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Too Good to be True

DAN SMITH | Jul 22, 2026

"🤣"

- DAN SMITH

One Person’s Luxury, Another’s Necessity

Mark Crothers | Jul 21, 2026

"Is there something in your budget that most people would call optional, but you consider a red line you’d struggle to cut? Red lines? Probably Sophie the wonder cat and Chrissy. Here are a few things that could be trimmed. We have a contract with an exterminator that we could live without. Also a maid that comes in once per month for a deeper clean, though this may be a red line for Chris. Those total less than $200. A lease payment on a second car is a splurge we could surely eliminate, $385. We eat out often but not at expensive places. As with your friend’s gym membership, I think socialization is important for us. We could probably save several hundred if we cut back on restaurants, but we wouldn't like it. Those few things are a tiny slice of our spending, however, eliminating them would put us at a spending level that is within our guaranteed income sources. Just kidding about Chris. She’s my personal business manager; I’d be in trouble without her. She is stuck with me forever. "

- DAN SMITH

Go While You Still Can

DavidHLancaster | Jul 22, 2026

"A health problem this summer (hopefully with a positive resolution soon) has made me think even more about the most important things I still want to do, and with whom, before my age and health limit my choices. So grateful that Doug and I took two really special trips together, a tour of southern Spain and Morocco and, a few years later, a cruise of some Greek islands. Forever grateful."

- Linda Grady

Buying a car in retirement

Julie C | Jul 11, 2026

"That might work with new cars. Buying second-hand is a different story. Must do a test drive. Even the hint of cigarette smoke will send me on my way."

- Michael01670723

Fear of the Unknown…

gnussen623 | Jul 22, 2026

"I have two suggestions for you that you might not have considered. The first is to build yourself into your own business as a consultant. Sit down with a laptop or legal pad and make a list of the unique expertises and knowledge bases that you have built up over your working career, and then ask yourself who in the business world needs that knowledge. Compile another list of the gazillion contacts you've made over the years and reach out to them for feedback. Spend your severance time registering as an S-Corp or LLC and planning a consulting gig you can do a couple days a week at a truly ridiculous hourly rate. I charge 5X what I used to make working for other people. I work only when I want, usually in my bathrobe or gym shorts, and I get a lot more respect. The second is... give back. The financial mentoring you mentioned below is one good possibility. Train as a community emergency responder for floods or earthquakes. Teach a class. Volunteer a few hours a week at a food bank or a senior center. I deliver for Meals on Wheels, and all us volunteers are either semi- or fully-retired. We make a difference. Two weeks ago a client, 79, was clearly experiencing a stroke when I arrived with his meal. The EMT said my call to them probably saved his life. Can't top that feeling. Enjoy your new life, and don't stress about it too much."

- Mike Gaynes

FIFA Financials

R Quinn | Jul 19, 2026

"Being at Anfield could just as easily traumatize him for life as give him precious memories based on last season's variability."

- bbbobbins

Costa Rica: The Richest Man On The River

Andrew Clements | Jul 22, 2026

"Dan, thank you. I couldn't agree more. Carlos reminded me that while money can provide comfort and opportunity, it can't replace the love of family, meaningful work, or a sense of belonging. Those are the things that often make us feel truly rich."

