u/An-Drizzle

Hey everyone,

Quick sanity check. When I first set things up, my bank deposited about $2,000 into my HELOC (some kind of adjustment related to the mortgage). I didn’t realize yet. The next day I borrowed $180,000 from the HELOC and invested it to start my Smith Maneuver. Then the day after I realized the bank deposited the $2,000 into my HELOC, rather than my chequing account. I pulled that $2,000 out to my personal account.

So that small amount got mixed in around the same time as the investment borrowing.

The $180k is clearly invested, but I’m wondering if that $2k movement creates any tracing issues or affects deductibility at all.

Summary:
May 1: bank deposits 2k into HELOC
May 2: I transfer 180k into SM investment account
May 3: I transfer the 2k into personal chequing

Am I overthinking this, or is this something I need to fix/document?

Thanks in advance!

I’ve done quite a bit of reading on the Smith Maneuver and just started implementing it with CIBC.

My plan is to capitalize the interest each month, but unsure if I should make the minimum payment into the HELOC then immediately withdraw the funds back to my chequing account or do nothing and have the interest get added to the HELOC.

I understand they’re effectively the same, but is there an advantage to one method over the other? Does the CRA care?

Thanks in advance!

Do not stay at RIU Palace Punta Cana.

I’m posting this because I would have wanted to read something like this before booking.

During our stay, cash was stolen from the safe inside our room while housekeeping had access to it. Not lost. Not misplaced. Stolen. From a locked safe in a guest room.

We reported it immediately, and that’s where the real problem started.

The hotel did absolutely nothing meaningful about it.

No serious investigation. No accountability. No urgency. Just generic, copy-paste responses, vague excuses, and management doing everything they could to avoid responsibility. It was obvious from the beginning they were more interested in protecting themselves than finding out what happened.

That is the most alarming part.

Money was taken from a locked safe in a guest room, and RIU’s response was basically a shrug.

Let that sink in.

A hotel safe is one of the most basic things guests rely on for security. If cash can disappear from there while staff are in your room, and management responds like it’s an inconvenience instead of a serious security issue, that tells you everything you need to know about this place.

And the worst part? The responses after the fact were cold, dismissive, and insultingly robotic. No ownership, no concern, no attempt to make it right. Just canned corporate nonsense clearly written to shut the complaint down and move on.

This wasn’t just a theft issue. It was a complete failure in guest safety, accountability, and basic customer service.

There are too many resorts in Punta Cana to waste your money on one that can’t protect your belongings and clearly does not care when something goes wrong.

Book somewhere else.

Do not stay at RIU Palace Punta Cana.

I’m posting this because I would have wanted to read something like this before booking.

During our stay, cash was stolen from the safe inside our room while housekeeping had access to it. Not lost. Not misplaced. Stolen. From a locked safe in a guest room.

We reported it immediately, and that’s where the real problem started.

The hotel did absolutely nothing meaningful about it.

No serious investigation. No accountability. No urgency. Just generic, copy-paste responses, vague excuses, and management doing everything they could to avoid responsibility. It was obvious from the beginning they were more interested in protecting themselves than finding out what happened.

That is the most alarming part.

Money was taken from a locked safe in a guest room, and RIU’s response was basically a shrug.

Let that sink in.

A hotel safe is one of the most basic things guests rely on for security. If cash can disappear from there while staff are in your room, and management responds like it’s an inconvenience instead of a serious security issue, that tells you everything you need to know about this place.

And the worst part? The responses after the fact were cold, dismissive, and insultingly robotic. No ownership, no concern, no attempt to make it right. Just canned corporate nonsense clearly written to shut the complaint down and move on.

This wasn’t just a theft issue. It was a complete failure in guest safety, accountability, and basic customer service.

There are too many resorts in Punta Cana to waste your money on one that can’t protect your belongings and clearly does not care when something goes wrong.

Book somewhere else.