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Retirement Toys

Mark Crothers | May 4, 2026

"time to get a lesson to update your swing or move up a set of Tees"

- JAY SCATTERGOOD

The reality of Social Security and Medicare- My real life experience.

R Quinn | May 4, 2026

"You are right on both counts. I vote for the latter being the majority by far. We seem to be a society of people seeking comfort in playing the victim rather than taking responsibility."

- R Quinn

Tax Free Income Trap, Dealing With MAGI

DAN SMITH | Apr 21, 2026

"Agree! When it comes to Roth conversions, tax arbitrage is usually the focus of discussion, but “portfolio return“ arbitrage (if that’s a proper term?) is usually less mentioned."

- Andy Morrison

"Jeff, That is an incredible article. One of if not the best HD articles I’ve ever read.That moved me. As I was reading I was thinking to mention a couple of the most inspiring takeaways you included but there were so many. Thank you so much for taking the time to write and share this piece with the HD community. Ideally, I hope this reaches way beyond HD. Well done on your life’s journey and well done capturing it here!"

- Andy Morrison

How much to provide a college student monthly?

Chris | Apr 25, 2026

"I have one child who didn't ask for a lot. We were always like, do you need any money, do you need any money? Decades ago when I was in school, I tracked necessary expenses and then would ask my dad to reimburse me for those. So, then, what is "necessary?" Books, groceries, anything school-related, anything needed to live. Beyond that, I paid for it. I never overbilled him. I hated asking for money. I would have rather had a certain amount sent to me."

- David J. Kupstas

Blood Money

Michael Flack | Mar 28, 2026

"On April 30 (with WTI closing at $105.07/bbl.) I sold another 10% of my XOM shares @ $154.413 (up nicely from it mid-month low of $146.44). Plan is to continue selling next month."

- mflack

New Face, old scam

Jim Wasserman | May 2, 2026

"Thanks. Good to see you contributing again."

- Jeff Bond

Is saving really that hard? Nope, not for the great majority of Americans.

R Quinn | Apr 28, 2026

"It’s also easy to rationalize. Disney has an estimate on multiple visits, but that’s why I said “many.” In any case, the point is not Disney, but non-necessary spending before the financial house is in order and a plan for the future is in place."

- R Quinn

How Far Behind is the IRS?

Larry Sayler | Apr 29, 2026

"My mother died in 2021 and we were due a significant refund on 2020 taxes due to medical expenses. We filed on time but it took two years and mutiple phone calls to resolve it. This was before the Trump cuts. Nothing moved until Biden pumped $80 million more into their budget. Before they woukd not even answer the phone. my only advice is to call every 2 months, take names and badge numbers and if no result call again. one agent told me they had everything they needed but nothing happened. Two months later calling back I wastold they needed X form and the lady stood by the fax machine when I faxed it. The refund arrived in two weeks. oh and keep a joint bank acvout open with mom so they can send the money there even if she passes and you can withdraw it"

