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Another useful single-number rule comes from Malcolm Hamilton, a Canadian actuary and pension consultant. Rule of 40: Take 40. Divide by your mutual fund's MER. And presto, you've got the number of years it takes management expenses to consume one-third of your investment. Notes: 1. MER is the Canad...

Thought this also BH appropriate: http://www.dilbert.com/strips/2013-04-17/ Also one of the comments (click on the cartoon): Dogbert as a financial advisor said my #1 Dilbert line ever. When asked why he charges 1% of assets under management, he says... "These index funds aren't going to pick ...

It's the central dynamic behind con games, which is what is behind the proverb "you can't cheat an honest man." If you remember the old E. F. Hutton ads, it's the same thing . E. F. Hutton is certainly not going to advertise "invest with us because we have inside information," b...

Thought this also BH appropriate: http://www.dilbert.com/strips/2013-04-17/ Also one of the comments (click on the cartoon): Dogbert as a financial advisor said my #1 Dilbert line ever. When asked why he charges 1% of assets under management, he says... "These index funds aren't going to pick ...

I find that it's only suitable on wifi, with 3g it's pretty spotty. Also, leaving on VOIP apps all the time also tends to drain the battery faster. As a result when I'm on a good wifi network I'll make calls over VOIP, and similarly if I receive a call I think will take a while I turn on VOIP and c...

6. Apparently you can't call Canada on the 45/mo plan. My brother lives in Edmonton and has a Canadian cell phone/number; he I have texted regularly with no issues so far. He has also called me and there were no issues. I haven't called him yet. If your phone plan includes data then consider a VoIP...

nisiprius wrote:GREAT article. So, the Canadians were first? Who knew?

Well, you should have known, e.g.viewtopic.php?p=1037334#p1037334

In Canada (Nortel, once the largest company) there is no protection. It varies by province, e.g. in Ontario: Pension Benefits Guarantee Fund (PBGF) provides protection, subject to specific maximums and specific exclusions, to Ontario members and beneficiaries of privately sponsored single-employer ...

1) Canadian wanted to buy a phone only available in the US, but was prohibited from using Canadian CC to buy it. My inference is that the Canadian has an "Amerifriend" with a US address to which they want the phone shipped. Some online sellers, especially of valuable merchandise like phon...

My point is that if you want the convenience of using the same switch(es) that control the lights in your garage door opener to also control other lights in your garage, the the adapters I linked-to facilitate it.

I did not read it here, but my garage door openers have each two 100 W incandescent bulbs to light the car parking areas, and I can manually turn these lights on and off. Therefore, in my 2-car garage I have a total of six 100 W light bulbs, that is 2x2 from the garage door openers and 2 on the gar...

I wish that VG would make available their Canadian equity index funds to Americans, like VCE, which is only available on the Toronto exchange. My annual cost would go from .52% (I-shares) to .09% (Vanguard). Not necessarily. You'd realize the ER difference, for sure. But then you'd run into the dif...

The reality of the situation is I want the person to think about it, to check if there's checking to be done... and make sure they're not just bluffing, blowing smoke, saying whatever they think I want to hear. But I don't want them to think that I'm trying to pull some subtle legal trick on them ,...

I agree re currency risk, however I want more international exposure. I already hold Total International and assume (I may be incorrect) that additional international investment in Canada carries less currency risk than any other nation. It wasn't that long ago that the Canadian dollar was known de...

That being said I'm wondering if I should replace the shop-lites with something different. LED's seem quite expensive. How about mercury vapor or sodium vapor? Do these take time to "warm up"? Would be interested in any ideas! 1. As others have already said, make sure you have the right b...

chaz wrote:Read the wiki on this forum, many good ideas.

Better still, read the Canadian wiki on this forum. Many good ideas for investors resident in Canada

How common are the chip and PIN credit cards in Europe these days? A coworker took a vacation in Europe recently and was strongly advised to get a "chip" card. AFAIK in Europe and Canada all new cards have chip and pin. In Canada, where C&P is relatively new most card readers also acc...

