This is exactly what I have set up. The three main accounts. I rebalance within the TFSA to save the grief of paying (dealing with) capital gains/losses.
Sorry, I don't know anything about disability payments or condo sales. But anyway, regarding the accounts--as Dan
Bortolotti often says in "Canadian Couch Potato", don't overly fret about taxes and account allocations and all that stuff trying to get it 100% perfect, just get the darn thing up and running. Shelters come second to the actual investing. You can always tweak things later. Analyzing the hell out of things to the point of paralysis doesn't do anybody any good. It took me a couple of years to get things aligned into the proper accounts, but the gains I made during that time were fantastic. If I had've sat on the fence until things were perfect, I really would have missed out.
Great point about "paralysis by analysis" Kaspian and thank you TuxedoEagle for clarifying that only US-listed stocks/ETFs within RRSPs are exempt from the IRS 15% withholding tax.
What do you all think of this plan?
Open a Questrade RRSP to accumulate VUN (Vanguard Total US Stock Market CAD$ ETF).
Once VUN balance is CAD $50k or greater, use Norbert's Gambit which is to sell VUN, buy DLR.TO, have Questrade journal the DLR.TO into DLR.U.TO, sell DLR.U.TO, buy VTI (Vanguard Total US Stock Market USD$ ETF)
Then accumulate VUN again and repeat the steps above once it's sizable enough to do Norbert's Gambit.
VTI within an RRSP is exempt from the IRS 15% withholding taxes for dividends, correct?
My TFSA and unregistered account would hold Canadian ETFs such as VCN and VAB.