We are in our last week of “RRSP Season”, the time in which you are eligible to make contributions to your RRSP and have them counted towards your 2009 tax year. Most of our clients prefer to do regular, automatic, monthly deposits, and so do not have to concern themselves with finding “leftover” money to put in after the holiday season… if you don’t have a pre-authorized deposit plan set up, I highly recommend you take this opportunity to start one for 2010 (you can start with as little as $25 per month).

To give you an idea of the value of using an RRSP as part of your retirement plan, I encourage you to play around with Mackenzie’s RRSP Illustrator. You can also see just how much more can be saved by reinvesting the tax refund earned from RRSP deposits. If you have any questions, please give us a call!

As we move into the March tax season, it is the perfect time of year to give yourself a financial makeover. After the last couple years, are your investments still in line with your goals and risk tolerance? Do you have enough, or are you saving enough, to enjoy the kind of retirement you would like to have? Is your money protected from future economic downturns, from creditor’s claims or unnecessary probate costs, or from a personal emergency? We have options designed for people in all stages of life and business, please give us a call to talk about which ones are right for you.

If you are curious about the technical structures behind Canada’s RRSP program, here is a link to the Canada Revenue Agency’s Registered Retirement Savings Plan site.

Photo credit: “Grant MacEwan University Tilt-Shift” by pixelens photography (Flickr)