- Andrew Clements

Lessons on the Ground

ArticleDennis Friedman | Jul 18, 2026

THE OTHER DAY, WHILE walking to my mailbox, I noticed a summer class schedule for a private gifted youth academy lying on the ground. I assumed it belonged to one of my neighbors, who has elementary-aged children. Their interest in extra academics didn't surprise me. Many families move to this area because of its excellent schools. Parents here clearly value education. On any given day, it's common to hear children practicing the piano or violin as you walk through the neighborhood. I admire parents who encourage their children to excel in school. But as I looked over that schedule, I found myself wondering about the lessons that aren't taught in a classroom. Coincidentally, another neighbor's son had just graduated from college and was preparing to begin his career. If he were my son, what advice would I give him as he stepped into adulthood? After some thought, I settled on five ideas. Invest to Build Wealth. The most reliable way for ordinary people to build wealth is to become owners instead of just consumers. Buying shares of businesses allows you to participate in the growth of the global economy rather than relying solely on a paycheck. The good news is that you don't need much money to begin. What matters most is time. Starting early allows compounding to work its magic, with investment returns generating returns of their own over many years. Be a Long-Term Investor. If I could offer only one piece of investing advice, it would be to keep things simple. Invest regularly in low-cost index funds and stay invested. Trying to pick winning stocks or predict market swings is tempting, but history suggests that patience usually beats prediction. I recently read a New York Times column by Jeff Sommer that made this point well. Long-term market returns are driven by a surprisingly small number of extraordinary companies. The problem, of course, is knowing in advance which companies those will be. Broad diversification through index funds allows investors to own tomorrow's winners without having to guess who they are. Even if you think you're smart enough to spot those superstar companies, holding onto them for the long haul is a rollercoaster. They can be incredibly volatile. I've learned that lesson firsthand. A few years ago, my wife and I bought a small position in Nvidia (NVDA). It represented only a tiny fraction of our portfolio, but the stock's wild price swings made us uncomfortable. We eventually sold our shares too early for about $112, and the last time I checked, it was trading at $204. Do I regret selling? Not really. The vast majority of our stock holdings remain in Vanguard's Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTI), which owns Nvidia along with thousands of other companies. That approach has allowed us to sleep well at night while still benefiting from the market's long-term growth. Cultivate Friendships. Money matters, but people matter even more. Looking back, some of the biggest turning points in my life came because of friends. One college friend, Chuck, helped me get my foot in the door at an aerospace company when I was a history graduate struggling to find work. That opportunity led to a rewarding career. Another friend, Steve, introduced me to the woman who became my wife. That single introduction changed the course of my life far more than any investment decision ever could. But those special bonds don’t happen by accident; they require making time for them despite a busy career. Good friends encourage us, open doors we never expected, and help us through life's inevitable setbacks. Those relationships are among the greatest investments anyone can make. Give Every Job Your Best. I learned the value of hard work from my parents. When I was growing up, my father routinely left for work before sunrise and often didn't return until evening, six days a week. At the same time, he and my mother managed a 36-unit apartment building. My mother prepared dinner for our family before leaving for her own job each morning, returning home in the evening with just enough time to spend a few quiet hours with my father before doing it all again. Watching them taught me that meaningful accomplishments usually require persistence more than brilliance. There will be phases in your life when long hours are unavoidable. During those times, give your work your best effort. A reputation for reliability and diligence has a way of creating opportunities that talent alone cannot. Protect Your Greatest Asset. For someone just beginning a career, the greatest financial asset isn't an investment account. It's the ability to earn a living. Poor health can quietly undermine that ability. Regular exercise may not seem like a financial strategy, but it helps protect the income that makes every other financial goal possible. I recently came across a quote from a doctor in the comment section of an article in The New York Times that captured this idea perfectly: "Exercise, by its effect on skeletal muscle, can in part preserve cognition, prevent depression, prevent cardiovascular disease, prevent diabetes, prevent some cancers, prevent osteoporosis, and preserve independence. And the list goes on. There isn't a single pill on earth that delivers all of those benefits." Taking care of your health isn't simply about living longer. It's about preserving your independence and giving yourself the opportunity to enjoy the life you've worked so hard to build. As I walked back from the mailbox, I hoped the child whose summer schedule I'd found would do well in every class. Academic success opens many doors. But I also hope someone teaches lessons like these along the way. Years from now, I doubt anyone will remember a report card or a test score. They'll remember the habits that shaped a life: investing patiently, working hard, nurturing friendships, and taking care of their health. Those lessons may never appear on a syllabus, but they can make all the difference. Dennis Friedman retired from Boeing Satellite Systems after a 30-year career in manufacturing. Born in Ohio, Dennis is a California transplant with a bachelor’s degree in history and an MBA. A self-described “humble investor,” he likes reading historical novels and about personal finance. Follow Dennis on X @DMFrie and check out his earlier articles

Will Your Death Double Your Spouse’s Tax Bill?