- Concerned

Ageing and the Open Road

ArticleMark Crothers | May 2, 2026

RECENTLY I TOOK a free ride on a driverless bus trialling its proposed route, part of my local administration's ten-year rollout plan for self-driving public transport and taxis. I see real potential in this technology, and I'm hoping the infrastructure and implementation stay on schedule. That hope is mostly selfish, I'll admit. In fifteen years I'll be in my mid-seventies, and I'd love to ditch my car and rely on cheap, dependable robo-taxis instead. It would give me freedom precisely in that decade of life when driving starts to become genuinely problematic. I'm planning to change my car in 2027 for a modern hybrid, but in the back of my mind is the thought that it could be my last. If the self-driving rollout hits its targets, I can see the case for never buying another. The advantages for someone in my demographic at that stage of life would be hard to argue with. Think about what car ownership actually costs. There's the purchase price, insurance, road tax, fuel, servicing, tyres, and the occasional bill that arrives like a punch to the stomach. For most people, a car is the second most expensive thing they own after their home. In retirement, when income typically drops and budgets tighten, that ongoing drain becomes harder to justify. This is especially true when the car spends the vast majority of its time sitting on a driveway looking pretty. A robo-taxi model, where you pay only for the journeys you actually take, could represent a dramatic shift in how much personal transport really costs. The numbers, I suspect, will be compelling — with current estimates from real world operations suggesting an 80% reduction in the cost of fares being achievable. Then there's the question of independence. This is the one that matters most to me personally, and I'd imagine it resonates with anyone approaching or already in their later years. Giving up your car keys is one of those milestones that nobody really talks about, but everyone in that demographic understands. It represents a loss of spontaneity and self-sufficiency that can genuinely affect quality of life. The difference with autonomous vehicles is that surrendering the wheel doesn't have to mean surrendering the freedom. A reliable, affordable self-driving taxi available on demand restores something that previous generations simply had to go without once driving became difficult. This could be a trip to the supermarket on a weekday morning or a late evening visit to family. The safety dimension is also worth considering. Reaction times slow as we age. Night vision deteriorates. Concentration over long distances becomes harder. Most older drivers are aware of this and manage it carefully, but there comes a point for everyone where the road becomes a source of anxiety rather than freedom. Autonomous vehicles remove that calculation entirely. You get in, state your destination, and arrive, without the cognitive load of navigating, anticipating other drivers, or worrying whether your responses are still sharp enough. That peace of mind shouldn't be underestimated. There are wider social benefits too. Older people who can no longer drive are disproportionately affected by isolation. Poor rural transport links, infrequent bus services, and the general assumption that everyone has access to a car all contribute to a situation where many retired people find their world gradually shrinking. Autonomous vehicles, particularly if integrated intelligently with existing public transport, have the potential to reverse that. A robo-taxi that can be summoned by a smartphone, or even a simple voice command, could keep people connected to their communities, their families, and their routines far longer than is currently possible. There are, of course, reasons to be cautious. Technology rollouts rarely go entirely to plan. The ten-year schedule my local administration is working to is ambitious, and a lot can change in funding priorities, in public appetite, and in the regulatory environment. The early trials are promising, but promising trials and full-scale dependable infrastructure are very different things. It's worth keeping in mind, with a groan inducing pun: your mileage will vary — literally. Dense urban and suburban areas will almost certainly see reliable services first, and I'm fortunate that describes my situation. For those in more rural communities, the very people for whom isolation is already the sharpest problem, the wait could be considerably longer. I'm hopeful, but I'm not banking on it entirely. Which is why the 2027 hybrid still makes sense. It's a practical hedge, a good, modern, efficient car that will serve me well through the transition years, whatever pace that transition takes. But the fact that I'm already thinking of it as potentially my last car feels significant. A decade ago that thought wouldn't have crossed my mind. The technology has moved from science fiction to credible near-future fast enough to genuinely reshape how I'm thinking about retirement planning. If it delivers, the generation hitting their seventies in the late 2030s could be the first in history for whom ageing and mobility don't have to be in conflict. That's not a small thing. That might turn out to be one of the most personally transformative shifts of the entire autonomous vehicle revolution. It is not about the flashy early adopters or the logistics industry efficiencies. Instead, it is the simple dignity of an older person getting where they need to go, independently, on their own terms. I'm hopeful I'll be taking that ride and certain my children and grandchildren definitely will.

Mark Crothers is a retired small business owner from the UK with a keen interest in personal finance and simple living. Married to his high school sweetheart, with daughters and grandchildren, he knows the importance of building a secure financial future. With an aversion to social media, he prefers to spend his time on his main passions: reading, scratch cooking, racket sports, and hiking.

First Place

Jonathan Clements | Sep 6, 2024

"I've driven that stretch of road from the north, after a hiking trip to Humboldt Redwoods and Sinkyone on the coast. Very beautiful."

