Author Archives: BetCrooks

Retirement Roundup or Why I Won’t be Free at 55 Unless It’s for Lunch on Friday

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As the RRSP frenzy has calmed for another 10 months, it’s time to consider the second R in that acronym: Retirement. In past posts, I’ve discussed the need to account for your personal rate of inflation when budgeting for retirement and what you need to budget for the long term costs of maintaining a house. I’ve been reading a lot of “Financial Facelifts,” “Family Finance,” and “Monday Makeovers” many of which are about retirement planning. The comments on these personal financial profiles lead me to investigate What Does It Really Cost to Eat for a Month? That will be another important factor in our retirement budgeting.

Then I went clicking through the internet looking for more retirement news. Here’s some of what I found:

Retire Happy gives a simple way to estimate how much CPP you will receive based on how many years you have paid in the maximum annual contribution at http://retirehappy.ca/how-much-will-you-get-from-canada/ . Some of the early comments also make for excellent reading.

Boomer at Boomer and Echo helps you Create a Retirement Income Plan.

Michael James on Money has done the math and determined that for some low-income seniors it’s actually best to collapse an RRSP all in one year rather than take it out slowly through a RIF. Read why at Handling RRSPs and RRIFs for Low-Income Seniors.

Jane at The Money Puzzle passes on some anecdotes about how people reacted in What Can Happen If You Receive an Early Inheritance. For sure some of these people should have made better choices.

The Blunt Bean Counter works the numbers to prove that for almost everyone who can afford to contribute to an RRSP the tax benefits make it worth while in The RRSP Hullabaloo.

Big Cajun Man explains in CPP Splitting a Different Process that pension sharing doesn’t mean the same thing when you’re talking CPP as when you’re talking income taxes and why it matters.

StatsCan reviewed retirement and found some interesting trends including an increase of 2 years in the average age of retirement for workers in 2009 compared with workers in 1998. Check it out to find out what that average age was.

Lunch, anyone?
I won’t be able to retire at 55, but if you do and you want to take me out to lunch, please send me an email!

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Setting Up a DRIP for a Stock or ETF at BMO InvestorLine

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Today I decided to start a Dividend Reinvestment Program (DRIP) for a stock I hold in a registered investment account at BMO InvestorLine. Here’s what I had to do.

How to Set Up a Dividend Reinvestment Program (DRIP) at InvestorLine

Have your Account Number and Login Password handy.
I usually login using a Userid that groups all of my accounts at InvestorLine, so I actually had to go looking for this information!

  1. Call 1 888 776 6886.
  2. Select your preferred language from English, French or Chinese.
  3. At the prompt, enter your Account Number followed by the # symbol.
  4. At the prompt, enter your Login Password followed by the # symbol.
  5. Listen to the voice mail menu as it changes from time to time. For my call, I had to press 0 and 3.
  6. Wait on hold. I waited for 5 minutes, which they had warned me was the expected wait time.
    • I was calling mid-morning on a Thursday.
    • The hold music wasn’t as strange as ING Direct’s version of “Money for Nothing.”
    • Instead of selling products to me, the voice-overs offered tips for using InvestorLine to research stocks.
  7. Once the call was answered the assistance was super speedy. In less than one minute, the person
    • Confirmed my account number.
    • Confirmed the number of shares of the stock I hold that I want to enroll in the DRIP.
    • Warned that it usually takes 2 weeks for a DRIP to be created. Any dividends received during that two week period would be paid in cash not DRIPped.
    • Confirmed that the usual dividend payment for my holding was “Y” and that the cost per share is “Z” and therefore that I would receive several shares with each dividend payment and the balance would be paid in cash.
      If the dividend paid by a stock is less than the amount required to buy 1 share, then the entire amount will be paid as cash even if the stock is enrolled in a DRIP.
    • This was a good reminder that InvestorLine offers a synthetic DRIP. You cannot buy fractional shares. All shares must be purchased as whole shares.
  8. Gave me a Reference Number for the request.
  9. Wished me well.

Rating the DRIP Enrollment Process for a Stock Held by BMO InvestorLine

Overall, I would give this system 4.5 out of 5. The customer service was excellent. The wait time could be improved.
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Do you DRIP any stocks or ETFs using BMO InvestorLine? Are you satisfied with their service? Please share your experiences with a comment.