Building Wealth

For the first 30 or so years of working, saving and investing, you’ll be first in the mode of getting out of the hole (paying down debt), and then building your net worth (that’s wealth accumulation.). But don’t forget, wealth accumulation isn’t the ultimate goal. Decumulation is! (a separate category here at the Hub).

Tips for investing in gold — and how to hold gold in your RRSP

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At TSI Network, we’ve long recommended that you stay away from buying gold bullion, coins (unless you collect them as a hobby) or certificates representing an interest in bullion. If you are looking at investing in gold for 2018, there’s a better way.

That’s because gold investing in bullion does not generate income. Instead, bullion and coins come with a continuing cash drain for management, insurance, storage and so on.

Instead, we recommend that you limit your investing in gold to gold-mining stocks. Unlike bullion, gold-mining stocks at least have the potential to generate income.

However, if you do want to hold physical gold or silver in an RRSP, here’s how to do it:

More than a decade ago, the 2005 Canadian federal budget made investment-grade gold and silver coins, as well as gold or silver bullion bars, eligible to be held in an RRSP.

To be considered investment grade, gold coins must be at least 99.5% pure, and silver coins must be at least 99.9% pure. As well, only legal-tender coins produced by the Royal Canadian Mint are RRSP-eligible.

Bullion bars are also eligible for RRSP gold investing, as long as they are produced by a metal refinery that is accredited by the London Bullion Market Association. Accredited metal refineries include the Royal Canadian Mint and Johnson Matthey.

However, to hold the coins or bullion bars in your RRSP you need to find a third-party custodian of your coins or bars who will verify that you indeed hold the amount of bullion claimed, and report that to the Canada Revenue Agency on your behalf. Despite those safeguards, we do not recommend investing in gold through coins or bullion.

Investing in gold: a practical way to hold gold bars and coins in your RRSP

Questrade, a Canadian online discount broker, introduced its “Gold RSP” in January 2006. A decade later, in July 2016, this investment still meets all of the Canada Revenue Agency’s specifications, and makes it practical to hold coins or bullion bars in your RRSP.

To access the Questrade Gold RSP, you have to open a Questrade account. You can open an account with as little as $1,000. Kitco Metals buys the gold from the Royal Canadian Mint, and the gold is stored at the Mint, as the Canada Revenue Agency requires. Bid and ask prices are quoted on the Questrade web site, so you can buy and sell gold bars or coins if you want to bet on gold price fluctuations.

Questrade, on behalf of the Royal Canadian Mint, charges storage fees of about $0.10 per ounce of gold per month. There is no minimum number of ounces you need to hold, and no minimum storage charge.

Mistakes you should avoid when investing in gold

The first of the gold investing mistakes you should avoid is gold futures or options. Continue Reading…

Retired Money: How to beat the banks at their own game

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My latest MoneySense column reviews the new book by ex banker Larry Bates, titled Beat the Bank. As the headline suggests, it’s all about how to beat the banks at their own game, which ironically can mean owning the big bank stocks themselves! The full column can be retrieved by clicking on the highlighted text here:  Tips for DIY investors on beating the Big Five banks.

The formal launch date for the book is this Thursday: September 13, 2018. I first met Bates over lunch in March as his manuscript was nearing completion, where he expounded on what he called the “two Bay Streets.” Old Bay Street and its secrets are the focus of chapters 4 and 5, and New Bay Street is chapter 6.

Old Bay Street is not the investor’s friend

Most experienced investors will have encountered Old Bay Street at some point. This is the traditional investment industry: the commission-based mutual fund and brokerage industry, insurance company reps, investment “specialists” in the bank branches and various salespeople who call themselves “advisors.”

New Bay Street = Discount Brokerage, ETFs & fee-for-service planners

The New Bay Street includes providers of low-cost index funds or Exchange-traded Funds (ETFs) or online robo-advisers that automate the purchase and rebalancing of ETFs along with setting asset allocation.

At 62, Bates is well into his own “Victory Lap,” leaving employment for self-employment. Actually, his New Bay Street model isn’t all that new, as it describes models similar to what I myself described back in 1998 in my own financial book, Findependence Day. My version consists of buying ETFs at a discount brokerage and using a fee-for-service financial planner. The same year, similar principles were also described in Stop Buying Mutual Funds!, by Mark Heinzl, now a Globe & Mail stock market columnist.

Dinosaur banks have the lowest T-REX scores

Bates has fashioned something he calls T-REX scores  This is an acronym for Total Return Efficiency Index Score. A T-REX score of 100% would be paying absolutely no fees at all, no matter how long your time horizon.

Mutual funds with 2% annual fees would have T-REX scores of 54% over 20 years and true fees of 46%, but the longer you hold, the worse the performance; thus, over 40 years the T-REX would be 41% and the true fee 59%. Fees of 3% inflict even more damage. This is the basis for his statement that long-term customers of Old Bay Street lose half their money to fees. You can find more at his website at www.larrybates.ca.

The pure DIY model of buying individual stocks or bonds at a discount broker yields the highest scores: a T-REX of 96 to 99%. (Remember, the higher the better, with 100 being perfect).

Continue Reading…

How much can you expect for investment returns?

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S&P 500 returns since the 1930s

By Dale Roberts

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

“How much am I going to make?”

