Trail-Rider-1.0 profile

Anyone else have the Nissan vq40de and 6spd? I expected it to be real bad on fuel. It's really reasonable so far.

Been driving my Xterra with a 6spd for 3.5 years and tracking the fuel economy on every fill up. Average of 13L/100km with a mix of city and hwy driving, probably about 50/50.

when the avg price of an east side detached home is at or near $1 million there is someting seriously wrong with the vancouver r/e market. the avg salaries in metro simply do not support these sorts of home prices.

This is where I have trouble with the whole foreign money is driving the market arguement. No question that foreign money is partially (fully?) responsible for $3M+ houses on the westside. But there's no way that 80 year old houses in east van are getting bought by Chinese billionaires.

So yes, the lack of supply in the west side is driving buyers further east, but why are those buyers engaging in bidding wars and mortgaging themselves to the hilt? It's not like Vancouver west of Main constitues more than, what, 5-10% of available SFH in metro Vancouver?

In my mind, the crazy prices around metro Van are the result of local buyers driving themselves into a frenzy, fueled by realtors and the media feeding the "buy now or be priced out forever" narrative. As you said, average salaries don't support current prices. And the trajectory we're on will have a rancher in PoCo priced at $2M in 10 years. Who's going to buy that? No one.

So because a) I can't imagine the global elite coming and buying homes in PoCo, and b) local salaries simply won't support the status quo for much longer, I see a correction coming to prices at some point in the future. The numbers just don't add up in my mind for things to continue the way they have in the last 5-10 years. Or maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part and in 10 years I'll only be able to afford to rent a basement suite in Chilliwack from the billionaire upstairs.

If you have $45k that you want to use in a year, you want to put it somewhere very low risk. Low risk = low return. Something like a GIC or a high-interest savings account. You'll get somewhere in range of a 2% return, or $900.

Anything with the possibility of a higher return will come with greater risk. For example, you could put your $45k in a some form of stocks, which have the potential to gain say 5-10%. They could also lose 20% just as easily. The equity markets are extermely difficult to predict even though a bunch of clowns on TV will tell you they can do it. The upside of higher risk investments is that over the long term (think 5-10+ years) they have a very high probability of offering higher returns.

Bottom line, if you need the money in a year, put it somewhere safe and be content with modest gains. Don't invest it somewhere promising 10% returns in a year, because you're gambling at that point.

UBC mechatronics grad here. My advice is to apply for everything that remotely interests you. Unfortunately a lot of companies do their initial screening based on your academic results, so unless you're in the top quartile or so of your class mates (and if you are, congrats), you might not even get an interview for a lot of jobs. Backwards and ineffective? I think so. But I guess if you have 100 students apply for a position, you've gotta narrow them down somehow.

I also think co-op is a good time to take chances: apply for jobs out of town, jobs that are a little outside of your comfort zone, jobs that you aren't sure you'll be interested in. Worst case you spend 4 months doing something you don't like, but it will help you focus your job search in the future. Of course still apply for the jobs you think you want, but don't limit yourself - you don't want to be in the situation where you've only applied to 3 jobs and none of them result in an offer.

What about going back to MrBond's question - how to buy tax efficient and reduced currency risk US equities. Any tips?

I'm about to pull the trigger on a major switch in RRSP funds, either picking up VUN (not hedged), VUS, (Hedged) or VTI (USD). What are advantages/disadvantages of VUN/VUS, or should I buy VTI to reduce my US withholding tax, but have to exchange CAD/USD?

I use VUN. From what I've read, the hedged fund will under-perform in the long run due to the costs of hedging (assuming no permanent divergence of the CAD/USD exchange, which I think is a safe bet). There is also the argument that the currency risk actually reduces volatility over time. Canadian Couch Potato has some good reading on this subject.

I've stayed away from USD funds for the sole reason that I'm not ready to do currency exchange in a low-cost manner. Doing it through a discount brokerage will cost too much, and the solutions are a bit more complex. If you're up to the task of doing cheap currency exchange, then VTI is probably a better choice.

I know, but this is how people describe describe the power of fixed compound interest (which typically only applies to cash), neglecting the fact that cash's depreciation is also typically compounded. Cash over the long term loses purchasing power due to inflation (which is a compounded depreciation).

I see what you're saying, but compounding applies equally to investments that yield much higher than cash in a savings account. The problem isn't with over-stating the value of compounding, it's with not understanding that cash in a 0.05% savings account is losing you money due to inflation out-pacing your interest rate.

Here are some things that people often forget …

If you invested $10,000 in 1944 compounded 5% annual return, it would be worth $186,791.86 today. Sounds great, right?

However, $10,000 in 1944 had a purchasing power equivalent to $138,350 today (according to the Bank of Canada's inflation calculator.) So if you socked away $10,000 in 1944, it means you would had a savings rate about 4.5 times the average Canadian's salary. Today would be like socking away 4.5X$38,000 (roughly averaged annual income in Canada) or $171,000 nest egg for 2014.

So putting $10,000 into your savings 1944 is like socking away $171,000 in 2014. Basically, if you had $10,000 in cash to invest 60 years ago, you were wealthy anyway. Similarly, your cash savings today will very likely be eroded by inflation over the next 60 years. All I'm saying is that while cash does return compounded return, you still need a hedge against inflation (like Securities). Cash is often a good short-term place to hold money, but historically has been seriously eroded by inflation.

PS I love going to work ….

I don't think anyone would advocate holding cash as a retirement/financial independence plan. Historical returns of 5-7% are based on being invested in stocks and bonds, and are REAL returns, ie: over and above inflation. Sitting on cash for 60 years will get you nothing, investments compounding at 5% for 60 years will make you rich.

AW: Invested at 8.5% means every year your investment will return 8.5% of its initial value to you. This can come in a lot of different forms depending on the investment vehicle. Interest on bonds, dividends from stocks, capital gains on stocks, etc…

I actually discovered MMM when someone linked to him from nsmb a couple years ago. As soon as I started reading the blog I was hooked, and have since done tons of research into investing and generally teaching myself that there are alternatives to the "spend spend spend!" that seems to be the normal way of life for most of the population.

While my investments may be a little more heavily weighted towards carbon fiber than they should be, that's just a personal choice on the value-for-money spectrum. Simply put, the happiness I get from riding my bikes far outweighs the cost I pay for them. And I'm careful not to get sucked into thinking I need to be constantly upgrading.

jlcollinsnh is another great blog to check out.

Question for those familiar with online discount brokerages:

I currently use Questrade, and I'm very close to maxing out my registered accounts (a pretty good problem to have in the grand scheme of things). It seems that the only non-registered account option at Questrade is a margin account. I have ZERO interest in trading on margin, so my question is, are there any hidden dangers that I should know about before opening a margin account?

I only plan on purchasing using my cash balance, but I'm leery of the danger of inadvertently buying on margin or incurring some kind of fee. I already keep detailed spreasheets tracking my contributions and purchases, so with some discipline, I'm thinking I should be OK. Any experience or advice?

Thanks!

I'm by no means an expert, but I've had experience with a condo sized top load and a condo sized front load, and I prefer the top load. The front load (high efficiency) took about 3 hours to wash a load, and it's capacity was a lot smaller than the top load. I don't know how much of that is brand-specific, but that was my experience.

Having said that, I find it surprising that smelly clothes = time for a new washer. Before buying new machines, I'd experiemnt with more/less/different detergent, try loading less clothes at a time, look into your water lines to see if there's something funky going on, etc…