Group RESP versus Individual Bank RESP

Ok, so your baby is born.
You just registered them for their birth certificate, their health card and their Social Insurance Number (seems a bit silly, but you will need all of these documents!).
Now it's time to invest in their future... with a Registered Education Savings Plan!

I did all my research when Little V was only a month old. You need to get this taken care of as quickly as possible because as they say, time is on your side!

Here are a few different pointers that may help you while you are making your decision:

1. Do your homework! Do not trust this post as your single resource. This is just a guide to help with my lessons learnt.
2. You will need your child's SIN number to open the account.
3. Time is on your side. Start as early as possible. Although this is a long term investment, your child will need the money in about 16/17 years from now, depending on when you start contributing.
4. This is NOT and RRSP or RSP. You do not just open an account and contribute to it as you wish. RESPs are Investments that need to be managed.
5. The benefit of opening an RESP versus a regular Investment plan is to take advantage of the Government grants that are available through RESPs only. 
6. Group and Bank RESP plans both have the same rules and regulations when it comes to the grants. Depending on your families income, you qualify for certain amounts in grant funds. There is also a maximum that you can obtain and the grant is also dependant on the amount that you contribute yearly to your RESP account.
7. Group and Bank RESP plans both have the same rules and regulations when it comes to the institutions that your children will use the money for. Ex: University, College, On-line courses. As long as your child is registered for post-secondary education, you can us the money.
8. Check with your financial institution to clarify who gets the money when the account matures. The Government grants are strictly for the child, but I am almost certain that the capital that has been collected belongs to the parent and the parent hands it off to the child.
9. Check into the fees that are charged by the banks or the group plans and shop for better rates.
10. Know your options:
• Group RESP like www.cst.ca, are non-profit organizations that pool everyones money and invest on your behalf. Usually through bonds. This is a generally safer route, but it's not meant to optimize your investment. They buy bonds and let them mature until you are ready to use the money. If interest rates are going up (like they are predicted to do so), this in not an optimal solution because it's considered very "safe", therefore your return on investment is not that high (a riskier investment method typically can generate higher profit if you are careful with your investment). The down side to a group plan is that you must commit to the entire time (ex:16 years) you are contributing for. If you decide to stop at anytime, you get back what you contributed, but you loose all the interest your money was making you. 
•  Individual or Bank RESPs are very flexible and offer the same benefits as group RESPs. The difference is that you manage your own money and you manage the monthly contributions that you want to give. I chose this option and invested in a balanced fund at a medium risk. (Please don't take my investment advice, I am not a professional!). You should be reviewing your investment on a yearly or semi-yearly basis to ensure that you are doing well. Closer to the mature date of your investment, you should be more diligent with checking on your account and switch to something less aggressive and more secure. 

I hope these pointers help, please write your questions down or let me know if you would like to add to this post :)

Buy low, sell high!... hahaha (That's the extent of my investment knowledge)

Why fundraising for women's health is hard

You're probably thinking that I am crazy for making such a bold statement, but yes, it is extremely hard to fundraise for women's health! I have been working for a women's health organization for five years now, and specifically fundraising for 3 years for the Canadian Foundation for Women's Health, a national charity that raises money for research in women's sexual and reproductive health. Although one might think that this is an easy job, trust me when I tell you fundraising here comes with its challenges.

Successful fundraising equation
For fundraising to work, you must use this simple equation:

Cause/Problem + Passion = Support

In this equation "cause" is the reason you are raising funds for, the "Passion" is the person/business that is either affected by your cause or has a solution for the cause and "Support" is either monetary or in-kind.

What's Hindering the Support
Here are the factors that make it difficult to fundraise for women's health:

• "Isn't breast cancer women's health?", "I already support breast cancer", "I'm wearing pink today"
• Women's health is such a broad topic, specifically I am referring to women's sexual and reproductive health, the rest of our health is pretty much the same as men.
• Research that is needed for such things as "Pregnancy" don't come with a medication that can "cure" it. Therefore fundraising for it is less obvious. In fact, because we limit the use of medication during pregnancy, this makes it even more difficult.
• Remember when we talked about Passion, well in this case it's actually too broad of a spectrum. One can argue that Women's Health affects every single person on this planet. Why? Because we all came from our mother's womb. 
• Anyone that has taken a marketing class knows that you can't just advertise to "everyone" you need a target market. Well, in this case, if we narrow it down, one of our target audience is new moms raising a family on her maternity leave budget and that are struggling to make it by, or a young family that is spending every last dime on fertility treatments. Wow, we should be able to raise tons for research this way.
• Back to the Cause, what's so terrible about "Women's Health" that we need to raise money for? Well, obviously if you are asking yourself this question you have no clue what's either coming to you or you are a man. Women go through so many changes during different stages in their lives. As soon as a woman hits puberty, she is destined to encounter a plethora of unique "challenges' with her body. She will become a mother, or perhaps suffer infertility. She may have specific diseases such as Endometriosis, Fibroids or Vulvodynia. And later in life she may have uncontrollable symptoms of menopause and suffer from problems like incontinence. Dare I also mention that throughout this entire time a woman will be dodging the "C" word and try to protect all her organs; from het skin, to her ovaries, to her cervix and breasts.

Fashion, Heels and Cosmetics are NOT related to Women's Health
Why don't you just throw pink cocktail party and a fashion show to raise money for women's health? Contradictory to popular belief, high heels, fashion and cosmetics are not really related to women's health. In fact, many of these things are ironically bad for women. Heels destroy your feet, our fashion world makes it beautiful to have an eating disorder and cosmetics have made us more shallow, hate our natural selves, question our beauty and have been linked to cancer. Yes, women like these things (and trust me, so do I!). But this is a way to attract women and make fundraising "trendy". I am not sure how much the participants are doing it for the "Passion".


