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Money & Me (Kindle version) has dropped

William Perry  |  May 26, 2026

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The Financial Stress a Simple Document Could Have Prevented

Lucretia Ryan  |  May 23, 2026

"Generally individuals are the better choice for retirement plans and IRAs."
- Paul Ward
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Taste Bud Training

Mark Crothers  |  May 22, 2026

"I love it, Mark, keep 'em coming."
- Dan Smith
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Should Retirees Get a Temporary Flat Tax Window on IRA and 401(k) Withdrawals?

Jeff Peck  |  May 18, 2026

"I'd love that if I could flip the money to a Roth."
- Martin McCue
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Percentage that “age in place”

Keith Pleas  |  May 24, 2026

"Count my husband and me among those aging in place. We’re both 83 and in reasonably good health. Our house, which is over 100 years old, is 21/2 stories— not including the basement. We still use all of it — though we’ve remodeled over the years to accommodate living only on the first floor if that becomes necessary. We hire lawn care and snow removal, and have a contractor who quickly responds to any maintenance issues. I still cook the majority of meals and my husband and I split housework tasks— we’ve tried a number of cleaning services but so far all seem to leave the house dirtier than they found it! Our neighbors are both younger and some even older than we are. That’s great— we really like interacting with the young kids, teens, as well as the adults of varying ages. We also go to the gym three times a week; it is operated by the Unuverdity and caters to an older clientele— nobody wears spandex! I see independent living in a CCRC as a big gamble that can sacrifice loss of privacy and monetary resources. Both of my parents and in-laws died within months of receiving diagnoses of serious illness; that fact may color my judgment. Both my husband and I have Long Term Care insurance, and our pensions would also cover nursing and memory care. Our children have been told that we will accept care if and when we need it. (Our son is an MD, and I know he surreptitiously checks our mental and physical abilities every time we meet.). We will have to pay higher rates for direct admission to assisted living and above, but we have the resources to do that. The best CCRCs in our area offer that option, but we will probably relocate closer to one of our kids. I have many friends who are following a similar plan as ours, but I also know a few who have entered CRCCs. I truly doubt either option is totally perfect. I also know one couple that has an apartment in a CCRC, but continues to live in their house a few miles away. I guess that’s the ultimate hedging their bets!"
- Marilyn Lavin
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Inflation and Innovation

ArticleAdam M. Grossman  |  May 23, 2026

ECONOMICS IS KNOWN as “the dismal science,” and perhaps for good reason. Oftentimes it can be abstract and overly academic. There are, however, certain economic concepts that can be helpful to individual investors. Below are two that I see as especially important. When it comes to the government’s ability to control—or least influence—the economy, there are two main levers. The first is fiscal policy, which refers to Congress’s (as well as state and local governments') ability to levy taxes and to spend money.  The most well known economist associated with fiscal policy was John Maynard Keynes. During economic downturns, Keynes argued, governments shouldn’t hesitate to spend more—and to run deficits, if need be—to help reduce unemployment and lift the economy back up. This is a generally accepted concept today, but in the 1930s, in the depths of the Great Depression, it was not obvious, and many believe that policymakers’ efforts to exercise fiscal discipline by balancing the budget during the Depression ended up prolonging the misery. It wasn’t until the mid-1930s, in fact, that President Roosevelt changed his view on this question. In their correspondence, Keynes convinced Roosevelt that loosening up on fiscal discipline, though counterintuitive, was the best way to bring the economy back to health. This approach has been used in every recession since. Most recently, during the pandemic, the government issued several rounds of stimulus payments to help bolster consumer finances. Monetary policy is the government’s second key lever. Unlike fiscal policy, monetary policy is the domain of the Federal Reserve. When you hear about the government “printing money,” it’s the Fed they’re referring to. Through a unique process, the Fed is able to create dollars out of thin air and then to use those dollars to help support the economy during downturns. During the pandemic, the Fed created trillions of new dollars through this mechanism. The Fed also lowered short-term interest rates, which it controls, in a further effort to nudge consumers to open their wallets. Both fiscal and monetary policy are powerful. But as we’ve seen in recent years, each can also carry side effects.  In the case of fiscal policy, spending too much for too long can drive the deficit to unsustainable levels. This has become a persistent problem. Though it’s now been several years since the pandemic, the federal government is still running deficits of about $2 trillion per year. In round numbers, taxes bring in about $5 trillion, but spending exceeds $7 trillion. Of particular concern is the fact that more than $1 trillion of that $7 trillion must now be allocated to interest payments on all the accumulated debt. To put that in perspective, we’re now spending more on interest than on defense. Is this situation sustainable? Here’s how I think about it: Imagine an individual with an annual income of $50,000 who spends $70,000 each year, including $10,000 in credit card payments. At some point, something will need to change, but neither political party seems interested in tackling it, for the obvious reason that any solution would require either raising taxes or cutting spending. Neither would be popular, so the deficits persist. The consequence of overdoing it with monetary policy is also serious: inflation. That’s what we saw very significantly in 2021 and 2022, and that’s where monetary and fiscal policy can become intertwined. For a brief period during the pandemic, a concept known as Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) gained popularity. The argument was that countries like the United States, with very large economies, were essentially immune to inflation risk and could print money almost without limit. It turned out, though, that MMT was a theory with no basis in reality, and that deficits do matter. Since ancient times, excessive use of monetary policy has always resulted in inflation, and that was exactly what we saw as a result of the Fed’s extraordinary monetary interventions in 2020. After inflation rose to nearly 10% in 2022, the Fed was forced to reverse course and raise interest rates. That had the desired effect of slowing inflation, but it then caused another problem: Since the government has to issue new bonds practically every day, higher rates have the effect of driving up the government’s borrowing costs, which then worsens the deficit. Higher interest rates also hurt consumers, especially those looking to buy homes. This, unfortunately, describes the situation we’re in today. In an effort to combat the pandemic, the government used both of the levers that it had, but now it’s effectively out of ammunition. Federal debt held by the public just recently climbed above 100% of gross domestic product for the first time since 1946. The Wall Street Journal referred to this as “a once-unthinkable threshold.” But before we declare the situation hopeless, it’s important to look at a separate concept in economics.  In 1942, Harvard economist Joseph Schumpeter released a book titled Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. Among the concepts Schumpeter proposed was the notion of “creative destruction.” The idea—central to capitalist systems—was that entrepreneurs could always be counted on to move technology forward. At the same time, this meant that older technologies and companies would regularly find themselves pushed aside by new innovations. Importantly, though, Schumpeter argued that the net effect would be greatly positive. The evidence in favor of Schumpeter is all around us. Horse-and-buggy companies went out of business when the automobile was invented. Pony Express gave way to the telegram, then to the telephone. Typewriter manufacturers are mostly gone. And so on. And yet, despite all these changes, unemployment is under 5%, the economy is larger than it’s ever been, and income-per-capita is at an all-time high. What’s the relationship between Schumpeter’s theory and the earlier discussion about the government’s debt situation? You may recall that in the late-1990s, the federal government surprised observers when it began to run budget surpluses after years of deficits. How did things suddenly improve? Most attribute it to the productivity boom and stock market rally set in motion by the popularization of the internet. It's too early to know whether artificial intelligence will deliver the same economic benefits in the coming years as the web did 30 years ago. But as investors, this history is important to keep in mind. It’s a reminder that, in making financial decisions, we should be careful about reacting to economic forecasts. To be sure, the government’s financial health doesn’t look great, but as history has shown, this could change.   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.
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Gift to Myself

