Hmm, that's weird. You guys talk about interests like TFSA were made for GICs or 'high'interest savings account.
Time to get on with the stock market and start talking dividends and capital gains. They both do not count against contribution ceiling and they yield something respectable.
Jimbo, care to shed some light? I know a TFSA can be used in the stock market (mine is all in a savings account-yup..that's right) but I am an investment DOLT. When I try to read these threads my eyes glaze over and I see dancing cake in my mind's eye.
I would love to invest in stocks that give dividends. But how does a newbie like me even start?
I have my montlhy RRSP contributions going into mutual funds. And on advise from people here I switched that from super safe to 'growth' which is aggressive. But All I did was call my bank up
So, if you can really dumb down the stocks/dividend investment talk I am all ears
I have a TFSA account with Questrade, which is an online discount brokerage. When January rolls around, I do an online bill pay from my bank account to my questrade account. The money shows up a couple days later.
Then I log into the trading website, choose the stock I want to buy (probably an index fund like VTI in my case), and figure out how many shares I can afford. Then I press the "Buy" button, and it's done. Takes less than 5 minutes.
Anything specifically you'd like more information on?
How much does each 'transaction' cost? Like 'brokerage' cost? I don't know if I am saying it right but the cost for someone to buy your shares and take your money
And, (OK, I'm going to sound really stupid) what is an 'index' fund? What is 'VTI'?
Is Questrade Cdn? Do you pay for your online account there? Like monthly fee? Does it operate same way as an online bank? Do they send the T3s (or T5s?) for your taxes each year?
thanks Cecil!
They support all Canadian accounts, you can hold Canadian or US cash in your registered accounts, and buy or sell Canadian and US listed securities.
As of a couple months ago, buying ETFs is free. Selling costs $0.01 per share with a minimum commission of $5/trade. A drop in the bucket, really. No other fees.
They send me all the tax paperwork, they send me annual reports from all the companies I have shares in, etc.
An index fund is like a mutual fund, but it's listed on the stock exchange, which makes it easier to buy. "VTI" is the symbol for ETF from a company called Vanguard, and it's essentially the same as their mutual fund VTSAX, which is designed to track the value of the US stock market.
The advantage of ETFs is that their annual fees are very low. Many mutual funds charge 1-2% annually! If you have $100k invested, you're paying $1-2k every year, regardless of how well your fund does. VTI charges 0.06%.