Hi Joyful, In the US you always pay both the pension fund manager as well as the mutual fund. However, our pension fund charges only .012%. The average US pension fund administration charges 1.25%. In the funds available to DH, there are a few funds with 1% or 1-1/2% fees but most are in the .75% or lower range. I agree with you that international exposure is critical these days. Our foreign exposure is low (to my way of thinking) at 22% total right now (DH's portfolio is 20% foreign invested but my smaller portfolio is invested 100% foreign fund). I do expect a pullback, however, which is why I took some profits and parked it in cash. I expect to reinvest before the end of the year, dividing it between domestic and foreign. We usually aim for around 28-30% foreign exposure total. Because our total asset portfolio is relatively modest, we wouldn't reach sufficient breakpoints even with a discount brokerage to be able to buy at NAV (net asset value, for those who are reading this discussion and are unfamiliar with the abbreviation), let alone waiving trading commissions. My ex-boss, the CFP, was very familiar with our pension fund (he has several clients who are also covered under it) and his advice to me was to leave our portfolio with the pension fund even after DH retires (he can take it out and rollover to another brokerage or advisor if he wishes); the quality of the funds and aggregate cost efficiencies can't be beaten. Now, if we decide to sell our house (it isn't elderly- or disabled-friendly, unfortunately), that frees up a huge chunk of money which we can use to play with. But even so, I fear I'm more of a mutual-fund gal. There's very few stocks I feel strongly about (although when IBM went down to $25 during the dot-com bust I couldn't believe it). I'm more focused on business trends and corporate finance in a general historical environment. Because of the estate planning we've done, it's not necessary for us to draw on our portfolio unless we need some 'mad money'. We can support a comfortable, if not lavish, lifestyle on DH's pension. To offset inflation, we will receive additional income at specific intervals in the future (my upcoming Social Security, my modest pensions, then his Social Security); DH's pension also has cost-of-living increases annually which will help a bit. As a result, investing in taxable accounts is actually a drawback for us. The retirement portfolio automatically reinvests all dividends and everything compounds tax-free until you withdraw some/all of it. So, the fees and taxes we would pay on a modest taxable account make little bottom-line sense in our situation. When we sell the house, then it will be time to decide what to do with the proceeds. Much will depend on our health situation; senior housing here in the US is REALLY expensive for the nicer facilities. My ex-boss liked to say, "Don't let the tax tail wag the dog!" But we do have to pay some attention to taxes, especially as they are unusually low in the US right now by historical standards. Even without the deficits, they were bound to swing upwards eventually! I like to be prepared for various future financial scenarios, so my DH and I have discussed many times about doing XX if YY happens, or doing ZZ if QQ occurs. You can never tell when life is going to start throwing not just curveballs, but knuckleballs at you, LOL. Thanks for the summer wish, and I hope yours is good as well. My DH's maternal relatives all live in Canada (most in Vancouver, some in Calgary) and it's a beautiful place.

Yes, I am talking wireless. Donna, I had a two wire, that worked GREAT for about 2 years for my daughter, and she upgraded, and I used hers. It died early this year. They gave me a "black box". I " installed " it on the 24th of last month. Worked GREAT, till yesterday afternoon. In fact, I was online yesterday morning, with no problem, but could not connect yesterday afternoon. Since I can connect here at the library, I am guessing, I was right when I reported my modem not working... Hopefully a replacement shows up on my front porch soon. Meanwhile, I stopped at the library on my way home from a bike ride with Mel (22 miles). Now, home, dinner, and I guess a bit of TV. Later Moni

It is the material. It isn't used terribly much. It makes me nervous, but my husband is sold and his cousin who has been in the siding/window business for almost 30 years says he thinks it is the best product. It only rusts if it is scratched and you don't seal the scratch. I looked at some rental properties of someone who has the product. The property was 16 years old and looked very new. I did see a few scratches, but even they weren't rusty. Photoshop would be nice! My roof does have some red in it. It is more of a bronze-brown. It is hard for me to work with as I don't see it on many houses, so it's harder for me to picture with different colors. Here is the house in the sun last summer if that makes the roof color more clear. Darn perfectionism....I'm so lenient with the choices of others, but mine have to be perfect...

jim, too late now, but you wouldn't have had the email address change problem if you'd used one of the open hosts, like gmail, yahoo mail, etc. etc. instead of using email from your service provider. chisue, I believe the satellite providers can't (or don't) offer sat internet service to homes that have either DSL or cable or both. As plog's link shows, sat company bundles are just partnerships that include internet via DSL from a telco. True sat internet (for homes in remote locations) is slow and the plans offer usage limits that are much too low for streaming video regularly. As mentioned, the best choices and maybe the only reasonable choices you have for internet service are DSL from the telco, cable, or fiber-optic in a growing number of urban locations. Cable is always faster than DSL. I switched to Comcast over 5 years ago and beyond the significant speed increase, the service has been very good. I'd previously had a DSL connection that was fast enough to stream video. You can port your landline number to a Comcast phone service (likely a bit less per month). Or, there others like Vonage (about $20-$25) or Ooma as Nicole mentioned. I've used Ooma for the last 5 years, the service is terrific and it's very cheap.