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Old 08-03-2018, 10:29 AM   #6
pseudoreality
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Slava View Post
You can have more than one RESP, but there is a finite grant and that’s all you get (if that makes sense?). There are a few other advantages such as tax sheltered growth and things like that which you would still get though.

Later (when I am not on my phone) I will post an RESP primer to go through a bunch of the considerations and things like that.
Can you address the rules about the grant money and interest it earns in your primer? I've got an RESP with a big bad bank and they keep the grant money in a money market fund separate from the main mutual fund my contributions go into. That makes it easier if it has to be returned, but am I unnecessarily losing out on investment earnings potential? They also asked what school my kid might go to. I recall it being explained that if the kid doesn't go to school, the grant money is returned to the government and the interest the grant money earned goes to the school I initially identified. I can't seem to find much info online about this. It seems the people that go self-directed through a discount brokage link Quest Trade just see the grant money show up in their account as cash and then they redistribute it based on their chosen ETF allocation. I guess the math wouldn't be that hard if you don't contribute over the amount they match with the grant, it would just be 20% of the total.

And yes, I know I'm a hypocrite for having a mutual fund. It was the easiest thing to convince my wife of when we had our first. However, she is now totally onboard with self-directed investment through a discount brokage and I got her set-up for her TFSAs that way. We recently had another baby, so it is decision time. Do we double down on the bank mutual fund, which is the easiest and most expensive, or do I transfer it to a discount brokage and manage it myself for better returns/lower fees?
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