# Help in designing my passive RRSP portfolio



## Time4earlyretirement (Feb 21, 2014)

Hi everyone,

I have decided that my TSFA and Un-reg (in the future) will be my trading principal, while my RRSP will be completely passive for the long term, and de-risk as I age. I'm currently 25 yrs old with no intent to draw on my RRSP till literally retirement; no need for house down payment. I am willing to take higher risk (no fixed income) and this is what I currently have:


Canadian Equity Small Cap
iShares S&P/TSX SmallCap (XCS)
0.55%
10%
US Equity
TD US Index – e (TDB902)
0.35%
25%
US Equity Small Cap
Vanguard Small-Cap Value (VBR)
0.10%
5%
International Equity
TD International Index – e (TDB911)
0.51%
20%
Emerging Market
Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets (VWO)
0.15%
10%

*[tr]
[td]Asset Class
[/td]
[td]Utility
[/td]
[td]MER
[/td]
[td]Allocation
[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]*

[td]Canadian Equity
[/td]
[td]TD Canadian Index – e (TDB900)
[/td]
[td]0.33%
[/td]
[td]30%
[/td]
[/tr]

*[tr]
[td][/td]
[td]Weighted MER
[/td]
[td]0.3635%
[/td]
[td]100%
[/td]
[/tr]*

Any input would be appreciated. I will be starting my RRSP this year, with about 8k.


----------



## Ostracized (Feb 7, 2014)

Why not just simplify and buy equal parts VCN, VTI and VXUS. Your MER will be much lower (around 0.1%).


----------



## cainvest (May 1, 2013)

For the size of the investment I'd stick with TDB900, TDB902 and if you really want intl, a small amount of TBB911 couldn't hurt.


----------



## My Own Advisor (Sep 24, 2012)

Ostracized said it well. I'm a fan of XIU (vs. VCN) but VCN is much better (than XIU) for diversification. Hard to go wrong with VTI and VXUS in the RRSP.


----------



## Time4earlyretirement (Feb 21, 2014)

Would lower MER be more beneficial than 0 transaction fee for TD index funds? (My RRSP is setup with TD waterhouse, I'm aware of free ETF trading with discount brokage but I have decided I want to keep them seperate for safety reasons)


----------



## cainvest (May 1, 2013)

That's what you need to figure out, also depends on how you plan to make future investments. If you're planning on making small and/or monthly purchases then the e-series can really cut down on trading costs (if you have any) and you can always change it to an ETF once a certain balance is reached.


----------



## Ostracized (Feb 7, 2014)

Time4earlyretirement said:


> Would lower MER be more beneficial than 0 transaction fee for TD index funds? (My RRSP is setup with TD waterhouse, I'm aware of free ETF trading with discount brokage but I have decided I want to keep them seperate for safety reasons)


Well, you are already planning on buying 3 ETFs anyway, so I don't see how you'll save on transactions compared to my proposal. I proposed buying only 3 ETFs with lower fees that will cover all your bases, and ditching the mutual funds. The main difference with my plan is that you'll lose some small cap exposure on a cap-weighted basis, but your fees will be about 1/3 that of your plan.


----------



## Money We Have (Mar 20, 2014)

With the recent drop in MER's with iShares it might be more beneficial to just go all ETFs. I currently am using e-series in the 4 main indexes but will switch to ETFs when it's time for me to rebalance.


----------