- Edmund Marsh

How it all pencils out–or at least, we hope so! (Our Big “Little” Move, Part 3)

DrLefty | Apr 22, 2026

"Even with decades of consistent saving and careful planning, the transition from saver to spender is such a psychological challenge when we retire. 🤞🏻"

- Andy Morrison

Wall Street Trap

ArticleAdam M. Grossman | May 2, 2026

IN THE INVESTMENT world, May 1st is a notable day. It was on May 1, 1975 that the Securities and Exchange Commission deregulated the brokerage industry. For the 183 years prior to that, trading commissions on the New York Stock Exchange had been fixed at uniformly high rates. But when deregulation arrived, competition got going. That’s when discount brokers like Charles Schwab got rolling, and over time, May Day, as it’s now referred to, has delivered enormous savings to consumers. More than 50 years later, though, Wall Street still operates in ways that are often at odds with consumer interests. As an individual investor, what are the obstacles to be aware of? At the top of the list is Wall Street’s fixation with individual stocks. For almost 100 years, the data has been clear that stock-picking is counterproductive. Probably the first to uncover this was a fellow named Alfred Cowles. Cowles came from a wealthy family and wondered whether the investment advice his family had been receiving was worthwhile. He set about answering that question and in 1933, published a paper titled “Can Stock Market Forecasters Forecast?” Cowles’s conclusion: They can’t. More recently, research by finance professors Brad Barber and Terrance Odean came to a similar conclusion. The title of their most well known paper is self-explanatory: “Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth.” Along the same lines, Standard & Poor’s regularly examines actively-managed mutual funds to see how many are able to outperform the overall market. The most recent finding: Over the past 10 years, fewer than 15% of funds benchmarked to the S&P 500 managed to beat the index. Research by Jeff Ptak at Morningstar has found that the more active a fund is, the worse it performs. So-called tactical funds, which shift among different asset classes in response to economic forecasts have, in Ptak’s words, “incinerated” shareholder dollars. This data is fairly well known. The problem, though, is that trading activity generates revenue for the brokerage industry, so it has an interest in keeping investors engaged with the market. That’s why brokerage analysts are on TV every day, offering their forecasts for individual stocks, for the overall market and for the broader economy. To be sure, this makes for interesting television. The problem, though, is that it’s been shown to carry almost no value. According to research by Joachim Klement, the accuracy of Wall Street prognosticators is approximately zero. Why are they so poor at forecasting? For starters, there’s the simple fact that no one has a crystal ball. No one can know what a company—or its competitors—will do a month or a year from now, and how that will translate into stock price gains or losses. Sociologist Ezra Zuckerman Sivan uncovered a more subtle explanation. In research published after the technology selloff in 2000, Sivan found that Wall Street analysts are constrained by two obstacles. The first is that they’re dependent on access to companies’ management teams to help in their research. For that reason, it’s in their interest to maintain positive relationships with the companies that they follow. Investment banks that take a positive view on a company may also be rewarded with profitable mergers or acquisitions work when the need arises. Those factors bias stock recommendations overwhelmingly in the direction of “buy” ratings. Another reason analysts tend to avoid negative comments about the companies they cover: Sivan found that there is a community effect that tends to form among the analysts assigned to a given company, and thus an incentive develops to not “rock the boat” in saying anything too critical. People generally want to get along, and that results in a sort of self-censorship. This research is well understood, and yet Wall Street continues to generate forecasts day after day, year after year. Why? There are two explanations, I believe. The first is that it’s entertaining. I’ll be the first to acknowledge that index funds aren’t terribly interesting to talk about. It’s far more interesting to talk about smartphones or AI and the companies behind them. That makes Wall Street analysts invaluable to the media, who need to fill airtime. And as long as they’re granted that airtime, forecasters are of great value to the brokerage industry. Since trading activity is profitable for Wall Street, it’s in brokers’ interest to generate continued interest in stocks. That brings in commission dollars for brokers. And even though commissions have shrunk in recent years, brokers benefit in other ways from active trading, including the “bid-ask spread” on each trade. That’s the difference between what buyers pay and what sellers receive, and though these spreads are tiny, they add up for the brokers who collect them. For good reason, then, Wall Street continues to promote stock-picking. At the same time, the investment industry is always busy developing new funds. In the first half of last year, for example, fund companies rolled out more than 640 new funds. Among them: funds that hold single stocks with varying degrees of leverage and other seemingly unnecessary new formulations. The result: There are now many more funds than there are stocks trading on U.S. exchanges. Many of these new funds follow ever more esoteric strategies. They’re often opaque. And almost invariably, they carry higher fees. In a 2011 study titled “The Dark Side of Financial Innovation,” finance professor Brian Henderson and a colleague looked at one popular category of fund known as a structured product. Their conclusion: These funds were overpriced to the point that their expected return was actually a bit below zero. How were they able to market such an inferior product? Henderson’s hypothesis was that the fund companies designed them to be intentionally as complex as possible in order to exploit individual investors. The bottom line: To a great degree, Wall Street is upside down. But as an individual investor, you don’t have to be. My rule of thumb: In building a portfolio, investors should do more or less the opposite of what Wall Street recommends. That, I believe, is a reliable formula for success. 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.

