Starting Investing...recommendations?

4461 Views 8 Replies 6 Participants Last post by Cal, Oct 11, 2012

maple_syrup

Discussion Starter · Oct 7, 2012

Hi all- I'm a newbie to this forum.

My wife and I recently sold our home and purchased a new one. Now we find ourselves debt-free. Aside from getting RESP's for our two kids (both under 4), what would you recommend for us to start investing? We both have very good gov't pensions with a severance when we retire, so RRSP's are out.

TFSA accounts? Investment loans? Real-estate? Stocks?

Where and what does everyone recommend?

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Belguy

· #2 · Oct 7, 2012

Two gold plated government pensions courtesy of the taxpayers sounds good to me. Aside from that, just develop a diversified portfolio of twenty or so dividend paying stocks from solid companies who you feel will be around for the long term and who have a history of increasing their dividends over time. Hire a fee only financial advisor to help you with this and then sit back and live off of the fat of the land.

Jealousy will get me nowhere.:chargrined::grumpy::worked_till_5am::uncomfortableness:

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GoldStone

· #3 · Oct 8, 2012

Have you done any homework at all?

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Belguy

· #4 · Oct 8, 2012 (Edited)

GoldStone said:
Have you done any homework at all?

He doesn't need to if he hires a fee-only financial advisor and pays him for the single service of helping him to set up his initial diversified portfolio of dividend paying stocks.

Not everyone likes to do all of the due diligence necessary to select his or her own stocks. On the other hand, if that's what turns your crank, then go ahead and bust your brains and go into the stock picking and market timing business as others on this forum prefer to do. It's too time consuming and complicated for my liking.

The other suggestion, which I have, is to take a look at the low fee model portfolios at www.canadiancouchpotato.com and set up an account with the discount brokerage where you bank and purchase your own ETF's. It isn't rocket science. This method is best employed by long term, buy-and-hold investors. Once your portfolio is set up, just trade periodically for rebalancing purposes. Keep your portfolio short. Three or four diversified broad-based ETF's should be plenty.

Just don't pay the high fees charged by the financial services salespersons, including the bank advisors, for picking your investments for you and who proceed to charge you dearly for the honour.

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humble_pie

· #5 · Oct 8, 2012

how come we are getting all these rich newbies w money to burn becawze they just sold their houses.

suggestions: layer on argo's 5-pack for a base. Then load up tobacco & other big vice stocks, gob's apple options strategy, poker, motorbiking, charities & silver bullion.

then there's the advice offered donald sutherland by his hollywood accountants. The choice is rail containers, oil wells or slums, so we're putting you in slums, they told donald.

if none of these work out, cmf forum has a few talented young portfolio managers hidden here & there in the shrubbery.

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maple_syrup

Discussion Starter · #6 · Oct 9, 2012

humble_pie said:
how come we are getting all these rich newbies w money to burn becawze they just sold their houses.

suggestions: layer on argo's 5-pack for a base. Then load up tobacco & other big vice stocks, gob's apple options strategy, poker, motorbiking, charities & silver bullion.

then there's the advice offered donald sutherland by his hollywood accountants. The choice is rail containers, oil wells or slums, so we're putting you in slums, they told donald.

if none of these work out, cmf forum has a few talented young portfolio managers hidden here & there in the shrubbery.

We sold our house. We made money. Selling homes happens. Is that a crime?

As for the rest, I have no idea what you are talking about.

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Young&Ambitious

· #7 · Oct 9, 2012

Welcome to CMF maple_syrup :encouragement:

Humble is merely noting an observation no slight intended I believe. If you do a search under argo or argonaut or 5 pack on CMF you will find one approach to investing.

Belguy's recommendation for the Canadian Couch Potato is a good one and if you don't feel comfortable with any of this start with some mutual funds and pick up some books if you want to learn more and hang around these forums.

Best of luck to you.

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humble_pie

· #8 · Oct 9, 2012

there is a reading list for new investors that Toronto.Gal & i put together a few months ago. You can find it as Eight with Weight at the top of this section.

i for one wonder about new investors who arrive here with significant amounts of $$ to invest & then ask others to provide them with useful, hand-tailored, free investment advisories. What i wonder is why they won't bestir themselves to learn just a little bit before demanding road maps.

as for the recommendations you say you don't understand, perhaps in time you will. Argo's 5-pack is a condensed, diversified list of high quality canadian stocks that can serve as a core investment group for just about any starter portfolio.

i'm half-serious about poker & biking. You have indicated that you are comfortably off, so one assumes there are discretionary dollars to spare. This forum has a member who makes mega $$ playing poker, i believe some outrageous figure close to $1M/yr has been mentioned. Celebrity financial guru Jim Rogers biked around the world before making gazillions in commodities last decade, then wrote about it in Investment Biker & Adventure Capitalist: the Ultimate Road Trip.

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Cal

· #9 · Oct 11, 2012

The above mentioned reading will be helpful. Read as much as you can. Figure out what type of an investor you are, set some goals, and definitely utilize your TFSA's to shelter some investment funds from taxes.

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