achnk53 | Jul 15, 2026

"Catherine, As I have written before for my pension we decided to take the annuity option. The dollar amount in my account just over 100K, so less than 10% of our portfolio, so was not a big “bet.” Also since the pension was through a hospital that also included physicians my thought was the pension fund managers certainly did their due diligence when it came to picking the insurance company. We chose the 100% survivorship ship option since it did not change the monthly payout significantly relative to our income. One of us will have to live only 11.5 years to “get our money back.” If my wife lives to 100+ (her mother died at 103+, my parents 85), that means “we” will have collected for 35 years. It seemed like the right decision and that the odds we will collect way more than our investment. I know that is not the best way look at it as during that time period we are just getting what the hospital put in, minus potential opportunity cost of not investing the money. It’s funny that even though the monthly amount is less than 1K which does not come anywhere near what we spend, my wife gets comfort knowing that money is coming in each month."

- DavidHLancaster

A discussion on health insurance, premiums, profits and such- a 50 year perspective most people don’t want to accept

R Quinn | Jul 15, 2026

"Yesterday I read that Senate Democrats have introduced a bill that will cap out of pocket expenses for traditional Medicare to $5000 annually. To me that sounds like the beginning of the end of the Medigap product but they say it will make Medigap more competitive with Medicare Advantage. What do you think ? I suspect that eventually all of Medicare will be an HMO. In my opinion ,Advantage works well until it doesn't .I have two friends much older than I and we live in a state (Mass.) known for excellent healthcare. One of them has a group Advantage plan , which presumably is better than what an individual can buy . When she needed rehab she was sent to a 1 star facility at an unreasonable distance from home. An aide dropped her and they refused to take her to the hospital so she called 911 herself . Her daughter was able to get transferred to a 3 star SNF, the highest in her Advantage network, and closer to home In contrast , my friend fwith Medigap could choose his SNF (5 star) , within easy driving distance from home so that his elderly wife could visit without difficulty."

- Julie C

A Can of Worms

Dan Smith | Jul 17, 2026

"David, I sure think that's true most of the time, still, I've seen some exceptions that just leave me scratching my head."

