MY GRANDFATHER FALLS into the category of folks who are “not long remembered.” He died more than 75 years ago. None of his children or their spouses is alive. The one grandchild alive at the time of his death was only a few months old. It’s safe to say his memory has been all but erased, and yet his story offers a glimpse into what working life was like in the first half of the 1900s. Emil Cutler was born in 1887, the second son of farmers who lived in rural Maryland. His older brother, Willitts, had been born two years before. A sister, Lorena, was born in 1889, but died from dysentery—attributed to eating a green apple—just before her first birthday. In 1891, another sister, Beatrice, was born to complete the family. In the family letters I have, there isn’t a lot of information about my grandfather’s early years. For high school, he went to the Tome School for Boys, a prestigious boarding school in nearby Port Deposit, Maryland. There, he took the “commercial course,” graduating in 1907. After graduation, he wasn’t sure what career to pursue. He made an inquiry with the U.S. Marines, seeking information about how to join as an officer. Another career he considered was forestry—he looked into enrolling in the Biltmore Forest School. Eventually, he landed a sales job and moved to Philadelphia. From there, he relocated to Camden, New Jersey, and helped his parents start a fruit jelly company, Cutler and Cutler. His parents took care of production at their Maryland farm, while he was instrumental in procuring supplies, such as jars and labels. In 1912 and 1913, while living in Camden, he received a lot of letters and invitations from a mysterious Aunt Lucy, who lived in nearby Philadelphia. Lucy, a young single lady, had an active social calendar and was very interested in the details of Emil’s life: “How are you now? I am still in the Lace Department at John Wanamaker’s. No one has been kind enough to ask your poor old aunt to marry them so I am still very much here. But I thought that you would probably be on the way (to marriage) as you meet so many nice girls, eh? ‘Fess up.” Lucy was pleased to introduce him to other young ladies, and occasionally he was asked to escort her to an event. She invited him to various activities that included a Valentine’s party, surprise birthday parties, music shows, assorted dinner gatherings and even her dancing class. A letter from Emil’s sister Beatrice, written in late 1913 from Oriental, North Carolina, requests that he send her a photo of himself because the “people down here want to see my peoples’ pictures.” Her affection is evident in her closing: “Now, Emil, write soon. With love, I am your sincere Sister Beatrice.” In 1914, Emil began taking night classes in accounting at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. During the three years he attended night school, he was employed by companies such as Alexander Brothers Leather Belting and Haverford Cycle Co. [caption id="attachment_1543741" align="alignright" width="300"] Emil Cutler Sr. and Jr.[/caption] That brings us to 1917—a significant year in Emil’s life. In January, he married Esther, and he also graduated from Wharton that year. The following year again brought big changes. In February, Emil and Esther’s first child—my father—was born. He was named after my grandfather. Tragedy struck in October when Emil’s older brother Willitts took ill, becoming a casualty of 1918’s great influenza pandemic. Willitts left behind a young widow and two children. After two years marked by significant changes, Emil settled into a routine. He held a steady job with Ace Motor Corp. in Philadelphia. Another son was born. The family moved to nearby Moorestown, New Jersey, in 1919. A few years later, Emil’s parents also relocated to Moorestown. They’d lost their Maryland farm after Emil’s father cosigned a loan for a friend. Five years into his career at Ace, the company ran into hard times. Emil needed a new job and wrote a letter to Irving Collins, then the president of a local chain of lumber and hardware stores headquartered in Moorestown. From the draft of his letter: “I have been thinking that possibly you could use a man of my experience and caliber in your organization. I am 35 years of age, married, a graduate of high school and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. For the past five years I have been auditor for the Ace Motor Corporation [in] Philadelphia. This business was closed out through receivership and they are now ready to make the final distribution to the creditors.” He continued: “In this position I supervised the accounting work and for about two years looked after the treasurer’s duties in the absence of the treasurer. When the business went into receivership, I was made auditor for the federal receivers…. I am willing to accept a moderate salary to start and would be pleased to call at your convenience to talk the matter over.” Although my grandfather had fibbed a bit about his age—he was actually 37, not 35—his letter quickly got the attention of Collins: “I am very much interested in your letter of Oct. 28, and would like to have an audience with you. I will be in the Moorestown office Friday and Saturday mornings until 10 o’ clock.” Emil secured a position as an accountant at J.S. Collins & Son, and spent the rest of his career there. Many years later, my father—another accounting graduate from Wharton