To owe or not to owe

Spring is in the air.  Tax dead line is just around the corner!  Everyone dreads tax time.  Some are more complicated than others.  It’s just another chore for us all to do.  Did you gather all your miscellaneous/tax slips from 2012 to determine where you stand with the government?  To owe or not to owe!

Over the weekend, I entered all my information into Studio Tax.  Studio Tax is a free downloadable tax software for personal returns regardless of income that has been approved by CRA.  Since I am always looking for a way to save money, I started using Studio Tax since 2010 and it works like a charm.  Why pay for something when you can do it for free?  Sure, it might not be the most user friendly.  But in the end, it gets the job done right if you enter everything correctly that is.

Studio Tax churned out that I owed $13.38 (-_-)  This is a first for me!  I will be carrying back my net capital loss of $919.85 to my previous year.  Hopefully, I can get some money back from that later on.

For 2012, I did not contribute enough to my RRSPs to lower my income to avoid paying taxes!  I only put in $1064.  Pathetic, eh? Bottom line, if you don’t want to owe taxes, please contribute to your RRSPs to defer your tax payments.

After, I filed my taxes through Netfile.  I realized that Questrade did not send me the T3 for REI.UN!!  Hopefully, this will slip through the cracks.

Anyways, happy filings.  I’m done, out of mind, till next year!

A couple of dissapointing weeks in October

Sure enough, what goes up must come down.  Cliff Natural Resources was making an effort to climb out of its depths, only be push back down into the mid 30s price range.  My new buys for REI.UN and WYN haven’t done so well since I added them to my portfolio.  I had WYN at a profit, maybe I should have taken the capital gain… what little of it than to hold out for a come back.  Anyways, I’m really surprised that I haven’t made any changes to my portfolio.  I am being strong here.  I was doing better a few weeks back than now especially with the anti-climatic fall of Google.

Anyways, I’m going to buy Google’s Nexus 4 by LG android phone.  It’s my Xmas bonus from my new job 🙂  Hmm, or I shouldn’t buy into new toys and just use my mediocre HTC smartphone till my contract ends??  I’ve only used it over a year…  Decisions, decisions, what to do?  By the time, I’m done with my contract with Bell… maybe the smartphone market will drop and become cheaper overall like TVs!

Traveling is just around the corner for me!  In February, I’ll be taking full two weeks off!  I haven’t had a long vacation in six years!  I’ll be re-visiting Rome for three days and cruising ten days in the Mediterranean!  This will definitely make a dent in my savings, but you know what… You can’t always be that tight with your money!  Gotta enjoy life while you can!

Planning on a Sleepy Portfolio

What would happen if I just didn’t do any trades for the year 2013?  At the end of the year, I’d have to withdraw from my Scotia and Questrade brokerage accounts for my upcoming down payment.  Just by keeping my stocks, I’d have a monthly flow of dividends and distributions coming my way.  Not to mention the potential of price appreciation or depreciation within the year.  Most likely, I see the prices of my stocks going up with a big question mark for CLF though. Here’s a break down of my current holdings:

Ticker	Dis/Div	Comments
BPF.UN	235.20	This is my superstar!
IPL.UN	450.48	Very strong contender!
CHE.UN	2,172.00	Invested lots, hope it appreciates.
KEG.UN	96.00	Classy dining unit trust.
BMO	1,152.00	Lagging behind other Canadian Banks.
CLF	250.00	This is my loser stock!
REI.UN	552.00	Newly aquired, it better go up!
WYN	92.00	Aquired for price appreciation mostly.
Total	$4,999.68	If I kept all my stocks for the year!

Welcome Aboard RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust

RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust owns and manages numerous shopping retail properties across Canada and Unite States.  Here is a list of their top twenty-five rental retailers:  http://www.riocan.com/Document/Details/15

I wanted in on the juicy distributions before end of this month, so I hastily bought into REI.UN in the morning of yesterday.  If I had been more patient, I would have save myself a quarter of a point.  However, I’m not too worried about penny here and there.  This will be a longer term hold as I see potential for this unit trust fund to grow in the next few years.

Paying out 11.5 cents per unit with a yield of 4.99% as of today’s closing price, they are not over extending themselves and able to maintain a steady track record of paying out their distributions.

Their chart looks strong, I’m a little worried that I might be buying at all time highs.  The indication is heading upwards for the time being.

I bought 400 shares @ $27.81.  This one I’ll just sleep on it and collect my monthly distributions of $46.00.

I’m back into the game… still I think something missing!