AS I PREPARE FOR retirement, I’ve been reminded that I should “retire into something,” that I should use my anticipated free time for a meaningful purpose. During the past couple of years, I’ve discovered that—for me—one of those “somethings” is to care for “the farm,” 200 acres of rolling countryside in western Tennessee. This discovery has been both surprising and delightful for me, and has led to a reconnection with the farm and, through that reconnection,

MY HUSBAND WAS STILL working at age 65 when he went into heart failure. After heart surgery, he wanted to return to his job as the warranty administrator at a large New Jersey auto dealership. But we worried that the commute would be too taxing. He traveled 55 miles each way to and from his job, and it could take hours and be treacherous when the weather was bad. When additional complications ensued from the surgery,

DOES THE RISE IN dual-income families, which started in the 1960s, mean that today it’s almost a necessity for both spouses to work? In my opinion, absolutely.

Our first child was born in 1970. That was the last time my wife was employed, apart from a brief part-time job when our youngest was in high school. But we’re the exception. Over the past 40 years, the number of couples where both have jobs has soared from about half to 70%,

HERE’S ONE OF THE most important lessons I’ve learned in retirement: Bad health will limit what you can do—or feel like doing—no matter how much money you have. Good health is the biggest determinant of how rich and fulfilling your retirement years will be.
You and you alone are responsible for your health care. It’s not your spouse, your children, your friends or your doctors. It’s you. Nobody should have to beg you to see a doctor.

AN IRONY OF PERSONAL finance is that retirement can take work. More than once I’ve heard a retiree express this sentiment: “Working was easy. Retirement is complicated.”
There is, I think, a lot of truth to this. When retirement appears on the horizon, numerous questions enter the picture. There are, of course, financial concerns: “How much will I need? Do I have enough? How should I invest my savings?” These questions are important, but they aren’t the only ones.

HOW MUCH OF YOUR retirement planning revolves around your kids and grandkids? Your estate planning goals probably include bequeathing a meaningful sum. Perhaps moving closer to your kids and grandkids is part of your plan. Whether you consciously think about it or not, you may be counting on your children to help out if needed during your final years. That seemed to be my father’s plan.
But what if you don’t have kids? How different would your retirement plan look?

BUDGETS CAN BE a contentious topic. Some people swear by them. Others argue they’re unnecessary if you easily spend less than you make. No matter which side you take in this debate, I’d advocate budgeting for one item: kindness.
I’ve always enjoyed reading news stories about strangers who left unusually large tips for their waiter. After reading such stories, I’d daydream about where I’d leave large tips if I was that rich. One day,

WHAT’S THE BIGGEST threat to your retirement?

For young adults, we know a key pitfall is failing to invest in stocks because they’re so afraid of the market’s short-term ups and downs, thus unwittingly risking impoverishment later in life.

But for those of us nearing retirement, the market’s ups and downs can start to matter more than stocks’ long-term inflation-beating performance. An ill-timed market crash or a run of bad annual returns could ruin our retirement plans.

WHETHER MONEY BUYS happiness is a matter of debate, but a recent incident reinforced my conviction that financial security does indeed help. The incident would’ve caused me considerable distress a few years ago, when I was earning more but was still dependent on my fulltime job’s paycheck. My newfound financial security, however, transformed the situation into a truly memorable experience.
My wife, Bonny, and I both enjoy attending Indian music and dance performances. We make it a point to see the live shows put on by local groups and,

IT’S TIME TO THROW out our broken retirement system and start over. My first article for HumbleDollar, published more than five years ago, was titled Choosing Badly. It was about the inability of most employees to make good use of their 401(k) plan.

Guess what? Nothing’s changed.

Today, some 401(k) plans still have too few investment choices, while others have too many. There are multiple options that people don’t understand, such as target-date funds compared with index funds,

WANT TO IMPROVE YOUR portfolio’s long-run performance? You could boost your stock allocation—something I wrote about last year—or cut your investment costs. But don’t overlook another key strategy: thinking carefully about which accounts you use to hold your various investments, or what financial experts call “asset location.”
My wife and I have taxable accounts, Roth IRAs, traditional IRAs and a health savings account. Earnings in each account get different tax treatment both now and in the future.

AFTER MY FIRST TWO years of studying electrical engineering at Virginia Tech, I got an internship at Frito-Lay working at its research headquarters in Irving, Texas, far from my New Jersey home. I was paid handsomely, treated well, had access to state-of-the-art computer equipment—and was miserable.
Some of that stemmed from spending the summer away from friends and family. But I was also having a career crisis even before my career began.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to work as an engineer for the next 40 years.

I RECENTLY HAD THREE retired men visit my psychology practice, each grappling with depression. Just as women face special challenges during their senior years, so too do their husbands, fathers and male friends.
Who hasn’t been seduced by those syrupy commercials where an elderly couple hold hands while walking a sun-kissed beach? Retirement is advertised as a magic carpet transporting us to a well-earned destination of meaning and frolic. But the reality is more complicated.

HEALTH SAVINGS accounts (HSAs) were introduced in 2003, and have since become commonplace in employee benefit plans. My experience with HSAs dates to 2004, when my employer offered $400 in one-time seed money as an incentive to sign up.
HSAs differed from existing health-care flexible spending accounts, and offered some features I preferred. To me, the HSA’s most appealing feature was that I controlled the money. There’s no “use it or lose it” rule,

LAST MONTH MARKED two years since I leapt into the unknown and left the security of the corporate world to begin a second act as an independent writer. How’s it gone? Have things panned out as I hoped, financially and otherwise? 
Let’s be clear upfront that this move was never about making money. It was about taking a shot at my long-held dream of being an author. I’d put that dream on the back burner for three decades as I did what was necessary to support my family.