ArticleKathy Wilhelm  |  Apr 12, 2024

LATE LAST OCTOBER, I was one of the first to move into the new building at my chosen continuing care retirement community, or CCRC. Now, more than five months later, I’m more confident than ever that I made a good decision.

I’m in my mid-70s, single and childless, with relatives 3,000 miles distant in both directions. Both bathrooms at my old home were up 15 stairs. Aging in place was not a good option.

Now, I have a large apartment, with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a den and a balcony. There's plenty of daylight, including in the kitchen, which has full-size appliances and a huge island. The washer and dryer, also huge, have their own closet. My study—with its six bookcases and a big desk—occupies the second bedroom. The setup of both the study and the main bedroom are effectively unchanged from my house. The apartment is cleaned weekly—I'm planning to switch to every other week—and the guy who answers my maintenance requests is great.

There’s no shortage of advice on “aging well,” which generally includes recommendations to exercise, eat a healthy diet and stay socially engaged. Since I moved in, I've been using the weight machines and the treadmill in the well-equipped gym, and I'm starting tai chi. In the week ahead, for those of us in independent living, there's a choice of more than 40 exercise classes, including aqua exercise, barre and cardio strength—and that doesn’t count table tennis and pickleball games.

Right now, I'm staying with my primary care physician, rather than switching to the onsite clinic, but I’m getting my vaccinations there. I could attend a webinar on tinnitus next week or one on diet later in the month. And I've already seen the continuing care concept at work: A couple of residents injured themselves during move-in. After time in hospital, they stayed in the CCRC’s skilled nursing facility, before being cleared to move into their apartments. 

There's a lot going on, including charitable activity for both onsite and offsite recipients. Residents run the gift shop and a semi-annual yard sale to raise money for the residents’ association. This funds the budgets for 15 main committees and a number of sub-committees, including the library, which is run by residents and led by a former professional librarian. A professional director for the choir and a trainer for the dance team are also paid out of these funds. A residents’ council with elected representatives from the various floors and cottage groupings oversees the association's budget and acts as the liaison with management.

There are separate fund-raising drives for the foundation that supports residents who run out of money and for employee appreciation. (There's no tipping.) Then there's an annual event for Rise Against Hunger, and ongoing projects for homeless veterans and a local charity shop. Plenty of social events, too. I volunteer in the gift shop and the library, and put puzzles together for the charity shop. I've been on lunch outings, socialized at “meet and greets,” attended committee meetings, classes and onsite entertainment, and made new friends.

I've seen complaints on HumbleDollar about living with a bunch of old people. Of course, there are very old people here—residents seem to live a long time. There are also a lot of less old people, especially in the new building where I live. Some people are still working, while others are active volunteers offsite. You need to be at least age 62 to move in, but your spouse could be as young as 55.

Food is a perennial topic of conversation, and its quality varies. There’s some excellent but expensive food—paid in dining points—which I indulge in only once or twice a month. The two bars offer very good bar snacks that don't quite make a meal. A sit-down restaurant with table service usually has good food, but occasionally misses. Other options are a not-bad cafe and a food-court-style eatery that I find short on healthy options. Still, the dining director does listen to residents and some better choices are showing up. For instance, all locations recently switched from white to brown rice.

Between making new friends and volunteering, I’ve been staying very busy—so busy, in fact, that I’m blocking off Sunday as “introvert recharge day.” A friend who’s considering his next move is concerned that a CCRC is no place for an introvert. But if you want to eat all your meals in your apartment, and only venture out to pick up your food and your mail, you could. Still, given the advice to maintain social connections as we age, that doesn't seem like a particularly good idea.

It's a bit early for me to be sure how the financial side will work out. My move wasn't cheap—I’d used the same senior movers before—and I had some distinctly expensive periodontal work done in December and January. I’ll know more when I see the effect of the change on my tax situation. Part of my monthly fee is deductible as a pre-paid medical expense, as was part of my entry fee.

Existing residents are extremely welcoming and seem happy. I still believe, as I and others have posted here before, that a move to a CCRC is the best gift you can give your kids. If you're childless, it's the best gift you can give to yourself. But research is critical. Avoid for-profit CCRCs, make sure the facility will keep you if you run out of money, check the financials and be sure to visit in person.

