We have reached a point now we don’t need to use either free or paid tools or calculators for things like, figure when to claim social security, we have converted all our t-IRA accounts, so no RMD, nor NIIT, nor IRMAA. We have also done our estate planning and a letter of instruction, etc. We did very well with our budgeting with our spreadsheets.  All that is left to figure out annually are our annual retirement cash flow/income,

Three funerals in four weeks. A friend taken by bowel cancer. Another by a stroke. A third, most heartbreakingly of all, by his own hand. It’s got me thinking about life. The big questions no longer feel abstract; they feel like they’re sitting across the table, waiting.
So. Do you have any regrets about the choices you made in your younger years?
As the song goes, I have a few. Not spending more time with my daughters while they were growing up.

In his book “Die with Zero”, Bill Perkins lays out a framework for how to spend money to maximise your life. Ramit Sethi has his “money dials” to explain how to both enjoy money whilst still building a strong financial base.
But I reckon that the two wisest women in my life, specifically my wife and Mum, have it all worked out. And they didn’t have to write a book or start a podcast.
Mum was raised in a comfortable family home.

For context, I am 65, retired for seven years, married and have children and grandchildren. The lists below are based on my specific life details. I know items on your lists may be different, but I’d love to hear about them to learn from your experience.
Things I Am Doing Now As Compared To When I Was Younger

Learning to splurge a little more (as I am able)
Flying instead of driving
Using an Uber (versus park at the airport or ask someone for a ride)
Making larger financial gifts to loved ones (now instead of later)
Paying for meals at restaurants for our adult children and their families
Saving for the educational expense of grandchildren
Answering questions as the Identified go to person in my family for financial matters
Participating more at the local senior center I recently became a member.

I’m Jonathan’s brother, Andrew Clements.
I remember the crash of 2008–2009. Markets were nosediving with no end in sight. Fear was everywhere. Like many people, I wondered whether this time was different,  whether things might not recover.
I called my brother, Jonathan.
He told me to stay in the market. It would go back up, he said. And if it didn’t, well, then we were all royally screwed anyway.
So I stayed invested. And of course,

Felt a little uneasy with the market wobbles over the last while? Maybe some quiet anguish watching your numbers dip into the red? If so, welcome back to an old friend, recency bias, because that’s almost certainly what you’re experiencing.
Step back and look at your portfolio over the last 12, 24, 36 months and you’re on a solid upward trajectory. That’s genuinely good news. But you’re not thinking about that, are you? Your mind is stuck on whatever percent you lost last month.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time documenting my financial journey here on HumbleDollar. Some regular readers might remember me documenting both the purchase of a home (in 2018) as well as the sale of that home (in 2022). I purchased the house (an 1100 square foot ‘starter’) for $375,000. I sold it for $600,000 cash.
I recently saw that the house changed hands again. The numbers, however, tell a sobering story: this time it sold for $500,000.

This is the first piece I have ever written for HumbleDollar, because frankly I don’t have much financial nous to preach – particularly to a congregation that I assume to be, on average, better off than I.
I’m here with a question, not a pearl of wisdom, and I’m asking out of genuine curiosity.
Both my net worth and my retirement savings are around the 80th percentile for Americans. That’s way higher than I ever expected to be,

Like most people, I’ll get to feeling overwhelmed. Too many choices, too much complexity, just too much. Once the overwhelm kicks in, there are two ways forward; take a big deep breath and calmly work through the issue, or simply put the whole thing aside. I would like to think that I do more of the former, but as a human being, sometimes it’s the latter.
And it worries me that when financial advice is broadcast to a wide audience,

TAX EFFICIENT FUND placement is an often underrated topic. The goal of the tax efficient fund placement is to minimize taxes within your investments, and select the right account for those investments.

But how much does that actually matter?

Vanguard’s research finds that a thoughtful asset location strategy can add significantly more value than an equal location strategy. The value added typically ranges from 5 to 30 basis points of after-tax return, depending on circumstances (e.g.,

THERE’S BEEN DRAMA recently in a normally quiet corner of the market.
This story got its start back in 2015, when Warren Buffett helped to merge food makers Kraft and Heinz. At first, it looked like a smart idea. Through cost-cutting, the combined company was expected to save more than $1 billion in annual operating expenses.
“This is my kind of transaction,” Buffett said at the time, “uniting two world-class organizations and delivering shareholder value.

Now that some months have passed since Jonathan’s death, I thought I’d pen a special note to the site’s writers/contributors (past, present, and future but not in that order).  
To present writers: Please accept my heartfelt thanks for your ongoing contributions and for your role in keeping the site active, interesting, and informative.   Your commitment to HumbleDollar ‘s mission and to honoring Jonathan’s legacy as a master of all things personal finance is deeply appreciated. 

According to an article in the Toledo Blade (04/02), the Jones Leadership Academy of Business in Toledo is one of only two high schools in the country to have a simulated stock market lab. That is something that I feel the Toledo Public School district should be very proud of. The class is available to students during their junior and senior years. This is also the third year that the students have had a stock picking ‘challenge’.

I’ve a bit of an issue with chocolate. More precisely, I’m a chocoholic. Love the damned stuff with a passion that is frankly disproportionate for a man of my age and alleged maturity.
That doesn’t sit especially well with my lifestyle. I’m extremely sporty, in decent shape for a guy pushing towards the big 60, and broadly disciplined about what I put into my body. So chocolate and I have an arrangement: I want it constantly,

Imagine an orchard where, every season, fruit is harvested and sold for income. How much is the orchard worth?
One owner might say that the orchard is worth so many dollars—what it could be sold for. But another owner might say that the orchard is worth so many dollars per year; that is, it’s worth is expressed in the income it generates, not in it’s current market value. Ownership of such income-producing assets is what allows wealthy families to remain wealthy over generations.