That’s likely the most reasonable question that an investor could ask. When you sign up for a savings account or GIC it’s usually the rate of return that lured you in, or got your attention. We know that many savers are ‘rate chasers’. They go from bank to bank, playing each bank against the other bank, asking for more, asking for a higher interest rate on their savings account or GIC.

I often had clients brag to me that they could get a savings account at 1.5% at so-and-so bank or credit union. I’d reply “That’s great, go for it, but I work in investments, I’m talking about earning triple or quadruple or more than that rate over time.” Of course, I would always qualify that there was the potential to earn that greater rate or return.

Did I mention that 1.5% don’t impress me much?

Of course, at this stage of the conversation I would probe the client’s savings accounts and whether or not they had a more than ample Emergency Fund. Typically, advisors will suggest that you hold 3-6 months of total spending needs in a savings account. That said, everyone knows their own personal situation and what types of emergencies that might pop up – and potentially the costs of those emergencies.

Separate short-term and long-term money

Another important practice is to separate our short-term monies and our long-term monies. Once we’re covered with that short-term emergency bucket, we move on to growth and try to make our long-term monies work real hard. You will also have day–to-day monies in a chequing or savings account.

One of the biggest mistakes Canadians make is to have too much money in “high interest” savings accounts. Guess what? That 1-2% is not going to take you to the retirement promised land. In fact, monies in a savings account are usually going backwards, it’s not making you a dime once you factor in inflation. A long term historical average for inflation is in the area of 3%. If you’re earning 2% in a savings account, you’re losing 1% spending power, each year.

Your $100,000 that you have today might feel like (or spend like) $90,000 or less in ten years. Start to extrapolate that over a few decades and the effect is greatly exaggerated. Inflation is nasty. Here’s an example that will also show my age. When I was a kid, I would take 25 cents to the movies to buy treats. With those 25 pennies I would be able to buy a pop and chips, I think I may have also been able to buy a 3-pack of gum. Yes, I also spent a lot of time in the dentist’s chair. Can you get anything for a quarter these days? I didn’t think so. Talk about losing spending power. And no, I did not grow up in the era of the Great Depression. I ‘grew up’ in the best decades of all time: the 60s and the 70s.

Only stocks can outstrip inflation

Now certainly, the 70s experienced some ‘hyper’ inflation so the effect was exaggerated. But inflation is there and it’s powerful, even in the 2.5 – 3% range. Continue Reading…

How investing makes it easier to achieve Financial Independence

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By Gary Bordeaux

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

If you are looking for a way to secure your financial future, learning how to invest your money can help accomplish that goal. There are a variety of investment vehicles that can be tailored to fit your needs, timeline, and risk tolerance.

Let’s take a look at some of the specific reasons how investing helps a person obtain financial independence (aka “Findependence”).

Make money both today and tomorrow

If you are interested in generating a steady income from your investment portfolio, you can buy dividend stocks or a REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust). You make money today by receiving a dividend payment every month or quarter. You make money in the future by holding the security as it appreciates in value. When it reaches what you feel is the height of its value, feel free to sell it and lock in a profit. It is also possible to hold stocks in a trust that can benefit children, grandchildren or other beneficiaries after you pass on.

Obtain returns greater than the Rate of Inflation

Thanks to inflation, a dollar that you hold in your hand today will be worth the equivalent of 98 cents a year from now. This is because the price of goods will increase by an average of 2 per cent per year. In some cases, inflation can reach 4 per cent or greater in a given 12-month period.

As a general rule, stocks will appreciate by about 7 per cent per year, and that amount is higher if a stock offers a dividend. What this means is that you are increasing your net worth above what it takes to keep up with cost-of-living increases. Over a period of years or decades, you could accrue tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars that can be used to enhance your lifestyle.

Improve your chances of owning a home

Let’s say that you are looking to buy your first house. You could decide to buy a single-family unit with a monthly mortgage of $1,000 that you are responsible for paying on your own. However, another option is to buy a duplex that you can both live in and derive income from. At the very least, having a tenant living in the other half of your home will decrease the monthly mortgage payment.

The money that you save can then be used to improve the home or make other investments. If you make improvements to a property that is used for rental purposes, it may be possible to write off the amount of those repairs on a state or federal tax return. Continue Reading…

5 financial fitness tips to help becoming #RetireReady

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By Jenny Diplock

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

As any personal trainer will tell you, a new fitness routine starts with a personalized plan and a target goal. And to improve performance, you need to train: especially in the off-season. Taking a similar approach to your retirement contribution goals can help you feel confident you’re #RetireReady.

In fact, according to a recent survey from TD, 79 per cent of working Canadians agree that reviewing their retirement contribution goals outside of RSP season is a good idea.

But even with these good intentions, the data shows just 40 per cent of working Canadians contribute regularly to their registered Retirement Savings Plans (RSPs) through pre-authorized contributions, 20 per cent don’t contribute to retirement savings at all, and nearly a third of working Canadians feel stressed out during the February RSP season.

When it comes to saving for retirement, contributing to your RSP once a year is like running a marathon without the right training. Because you’re not in the habit of saving, trying to come up with one large contribution amount just before the annual RSP deadline can be harder than contributing smaller and more manageable amounts throughout the year, potentially putting additional pressure on the rest of your finances.

To help improve your retirement readiness year-round: Continue Reading…