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Your Financial RPE

ArticleAnnie Garland | Oct 17, 2026

FOR MORE THAN 20 years, I worked as a personal trainer. Now I’m a financial advisor. On the surface, the two professions look nothing alike. Human behavior makes them far more similar than most people realize. Years ago, one of my fitness clients joined Weight Watchers. At her intake meeting, she asked whether she should cut back on carrots because she’d heard they're high in sugar. The specialist didn't miss a beat. She smiled and said “No one ever comes to us because they eat too many carrots." The money version is just as true. People often fixate on a detail that barely moves the needle. I’ve watched people agonize over choosing this fund or that fund while saving just 3% of their pay. People follow the financial media frenzy for fear of missing out on the next big winner. This is akin to revamping your entire routine every time the latest weight loss trend hits the market. On and Off the Wagon Over my years as a trainer, I watched the same pattern again and again. People went on an aggressive diet, then off it. They started a workout program, then quit. They joined a gym, then rarely set foot in the door. Plenty of others showed up consistently, but they simply went through the motions. They strolled on the treadmill while reading a magazine or watching TV. They lifted weights that never challenged them. Going through the motions beats going through no motions, but it rarely gets you the result you want. Trainers have a metric for this. It’s called RPE, short for rate of perceived exertion. RPE is a scale used to measure how hard your body works during physical activity based on how you feel. I often asked my clients, “On a scale of one to 10, how hard did that feel?” A one is sitting on the couch, and a 10 is the absolute maximum effort you can handle. Muscles, fitness and health only improve when they’re pushed past comfortable. It’s called overload. Someone who wants to lose 30 pounds needs both better eating habits and workouts hard enough to count. Cutting back on carrots is not the problem to solve. Your Financial RPE It didn’t take long to realize my financial planning clients were displaying similar behaviors. Some experienced a burst of energy to tackle important tasks. Then life got in the way, and the work landed on the back burner, half finished. Others enthusiastically told me all about their early retirement dreams. The minimal effort they were putting in today wasn’t going to get them there. Still others were on track but working at a perceived exertion of a 9 or 10 in their 40s and 50s. They saved so aggressively, or worked so much, that they were missing out on life. I applaud the effort, but it isn’t sustainable. I worry these clients will have regrets later in life. Are they missing out on valuable family time while the children are young? Are they working so much they’re neglecting taking care of themselves? In both fitness and finance, you need to identify what you hope to achieve and make a plan to get there. You also need to reevaluate as the decades pass. What worked in your 30s is likely not the right strategy in your 50s. Every human body gets more complex and delicate with age, and your financial life does, too. The Hard Lifts In the gym, the exercises people avoid are usually the most important and effective ones. Sometimes that’s cardio. Sometimes it’s lunges. These exercises are uncomfortable, so people find reasons to skip them. Money has its own hard lifts. The task you’re avoiding is likely the most important one on your list. You avoid it because it makes you uncomfortable and it’s hard to get started. It’s a 9 or 10 on the financial RPE scale. I see high income earners in their 30s and 40s continue to increase their spending with each raise yet not increase the savings rate along with it. I see completing an estate plan as one of the most delayed, yet extremely important financial lifts we each need to address. First time parents are eager to open their first 529 plan and begin saving for college but life insurance? That can wait. Opening a college fund for an infant feels productive and gratifying. Facing mortality or making tough family decisions is stressful and overwhelming. My training clients told me they didn’t have enough time. My financial planning clients tell me they don’t have enough time. When will you have time to address your health? When will you have time to address your wealth? Every year you put off your health is a decision you may pay for dearly later in life. Every year you put off saving is a year compounding can’t work in your favor. It raises the risk you can’t support yourself financially or can’t live your later years the way you hope. Check Your RPE Here’s my challenge. Pick a financial goal you’re chasing, or a task that’s been sitting on your list for a while. Rate your effort honestly, from one to 10. Then ask whether that number matches the goal you set for yourself. Health and wealth fuel each other. The money you accumulate is only enjoyable if you’re healthy and happy enough to use it. Ideally, it pays for more adventures than doctor bills. What’s a reasonable financial RPE to strive for? Well, that depends on how financially fit you are. And that’s a topic for a future article. In the meantime, eat your carrots. Lift the heavy thing. And check your financial RPE.

