Canadians! TD e-series - account opening nightmare - losing my confidence!

[Wannabe Mustache]

I posted questions about RRSPs & RESPs

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/canadian-late-beginner-rrsp-resp-questions/

Well I went to TD to open RRSP & RRSP accounts so I could buy e-series index mutual funds for my RRSP & RESPs using a couch potato approach (until I learn more and have a larger portfolio to avoid fees).


Nobody in the branch knew what to do!  They though I needed a TD Waterhouse account and they were concerned about it because of the fees.  They didn't even know what I was talking about when I showed them the mutual fund ID symbols!  The branch manager eventually realized they were the e-series but had no idea what to do.  Several hours later with phone calls to TD Waterhouse and then some internal help line (thank god they knew what to do) I finally got myself a mutual fund account that will be transferred over to an E-Series Funds account so I can buy the e-series funds.  What an ordeal!  We didn't even get to the RESP account yet.  Yikes! 

So - I want to transfer money from my RRSP from Standard Life ($4400) and my RESP (Scotia Canadian Balanced Fund BN378) from Scotiabank $$17,000 with a 2.03 MER and poor performance. 

Scotiabank charges $150 to transfer out.  I asked the woman at TD if they covered the fees and she didn't think so. 

I have to figure out what Standard Life will charge to transfer out - hard to figure out the costs.

Is it worth it for the RESP?  Would I be better off trying to figure something out with iTrade through Scotia?  Or a different fund? 

I think my RRSP will be worth it so I'm going to continue with that and make monthly contributions using the Global Couch Potato Model for now.

I so need to understand all this better.   I have Wealth Ed:  Money Management for Ontario Teachers & The Millionaire Teacher.  Thinking about reading The Bogleheads Guide to Investing.  Alas, my local library does not have any of the books I want to I end up buying them over Amazon (I live in small town northern Ontario so only one library). 

[Thespoof]

Screw the banks! Transfer your accounts to Questrade and the world is your oyster. I own shares in a few of the big banks but beyond my chequing account I don't use their services. I collect a nice dividend from the people that do though :-)

[KMMK]

That's too bad about TD. I had no problem at my branch getting set up for e-series. For your RSP any chance you will need to pull it under the home buyers or education plans? You could just wait and just put new contributions into the e-series. And how is your income this year and upcoming years? You could just pay the tax (withdraw instead of transfer) since it's a small amount and you'd have to pay it eventually.
Just reread your post and I guess you don't know about the RSP transfer fee yet. I was thinking $150 was the RSP. Maybe the RSP fee will be lower.
I don't know if there is any workaround for the RESP. I'd have to do more research. But yeah, you may have to bite the bullet on that one.

[aclarridge]

I think they only cover those fees on accounts over 25k but maybe they'll cover it partially?

At any rate, you always have to ask for that, they don't typically volunteer to cover the other bank's transaction fees in my experience.

Eseries are probably easier to use for most people and until you have a lot more cash the lower expense ratios on ETFs won't matter too much to you. So don't worry too much about switching to Questrade just yet.

Some branches are better than others, maybe try a diff one for the RESP?

[Norman Johnson]

I don't deal with the branch regarding TD e-series. I went straight to TD Waterhouse. You can do everything through the mail and fax if you have to. Just make sure that if you have multiple accounts (like RRSP and TFSA) they combine all the accounts when calculating your yearly fee. They will often wave it too if you ask.

[Wannabe Mustache]

Thanks everyone.

I live in a small town so there is only one branch.  The woman helping me was very nice but they just didn't know what was going on.  She did make lots of calls to find out though which is good. 

I find it funny that people in the banks who have Financial Advisor on their business card do not actually know that much about investing.

If I had known more myself it would have been easier.  I got confused when she was talking about fees because what I wanted was just a TD RRSP & RESP mutual fund account that could be switched to an e-series account.  Because they didn't know what to do I got mixed up and was thinking I did need a Waterhouse account. 

Young and Thrifty has a good post about what to do - I wish I had come across that earlier but here it is for anyone it can help.  http://youngandthrifty.ca/how-to-apply-for-a-td-e-series-fund/

There is lots of great stuff for Canadians on that site. 

I think I will keep learning and hopefully I will be able to use Questrade when my portfolio is bigger and my knowlege grows.  In the meantime, the e-series seems to be the way to go, even if it's a hassle. 

[Stasher]

Why didnt you look at using Scotia Itrade account being that you have funds at Scotiabank already. I opened an Itrade account all online right through my online banking portal for Scotiabank. You enroll and print off two forms, sign them and mail them in.

I have a TFSA account in the regular scotiabank with index funds at 1.05 MER (I will be moving this to ITrade shortly)

My scotia Itrade index fund RRSP is in US index and CND index ETF Vanguard funds and are about 0.15 MER fee.

I know you are at TD now but just thought I would share this with you.

Regards

[anisotropy]

I posted questions about RRSPs & RESPs

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/canadian-late-beginner-rrsp-resp-questions/

Well I went to TD to open RRSP & RRSP accounts so I could buy e-series index mutual funds for my RRSP & RESPs using a couch potato approach (until I learn more and have a larger portfolio to avoid fees).


Nobody in the branch knew what to do!  They though I needed a TD Waterhouse account and they were concerned about it because of the fees.  They didn't even know what I was talking about when I showed them the mutual fund ID symbols!  The branch manager eventually realized they were the e-series but had no idea what to do.  Several hours later with phone calls to TD Waterhouse and then some internal help line (thank god they knew what to do) I finally got myself a mutual fund account that will be transferred over to an E-Series Funds account so I can buy the e-series funds.  What an ordeal!  We didn't even get to the RESP account yet.  Yikes! 

So - I want to transfer money from my RRSP from Standard Life ($4400) and my RESP (Scotia Canadian Balanced Fund BN378) from Scotiabank $$17,000 with a 2.03 MER and poor performance. 

Scotiabank charges $150 to transfer out.  I asked the woman at TD if they covered the fees and she didn't think so. 

I have to figure out what Standard Life will charge to transfer out - hard to figure out the costs.

Is it worth it for the RESP?  Would I be better off trying to figure something out with iTrade through Scotia?  Or a different fund? 

I think my RRSP will be worth it so I'm going to continue with that and make monthly contributions using the Global Couch Potato Model for now.

I so need to understand all this better.   I have Wealth Ed:  Money Management for Ontario Teachers & The Millionaire Teacher.  Thinking about reading The Bogleheads Guide to Investing.  Alas, my local library does not have any of the books I want to I end up buying them over Amazon (I live in small town northern Ontario so only one library).

ya this was discussed on canadian couch potato website, plenty of people had the same e-series problem. Oddly though, for me it was really straight forward.

I got my td "investment consultant" to open the following waterhouse trading accounts: cdn, usd, and tfsa. Then when it came through i could just buy e-series with no issue at all.