brokerages should offer this product.
Andrew Hallam said baby boomers’ children should cheer for a stock crash. I keep hoping.
My University Money wondered if personal finance will ever be cool in school.
Dividend Ninja helped us with accounts for our U.S. dividend stocks. I keep mine exclusively in my RRSP to avoid withholding taxes.
Financial Highways shared the 10 commandments of frugality.
Big Cajun Man discussed debt and saving money.
Modest Money asked how much you will need in retirement. I’m aiming for this portfolio value not including my pension. I’ll visit this topic in a few weeks on my site. Care to take part in my poll in the margin?
Boomer & Echo said he doesn’t his finances on autopilot.
I enjoyed Michael James’ post about building your own index with individual stocks. I’m on my way with this one.
A Wealth of Common Sense shared common sense investing rules.
Y&T told us about the cash cow associated with legalizing marijuana. Can you just imagine the government revenues on this one? Bye-bye deficit.
Dividend Growth Investor just bought 11 stocks.
Million Dollar Journey had another inspiring net worth update.
Retire Happy highlighted some good financial books.
Robb Engen on The Dividend Guy told us how to track our DIY portfolio.
Canadian Personal Finance offered some tips to get out of debt.
Tom Drake told you how to reduce your credit card interest rate.
The Globe and Mail had some popular finance advice you might want to ignore. Not sure I agree with their first comment. I want to kill my mortgage and I don’t want a mortgage in retirement. #badadvice
Beating The Index wrote about junior energy player AOS.
Thanks for including us Mark. Hallam’s articles are always must-read’s for me as well. Keep up the great work here!
Yes, love Hallam’s articles. Such a straightforward (writing) approach.
Thanx for the mention! Always appreciated. 🙂
Also, for those who are interested in foreign stocks and ETFs, Brian wrote another excellent post that goes hand in hand with the one you mentioned:
http://www.dividendninja.com/international-non-us-dividend-stocks/
Cheers
Thanks Mark. I like the post by Hallam about rooting for a bear market. I’ve still got a very long time horizon so as I continue to save in some ways I’m looking for a downturn as well to increase future returns on my money. It’s just a difficult concept to grasp when you see your balances falling. Tough for retirees if that happens but that’s how it risk works.
Hallam’s articles are great. In Millionaire Teacher, his book, he discussed the same thing. Have you read that? It’s a great book and one of my favourites when it comes to personal finance and investing.
On the topic of retirees, yes, tough if equities crash for them, but that’s why they should also invest in dividend-paying stocks that tend to pay income in good times and in bad. Thoughts?
Thanks for the mention. I’ve tried a few times now, but I don’t think very many people understand that real money is lost by trying to build your own index. If the investor thinks he is picking superior stocks, that’s one thing, but if his intent is to try to build a cheaper index, he’s making a mistake; the expected added volatility losses will almost always exceed the MER savings.
No problem Michael, you know I enjoy your blogposts.
I’m not trying to beat the index with my stocks, but pretty much match it, and get some good (dividend) income in the process. Of course, in doing this, I am taking some income now vs. capital gains in the future.
In some ways, I guess, I do think my stocks (some of) are superior since I’m not investing in some companies that XIU or XIC, does. I do think if I own half of the stocks XIU does, for example, my returns will be close to XIU including tiny fees. I can also take advantage of CDN dividend tax credits or is XIU just as efficient?
Nice reading list. I knew only a few of the posts listed, so give a shot to others, thanks for sharing.
Thanks Martin. Glad to see you stop by! Catchy title for your site.