Bank Nerd

Oct 6: Best from the blogosphere

October 6, 2014

By Sheryl Smolkin

It’s October already! How time flies. Here are some interesting posts from some of our favourite, always prolific personal finance bloggers.

On Balance Junkie, Tom Drake discusses options for Banking on Your Mobile Phone. There are smartphone apps to run your business, create a budget, check your bank account and set up mobile payments.

How Behavioural Biases Kept Me From Becoming An Indexer is a confession from Boomer & Echo’s Robb Engen that it’s tough to sell a portfolio of high performing winning dividend stocks – his “babies” that he has nurtured through a five-year bull market. Nevertheless the more he reads about, writes about, and teaches others about investing, the more he is convinced that convinced that passive investing (indexing) is the right approach.

4 Questions to Ask Before Buying a Mutual Fund by Our Big Fat Wallet’s Dan Wesley include how the fund has performed as compared to other funds and the costs of ownership. Like Engen, he concludes that if an actively managed fund can’t beat the index, you’re likely better off with a low-cost index Exchange Traded Fund (ETF).

Whether you are a snowbird planning winter away from Canada’s cold climate or dreaming of a one week all inclusive getaway, take a look at Frequently Never Asked Questions for your Travel Medical Insurance on Bank Nerd. Did you know that in general, an emergency due to a pre-existing condition is not covered?

And finally, on Retire happy, Sarah Milton addresses the question Should New Canadians join a Group RRSP? She agrees that RRSP accounts are intended as a vehicle for retirement savings but says that doesn’t mean they only have value if you plan to retire in Canada.

Do you follow blogs with terrific ideas for saving money that haven’t been mentioned in our weekly “Best from the blogosphere?” Share the information with us on http://wp.me/P1YR2T-JR and your name will be entered in a quarterly draw for a gift card.