[JerriMc]

Hi JerriMC - no, I don't have a spreadsheet to share.
The one I use is quite customized, relatively ugly, frequently modified, and manual. I don't feel it's in a state to share.

There are some great spreadsheets publicly available that should satisfy most users.

Thanks, can you share some links?

 

[BoringInvestor]

Thanks, can you share some links?

Here's a great resource: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Tools_and_calculators#Portfolio_tools
I've heard good reviews of the Boglehead sheets.

 

[BoringInvestor]

May 2018 update

Commentary
May finished up 1.72%, breaking through the $20,000 level for total account balance, and pushed the net asset gain to a new high of $3,125.51.


Monthly results
The portfolio this month: up 1.72%, or $341.04


Complete RESP results
Total deposits since inception (April 2015): $15,000.00
The portfolio's gain since inception: up 18.28% or $3,125.51
If I include the Canada Education Savings Grant [CESG] funds as an investment gain, the portfolio is: up 34.84% or $5,225.51


The RESP's yearly return based on my deposits and growth (aka the annualized money-weighted rate of return since inception): 10.20%
The RESP's yearly return if I ignore the size of new deposits and treat them all equally (aka the annualized time-weighted rate of return since inception): 8.18%
The annual cost of the portfolio (i.e, the combined, embedded ETF management fee) is 0.22%, or $44.87


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[BoringInvestor]

June 2018 update

Commentary
June started strong, but gave up most of its gains by the end, finishing slightly up at 0.25%.
The portfolio hit a new high for both total gain, and total balance.


Monthly results
The portfolio this month: up 0.25%, or $51.40


Complete RESP results
Total deposits since inception (April 2015): $15,000.00
The portfolio's gain since inception: up 18.58% or $3,176.91
If I include the Canada Education Savings Grant [CESG] funds as an investment gain, the portfolio is: up 35.18% or $5,276.91


The RESP's yearly return based on my deposits and growth (aka the annualized money-weighted rate of return since inception): 9.88%
The RESP's yearly return if I ignore the size of new deposits and treat them all equally (aka the annualized time-weighted rate of return since inception): 8.05%
The annual cost of the portfolio (i.e, the combined, embedded ETF management fee) is 0.22%, or $44.91


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[BoringInvestor]

July 2018 update

Commentary
July was a pretty good month for the portfolio, having its 5th best return by dollar gain ($431.42) and 10th best return by percentage gain (2.13%).
The portfolio saw dividends for both positions (VCN.T and VXC.T), an automatic purchase of a share of VXC.T, and price gains totaling to a monthly gain of $431.42.

The portfolio hit a new high for both total gain ($3,608.33), and total balance ($20.708.33).


Monthly results
The portfolio this month: up 2.13%, or $431.42


Complete RESP results
Total deposits since inception (April 2015): $15,000.00
Total CESG funds received since inception: $2,100.00
The portfolio's gain since inception: up 21.1% or $3,608.33
If I include the Canada Education Savings Grant [CESG] funds as an investment gain, the portfolio is: up 38.06% or $5,708.33


The RESP's yearly return based on my deposits and growth (aka the annualized money-weighted rate of return since inception): 10.62%
The RESP's yearly return if I ignore the size of new deposits and treat them all equally (aka the annualized time-weighted rate of return since inception): 8.52%
The annual cost of the portfolio (i.e, the combined, embedded ETF management fee) is 0.22%, or $45.84


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[BoringInvestor]

August 2018 update

Commentary
August saw the last deposit (of $1,000) and rebalance in this account this year.
The 0.61% asset gain brought the account to a new-high for total balance ($21,840), and total asset gain ($3,740).


Monthly results
The portfolio this month: up 0.61%, or $131.41


Complete RESP results
Total deposits since inception (April 2015): $16,000.00
Total CESG funds received since inception: $2,100.00
The portfolio's gain since inception: up 20.66% or $3,739.74
If I include the Canada Education Savings Grant [CESG] funds as an investment gain, the portfolio is: up 36.50% or $5,839.74


The RESP's yearly return based on my deposits and growth (aka the annualized money-weighted rate of return since inception): 10.48%
The RESP's yearly return if I ignore the size of new deposits and treat them all equally (aka the annualized time-weighted rate of return since inception): 8.50%
The annual cost of the portfolio (i.e, the combined, embedded ETF management fee) is 0.23%, or $49.81


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[BoringInvestor]

September 2018 update

Commentary
September reversed five consecutive months of gains, as the portfolio suffered a loss of -$295.80 or -1.35%.
It was the 8th worst month by percentage since the RESP began.

October will see dividends paid on both ETFs (VCN.T and VXC.T).


Monthly results
The portfolio this month: down -1.35%, or -$295.80.