- DAN SMITH

K-shaped Economy

ArticleAdam M. Grossman | Jul 18, 2026

A TOPIC THAT'S been in the news recently is the so-called K-shaped economy. Imagine a chart plotting the relative standing over time of those with higher incomes and those with lower incomes. Owing to a strong stock market and rising home values, the shape of the chart for those with higher incomes would extend up and to the right and has been moving increasingly in that direction since Covid. Folks with lower incomes, on the other hand, haven’t benefited as much from rising markets. Instead, they’ve had to contend with higher prices on key budget items, including housing, tuition and healthcare. For this group, unfortunately, a chart of their financial progress would extend down and to the right. Put these two charts together, and they form a K—hence, the K-shaped economy. Because this divide has been especially pronounced for young people, more parents are asking how they can help their children. But they aren’t always sure of the best way to approach this. You may have heard the story about the late Charlie Munger. Some years ago, a friend asked Charlie if he planned to leave his considerable fortune to his children. Specifically, his friend wondered whether too much wealth would impact his children’s work ethic. “Of course it will,” Munger replied. “But you still have to do it.” “Why?” his friend asked. “Because if you don’t give them the money, they’ll hate you.” On the one hand, this is funny, but it also gets at why this topic can be so difficult. In fact, I’ve often referred to it as the hardest question in personal finance. But it isn’t impossible. If you’d like to help your children—either today or as part of your estate—here are four questions I suggest considering as you develop your plan. 1. What problem are you most trying to solve? Some families are clear that they just want to help their children as much as they can today, to combat the challenges of the K-shaped economy. Other families are focused on the long term and just want to see their assets pass to their children tax-efficiently at the end of their lives. Both are reasonable objectives, but it’s important to have clarity on what’s most important to you as the first step. 2. To what degree do you value simplicity over tax savings? With the federal estate tax at 40%—and many states levying their own taxes on top of that—folks with assets above the lifetime exclusion often conclude that it’s worth spending virtually any amount on legal fees in an effort to defray that tax. But not everyone agrees. Other families see it this way: While estate planning strategies can be effective in reducing taxes, they can be costly to set up and to maintain. For that reason, other families decide to spend little or nothing on estate tax strategies. They accept that their estates might—and likely will—end up facing a larger tab at the end of the day. But, they argue, if their estate is large enough for the estate tax to apply, then by definition, their heirs will nonetheless still receive a significant sum. 3. Do you worry about the problem Munger’s friend highlighted? If you’re worried about impacting your children’s work ethic, then counterintuitively, it may make sense to start making gifts sooner rather than later. The key is to make modest gifts and to make them incrementally. When you start making gifts like this sooner, it can serve two purposes. As a parent, it gives you the opportunity to see how your children handle these smaller sums. Do they immediately head to Bora Bora, or do they save and invest the dollars they receive? Making gifts incrementally can also help the recipient. To the extent that the first—or the second—gift is spent frivolously, modest gifts provide children the opportunity to acclimate and hopefully to adjust. 4. To what degree would you like to control your children’s use of assets down the road? If you go the route of an irrevocable trust and plan to leave assets to your children as a bequest, you won’t have the opportunity to iterate in the way I described above. That said, you may still prefer to leave assets to your children in this way. The key challenge with trusts is how to structure the distribution provisions. Put too many restrictions in place, and you risk causing your children a lifetime of stress or, worse yet, resentment. But put too few restrictions in, and the trust assets could be spent unwisely and deplete too quickly. How can you thread the needle? There’s no single right approach, but here are four distribution strategies you might consider. Based on age or stage: You might stipulate, for example, that a child reach age 30 before receiving any funds. Or you might require that a child have finished college or be married before receiving funds. The benefit of this approach is that it doesn’t leave room for debate between your children and the trustee. The downside is that this sort of structure can be too rigid, because children’s needs don’t always align with specific ages or stages. The reality is that everyone takes different paths through life in ways that no formula can fully contemplate. I often reference the movie The Bachelor, which is a comedy but illustrates how an overly rigid structure can have unintended consequences. Annual percentage with no discretion: This structure also has the benefit of being straightforward, with no room for debate between beneficiaries and the trustee. In addition, a fixed percentage can help preserve a trust’s assets for many years. The downside is that children’s needs typically vary from year to year. They’ll want to buy homes and may have tuition expenses for their own children. For those reasons, a fixed percentage, while attractive in theory, runs the risk of being an obstacle to your children’s most important goals. Annual percentage with an override for specific needs: The benefit of this structure is that it provides flexibility if a child wants to buy a home or has other higher-than-normal expenses in a particular year. The downside is that it opens the door to debate between beneficiary and trustee. The trustee might deem a proposed home purchase too expensive, for example. Trustee’s discretion: A final approach is to leave distributions entirely up to the trustee. That’s the most flexible but also the most potentially fraught. If a trustee and a beneficiary don’t get along, this setup would give the trustee wide latitude to make the beneficiary’s life miserable for decades. No distribution structure is perfect, but it’s for this reason that I tend to recommend against this approach, common as it is. 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.

Too Good to be True

DAN SMITH | Jul 22, 2026

"🤣"

- DAN SMITH

One Person’s Luxury, Another’s Necessity

Mark Crothers | Jul 21, 2026

- DAN SMITH

Go While You Still Can

DavidHLancaster | Jul 22, 2026

- Linda Grady

Buying a car in retirement

Julie C | Jul 11, 2026

"That might work with new cars. Buying second-hand is a different story. Must do a test drive. Even the hint of cigarette smoke will send me on my way."

- Michael01670723

Fear of the Unknown…

gnussen623 | Jul 22, 2026

- Mike Gaynes

FIFA Financials

R Quinn | Jul 19, 2026

"Being at Anfield could just as easily traumatize him for life as give him precious memories based on last season's variability."

- bbbobbins

Costa Rica: The Richest Man On The River

Andrew Clements | Jul 22, 2026

- Andrew Clements

Lessons on the Ground

ArticleDennis Friedman | Jul 18, 2026

Will Your Death Double Your Spouse’s Tax Bill?

achnk53 | Jul 15, 2026

- DavidHLancaster

Manifesto

Jul 22, 2026

NO. 11: A REGULAR paycheck allows us to save, service debt and take stock market risk. But we should also protect that paycheck with health—and perhaps also life and disability—insurance.

think

Jul 23, 2026

RETURN COMPONENTS. If the stock market’s dividend yield is 2% and earnings per share grow 4%, the investment return would be 6% a year. This is a decent guide to long-run returns. But short-run results could stray far from 6%, depending on the speculative return—changes in how investors value corporate profits, as reflected in price-earnings ratios.

act

Jul 22, 2026

OPEN A ROTH IRA for your teenagers. Have they been mowing lawns or scooping ice cream this summer? If they have earned income, they’re eligible for a Roth, which you could fund solely out of your pocket or with help from them. At their modest tax rate, the Roth’s tax-free growth will likely prove more valuable than a traditional IRA’s initial tax deduction.

