DICK QUINN RECENTLY wrote about his $233 surgery. I wasn’t so lucky.
When marketplace health plans first became available in 2012 as a result of the Affordable Care Act, my wife and I bought coverage. After my wife signed up for Medicare in 2020, I switched to a solo policy. I’d been counting down the days until I, too, qualified for Medicare at age 65. With a $7,000 deductible on my policy, I was crossing my fingers that my health would remain good.

WHEN I WAS LEARNING about investing, dollar-cost averaging was one of the first strategies I read about. Over the years, I’ve come across a number of articles debating the strategy’s virtues, usually comparing it to a onetime lump-sum investment.
Dollar-cost averaging consists of making a series of periodic investments rather than buying all at once. These purchases occur at regular intervals, regardless of the investment’s price that day. Using this strategy, you can purchase more shares when prices are lower.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN a person dies without a will and there isn’t enough money to pay all of his or her debts? