INCOME SMOOTHING - CASHING IN YOUR RRSP AFTER RETIREMENT | RRSPs and RRIFs | Discussion forum

I am in a similar boat to kanaka but just turned 66. One tip is that from 66 to 70 you can take $2000 out of an RSP tax free. I pulled my $2000 out in late December, minus the 10% withholding and will report that this tax season and will be credited with the $200 that was withheld, essentially making this tax free. The $10k I pull out will not do a whole lot to collapse the RSP but any help is some help.

I also thought I might be better starting to collapse my RSP now rather than waiting till 71 but in building an Excel spreadsheet was able to determine waiting till 71 was better for my particular circumstances.

I always like to let the numbers make the decision for me.

Greg

I have no advisor. I am self-taught. I had an advisor (a neighbour) 15-18 years ago who steered me into a series of funds that were not what I needed or wanted - but I knew no better.

Today my "plan" is simple (for me):

First, some background - our holdings iinclude a brokerage account in both Cdn$ and US$, my and my wife's RSP, my and my wife's TFSA (all of these are held at a bank's self-directed brokerage arm). Additionally we have access to 5 different Cdn$ HISA's (high interest savings accounts) and one US$ HISA (soon to be 4 and 0 when Ally bites the bullet). Additionally we have a regular Cdn$ chequing account, a regular US$ chequing account and a HISA at our chosen bank, as well as a US based, US$ chequing account at our bank's cross border banking offering. (I won't detail our credit cards here due to space and time constraints.).

I track everything (and I do mean everything) in Quicken.

I set my asset allocation to what I felt was right for me.
I then re-balanced by buying and selling till I was close to that asset allocation.
I tried to re-balance every year. I did re-balance if I had new money to add to the mix.
I try to only buy ETFs (exchange traded funds) to meet the asset allocation targets.
When I can't buy an appropriate ETF I buy a mutual fund. I don't buy any mutual fund that is in the top two quartiles of fees and in the bottom two quartiles of performance. (Why spend more money to buy less performance when others are willing to do so.)
I do buy the odd stock (typically US based) when my wife says "oh, look, why don't we own their shares" (currently Visa, Fedex and Tanger) and sell when she says, "why do we own that stock", most recently Carnival Cruise Lines, who have had some issues recently).
I track performance against a recognized benchmark to make sure I have not strayed too far from the mark.

Two years ago I did spend the money to engage a professional to confirm or reject the notion I was on the right path. We reviewed my entire portfolio, he did some projections, charged me around $2200, and told me I was on the right track and could actually spend another 15% per year without worry. He also gave me a template for an Investment Policy Statement and I was to "personalize" it.

That is still to be done -- but would be a framework for my wife's new advisor to follow should I leave without notice.

I am also working to try to determine what steps she should take when I am no longer able to manage our assets.

Greg

[edited 2013apr11 for spelling]

Tanger is the mall people. As I said, my wife sees malls and says "why don't we own Tanger?". I get Fedex deliveries on time and she says "why don't we own Fedex?" VISA did an IPO, we missed the ground floor, she said a few weeks later, "we should buy some anyway". We bought Carnival in 2009 when we were going on a cruise and stock ownership translated into shipboard credits of $250 (instant dividend). We held it through the Costa semi-sinking and sold after the Triumph fire.

Our stock holdings are a very minimal part of our total.

Years and years ago I had $10,000 spare cash and decided to but "bank stocks". My choices were Canada's big five and I selected two that allowed me to buy multiples of 100 shares for $5000 each. They stagnated and the other three went up. I sold them for zero gain.

Subsequently I buy almost exclusively broad based ETFs. The experts are never right often enough so I would rather match the market. I hate paying fees.

I said I track everything through Quicken, but also have a giant Excel spreadsheet that is used for asset allocation analysis, and one for fee analysis and one for performance analysis, and one for net worth year over year analysis. All this takes time but "no one cares more about my money than I do". The firm that did the "second look" analysis for me a few years back was overwhelmed ith the data dump I did as they were used to having to dredge out all the info themselves.

Greg