If your girlfriend is interested in optimizing a diverse portfolio of Canadian, US & International investments, while investing aggressively (highly recommended for young people with long-term investment horizons) then these links are a good resource.
http://canadiancouchpotato.com/2012/09/20/foreign-withholding-tax-which-fund-goes-where/http://canadiancouchpotato.com/couch-potato-faq/A really simple idea that tax-optimizes her portfolio with would be:
1. Deposit the $20K RRSP money into an aggressive US Equity ETF (example, Vanguard Small Cap Value ETF (VBR) for hyper-aggressive growth, or Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) which is a growth ETF but not quite as aggressive).
2. Continue making TFSA monthly contributions into a Low-MER Canadian Index Fund, such as TD Canadian Index e-series (TDB900), or good but not as good: RBC Canadian Index (RBF556).
3. If she really doesn’t like to invest aggressively then TD Canadian Bond Index e-series
(TDB909) is a more conservative fund that works well in either an RRSP or TFSA. But if you want my opinion, investing conservatively is for people near retirement age. Young people should invest fairly aggressively, and learn to stomach the wild roller-coaster rides of high-risk investing. It usually works out very well in the long run if you're patient and your target time horizon is measured in decades.
Note:
- I’m not a financial advisor, but the ETFs and Funds I’m suggesting are commonly recommended on websites that promote high-risk, high-reward, low-MER investing.
- The reason I recommend an ETF for the RRSP and monthly contributions to a TFSA index fund are the transaction costs involved with an ETF. Unless you can get a really great price on ETF purchases, they’re best purchased in bulk (such as this opportunity to make a $20K lump sum deposit into an RRSP ETF). Small, regular monthly deposits work well with low-MER index funds, which seems to be what your GF is currently doing with her TFSA.