Annie Garland, CFP®, is a wealth advisor at WealthClarity in Lakewood, Colorado. She spent more than 20 years as a personal trainer before becoming a CFP® professional. She’s a proud mom of two daughters, a wife, and an avid mountain biker.

Behavior

Jonathan and me

R Quinn | Oct 14, 2026

"Helping, even indirectly, people make decisions is good. Sometimes that isn’t saying what to do, but demonstrating what a person may not want to do."

- R Quinn

Taxes

Education Freedom Tax Credit

Bogdan Sheremeta | Oct 16, 2026

"I think the basic issue revolves around private vs. public schools. I live in Hawaii and our governor initially did not want to opt in, but may be reevaluating. I wrote him that if Hawaii does not opt in, I will donate to another state because I support education and like tax credits. I just signed up to receive updates from Colorado's Department of Revenue about SGOs that are certified there. That's my Plan B if Hawaii does not opt in."

- sumzero

Update: Jonathan’s Getting Going on Saving Initative

Elaine M. Clements | Oct 12, 2026

"Elaine, thank you for the update. What a wonderful way to remember an exceptional man."

- Sonja Haggert

From HumbleDollar Founder Jonathan Clements

Investing

My Investment Sin

I'LL CONCEDE IT'S HARD to justify—but I don’t believe it’s 100% unjustifiable. At issue: my strategy of overweighting stocks during big market declines. I…

Spending

Is an 18% Service Charge a TIP?

James McGlynn CFA RICP® | Oct 13, 2026

"Thanks James for your topics of service charges and tipping. Basically when they add a mandatory service charge that is considered the tip. Good restaurants will be clear, and say tip 20%, Additional Tip. My kids worked in restaurants and good ones make it clear. Those tips get divided among all workers generally, the server, the bar tender, the busser, and the kitchen. Since most people working as servers and the like are needy, tipping is very important to them all. For very good service I like to tip about 25%, knowing it will be distributed fairly. I have a great distaste for service charges, as then the restaurant decides, and may take a cut, which is not fair to servers. I have checked and when most diners see service charge they think of it as a tip. The above is strictly for the US."

