A Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) is like any other investment - except that it grows on a tax-deferred basis.

While designed specifically as a retirement vehicle, an RRSP has benefits throughout your lifetime.

• By contributing to an RRSP throughout your working career, you'll realize immediate tax benefits at a time when your incomce is generally highest. The total amount of your annual contribution can be deducted from your gross income at tax time, reducing the amount you pay in income tax that year.
• The growth earned in your RRSP is not taxed until it is withdrawn. While your investments sit in your RRSP, their growth is tax sheltered and so the total value may grow more quickly.
• By the time you begin to withdraw the funds at retirement, you most likely will be in a lower tax bracket than during your earning years. Funds withdrawn at that time will benefit from this lower tax rate.

A Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP) is one of the easiest and best ways to fund the future ambitions of your child.

You may also be eligible to obtain one or more of the Government's education incentives.

Although RESP contributions are not tax-deductible, they do allow savings to compound and grow tax-free until the child is ready to go full-time to college, university, or another post-secondary educational institution.

Like an RRSP, all the income earned in an RESP can accumulate tax-free until it’s withdrawn. And when it is withdrawn for educational purposes, only the growth is taxed in the child’s hands, so there most likely will be little or no tax payable. Also, the money withdrawn can be used for any reasonable education related expense, such as tuition, books, travel and living costs.

Family RESP offers huge advantages

Instead of setting up an individual RESP for each child, it can be far more effective to set up a Family RESP – a single plan with multiple beneficiaries.

The main advantage of a Family RESP is that if one child decides not to pursue higher education, you can either name an alternate beneficiary or simply divide the assets in the plan among any remaining children.

Segregated funds (or "seg funds") are basically the insurance industry's version of a mutual fund.with a few twists. Both mutual and seg funds are pooled investments where the investor deposits money with a professional money manager in return for units of the fund. However, there are a few key benefits to seg funds that you can't get with their mutual fund counterparts.

Segregated funds are technically insurance products, and therefore must offer insurance protection in the form of guarantees. There are two types of guarantees - a guarantee at maturity, and a guarantee at death. When you invest in a seg fund, you get a maturity date (generally at least 10 years from the date of investment). On this date, you are entitled to the greater of the maturity value, which is 100% of your initial investment, or the actual market value of your fund. The guarantee at death provides the same benefit at the death of the annuitant, regardless of whether it occurs 10 years or 10 days after the initial investment.

Unlike mutual funds, an investment in a seg fund can also be shielded from creditors in the event of bankruptcy. This can be quite beneficial to small business owners. For the creditor protection to apply however, you must name a beneficiary who is a direct family member, and you must be able to prove that your investment in the segregated fund was not made solely for the purpose of shielding assets from creditors.