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Comments:

• My views of spending in retirement have been colored by my parents' experience. My self-employed professional Dad always lived below his means- well, but below his means, He did not take on any fixed expense he could not afford, even at the height of his career. I learnt also from his foolish indulgences- adding my sibling's name to his financial accounts. When PSP(a rarer form of Parkinsons) struck, my sibling refused to sign any checks. Dad's signature did not match. I ended up taking care of both parents. They literally could not withdraw a Rupee(India) from their own savings accounts. Lesson: Keep your money close to your chest. Take care of each other(spouses). The children can wait for your funds until both of you are gone.

  Post: Not That Person

  Link to comment from June 26, 2024

• Before you set off on the gravy train have you thought about disability? Longterm care? Ungrateful children? Watch the 2003 Hindi movie "Baghban'(Persian for garden)."kya boya tha, aur kya kata soche bagban ". What did I sow and what did I reap?" Ungrateful children.

  Post: Give While You Live

  Link to comment from March 20, 2024

• Beautiful. Thanks for the Idea. I will do the same. Also I will start writing "Letters for my grandchildren" with snippets of their grandparents lives, as I remember them.

  Post: Bonding for Life

  Link to comment from February 17, 2024

• Very true for immigrants. We tend to return to India every year and semi-retire there. Old friends and relatives compete with grandkids for our emotional attention!

  Post: Drawn From Memory

  Link to comment from February 5, 2024

• Very engrossing. My Dad grew up middle class in what is now Pakistan. However he lost his father at 18 and had to fend for himself, his mother and siblings. After he started his law practice, he paid off the family home and put it in his mother's name. However he lost the home within months, when the family was forced to flee to India in the 1947 Partition. The loss of his home left Dad with a lifelong distrust of property ownership. We purchased our flat in Bombay at my mother's insistence. My mum, now 99, lost her mother at 11 and had to leave her home at 17, with 4 younger siblings, to escape an abusive father. All achieved a measure of success. My parents instilled in us thrift and humility. From my Mum I learnt positivity and a belief in God. From my Dad, that no amount of money is worth compromising your integrity.

  Post: Drawn From Memory

  Link to comment from February 5, 2024

• Sometimes one is compelled to retire after a traumatic event . The death of a parent one has taken care of for close to a decade.

  Post: A Senior Moment

  Link to comment from September 21, 2022

• Droll piece! Reminds me of the hours my Mum spent in Chor Bazaar, Bombay, hunting for antiques. Our home had a chandelier from an unknown period of the British Raj, ornate carvings allegedly from old Hindu. homes,which she knew were fake but bought for their beauty. Chor Bazaar, which is Hindi for thieves’ market, was a hunting ground for genuinely stolen goods, genuine and fake antiques and an offloading station for stuff from the mansions of dead rich merchants.

  Post: The Winner’s Curse

  Link to comment from September 21, 2022

• My kids qualified for no grants. I worked 7 days a week, 15 hour days, no vacations. We came to the US as immigrants with $ 10 in our pocket and one of us worked three jobs. I am enraged that after having met our financial responsibilities ourselves, we have to pay for others. Why? Get a second job. Let the kids learn a trade and go to school parttime(We did). If kids are handed out "free" money, how will they acquire a work ethic?

  Post: Games Colleges Play

  Link to comment from September 15, 2022

• I doubt US News will accept Dr T's advice. If it did it would lose its raison d'etre.

  Post: Games Colleges Play

  Link to comment from September 13, 2022

• Wish I had been wiser to the college game two decades ago. We spent substantial sums educating our children in fancy undergraduate and professional schools. We have been hit twice. First in buying into the numbers scam. Second in being socked with Biden's forgiveness program. As middle class persons, we should have saddled our kids with loans which would be forgiven, instead of foregoing vacations, etc to afford the tuition bills. The only solace is our kids turned out mature successful professionals, who, God willing, will not need us financially again.(One Ivy League lawyer; the other a physician).

  Post: Games Colleges Play

  Link to comment from September 13, 2022