There are several local Bogleheads groups in different parts of the U.S. Perhaps, there is also one near Toronto? If there is none, you can try to form it. There's nothing like a formal chapter system up here. Some of us do get together for a beer from time to time in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Cal...

And you need to take a DIY approach. That seems a bit strong, but I do agree with the general advice. Get a good discount broker (TD Greenline? ie TD Waterhouse). Then use ETFs and index funds. Been away a long time, eh? ;) TD Greenline, affectionately known as Greedline by some, changed to Waterho...

I was thinking of now investing within the confines of my professional corporation... but I'm starting to get out of my circle of competence given the potential legal and accounting ramifications of this. What complicates this further is that my wife is in essentially the same position. Then you ne...

Fee-only advisors are a relative rarity in Canada due to a number of factors, including industry environment, regulatory barriers, and cultural differences. I can't recommend anyone in particular but you might want to look at John DeGoey . If he doesn't accept clients with $200k perhaps he can recom...

how do you then get the money from your Canadian brokerate to a US bank? Will Canadian brokerages wire funds to US banks, and what is the fee? I imagine they can. Best to call the brokerage and ask. Also keep in mind that US-listed stocks and ETFs can be easily transferred in-kind. I don't know abo...

Long distance walking is common in parts of Europe... Try this :twisted: http://www.viaalpina.com/ The Via Alpina is one of the longest and most spectacular hiking trails in all of Europe and perhaps the entire world. Alpine trekking draws millions of hikers from all over the world each year to tra...

Common sense tells me it is the ETF domicile that matters only? Correct. Vanguard has Canadian domiciled ETFs that invest in US equities. These are not subject to US estate tax. if I use a non-US-based brokerage and buy US-domiciled ETF (in the brokerage name), would I have to pay estate tax in tha...

The top ten holdings mirror the S&P/TSX 60 . The report references the fund's tracking of "the benchmark" but I've yet to find specific mention that the benchmark is the S&P/TSX 60. Hrm. Keep in mind that the DB plan's commitment to you is to pay a pension based on the best (last?...

Bylo, taking that into account he should be: - even more diversified into non CAD assets, possibly 80% - probably shouldn't hold many, if any, Canadian bonds, particularly not government bonds so 'interesting to debate theoretically' I would rather put it as 'has a direct bearing on asset allocatio...

All of this is interesting to debate theoretically but keep in mind that CJOttawa has a DB pension plan. Presumably in Ottawa, that suggests a federal government DB plan that's (a) generous and (b) indexed for inflation. He's already contributing something like 10% of salary into the plan so, unless...

One sticking point for me: currency hedging or not with the US and International equity funds? My vote is not. As you may know, Vanguard started operations in Canada a few months ago. They only offer ETFs, not mutual funds. Their US and International Canadian-based ETFs both hedge the CA$. I questi...

Peculiar_Investor wrote:How about Financial Webring Forum • View topic - Real Return Bonds or Real Return Bonds - finiki

I'll see you those and raise you this Real Return Bonds for Canadian Dummies

Valuethinker wrote:

Puakinekine wrote:It has taken a very long time for it to cross the ocean.

Which is why the USN is a '2 Ocean Navy' .

Apparently not very effective against North Atlantic piracy

Oldest profession. Victoria A bit dangerous as an occupation, not to mention illegal, and the pay is not very good for men ;) Legal in... Canada,... Now a bit less dangerous and a bit less illegal in these parts: Sex-trade workers hail legalization of brothels as major victory Ontario’s top court h...

A bit OT, but I usually grab a 6 pack of Guinness Stout to drink every St. Patty's day. The bottles in the past has been a standard 12 oz version. The 6 pack that I acquired a few weeks ago contained bottles with only 11.2oz! I felt ripped off. :beer It gets worse. A couple of years ago, when drivi...

when I received my laptop a few days ago, I am not seeing any way to hookup my dvi-d(single link) monitor plug to the new laptop. Is there anyway to make this old monitor work with my new laptop? How do most people hook up their monitors to their laptops? I know my laptop does have an hdmi port, bu...