Retirement Toys

Mark Crothers | May 4, 2026

"time to get a lesson to update your swing or move up a set of Tees"

- JAY SCATTERGOOD

The reality of Social Security and Medicare- My real life experience.

R Quinn | May 4, 2026

"You are right on both counts. I vote for the latter being the majority by far. We seem to be a society of people seeking comfort in playing the victim rather than taking responsibility."

- R Quinn

Tax Free Income Trap, Dealing With MAGI

DAN SMITH | Apr 21, 2026

"Agree! When it comes to Roth conversions, tax arbitrage is usually the focus of discussion, but “portfolio return“ arbitrage (if that’s a proper term?) is usually less mentioned."

- Andy Morrison

A Life You Build

Jeff Peck | Apr 19, 2026

- Andy Morrison

How much to provide a college student monthly?

Chris | Apr 25, 2026

- David J. Kupstas

Blood Money

Michael Flack | Mar 28, 2026

"On April 30 (with WTI closing at $105.07/bbl.) I sold another 10% of my XOM shares @ $154.413 (up nicely from it mid-month low of $146.44). Plan is to continue selling next month."

- mflack

New Face, old scam

Jim Wasserman | May 2, 2026

"Thanks. Good to see you contributing again."

- Jeff Bond

Is saving really that hard? Nope, not for the great majority of Americans.

R Quinn | Apr 28, 2026

- R Quinn

How Far Behind is the IRS?

Larry Sayler | Apr 29, 2026

- Concerned

Wall Street Trap

ArticleAdam M. Grossman | May 2, 2026

Manifesto

May 3, 2026

NO. 52: WE SHOULD aim to become homeowners—not because homes deliver handsome capital gains, but because owning locks in our housing costs and, with every mortgage payment, forces us to save.

act

May 4, 2026

GO TO THE LIBRARY. You can borrow DVDs, rather than paying to stream movies and TV shows. You can cancel your magazine and newspaper subscriptions, and peruse the library’s periodicals instead. You can borrow the latest books, rather than ordering from Amazon. All this will get you out of the house, meeting your neighbors and reading more—at no cost.

think

May 4, 2026

EVOLUTIONARY psychology. Why are we so fearful of losses, so bad at saving money and always hankering for more material goods? Evolutionary psychology explains such behavior by identifying the traits that helped our nomadic ancestors to survive. These hardwired instincts often hurt us in today’s world—and it can take great mental effort to overcome them.

humans

May 3, 2026

NO. 29: WE SUFFER from recency bias, meaning we’re overly influenced by current events. Today’s investment dramas loom large, triggering fear or greed and prompting foolish portfolio changes. Meanwhile, we lose sight of market history—the crises that were overcome, the hot stocks that turned cold, and the broad market’s impressive march higher.

Money Guide

Manifesto

May 3, 2026

NO. 52: WE SHOULD aim to become homeowners—not because homes deliver handsome capital gains, but because owning locks in our housing costs and, with every mortgage payment, forces us to save.