Kathy Wilhelm, who comments on HumbleDollar as mytimetotravel, is a former software engineer. She took early retirement so she could travel extensively. Some of Kathy's trips are chronicled on her blog. Born and educated in England, she has lived in North Carolina since 1975. Check out Kathy's previous articles.

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

R Quinn  |  May 21, 2026

"Just like a Roth you would not be taxed on after tax contributions or earnings."
- R Quinn
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Deeply Rooted

ArticleMark 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. Mum had been comfortable, if lonely, in retirement. She was a widow for twenty-five years, and she often said with genuine surprise in her voice that she was better off financially than at any other point in her life. Not having to worry about money was a relief she never took for granted. But here's the thing: she never really thought about money either. She wasn't driven by possessions or status. She had what she needed, she was grateful, and she got on with living. Money was background noise to her, not the tune she danced to. What surprised me most came in her final year, when she was deeply confused and often entirely detached from reality. Among all the things her mind could have snagged on, the one conversation loop she returned to with unsettling clarity was money. She was convinced she had none. It made her anxious in a way that was painful to witness, a raw, childlike insecurity that seemed to rise from somewhere far deeper than conscious thought. I would reassure her, calmly and repeatedly, that her savings were healthy and there was absolutely nothing to worry about. I would joke about her bank balance making me jealous and she needed to go on a shopping spree. Sometimes it settled her. Often it didn't last more than a few minutes before the worry surfaced again. The memory care unit understandably discouraged residents from keeping personal cash, but I often broke that rule. Whenever I visited and could see that familiar agitation building, I'd press a few low value bills into her hand. Nothing significant, just the texture of something real. It worked in a way that words alone couldn't compete with. She'd look down at the money, close her fingers around it, and the tension would ease from her shoulders. She felt safe again, at least for a little while. Although, we often moved on to worrying about finding a purse to stash the bills in. For a woman who gave so little thought to money and nothing to status, I found it striking, strange even, that financial anxiety was what surfaced when the rational layers of her mind were stripped away. It made me think about what dementia actually reveals. It doesn't invent fears, it sometimes uncovers them. The fog clears away the learned, the sophisticated, the socially conditioned, and leaves something older and more fundamental underneath. At the time, I read up on this anxiety, there's some neuroscience behind it. Emotional memory, the kind wired to survival and feeling rather than fact, is stored differently in the brain and tends to be far more resilient. Dementia strips back the rational layers first. What it sometimes leaves behind is older, deeper, and harder to reach. In my mum's case, that something was the primal need to feel secure. She had grown up shaped by post-war austerity, widowhood, and years of careful budgeting on a single income. She would have been a young woman when rationing finally ended. In the world she grew up in, money wasn't abstract: it was coal for the fire and food on the table, shoes that lasted another winter without needing replacing. I think that connection between having and feeling safe wasn't a conclusion she'd reasoned her way to. It was lived, year after year, until it settled somewhere beneath thought entirely. Security and money had become inseparable, written into her long before she ever had reason to question it. I've thought about this a lot since we lost her. The concept of financial security isn't just something we think about, it seems to be something we feel, right down in the oldest parts of ourselves. It runs beneath logic, beneath personality, beneath even memory. My mum could and did forget my name on a bad day, but she could not shake the feeling that not having money meant not being safe. That instinct had been laid down so early and reinforced so consistently across a lifetime that dementia, for all its cruelty, couldn't fully reach it. To me, it says something profound about how deeply rooted our relationship with money really is. It seems to be wrapped around the core of our being. Losing my mum the way I did, piece by piece and conversation by conversation, was one of the hardest things I've been through. But in the heartbreak, she gave me this unexpected insight, pressed into my mind just as firmly as I had secretly pressed those bills into hers. Beneath everything we build and believe and become, there are feelings so fundamental they outlast nearly everything else. She reminded me that understanding our relationship with money isn't just a financial exercise, it's a deeply human one. Maybe it goes some way to explaining why we make choices that are sometimes irrational. And she did it, characteristically, without ever meaning to teach me a thing.
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.
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My Father: The Peace He Never Found

Andrew Clements  |  May 20, 2026

"Thank you for such an honest and thoughtful comment. I think many people quietly wrestle with the same fears you described, especially after decades where work, responsibility, and providing for family become such a large part of our identity. One thing writing this article taught me is that retirement itself is not the destination we sometimes imagine it to be. Financial security matters greatly, but purpose, connection, structure, and relationships matter just as much. The fact that you are already reflecting so deeply on these things tells me you are approaching retirement with a great deal of self-awareness. I suspect that awareness will ultimately serve you well. Thank you again for sharing your thoughts."
- Andrew Clements
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Final Arrangements: A Learning Curve

DrLefty  |  Aug 18, 2024

"Thanks for this reminder. It’s not an easy thing to do but it must be done!"
- Nick Politakis
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Final Countdown

ArticleMichael Perry  |  Sep 15, 2021

AS I TYPE THIS, I’m less than a week from walking out the door of my workplace for the last time, bringing my second career to a close. I’m looking forward to the rest of my life. We’ve been anticipating this day and we’re more than ready. My wife is already retired. My work for a large corporation is fine, but I’m not passionate about it. While there are some positive aspects to where we currently live, the best part is the airport. We predicted some time ago that, if my job still had us here when we got to this point, we’d be calling it quits and taking our life’s possessions elsewhere. We’ve thought a lot about how we’ll support ourselves financially—what combination of pension benefit, retirement accounts, taxable accounts and Social Security benefits will carry us through the rest of our lives. Maybe that’s a topic for a future article. Short version: We’re comfortable with our situation and we have no hesitation about our decision to retire. We’ve also thought a lot about where and how to live, which is also a subject for another day. Short version again: We haven’t decided. We aren’t in as much of a hurry to move as we expected to be. One reason: We didn’t anticipate some of our close relatives would be living in Spain. There’s no telling how long they’ll be there, so—before we do anything else—we’ll spend some time with them. And who knows? In the next few years, we may make a surprise addition to our future hometown shortlist. A lot of folks find it bittersweet to leave behind fulltime work. I get it. Leaving my first career in the military was like that. But this time, I’m happy to say it’s all sweet.
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Money & Me (Kindle version) has dropped

