Laura E. Kelly

Comments:

• We're enacting a similar plan to yours, Rob, as outlined in this article I wrote a few months ago. https://humbledollar.com/2024/09/laying-down-a-floor/

  Post: Spending It

  Link to comment from January 11, 2025

• About 6 years ago, I was helping an author promote her book about end-of-life matters and ended up going to a local "Death Cafe" to try to let people know about the book. They didn't allow promotions like that there, but I ended up staying and having a great conversation with a group of very nice people, all ages and walks of life. Over the years, I've attended a number of these Death Cafes (it's a worldwide movement and with the pandemic a lot of them went from in-person to online). It's not a support group--just random thoughtful people who want to talk about this "last taboo" in order to reduce fear and enable themselves to live more fully. Often their friends and families have NO interest in that (my case). I have found the small-group conversations (3-5 people) refreshing and "normalizing" about end-of-life issues, which we all have faced in some way, even if it's a pet that died. Most illuminating was when a young woman from Mexico filled us in on the Dia de los Muertos (Nov. 1-2), her country's celebration of ancestors where facing the fact of a finite life is baked into the culture. This matter-of-fact attitude is the basis of the colorful animated Disney film "Coco," which won a 2018 Academy Award, so I guess some Americans moved past that "last taboo"!

  Post: Eyeing the End by Jonathan Clements

  Link to comment from October 26, 2024

• So much heart, common sense, and wisdom in this great interview with our humble editor. I especially liked this section (copied from the transcript):

  But it’s only by making gifts during your lifetime that you can see how financially responsible your children are. You can view it as a test, give them some money and see what they do with it. But I would also say that there’s a lot more happiness to be had by giving away money now rather than waiting until death. It’s nice to give money to your kids and see the smiles on their face and see that you can give them a sense of financial security today. And while we’re talking about family here, the same holds true for charity. There’s great pleasure in giving money to charity now, much more pleasure than waiting until death and not really having the fun of writing that check and getting the thank-you note from the charity and so on. So, to the extent that you can give with a warm hand rather than cold one, I would encourage you to do so. But it really depends on who you’re dealing with.

  Post: The Long View Podcast: Jonathan Clements: ‘Life Is Full of Small Pleasures’

  Link to comment from October 15, 2024

• In my case, I have money outside the TIPS ladder that will grow (hopefully) for the next 20 years (length of my ladder) and then, or before then, may use that money to buy an immediate fixed annuity for simplicity and longevity reasons. (Do they sell annuities to people in their 80s?)

  Post: Hedging your bet in retirement-dealing with inflation. What’s your strategy? R Quinn

  Link to comment from September 29, 2024

• Yes, Rob Berger's video, published when the TIPS rates were at their highest in 2023, was one of my best resources when I was buying about 3 months later.

  Post: Laying Down a Floor

  Link to comment from September 28, 2024

• Hi Dick, To answer your two questions:  The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is the inflation measure used in Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS). In comparison, the Social Security annual Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) is based on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W). The CPI measures price changes for all urban consumers, while the CPI-W measures price changes for urban wage earners and clerical workers. Neither index sounds to me like they are that pertinent to retirees, but that’s what the government uses. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ As for “Is the money locked up?”: I purchased and keep the bonds in our IRAs in our Vanguard accounts and can sell them on the secondary bond market (via VG) at any time. So it’s not like an insurance annuity where the money is locked away out of our reach. EXCEPT, as with all ladders, the plan is to hold each rung to maturity, whereupon each year a rung matures, I would get the guaranteed amount of the inflation-adjusted principal on those TIPS and interest from the other future rungs.  My TIPS ladder gives me certainty that a portion of my savings will keep pace with general inflation over time, which is what I was looking for. There is a lot more I could say, but for those curious about a TIPS ladder, read my article with more details (and good HD comments!) at https://humbledollar.com/2024/09/laying-down-a-floor/ and these helpful articles at https://www.tipsladder.com/resources/TipsLadderResources.html

  Post: Hedging your bet in retirement-dealing with inflation. What’s your strategy? R Quinn

  Link to comment from September 28, 2024

• Knowing that our savings was all we were going to have in retirement, aside from all-important Social Security, it was scary to learn how inflation would take an ax to that nest egg over 30 years. I wrote on Humble Dollar a few weeks ago in Laying Down a Floor about my plan to cope with the inflation scourge in retirement. We'll see how the plan pans out, but it's already giving me peace of mind.

  Post: Hedging your bet in retirement-dealing with inflation. What’s your strategy? R Quinn

  Link to comment from September 28, 2024

• I guess the decision about letting the bonds mature in the Roth and either reinvesting it or taking the money as needed OR liquidating the bonds right away would be up to your children. But I think that one of the pluses of this kind of "self-annuity" is that the money is there for your inheritors, as opposed to insurance annuity payments, which end when you do, right?

  Post: Laying Down a Floor

  Link to comment from September 17, 2024

• Hi achnk53. Here is a link to the Bogleheads explanations and remedies for the TIPS gap years 2033-39: https://www.google.com/search?sitesearch=bogleheads.org&q=TIPS+gap&sid=3404f1292b2340947b875f12baa7a55a This happened because the government didn't issue TIPS in certain years way back, so there weren't bonds maturing for people building TIPS ladders that spanned the above years. Following the suggestions I found on the various Bogleheads threads, I bought more TIPS bonds maturing the year before 2034 and same for the year after the gap (2040), splitting the difference to cover the "missing years." The tipsladder.com tool I mentioned told me exactly how to make the wisest purchases to cover that gap, so it was a no-brainer. The good news is that the gap is closing. Last year the government issued a 10-year TIPS bond that matures in 2033; this year the government issued a 10-year TIPS bond that matures in 2034, etc.

  Post: Laying Down a Floor

  Link to comment from September 17, 2024

• Hi CJ, See my RMD musings in a comment above. Over the past 10 years we have been through all sorts of lumpy surprises—big health emergency, new car (after a rear-ending of the old one), new roof, financial support of relatives, high NY taxes, the ever-rising cost of streaming subscriptions!—so we now have a good idea of the average annual amount to budget for. Each TIPS ladder rung is budgeted to cover ~60% of that annual number, with our two Social Security streams (eventually) covering the other ~40%. Until that point of "total coverage," we'll use our ever-rolling CDs and other cash savings to cover what the TIPS can't. We could also cut back expenses and/or pick up some work, possibly. Finally, we do have that other half of our savings, supposedly "growing in equities" for 20 years but also there in a pinch. Our plan may not cover all eventualities—decades of bad health events or even affording the steep lump-sum entry fee of a Continuing Care Retirement Community—and I'm trying to get used living with all the unknowns.

  Post: Laying Down a Floor

  Link to comment from September 15, 2024