Weekly Dividend Round: Preferred Shares Anyone?

By Category: Preferred Shares, Weekly | 8 comments

top-canadian-finance-bloggerFirst things first, my weekly round (which is really bi-weekly these days) will be more focused on Dividends and Investing with a dash or randomness if I find it pertinent. I was always a little more focused on dividends as I really have more times to give attention to those blogs over others.

Top Canadian Personal Finance Blog Nomination

I am always humble to be nominated and its always thanks to my readers. Without you, there wouldn’t be a blog. Over at Modest Money, I was nominated as a Top Canadian Finance Blog and I would love it if you could take some time to vote for me :) It takes only a minute – click the link, scroll down the list and click “The Passive Income Earner”.

Preferred Shares

I don’t know if you read the news about Apple mulling over having preferred shares with something like a 4% yield and with their cash balance, it sounds like it would be a great opportunity for investors - especially for those nearing retirement.

Preferred shares are definitely going to have a part in

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Weekly Blog Round: Real Estate Downtrend

By Category: Real Estate, Retirement, Weekly | 4 comments

Real Estate & RetirementIt’s clear that all the crystal balls from last year, or even the year before, predicting a housing crash were simply wrong. I don’t believe ever reading analysts predicting a crash but headlines from the media were sensational. I have said this more than once, when individuals interviewed about their finances all believe they are in control but they don’t think others are, the reality is that everyone thinks they are in control regardless of what the ratio of income to debt is. It doesn’t make it any better that the flock believes it is fine. In fact, some doomsday sayer around the real estate thought about shorting the biggest alternate mortgage company (Home Capital Group). So far, that strategy has not been a successful one so far. I should note that HCG is a Canadian Dividend Aristocrats too :)

Related: Shorting Mortgage Lenders

The CHMC Mortgage rules changed and the constant reminder that we are in over our head in debts appear to have finally re-enforced better habits: Equifax reported that Canadians have been paying off debt

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Weekly Blog Round: RRSP Planning

By Category: Income Tax, RRSP, Weekly | 12 comments

Maximizing and Optimizing RRSPWith the new year slightly behind us, I consider January a planning month for RRSP and Tax Planning. To optimize your RRSP, you will need to have an idea of your taxes. Last month I discussed how you can offset capital gains with capital loss and now it’s time to make sure you make use of your RRSP account effectively if you do make use of it.

Personally, I do all three accounts in the following order:

  1. TFSA
  2. RRSP
  3. RESP

RRSP Optimization

Amazon ImageTo optimize your RRSP, you want to understand how big your tax refund is and then you calculate how much more RRSP contribution you could add in the short term by borrowing and then you use the tax refund to pay back the loan.

For example, if you are getting $1,000 in a tax refund and decide to borrow another $1,500 to contribute, you would get another $500 on top

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2012 Posts in Review

By Category: Weekly | Leave a comment

Many of you join me in my journey to build an income portfolio at different point in time and I wanted to review my most noteworthy posts of the year with you. Those I feel are noteworthy anyways :)

Over the year, the markets were up and down, mortgage rates were low (and are still low), and some buy opportunities were present. Here are some financial wisdom :)

  • Define your financial and retirement strategy
  • Stick to your strategy
  • Review your strategy and investments regularly

May 2013 provide everyone with financial success!

Noteworthy Posts – Editor’s Picks

Many of those are my most commented and most viewed posts. I’d love to hear which one you find the best and most pertinent for you – leave a comment!

January 2012

How To Review Your Portfolio

How To Assess If The Smith Manoeuvre Is Good For You

February 2012

Good twist on discussing Emergency Funds. The goal is to know what you need and balance that

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Weekly Blog Round: Tax Planning

By Category: Income Tax, Weekly | 6 comments

TFSA Limit IncreaseWe are 5 months away from filing taxes but December is actually a very important month for starting to think about taxes.

If you have sold some investments with capital gains outside a registered account, you may offset the capital gains by taking capital losses too. It’s not a matter of holding a negative stock for the long term but simply making a tax efficient move. You can buy back the stock 30 days after your trade settles.

Tax Planning Example

Consider two investments purchased over the past year:

  • Company A: 100 shares at $10.00
  • Company B: 50 shares at $20.00

At the end of the year, the companies have the following values:

  • Company A is trading at $14.00
  • Investment value in Company A is $1400.00
  • Company B is trading at $16.00
  • Investment value in Company B is $800.00

You took some profits in Company A by selling half of them. Might be to add to Company B at some point but once you sold in a non-registered account, you have capital gains to pay. Considering Company B is trading at

Continue reading Weekly Blog Round: Tax Planning

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