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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
Read more »

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.  
Read more »

A Can of Worms

Dan Smith  |  Jul 17, 2026

"I haven’t gone to a bar in years but just from hanging around friends and family I’ve heard some doozies. Like I have this 4 year old car that runs great but I’m trading it in because they gave me $12000 and I got to jump on it before the value goes down further. I said how much do you owe? $18000as the answer."
- Nick Politakis
Read more »

A Letter 40 Years Later: What Mrs. Dolezal Remembered

Andrew Clements  |  Jul 1, 2026

"We need more of this in our world. Beautiful story and goes to show how kindness has such a ripple effect."
- Jeff Peck
Read more »

Buying a car in retirement

Julie C  |  Jul 11, 2026

"If you have a car that is 19 years old and it still runs well, stick with the same brand, whatever it is! You'll get the latest safety features, backup camera, etc. And you probably know the dealer already."
- David Hoecker
Read more »

IRMAA & late filing of tax returns

Danbo  |  Jul 15, 2026

"Municipal bond interest is not excluded. Am not aware how municipal bonds help for this IRMMA MAGI, unless you meant don't own them/cut back ownership. (Muni interest is also included in the MAGI for purposes of provisional income used for taxable social security benefits.) For the purposes of IRMAA, the government generally calculates MAGI as the sum of your adjusted gross income (AGI) plus tax-exempt interest reported in your tax return two years ago. This is recalculated annually. Source: article at schwab.com"
- luigi767
Read more »

The Paradox of Wealth

Mark Crothers  |  Jul 15, 2026

"Time is the currency we know will run out, so it is the most valuable."
- Mark Eckman
Read more »

Many seniors think we paid for our Social Security benefits based on the FICA taxes we paid. Let’s dispel that myth- we didn’t

R Quinn  |  Jun 15, 2026

"There's a historical context to this, of course. SS was the solution to a problem nearly 100 years ago. Epic poverty and unemployment during the Depression, widespread failure of banks and financial institutions, and little personal wealth in the form of home ownership or investments. SS was intended to provide a basic income for the elderly who had little and, as RDQ often points out, had a much shorter life expectancy than today. Is it any wonder that the system set up in the 1930s (tweaked occasionally, but not fundamentally, since then) isn't quite fit for purpose today? Same argument is made on this site about health care. Our employer-focused health insurance system had its genesis in the price control systems of the 1940s economy. Save for periodic lurches (Medicare for over-65s, Medicaid for low income, ACA for a wide swath not eligible for other coverage), the system reflects its origin rather than today's needs. I agree that our political system - or our markets - should provide a better solution. I also doubt that they will, be it for political reasons, polarization, or distrust of institutions. Perhaps I'll go back to the car-buying post on another HD page now. . . ."
- Mike inLA
Read more »

Will Your Death Double Your Spouse’s Tax Bill?

achnk53  |  Jul 15, 2026

"This was a major concern of mine. I had a govt pension and we both had SS. DW would get half of my pension if I passed first. When I retired at 66, 90% of our investments were in TIRAs. I gradually converted this to a Roth for myself, and when my DW passed last year, our TIRA was about 12%. We paid first or second tier IRMAA penalties and higher marginal tax rates for years to achieve this. I can use the remaining TIRA for QCDs and avoid any future taxable income for RMDs. However, I cannot avoid the change in tax rates. Regardless of what I do, I will be at least in the first IRMAA tier. I am not complaining because I am blessed to have a good pension and SS and can live a nice lifestyle. My biggest mistake was not doing Roth conversions before I took SS which could have avoided IRMAA. I thought I understood taxes very well but I was asleep on Roth conversions until I retired and started SS."
- Jerry Pinkard
Read more »

