Short Takes: Free Air Miles and more

Americans have no love for dollar coins. There have been several failed attempts to get them to stop using one-dollar notes. However, some people have found a clever and amusing way to use dollar coins to get free air miles.

Tom Bradley at Steadyhand hints that the Steadyhand Funds perform well on the “gap” measure which is the difference between reported fund returns and the returns actually experienced by investors in those funds. This gap measure is one way to gauge how well financial advisors help investors make rational decisions.

Retire Happy Blog leans toward debt repayment in the debate about whether to contribute to a TFSA or pay down debt.

Money Smarts updated a chart of the average wait time when phoning Canadian discount brokerages.

Big Cajun Man has heard all the talk of the U.S. debt ceiling and coins the term “debt floor” to be the point where you get out of debt. Personally, I’ve never liked the term debt ceiling because I think of increased debt as sinking (or digging). So I’d prefer to use debt floor to mean the maximum one can borrow. Maybe “dungeon level limit” is better.