Finally, I’ve gotten around to building a ladder. I have procrastinated doing so because it seemed like a hassle; buy a one year, and a two, and a three, etc. Then after a year, roll the one year to a five, and on and on. If I knew how simple Fidelity made it, I would have acted sooner. 
Looking for ultimate safety, We decided to use Brokered Certificates of Deposit (CD). As most everyone here knows,

On January 1, 2004, a friend of mine was 46 years old. His IRA balance stood at $3,055.
He admitted he’d been late to the retirement game. “Beyond scared” might be more accurate. Reality had caught up with him. He felt behind and wasn’t sure it was even worth trying.
It would have been easy to ignore the problem. To assume it was hopeless.
Instead, he began contributing to his company’s IRA. He stayed invested. He let time and compounding do their quiet work.

Maybe not a scam, but certainly misleading. You have probably seen the ads for senior life insurance- no physical, no health questions- no problem protecting loved ones for $9.95 per month with premium guaranteed for life as long as you are not over age age 80.  What the ads don’t shout about is the $9.95 is “per unit”. Once you learn that, you need to find out what a unit of insurance represents.
What $9.95 a month will buy in terms of coverage varies by your age and the insurer.

Have you heard of the IP PIN?
(This is from the IRS website)
“An identity protection PIN (IP PIN) is a six-digit number that prevents someone else from filing a tax return using your Social Security number (SSN) or individual taxpayer identification number (ITIN). The IP PIN is known only to you and the IRS. It helps us verify your identity when you file your electronic or paper tax return.
If you don’t already have an IP PIN,

Occasionally I read about a new method or model for determining your portfolio withdrawal rate during retirement, or a formula to use when setting your asset allocation. While there’s nothing wrong with organisations trying to make things simple with these important questions, I sometimes wonder about how the research is framed.
Normally it’s a respectable financial institution, quite often backed by research from an in-house team or an academic institution, sometimes a combination of both. I’m sure the data and back-testing is rigorous and the intention is genuinely to help people figure things out.

This futuristic Research Report from June 2028 got Wall Street scared a few days ago. It predicts that AI will cause massive disruption and displacement in the economy which will lead to a terrible market decline.
It’s very scary reading not for the faint of heart.
Personally, with national debt at $38 trillion, I worry more about a looming debt crisis than AI.
What is your take on either of these topics? What are you worried about?

If you were me, age 82 living on a pension and Social Security with both qualified and brokerage account investments evenly split and with the goal of leaving as much as possible to our children…
how would you allocate your investments?
I have 55% in domestic stock mutual funds, but including 20% in one stock. 4% foreign stocks, 27% bonds and 14% in short term cash. 
None of this is the result of a grand strategy.

Regard my previous post: Need, yes. Deserve, no! Who “deserves” more?
Here is an e-mail I just received from the Senior Citizens League asking me to sign a petition. This is the broad brush, fiscally irresponsible approach I find misplaced.  
“SENIORS DESERVE RELIEF FROM INFLATION”
Note “deserve.” 
“Dear Richard,
Inflation continues to erode the value of seniors’ monthly Social Security checks and, for millions of older Americans, there’s no cushion left to absorb the blow.
This year’s modest COLA increase simply hasn’t kept pace with rising costs,

https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/yale-james-choi-portfolio-formula-stocks-02a96afb?st=z9cUhj&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
(From the WSJ a few days ago (HT Barry Ritholz))
“Yale University finance professor James Choi recently developed a formula that recommends an asset allocation based in part on your age, income, savings and risk tolerance. The formula is drawn from a paper he co-authored last year and was adapted for The Wall Street Journal.

In many scenarios, the formula recommends a more aggressive, stock-heavy portfolio than other popular guidelines.”
It includes a spreadsheet – and for me (66 and retiring soon) and my wife it recommended a 75% equity portfolio share.

For those HD readers that want to know about the future of two of our biggest entitlement programs.
A new study from the Cato Institute about who pays more in Social Security and Medicare taxes  than actually receives in benefits that has resulted in a $1.7 trillion benefit to those two programs.  Listen or read the piece on Markeplace.
https://www.marketplace.org/story/2026/02/23/immigrants-reduce-deficits-study-shows

Social media is loaded with videos, posts and memes with a common theme- seniors deserve to pay little or no taxes and they deserve higher Social Security and Medicare benefits. Neither are generous enough for retirees they say. And then there is the standard living on a “fixed income”rhetoric- which virtually nobody does.
Many of the posts claim that Social Security is not enough to pay the bills and does not keep up with inflation. 
I am not opposed to assisting anyone in need regardless of age,

My London based daughter came home again on Thursday for a long weekend, this time to go wedding dress shopping with the ladies of the family. The girls had a get-together the evening before the big dress shopping extravaganza, and since wedding talk was firmly on the agenda, I was duly exiled to my sunroom for the night. I’m pleased to report it was a successful mission and the bride said yes to a dress.
One of the greatest benefits of the wedding planning has been the regular visits home of my daughter.

“Never cross the street when you hear an ambulance coming, it’s very dangerous, because it’s you it’s trying to run down.”
– Ernie Souchak (John Belushi), Continental Divide, 1981
I just returned from “a free, no obligation presentation on how to protect yourself from expensive emergency ambulance bills and related costs not covered by your primary insurance,” or I like to call it, a free steak.
While this may have been my 15th free one,

We would all like to be happy, right? And there is no shortage of advice on the internet about how to get there, often by buying someone’s book or online course. The trouble is, does any of that advice actually work? Is there anything behind the claims?
After selling our business last year, I had a “void” that I imagine many experience in their early phase of retirement. I was keen to work again, and sent out lots of applications.

A relative couple of mine is living close to the bone. I’m not sure exactly why as they have two pensions (one military with COLA) plus Social Security and no mortgage. Even their property taxes are cut in half with subsidies. He had a good paying union job with good benefits his entire working life. Nevertheless, they seem to be scraping by. Both are in their 70s.
I recently learned they don’t have any income tax withheld from pensions or Social Security,