Spotlight: Insurance

Self Defense

Adam M. Grossman | Jan 5, 2025

ONE SPRING DAY IN 2022, an elderly woman entered Paris’s Picasso Museum to see a new exhibit. Among the items on display was a decorative blue jacket, which was positioned on a wall next to a portrait of Picasso.
The woman liked the look of the jacket, so she took it down from its hook, put it in her bag and quietly walked out the front door. Only later did the museum discover the theft,

Hurricane Beryl aftermath

Michael1 | Jul 13, 2024

Last week as Hurricane Beryl approached our Texas storage unit, the company notified us that the office would be closed until further notice, a sensible precaution to let staff stay home to ride out the storm.
Beryl came through on July 8. The office is still closed, with apparently no one working from home. The area has also been without power since the storm, which means that our climate controlled unit is, well – not.
So,

Vet These Policies

Sonja Haggert | Mar 9, 2023

YOU LOVE THEM LIKE family. You want them to have the best care possible. You have insurance for yourself, your family, your home, your car and your upcoming vacation. Why not for your pet?
One of our friends recently opted for pet insurance—after multiple trips to the vet, with more than 20 medications prescribed. Intrigued by the idea of pet insurance? Here are eight choices and what they offer:

Pets Best covers everything, including medications,

Home, Auto & Umbrella Insurance—“Longevity Benefit”?

Andrew Forsythe | Jan 23, 2025

Recently, and spurred by the horrific fires in L.A., there’s been a lot of attention on home insurance, including skyrocketing premiums. Like many people, we have our home, auto, and umbrella policies with the same company, and have seen our premiums increase dramatically in the last few years.
I’ve occasionally heard mention, without much in the way of specifics, of a “longevity benefit” in staying with the same insurance company rather than constantly shopping around and switching.

Works If You Can’t

Dennis Ho | Aug 14, 2019

BE HONEST: WHEN WAS the last time you thought about disability insurance? As co-founder of a website that sells insurance, it’s a topic I think about every day, but I realize most folks have other things on their mind. Yet becoming disabled is one of the biggest financial risks that working people face.
Disability can result from accidents or sickness and can impact people of all ages. According to the Social Security Administration, a 20-year-old entering the workforce has a one-in-four chance of becoming disabled for a year or more before retirement.

Covering Kids

Dennis Ho | Oct 7, 2020

TERM INSURANCE is typically the best bet for people who need life insurance, while permanent policies are appropriate for relatively few folks. Yet I keep getting the same question from parents: What about children? Does it make sense to purchase a whole-life policy for a young child?
No doubt influenced by Gerber Life Insurance’s relentless marketing, these parents want to know whether it’s worth locking in insurance pricing early on and whether this is a good way to help their children start saving for retirement.

Up and Away

Kristine Hayes | Jan 27, 2022

MY HUSBAND AND I purchased a home near Phoenix, Arizona, in 2019. It was the second house we’d bought in less than a year, so we were only able to come up with a 10% down payment. That’s meant paying $70 a month for the past 30 months to cover the cost of private mortgage insurance (PMI). With property values in the Phoenix area up 30% since 2020, I knew I should contact our mortgage company to see if we could get the PMI payment removed. I assumed an appraisal would show our home equity had increased to the point where we no longer needed to carry the coverage. Still, I hesitated to make the phone call because I feared the entire process would be both time-consuming and costly. I expected a full appraisal to run at least $500. I also assumed that finding an appraiser and then having him or her evaluate our home, process the paperwork and report back to our mortgage lender would take months. In December 2021, I finally contacted our mortgage company. I was directed to the PMI department and was immediately able to speak to a customer service representative. The rep told me I had two options. I could pay for a full appraisal, estimated to cost between $500 and $600. Or, for $150, I could opt to have a broker price opinion report created. This second option involved having a real estate agent evaluate photos of our home. After comparing the features of our home to those of houses in our neighborhood that had recently sold, the agent would compute our home’s estimated market value. Within three days of my initial phone call, a mortgage company representative arrived at our doorstep. She spent no more than five minutes walking through our home snapping a…

