Get a reasonable line of credit and call that your warchest.
-- Vik
Thanks both of you. The couch potato site looks interesting, but still uses lingo that is beyond my level :(
Paint me stoopid and put me in the corner. I've put a hold on "Canadian Index investing for Dummies" at the local library. I think a lot of this is just getting comfortable with the ideas.
Our current goal is to destroy our running balance on our lines of credit (PLC). We only have another $20,000 to go... :S
The good news is that we have $10,000 more in savings and $10,000 less in debt than we did at this time last year. For better or worse, the strategy is that the warchest will step in, in place of the PLC preventing us from absorbing more debt while we dig our way out. And since the washing machine just blew a bearing, it looks like its a good thing to have. So we will go to the warchest for the money to replace the washer, top up the warchest at 0%.
Meanwhile, we are playing a shell game with our outstanding PLC's. Currently they are with MBNA on a pair of limited time offer accounts with 1.99% and 0% interest with the majority of the debt sitting in the 0% account and the 1.99% account being paid off. Since these limited offers are only usually good for between 90 days and 6 months, we are watching for where to move them once the rate increases. FWIW, we have moved them at least 3 times in the last year or so chasing rates.
Our only debts are these PLCs and the mortgage, but we want the PLC's gone. Fast. I see them as a ticking time bomb once we run out places to move them. We've already been denied intro rates once when we tried a repeat application back to a 0% PLC we had used before.
Moving $5,000 to Questrade allows us the other $5,000 as immediate access funds if needed, so I am comfortable having it tied up, but I don't want to put anything more on our lines of credit.