TRUMP ACCOUNT WAS created as part of the OBBBA signed on July 4, 2025. I’ve been getting a lot of messages about it, because there is a lot of conflicting information. The IRS has also posted some instructions for the account.
My goal with this post is to walk through the rules and give my take on when (if ever), this account makes sense.
Timing & Creation
First and foremost, no contributions are allowed in this savings account for children until 12 months after the law’s enactment,

LAST YEAR, an unusual story made the news: The University of Chicago was reportedly looking to sell an entity known as the Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP). The story came and went quietly, but it’s worth pausing to understand it.
CRSP’s origins date back to the 1960s. Its initial goal was to build a database of historical stock prices. This is harder than it might seem. Before trading was computerized, stock prices were maintained on paper.

No one wants to see a rollback. But we all know it occasionally happens.
As of February 20, 2026, the all-time high for the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) is about $642.
If we experienced a decline from that level:

A 20% drop would take VOO to roughly $513 — about where it traded in September 2024.
A 30% drop would land near $449 — roughly January 2024 levels.
A 40% drop would bring it to about $385 — prices last seen around May 2023.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers, if they had an opinion, would consider me a bit of a waste of space. Other than the very rare occasions when I pop a few generic paracetamol in the throes of man flu, I’ve had the good fortune of never taking any regular medication. I’m not enhancing the pharma industry’s bottom line in any meaningful way…”must try harder” would be on the report card.
That might be about to change. Recently, when I visited my doctor to whine about my inability to play tennis at a level high enough to compete against players twenty years younger than myself,

I like the idea of writing my obituary in the first person. I have composed a few drafts of such an obituary. It has been fun recalling memories from my youth and of raising my children, and thinking about the 8,590 or so days that Chrissy and I have been together, even former occupations and the friends I have made along the way. 
It would begin something like this; If you’re reading this, you waited too long to call me;

For all the cash back friends, BoA is changing its “Preferred Rewards” program.
Most people were parking $100,000 with Merrill Edge to get “Platinum” rewards status. This status allowed you to receive a 75% cash back boost (e.g. 5.25% on online categories or 2.62% unlimited).
Starting on May 27, BoA is changing the program. To get the 75% cash back boost, you now have to maintain a $1M balance. The new boosts are:
10% for the Member tier (any account except a credit card,

A few weeks ago I wrote about the Medicare Part D out-of-pocket limit of $2100.
When I went to fill Connie’s prescription last week I learned it was not on our plans formulary. I previously wrote it would cost $500 a month. It turned out it was almost $600. She needed the drug as it was giving her relief so I said I would pay cash. However, I used GoodRx The cost was then $529.
That meant no credit toward the $2100 out of pocket limit.

David Bach has an interesting whitepaper that proposes the government offer a program where withdrawals from retirement accounts are taxed at 12% from ages 60 to 68. The thesis is that 83% of the boomer generation do not tap into their IRA until RMDs forces them to.
What do you think?

I’m not cut out for individual share ownership. Through pure happenstance I’ve ended up holding shares in two separate companies, and the problem is I now feel obliged to make judgement calls. Should I keep them, sell them, how are they faring against their competitors? It’s all a bit of a hassle.
Compare that to my retirement portfolio, stuffed full of index funds representing thousands of individual businesses. I never give those a second thought. So why can’t I extend the same indifference to two measly company shares?

I check our investments daily, often more if the market is jumping around.  Why do I do that? There is no good reason. I don’t trade, I don’t even use the funds. 
If I am honest, I check the accounts only to keep proving to myself that I have been successful meeting my own financial goals. It’s just between me and me. 
Is there anything wrong with being proud of what you have accomplished when you started at the bottom with zero in hand?

I recently had my quarterly review with my financial advisor at a well-known national RIA with an office in my city. They prepare a thorough presentation with economic updates and detailed performance on all my holdings. While I follow my portfolio regularly, these meetings are valuable. They give my wife and me a chance to ask questions and stay aligned.
A little background: My accounts were previously managed by an advisor at a national brokerage firm in the city where I last worked full-time.

OVER THE PAST YEAR, a new term has entered the lexicon: “Sell America.” The idea is that investors are losing confidence in the U.S. economy due to persistent deficits and concerns about other policy choices. Owing to these fears, some investors are pulling money out of U.S. stocks and reallocating to international markets. Others are opting for gold and silver. The result: In 2025, for the first time in a long time, international stocks demonstrably outpaced domestic equities,

SOMETIMES WORLD events beyond your control create a hard reset point in your financial life. A before and after. For me, that point was the 2007 Great Financial Crisis (GFC). The psychological scars still reverberate into my current life.
 
Looking back, I was aware of something rumbling about in the financial landscape but didn’t take much notice due to being deeply involved in running my business. Little did I realize the impact heading my way.

Last February, just before I retired, I was wrestling with how to generate my retirement income. I flirted with the idea of moving 25% of my portfolio into a Vanguard UK equity income fund. I thought deeply about it—the fund historically yields above 4%, and combined with an annuity I was considering, it would have nicely solved my paycheck dilemma.
Eventually I decided against it, mainly because of the concentration risk. Betting that heavily on a single economy felt like too many eggs in one basket.

I don’t have the right stuff to be an engineer, as the math involved boggles my mind. But that didn’t stop my infatuation with spreadsheets in the nascent days of computer ownership. That was around 1990, roughly the same time-frame as the implementation of my employer’s 401k. 
Oh boy, enabled by my new love of Excel, my life was planned out via extrapolations of future earnings, savings rates, and stock market performance. My plan had me comfortably retired at age 55.