William Perry  |  May 26, 2026

Be the first to comment.
Read more »

The Financial Stress a Simple Document Could Have Prevented

Lucretia Ryan  |  May 23, 2026

"Generally individuals are the better choice for retirement plans and IRAs."
- Paul Ward
Read more »

Taste Bud Training

Mark Crothers  |  May 22, 2026

"I love it, Mark, keep 'em coming."
- Dan Smith
Read more »

Should Retirees Get a Temporary Flat Tax Window on IRA and 401(k) Withdrawals?

Jeff Peck  |  May 18, 2026

"I'd love that if I could flip the money to a Roth."
- Martin McCue
Read more »

Percentage that “age in place”

Keith Pleas  |  May 24, 2026

"Count my husband and me among those aging in place. We’re both 83 and in reasonably good health. Our house, which is over 100 years old, is 21/2 stories— not including the basement. We still use all of it — though we’ve remodeled over the years to accommodate living only on the first floor if that becomes necessary. We hire lawn care and snow removal, and have a contractor who quickly responds to any maintenance issues. I still cook the majority of meals and my husband and I split housework tasks— we’ve tried a number of cleaning services but so far all seem to leave the house dirtier than they found it! Our neighbors are both younger and some even older than we are. That’s great— we really like interacting with the young kids, teens, as well as the adults of varying ages. We also go to the gym three times a week; it is operated by the Unuverdity and caters to an older clientele— nobody wears spandex! I see independent living in a CCRC as a big gamble that can sacrifice loss of privacy and monetary resources. Both of my parents and in-laws died within months of receiving diagnoses of serious illness; that fact may color my judgment. Both my husband and I have Long Term Care insurance, and our pensions would also cover nursing and memory care. Our children have been told that we will accept care if and when we need it. (Our son is an MD, and I know he surreptitiously checks our mental and physical abilities every time we meet.). We will have to pay higher rates for direct admission to assisted living and above, but we have the resources to do that. The best CCRCs in our area offer that option, but we will probably relocate closer to one of our kids. I have many friends who are following a similar plan as ours, but I also know a few who have entered CRCCs. I truly doubt either option is totally perfect. I also know one couple that has an apartment in a CCRC, but continues to live in their house a few miles away. I guess that’s the ultimate hedging their bets!"
- Marilyn Lavin
Read more »

Inflation and Innovation

ArticleAdam M. Grossman  |  May 23, 2026

ECONOMICS IS KNOWN as “the dismal science,” and perhaps for good reason. Oftentimes it can be abstract and overly academic. There are, however, certain economic concepts that can be helpful to individual investors. Below are two that I see as especially important. When it comes to the government’s ability to control—or least influence—the economy, there are two main levers. The first is fiscal policy, which refers to Congress’s (as well as state and local governments') ability to levy taxes and to spend money.  The most well known economist associated with fiscal policy was John Maynard Keynes. During economic downturns, Keynes argued, governments shouldn’t hesitate to spend more—and to run deficits, if need be—to help reduce unemployment and lift the economy back up. This is a generally accepted concept today, but in the 1930s, in the depths of the Great Depression, it was not obvious, and many believe that policymakers’ efforts to exercise fiscal discipline by balancing the budget during the Depression ended up prolonging the misery. It wasn’t until the mid-1930s, in fact, that President Roosevelt changed his view on this question. In their correspondence, Keynes convinced Roosevelt that loosening up on fiscal discipline, though counterintuitive, was the best way to bring the economy back to health. This approach has been used in every recession since. Most recently, during the pandemic, the government issued several rounds of stimulus payments to help bolster consumer finances. Monetary policy is the government’s second key lever. Unlike fiscal policy, monetary policy is the domain of the Federal Reserve. When you hear about the government “printing money,” it’s the Fed they’re referring to. Through a unique process, the Fed is able to create dollars out of thin air and then to use those dollars to help support the economy during downturns. During the pandemic, the Fed created trillions of new dollars through this mechanism. The Fed also lowered short-term interest rates, which it controls, in a further effort to nudge consumers to open their wallets. Both fiscal and monetary policy are powerful. But as we’ve seen in recent years, each can also carry side effects.  In the case of fiscal policy, spending too much for too long can drive the deficit to unsustainable levels. This has become a persistent problem. Though it’s now been several years since the pandemic, the federal government is still running deficits of about $2 trillion per year. In round numbers, taxes bring in about $5 trillion, but spending exceeds $7 trillion. Of particular concern is the fact that more than $1 trillion of that $7 trillion must now be allocated to interest payments on all the accumulated debt. To put that in perspective, we’re now spending more on interest than on defense. Is this situation sustainable? Here’s how I think about it: Imagine an individual with an annual income of $50,000 who spends $70,000 each year, including $10,000 in credit card payments. At some point, something will need to change, but neither political party seems interested in tackling it, for the obvious reason that any solution would require either raising taxes or cutting spending. Neither would be popular, so the deficits persist. The consequence of overdoing it with monetary policy is also serious: inflation. That’s what we saw very significantly in 2021 and 2022, and that’s where monetary and fiscal policy can become intertwined. For a brief period during the pandemic, a concept known as Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) gained popularity. The argument was that countries like the United States, with very large economies, were essentially immune to inflation risk and could print money almost without limit. It turned out, though, that MMT was a theory with no basis in reality, and that deficits do matter. Since ancient times, excessive use of monetary policy has always resulted in inflation, and that was exactly what we saw as a result of the Fed’s extraordinary monetary interventions in 2020. After inflation rose to nearly 10% in 2022, the Fed was forced to reverse course and raise interest rates. That had the desired effect of slowing inflation, but it then caused another problem: Since the government has to issue new bonds practically every day, higher rates have the effect of driving up the government’s borrowing costs, which then worsens the deficit. Higher interest rates also hurt consumers, especially those looking to buy homes. This, unfortunately, describes the situation we’re in today. In an effort to combat the pandemic, the government used both of the levers that it had, but now it’s effectively out of ammunition. Federal debt held by the public just recently climbed above 100% of gross domestic product for the first time since 1946. The Wall Street Journal referred to this as “a once-unthinkable threshold.” But before we declare the situation hopeless, it’s important to look at a separate concept in economics.  In 1942, Harvard economist Joseph Schumpeter released a book titled Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. Among the concepts Schumpeter proposed was the notion of “creative destruction.” The idea—central to capitalist systems—was that entrepreneurs could always be counted on to move technology forward. At the same time, this meant that older technologies and companies would regularly find themselves pushed aside by new innovations. Importantly, though, Schumpeter argued that the net effect would be greatly positive. The evidence in favor of Schumpeter is all around us. Horse-and-buggy companies went out of business when the automobile was invented. Pony Express gave way to the telegram, then to the telephone. Typewriter manufacturers are mostly gone. And so on. And yet, despite all these changes, unemployment is under 5%, the economy is larger than it’s ever been, and income-per-capita is at an all-time high. What’s the relationship between Schumpeter’s theory and the earlier discussion about the government’s debt situation? You may recall that in the late-1990s, the federal government surprised observers when it began to run budget surpluses after years of deficits. How did things suddenly improve? Most attribute it to the productivity boom and stock market rally set in motion by the popularization of the internet. It's too early to know whether artificial intelligence will deliver the same economic benefits in the coming years as the web did 30 years ago. But as investors, this history is important to keep in mind. It’s a reminder that, in making financial decisions, we should be careful about reacting to economic forecasts. To be sure, the government’s financial health doesn’t look great, but as history has shown, this could change.   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 »

