Quotes of the Day

Although you can close out your RRSP earlier than the year in which you celebrate your 71st birthday, the best strategy for most people is to leave your RRSP intact for as long as you're allowed. This is almost always the case if you decide to turn it into an RRIF. If you choose to go the annuity route, collapsing your plan a year or two early can make sense. If interest rates are relatively high, closing your plan out early may make sense if it allows you to lock in a higher-than-average return. [2019] - Eric Tyson

Contact the lawyer referral service in your community. Under this service, sponsored by the provincial law society or a provincial division of the Canadian Bar Association, you can consult with a lawyer for about half an hour for either a nominal fee (usually $10-$25) or no fee at all. Make sure you emphasize that you want a lawyer who specializes in real estate--ideally, condominium real estate. If you did not obtain the referral through the lawyer referral service, ask the lawyer over the phone what a half-hour initial consultation would cost. In many cases, it is free as a marketing goodwill gesture. [2006] - Douglas Gray

Save 10 to 15 percent of your pre-tax income. [2011] - David Chilton

Commodities such as gold, oil, silver, and land provided real wealth in the Industrial Age. But in the Information Age, these commodities themselves do not make you rich. Rather, it is the information you have about those commodities. [2008] - Robert T. Kiyosaki

Several Canadian ETF providers, including iShares, Vanguard, BMO, and Horizons, offer all-in-one portfolio products. They are just as good as each other: no better, no worse. Don’t make the natural and common mistake of comparing their past performances and making a decision based on what you find. Although they’re similarly allocated, their indexed compositions aren’t exactly the same. As a result, the iShares Core Balanced ETF (XBAL) might edge out Vanguard’s Balanced ETF Portfolio (VBAL) over one period. But over the next period, the results could be reversed. Either way, the long-term differences would be far too small to sweat. [2022] - Andrew Hallam