- William Dorner

Insurance

Life Insurance

ArticleAdam M. Grossman | Oct 17, 2026

EARLIER THIS YEAR, Pacific Life Insurance Company agreed to settle a class action lawsuit brought by policyholders. At issue were marketing materials that its customers argued were misleading. While Pacific Life admitted no wrongdoing, it agreed to a settlement of $58 million. This wasn’t an isolated case. Insurers that sell permanent life insurance policies, including whole life and universal life, are often on the receiving end of lawsuits because of the way that they promote their products. In another recent case, the late race car driver Kyle Busch sued his insurance agent, arguing that he’d sold him coverage costing millions that was billed as a “tax-free retirement plan.” These cases highlight the fundamental issue with permanent life insurance: Unlike term life policies, whole life and universal life policies combine two somewhat separate features in a way that often leads to confusion. On the one hand, they provide life insurance. That part is straightforward. But they also include an investment account—referred to as “cash value”—that sits alongside the insurance. These lawsuits and other criticism of permanent life insurance products stem mostly from the way the investment component is advertised. Because no one can predict how any investment will perform in the future, life insurance salespeople provide prospective customers with illustrations of how the investments might perform over time. The problem, though, is that these are merely projections, and disappointment can result if the reality of the cash value’s growth falls short of those illustrations. It’s for that reason that I don’t recommend permanent life insurance. Instead, my recommendation is to opt for simple term coverage, which provides insurance without the complication of an investment component. If you’re shopping for term coverage, though, there are still some questions to consider, including the following: Should everyone have life insurance? If you aren’t married and have no dependents, then I’d argue you do not need life insurance. Some salespeople will make the case that you should purchase coverage when you’re young, before you have a family, because you’ll receive a better rate, but I’d be wary of that argument. If the insurer is offering you a better price on a product you don’t need, that doesn’t somehow make it a better deal. Another group that typically has no need for life insurance: folks who are financially independent. If you’re retired and living off of your savings, or have assets sufficient that you could retire, then in that case, you likely don’t need life insurance. One exception to the above might be for business owners, where life insurance can help facilitate buy-sell agreements between partners, but that is a narrow use case. How much coverage should you purchase? I suggest the following formula. If you own a home and have a mortgage, I would start with the mortgage balance. While it isn’t necessary to pay off the mortgage when a spouse or parent dies, I’ve found that it can make life much easier for survivors if they aren’t burdened by a mortgage. If you have children, I would total up the estimated cost of all of their future tuition. Depending on their ages, this can be a difficult exercise because college costs vary so widely and because tuition has historically increased faster than inflation. In addition, some children might earn scholarships, while others might attend pricey schools and go on to graduate school. Recognizing these unknowns, I suggest making your best guess, perhaps going with the midpoint of the highest and lowest potential numbers. The next step would be to build an endowment of sorts to fund annual living expenses for your family. For this element, you could approach it the same way you’d think about building a portfolio for retirement. Suppose, for example, you’d like your family to have $100,000 per year. Assuming a 4% or 5% portfolio withdrawal rate, that would translate to a portfolio of $2 to $2.5 million. For the endowment portion, keep in mind that you can subtract your existing savings. If you already have $1 million saved, that would reduce the coverage you’d need by $1 million. The final element in deciding how much coverage to purchase: Be sure to round up. As we’ve seen in recent years, inflation can stretch budgets. And your family’s needs might simply change over time. How long a term should you choose? In working through this formula, you’ll likely notice a wrinkle, which is that some needs are temporary while others will be longer term. Tuition, for example, will have a defined timeframe. The endowment for living expenses, on the other hand, would need to provide for your spouse’s needs indefinitely. Fortunately, term life insurance is flexible, and there are two ways you can cover differing time periods. The first strategy would be to purchase two policies. The first would provide funds for tuition and would be timed to expire when your youngest child is age 22 and likely out of school. The second policy, to meet ongoing expenses, would be timed to expire around the time you expect to reach financial independence—around age 60, for example. An alternative approach would be to purchase a single larger policy. Because it can be difficult to predict both your family’s needs and the growth of your savings over time, the single policy approach can, counterintuitively, provide greater flexibility than committing to two separate policies. That’s because many term policies allow the coverage level to be dialed down at the owner’s request. If you’re married, should each spouse carry their own coverage? In this case, the approach I suggest is to insure each spouse in relation to the income he or she brings in. Even if your family could survive on one income, a reality is that when one spouse dies, the other may not be able to work as much. That’s frequently the case when there are children at home. So I recommend that both spouses carry life insurance until it’s clear you’ve reached financial independence. What if you have group coverage through your employer? On the one hand, this is a nice benefit, but since you might change jobs in the future, I wouldn’t factor in the benefits of any employer-provided coverage. A final point: While life insurance is important, don’t overlook disability coverage, which can be just as important. Adam M. Grossman is the founder of Mayport, a fixed-fee wealth management firm. Sign up for Adam's Daily Ideas email, follow him on X @AdamMGrossman and check out his earlier articles.

Cars

Saved 85 Bucks

Dan Smith | Oct 13, 2026

"My EV (Tesla Y) needs essentially no maintenance. So, when I saw some videos about changing the cabin air filters DIY, I leaped at the chance. It can be a bit awkward to pry interior panels off the car, but it's my only sweat equity in the car (I can't rotate four tires on my own). "

- Mike in LA

Taxes

Time to QCD

R Quinn | Oct 12, 2026

"My wife and I have a similar routine for our donor advised fund (money we allocated to a charitable gift-giving fund for a one-time tax benefit, then dole out over time). We'll remind each other of an event or organization that did good work and came to mind. Out goes a check. Yes! The record keeping is even easier - the DAF does the paperwork, and we have no real responsibility after the initial funding."

- Mike in LA

Life Events

Choosing a CCRC (Life PlanCommunity)

David Lancaster | Oct 14, 2026

"I think, regardless of whether we age in place, reside in a CCRC, or have an option somewhere in between we believe that our health care and final end will go smoothly. In truth, there are a lot of factors than are likely to mess up the best plan,"

- Marilyn Lavin

College

A Million Words to a Million Dollars?