Mr Market visits Art Basel

ricardodiaque  |  Jun 29, 2026

"what a masterpiece, bridging the perceived gap between art and other established asset classes.. Ricardo has said everything that i always wanted to say and more.. to quote "In a nutshell–risk does not always come from whether something hangs on a wall or trades on an exchange. More likely, risk tends to be related to how prices are formed. So, if markets are irregular, and each of them follow an underlying set of logics, then why is collecting as an investment such a niche?".. while Ricardo moved from art to finance, i followed the reverse trajectory.. from my 11 years in finance (and taxation) followed by 18 years in art (and finance), i have come to exactly the same conclusions.. to add my 2 bits, since i have professionally valued equity and realty in my former role (at Andersen/ EY) and now value art (at Aura Art), i can say (with many real instances to back) that there is just as much method in the madness to valuing art as equity and realty (and much more then some other asset classes, like crypto, commodities etc).. thanks again for this piece.."
- Rishiraj Sethi
Read more »

Danger, Junk Mail

Sonja Haggert  |  Jul 16, 2026

"Thanks, Sonja. In addition to its specific warnings, your article is a specific reminder that the world is persistently searching for the entrance to our wallets is every sneaky way imaginable."
- Edmund Marsh
Read more »

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

"You are absolutely right."
- Nick Politakis
Read more »

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
Read more »

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.  
Read more »

A Can of Worms

Dan Smith  |  Jul 17, 2026

"I haven’t gone to a bar in years but just from hanging around friends and family I’ve heard some doozies. Like I have this 4 year old car that runs great but I’m trading it in because they gave me $12000 and I got to jump on it before the value goes down further. I said how much do you owe? $18000as the answer."
- Nick Politakis
Read more »

A Letter 40 Years Later: What Mrs. Dolezal Remembered

Andrew Clements  |  Jul 1, 2026

"We need more of this in our world. Beautiful story and goes to show how kindness has such a ripple effect."
- Jeff Peck
Read more »

Buying a car in retirement

Julie C  |  Jul 11, 2026

"If you have a car that is 19 years old and it still runs well, stick with the same brand, whatever it is! You'll get the latest safety features, backup camera, etc. And you probably know the dealer already."
- David Hoecker
Read more »

IRMAA & late filing of tax returns

Danbo  |  Jul 15, 2026

"Municipal bond interest is not excluded. Am not aware how municipal bonds help for this IRMMA MAGI, unless you meant don't own them/cut back ownership. (Muni interest is also included in the MAGI for purposes of provisional income used for taxable social security benefits.) For the purposes of IRMAA, the government generally calculates MAGI as the sum of your adjusted gross income (AGI) plus tax-exempt interest reported in your tax return two years ago. This is recalculated annually. Source: article at schwab.com"
- luigi767
Read more »

The Paradox of Wealth

Mark Crothers  |  Jul 15, 2026

"Time is the currency we know will run out, so it is the most valuable."
- Mark Eckman
Read more »

Many seniors think we paid for our Social Security benefits based on the FICA taxes we paid. Let’s dispel that myth- we didn’t

R Quinn  |  Jun 15, 2026

"There's a historical context to this, of course. SS was the solution to a problem nearly 100 years ago. Epic poverty and unemployment during the Depression, widespread failure of banks and financial institutions, and little personal wealth in the form of home ownership or investments. SS was intended to provide a basic income for the elderly who had little and, as RDQ often points out, had a much shorter life expectancy than today. Is it any wonder that the system set up in the 1930s (tweaked occasionally, but not fundamentally, since then) isn't quite fit for purpose today? Same argument is made on this site about health care. Our employer-focused health insurance system had its genesis in the price control systems of the 1940s economy. Save for periodic lurches (Medicare for over-65s, Medicaid for low income, ACA for a wide swath not eligible for other coverage), the system reflects its origin rather than today's needs. I agree that our political system - or our markets - should provide a better solution. I also doubt that they will, be it for political reasons, polarization, or distrust of institutions. Perhaps I'll go back to the car-buying post on another HD page now. . . ."
- Mike inLA
Read more »

Will Your Death Double Your Spouse’s Tax Bill?

