To DRIP or Not?
Hi folks,
I recently came into a considerable sum of money that will be substantially increasing my investment portfolio in the near future (Hello retirement way before 65!).
I'm currently couch potato'ing:
VCN 30%
XAW 60%
ZAG 10%
and will be rebalancing to a five-asset mix now that it makes sense to, given the size of the accounts. Will be going to the following (increasing bonds to 20% given that retirement timeline is being moved up five years to about 15ish years in the future from now):
VCN 27%
VTI 27%
XEF 19%
IEMG 7%
ZAG 20%
My question is that now that my contribution room for TFSA and RRSP will be used up (plan is to put VTI and IEMG in the RRSP to avoid some of the US withholding tax, XEF/VCN in TFSA, and everything else including full amount of ZAG into a non-sheltered account):
Does it make sense to enroll the ETFs in a DRIP when they're in an non-sheltered account? I'm with Questrade (yay free ETF purchases!) and the DRIP enrollment paperwork says that since the purchase isn't processed via trade entry, I would need to keep my own monthly statements to calculate/report cap gains or losses.
Is it better to do the ETF purchases manually so that there's a trade entry? Or set up the DRIP and figure out how to do things come tax time?
I haven't had stocks in a non-registered account before, so calculating capital gains/loss for tax reporting is new for me. Typically I just use Studiotax and put in everything from my T4, T5s, etc.
I recently came into a considerable sum of money that will be substantially increasing my investment portfolio in the near future (Hello retirement way before 65!).
I'm currently couch potato'ing:
VCN 30%
XAW 60%
ZAG 10%
and will be rebalancing to a five-asset mix now that it makes sense to, given the size of the accounts. Will be going to the following (increasing bonds to 20% given that retirement timeline is being moved up five years to about 15ish years in the future from now):
VCN 27%
VTI 27%
XEF 19%
IEMG 7%
ZAG 20%
My question is that now that my contribution room for TFSA and RRSP will be used up (plan is to put VTI and IEMG in the RRSP to avoid some of the US withholding tax, XEF/VCN in TFSA, and everything else including full amount of ZAG into a non-sheltered account):
Does it make sense to enroll the ETFs in a DRIP when they're in an non-sheltered account? I'm with Questrade (yay free ETF purchases!) and the DRIP enrollment paperwork says that since the purchase isn't processed via trade entry, I would need to keep my own monthly statements to calculate/report cap gains or losses.
Is it better to do the ETF purchases manually so that there's a trade entry? Or set up the DRIP and figure out how to do things come tax time?
I haven't had stocks in a non-registered account before, so calculating capital gains/loss for tax reporting is new for me. Typically I just use Studiotax and put in everything from my T4, T5s, etc.