Joey and I just returned from Naples, Florida, where we stayed in a small, cozy Airbnb with the water right in front of us. Smaller homes surrounded us, though larger houses were beginning to change the neighborhood.
One morning at Starbucks, the woman ahead of me was telling the cashier about her oncology appointment later that day. The cashier shared that she was a cancer survivor. I mentioned my brother Jonathan, whom we lost to cancer.

Here at HumbleDollar, we spend most of our time on growing wealth. That focus leaves a blind spot: we’ve neglected readers who want to shrink their wealth through their investment choices. In the interest of balance, I’d like to address that gap systematically.
Let’s start with the easiest set-it-and-forget-it approach, a classic one-two combo. First, find a high-fee advisor who champions high-fee funds. Give it a few years and, if all goes to plan, you should see a healthy dent in your potential net worth.

Does it matter? Probably not if we are happy and reasonably financially secure. Benchmarks can be informative, if not helpful, though. For one thing they remind us when discussing money, affordability, frugality and such how relative, how different things can be and how normal at the same time.
An interesting (?) information exercise follows without conclusions or recommendations to move to Mississippi😎
Through extensive research (four AI apps) I have learned that “rich” is determined by income and “wealthy” by value of assets,

I see a lot discussed about using cash and bonds in retirement.  I’ve wondered why using portfolio income (interest and dividends) isn’t discussed to supplement or as an alternate to withdrawals.
I’ve thought about using income temporarily during market downturns to reduce cash and bond allocations.
What do you think and who has experience with this strategy?

FINANCIAL EMERGENCIES have a way of compounding when least expected. This is often coined as a correlated risk. I call it running out of clean underwear. 
My father used to profess, in emergencies, that turning pairs inside out was a legitimate way to extend undergarment use under duress. Financially, this is merely extending the life of a depreciating asset.  I am sure my mother would have refuted this concept. Nevertheless, before you judge me too harshly,

RECENTLY, A READER—let’s call him Tom—posed this question: If stocks historically have delivered far better returns than bonds, then why should an investor own any bonds at all? Even with the stock market’s unpredictable ups and downs, wouldn’t you end up way ahead by betting only on stocks over the long term?
It’s a fair question. Over the past 100 years, stocks have delivered returns of roughly 10% per year, while bonds have returned just 5%.

On 9/29/2026 the US Senate passed the Claiming Age Clarity Act that the US House passed in December 2025 and the the legislation is now on the way to the President for his signature to become law.
In a nutshell the law changes the terminology about how the claiming ages are referred to by the Social Security Agency.
H. R. 5284 Section 2 of the pending bill as adopted by the Senate without amendment reads as follows –

Over the past year, we received many comments expressing difficulty in logging in to HD from third-party sites such as Facebook, Disqus, etc.   And we listened.
A new feature on upper right-hand corner of the homepage navigation bar is an account/profile button from which you can register or convert a third-party login into a direct HumbleDollar login. Under FAQs there’s a new explainer animation that shows exactly how to do this: https://humbledollar.com/direct-login/ 
And if 

Lido Lanes died a slow and painful death. It had always been a microcosm in its neighborhood. Bowling in Toledo used to be a huge pastime, generations of neighborhood families shared the lanes, participating in leagues and tournaments, eating and drinking together. My first connection with Lido was when I began working for the beer distributor in the 70s. The camaraderie there sucked me right in, it truly was a place where you were only a stranger once.

This recent article in the WSJ got me thinking.
https://www.wsj.com/personal-finance/inflation-proofed-retirement-cd2a387a?st=cvZSf3&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
I read it and tried to relate to it. I wanted advice on how to invest with this inflation that is causing my nest egg to be worth less. I found the article telling me to stop spending.  I got that under control but what about investing?
so HD readers what are you doing to inflation proof your retirement?

Readers of HD know I’m a big fan of a steady income stream in retirement, obsessed perhaps. You may not agree on how that can be achieved, but as interest rates have risen and likely to go higher, is now the time to consider an immediate annuity to supplement SS income or perhaps just enough to cover some key monthly bills?
With higher rates you get more for your money. MarketWatch just had an article with a chart showing how the monthly payment for a fixed annuity purchase grows with higher rates.

Spare a thought for your future self.
Down the road, will we be happy with the financial decisions we make today? I think this question has four crucial aspects.
First, there’s the obvious: Will our future self be happy with the amount we’re saving each month? Every dollar we spend now is a dollar our future self can’t spend.
Second, when we borrow money, the loan may come from a bank or a credit-card company.

Standing on a small stepladder in the understairs closet, I recently passed an uncelebrated milestone: I swapped out the last incandescent lightbulb in the house. It was hardly a grand achievement, just the natural result of traditional bulbs failing one by one over the years. Still, my frugal nature found it pleasing, and worth (pardon the pun) shining a light on.
Having changed every bulb with my own fair hand, I can confidently tell you there are 78 in the house.

I just asked ChatGPT for the median household income of Americans age 65-75 and 75- 80.
The answer was a bit of a shock. It said in part, “If you’re interested because you’re comparing this with your $x income, I can also show what percentile $x puts an 80+ American in, which is a very different comparison.”
The scary part is the $x it quoted was my income in 2025 and it knew my age group.

I was 9 years old when my parents sent me to boarding school in England. I would spend the next seven years there, far from home, struggling academically, enduring the teasing of other boys and counting the days until I could leave. At the time, I couldn’t have imagined where my life would eventually take me. I only knew how that young boy felt: frightened, lonely and, in many ways, broken.
Nearly 50 years later, I tried to put those feelings into words in a poem I called A Broken Boy,