This morning, as I was drinking my coffee, I realized it was September 1st. Today, with the kids returning to school in Ireland, grandparents across the country will be taking on after-school care duties.
This got me thinking. Just after I retired and before heading to my vacation home, I had an eight-week window into one aspect of my retirement future: helping out a couple of days per week minding the grandkids.
This was a new and unique adventure that I’m looking forward to resuming in late September.

Numerous readers have asked about my health, and the answer is “not good.” I’m not in any pain, but I suffer a lot of fatigue and brain fog, a product of two rounds of radiation, one of my brain and the other of my back. I also had a “brain incident” in August that caused me to lose the ability to read and write for a few days.
All this has made it taxing to run HumbleDollar and to correspond with readers.

(Full disclosure: I used AI to help me write specific comments since I started writing them before I was fully awake)
My comment to Mr. Quinn’s very popular piece (8/22/2025) on Social Security appears below. It might even continue his discussion on a topic that affects all of us who are US citizens.
As a small business, in the late 1970s, we converted over to a 401(k) plan as a means to provide our employees with a way to save for their own retirement.

Jonathan,
Since you haven’t posted much on HD in over last two months (that I’m aware of anyway), I assume you must be suffering the full brunt of your disease. Please know this community you built thinks of you often, and that we continue to offer our collective thanks and encouragement to lift your spirits in whatever small way we are able.
As a reminder to others, I sent a $1,000 gift to the Bogle Center for the Jonathan Clements Initiative,

NEW RESEARCH CAN help with an age-old question: When constructing a portfolio, how much risk is too much? Especially today, with the market again near all-time highs, this is an important issue.
On the one hand, we could dismiss this concern by noting that all-time highs aren’t as uncommon as they might seem. According to one analysis, the U.S. stock market has been within 5% of an all-time high on 44% of trading days since the 1950s.

Many times in the past I’ve proclaimed that our guaranteed sources of income fully fund our retired lifestyle. An exception was in 2023 when we had a new home built, but that was more like moving money from the IRA bucket into the real-estate bucket. 
We have been taking a 3% distribution from the IRAs, mostly from my account due to the Required Minimum Distribution (RMD), and end up transferring excess funds into non-qualified savings and brokerage accounts.

The IRS recently released the new 2026 W-2 form.
Just as I predicted in the “OBBBA Tax Breakdown“, the IRS included new boxes for line 12 of the W-2:
TA – Employer contributions to your Trump account.
TP – Total amount of qualified tips. Use this amount in determining the
deduction for qualified tips on Sch. 1-A (Form 1040).
TT – Total amount of qualified overtime compensation. Use this amount
in determining the deduction for qualified overtime compensation on
Sch.

I am a newcomer to Humble Dollar. I didn’t have the privilege of Jonathon’s writing & wisdom through his long career with the Wall Street Journal. So I write this from the perspective of someone only recently introduced to this community.
With recent discussion about “up-votes” and “down-votes”, I just wanted to offer my humble (no pun intended) opinion, and a hope that we can all find some gratitude for this very special place on the internet.

re RDQ’s “down arrows” —> My 1 cent :

Rather than being lost in the middle of a prior post, I thought I would put this more front and center given:

1) it  currently has 7 down votes
2) which prove my point
3) Thanks to David Lancaster for your comment, included below, for what seems to be a “courageous  act” on your part !
 

Why is there “voting” on peoples comments ? If you have a comment,

I posted the following 1-2 days ago within the body of another topic.  Since it has so far garnered  7 down votes, you have
1) proven my point
2) I am making it a post of its own.
3) thanking David Lancaster for being the only one who actually bothered to leave a written comment, see below.
re RDQ’s “down arrows” —> My 1 cent :

Why is there “voting” on peoples comments ? If you have a comment,

When my cardiologist called, she used words I rarely hear. I asked her to hold on as I put my cell phone on speaker so my wife could hear. She repeated, “You were right!”
Many weeks before, after my Apple watch suggested I had Afib, I called my cardiologist, who happened to be on vacation. The doctor on call suggested that I go to a trauma-equipped ER hospital.
I arrived unannounced and explained the reason for my visit.

My friend is an independent IT Systems Integrator. She essentially pitches for tenders from large corporations and government departments for help with new software integration. It’s a very well-paid job, but there can be lulls between contracts. This requires a good deal of business savvy to manage not only the workload and tendering process, but also her intermittent financial situation and the need for constant training to stay relevant.
A woman who has her life together you would think.

I am fascinated by technology these days although I am certainly not a techy. Hey, I remember when a copy machine used a tank of foul smelling chemicals and one copy took forever and then was on damp grey paper. 
New technology at work was once an IBM word processing center using 12” disks. My first printer was dot matrix using a roll of perforated paper and now I’m writing this on the beach using an iPad linked to my iPhone for a world-wide connection. 

From my readings on this site, I seem to be in the minority on a particularly popular and expensive retirement pastime: foreign travel.
Over the years, I’ve traveled a fair part of the world, from wide-ranging business travel throughout Europe and extensive global leisure travel on every continent other than, strangely enough, the Americas (except for the Caribbean). I still travel. For instance, I was in the Canary Islands just off the coast of North Africa for a 60th birthday celebration in February,

The other day, I believe I was bitten on the arm by an insect, which left a fairly large red blotch with a couple of small puncture marks. I assumed it happened while working in our yard. I bought some over-the-counter hydrocortisone to apply to it. After a week, though, it started to look more like a rash.
I decided to visit a walk-in clinic. The physician assistant examined it and advised me to mix hydrocortisone cream with Benadryl cream and cover the area with plastic wrap twice a day.