Gift to Myself

ArticleKathy Wilhelm  |  Apr 12, 2024

LATE LAST OCTOBER, I was one of the first to move into the new building at my chosen continuing care retirement community, or CCRC. Now, more than five months later, I’m more confident than ever that I made a good decision.

I’m in my mid-70s, single and childless, with relatives 3,000 miles distant in both directions. Both bathrooms at my old home were up 15 stairs. Aging in place was not a good option.

Now, I have a large apartment, with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a den and a balcony. There's plenty of daylight, including in the kitchen, which has full-size appliances and a huge island. The washer and dryer, also huge, have their own closet. My study—with its six bookcases and a big desk—occupies the second bedroom. The setup of both the study and the main bedroom are effectively unchanged from my house. The apartment is cleaned weekly—I'm planning to switch to every other week—and the guy who answers my maintenance requests is great.

There’s no shortage of advice on “aging well,” which generally includes recommendations to exercise, eat a healthy diet and stay socially engaged. Since I moved in, I've been using the weight machines and the treadmill in the well-equipped gym, and I'm starting tai chi. In the week ahead, for those of us in independent living, there's a choice of more than 40 exercise classes, including aqua exercise, barre and cardio strength—and that doesn’t count table tennis and pickleball games.

Right now, I'm staying with my primary care physician, rather than switching to the onsite clinic, but I’m getting my vaccinations there. I could attend a webinar on tinnitus next week or one on diet later in the month. And I've already seen the continuing care concept at work: A couple of residents injured themselves during move-in. After time in hospital, they stayed in the CCRC’s skilled nursing facility, before being cleared to move into their apartments. 

There's a lot going on, including charitable activity for both onsite and offsite recipients. Residents run the gift shop and a semi-annual yard sale to raise money for the residents’ association. This funds the budgets for 15 main committees and a number of sub-committees, including the library, which is run by residents and led by a former professional librarian. A professional director for the choir and a trainer for the dance team are also paid out of these funds. A residents’ council with elected representatives from the various floors and cottage groupings oversees the association's budget and acts as the liaison with management.

There are separate fund-raising drives for the foundation that supports residents who run out of money and for employee appreciation. (There's no tipping.) Then there's an annual event for Rise Against Hunger, and ongoing projects for homeless veterans and a local charity shop. Plenty of social events, too. I volunteer in the gift shop and the library, and put puzzles together for the charity shop. I've been on lunch outings, socialized at “meet and greets,” attended committee meetings, classes and onsite entertainment, and made new friends.

I've seen complaints on HumbleDollar about living with a bunch of old people. Of course, there are very old people here—residents seem to live a long time. There are also a lot of less old people, especially in the new building where I live. Some people are still working, while others are active volunteers offsite. You need to be at least age 62 to move in, but your spouse could be as young as 55.

Food is a perennial topic of conversation, and its quality varies. There’s some excellent but expensive food—paid in dining points—which I indulge in only once or twice a month. The two bars offer very good bar snacks that don't quite make a meal. A sit-down restaurant with table service usually has good food, but occasionally misses. Other options are a not-bad cafe and a food-court-style eatery that I find short on healthy options. Still, the dining director does listen to residents and some better choices are showing up. For instance, all locations recently switched from white to brown rice.

Between making new friends and volunteering, I’ve been staying very busy—so busy, in fact, that I’m blocking off Sunday as “introvert recharge day.” A friend who’s considering his next move is concerned that a CCRC is no place for an introvert. But if you want to eat all your meals in your apartment, and only venture out to pick up your food and your mail, you could. Still, given the advice to maintain social connections as we age, that doesn't seem like a particularly good idea.