achnk53  |  Jul 15, 2026

"This was a major concern of mine. I had a govt pension and we both had SS. DW would get half of my pension if I passed first. When I retired at 66, 90% of our investments were in TIRAs. I gradually converted this to a Roth for myself, and when my DW passed last year, our TIRA was about 12%. We paid first or second tier IRMAA penalties and higher marginal tax rates for years to achieve this. I can use the remaining TIRA for QCDs and avoid any future taxable income for RMDs. However, I cannot avoid the change in tax rates. Regardless of what I do, I will be at least in the first IRMAA tier. I am not complaining because I am blessed to have a good pension and SS and can live a nice lifestyle. My biggest mistake was not doing Roth conversions before I took SS which could have avoided IRMAA. I thought I understood taxes very well but I was asleep on Roth conversions until I retired and started SS."
- Jerry Pinkard
Read more »

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Manifesto

Jul 17, 2026

NO. 12: WE SHOULD focus less on the odds of something happening and more on the consequences. We likely won’t die during our working years. But if we did, how would our family cope?

act

Jul 18, 2026

FIRE YOUR BROKER. Is your advisor a true fiduciary, or is he or she held to the suitability standard part or all of the time? If it’s the latter, what you have is a broker—someone with an incentive to sell products that charge high commissions. Do yourself a favor: Hire an advisor who’s a full-time fiduciary and hence always required to act in your best interest.

Truths

Jul 17, 2026

NO. 88: LIVING standards rise with per-capita economic growth—typically 1½ percentage points a year faster than inflation. This is why retirees often feel pinched, even if their income climbs with inflation. It also helps explain why family fortunes disappear. The investment returns generated can’t keep up with taxes and the family’s spending desires.

think

Jul 16, 2026

ASSET LOCATION. After deciding which investments to buy, we should consider our asset location. What’s that? It involves divvying up investments between taxable and retirement accounts. If investments generate large annual tax bills—think active stock funds and real estate investment trusts—we’ll likely want to hold them in a retirement account.

Money Guide

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Manifesto

Jul 17, 2026

NO. 12: WE SHOULD focus less on the odds of something happening and more on the consequences. We likely won’t die during our working years. But if we did, how would our family cope?

Spotlight: College

Matters of Degree

Kristine Hayes   |  Sep 19, 2021

AS SOMEONE WHO’S been employed in academia for more than two decades, I often wonder about the future of higher education. One trend seems clear: At a time when more companies are doing away with degree requirements for new hires, more colleges are doing away with studying. The so-called college experience appears to be more important than academics. Indeed, grade inflation has been running rampant since the 1960s.
Meanwhile, student debt loads are the highest they’ve ever been.

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Beyond Saving

Joe Kesler   |  Jun 21, 2021

I’M CONSERVATIVE, but sometimes even I see the need to change. For instance, I belonged to a high-profile service organization for many years. They’re very proud of their tradition of raising money to give a Webster’s dictionary to each fifth grader in our city.
Let’s face it: These days, no self-respecting fifth grader is going to be caught dead with a hardcopy dictionary. Doesn’t everyone know that kids look up everything online? Traditions die hard—even when they no longer make sense.

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Is using a 529 plan a good strategy? Heck, is college worth the expense?

R Quinn   |  Jul 31, 2025

A July 31, 2025, article in The New York Times triggered this post. The headline reads: Saving for College Once Felt Essential. Some Parents Are Rethinking Their Plans.
The article is primarily about 529 plans, but also about saving or attending college at all. One comment caught my eye as it questioned the value of college because it didn’t guarantee a good job. I wasn’t aware college ever guaranteed a job or anything else for that matter. 

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An Educated Choice

Greg Spears   |  Aug 2, 2023

WHEN I WAS YOUNG and unschooled about money, I borrowed thousands of dollars to attend Northwestern University. As I recall, tuition was around $12,000 a year in 1980, and I had only $3,000 to my name. How could I pay?
The dean sent me a letter explaining that the college would lend me the money for my master’s degree in journalism. It would also extend me a work-study job, which would help pay for my spartan off-campus room.