Truths

Jul 21, 2026

NO. 9: BIG SALARY increases, especially late in your career, can make it harder to retire. As your paycheck grows, you’ll likely raise your standard of living. That means you now need a larger nest egg to sustain that lifestyle in retirement. The problem: You were likely previously saving as though you were looking to replicate a more modest lifestyle.

Money Guide

Manifesto

Jul 22, 2026

NO. 11: A REGULAR paycheck allows us to save, service debt and take stock market risk. But we should also protect that paycheck with health—and perhaps also life and disability—insurance.

Spotlight: Behavior

Choosing Yes by Saying No

Mark Crothers | Aug 5, 2025

Are you definitely sure I can’t tempt you?” my friend asked for the last time as we finished our phone conversation. Once again, I replied in the negative before a few pleasant closing words and then hanging up.
Thinking back on our chat, I realized this was the fourth invitation to various activities I’ve turned down in the last few months. The invitations ranged from an opportunity to provide tax reporting services for an old friend at a decent billable rate to this most recent inquiry today to play doubles together in a badminton league come September.

Deeply Rooted

Mark Crothers | May 23, 2026

JUNE MARKS THREE years since my mum passed from complications of vascular dementia. It was a tough couple of years, watching her mind slowly fail and her world shrink a little more with each passing month. Anyone who has cared for a loved one in the late stages of dementia will know how difficult and disjointed even the simplest conversation becomes. The loops, the confusion, the frustration of trying to redirect someone you love from a thought they can no longer find their way out of.

Could you be (justifiably) a source of envy by others? Are you wealthy?

R Quinn | Jul 19, 2025

A great deal of wrath these days seems to target the wealthy although that generally means billionaires or close to it. However, being wealthy is very relative. I suspect many HD readers are looked upon as wealthy by their peers while perhaps not feeling so themselves. I admittedly fall in that trap.
Many comments on HD by those retired indicate to me being relatively wealthy or pretty close to it.
So, look at the data as estimated as it may be,

Taking Center Stage

Jonathan Clements | Jan 25, 2025

IT’S THE ONE ASSET we’re all born with, and it pretty much defines our financial life. I’m talking here about our human capital, our ability to pull in a paycheck.
That paycheck—or the lack thereof—drives our ability to save, service debt and take investment risk. It also dictates our insurance needs and how much emergency money we should hold. Put it all together, and our human capital should arguably determine how we manage our money over our lifetime.

Beyond the Party: How Introverts Might Quietly Win at Retirement

Mark Crothers | Jun 30, 2025

I was reading an interesting article by Kristine Hayes, a contributor to Humble Dollar a few weeks ago. In it, she discussed her introverted nature. Since then, a thought’s been developing in my mind: Could an introvert have a distinct advantage when accumulating wealth for retirement and an above-average chance of enjoying a successful retirement?
I consider myself, for want of a better description, a “closet introvert.” While many people who know me genuinely think of me as the “life and soul of the party,”

Money Grows Up

Jonathan Clements | Jan 18, 2025

I MOVED FROM LONDON to New York City in 1986, when I was age 23. That’s when my financial education truly began.
I’d previously studied economics for three years and spent a year writing about the international financial markets for Euromoney magazine. Still, I knew almost nothing about investing, insurance, homeownership and other topics crucial to managing a household’s finances.
I’ve learned a ton since, and the focus of that education keeps changing,

