RESP Savings Accounts | General comparisons | Discussion forum

Thanks for the info!!

There are lots of choices in this market. It all depends what you want in life. As I always remind people I know regarding the setting up RESP which fulfills the following conditions. 1. The contribution amount should be save with no downside risks. 2. The Canadian Education Savings Grant should be eligible. 3. The fees, if there are any, should be explained clearly. 4. The returns should be reasonable. and most important of all, 5. The overall amounts of the plan upon maturity should be more or less in line with my savings objective based on the agreeable amount to be contributed.

Therefore, I would recommend you to have the trusted advisor who can sit down and spend time in explaining to you before you commit on this for the brighter future of your kid.:smile:

Andrew said:

I have only discovered two RESPs that are structured as a simple savings account:

1) Scotiabank (http://www.scotiabank.com/rate......html#resp)
2) ATB Financial (http://www.atb.com/Dev/investi.....ics.asp#14)

Both of these have low interest rates. Does anyone know if there is such a thing as a High Interest RESP? I am mostly interested in maximizing the grants, but it would be nice if the money parked in RESPs also earned a decent interest rate. I've looked into scholarship trusts such as Heritage (http://www.heritageresp.com/) and Canadian Scholarship Trust (http://www.cst.org/) but their contracts are way too complex and their non-profit fee structure and investment portfolio seem questionable to me. I have been looking at this on and off for two years and find RESPs to be very confusing. Any insights would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

danny cheng said:

" 1. The contribution amount should be save with no downside risks."

That is quite literally the WORST single piece of advice anyone could give out on any investment with a 15-20 year time horizon. That will limit your choices to Gic's, real bonds, term deposits etc.. Exactly the wrong type of investments for young children to be making for 17 years or so.

I think family acocunts are easier to manage because there is only one account, and there are no arguments over why one kid's acocunt performed better than the other kid's acocunt due to different investment choices, etc... I will tell my kids that tuition for their first undergrad degree will be taken care of, regardless of how well or poorly the RESP investments do. That way, there will be no arguments over one kid drawing down the account for a degree, then 5 years later another younger kid wants to do the same but can't because the financial markets tanked after the first kid took out his/her share. Parents are always acting as guarantors for their kids one way or the other anyway. If one of the kids decides not to go to university, they can use the RESP cash for college or trade school, but under no circumstances will I give them any of it as a cash-out gift. That kid's share is then split evenly among the remaining kids who did go to uni/gollege/trade school. Dem's the rules in our house.