Mark Crothers | Oct 15, 2026

"Great share of a fascinating data point I hadn’t come across before. Thank you. In my early post-career phase I took to mentoring tech sector startup founders, helping them craft their pitch decks and value propositions. This was something I was proficient with due to decades in management consulting. When introducing myself the founders would ask me what I could do for them and I’d often summarize it, saying “I’m a words guy.” A commencement speaker back in the ‘80s said that the purpose of a good education is to gain proficiency in three areas:

critical thinking
the ability to express oneself orally and in prose
taste

Now there’s research to back up the second one. Love it."

- tshort

Happiness

The Number Is Not The Answer

ArticleJohn Goodell | Oct 10, 2026

YEARS AGO, while practicing law, I was a frequent contributor to Humble Dollar. I loved Jonathan Clements’s vision for the site - a corner of the financial universe built on clarity, frugality, and the quiet dignity of living within one’s means. Then my life took a sharp pivot. I left legal practice to teach gifted-and-talented students and coach varsity athletics at a public magnet high school. Almost immediately, my submissions here dried up. I was consuming entire days guiding brilliant teenagers through complex history, breaking down match film, and grading papers long past sunset and on weekends. I wrote to Jonathan with genuine regret, apologizing for going dark on such a wonderful enterprise. His reply was quintessential Jonathan: he explained to me with characteristic, succinct warmth that his own adult child was a teacher, adding that he wasn’t sure there was a higher calling on Earth. He was right about the calling. But what nobody warns you about a calling is its capacity to consume you whole if you let it. The Cliff Edge This past year, the math simply broke. Between high-load AP teaching, head coaching, and the relentless calendar of high school athletics, I was regularly clocking 17- to 18-hour days during soccer season. My central nervous system finally redlined badly. Worse, I realized with a gut punch that I had missed nearly the entire senior year of my oldest son while running on that treadmill. This realization hit me at his graduation when I felt physically exhausted and unable to enjoy what should have been one of the proudest moments of my life. I was determined to make it up to him in whatever way I could (for example, we are visiting him today at college, and we go often to see him in San Antonio - a 90-minute drive from Austin). Moreover, I will not repeat this mistake and will enjoy the years I have left with my two high-school-aged daughters. With teenagers preparing to leave the nest and a close family member facing severe illness, I stepped away. I took a sabbatical. Maybe it will delay our retirement slightly, but as I will express further below, I am not sure I will ever really retire. The Void Financial planners love to reduce retirement to a single milestone: "The Number." The spreadsheets run 10,000 Monte Carlo simulations, the house is paid off, the withdrawal rates are dialed in, and the industry assures you: You have arrived. You are safe. At 45, I had not retired in the traditional sense, but I had stepped off the cliff of full-time professional identity because my body told me I needed to. And what I discovered in the sudden, unanticipated quiet is something many retirees spend years agonizing over without having the vocabulary to describe: The number is not the answer. When you abruptly remove the machinery of a demanding daily routine, you don't instantly find nirvana. You find a void. In a recent discussion on non-financial retirement readiness, former financial adviser Tyler Gardner framed this dilemma in his video on non-financial retirement needs around Self-Determination Theory, pioneered by psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan. Deci and Ryan posited that human well-being rests on three basic psychological nutrients: competence, relatedness, and autonomy. For all its stress and bureaucratic friction, a demanding career supplies all three automatically. When you walk away from work, those three nutrients can vanish before your celebratory cake is even eaten. If you don't deliberately rebuild them, the fallout can be physiological. The Trap of "Mental Retirement" In aging literature, researchers study a sobering phenomenon bluntly termed "mental retirement" - the cognitive softening that occurs when a person ceases to be intellectually stretched. A decade-long study from Binghamton University examining China’s rural pension expansion revealed that early retirement significantly accelerated cognitive decline. Crucially, the researchers noted that the negative impact of reduced social and mental engagement outweighed the physical benefits of improved nutrition and sleep that the pension provided. Work forced us to solve problems under pressure. Sabbaticals and retirements do not. To counteract that loss, I had to create self-imposed challenges. During my grueling years in the classroom, exercise was the first thing pushed off the ledge. On leave, I reclaimed the time. I started chasing benchmarks for physical competence. Recently, I set out to regain a grueling standard: 10 continuous minutes on the Jacob’s Ladder. It was a benchmark an elite special operator had given me when I served as an Army JAG supporting special operations in Afghanistan in my late twenties. My first time back on the ladder? I barely completed one minute and staggered off it trembling and nauseous. But every week, I kept working at it - sometimes adding a few seconds and other times several minutes until I got to 10 minutes again this week. Crossing that threshold didn't merely burn calories; it restored a measurable gradient of physical competence and, with it, confidence. Whether it is conquering a brutal conditioning standard, learning a language, or mastering an instrument, we need something where we can objectively say: I am better at this today than I was last month. I will now find a new physical benchmark to pursue, while coming back occasionally to that masochistic Jacob's Ladder. The 40 Invisible People The second nutrient, relatedness, is where most folks get ambushed. When people contemplate retirement, they assume their social health depends on their spouse or a handful of close friends. But work provides something entirely different: a vast scaffolding of "weak ties." In a landmark 2014 study published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, researchers Gillian Sandstrom and Elizabeth Dunn found that daily subjective happiness and feelings of belonging rose noticeably on days when people had more peripheral interactions - even something as fleeting as a 20-second genuine exchange with a coffee barista. Broader public health research reinforces this with astonishing gravity. A massive meta-analysis led by Julianne Holt-Lunstad spanning over 300,000 individuals found that strong social integration increased survival likelihood by 50%. Remarkably, the mortality benefit was strongest for complex, varied social networks (the diverse web of people you bump into) rather than simple binary measures like living with someone. When I taught, I had hundreds of involuntary interactions before lunch: hallway greetings, banter with the front desk, coaching video sessions, cafeteria check-ins. On my sabbatical, I plunged into writing a historical thriller called The Blood Money Ledger set during the Vietnam War - a passion project rooted in my love of history and informed by my own military service. I was thrilled to find that the fiction flowed with unexpected ease. In fact, I am now leaning toward turning my main character, Tom Calder, into a series of books about morality, the law, and institutional rot. But writing is, by definition, solitary confinement. Left entirely unmanaged, isolation is insidious. To survive it, I had to engineer artificial friction:

I go to the gym at the exact same hour every day to see the familiar faces of regulars.
Once a week, a close friend and I meet at a local coffee shop; he reads while I hammer out words for the book. It’s quiet, parallel work, but the ambient presence makes the solitary act of writing sustainable.
I signed up for an evening furniture-making class to work with my hands alongside people I wouldn't otherwise meet - a skill I am going to start out terrible at and eventually become... less terrible at.
I took on a volunteer docent shift at the Austin History Center, trading archival stories with curious strangers.

None of these people are lifelong confidants - except my close friend who joins me for coffee. But together, they rebuild the 40 casual touchpoints work used to gift me for free. Anticipation Over Accumulation The final hazard is structural: time without seams. When we dream of retirement, we picture unstructured calendars and checking off items on an expansive bucket list. But behavioral psychology shows we often misunderstand how human satisfaction works. In a well-known 2010 study by Dutch researcher Jeroen Nawijn tracking over 1,500 adults, vacationers exhibited significantly higher happiness before their trips than non-vacationers. The post-trip happiness bump, however, was negligible and evaporated rapidly. Even though I haven't written for Humble Dollar much in the past several years, I have been a frequent lurker, and know that this is a topic we all understand well. The engine of joy is almost entirely anticipation, not completion. A bucket list should never be treated like a grocery list where the goal is an empty page. If you clear out your list with no new ambitions behind it, life goes flat. The real art is maintaining a continuous horizon of things you are eagerly anticipating: an upcoming course, a seasonal trip, an archival project, or a fresh manuscript draft. We are in the midst of using high school and college graduation presents as family adventures we take. For my son's graduation gift - he loves soccer - I took him and his soccer-obsessed sister to the World Cup. My other daughter, who is very much not soccer-obsessed, and my wife visited a spa together for significantly less money. Win-win. The Real Ledger The Monday morning after your final Friday, your spreadsheet will not ask how you are doing, provide an intellectual hill to climb, or hand you an unexpected laugh across a desk. The number is just the admission ticket that we too often obsess over. The actual show begins when you decide what will make your days count. John Goodell was a deputy director of policy and general counsel at the Texas Pension Review Board. Currently an Army Reservist, he previously served 14 years on active duty before leaving to become the general counsel at the Texas Veterans Commission. John has spent much of his career working with public sector employees on tax, investment, estate planning and retirement issues. His biggest passion is spending time with his wife and kids. Check out John's earlier articles.

