With the site redesign successfully complete, I’ve started to turn my technical attention to another matter – FeedBurner. Some of you subscribe to my blog using FeedBurner, via RSS or email subscription. Thanks for that and I appreciate it! However, some of you might know that FeedBurner might be going the way of Google Reader at some point, as in killed off. When Google is going to pull the plug on FeedBurner I don’t know but I’m starting to research my options now to ensure you can stay in touch with me often and easily when FeedBurner disappears.
In preparations for making the shift away from FeedBurner to a more reliable and sustainable provider, I encourage you to subscribe to my blog via email so I have a more confidence I can port all readers’ addresses (including yours) over to a new provider this fall and make a seamless transition for all email subscribers. If you wish to continue reading My Own Advisor only via RSS, that’s OK, simply ensure you have www.myownadvisor.ca entered when prompted by your reader and you should get access to my RSS feed instantly.
Once my research on email providers is done and I make a decision about new services sometime this fall, I’ll let you know about it and give you lots of lead time, so if anything goes amiss you can let me know ASAP but more importantly you always get my mail at your online door.
Thanks for being a dedicated reader and follower of this site. It’s great to have 30,000 pageviews per month, over 1,800 followers on Twitter and over 500 Likes on Facebook!
Enjoy your long weekend and these great articles.
Index investing guru Andrew Hallam said he once owned $370,000 in Berkshire Hathaway stock. Wow.
Dividend Monk highlighted a few stocks buying back shares.
Cait wrote about life after debt.
GroceryAlerts.ca wrote about frugality as a lifestyle.
A guest post on Boomer & Echo listed 16 habits to retire wealthy.
Dividend Growth Investor thinks Walmart has plenty of growth potential.
Kerry Taylor hired her husband to be her wife.
Read here how two teachers plan to be financially free at age 45.
Larry MacDonald summarized the key choices investors have with foreign markets. “On the one hand, there are U.S.-listed ETFs, such as the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, which covers the U.S. market (VTI). On the other, there are the unhedged Canadian-listed ETFs tracking foreign securities, such as the unhedged version of the iShares S&P 500 Index ETF, (XUS).” I’m following the advice of ETF expert, Justin Bender of PWL Capital Inc., using U.S.-listed ETFs from the Vanguard Group for my RRSP.
My Financial Independence Journey reviewed Verizon (VZ:US).
Outlier Model reminded us to take care of ourselves.
Marissa over at Thirty Six Months is almost done her Christmas shopping. That is some major organization…
Miss T. talked about goal setting.
Canadian Dividend Blogger had some fun predictions for bank earnings this week.
Michael James on Money wrote about winning the loser’s game.
I follow a number of blogs in various topic areas. In the past I managed the subscriptions using google reader and read the posts using Mr. Reader on an iPad. Mr. Reader is a great piece of software and the personal support from the developer is second to none. I believe Mr. Reader is owned and developed by an individual based somewhere in Europe. It costs $4 in the App Store and is a great example of how mobile ecosystems add value. I don’t recall spending a more productive $4.
Getting back to the topic of simply accessing this blog with the demise of a favourite RSS organizer. When google reader was being shut down I went on a search and settled on Feedly. You can manage subscriptions ing the Feedly app (and on line, I believe ). While you can use Feedly’s newspaper style reader (similar to Flipboard in appearance) I still use Mr Reader. It’s this combo I use to read this blog. So as long as you publish with RSS, I’m happy.
Adding a new subscription is simply a matter of searching for it in the Feedly app, adding to an existing or new category. Next time you open Mr. Reader, it syncs with Feedly and pulls down the feeds using the same categories defined in Feedly. The only way it would be easier would be if Mr.Reader managed the subscriptions itself.
Hey Mark! Glad to hear you’re using US-listed ETFs in your RRSP (presumably for the U.S. and International/EM exposure) – are you using Norbert’s Gambit to convert your Canadian dollars to US?
All the best,
Justin
Hey Justin!
Yes, using VTI and VXUS products in RRSP, along with direct holdings in U.S stocks, about 8 of them. At the point now where I can synthetically DRIP the U.S.-listed ETFs, so no real need to use Gambit.
This would have come in handy for me though, a few years ago, when I was building up a position.
Gambit is great and although you pay two commissions to buy DLR in CDN $, journal, then sell DLR.U in USD $, people buying US securities frequently save big this way. Do you advise all clients to Gambit or just hold CDN equivalents?
Thanks for coming by the blog. Hope you’re having a great weekend.
Mark
I normally advise investors to learn how to use Norbert’s Gambit when purchasing VTI and VXUS in their RRSP (although if they’re holding them for the long term, and don’t want to use the gambit, it probably makes sense from a foreign withholding tax perspective to just take the conversion hit and buy the US-listed ETFs anyways).
As for investors in taxable accounts who do not want to mess around with the gambit (I can’t blame them), using a combination of VCN, VUN, XEF and XEC is a great choice as well.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend, bud!
Justin
I’ve never heard that Feedburner may be on it’s way out too, but it makes sense. I think email subscribers can be a lot more valuable because everyone checks their email on a daily basis, but sometimes not their readers.
Agreed Daisy. I hope you migrate over with me when I make my change!? 🙂
Thanks for including us! Too bad feedburner is on it’s way out too, I’ll have to look into that. Have a great long weekend!
No sweat Brian. Enjoy the looong weekend!
Thanks for the link, Mark! Have a nice long weekend 🙂
I had no idea about feedburner, thanks for letting me know. Cheers mate and have a great weekend.
No sweat! I’m learning stuff everyday.
Mark
Thanks for the mention Mark. If you need some help with Aweber (or just want to swing your old buddies a commission – I’ll be honest!) just let us know and we can set you up (and by we, I mean Justin who is the technology brains of the operation).
Thanks Kyle. I appreciate that. I might drop you guys a line. I have an idea what I’m doing but I will need some help for sure. Avrom (Dividend Ninja) has been helping me with my site of late and has been great. If you don’t mind though, I might bounce some ideas off you!
Mark
Hi Mark, I’m not sure what’s happening with Feedburner but I’ve prepared to move things over to Aweber so I’m not caught off guard when/if Google pulls the plug.
Thanks for the mention!
Smart man Robb. Maybe we could chat about that at CPFC13. I’m thinking I should move to Aweber as well. I don’t have much to market yet, but eventually, I might get there.
I don’t want to be caught off guard when Google pulls the plug either! I might drop you a line over the next few weeks to ask a few questions, if you don’t mind…
Thanks again for the blog support as well.
Mark
Sounds good, Mark. I don’t know anything about the technical side (seriously, Justin helped get me set-up), but I’d be happy to talk about the strategy and how I’m using the service.
Looking forward to meeting up, finally!
For sure Robb. Can’t wait to sit and have some pints with you after all these years of chatting online.
Mark