It's a bit early for me to be sure how the financial side will work out. My move wasn't cheap—I’d used the same senior movers before—and I had some distinctly expensive periodontal work done in December and January. I’ll know more when I see the effect of the change on my tax situation. Part of my monthly fee is deductible as a pre-paid medical expense, as was part of my entry fee.

Existing residents are extremely welcoming and seem happy. I still believe, as I and others have posted here before, that a move to a CCRC is the best gift you can give your kids. If you're childless, it's the best gift you can give to yourself. But research is critical. Avoid for-profit CCRCs, make sure the facility will keep you if you run out of money, check the financials and be sure to visit in person.

Kathy Wilhelm, who comments on HumbleDollar as mytimetotravel, is a former software engineer. She took early retirement so she could travel extensively. Some of Kathy's trips are chronicled on her blog. Born and educated in England, she has lived in North Carolina since 1975. Check out Kathy's previous articles.

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

R Quinn  |  May 21, 2026

"Just like a Roth you would not be taxed on after tax contributions or earnings."
- R Quinn
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Deeply Rooted

ArticleMark 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. Mum had been comfortable, if lonely, in retirement. She was a widow for twenty-five years, and she often said with genuine surprise in her voice that she was better off financially than at any other point in her life. Not having to worry about money was a relief she never took for granted. But here's the thing: she never really thought about money either. She wasn't driven by possessions or status. She had what she needed, she was grateful, and she got on with living. Money was background noise to her, not the tune she danced to. What surprised me most came in her final year, when she was deeply confused and often entirely detached from reality. Among all the things her mind could have snagged on, the one conversation loop she returned to with unsettling clarity was money. She was convinced she had none. It made her anxious in a way that was painful to witness, a raw, childlike insecurity that seemed to rise from somewhere far deeper than conscious thought. I would reassure her, calmly and repeatedly, that her savings were healthy and there was absolutely nothing to worry about. I would joke about her bank balance making me jealous and she needed to go on a shopping spree. Sometimes it settled her. Often it didn't last more than a few minutes before the worry surfaced again. The memory care unit understandably discouraged residents from keeping personal cash, but I often broke that rule. Whenever I visited and could see that familiar agitation building, I'd press a few low value bills into her hand. Nothing significant, just the texture of something real. It worked in a way that words alone couldn't compete with. She'd look down at the money, close her fingers around it, and the tension would ease from her shoulders. She felt safe again, at least for a little while. Although, we often moved on to worrying about finding a purse to stash the bills in. For a woman who gave so little thought to money and nothing to status, I found it striking, strange even, that financial anxiety was what surfaced when the rational layers of her mind were stripped away. It made me think about what dementia actually reveals. It doesn't invent fears, it sometimes uncovers them. The fog clears away the learned, the sophisticated, the socially conditioned, and leaves something older and more fundamental underneath. At the time, I read up on this anxiety, there's some neuroscience behind it. Emotional memory, the kind wired to survival and feeling rather than fact, is stored differently in the brain and tends to be far more resilient. Dementia strips back the rational layers first. What it sometimes leaves behind is older, deeper, and harder to reach. In my mum's case, that something was the primal need to feel secure. She had grown up shaped by post-war austerity, widowhood, and years of careful budgeting on a single income. She would have been a young woman when rationing finally ended. In the world she grew up in, money wasn't abstract: it was coal for the fire and food on the table, shoes that lasted another winter without needing replacing. I think that connection between having and feeling safe wasn't a conclusion she'd reasoned her way to. It was lived, year after year, until it settled somewhere beneath thought entirely. Security and money had become inseparable, written into her long before she ever had reason to question it. I've thought about this a lot since we lost her. The concept of financial security isn't just something we think about, it seems to be something we feel, right down in the oldest parts of ourselves. It runs beneath logic, beneath personality, beneath even memory. My mum could and did forget my name on a bad day, but she could not shake the feeling that not having money meant not being safe. That instinct had been laid down so early and reinforced so consistently across a lifetime that dementia, for all its cruelty, couldn't fully reach it. To me, it says something profound about how deeply rooted our relationship with money really is. It seems to be wrapped around the core of our being. Losing my mum the way I did, piece by piece and conversation by conversation, was one of the hardest things I've been through. But in the heartbreak, she gave me this unexpected insight, pressed into my mind just as firmly as I had secretly pressed those bills into hers. Beneath everything we build and believe and become, there are feelings so fundamental they outlast nearly everything else. She reminded me that understanding our relationship with money isn't just a financial exercise, it's a deeply human one. Maybe it goes some way to explaining why we make choices that are sometimes irrational. And she did it, characteristically, without ever meaning to teach me a thing.
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.
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Manifesto

May 24, 2026

NO. 49: WE SHOULD ensure our family will be okay financially, even if we aren’t around. That means making sure there’s enough money—and making sure our affairs are well organized.

think

May 25, 2026

IMPUTED RENT. Folks love to boast about their home’s price appreciation. But after deducting maintenance costs, property taxes and insurance, we might barely break even on the price gain. Instead, often the biggest return comes from the imputed rent—the fact that we get to live in the place. Each year’s imputed rent might equal 6% or 7% of a home’s value.

act

May 25, 2026

CHECK YOUR CREDIT reports. Every week, you can get a free copy of your credit reports from the three major credit bureaus by heading to AnnualCreditReport.com. Look not only for mistakes, but also for accounts you don’t recognize. The latter could be a sign that your identity has been stolen. While you’re at it, you might find out your credit score.

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May 24, 2026

NO. 60: SHORT-TERM results matter to long-term investors. Even if you’re investing for the long haul and have a strong stomach for short-term price swings, this volatility can have a huge impact on your long-run returns. Want to retire rich? Pray for lousy markets as you regularly save money during your working years—and buoyant markets as you approach retirement.

