Diamonds, Diamonds, Turkies, Bloggers Meeting and Friday #Shoutouts

There’s nothing like the week before a LONG weekend to get things rolling nicely. Yes, it is Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend, and the traditional Turkey dinner and watching a bunch of CFL games on Monday, which has accompanied previous Thanksgiving days in my family.

The NCFBA had another fine meeting, and we even had a new visitor, Kanwal, from Simply Investing, who we hopefully didn’t scare off. There was a lively discussion at the end of our meeting about Hedging your investments against currency fluctuations. That I was completely confused by in the first 2 minutes (Larry M., Canadian Capitalist and Michael James had a lively sharing of opinions on that), I believe the conclusion I got was that one of those chaps will be writing a post about this (hopefully in terms that the common folk like me can understand).

The NCFBA members all commented on my Costco Jewelry post, I always feel good when my peers notice something I have written (even if it is a fun post like that). Still haven’t found anyone who has bought one of the rings, I’d be curious to hear from anyone who has, and whether they were happy with their purchase.

Weekly Recap

Hopefully, Ottawa will not be bombed with turkeys this weekend (look that up on Google with WKRP in the search, you should find one of my favourite TV scenes ever):

• Oktoberfest, Trudeaumania, Bad Beer and #Tweets points that everything eventually comes back, even tired old political crap from the late 60’s!
• Bacon Shortage! Is it true? Folks are skeptical, but you better stock up on the other red meat just in case
• Spending money to make money is a tired expression used by investment folks, but there are actually times in life when you actually do need to do this.
• Online jewelry at Costco and not just cheap stuff either, $79K rings that you can pick up along with a gross of toilet paper, and a $5 lunch.
• Why you need to consider lifestyle in your retirement planning is an important part of your retirement planning.
• NFL Refs are Back, Free Tuition and Friday #Shoutouts After my concerted efforts with both sides, the NFL referees have returned to work, well OK, I bitched about it on-line and an agreement went into place the same day.

And thanks to those who added me on Twitter.

Links for the Week

Plenty of debates down south (why does Mitt Romney hate Big Bird), but no hockey likely up in Canada for a good long while (at least at the NHL level), but not many turkeys in this lot as well:

• I’ve told my kids they will be lucky if I don’t leave them a huge debt when I die, so I am not as worried about my will but The Blunt Bean Counter gives us Holy Hotchpot – Equalizing Uneven Advances to your Children in Your Will.
• Michael James is living through an un-fun time at work so he wrote about Dealing with Layoffs, I have lived through both sides of the equation, and it’s more fun when you get to keep your job at the end of the process.
• The Canadian Capitalist points out that Vanguard US ETF Benchmarks are changing, which is important for me since I hold at least one of those index funds.
• Echo of Boomer and Echo asks are Investors getting short changed from our banks and advisors? I think the easy answer is yes, it happens.
• Riscario was at CPFC12 and has a few views on it Where Financial Bloggers Fail, too bad I missed it.
• My Own Advisor gives us his September 2012 Dividend Report , which is brave of him, telling us all about his successes and his problems too (no you aren’t going to get that kind of info from me).
• Larry MacDonald gives us an interesting point of view with Why a housing crash is not imminent.