Windy! And Money.

Here in Vancouver we've been having, as Pooh would put it, a blustery day. Honestly, I haven't noticed that the wind has been all that intense, but several downed trees, power outages, and one in-construction building-collapse indicate that it has indeed been quite the storm. As such, I will be sleeping on the couch tonight, so as to distance myself from the potential tree of death that stands outside my bedroom.

Well, I've dealt with the windy, now let's move on to the money. I'm 23. Being 23, I know that retirement is a long, long way off. That being said, I'm far too pragmatic to not be thinking about RRSPs. However, I know basically nothing about them. I know far more about the (irrelevant to me, because I'm not American) 401(k) plan, which, thank you Oprah, should I ever move to the US I know that I will benefit from your guestspeakers' tutelage. However, Canada has no Oprah, no one explaining to me how our retirement plans work. I've read some online, and I think I have the basics, but how does one choose? Is one bank better than another? Because sadly, the chances that the BMO website is going to tell me that TD is better are pretty slim. And can the bank make me contribute without really noticing? I know you ca do that whole "automatic monthly deduction" thing on a certain day of the month, but you know what? That doesn't really work for me. What I need is for you to automatically take out, say, 10% of every deposit I make. That way the money goes in, and I don't have the risk of pulling it out at an inopportune moment, like, say, right before that day when you're about to make your monthly deduction. And then I NSF. And yes, I did have a horrible experience with your deducting when I was 12, why do you ask? That red, negative number on my bank statement scarred me for life, and I blame my strange banking neurosis on that experience. And I hate you.

I have an appointment to discuss all this with a financial advisor next week. We'll see how that goes.