Complete RESP results
Total deposits since inception (April 2015): $16,000.00
Total CESG funds received since inception: $2,100.00
The portfolio's gain since inception: up 19.03% or $3,444.14
If I include the Canada Education Savings Grant [CESG] funds as an investment gain, the portfolio is: up 34.65% or $5,544.14


The RESP's yearly return based on my deposits and growth (aka the annualized money-weighted rate of return since inception): 9.17%
The RESP's yearly return if I ignore the size of new deposits and treat them all equally (aka the annualized time-weighted rate of return since inception): 7.81%
The annual cost of the portfolio (i.e, the combined, embedded ETF management fee) is 0.23%, or $49.16


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[BoringInvestor]

October 2018 update

Commentary
October was the worst month for the portfolio, measured by dollars loss, as it finished down -$1,212.74.
The loss wiped out nearly 35% of the total gains made to date.

If I include the losses from September too, the portfolio saw a decline of -$1,508.34, which is a decline of almost 40% of the total asset gain.

October's percentage loss of -5.63% was the second worst of the portfolio, trailing only the -5.92% loss in August 2015.

YTD 2018, the RESP has a net asset loss of -$311.04, or -1.51%.
If I include CESG dollars received, the account is up 1.19% over the past 10 months.

The large decline pushed down my annualized rate of return to just shy of 6%, which is on the low-end of my long-run range expectation for the account.


Monthly results
The portfolio this month: down -5.63%, or -$1,212.74


Complete RESP results
Total deposits since inception (April 2015): $16,000.00
Total CESG funds received since inception: $2,100.00
The portfolio's gain since inception: up 12.33% or $2,231.40
If I include the Canada Education Savings Grant [CESG] funds as an investment gain, the portfolio is: up 27.07% or $4,331.40


The RESP's yearly return based on my deposits and growth (aka the annualized money-weighted rate of return since inception): 5.90%
The RESP's yearly return if I ignore the size of new deposits and treat them all equally (aka the annualized time-weighted rate of return since inception): 5.93%
The annual cost of the portfolio (i.e, the combined, embedded ETF management fee) is 0.23%, or $46.27


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[peterk]

Thanks for mentioning the strategy of limiting RESP contributions to only max the grant.

Upon reading your post I've looked into a few calculators and read posts and threads that talk about the difference between RESPs vs. TFSAs.
I've decided to stick with my original contribution schedule for the following reasons:
1. Upon working through the calculations I've found the ending balance differences between i) all RESP vs. ii) mix RESP & TFSA to be negligible
2. I'd prefer to keep all the TFSA room my wife and I accumulate available for our retirement planning
3. I want to keep the account portfolios and balances simple, by not mixing different goals in the same account type

It may not be the 'best' solution from an economic argument, but it's what will work for me, it's one I can stick to, and know I can make work.
That said - if someone does follow this mix RESP/TFSA strategy I'd be interested to know how it's working out for you.

Re: your other comments
- I'm in a province without any additional grants, and my family income is too high to qualify me from receiving any other federal government grants.
- I am with a broker that allows commission-free ETF purchases, so I don't need to use e-Series.

Hey BI - just going back to your original thoughts about maxing the full 50k vs the 36k...

I've been doing some spread sheeting myself - With a fully front loaded example, so $16.5k in year one, then 2,500 each year till max. The issue I am seeing is that even with only GIC growth, 3.5%, that grows to $90k at age 18. That's 40k in child's taxable income, likely spread out over 4 years. 10k/year isn't a lot, but considering they will likely make 10k/year in some summer job to begin with, it is not difficult at all for the child to end up in a 20-25% tax bracket with their RESP income added on. You on the other hand can have the money invested in non-registered and be paying capital gains/dividend taxes of about 20-25%! This issue gets far worse if you manage something like 6% growth, then there's 75k in child's taxable income to deal with. or if your kids get high paying co-op jobs (I made 35k taxable one summer).

The next issue is that their incrementally higher income in likely becoming detrimental to the child's ability to get grants or non-repayable loans from the university or government. So the extra income from the extra non-CESG bearing contribution on your end is possibly/likely lowering their government grants. Might be best for them to have little/no income, take student loans, and then you pay off their debt when they're done school.

Finally - 40k to 75k of university expenses is quite a lot. You could come across a situation with some of your children where 10-20k/year given for their schooling is too much. They might not want it, need it, or deserve it, or any combination of the three - But you'll be obliged to transfer the large sums of money on their behalf even if you know it's a bad idea, lest you pay 40-50% income tax on the withdrawals.

Just some food for thought

 

[BoringInvestor]

Hey BI - just going back to your original thoughts about maxing the full 50k vs the 36k...

