Hi,
I recently started catching up on unused RRSP. I opened an account with Questrade. I'm kind of new to this.
I used the Complete couch potato portfolio from canadian couch potato. But they changed this year and i can't find the old ones.
So I had two questions.
First, I buy US ETF's for the US/World portion of my portfolio to save on foreign income tax, since they are held inside an RRSP. I use norbert's gambit to save on CAN/USD conversion fees. I make contributions at every paycheck, and when i have enough for the trouble, I go ahead and do that.
Should I check the currency rate before I change money to buy ETF's? My gut tells me there is no way to tell what the dollar might do, so just go ahead and buy the ETF's whenever I can, but I figured there was no harm in asking more knowledgeable people.
Second question:
The actual portfolio.
For bonds I have VAB.TO and XRB.TO. REITS is ZRE.TO (this is about 10-15% of portfolio, I might ease up on those for a while).
For Canadian market i have FTSE Canada All Cap Index ETF (VCN.TO) (25-30%)
for US/World Total Stock Market (VTI) and Total International Stock (VXUS) (around 50%-60%) (I haven't bought VXUS yet)
Does this look alright to you? The percentages vary, because haven't settled on a specific plan yet, and I re-balance frequently by buying more ETF's.
On the newer model portfolios, Canadian couch potato uses VXC, which is from vanguard Canada, So I'm guessing I'd get screwed on the foreign income tax.
Also, since Vanguard total world stock (VT) holds US and world stocks, would it be better to just buy this instead of Total Stock Market (VTI) and Total International Stock (VXUS)?
Thank you!
J-S