Health

Your Financial RPE

ArticleAnnie Garland | Oct 17, 2026

Behavior

Jonathan and me

R Quinn | Oct 14, 2026

"Helping, even indirectly, people make decisions is good. Sometimes that isn’t saying what to do, but demonstrating what a person may not want to do."

- R Quinn

Taxes

Education Freedom Tax Credit

Bogdan Sheremeta | Oct 16, 2026

- sumzero

Update: Jonathan’s Getting Going on Saving Initative

Elaine M. Clements | Oct 12, 2026

"Elaine, thank you for the update. What a wonderful way to remember an exceptional man."

- Sonja Haggert

From HumbleDollar Founder Jonathan Clements

Investing

My Investment Sin

I'LL CONCEDE IT'S HARD to justify—but I don’t believe it’s 100% unjustifiable. At issue: my strategy of overweighting stocks during big market declines. I…

Spending

Is an 18% Service Charge a TIP?

James McGlynn CFA RICP® | Oct 13, 2026

- William Dorner

Insurance

Life Insurance

ArticleAdam M. Grossman | Oct 17, 2026

Cars

Saved 85 Bucks

Dan Smith | Oct 13, 2026

- Mike in LA

Taxes

Time to QCD

R Quinn | Oct 12, 2026

- Mike in LA

Manifesto

Oct 16, 2026

NO. 61: WHEN in doubt, we should invest long-term investment money in a target-date index fund. Most of us will struggle to design and maintain a portfolio that performs any better.

humans

Oct 17, 2026

NO. 10: WE ALL HAVE tasks that we dislike. Research suggests hiring others to do chores we don’t enjoy, like mowing the lawn or cleaning the house, is a great way to use money to buy happiness. In fact, paying others to do chores we dislike is a double win. Not only do we avoid the distasteful task, but also we free up time for things that we truly enjoy.

act

Oct 17, 2026

DON'T RUSH to roll over your Roth 401(k) to an IRA. Once you’re in your 70s, you used to be required to take distributions from a Roth 401(k)—but not a Roth IRA—but that requirement went away in 2024. Result? Now that a key incentive to roll over Roth 401(k)s is gone, you might opt to leave money at your old employer, especially if the plan offers low-cost funds.

Truths

Oct 16, 2026

NO. 121: HOME PRICES should, over the long run, rise at roughly the same rate as per-capita economic growth. Why? That’s a gauge of our ability to pay. If home prices rose significantly faster, they would become increasingly unaffordable for many folks, who would choose to rent instead—and that waning demand would likely depress property prices.

Money Guide

Manifesto

Oct 16, 2026

NO. 61: WHEN in doubt, we should invest long-term investment money in a target-date index fund. Most of us will struggle to design and maintain a portfolio that performs any better.

Spotlight: Taxes

IRMAA & late filing of tax returns

Danbo | Jul 15, 2026

Have any HumbleDollar readers who are subject to IRMAA filed a tax return more than 2 years late? If so, I'd love to hear your experience.

Income taxes on retirees with Social Security

R Quinn | Aug 14, 2026

Complaining about taxes is not unique to seniors or in my case maybe a super senior, but they are mighty vocal and prolific on the internet. I was curious, how much could a age 65+ couple earn in retirement before actually paying federal income taxes…

There is no such thing as a tax loophole, but here they are anyway

R Quinn | May 17, 2026

My opinion is that there is no such thing as a tax loophole. Plus it has a negative connotation I don’t think is accurate. In addition, there is a tendency to apply the word to others - mostly the wealthy, but not ourselves Look up…