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Manifesto

May 24, 2026

NO. 49: WE SHOULD ensure our family will be okay financially, even if we aren’t around. That means making sure there’s enough money—and making sure our affairs are well organized.

Spotlight: Charity

Bearing Gifts

Rand Spero   |  Dec 24, 2019

GIVING GIFTS DELIVERS significant emotional and health benefits, or so says the research. But I find much depends on how the actual giving takes place.
My best giving lesson occurred many years ago. At a rural busstop on the island of Crete, off the coast of Greece, I sat next to an old local woman dressed in ragged clothing and torn shoes. Neither of us spoke the other’s language. She carried with her a small bag of fresh peaches and motioned for me to take one.

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Giving Made Easy

Richard Quinn   |  Jan 25, 2023

I’M NOT ONE TO DIVE into the mysteries of the tax code in an effort to avoid paying Uncle Sam. But I’ve lately stumbled onto something that many others are already well-versed in and which has been around since 2006: qualified charitable distributions.

If I make a contribution from my traditional IRA directly to a charity, the withdrawal is excluded from the taxable income reported by my wife and me and, indeed, it counts toward my required minimum distribution.

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Giving Wisely

Adam M. Grossman   |  Oct 3, 2021

FINANCIAL PLANNING is, for the most part, straightforward. You want to save enough for the future and then avoid a shortfall by investing those savings wisely. Pretty much every other topic in the world of personal finance—from asset allocation to paying taxes to safe withdrawal rates—can be viewed through the lens of those two overall goals.
But there’s one topic that isn’t straightforward at all, and that’s philanthropy. It’s not straightforward because it runs counter to those two fundamental goals.

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Give and Receive

Julian Block   |  Oct 10, 2018

MANY OF MY CLIENTS volunteer to perform chores for religious institutions and other charitable organizations. I remind them that volunteers qualify for tax breaks. Their itemized deductions include what they spend to cover unreimbursed out-of-pocket outlays—though there are limits to the IRS’s generosity.
I caution clients not to count on deductions for the value of the unpaid time that they devote to charitable chores. Let’s say the prevailing rate for the kind of services they render is $100 per hour and they spend 100 hours to render those services during the year in question.

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Free Lunch

Adam M. Grossman   |  Apr 3, 2018

PERHAPS YOU’VE HEARD the expression, “There’s no free lunch.” The idea is, you usually don’t receive something for nothing. Whether it’s with money or with time and labor, you almost always “pay” one way or another.
It’s an interesting concept—but whoever coined the phrase clearly never looked at the U.S. tax code, which is full of free lunches. Today, we’ll discuss one example, which may be of interest to the charitably inclined.
One of the most talked about changes in the new tax law is a provision that alters how deductions are treated.

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Giving Advice

Adam M. Grossman   |  Dec 12, 2021

GOT CHARITABLE giving on your mind? Join the crowd. Many folks donate at this time of year, with their charitable giving driven by the charities themselves.

As solicitations arrive, people decide on a case-by-case basis whether to pull out their checkbooks. But some folks follow a more structured process, and that’s the approach I favor. It includes asking these three questions:

1. How much ideally would you like to give? As a starting point,

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Spotlight: Gartland

Feeling Rich

David Gartland   |  Jan 4, 2024

ON ONE OF OUR TRIPS to visit my in-laws in South Carolina, my mother-in-law asked me what I thought of her home in a 55-plus retirement community. “It looks like a house,” I said sarcastically. Her response gave me food for thought. She said, “I feel rich living here.” My mother-in-law’s home was far from being a McMansion. It was a single-story two-bedroom house, but it had cathedral ceilings. I think it was the high ceilings that, in the eyes of my mother-in-law, made the house more majestic than it really was. I’m sure most HumbleDollar readers want to be wealthy, or well-off, or financially comfortable, or some similar goal. But what would make you feel rich? There are plenty of people who are rich but don’t feel that way because they compare themselves to “the Joneses,” who appear to have even more. Knowing others have more can make us feel poor. That’s a shame. What good is being rich if you don’t feel rich? I don’t have a degree in psychology, so I’m not qualified to say why some folks feel rich and others don’t. But I would venture to suggest that, if you have money and you’re content with what you have, you probably feel rich. Now, if you took a survey of HumbleDollar readers, I bet we’d all have different notions of what makes us feel rich. The behavior that makes me feel rich is buying everything with a credit card. Thanks to that magical piece of plastic, I never feel like there’s something I can’t have. Don’t get me wrong: I never carry a balance on my card from one month to the next and, in fact, I never buy anything unless I have the money in the bank to pay for it. Still, having this…
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Paid in Full

David Gartland   |  Jun 17, 2024

SPENDING ISN’T something I like to do. It doesn’t bring me lasting joy. I prefer just to buy what I need. For many folks, spending involves borrowing. If spending is your thing, incurring interest charges on credit card debt and car loans probably isn’t a big deal. But to me, borrowing to buy something means I’m overspending. If I can’t afford to pay cash, I shouldn’t buy it. Borrowing has been the downfall of many. Spending is a onetime event—unless you borrow to spend, in which case your spending has a long tail attached to it. I think people get used to borrowing. The interest charge is just the cost of doing business—in this case, the cost of buying something we can’t afford. When all goes well, the monthly interest charges just get attached to the monthly bills we have to pay. But if our income drops or we lose our job, those monthly expenses can become nightmares. For the worker who has always had a job and believes that the job will always be there, spending with borrowed money is comfortable and doable. You’ve always had a salary and you probably believe you’ll always have a salary, so why change? My experience has been different. As I’ve mentioned in earlier articles, I lost my job 10 times during my working life. While this was bad, it also made me good at finding a new job. I came to understand what I needed to do to make myself more attractive to the insurance companies that might employ me, such as earning my Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter designation. This involved taking 10 written exams, each three hours in duration, over a five-year period. The other, more important habit I learned was to save and not borrow. Losing a job with no…
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My Unemployed Life