Material Girl

Kristine Hayes | Jun 14, 2018

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ago, I found myself quite unexpectedly spending a night in Reno, Nevada. Gambling was the obvious form of evening entertainment, but money was tight back then. A friend convinced me to splurge and spend $20 playing a slot machine. My measly 25- and 50-cent wagers kept me entertained for nearly an hour, but when I was down to my last few quarters, I bet them all on one final play. The machine immediately lit up with a colorful array of flashing lights and I waited patiently for my winnings to start spilling out. When that didn’t happen, I started to walk away, assuming I was done for the evening. Thankfully, my companion was more casino-wise than me and she flagged down an employee who was walking the floor. Once he confirmed my machine hadn’t been tampered with, he pulled a wad of cash from his pocket and started handing me $100 bills. The $1,200 I walked away with that night was the most cash I’d ever had at one time. For two weeks, I pondered how to spend my fortune. I made a list of items I wanted, and I weighed the pros and cons of each potential purchase. My list had to be whittled down several times since my number of wants was far larger than my budget. I’ve long since forgotten what I ended up buying. In the years that followed, all those items I wanted so badly ended up being donated to charity, sold or thrown in the trash. But the memory of that time made me wonder what I’d do today if I ended up with a similar unexpected windfall. For my thought experiment, I decided that—adjusting for inflation and a significant increase in my salary—a $5,000 “prize” would likely provide me with a similar…

Nervous Bride

Kristine Hayes | Aug 5, 2019

WHEN I MARRIED FOR the first time, I didn’t think much about it. I was in my 20s. My new husband (and future ex-husband) and I had already been living together for nearly a decade. Neither of us had any items of real value, so the financial implications of joining our lives meant very little. Marriage, it seemed, was just the obvious next step in our relationship. When I married for the second time, I couldn’t stop thinking about the implications. Emotionally, I didn’t want to make the same mistakes I made in my first marriage. Financially, my husband and I each entered into our relationship with considerable assets. Having lost half of a lucrative state-funded pension plan in my divorce, the financial risks of remarriage weighed heavily on my mind. Adding to my anxiety were the different spending styles my husband and I have. He’s more impulsive with his purchases, while I tend to contemplate—and track—every penny I spend. I worried about our financial compatibility to the point where I couldn’t sleep at night. I wondered if my goal of retiring from my fulltime job at a relatively young age would be helped, or hindered, by getting married again. A scientist by training, I approach most changes in my life in the same way I approach a research project. I begin by writing down all the information I have available to me, and then carefully evaluate the data. In this case, I compiled a list of all the assets my husband and I would bring to our relationship. My husband has a solid, stable, monthly retirement income. His pension and Social Security benefit provide a larger net cash flow into our checking account than my monthly paycheck does. He also owns a mortgage-free home that generates rental income. He still…

Four Numbers

Kristine Hayes | May 15, 2018

IT’S PROBABLY NO surprise I gravitated toward a career in the sciences: I love compiling data. My master’s thesis was 150 pages of charts, graphs and tables that summarized two years’ worth of research. When it comes to my finances, I’m equally compelled to gather data. I do so, in part, to create a set of documents that are more tangible than the pixels that make up the account balances on my computer screen. I also use the information to gauge my progress toward achieving financial independence. Over the past few years, I’ve found four calculations especially useful: 1. Net worth. I calculate my net worth—my assets minus any debts—at the beginning of each calendar year. Over the last four years, I’ve enjoyed seeing a sizable increase in the bottom line: My net worth has grown by over $150,000 to nearly $400,000. The growth of my various account balances motivates me to limit my spending and increase the sum I save. 2. Retirement savings. In his book Your Money Ratios, Charles Farrell suggests using a capital-to-income (CIR) ratio to determine if you’re on track for retirement. Farrell’s ratios are based on the assumption that, if you have savings equal to 12 times your gross income at age 65 and you’re eligible for Social Security, you should be able to generate enough retirement income to maintain your standard of living after you quit the workforce. Using Farrell’s CIR equation, I recently calculated my own ratio based on my income, age and total account balances. Since I have no debt, I divided my current savings ($397,000) by my gross salary ($68,000) to arrive at a ratio of 5.8. Farrell suggests a ratio of 5.2 at age 50, and 7.1 at age 55, so I fall right where I need to be as I approach…

