I found that, though I can have certificates issued for mutual fund ownership (no fee), or stocks (about $35. each), I cannot have a stock certificAte issued for an Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) in Canada. Which means that I cannot use the evidence of ownership of an ETF as security to arrange a line of credit or loan with my bank/credit union, at low rate of interest. I can use it as collateral with the stockbroker who holds the fund, as well as others of my assets, in his electronic data base ... but my experience has usually been that the stockbroker usually charges at least 1% higher rate than at the bank, which is an appreciable difference, when compounded over time. Sometimes I have little asset easily available as ready cash, or that I choose to liquidate now to make available as money in case of an emergency, as I may not like the price available, or the sales commission required. As I sometimes lack available ready-cash, I have a fully-secured Line of Credit, backed by certificates of stocks and mutual funds, to obtain a low rate of interest - currently about 6.25%, but unused at the moment. Then I can use a credit card in an emergency, then use my line of credit to pay off that amount in full before it starts accruing interest, unless the credit card carries 0% rate, which is not the case, as I have had my card for several years. The trouble is that the interest paid on a loan used for an emergency or consumption is almost always not deductible and I prefer to use loans for investment, thus making them deductible. So when I use an emergency loan for emergency, which is seldom deductible, I stop investing for a while and use that part of current income to pay off that non-deductible-interest loan as quickly as possible. Then I start using that regular saving to begin investing again, plus may borrow to invest, if I feel that the situation justifies it. Also, in my Canadian situation most of the time, I can borrow for investing at almost no net cost. Are you familiar with the Rule of 72? Divide 72 by the rate of gain/growth that you are getting and the result will show you the number of years that it will take for your investment to double. Thus, investment return of 6% will double in 12 years ... at 9% will double in 8 years. But it's not the raw figure that counts. If your bond pays 5% and you are in 20% tax bracket, that means that 1% is lost to tax, so your after-tax rate of return is actually 4%. But when your bond matures, you'll get back only the number of dollars invested originally, so those equal-value dollars suffer annual erosion of value due to inflation. If you assume inflation to be 3%, that leaves your effective rate of return at only 1%. Which means that it'll take 72 years for my $1.00 current return on invested asset to become $2.00. I bought a long-term quality Canadian stock 40 years ago for $4.20, that paid me about a dime or so a year in dividend, which is tax-advantaged here. Over the years, it's paid about 3% or so, or about 2.5% after taxes. A few months ago I could have sold that stock for $107.+ per share, and a few months later for about $89.50, and since it recovered to about $101.00, then last Friday dropped to about $96.50. Did I choose ot sell it? Not on your life! It has grown well for me over the years, and is currently a high quality stock. As the stock has grown well over the years, you can see my reasoning when I say that I do not feel the need to make any calculated deduction from current dividend rate to allow for the erosion of value of the basic investment due to inflation. Current after-tax income of 2.5%, divided into 72, shows that those dividends reinvested will double in about 30 years ... to my mind, a lot better than taking 72 years to do it. When I calculated the rate of growth of the stock a while ago, I think that I calculated that to be about 7% compounded. So you can see my reasons for being happy with that investment. That's one of my better ones - one of my equity-based mutual funds has taken over 20 years to slightly more than double. I'm not very pleased with the folks who have managed it over the years - and they've changed several times. Good wishes as you pursue your savings and investment program. ole joyful

A proof of direct relationship between father and daughter should be on a certificate of birth. If you have a passport what proof did you provide that you were born? You did not state where you were born but if born in the US the state or county you were born in should be able to provide a certified/notorized copy of your birth certificate. Ask the bank if a sworn statement from your father or other relative would be acceptable. Please do not take this as an insult but if your father is your natural father and not your legal father his name may not appear on the birth certificate. The bank should have a list of documents or proof that they or the government will accept. Good luck with your records search.