night school—would join the same company. For a time, Dad worked side-by-side with my grandfather. When my dad, who was nicknamed “June” as shorthand for “Junior,” was eight, Emil took him for a week-long trip to the Jersey Shore. He wrote a letter back to “Wifey and Boys” from Stone Harbor, reporting that “June’s appetite was not so good Sunday and Monday, but he surely is making up for it now.” The two of them finished a pound and a half of steak for lunch that day. He goes on: “The only time he spends in the apartment is while he sleeps at night and about 15 or 20 minutes for each meal. Soon as he gets his dessert he is gone. He has made friends with a boy about his age who lives in one of the houses in back of the apartment. The boy has a collie named ‘King Tut’ and the three play together…. June says he wants to stay for a month.” My father remembered his dad as being quiet, honest and “not… aggressive.” He also thought his dad might have been a little stingy—he didn’t help my father pay for his college education. But there may have been good reasons for my grandfather’s penny-pinching. Life got more demanding for Emil as time went on. When the Great Depression came, he was able to keep his job. In 1930, his earnings from Collins were $3,880, equal to some $72,000 in today’s dollars. By 1934, his pay was down to $2,600. He had other challenges on the home front. Two of his five sons had significant developmental disabilities. He also faced health difficulties. In his 40s, he started experiencing symptoms attributed to diabetes. He had to avoid carbohydrates and ended up eating a lot of bran muffins. By his late 50s, his vision was very poor. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a happy marriage. Esther grew resentful of Emil, blaming him for giving her two “retarded” children. When he developed diabetes, it just meant more work for her. At one point, she told him she should never have married him. When my dad—the favored son—was older, she would take him on trips to the Jersey Shore, leaving her husband behind. On the last day of 1948, Emil had a heart attack. My father was 30 at the time and living with his parents. When he found his father, Dad felt pain in his own chest, as if he too were going to have a heart attack. He was told to get a doctor, and actually ended up getting two doctors to come to the house. There was nothing they could do. Emil was dead at age 61. It was the most traumatic day of my father’s life. When I was young, it never dawned on me that most people have two sets of grandparents. I only knew my mother’s parents. My dad’s father had been dead 14 years by the time I was born. His mother, Esther, lived a mile away from our house, but I never met her. She had a history of being nasty to my mom. After a disturbing incident that threatened the safety of one of my infant sisters, Esther was never again allowed to be in contact with any of her grandchildren. She passed away when I was eight. I had no idea she’d died and certainly didn’t attend the funeral, if there even was one. Emil lived an ordinary life for his era, the kind of story that’s easily lost to the sands of time. Although no one is left who could share memories of Emil, a cache of century-old documents permits his story to be told afresh. I’m thankful those papers have been preserved for my generation. Ken Cutler lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and has worked as an electrical engineer in the nuclear power industry for more than 38 years. There, he has become an informal financial advisor for many of his coworkers. Ken is involved in his church, enjoys traveling and hiking with his wife Lisa, is a shortwave radio hobbyist, and has a soft spot for cats and dogs. Follow Ken on X @Nuke_Ken and check out his earlier articles. [xyz-ihs snippet="Donate"]

The first movie I ever saw in a theater was 2001: A Space Odyssey. My sister Carol took me to it when I was six years old. She wasn’t sure I’d like it, but I really loved it—except for a bit of primitive violence in the opening scene that was too intense for my young eyes (and stomach). In particular, the future technology depicted in the film fired my imagination. People in 2001 casually used video telephone calling and iPad-like tablet computers. And who could forget the talking, intelligent—but ultimately sinister—computer named HAL 9000? In 1968, when the movie came out, these were indeed just technological fantasies. Spurred on by that movie, throughout my childhood and adolescence I had a keen interest in reading science fiction and predictions about future technology. As a pre-teen, I was fascinated with my father’s copy of the best-selling book Future Shock by Alvin Toffler, which was published in 1970. Over fifty years have passed since those early childhood days. For better or worse, our world is filled with the stuff of yesteryear’s science fiction. If time travel to today from 1968 were possible (spoiler alert: not quite yet), a cinematic camera crew simply filming day-to-day life in an advanced country like the U.S. or Japan would have the elements for an epic sci-fi blockbuster.  