I've been doing some spread sheeting myself - With a fully front loaded example, so $16.5k in year one, then 2,500 each year till max. The issue I am seeing is that even with only GIC growth, 3.5%, that grows to $90k at age 18. That's 40k in child's taxable income, likely spread out over 4 years. 10k/year isn't a lot, but considering they will likely make 10k/year in some summer job to begin with, it is not difficult at all for the child to end up in a 20-25% tax bracket with their RESP income added on. You on the other hand can have the money invested in non-registered and be paying capital gains/dividend taxes of about 20-25%! This issue gets far worse if you manage something like 6% growth, then there's 75k in child's taxable income to deal with. or if your kids get high paying co-op jobs (I made 35k taxable one summer).

The next issue is that their incrementally higher income in likely becoming detrimental to the child's ability to get grants or non-repayable loans from the university or government. So the extra income from the extra non-CESG bearing contribution on your end is possibly/likely lowering their government grants. Might be best for them to have little/no income, take student loans, and then you pay off their debt when they're done school.

Finally - 40k to 75k of university expenses is quite a lot. You could come across a situation with some of your children where 10-20k/year given for their schooling is too much. They might not want it, need it, or deserve it, or any combination of the three - But you'll be obliged to transfer the large sums of money on their behalf even if you know it's a bad idea, lest you pay 40-50% income tax on the withdrawals.

Just some food for thought

Hi peterk, thanks for your thoughts.
I'll categorizing my replies to your points below.

Deposit schedule & taxes
The calculations for my daughter's RESP are a bit different from your numbers, as I'm not front-loading the whole $14k 'extra' ($50k - $36k) in year one, rather I'm spacing it out over the first 9 years (with an 'extra' $1.5k put in for ages 0-8, and an 'extra' $1k for age 9).

With that deposit schedule, and the scheduled transition from equities --> bonds --> GICs, I'm targeting a final amount in the RESP of $93.5k.

Assuming in the first year of university my daughter earns $15,000, and I draw down the RESP of $10,000 from investment growth, her tax payable on $25,000 of income would be $3,190, or 12.76%. That's seems reasonable IMO.

If she didn't earn any additional income, she wouldn't pay anything on the $10,000 withdraw, as it'd be below the basic personal amount threshold.


Loans and grants
Good point that my daughter may not be able to apply for certain loans and grants with her level of income or assets; however, I'm content not to seek to maximize every possible opportunity to subsidize her education and to leave the means-based funding to those who need it more. My daughter will always have other grants she can apply for based on her grades, volunteer work, field of study, etc. I'd rather her go for those.


Cost of education
I'd rather shoot high and assume she'll have high education costs, as she could potentially end up at numerous higher-learning institutions around the world. If she doesn't need all the money for schooling, then I'm content to use the RESP as pseudo-bank account to put aside money for her to use for her normal living expenses during her young adult years.

 

[BoringInvestor]

November 2018 update

Commentary
November's result brought the 2018 total return back into positive territory, as it was the 9th best month by percentage gain (2.49%), and 2nd best by dollar gain ($505.81).

With one month left in 2018, the RESP has made a total of $194.77 in investment gains year-to-date.


Monthly results
The portfolio this month: up 2.49%, or $505.81


Complete RESP results
Total deposits since inception (April 2015): $16,000.00
Total CESG funds received since inception: $2,100.00
The portfolio's gain since inception: up 15.12% or $2,737.21
If I include the Canada Education Savings Grant [CESG] funds as an investment gain, the portfolio is: up 30.23% or $4,837.21


The RESP's yearly return based on my deposits and growth (aka the annualized money-weighted rate of return since inception): 6.89%
The RESP's yearly return if I ignore the size of new deposits and treat them all equally (aka the annualized time-weighted rate of return since inception): 6.51%
The annual cost of the portfolio (i.e, the combined, embedded ETF management fee) is 0.23%, or $47.53


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[BoringInvestor]

December 2018 update

Commentary
December saw the largest monthly dollar decline since the account began, as the RESP finished down -$1,215.33.
The -5.83% monthly loss was second only to the -5.92% loss back in August 2015.

For the first time, the account saw a negative return over a calendar year.
Over 2018 the account lost -$1,020,56 in value, or -4.94%.


Starting in 2019, I'll be implementing my original plan and begin a nine year shift in assets from stocks to bonds.
For 2019 I'm targeting 11% of the portfolio value in bonds, specifically in the fund VAB.TO.
I intend to minimize transaction costs by only using newly deposited funds to bring the account to its target allocation, with a rebalance occurring in April.


Monthly results
The portfolio this month: down -5.83%, or -$1,215.33


Complete RESP results
Total deposits since inception (April 2015): $16,000.00
Total CESG funds received since inception: $2,100.00
The portfolio's gain since inception: up 8.41% or $1,521.88
If I include the Canada Education Savings Grant [CESG] funds as an investment gain, the portfolio is: up 21.7% or $3,621.88

The RESP's yearly return based on my deposits and growth (aka the annualized money-weighted rate of return since inception): 3.77%
The RESP's yearly return if I ignore the size of new deposits and treat them all equally (aka the annualized time-weighted rate of return since inception): 4.63%
The annual cost of the portfolio (i.e, the combined, embedded ETF management fee) is 0.22%, or $44.78


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Note - I'm having technical issues uploading images at the moment. I'll either attach the image at a later time, or make a subsequent post.

