“IT’S TOUGH TO MAKE predictions, especially about the future.” That’s one of the more amusing quotes attributed to Yogi Berra, but there’s also a lot of truth to it. When it comes to financial markets, the track record of those making forecasts is not good.
That’s why a rational approach to decision making is to avoid predictions, and instead base choices only on an assessment of where things currently stand. But even that approach can be fraught: Financial trends have a habit of reversing when least expected.

OUR ANNUAL INTEREST and dividend income in 2024 will exceed my inflation-adjusted pay as a mailroom boy in 1961. Of course, back then, I earned a bit over minimum wage. It’s been a long journey.

Below are the daily net portfolio gains and losses for the third and fourth weeks of last month. These figures reflect our cash account, index and actively managed stock funds, corporate and municipal bond funds, two utility stocks and two variable annuities.

IF YOU THINK IT’S irritating to debate an issue with folks who have already made up their mind, there’s one situation that’s even worse: debating an issue with those who have not only made up their mind, but also gone ahead and acted on their decision—especially if that decision is irreversible.
And, yes, many retirement decisions are irreversible.
Take issues such as when to claim Social Security, whether to take pension payments or a lump sum,

EVERY TIME I READ about the decline in traditional defined-benefit pension plans, and the rise and supposed failure of 401(k) plans, I get annoyed.
You’d think all Americans once had good pensions that provided a secure retirement. That isn’t—and never was—true. Barely half of American workers ever had a pension and many of those received little value from them because their job tenure was too short. Job tenure has long averaged some four years or so.

I’M NOT A GENEROUS guy. Which brings me to tipping.
I see a price on the menu, and I’m willing to spend that amount on the food. Then I have to spend additional money, after having consumed that food, because someone served it to me. Why?
What about the kitchen staff who cooked my meal? Should I tip them also? After all, I can’t cook, so the kitchen staff is doing me a more important service than the person who carries my food to the table.

I HAD LUNCH RECENTLY with a longtime friend—a 66-year-old retiree. I asked him how he’s generating income since he hasn’t filed for Social Security and doesn’t have a pension.
He said that, for now, he’s just drawing down his savings. I know his wife is three years older and her lifetime earnings were much lower than his, so I asked him if she’d filed for Social Security. He proudly said that she hadn’t—because she expects to live to age 90,

JEFF WAS A NEW engineer who began his nuclear power career a couple of decades ago as part of my group. He’d graduated from a middling engineering school with a stellar grade point average. Quiet, though not shy, he had a serious demeanor.
Jeff had a goal of purchasing a house as soon as possible. Needless to say, this was a tall order for someone just starting his career. He lived a spartan lifestyle,

MANY HUMBLEDOLLAR readers are the financial experts that friends and family members rely on. But how can you best help those around you? Below is an edited excerpt from the 10th anniversary edition of “A More Beautiful Question.”
We all like to give advice—it feels good. “When you’re giving advice, you’re in control of the conversation,” notes the author and executive coach Michael Bungay Stanier. “You’re the one with the answers.”
But people who are experts at using questions to build rapport will tell you: resist the urge to dole out advice.

YOGI BERRA IS MY favorite guru. His quip, “It ain’t over till it’s over,” pretty much sums up my losing battle with technology stocks.
The saga all began with an upbringing that bred a need for achievement that could never be satisfied, coupled with a prohibitive anxiety over risk-taking and failure. This family tape has played over and over again in my head as I’ve struggled to steer a course as a mutual and exchange-traded fund investor.

FOR THE PAST SIX years, we’ve rented a house in Florida for a month or so. We used VRBO, and all went well. Even minor problems with a house were quickly addressed by the owners or their rental agents.

Not this year.

In September 2023, we rented a condo on the beach in Hillsboro Beach for February 2024. In December, I received an e-mail from the rental agent, Houzlet, Inc., saying the owner had financial problems and was selling the place,

IN APRIL 1985, SENIORS in my high-school French program returned from a week in Paris and two in a La Rochelle lycée. They shared photos of the class in front of the Eiffel Tower. They detailed differences between French and American high schools. And they rhapsodized about the mighty U.S. dollar.
“France is dirt cheap.” The speaker extracted a Sony Walkman from her backpack. “This cost $30 less than it does here.”
I sat up.

I’M NOT THE SMARTEST guy. That used to bother me when I was in school. The smart guys were making their teachers happy. They were named to the National Honor Society. They went to the best colleges. They seemed to have it all.
As I got older, and began to make more and more decisions on my own, I had to come up with a method that would allow me to make good decisions,

LAST WEEK, I DISCUSSED a key challenge in personal finance: In an endeavor where we’d expect facts and logic to drive decisions, we instead find that misconceptions and misunderstandings often take hold. In my previous article, I outlined five common financial myths. Below are five more:
1. “When a company’s doing well, its stock should go up.” Benjamin Graham, the father of investment analysis, was famous for the way he explained stock market behavior: “In the short run,

I HAVE ONLY A VAGUE idea of how much I spend. I figured it was time to find out.
I’ve never budgeted because I’ve never seen the need. From my early 20s until three-plus years ago, I kept an iron grip on my wallet, spending with the utmost care and saving great heaps of money. Over those 35 years of fierce frugality, I don’t feel like I deprived myself, but I do feel like I thought about money far too much—and tracking my spending would only have made that worse.

LATE LAST OCTOBER, I was one of the first to move into the new building at my chosen continuing care retirement community, or CCRC. Now, more than five months later, I’m more confident than ever that I made a good decision.
I’m in my mid-70s, single and childless, with relatives 3,000 miles distant in both directions. Both bathrooms at my old home were up 15 stairs. Aging in place was not a good option.