Written while I was still wrestling with my daughters’ TD mutual fund RESP accounts. Adding money wasn’t too bad. Realizing I should use E-series funds, was complicated. Cashing out the funds became the most surreal of tasks. It was never a straight forward task. The year was 2014, and it was not a dull year.
Every year, as my children pass through the post secondary system, I withdraw moneys that we have put into our TD Mutual Fund RESP system. Look at the RESP Menu. It recounts the interesting occurrences, working with these accounts. Putting money into and then attempting to take funds out of the TD RESP Mutual Fund system, was always, interesting.
Previously I have had issues with changes in the RESP rules. These caused me to be unable to easily take money out. This forced me to have to enter a branch every year. As each year passed, more interesting things seem to happen, and this past year was no exception.
This year, I only needed to worry about a single RESP, the one for my youngest daughter. I was quite chuffed, because I was able to navigate the Trent University web site and order a letter stating that my daughter was a full-time student. It was not as easy as it sounded, but this letter is crucial to withdrawing RESP moneys from an RESP. Allegedly you can use a Tuition receipt, but that strikes me as less likely to work. As usual things did not go as smoothly as I would have hoped.
As all I wanted to do was take out money, I had the letter, and had no other requests, I thought I could easily deal with any of the “Mutual Fund Experts” at my local branch (or so I thought).
After having made an appointment, I showed up and all seemed to start just fine. The young man I dealt with was polite, if not a little overly nosy (in my opinion). I noticed that he seemed to be running from a script, which made me very wary.
I had all the relative information I thought I needed, however, a few wrinkles appeared in this “interview” that caused me to get confused. First the amount quoted as being the CESG moneys (Government Grant) seemed very high in comparison to what I remembered. Given the grant amount is 20% of up to $2500 per year, it could have been $500 per year, but I was sure I had cashed out some of the grants already, but it seemed like 80% of the remaining moneys was grant money?
I decided to cash out more of the Grant Money this time, however, that is where things got more confusing. The moneys that were not CESG or growth, showed up in my bank account on Saturday. I did this on a Friday, however, the CESG portion which was supposed to show up in my daughter’s account, but it has not shown up as of Monday night. I was hoping that this was just the need to tell the CRA and such. The fact that moneys showed up in two parts worried me.
Time to Upsell ? No, thank you.
The other “grind point” was as we went through the steps to get the money, I kept getting sales pitches. Asking had I spoken to one of their “Investment Specialists”, no, I had not. I never liked being upsold services in any situation, and in this situation, I almost got rude, but didn’t. I said that I owned TD E-series index funds, and was not interested in any Balanced Funds. That warned off my interrogator, however, he did come back again at the end of the interview suggesting I chat with someone about investing, this time I replied a more firm “No!”.
So now I sit and wait hoping for the second part of my moneys to appear in my Daughter’s Saving Account, or for a call explaining how things may have gone a little wrong (I hope not)?