In my lifetime, technology has advanced at a staggering pace. The period from 1969-2000 is sometimes called the Third Industrial Revolution, encompassing the use of ever-more sophisticated electronics and computers to automate processes, as well as the rise of the internet. We are currently in the mind-boggling Fourth Industrial Revolution, where a mature internet has evolved to include “the internet of things” and artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly advancing. Sophisticated technology used to be quite expensive and out of the reach of many people. Today, due to technological advances, just about everyone can afford a compact smartphone that contains many amazing capabilities—including video calls—that could not be obtained at any price in 1968. Personal computers have come way down in price, and the internet, providing access to almost unlimited stores of information, is free for all to use. Our friends living 50 or 60 years ago would be in complete awe of what we take for granted. Interestingly, in 1970 Alvin Toffler foreshadowed the rise of the internet and AI. Here’s a bit of what Toffler said about a computer concept called OLIVER (On-line Interactive Vicarious Expediter and Responder): “As computerized information systems ramify, (OLIVER) would tap into a worldwide pool of data stored in libraries, corporate files, hospitals, retail stores, banks, government agencies, and universities. OLIVER would thus become a kind of universal question-answerer…. It is theoretically possible to construct an OLIVER that would analyze the content of its owner’s words, scrutinize his choices, deduce his value system, update its own program to reflect changes in his values and ultimately handle larger and larger decisions for him…. Meetings could take place among groups of OLIVERs representing their respective owners, without the owners themselves being present.” I would have been flabbergasted if, as a youngster, I’d been clued in about the technological advances I would witness in my lifetime. I’ve truly lived a science fiction kind of life. But all the technology hasn’t resulted in a utopia. Advances in AI make deepfakes more believable all the time. My Facebook feed is increasingly cluttered with AI generated videos and pictures, making it harder to distinguish between fact and fiction—especially judging by the comments people leave. The connected nature of the internet adds to the seeming cloudiness of truth. Cybercrime is a constant threat. Sometimes I wonder if it will all come crashing down, as in the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel. How about you? Are you optimistic that our technological advances eventually will be self-correcting and propel society to greater heights? Or do you have an uneasy feeling that technology has raced ahead of what mankind is capable of handling? Is the best yet to come? Or have we peaked?

I retired from my 38-year career as an electrical engineer with the country’s largest operator of nuclear power plants on September 5, 2023. I’d often dreamed about having an enjoyable encore career, and a week after retirement I began working part-time as a Chief Engineer in a consulting firm with a few hundred employees. The job has largely been true to my dream. In the roughly 16 months since I retired from full-time work, my wife Lisa and I have undergone many changes related to our financial lives. Here are 10: Emptied our TreasuryDirect accounts. Given the current mediocre returns on savings bonds, along with a desire to simplify our finances, we cashed in all our on-line savings bond holdings, zeroing out our TreasuryDirect accounts. Cashed in paper U.S. Savings Bonds. The process of dealing with the Federal Government bureaucracy to redeem savings bonds seems clunky and slow. Many banks are no longer redeeming bonds, even for longtime customers. My bank still provides that service, so I’ve been cashing them in there. I’ve worked through all the highest denomination bonds. This has had tax implications as our interest/dividend income has been much higher than normal. I’ve adjusted my pension and earnings withholdings accordingly. Went on Medicare. Well, at least Lisa did. It was a very smooth process, all successfully completed online. I didn’t even feel the need to purchase ‘Medicare for Dummies’ to help navigate through the decision making. Plenty of good information was available here on HumbleDollar. And no, she is not enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan. Spent 50% more on eating out. My son Dan and I meet almost every Thursday for lunch. Dan is a software engineer who works from home and lives about a half hour away from me. My wife, daughter and daughter-in-law get together monthly for a Cutler girls’ meal. Having lots of flexibility in my schedule, I regularly meet for meals with a variety of friends. So does Lisa. And there are date nights, of course. Replaced our gas heating system. When a major part in our 23-year-old gas heater broke, I didn’t hesitate to replace the entire unit rather than getting it repaired. Furthermore, I didn’t spend any time agonizing before selecting the more expensive but higher efficiency replacement option. Cut the cord on cable TV. The addition of basic TV to our cable internet package was costing us about an extra $70 a month. Most of our TV viewing involves YouTube or Amazon Prime. Occasionally we watch our local TV channel, which comes in very clearly with an antenna. In fact, we can pick up about 11 channels over the air. Given our viewing habits, there was absolutely no reason to continue paying for cable TV. Funded Roth IRAs in retirement. Since I still have a modest earned