2024 data gave us a pretty rough look at how Canadians are doing with their Tax-Free Savings Accounts (TFSAs). For ages 40 to 44, the average TFSA balance was around $17,000, which isn’t great for Gen X.
But the Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) looks better. According to Ratehub, Canadians aged 35 to 44 have an average RRSP balance of about $49,000. That’s still not amazing, but it’s noticeably higher.
Employer matching helps, and for many people earning above $75k, prioritizing the RRSP makes sense because the tax deduction offers more value at higher marginal tax brackets. If you’re in a workplace plan, you’re stuck with whatever mutual funds your provider offers, and those can be hit or miss with their high fees.
If you manage your own RRSP, the menu improves dramatically. Here’s why I prefer using an exchange-traded fund (ETF) instead of a mutual fund, and one all-in-one ETF I think fits a typical age-44 investor well.
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Why use an ETF?
ETFs trade throughout the day like stocks, giving you more control over when you buy or sell compared with mutual funds, which only trade once per day at the closing net asset value. They also tend to have much lower fees. Many mutual funds still charge management expense ratios above 1%, while comparable ETF strategies can be as low as 0.2%
And while taxes don’t matter inside an RRSP, mutual funds often distribute large capital gains at year-end due to portfolio turnover. That can hurt if you ever hold them in a taxable account, even if you didn’t sell. ETFs largely avoid this because of the creation and redemption process, which allows units to move in and out without triggering taxable events.
The ETF to buy
At age 44, your risk tolerance and time horizon are still long enough to lean heavily into global equities, but not so long that bonds should be ignored. That’s why I like BMO Growth ETF (TSX: ZGRO) for a set-it-and-forget-it RRSP pick.
The portfolio keeps roughly 80% in global stocks and 20% in global bonds, giving you diversified growth with some stability. The management expense ratio is just 0.2%, so a $10k investment costs only about $20 per year in fees. The fund re-balances automatically, and the quarterly distributions can be reinvested to compound inside your RRSP.
