The reason I said TD was because I remember reading an article saying they had the lowest management fees (if I have the term right). I'm still two years away from saving (planning/hoping to slaughter 70k of student debt in the next two years) but I've been wondering. If I manage to follow the MMM way of life, my savings would exceed my RRSP contribution limit so I'd need somewhere else to put it. I've got a TD Waterhouse account that my dad manages that I'm not going to touch for now, but I do want to be prepared for other options in case (god forbid) my dad suddenly couldn't manage those accounts.
Great questions.
Fees depend on what you're trying to do, but there's two to watch for.
One is the MER (Management Expense Ratio) - this is the percentage of profit the bank skims off the top. So if the mutual fund gets a 10% return in a year, and the MER is 1%, you'll only get 9%. This is once reason people recommend index funds - they are not actively managed and therefore the MER is usually less than 1%.
The MER on TD Canadian Index is 0.88 for example, whereas the highest MERs for other funds at TD are 2.89%. Quite a significant difference.
The other costs you need to look out for are transactional costs - the fees associated with buying/selling units of the fund. A 'no-load' fund is one where there is usually no such transactional costs.. although some still have a penalty if you sell within 30 days.. but this is unlikely to happen so you'd be in the clear.
For what you're talking about.. max out your RRSP contributions (remember this varies with your income, usually 18% of take home), then max out your TFSA as strider3700 mentioned.. you grow your investments in there tax free.
If you max out your RRSP & your TFSA (in which case congrats, I'd say about 2-5% of the population actually does this), then you'd have to buy a regular investment account in which you'd be taxed annually on the profits you make in there as income.