Weekly wrap: fingers crossed for TFSA doubling, how to spend your tax refund, looking under the Robo hood

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Gordon Pape (www.everythingzoomer.com)

Gordon Pape, author of the definitive TFSA book, Tax-Free Savings Accounts,  wrote a couple of good pieces this week for the Globe & Mail on what next Tuesday’s federal budget may have in store for the TFSA. In TFSAs benefit more than the rich, Pape listed various groups that can benefit from TFSAs, including seniors, savers, young people, income splitters and low-income Canadians. Or as I’ve said, pretty much every Canadian 18 years of age or more.

An earlier Pape column on Monday titled Oliver’s plan to raise TFSA limits raises many questions, looked at whether the promised “doubling” of an annual TFSA contribution limits would be double the original $5,000 limit, for a total of $10,000, or double the current $$5,500 limit for a total of $11,000. Hey, we’d be happy with either event! The other main question is how inflation indexing would be handled.

Over at Retirement Redux, Sheryl Smolkin looks at What Seniors Want in the federal budget.

Of course, if we do get $10,000 or $11,000 TFSA room, we’d still have to come up with the cash. A good source for that, now that we’ve filed our 2014 taxes (we have, haven’t we?) will be any tax refund heading your way from Ottawa.  You may want to read my latest blog for Motley Fool Canada on this subject: What to do with your tax refund.

Then there’s the question of HOW to invest your TFSA. Perhaps you’re thinking of using ETFs or a portfolio of ETFs managed by one of those so-called “robo-advisers.” In an online piece that ran this week at the Financial Post, we reminded readers Why you should always look under the hood of your ETFs (or more to the point, the ETFs selected by your robo-adviser).

On Boomer & Echo this week, Robb Engen polled various financial experts, including Yours Truly, to expose 9 Money Myths that Experts Wish You’d Stop Believing.

Among the group of “frugality” blogs aimed at younger people, Blonde on a Budget looks at how to go on a spending fast to speed Findependence: Nine Months Without Shopping and Takeout Coffee

Finally, Mr. Money Mustache reinforces one of the themes we frequently point out here at the Financial Independence Hub: Great News: Early Retirement Doesn’t You’ll Stop Working

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