Monthly Archives: February 2009

Friday Links

Canadian Capitalist wrote about the danger in chasing yield. Million Dollar Journey reviewed the pros and cons of holding a mortgage within an RRSP. Thicken My Wallet had a guest post from Mom2KG on being prepared for disasters like floods and fires. Generation X Finance points out that while mortgage rates ...

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Reduce Your Credit Card Interest Rate

Is your credit card interest rate 18% or higher? Call the number on the back of your card, tell them you have seen lower rates and chances are that you can get them to lower it. Your best leverage during the call could be if you have a recent offer in the ...

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Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) Portfolio

I'm considering holding REITs in my TFSA since they would be a good income earning investment, but not necessarily tax efficient. My first thought was to look into the iShares CDN REIT Sector Index Fund (XRE), but it's 0.55% MER is rather high for an ETF than only has 11 holdings. You ...

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Visa and MasterCard Debit Cards

Visa and MasterCard have both confirmed that they are looking into offering their debit cards in Canada. These would be similar to the Interac cards that we're familiar with here in Canada. Interac is a non-profit organization, owned by the banks and credit unions, it's fees are based on the cost of processing transactions.

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Tax Refunds Are A Bad Thing

While many people get excited about large tax refunds, all it really means is that you lent the government money throughout the year, interest free. Say you are paid bi-weekly and every year you were expecting a tax refund of $5,200. Maybe this is due to set RRSP contributions, plus a stay at home spouse and ...

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