I’m Jonathan’s brother, Andrew Clements.
I remember the crash of 2008–2009. Markets were nosediving with no end in sight. Fear was everywhere. Like many people, I wondered whether this time was different,  whether things might not recover.
I called my brother, Jonathan.
He told me to stay in the market. It would go back up, he said. And if it didn’t, well, then we were all royally screwed anyway.
So I stayed invested. And of course,

Felt a little uneasy with the market wobbles over the last while? Maybe some quiet anguish watching your numbers dip into the red? If so, welcome back to an old friend, recency bias, because that’s almost certainly what you’re experiencing.
Step back and look at your portfolio over the last 12, 24, 36 months and you’re on a solid upward trajectory. That’s genuinely good news. But you’re not thinking about that, are you? Your mind is stuck on whatever percent you lost last month.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time documenting my financial journey here on HumbleDollar. Some regular readers might remember me documenting both the purchase of a home (in 2018) as well as the sale of that home (in 2022). I purchased the house (an 1100 square foot ‘starter’) for $375,000. I sold it for $600,000 cash.
I recently saw that the house changed hands again. The numbers, however, tell a sobering story: this time it sold for $500,000.

This is the first piece I have ever written for HumbleDollar, because frankly I don’t have much financial nous to preach – particularly to a congregation that I assume to be, on average, better off than I.
I’m here with a question, not a pearl of wisdom, and I’m asking out of genuine curiosity.
Both my net worth and my retirement savings are around the 80th percentile for Americans. That’s way higher than I ever expected to be,

Like most people, I’ll get to feeling overwhelmed. Too many choices, too much complexity, just too much. Once the overwhelm kicks in, there are two ways forward; take a big deep breath and calmly work through the issue, or simply put the whole thing aside. I would like to think that I do more of the former, but as a human being, sometimes it’s the latter.
And it worries me that when financial advice is broadcast to a wide audience,

TAX EFFICIENT FUND placement is an often underrated topic. The goal of the tax efficient fund placement is to minimize taxes within your investments, and select the right account for those investments.

But how much does that actually matter?

Vanguard’s research finds that a thoughtful asset location strategy can add significantly more value than an equal location strategy. The value added typically ranges from 5 to 30 basis points of after-tax return, depending on circumstances (e.g.,

THERE’S BEEN DRAMA recently in a normally quiet corner of the market.
This story got its start back in 2015, when Warren Buffett helped to merge food makers Kraft and Heinz. At first, it looked like a smart idea. Through cost-cutting, the combined company was expected to save more than $1 billion in annual operating expenses.
“This is my kind of transaction,” Buffett said at the time, “uniting two world-class organizations and delivering shareholder value.

Now that some months have passed since Jonathan’s death, I thought I’d pen a special note to the site’s writers/contributors (past, present, and future but not in that order).  
To present writers: Please accept my heartfelt thanks for your ongoing contributions and for your role in keeping the site active, interesting, and informative.   Your commitment to HumbleDollar ‘s mission and to honoring Jonathan’s legacy as a master of all things personal finance is deeply appreciated. 

According to an article in the Toledo Blade (04/02), the Jones Leadership Academy of Business in Toledo is one of only two high schools in the country to have a simulated stock market lab. That is something that I feel the Toledo Public School district should be very proud of. The class is available to students during their junior and senior years. This is also the third year that the students have had a stock picking ‘challenge’.

I’ve a bit of an issue with chocolate. More precisely, I’m a chocoholic. Love the damned stuff with a passion that is frankly disproportionate for a man of my age and alleged maturity.
That doesn’t sit especially well with my lifestyle. I’m extremely sporty, in decent shape for a guy pushing towards the big 60, and broadly disciplined about what I put into my body. So chocolate and I have an arrangement: I want it constantly,

Imagine an orchard where, every season, fruit is harvested and sold for income. How much is the orchard worth?
One owner might say that the orchard is worth so many dollars—what it could be sold for. But another owner might say that the orchard is worth so many dollars per year; that is, it’s worth is expressed in the income it generates, not in it’s current market value. Ownership of such income-producing assets is what allows wealthy families to remain wealthy over generations.

Income, living P to P, even retirement security is relative. You can’t apply just one set of numbers, but HD folks know that. I intuitively knew it too, but I never looked closely at some variables. Relocating and downsizing are often a part of retirement and can have positive or negative financial consequences. It’s something to think about. 
For  example:
In New Jersey the lower limit of middle class is nearly $70.000 a year, but in Mississippi it is about $40,000.

I’ve always been vaguely reassured by the idea that the stock market is run by very serious people with very serious computers, all doing very serious maths so that prices reflect reality. It seems like a reasonable arrangement. Sometimes I think I’m giving the whole operation considerably more credit than it deserves.
I was watching the news a while back when a story came on about a market “flash crash,” billions wiped out in minutes, recovered almost as fast,

I have found, especially as I get older, that there is a real benefit to simplifying many aspects of my life.  For me the reasons include:

Saving time
Easing decision making
Limiting behavioral mistakes, including thrashing or freezing, due to complexity 
Preparing for cognitive decline or physical incapacity
Preparing for ease of transferring responsibilities to spouse or children

Do you find that simplification helps you and if so what things have you done to simplify your financial situation and other aspects of your life?

After some of the site’s recent Forum posting and commenting activity, I’d like to share the following rules for posting and commenting.
Rules for posting to the Forum: 

Must illustrate something financial whether it be a lesson, an observation, or a story. The financial component can be obvious, a hidden nugget within a well written story, or something in between. The majority of posts achieve this.
No polls to readers. Polls to the readers will come from me or Bogdan.