Something to Think About

David Lancaster | Mar 24, 2026

I have written that for the past few years I have been diligently performing Roth conversions spreading my conversions out on a monthly basis to sort of dollar cost average. In my reading I have learned that when the markets are down it is advantageous…

Time to scrap IRAs, 401k, 403b and all the rest

R Quinn | May 21, 2026

I mentioned this in a recent HD comment, but I think it deserves more discussion. It’s time to scrap all tax-advantaged defined contribution retirement plans and replace them with one plan, one set of rules, uniform limits. No IRAs of any kind, no 403b, no…

2026 Charitable Deductions

Rick Connor | Oct 12, 2026

Earlier today Dick Quinn published a useful reminder that the time to think about doing qualified charitable deductions (QCD) is now. We’ve also been looking at our annual charitable contributions. We are not quite old enough to use QCDs, but there are a few changes…

Coloring the Results

Greg Spears | Nov 10, 2021

GREEN INVESTORS TRY to manage their portfolios in ways that are good for the Earth. But are they rewarded with good investment returns? Researchers believe the answer is a qualified “yes,” according to a new paper titled “Dissecting Green Returns.” The paper found that, between 2012 and 2020, U.S. green stocks delivered higher returns than environmentally unfriendly “brown” companies. But…

Wait Till Next Year

Greg Spears | Mar 31, 2022

EVERY YEAR, I READ somewhere that it's going to be a stock picker’s market. These stories suggest I need an active manager to nimbly skip down Wall Street, picking the daisies and avoiding the weeds. Then the annual results roll in. That unmoving and unmanaged S&P 500 Index fund has somehow, unaccountably, beaten those deft active managers at their game.…

Running on Empty

Greg Spears | Sep 2, 2021

THE GOVERNMENT will be able to pay full Social Security benefits only until 2033, according to the latest trustees’ report on the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. After that, Social Security's trust fund will be depleted—and it could only cover 76% of scheduled benefits with the money it collects in payroll taxes. The timetable is even worse for Medicare…

Making Lemonade

Greg Spears | Nov 21, 2022

YOU KNOW IT'S BEEN a rotten year for investors when it’s time to brush up on the rules for tax-loss harvesting. It’s one way to turn negative returns to your advantage, provided you act before year-end. If you have taxable investments that have lost value this year—and who doesn’t? —the basic idea is to sell them in 2022 to lower the…

This Old House

Greg Spears | Aug 31, 2022

WHEN WE MOVED to Pennsylvania in 1996, I wanted to buy an old house. After months of looking, we found a stone farmhouse close to my new job and in a good school district. There was just one problem: We didn’t know if we could afford it. We hadn’t been able to sell our home in Maryland, so we didn’t…

New Year’s Tweaks

Greg Spears | Jan 1, 2022

LET’S NOT CALL THEM resolutions because that imposes a sense of obligation. Rather, think of these as adjustments that could give you—and maybe your kids—a smoother ride in 2022: Check the beneficiaries on your employer’s retirement plan, IRAs and life insurance policies. Sometimes money winds up with an ex-spouse or maybe a younger child gets left off the list. This…

Your Financial RPE

Jonathan and me

Education Freedom Tax Credit

Update: Jonathan’s Getting Going on Saving Initative

My Investment Sin

Is an 18% Service Charge a TIP?

Life Insurance

Saved 85 Bucks

Time to QCD

Choosing a CCRC (Life PlanCommunity)

A Million Words to a Million Dollars?

The Number Is Not The Answer

Your Financial RPE

Jonathan and me

Education Freedom Tax Credit

Update: Jonathan’s Getting Going on Saving Initative

My Investment Sin

Is an 18% Service Charge a TIP?

Life Insurance

Saved 85 Bucks

Time to QCD

Free Newsletter

Get Educated

Manifesto

humans

act

Truths

Money Guide

Manifesto

Spotlight: Taxes

IRMAA & late filing of tax returns

Income taxes on retirees with Social Security

There is no such thing as a tax loophole, but here they are anyway

Something to Think About

Time to scrap IRAs, 401k, 403b and all the rest

2026 Charitable Deductions

Spotlight: Spears

Coloring the Results

Wait Till Next Year

Running on Empty

Making Lemonade

This Old House

New Year’s Tweaks