Over the past year I have been an advocate for using an advisor as a source of some good advice and as a way to keep a small barrier between you and your money, to prevent over-active trading. Frustrated by the fact that Clearsight Wellington West, after getting rid of my former investment advisor, has not bothered to call me, and unimpressed by what I see on the web pages of investment management companies, I have been contemplating going it alone. The main reason I got a financial advisor was to stop me from doing stupid things and that worked. It was also done to save myself time. But if I don't do stupid things and stop trying to be too active with my money, then it should not take too much time. Having an advisor for the past year was a great experience. Over the year we never sold a single investment. I don't think I ever went a year before without at selling a mutual fund at some point. Am I ready to go it alone? I don't know, anyways, it is just an idea at this point.

After my unsuccessful search for an investment management company, I briefly looked at options for self-directed RRSP accounts. I first looked at TD Waterhouse (I used to be at TD Waterhouse and TD EasyWeb) because I really like their web services. I also looked at E-Trade. Their trades are a bit cheaper at $20. My portfolio as it stands right now mostly consists of a bond mutual fund, a Canadian ETF, a Canadian small-cap mutual fund, a US mutual fund, and an international mutual fund. I might switch the US component to an ETF and leave the CDN small-cap and international where they are for the time being. If after the transfer is all done from Clearsight to E-Trade and I buy 1 ETF, if all I have to pay is $20 then that is pretty good. It looks like their have some conceirge account transfer thing so the transfer fee is waived if you have more than $25,000. I have that much but my wife doesn't so I'll have to think about what to do there.