Fundraising is a difficult, yet rewarding job. When you have managed to convince someone that they should support you, because they already believe in your cause, you can rest assure knowing that you have instilled passion in one person. The nice thing about passion is that it is highly contagious!

The intention of my post is not for the readers to feel sorry for me and give to the charity that I represent, but more for you to find a cause and match it with your passion.

Good luck!

Off Road Cooking for Little Teeth

In the Beginning

So, I realize it's been a long time since my last post, but between taking care of my little man, going back to work, trying to have an awesome summer and keeping up with the house... needless to say I have been busy!

My little man officially has his two bottom teeth at 6 months and is now eating three square meals a day and has a huge appetite! Finally, I can cook for him :)

So, here is a bit of backgrounder information. Little man, a.k.a V, never latched when he was born, which made breastfeeding difficult/impossible. I used a shield which messed up my supply and kept up my puny flow pumping every 3 hours ( or when I found the time). I saw 3 lactation consultants, talked to every mom I knew, visited the lactation clinics, read books, watched youtube videos... I did MY best. Until this day, I feel like I have to explain my entire story because I feel judged that I had to formula fee my baby, while supplementing him with my breast milk for the first 2 months of his life. Yes, I could have pumped for longer, and bless the women that do... I just couldn't do it, while keeping my sanity. In the end, V is a thriving and healthy baby boy who as it turns out LOVES eating solid food. He was a natural right from the beginning.

Since he was born, I couldn't wait to feed solid food to my baby. Not only do I love cooking, but I wanted to give V a second chance at nutrition and do this the right way!

Off Road Cooking- A Bumpy Start

So, as much as I was anticipating cooking for V, I was so nervous as a new mom, what with all the rules and guidelines for feeding babies. No peanuts, no egg whites, no dairy.... I started adding rice cereal to his milk at about 4 months. At 4.5 months, I gave him his first bite of rice cereal and he ate it up like a champ! No spitting it out with the tongue. Just a straight swallow! I gave him rice cereal and banana for the first bit, once a day. He was young and I wasn't sure what I was doing. I wanted to make sure he was still drinking all the milk that he should be. I also gave him prunes which helped with digestion and #2 :)

Finally 5 months came around and I felt better giving him a larger variety of food. At first I was against store bought food. There is NO way I am giving him processed food! He is formula fed, the least I can do is make him delicious nutritious gourmet food! Right? Wrong! I bought some baby food and out of convenience started giving him the store bought cooked veggies and meat.

I unpacked my baby bullet and was amazed with all the accessories that came with it!

STOP! What on earth am I doing here? I just said that I wanted to give the very best and give him a second chance at eating healthy! The veggies in the garden are blooming and this is the promise I made to myself! This is the moment where I went to the basement and dusted off the "Baby Bullet" that I got as a gift and thought I would never use. I also started reading a baby cook book that I received as a gift, which really helped to inspire my culinary fire!



Baby V's Gourmet Pallet

Turns out, V hates store bought food. I think it's way too bland and lacks flavour. So it was time for me to roll up my foodie sleeves and make the baby food I have been dying to make!

Apples, peach and plum with cinnamon

I of course started with fruits and veggies, even though meat is recommended. The way I see it is that Formula contains so much iron, my son is not deprived of it. If I were strictly breastfeeding, then I would have introduced meat right away.

I started with plain food like avocado, steamed/boiled sweet potatoes, carrots, peas and chicken. I know you are supposed to wait a few days to check for allergic reactions before giving new food items...but I didn't. V just loved eating and wasn't showing any bad signs, that I quickly found myself making mini purees that consisted of a mixture of grains, veggies and meat. I also loved making fruit compote with a medley of seasonal fruits!

A little info about flavour- As it turns out, I have been using lots of different things to flavour the food that I make; onion, celery, sage, basil, parsley, cinnamon and a tiny bit of salt for meats. I truly think this is what makes the difference in the food. When I taste the food, I find myself loving it, and no wonder V does too! I also noticed that he loves meat in his food... he is definitely my son ;)

Find your Routine

V now eats 3 meals a day which consists of Oatmeal with fruit for breakfast, 2 snacks for lunch (yogurt and avocado or small dinner with fruit) and dinner always consists of a hearty meal that contains meat, veggies and a grain/starch.

Some Foodspiration for You

Here are a few of my hits with Victor. Please be inspired to create your own concoctions :)
I think we were so lucky with timing because the veggies in the garden are coming out and the Ontario produce are ready!
Don't forget to explore with starches, legumes and grains like Yucca, parsnip, sweet potato, quinoa, cracked wheat, barley, lentils, chickpeas and beens.

Fruit Compote
Banana and blueberry
Apple, peaches, plum and cinnamon
Mango, peach and plum
Blackberries, banana and peaches

Snacks/Lunch
Bulkan style yogurt (6% fat)... V's Fave!
Avocado
Humous... V's Fave!

Meals
Ground turkey, onion, mushroom, potato, sage (HUGE hit!)
Beef, cracked wheat, tomato, parsley, kale
Quinoa, zucchini, tomato, onion, kale

Barley, Kale, Tomato, Pork Tenderloin, Parsley and Lentils
(smelled amazing!)

Lentils and green peas with boiled chicken and celery
(V wasn't a huge fan of the dry consistancy here)

Have fun in the kitchen and do share your recipes!