I'm not sure if this story has been posted here already. This articles appears in a Canadian newspaper, but it deals with the issues at the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) level, so it applies to US and overseas investors too. (H/T to Peculiar_Investor at FWF.) Regulator...

My mom's computer died just after I got her a new toner cartridge for her parallel only HP laser printer. I got her a new desktop (Windows 7, no parallel port) and also picked up one of these from Amazon. It worked like a champ. Once I installed the driver for the port adapter, windows 7 automatica...

Hard disk/SSD: While hard disk prices have gone up a bit, note that they are still only around $0.06 per gigabyte, compared to about $0.30 per gigabyte five years ago and $1 per gigabyte on SSDs today. For the SSD the real performance benefit is not the higher transfer rate but the lower access tim...

I realise you're looking at a new desktop but I think the following is still relevant. A few months ago I upgraded two older ThinkPads, one a T60p and the other an X61s (6 and 4 years, respectively) from XP to Win7. In both cases I did fresh installs (not that I had any other option) and then reinst...

What could possibly go wrong? The category was U.S. cities, and the clue was: "Its largest airport is named for a World War II hero; its second largest, for a World War II battle." Watson's response, "What is Toronto?????" Well close, sort of ;) Tronno's largest airport is named...

The short answer is no. This is in large part because Canadian regulators make it prohibitively expensive for fee-only advisors to make a living, especially at 25bps AUM.

BTW if you're located in Canada you might want to check out http://www.financialwebring.org/forum/

When crossing the border in either direction you have to declare amounts over $10,000. See Crossing the border with $10,000 or more? Note that this is merely a declaration. There is no tax or other implications. (OTOH if you fail to declare and are caught the penalties can be severe.) The reporting ...

richard wrote:Moffat announced there will be a season three.

I should hope so considering how he ended season two.

(automated gas pumps etc, which however are rare in any case) In Switzerland? My experience is that they're relatively common. After hours, say after 10pm, they accept only CHF10/CHF20 notes or credit cards. As for buying rail/subway tickets at automated dispensers, I can't confirm because all my c...

Tonight's episode (last of the season) was a doozy. Will he or won't he?

FATCA probably should scare you. Nope. I'm confident that my broker (TD Waterhouse) is or will be FATCA-compliant. In any case I can simply file an IRS W8-BEN form to get the 15% withholding rate under the US/CA tax treaty. There are ways to recover/mitigate even the 15% tax when filing Canadian ta...

After I did my some calculations. You are indeed right. Given the expected amounts I would be putting into equity investments, it is unlikely that I would exceed that threshold. I'm not trying to scare you but consider that US estate tax legislation, especially things like thresholds, can and do ch...

This is really nothing new. EMV smartcards (with chips embedded into the card) have been in use in Europe for many years. Canada has also transitioned to them in the last couple of years. The issue is that in Europe many credit card readers on automated payment machines, e.g. that dispense gasoline ...

Can the corporation be a foreign one (ie. non-US incorporated?). That's the whole idea. You want the holding company to be incorporated outside the US so that it's out of the reaches of the IRS. Also, are there any drawbacks of investing through a corporation? (for example, having to pay capital ta...

I have checked out the link and it seems like only Canada and Australia sites are the only ones providing ETFs. Just wondering, if they appear on the Canada and Australian sites, does that mean they are domiciled there? The Canadian ETFs are domiciled in Canada, trade only on the Toronto Stock Exch...

bogglehead wrote:I've had the brakes go out on a Uhaul truck and they're a mess to deal with.

Cava wrote:I agree...skip U-Haul and go with Penske because of much better equipment based on my previous experiences.

Y'all are not alone. See U-Haul • Safety issues and U-HaulSafetyAlert.Org

Save first and be happy with laminate - The Globe and Mail David Chilton knows the truth about our spending habits. He’s the author of two stunningly successful books, The Wealthy Barber and The Wealthy Barber Returns . I had lunch with him the other day. “We’re literally wired to spend,” he told m...