Six Years Later

Kristine Hayes | May 3, 2019

I FIRST BEGAN tracking my net worth in 2013. Back then, I was newly divorced, in my mid-40s and struggling to figure out what my financial future would look like. I painstakingly logged into my various bank, retirement and investment accounts, and entered their values into an Excel spreadsheet. As a result of my divorce, I’d lost 50% of my state pension. I did, however, receive half the equity from the sale of our home. This meant a large percentage of my net worth in 2013 was in cash. Between money market, checking and savings accounts, I had over $100,000 sitting in my local credit union. The retirement accounts I had with my current employer were worth a little over $130,000. Following the Great Recession, I’d invested that money in highly conservative “guaranteed” and target-date accounts. The value of my retirement portfolio had fallen more than 50% during the recession and I wasn’t too keen on investing in riskier funds. Meanwhile, at the time, I was debt-free. I was no longer a homeowner and my seven-year-old car was paid for. I calculated my overall net worth was roughly $250,000, but I had no way of knowing what that figure meant in terms of my financial health. I did know I was woefully ignorant about how to manage and invest my money. I vowed to learn all I could about personal finance and investing, and to continue to chart my net worth over time. For the next five years, my financial life was relatively stable. Rather than buying a home after my divorce, I chose to rent. My monthly rent was less than what a mortgage payment would have been, which allowed me to direct a large portion of my paycheck into pretax retirement accounts. I learned about investing and started…

Day by Day

Kristine Hayes | Jul 13, 2020

I'M THE TYPE OF PERSON who likes to plan. I have at least 10 to-do lists going at any one time. I have calendars on my refrigerator, my desk and my phone. I plan out my days, my months, my years and, on occasion, my decades. My job, managing the biology department at a small liberal arts college, is a perfect fit for my personality. For the past 22 years, I’ve methodically planned out every day of each semester. I figure out what equipment is needed to run the laboratory courses we teach. I anticipate how much money the department will require for the upcoming fiscal year. I try to foresee the future and avert any mishaps that could cause the department to operate in a suboptimal fashion. In February, I spent some time working on my annual performance review. I combed through my past evaluations and reread some of the comments made by co-workers. They praised my resourcefulness and my efficiency, and they admired my ability to simultaneously balance routine tasks with crisis intervention. I felt valued for the work I was doing. I was secure knowing that I’d found my career niche and my future was bright. Then everything changed. In a matter of days, I went from being an indispensable member of our department to being deemed “nonessential.” The lecture halls and laboratory spaces in the biology building—usually overflowing with activity—went silent. The college went from a vibrant community of students, staff and faculty to a ghost campus. The economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic has hit many colleges and universities hard. Almost immediately after schools began to shutter their campuses in March, talk of layoffs and furloughs began. The college I work at has continued to pay its staff and faculty throughout the pandemic. We have, however,…

Retirement Toys

The reality of Social Security and Medicare- My real life experience.

Tax Free Income Trap, Dealing With MAGI

A Life You Build

How much to provide a college student monthly?

Blood Money

New Face, old scam

Is saving really that hard? Nope, not for the great majority of Americans.

How Far Behind is the IRS?

Ageing and the Open Road

First Place

How it all pencils out–or at least, we hope so! (Our Big “Little” Move, Part 3)

Wall Street Trap

Retirement Toys

The reality of Social Security and Medicare- My real life experience.

Tax Free Income Trap, Dealing With MAGI

A Life You Build

How much to provide a college student monthly?

Blood Money

New Face, old scam

Is saving really that hard? Nope, not for the great majority of Americans.

How Far Behind is the IRS?

Wall Street Trap

Free Newsletter

Get Educated

Manifesto

act

think

humans

Money Guide

Manifesto

Spotlight: Insurance

Self Defense

Hurricane Beryl aftermath

Vet These Policies

Home, Auto & Umbrella Insurance—“Longevity Benefit”?

Works If You Can’t

Covering Kids

Spotlight: Hayes

Up and Away

Material Girl

Nervous Bride

Four Numbers

Six Years Later

Day by Day