David Gartland   |  Oct 19, 2023

I HAVE BEEN FIRED, downsized, restructured and laid off 10 times in my life. The first time was at age 16, when I worked for a McDonald's-like hamburger joint, and the last time was shortly before I turned 70, when I was working for an insurance company as the manager of regulatory compliance.   I can't blame this on discrimination. I’m a white Christian male, five feet 10 inches tall, college educated, and of sound mind and body, so there are no obvious reasons for my lack of consistent employment. Instead, it seems my employers simply didn’t like or need me. My goal in life has been to be rich. I will hold off providing reasons for choosing this goal, but needless to say it was my goal. It’s this goal that has provided me with the fuel to keep going after every interruption in my employed life. I never let my frustrations after each termination prevent me from picking myself up, dusting myself off and moving on to the next job. This process wasn’t always easy, but it’s what I did to keep going. I’m telling my tale less to benefit HumbleDollar’s readers directly, many of whom are retired, but rather in case their children or grandchildren encounter similar misfortunes in their life. If you have family members who lose their job, you might suggest my strategy for not getting too discouraged. One of the best pieces of advice that I got in my life came from a guy I worked with, Steve Devito. Upon hearing me complain one day about some negative situation at work, Steve said to me, “Dave, all you can do is keep on keeping on.” That sage advice hasn’t just stayed with me throughout my career. It’s also influenced my approach to life in…
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Back to Life

David Gartland   |  Apr 25, 2024

SOME PEOPLE CAN LOOK at a blank page and imagine a new creation—perhaps a new business or a new house. I can’t. What I seem to be pretty good at is taking something that’s broken and coming up with creative solutions for fixing it. It's like a game or a puzzle. The goal: Bring this broken object back to life as cheaply as possible. When, say, a washing machine or a dishwasher breaks, the repair person will look up the manufacturer and order the necessary replacement part. The repair person will install the part, and charge you for labor, plus a marked-up price for the part. Most folks are accustomed to this, and view the expense as the cost of doing business. I see it differently. The manufacturer’s parts are designed to fit the original product, but that fit comes at a premium price. Suppose a part breaks on your Ford SUV or pickup truck. Yes, you could go to a Ford dealership. But what most people don’t understand is the dealership makes its largest profit not on the sale of a vehicle, but from servicing it. When something needs repairing, the dealership only installs original equipment manufacturer (OEM) parts and it charges high hourly labor rates. Folks who go this route soon start complaining about how expensive it is to keep their vehicle running, so they elect to buy a new one. That means not only a new auto loan, but also an incentive to get the new vehicle serviced at the dealership, so they don’t void the warranty. It’s a nice racket for the dealer. Instead of OEM parts, there are aftermarket parts sold at places like Advance Auto Parts, AutoZone, NAPA and O’Reilly. Typically, they’re much cheaper than OEM parts and, in most cases, the aftermarket part…
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Winning Ways

David Gartland   |  Feb 5, 2024

ROGER PENSKE STARTED as a race car driver, but soon found he’d be better off as a team owner. Penske's holding company also has stakes in Penske Truck Leasing, among other businesses, as well as the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home of the Indy 500. One of Penske’s criteria when hiring race car drivers: select folks with a burning desire to win. Penske has said he can guide a driver’s thinking about the best way to pursue wins, but he can’t teach someone the will or desire to win. At the track, he’s called “the captain.” He has a team of managers who oversee the pit crew, mechanics, statisticians and driver coaches. But when he gets on a driver’s radio, everyone else shuts up and lets Penske coach the driver. In most cases, he’s calming the drivers down because they’re like pit bulls in a dog fight. They want to kill. This is the energy that Penske wants. He just needs to harness a driver’s fight so the team benefits—meaning the driver wins. Notice what Penske said about the desire to win. He can’t teach that. It either exists inside the driver or it doesn’t. We all want to win or, at least, not lose. The difference lies in our willingness to focus all our energies on winning. How important is winning to you? To me, it's not that important. I don’t focus on winning. Instead, I concentrate on not losing. That’s a big difference. A stock purchase that increases by 10% is a winner, but not a great winner. By contrast, a 10-bagger is a winning stock that soars to 10 times your original purchase price. To pick a 10-bagger, you either need to really know what you’re doing or you need to get very lucky. But to pick a…
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Why We Spend

David Gartland   |  Feb 29, 2024

PAUL NEWMAN WAS BEST known as an actor, but he was also passionate about auto racing. He took his hobby seriously, improved his driving skills and won many races, including on his “home track” at Lime Rock, Connecticut. His wife, actress Joanne Woodward, supported her husband’s auto racing career, but also worried about him. She bought him a Rolex watch to wear when he raced. To personalize the gift, she had an inscription added to the back. It read: “Drive Carefully, Me.” Photographs show that Newman did indeed wear the watch when racing. In 2017, the watch—which Newman had given to his daughter's onetime boyfriend—was auctioned off for charity, and sold for $17.8 million. It’s a watch. It will not be used by the buyer to tell time, which is the purpose of a watch. It will likely sit on a shelf. The buyer will probably show it off to his friends, bragging that he paid almost $18 million. The more money folks have, the more they can spend. But $17.8 million for a watch? How much money would you need socked away to spend $17.8 million on a watch without flinching? I imagine you’d need at least $100 million, and probably much more. Imagine telling your wife, “Honey, I'm going out to buy a watch today.” “That’s nice, dear,” she says. “How much are you going to spend?” “$18 million,” you reply nonchalantly. She smiles, “Have fun.” What each of us buys depends upon our needs, values and ego. For the very rich, I think their ego probably drives the vast majority of their purchases. When you're sitting around the country club having your cigar and scotch, you need something to talk about. Why not tell them how much money you were able to spend at a charity auction?…
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