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College Crapshoot

Catherine Horiuchi   |  Feb 8, 2021

A LIFE OF FRUGALITY might mean your children graduate college debt-free, which is a major accomplishment. But what about your happy-go-lucky neighbors, who spent every dime they earned and never saved for college?
At issue here is the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which is the basis for the all-important expected family contribution (EFC). The whole thing can seem like one big crapshoot, as I can now attest.
The EFC may determine that your spendthrift neighbors’ kids also get to graduate debt-free.

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No Name No Problem

Tony Isola   |  Dec 17, 2021

IS A DEGREE FROM AN elite school the golden ticket? I recently read Jeffrey Selingo’s excellent book Who Gets In and Why—and came away with some fascinating insights.
Selingo says experience and skills often trump where someone went to college. Each year, 1.8 million students graduate from four-year colleges, with 54,000 leaving with a degree from an elite institution. Simple math confirms employers must fill jobs with more than just graduates from elite schools.

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Spotlight: Smith

He Sold Staples

Dan Smith   |  Jan 24, 2024

IN SPRING 1984, WHEN I was age 32, we purchased a little ranch house in need of tender loving care. That’s why I found myself in a musty crawlspace, removing clutter and installing vapor barriers. I heard a booming voice from above. It wasn’t God telling me I should run for president. Instead, it was my new neighbor Ken. I came to the surface, dusted myself off and went inside the house. Standing there was a 47-year-old, six-foot two-inch bald guy with a jet-black beard, holding a whiskey and coke in each hand, one for him and one for his new neighbor. I’m sure it was five o’clock somewhere. To say that Ken was gregarious would be an understatement. We covered all the normal topics that new neighbors would. Ken was excited to learn I sold his favorite brand of beer. Initially, I wasn’t terribly impressed by Ken’s line of work. He sold staples. Still, we became fast friends. Ken’s life story turned out to be one of rags to riches, and then back to rags. In the end, he was still able to find happiness. But I’m getting ahead of myself. You can imagine that, with his outgoing personality, Ken was a good sales rep, and his territory expanded exponentially. But then the staples manufacturer carved up his route, which cut into Ken’s commission and prompted him to quit. That was when Ken and his friend Bob, who’d been his auto mechanic, opened up a business together—selling staples. Understand that these were industrial staples, along with staple guns, air compressors, nails, nail guns and other industrial supplies. Ken did the selling and Bob ran the shop. They survived a lawsuit from Ken’s former employer, and each enjoyed a comfortable six-figure income. Ken initially reminded me of a Millionaire Next…
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Sleep Disorder

Dan Smith   |  Oct 17, 2024

This may be a stretch for the forum but I’m going to throw it out there and hope it helps someone. When my first wife told me that I held my breath while sleeping I didn’t think much about it. Then Chris (new wife) told me that I stop breathing and probably have apnea, and should do a sleep study. So I did. And I hated it. Dozens of wires attached all over my body. The worst of them on my head, attached with gooey crap tangled in with my hair. I hate stuff on my head, I don’t even wear hats in the winter. Results, 33 incidents per hour; pretty severe.  But I toughed it out and was prescribed a c-pap machine. During the test I did not like the standard full size mask at all. The silicone material was not comfortable. I figured smaller was better. So at home I experimented with smaller masks. First one that covered my mouth and butted up to my nostrils; no good. Need smaller. Got one that that only butted up to my nostrils but not over my mouth; no good. Somehow I had to meet Medicare’s requirement of at least 4 hours per night for 75% of the month. That pretty much meant at least 4 hours lying in bed NOT sleeping. One night, frustrated and exhausted I tore the headgear off and threw it across the room. It crashed into the closet door, breaking the mask. I was at my wits end and totally prepared to return the equipment to sender, which is what about half of the sleep apnea patients’ end up doing. Then I spotted something that I thought might work. It was full face mask with memory foam instead of a silicone seal. Finally a mask I…
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It Hurt So Good

