How much does everyone put into RRSP every month?

[Sugarphreak]

...

[LollerBrader]

Originally posted by mazdavirgin


Nevermind that book is written for the states or the fact the author has been outed as a fraud(http://www.johntreed.com/Kiyosaki.html)...

I'm aware of the controversy around Kyosaki... Personally, I think all of these guys are frauds and hucksters - But that doesn't mean we need to close ourselves off to valuable ideas in their books.

The two most important ideas I took away from RD,PD, was this:

- No guts, no glory.
- Constant learning is the best investment.

[Jry_79]

$200 per month and company matches!

[Feruk]

Originally posted by LollerBrader


I'm aware of the controversy around Kyosaki... Personally, I think all of these guys are frauds and hucksters - But that doesn't mean we need to close ourselves off to valuable ideas in their books.

The two most important ideas I took away from RD,PD, was this:

- No guts, no glory.
- Constant learning is the best investment.

This advice is about as valuable as listening to Queen's "We are the champions." Common sense still be common sense.

[1barA4]

Originally posted by Sugarphreak


yeah yeah, I keep forgetting your day job is being a Secret Agent Astronaut Millionaire Cowboy...

I LOL'd

[codetrap]

Originally posted by Sugarphreak


You did hack out important parts of my quote and try to make it seem like I was saying that I don't save anything at all... also I have never read poor dad books, I formulate my own strategies based on risk vs reward.

That aside;

That works in theory, but in this type of a market you are risking money to get returns over what you pay on your mortgage on it. I am not a big fan of leveraging borrowed money, while it can pay off it can also bite you in the ass very quickly.

Not to say I don't try to earn high returns; the lump sum payments I make to my RSP at the end of the year from my HELOC pretty much go straight into a 50/50 split of self directed market investments and GIC's.... before you lecture me on GIC's I only buy them in high market conditions and for long terms, currently all of my GIC's are long term and pay between 3.75% to 4.50% compounded annually.

Then I also have another type of investment in hard bullion that represents about 10% of my total savings; every year I collect an undisclosed number of Canadian Maple coins and deposit them in my SD. My plan with those is eventually when I stop having income from employment, I can sell them one by one to supplement my income while not having to pay any tax on the earnings. I especially like the fact that they don't show up as an asset and are very liquid.

I am pretty happy with my investment strategy, you can poke fun and say I am not taking enough risks, but as it stands now I am well on track for where I want to be down the road.

Sugarphreak. I understand the risks in using leveraged money, as it can (and has) turned around an bitten us. But, it's a very necessary risk. We did the math of projecting our earnings/savings over the next 30 years to see where we'd be by just paying everything into the mortgage, and then investing the freed up income, vs paying half/half into mortgage and rrsps, vs continuing regular mortgage payments, putting 10-15% into RRSPs, and using the smith maneuver strategty with the heloc.

The difference was HUGE. First scenario, we're eating cat food in our retirement. Second scenario, we're maybe living ok, but no with no extra money for doing fun stuff. Just basically staying home and waiting to die with the odd trip to mexico or somewhere nice. Third scenario, we have our RRSPs, plus slightly over 6 million in non sheltered investments that are paying a continuous revenue stream, the house payed off, and no bills. Since the investments are outside of the RRSP structure, and all the tax has already been paid on that money, if I want to liquidate some and buy a motorhome, so be it. Don't have to take a huge tax penalty on it. I know a few guys who found out the hard way that pulling 80k out of their RRSPs to buy a motorhome really cost them closer to 140k because of tax. What we're doing is NOT a substitute for RRSPs, its something to be done alongside of RRSPs. Deferring that tax and using the proceeds to invest/save etc is a key part of our strategy.

Now, keep in mind, that the simple fact that we're talking about this shows that you're FAR ahead of a lot of people in Canada, and even in this thread. I see these young guys that aren't putting anything away, or the bare minimum and living it up, and I shake my head. I was exactly the same way in my tweens & 20s. Now I'm mid thirties and I realize that had I actually done some smart investing in even basic funds, I'd have well over 250k in rrsps already. For something like home buying, that would have been a HUGE bonus. I WISH my parents had understood finances better, so they could have taught me, so I wouldn't have had to learn this stuff the hard way.

There was a survey somewhere that I read about where something crazy like 40% of canadians were counting on their lottery winnings in their retirement plans. That is scary.