My favorite word is “aware.”
I believe that missed opportunities, stress, poor decisions of all types, just many of the things we complain about result from not being aware of what is happening around us. 
Being aware means having knowledge or perception of something. It involves noticing, recognizing, or being conscious of what’s happening either around you or within you.
In essence, being aware is about being connected to what is happening, both internally and externally,

Coast Fire by Jason Kitces
Coast Fire sounds like a logical evolution of the FIRE (financial independence-retire early) idea. Not everyone thinks ending work is the greatest idea, but a lot of people might prefer less demanding jobs, such that they can both work and enjoy a lower stress life.
When I look at the technology and tools available to help people organize their personal finance and take over their lives I’m truly envious.

I like Wednesday now; it’s my favorite day of the week. When I was organizing everything before selling my business and retiring, I was so uptight and stressed about sorting out a cash flow stream for our everyday spending. I decided to pay ourselves weekly, reasoning it would make things easier to track what we spent this way. If you think about it, it’s a silly thing to do. It’s not like it was a surprise to me what we spent;

Suzie and I present a microcosm of the debate around financial advisors. I choose to use Vanguard and keep my costs low, whereas Suzie uses a former long-time colleague from her days in the banking sector who happens to be an independent wealth manager to operate her portfolio. To me, the portfolio seems unnecessarily complicated with an average fund fee of slightly over 1.5% in addition to a 0.5% advisor fee. This seems exorbitant in my eyes.

Like most Americans I pay taxes, income taxes both federal and state, sales taxes, property taxes and for fifty years, payroll taxes and I’m still, at age 81, paying income, sales and property taxes – plus assorted other miner taxes and fees on goods and services.
Like any normal person, I think it would be nice not to pay taxes and keep all my money. But unlike too many of the uninformed people ranting on social media these days,

Hired a  financial advisor who has claimed to be fee-only for a plan as we are 2-5 years away from retirement.  Wanted help with projections but especially with two areas:  amount and timing of conversion to Roths and 2.  real estate as we contemplate a new or second place.   Worried I received an annuity salesperson/asset manager in disguise as the first recommendation is to “simplify” our 401ks (almost all in Schwab target ETFs) with the creation of two funds—one actively managed (presumably by them) because they “can do better”

In an earlier article, I described my unexpected decision to use fixed-term immediate annuities (FTIA) to form a floor for my expenses over the next ten years. I thought you might find it of interest if I expand on this, relating to the balance of our income needs and how this might play out over the longer term. To be clear and upfront this strategy is “Prioritizing Income Generation Over Capital Preservation” but not in a reckless way and could change over each 10 year block.

While I am satisfied with my current investments and have not made any significant changes in several years I do occasionally evaluate alternatives.  I recently read a Morningstar article titled “Top-Performing Stock ETFs of the Quarter”.  Most had higher expenses than I would be comfortable with.  But several were low-cost, including Invesco S&P 500 Momentum ETF SPMO at 0.13% expense.  This ETF tracks the S&P 500 Momentum Index.  This got me looking into what “momentum” investing was all about. 

From the Wall Street Journal this morning: More than 1,000 families have lost a total of at least $190 million in 16 bankruptcies at continuing-care retirement communities since March 2020, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. Chapter 11 filings rose during the pandemic period primarily because these facilities didn’t have enough new move-ins. And because of the way bankruptcy proceedings work, secured creditors get paid before residents.
I ended my online subscription to the WSJ a few months ago,

A recent Kiplinger article lists ten questions to ask your financial advisor. This one caught my eye.
“6. Check out what car the adviser drives.
Hope that Lamborghini in the parking lot belongs to the doctor next door, not your adviser. A car can indicate how the adviser deals with his or her own money, and that will influence how they will approach managing your investments. “Clients don’t want to see you driving sports cars,” says Richard Rosso,

With passage of the most recent Federal legislation the Congressional Budget Office projects another 3.5 trillion dollars added to the US debt over the next 10 years. The inevitable result of this will be the Federal Reserve having to increase interest rates.
In 2022 this scenario resulted in a bloodbath in my intermediate bond fund. I don’t remember in my copious reading any advanced warnings of prices dropping precipitously as interest rates increased (in fairness I had read about the inverse relationship between prices and yields,

Crab Fishing, cold beer and your portfolio 101
While I was enjoying the simple sight of kids crab fishing at Portballintrae harbour, pondering the wisdom of a cold beer at the boat club, a sailing boat came into the harbour entrance. And just like that, I thought to myself:
A sailing boat is a tiny bit like a financial portfolio. The boat itself acts as the wrapper – your 401(k) or IRA – providing a protective structure.

Perhaps what we should be debating is which is the most important line on the tax return. I can tell you that most would say line 34, “this is the amount you overpaid, or line 37, “this is the amount you owe. I contend line 24 matters most, “this is your total tax”. Rarely, and I mean well under 1% of the time, did a client ask me how much tax they paid. As a matter of fact,

Key Medicare benefits are being stripped away, and patient care is being handed over to profit-driven corporations.

On June 25, 2025, in an unprecedented move, Dr. Mehmet Oz and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), announced that Original Medicare will now require prior authorization for a list of 17 services.
This marks a major shift—and a serious rollback of a key protection retirees have relied on for decades.
What’s Changing?

There is something of a tradition when family is at our place on Cape Cod and it puzzles me. Actually it is picture puzzles. 
A card table is set up and the puzzle pieces laid out. The puzzle is assembled on the three foot square coffee table. The puzzles are 1,000 pieces or more and are photographs of houses, woods, streams with many of the pieces looking very much alike. I guess that why it’s a puzzle.