Dan Smith   |  Aug 2, 2024

Of my first investments beyond CDs. Bought into a mutual fund in mid-1987 not understanding front-end loads and high expense ratio, not to mention residing in the bottom quartile. Invested in a REIT that immediately and constantly fell in value. Then Black Monday happened to the mutual fund, and the REIT had no secondary market I could sell to. But the investments were small and the lessons learned huge. I learned that the market came back pretty quickly and that mutual funds are not created equally, and that REITs are not for me. Those mistakes helped get me on a proper road to retirement. Have others learned from early mistakes?
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What If

Dan Smith   |  Mar 2, 2025

Last month I did my best to analyze investments to the market as an alternative to payroll taxes for Social Security. My conclusion was that the payroll taxes were worth it, though some readers respectfully disagreed. But what if I could go back in time for a do-over. What if at age 16 I began to invest an amount into the market that was equal to and in addition to the payroll tax deducted from my pay? It wouldn’t have been hard to do. The payroll tax in 1969, my first year having a job, was only 4.2%. It gradually increased to its current rate of 6.2% in 1990. For me, that would have meant a nest egg of 2 million bucks when I retired at age 70, much more if I’d included eventual employer matches. It also would have meant more spendable income during the final 20 or so years working, as I was saving about 40% of my income in an effort to make up for lost time. Finally, what if I could get my grandkids to do what I wish I had done!
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No Such Thing as Easy Money

Dan Smith   |  Jan 8, 2026

I enjoy tasting new beers, and today there are some very good ones on the shelves. Still, it hasn’t always been this way.  Some time in the nascent days of the micro-brewery craze, I recall my boss, the owner of the beer distributor, commenting that it was as if the tiny brewers were having a contest to see who could make the lousiest tasting beer.  I think that there’s an analogy that can be made between the abundance of micro-breweries and myriad financial products in that not all of them leave a good taste in my mouth.  Variable life insurance and variable annuities, real estate investment trusts, oil well partnerships to name a few that have been around for a while. Now we have things like crypto money, private equity, leveraged funds, and a slew of niche exchange traded funds that track all sorts of weird things. And don’t forget the endless array of things a prospective advisor might utter in order to snag your money.  In a recent post, Bill W wrote that he poured all his contributions into the S&P500 for 40 years. Simple. Wow. I commented that we should coin a new phrase, Keep It Boring Stupid, KIBS. (I’m not advocating for everyone to go all in on a single index, rather, I am just illustrating my point).  When it comes to investing, boring is good, and few, if any, HumbleDollar readers would buy into the promises that many investments expound. But today's workers are our children and grand-children, they have their own savings, and soon, many will have some of ours as well. I wouldn’t want them to bite on the hype. I’m not suggesting we preach financial fire and brimstone to the kiddies, perhaps just set a good example and maybe share a story or…
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Lifetime Supply

Dan Smith   |  May 20, 2026

Have you ever come across a clever idea, and kicked yourself because you didn’t think of it first? Well this is one of those times for me. Tom Walton is the retired editor of my home town newspaper, and one of my favorite writers. Tom writes a humorous article for the paper every other Sunday. A recent piece hit home and cracked me up. Among the thoughts he submitted, is the idea that, if your age begins with the number eight, the can of shaving cream you buy today just might be a lifetime supply. Even at the tender young age of 73, I am well aware that the opportunity for a mid-life crisis has passed me by. So, what is this 37 year old trapped in a 73 year old body going to do? While the go-go gods still smile upon us, I’m taking Chrissy on a SKI trip (spending kids' inheritance; they keep telling us that they don’t need the money). Between now and August 1st, there will be a cross country trip to California, three concerts, two Broadway Plays (bus and truck tours stopping in Toledo), day trips to the Lake Erie Islands of Put-In-Bay and Kelly’s, and maybe a Mud Hens game or two. Lunches and dinners with friends and family are always on the calendar. Beyond 08/01, we just purchased tickets for the next season of Broadway in Toledo. I’m hoping that’s not a lifetime supply of Broadway Plays. What’s everyone else doing for fun this summer?
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