Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community - View Single Post - Cash sitting in the bank -- invest it or pay down the mortgage?

macker · 05-15-2008, 07:01 PM

Check out this site : http://www.taxtips.ca/rrsp/mortgagevsrrsp.htm

You may also want to eventually open an account with E-Trade where you can buy stocks and index funds that will allow you to invest without paying MER's. You will still be paying trading fee's but they have come down a lot and with E-Trade it is $9.99 per trade. Not bad value IMO. Just buy a basket of large cap/blue chip companies that have a history of increasing their dividends. You can create your own mutual fund for a fraction of the cost! You can even cherry pick off of the top fund managers top 10 holdings lists....If you don't have an hour to put into this each week then you are best to go the traditional mutual fund route which is safe and boring but you won't get the same returns as part of your return is paying for the MER. There are soo many great sites now that it has become very easy to be a do it yourselfer! One of my favorites is www.stockhouse.com Good luck with your investing, and you mentioned maybe investing in real estate and this is one area that I would maybe stay away from unless you are bargain finding in the States IMO.

05-15-2008, 07:01 PM	#47
macker First Line Centre Join Date: Apr 2007 Exp:	Check out this site : http://www.taxtips.ca/rrsp/mortgagevsrrsp.htm You may also want to eventually open an account with E-Trade where you can buy stocks and index funds that will allow you to invest without paying MER's. You will still be paying trading fee's but they have come down a lot and with E-Trade it is $9.99 per trade. Not bad value IMO. Just buy a basket of large cap/blue chip companies that have a history of increasing their dividends. You can create your own mutual fund for a fraction of the cost! You can even cherry pick off of the top fund managers top 10 holdings lists....If you don't have an hour to put into this each week then you are best to go the traditional mutual fund route which is safe and boring but you won't get the same returns as part of your return is paying for the MER. There are soo many great sites now that it has become very easy to be a do it yourselfer! One of my favorites is www.stockhouse.com Good luck with your investing, and you mentioned maybe investing in real estate and this is one area that I would maybe stay away from unless you are bargain finding in the States IMO.