Helping Mom and Dad

Howard Rohleder | Jun 14, 2021

LIKE MANY BABY boomers, my wife and I have watched our parents go from total independence to assisted living to death. We’ve been thankful that, at key moments, they made the difficult decisions themselves, without our prompting. These decisions included when to give up the family home in favor of moving to a continuing care retirement community, when to give up their car and driver’s license, and when to move to assisted living. Our parents were organized and realistic people who trusted us to act for them in increasingly significant ways as they moved from one stage to the next. Because of their recognition of what they could and couldn’t do, they were able to ease these transitions. Below are five categories of steps they took, sometimes with our help. These steps protected their assets while they were alive and ensured that their assets were all accounted for after they died. Also, their actions ensured that, after their death, complications and potential family squabbles were minimized. They each put in place key estate planning documents: a will, a revocable living trust with one of us as trustee, a financial durable power of attorney designating one of us to act on their behalf in business matters, and a living will and durable power of attorney for health care. With these as a foundation, they made sure that their accounts were titled properly, so they were held within the trust. A word about revocable trusts: For most people, the main purpose of these trusts is to avoid the need for assets to go through probate. I haven’t been through the probate process, but attorneys say to avoid it as much as possible. I’ve been through the process of closing three parents’ estates with a trust in place and it went very smoothly.…

Independent Investor

Howard Rohleder | Feb 11, 2023

FRANK CAPPIELLO and Carter Randall were longtime panelists on the television show Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser. Panelists typically worked at investment firms, with their affiliations displayed on the screen. At some point, Cappiello and Randall retired. On the screen, each was simply identified as an “independent investor.” At least one regular guest, John Templeton, also achieved this listing after retiring from running the Templeton Funds. That “independent investor” label intrigued me then and does to this day. Do you need a career on Wall Street or in the financial services industry to achieve this designation? Does society benefit from having independent investors? Can you be an independent investor with $100,000 or do you need a million? I’m retired and primarily living off my investments. Does that make me an independent investor? Popular portrayals of wealthy individuals who make money from money are often negative. Think of Charles Dickens’s Ebenezer Scrooge or Mr. Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life. William Shakespeare coined a term with his infamous moneylender Shylock, who seeks a “pound of flesh” from a defaulted borrower. Marxists would say that in the eternal tension between capital and labor, investors are extracting their wealth from the sweat of workers. The old saw says that money does not grow on trees—it has to be earned here on earth. Savers who put their money into bank accounts and investors who buy stocks are funding the future. Even in Bedford Falls, Jimmy Stewart, playing George Bailey, explains that money deposited in a bank account is invested in a neighbor’s house. The mortgage pays the interest earned by the depositor. Without saving and investing, there would be no capital to expand the economy. Wall Street Week producers used the moniker “independent investor” to make clear the panelist had no employment affiliation.…

On the House

Howard Rohleder | Aug 31, 2021

WANT A CONSERVATIVE strategy that can help you prepare for college costs? Consider prepaying your mortgage. In 1992, when my oldest was 10 years old, we moved to a new home. We opted for a 15-year mortgage at 7.625% with 33% down. With our son’s graduation set for 2000, we began to prepay the mortgage so the last payment would coincide with the month before he began his freshman year. Thereafter, the payments previously sent to the mortgage company were instead directed to the college. Our aggressive repayment plan was made possible by buying enough house for our needs but less than we could afford. On top of that, the large down payment ensured that the required monthly payments were relatively low. Financial planners might say a better strategy would be to take out a 30-year mortgage with, say, a 10% down payment and then pay only the minimum required. The notion: You could take the money that isn’t going to the mortgage company—the difference between the 30-year loan’s smaller down payment plus lower monthly payments and the 15-year mortgage’s larger down payment and higher monthly payments—and instead invest in the stock market. As it turns out, I was able to make a direct comparison of the two approaches. We had money provided by a grandparent for our son’s college, which was invested in a stock mutual fund. For most of the 1990s, it looked like a great strategy. Then the dot-com bubble burst and a big chunk of the fund gains were erased just as college was starting. Meanwhile, the money prepaid on the mortgage effectively earned 7.625% a year. What are the lessons here? With a long time horizon, mortgage prepayments aren’t that burdensome. Imagine a family buying a home with a 30-year mortgage when their first child…