 

[l1quidfinance]

This is very interesting to read through.

My sons RESP was started 2014. I'm slightly behind on the contributions but should be fully caught up by summer. We intend to contribute to the point of collecting the full gov't grant. Present Value is $18000 with Total contribution of $13728 and Grants $2745.60

This is heavily in bonds as my wife if very averse to risk so in convincing her for consent to be self invested we are running 70% bonds and 30% equities. Portfolio is made up of ETF's through Questrade due to being able to buy for free. As the balance builds I will likely replace some bond funds with 5 year Gics and build out a ladder. As stated this is a low risk portfolio with 30% equities. The fund currently holds 4 ETF's

Gain since inception $1473 or 8.9%

What do you use to calculate the money and time weighted annualized returns?

Balancing is done by the reinvestment of dividends / interest & new money.

 

[BoringInvestor]

What do you use to calculate the money and time weighted annualized returns?

Hi l1quidfinance,

For the rates of return, I use a excel spreadsheet I found online (that I've since modified heavily for my own purposes).
I'm sure there are free ones still available out there for those interested in detailed tracking of money-weighted and time-weighted returns.


Do you have a plan when you'll transition from bonds ETFs to GICs?
For my daughter's account, I'll start to make the switch to GICs the year she turns 13, at a rate of 20% per year until she's fully in GICs the year she turns 17.

 

[BoringInvestor]

As I couldn't post it before, find below the RESP details for December.

Edit - looks like I misstated my rates of return in my post above.
As of the end of December, the account has seen a money-weighted rate of return of 2.10%, and a time-weighted rate of return of 3.66%.

 

[BoringInvestor]

January 2019 update

Commentary
2019 saw huge gains for the account, as it was the best return measured by dollar gain: $1,152.52, and by percentage: up 5.67%.

The gain in January exceeded the total loss from 2018, as the account has eked out a total gain of $131.96 over the past 13 months.

January also saw a deposit of $687.50 into the account.
I plan to rebalance the account twice this year - first in April, and lastly in October.


Monthly results
The portfolio this month: up 5.67%, or $1,152.52


Complete RESP results
Total deposits since inception (April 2015): $16,687.50
Total CESG funds received since inception: $2,100.00
The portfolio's gain since inception: up 14.23% or $2,674.40
If I include the Canada Education Savings Grant [CESG] funds as an investment gain, the portfolio is: up 28.61% or $4,774.40

The RESP's yearly return based on my deposits and growth (aka the annualized money-weighted rate of return since inception): 6.22%
The RESP's yearly return if I ignore the size of new deposits and treat them all equally (aka the annualized time-weighted rate of return since inception): 6.05%
The annual cost of the portfolio (i.e, the combined, embedded ETF management fee) is 0.22%, or $47.09


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[ian]

We review ours once a year, when the 31/12 number comes in. Our grandchildren are very young so we looking at a 15 year window.

 

[BoringInvestor]

Feel free to share the results here Ian.

 

[BoringInvestor]

February 2019 update

Commentary
February saw a 2.65% gain, which was the 10th best percentage gain since the RESP started.
The $572.54 investment gain, (which was the 3rd highest dollar gain), together the $137.50 from CESG, brought the account to a new high of $22,171.94.


Monthly results
The portfolio this month: up 2.65%, or $572.54


Complete RESP results
Total deposits since inception (April 2015): $16,687.50
Total CESG funds received since inception: $2,237.50
The portfolio's gain since inception: up 17.16% or $3,246.94
If I include the Canada Education Savings Grant [CESG] funds as an investment gain, the portfolio is: up 32.87% or $5,484.44

The RESP's yearly return based on my deposits and growth (aka the annualized money-weighted rate of return since inception): 7.22%
The RESP's yearly return if I ignore the size of new deposits and treat them all equally (aka the annualized time-weighted rate of return since inception): 6.65%
The annual cost of the portfolio (i.e, the combined, embedded ETF management fee) is 0.22%, or $48.39


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[BoringInvestor]

Hi CMF, long time no see.

A lot has happened over the past few years, but I thought it was worth revisiting my threads to update.

Just a quick summary for today:

• the RESP value is now up to ~$51,360
• we've put in deposits of $36,000
• CESG funds have equaled $4,600
• the portfolio value has increased by ~$10,760.

The portfolio allocation has shifted such that it now holds bonds (VAB).

A fuller summary should come next week.