We usually have to pay more for coins than the intrinsic value of the metal that's in them. If you buy bullion ... you either have to pay storage fees to the agency that stores it ... ... or, if you hold it yourself, must either pick it up yourself or pay freight, then store it (how safely??), and, on sale, deliver it to the buyer or his agent, and pay costs of the assay to ensure that the material is the same as you had received. In all - costly. I prefer to own part of a qualuity gold/silver/copper mine. Or - maybe some of those rare earth materials that are essential in all of the electronic gizmos that we demand these days (and sourcing which underlays a great deal of the current fighting in Africa, sort of like the U.S. sourcing oil in Iraq). Currently, at something above 5%, I hold far too high a percentage of my asset in (even Canadian) dollar-based asset. When one considers the huge debts that many countries are piling up, it seems to me that paper currency is at risk. And when the bankers to the U.S. want to be paid instead of being willing to extend more credit, the only choice will be to raise interest rates to entice the lenders to give us more ... ... and in what kind of a mess will we be, then? If we're in trouble paying 3 - 5% ... how about 10 - 12%? I remember when I sold mutual funds, 25 years ago, some folks, especially seniors, chortling as they told me how they'd taken up the Canadian Gov't's offer of Canada Savings Bonds a few years earlier, at 18% (and people were paying upwards of 25% on mortgages). When I asked them how they liked making about $2,000. - 3,000. on an investment of $100,000., they laughingly told me that they were earning far more than that. If they were paying 25% income tax, their after-tax return on their 18% was 13.5%, right? And ... did they happen to know what the rate of inflation was at the time? Few knew that it was running at about 12%. After all - a person could buy a fine car for well under $10,000. a while earlier, but not any more! When our gov'ts. print more money, as the U.S. is doing big time these days ... the real value of each dollar lessens commensurately. Three or four years ago, had you shifted U.S. money to Canada, as I suggested on here, 79 cents or so U.S. would have bought a Canadian Dollar. If you repatriated it now (and why would you? better to move more dollars offshore, while they'll still buy something of value) ... that Canadian Dollar would buy you 98 cents U.S. And if you'd bought a Canadian bank, pipeline co, oil well, etc., that would likely have gained you about 20%. Happy investing. ole joyful

It is unfair of you to say that my DD is unreasonably demanding. Go back and read what I originally wrote about her New Zealand trip. There is a huge difference in what my SD24 did and what my DD did. My SD24 planned in her mind a 7 night cruise to Hawaii, which would mean that air flights from Wisconsin to California would have to be included in the trip, as she lives in Wisconsin. The price that she expected us to pay was for the entire trip, it would be at least $5000. My DD said that she would like to take the $1000, that we were offering each child, and apply hers to her New Zealand trip. We said we didn't care where they took a trip, as long as it was without children. We were not paying for a family vacation. The trip was offered as a weekend getaway for the couple only. We said right up fron that if the kids go, we do not pay anything. My daughter did not ask for a trip to New Zealand from us. She was already planning a trip there, and wondered if the cash could be applied to her already planned trip. We offered this trip because we wanted to do something nice for our children for their 5th anniversary. I do not feel that we are trying to buy love. My daughter did not ask for money, it was offered to her first. She only clarified with me how she could use the money that I offered to her. It is OK for SD24 to clarify details of the weekend getaway that we'd offered her too. But she only heard that her brother was going on a cruise, and translated that to a cruise for her too. We'll send her on the same 3 day cruise out of San Diego as we sent her brother. Her brother got himself to San Diego, he happens to live nearby. The problem with her, is that she made the assumption that whatever she planned, how ever long it was, or where ever it went, that Daddy would pay. Far different from what my daughter did. And now that the first kid took the trip, we can't very well retract the offer for the others. This will be the last offer of anything like that after they've all gotten their turn. As far as buying something for DD and not for SD, well they are keeping score. If they hear of something that I did for my kids, and not for them, then there are problems. I mailed a "care package" to my son in the Marines while he was in Iraq. At the same time my DHs daughter was 200 miles away in graduate school. I didn't see this as the same situation, but I was newly married, and didn't want to cause waves over a care package. It seemed like my DH wanted me to send one to his DD too. So, I did. I get an email for DS23 for Iraq telling me that he shared the brownies with the rest of his troops, and they all said thanks. He said they lasted about 5 minutes. The culture on base in Iraq, is when you get a package, you share. 2 weeks went by and I heard nothing from DS25. My DH phoned her and asked her if she got the package or not. She said yes, but was to busy to call and thank me. I never bothered to send her another one. My son now is in Somolia, and I send him one about every 4-6 weeks. If he starts taking them for granted, I'll stop with him too, but he hasn't. It's OK to disagree on the forum, but I think we should be curtious to each other. I don't think we should write something here that we would most likely not say to someone's face. I think we should share our experiences to help each other, but refrain from telling others how wrong they are just because they don't do it our way.