income, we can fully fund Roth IRAs for both me and Lisa. I look at the Roth IRAs as our last line of financial defense. They are in essence our long-term care insurance policies, to be used only when all other resources have been exhausted. We hope to be able to transfer these policies intact to our heirs. Began modest withdrawals from my 401(k). About two-thirds of our financial wealth is in my 401(k). I realized that although our asset allocation is satisfactory to me, our asset location profile is not. It’s time to start slowly chipping away at the ticking tax bomb before the RMD grenade explodes in 13 years. I’m taking a baby step by starting withdrawals at an amount roughly equivalent to what a financial planner might charge me in fees. Increased focus on estate planning. Lisa and I are not getting any younger. At our ages, things can change quickly. My current focus on asset location is partly a nod to estate planning. We plan to update our wills this year. I continue to add more details to my ‘sudden death’ instructions letter for Lisa. Fixed a date to begin taking Social Security. Based on results from Michael Piper’s Open Social Security calculator, Lisa and I should both start taking our benefits at her full retirement age. That’s what we’re planning to do. As you can see, a lot can happen financially in a little over a year. I doubt that things will settle down in 2025. I may have a part-time job, but retirement is a full-time endeavor.

Do you think we are moving toward a competency crisis in this country? I told this story in a comment on an article a few months back: “Seven years ago, I bought a 2005 Outback. Despite the pink slip being clearly written by the dealer, the title came back with ‘Culter’ as my last name. I went to AAA for advice and they filled out a correction form for me. The title was revised to read ‘Renneth Culter’. I couldn’t believe it. Sent another correction form with very explicit instructions to correct both names included. It came back ‘Kenneth Culter’ again. I ended up having to drive to DMV headquarters an hour away to resolve the issue in person.” That experience with a faceless bureaucracy concerned me—was it the canary in the coal mine? If I can’t trust Department of Motor Vehicles employees to fix a simple typo, what else could go wrong in future encounters with government entities? Currently, there’s something like a two-month delay to redeem U.S. savings bonds by mail. What will the wait be in a few years when my bonds mature? And will the bonds even make it to their destination? Recently, in my neighborhood, a lot of mail is being mis-delivered…something that rarely happened even a few years ago. The post office is having a hard time finding anyone to cover certain routes. I’m told drug testing is out the window. I read news stories about “quiet quitting” and how slacking off is the new workplace norm. While I am a proponent of work-life balance, I’m concerned about the aggregate effect of work being increasingly less valued in our culture. This isn’t meant to be a shot at younger generations. I’ve worked with many engineers in their 20s who are diligent and competent. My son, a software engineer, has worked harder than I did at his age. My daughter, a proofreader and pre-flight specialist for a printing company, does her job with excellence and a pleasant demeanor. I think it’s important for people to take pride in their work, whatever it is. The corollary is that all people demonstrating a good work ethic deserve respect, regardless of the status society assigns to their job. Structural problems and management challenges contribute to declining competence trends. The healthcare complex comes to mind. Although we have high-tech equipment to aid in addressing various conditions, complaining about staff shortages seems to be de rigueur for both hospital patients and employees. With not enough workers to go around, preventable mistakes and errors of omission are increasingly made—despite our technology. Those workers who are trying their best under difficult conditions can be susceptible to burnout. It's not that everything is falling apart. My wife recently went on Medicare. I was pleasantly surprised at how smoothly the enrollment process went. Of course, everything was done online and she didn’t have to speak even one time to a live person. Not being particularly handy, I have lots of respect for craftsmen who are masters at what they do. I have a fantastic auto mechanic. In the past few years, we’ve had windows replaced, our heater furnace changed out, and a new roof installed. In each case, I was thoroughly satisfied with the job done and grateful that the workers took pride in doing an excellent job. I hope that my experience is typical but fear it may be less common than in the past. Without getting partisan, I think some of my unease is due to the incompetency on display by many of our most prominent politicians. The bar is set so low. Neil Postman wrote a highly acclaimed book in 1985 entitled Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Postman has turned out to be a reliable prophet—unfortunately for us. I wish I felt that our political class could make progress on fiscal issues like debt reduction and shoring up Social Security. I think that a collective lack of political competency will lead to a crisis and adoption of less than adequate solutions for these problems.

