Short Takes: Retirement Magic Number and more

Thanks to Rob Carrick for a mention in his best-of-the-web roundup of my post It’s Time that Renting Got a Little Respect.

Here are this week’s posts including a chance to win a UFile giveaway:

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator

UFile Review and Giveaway

Replying to Email

Here are some short takes and some weekend reading:

The Blunt Bean Counter has reached the last installment of his series on how much money you need to retire and offers some dollar amounts.

In another good post from The Blunt Bean Counter, he explains the bizarre situation where Canadians who hold foreign stocks in their non-registered accounts at Canadian brokerages have to give detailed reports on a T1135 form. I’m all for catching tax cheats, but why such onerous reporting rules for stocks held within Canada by one of our big banks or other well-known brokerages?

Financial Crooks encounters some major T5 hassles with a joint PC Financial account. If you can believe it, she was asked to wait a month before calling again to try to correct things. That’s some amazing customer service.

Big Cajun Man published a post explaining that the Canadian government will stop issuing physical cheques in a couple of years. It’s not clear what will happen to people who don’t have bank accounts. Perhaps this deadline is artificial and is just designed to get more people to sign up for direct deposit.

Million Dollar Journey explains how construction mortgages work. (This is where you buy land and have a new home built.) It turns out that the bank doesn’t ever want to give you more money than the land and house are worth. So, you get money in stages based on how much the bank could recover in a foreclosure.

My Own Advisor channels the Wealthy Barber with his advice on RRSP tax refunds.