You Don’t Have Mail

Howard Rohleder | Jul 17, 2022

MY NEW ROUTINE is walking directly from the mailbox to our recycling container to deposit most, if not all, of that day’s mail. For years, I’ve been steadily reducing the amount of mail I send and receive. After reading Jonathan Clements’s experience with check washing, I’m looking to take this even further. I remember when mail was important. My wife talks of growing up in Cleveland where, during the Christmas season, mail actually arrived twice a day. Now, our street randomly fails to get its daily mail delivery, presumably due to staffing shortages. Every day in our neighborhood, UPS, FedEx and Amazon are making deliveries, sometimes more than once. I’m also diligent in watching my email because that’s where I get my utility and credit card bills, personal correspondence, ads from stores or restaurants I patronize, and notifications that new content has been added to sites such as Barron's or HumbleDollar. Meanwhile, very little of importance comes in the U.S. mail. Remember handwritten letters? I suspect the Smithsonian is working up a display. We’ve heard for years that the post office runs annual deficits in the billions of dollars. It raises rates occasionally. Still, compared to inflation, the increase over the past few decades in the price of a first-class stamp seems like a bargain—unless you compare it to free instant delivery of email anywhere in the world. A way to address the operating deficit would be to change residential mail delivery to three days per week. Half the homes get mail Monday, Wednesday and Friday, while the other half get it Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Would anyone notice? This wouldn’t cut expenses in half because presumably commercial businesses would still need to get their mail six days a week. Or would they be okay with five? Are there any…

Mission Accomplished

Howard Rohleder | Jan 27, 2023

I JUST GOT A RAISE from Uncle Sam—and relief from one of early retirement’s biggest unknowns. In December, when I turned age 65, I swapped my bronze-level Affordable Care Act policy for Medicare plus a Medigap policy. My wife was already on Medicare. Compared to 2020, when neither of us had Medicare coverage, our monthly cost today for health insurance is $684 lower. My calculated risk has paid off. As a young adult, I set my sights on early retirement. In 2012, at age 54, I pulled the trigger. The question I struggled with: Would there be enough for our remaining retirement years once I hit age 65? The biggest risk to our early retirement was getting and maintaining health insurance. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, we had coverage. But an unexpected medical diagnosis could have drained our finances and compromised our lifestyle. While I was still working, I plugged $30,000 a year into my early retirement budget as a worst-case estimate for health care costs. The reality wasn’t quite that bad. With health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs, including the dentist and optometrist, our average cash outlay over 10 years was just under $20,000 a year. Now, 10 years later, I have reached “normal” retirement age. We aren’t bankrupt nor has our future standard of living been compromised. In fact, due to 10 years of a mostly surging stock market, we’re well ahead of where I expected us to be. What did we do right? The quick answer is save, save, save. Thanks to extra-principal payments, we made our last mortgage payment in 2000, when our oldest graduated from high school. We finished paying for private college for our two children in 2007, the year our youngest graduated from college. From then until 2012, we accelerated our regular…

College in Retirement

Howard Rohleder | Jun 29, 2023

I RECENTLY COMPLETED a course called England: From the Fall of Rome to the Norman Conquest. Before that was Books That Matter: The Federalist Papers. Okay, I’m a nerd, I’ll admit it. Since I retired, I’ve looked for avenues to broaden and deepen my understanding of subjects that I was taught in high school and at the liberal arts college I attended. Back then, there were college courses, like accounting, that I felt I had to take to earn a living. Still, some of my favorite courses were American history, Shakespeare, philosophy and poetry. If I could go back, I might take more of these latter topics—and less accounting. But wait, I can go back. For years, retirees interested in learning needed to find a way to take a class at a local college or build their own curriculum with books they borrowed from the library or bought. Later, books on tape and CDs offered a way to bring courses to your dashboard or den. Now, quality courses can be streamed. While some educational resources are available on a subscription basis, many courses are available free or at a low cost. And those accounting courses taught me that free is good. My go-to source for serious college content is The Great Courses offered by The Teaching Company. I’ve worked my way through dozens of its courses. The company offers a wide variety of subjects. Some I have no interest in, but many others are on my wish list. The marketing material brags that the company seeks out professors known for their teaching ability. No disagreement here. I’ve yet to come across a dud. The courses I’ve taken range in length from six to 36 lectures, each 30 minutes long. The longest I’ve seen in the catalog is a 48-lecture course…

Too Good to be True

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