My first encounter with Jonathan was at an annual client appreciation event in Hershey, PA hosted by my in-laws’ financial advisor, Tim Decker. My wife Lisa and I attended as guests of her parents. The snacks served were nothing special, but the evening was still very worthwhile. Tim gave an “state of the union” update for his many clients in attendance and then turned the microphone over to Jonathan for the keynote presentation. I can’t recall any details from Jonathan’s talk that night a decade ago but I remember finding it quite interesting. I was happy to leave with a signed copy of his book Money Guide 2015, which is sitting on my desk in front of me as I type this. It wasn’t until about eight years later that I was re-introduced to Jonathan, when I stumbled across HumbleDollar. As fee-only advisors, Tim and his associates have done a good job for my in-laws. My father-in-law passed away a few years ago but my 91-year-old mother-in-law remains a satisfied client. Knowing I had an interest in personal finance, over the years Mom would occasionally pass along information or advice that Tim provided. Eventually, I got on Tim’s mailing list and started listening to podcasts of his weekly radio program that airs on a local AM station. I even paid for an hour of Tim’s advice several years ago when I first started contemplating retiring. I’m a bit sporadic listening to Tim’s podcast these days. I typically scan the weekly email topic summary to see if anything catches my interest. Today’s email included the following: “Tim announces that a very special, well-known guest will join him for the show on June 21.” HumbleDollar readers are a sharp bunch and you already know the rest. Jonathan is that special guest. I may try to tune in live to WHP 580 at 10 AM (EST) on June 21, but at the very least, I will listen to the podcast. You can too:   Financial Freedom

Early in my career, I took a quiz meant to determine how suitable a person was to be an entrepreneur. A high score indicated that one’s personality and interests were aligned with a life of entrepreneurship. A score close to zero was neutral, indicating neither a proclivity nor an aversion to being an entrepreneur. I scored deep in negative territory. I determined at that point to always be a salaryman, a path that worked out well for me. Some people fall into traps, wanting to be their own boss and fooling themselves that they have what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. About thirty years ago, I went through a period where I thought I had a target on my back. A certain well-known multi-level marketing scheme was popular at that time. In the course of a year, I had at least five different people approach me with their spiel.  It was always the same: they built me up, saying they noticed I was a sharp guy and that they were impressed at how well I handled myself.  The implication was that such an astute person would be able to recognize a great opportunity. Only after this flattering preamble would they get to the point of the phone call, in which they carefully avoided saying the name of their organization. A brother of one of my friends called and asked wouldn’t it be great to make more money so I could do whatever I wanted. I responded that I was happy with my income and didn’t need or want any more. That conversation ended quickly. Another guy randomly struck up a conversation with me in a bookstore at the local mall. We chatted a bit and he found out my name and where I worked. A week or so later, he cold-called me with his pitch. I politely declined. Six months or so later, this same fellow struck up a conversation with me in the mall again, completely oblivious that he had hit on me before. He was shocked when I called him by name. Darned if he didn’t phone me again with his sales pitch, as if he had never done so before. My response: “Look Fernando, I wasn’t interested the first time you called me about this and I’m not interested now.” Once again, he was flummoxed. I’ve known people who gave up secure, well-paying jobs to follow their dreams. In some cases, their new path became a gateway to success far beyond what they would have achieved working for a large company. In other cases, it resulted in disappointment and a huge step backwards. There are those who doggedly persevere through decades of lean times, because being their own boss is so important to them. It's good to know oneself. There’s certainly no shame in not having entrepreneurial skills and living your life accordingly. On the other hand, if you truly have the drive and internal qualities that are conducive to success as an entrepreneur, you may owe it to yourself to give it a whirl.