Another fortnight (or so) has passed and that means it’s time for another edition of the Canadian Personal Finance & Investing Carnival.

The month of February is usually dedicated to RRSP’s at most of the banks, credit unions and wealth management firms and that means sales and marketing types (alongside thousands of administrators and other support staff) are probably working over time to convince you to save and invest with their firms.

To help you separate the wheat from the chaff, I trust that at least a few of the articles highlighted below will aid in your investing and saving decisions as the deadline to contribute to your RRSP looms.

These next few lines are directed to all you Canadian Personal Finance & Investing bloggers out there. While we have your attention, we would like to take this moment to invite submissions for the 15th edition of the Canadian Personal Finance & Investing Carnival slated for publishing on February 15th, 2011. So if you’re a Canadian blogger specializing in personal finance and or investing, make sure you submit your best articles for inclusion and while you’re at it, perhaps spread the word about the Canadian Personal Finance & Investing Carnival.

Enjoy.

Boomer and Echo presents Selling Your House: Home Staging, saying, “Selling your house in an uncertain real estate market can be nerve racking, especially when our new house build depends on us getting our current home sold in a timely manner and at a reasonable price. One way to ensure that you get top dollar when selling your house is by home staging.”

Invest It Wisely presents The “Tiger Mom” Approach is Not the Only Chinese Way, saying, “After having read the way Amy Chua raises her two daughters, I thought to myself how incredibly lucky I was to have been raised the way that I have been by my Taiwanese parents. I am not criticising her way (OK, maybe just a little), but I will tell you the story about how my brother and I were raised, and you can see that there are differences in a ”Chinese Upbringing”, and that there is not just one single formula.”

Money Smarts Blog presents Estate Planning With Your TFSA – Tax-Free Savings Account – Naming A Beneficiary Or Successor Holder, saying, “One of the important aspects of the tax-free savings account (TFSA) is estate planning. Much has been written about TFSA contribution and withdrawal rules, but with the TFSA, you have the ability to decide who gets the money in the account if you die.”

Investing Thesis presents How To Adapt Your Investing Approach To Changing Market Cycles With Eden Rahim, Portfolio Manager at Jov Investment Inc., saying, “Markets ebb-and-flow in big cycles and your investing approach has to adapt to these changing currents. In this interview you’ll learn about how markets move from decade long periods where risk is embraced to where risk must be managed.”

Financial Highway presents New Credit Card Rules For Canadians, saying, “Do you know where your money is? Well, you may not be able to account for the whereabouts of all of it, but you should soon be able to figure out how to keep more of it! Your government and newly elected math tutor and debt ‘babysitter’ hopes so by virtue of some new rules and regulations regarding you, your bank, and your balance owing.”

Canadian Finance Blog presents The Five Big Benefits of Valuation-Informed Indexing, saying, “I’ve been arguing for nine years now that the Buy-and-Hold investing strategy needs to be updated.”

Balance Junkie presents 5 Reasons to Skip the RRSP Contribution this Year, saying, “January is already coming to a close and February will soon be upon us. In the Canadian financial realm, that usually means a mad dash by financial advisors and journalists to remind us that we only have a few weeks left to make the obligatory contribution to our RRSP, or face the reality of dining on Tender Vittles in our golden years. This year, however, there seems to be a bit of an RRSP backlash, with more than one article taking a not-so-fast tone to contrast the steady “RRSP now” drumbeat pounded out by some members of the financial services industry and media.”

Canadian Capitalist presents Is my Portfolio Doing OK?, saying, “If you invest directly in stocks or in actively managed mutual funds, you should check out a recent report titled How is my Portfolio Doing… And What Should I Do About it? published by Steadyhand funds.”

Larry MacDonald presents C.D. Howe on monetary policy, saying, “The C.D. Howe Institute released a study today by University of Toronto economics professor Angelo Melino on the Bank of Canada’s monetary policy, which declared a preference for a modified version of the inflation-targeting regime in force for almost twenty years under an agreement with the Dept. of Finance. With 5 years elapsed since the last review, the agreement is again up for renewal at the end of this year.”

Young and Thrifty presents Youngandthrifty’s Mint.com Review, saying, “If you haven’t been living under a rock, you might have heard of Mint. Mint is this start up company founded in no other than San Francisco (where all the beautiful people and geniuses live) in 2007 and had been bought for $170 million by the huge conglomerate Intuit earlier this year.”

Canadian Couch Potato presents Debunking Dividend Myths: Part 5, saying, “One of the most appealing aspects of dividend investing is the tax advantage: dividends from Canadian companies are eligible for a significant tax credit. This credit does not apply to US or international stocks, however — indeed, foreign dividends are taxed as regular income and are subject to a 15% withholding tax.”

Million Dollar Journey presents The Idiot Millionaire by Derek Foster – Review and Giveaway, saying, “Derek Foster is back again with his fifth book – The Idiot Millionaire (link). This book follows a common theme about investing,with the focus on “idiot proof” stocks rather than exclusively dividend achiever type stocks.”

Canajun Finances presents CRTC Proves that Monopolies are Good, saying, “For those of you who are not techno-dweebs or geeks (like I am), you may not have noticed that this past week the CRTC ruled in favor of Bell (and Rogers, I would assume) in their battle with Service Providers who “sublet” bandwidth from them and repackage that to customers (specifically Teksavvy, but others as well) that they must uphold Bell’s Usage Based Billing rules, when they repackage the service.”

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That’s a wrap, folks! Have a smashing day and week!

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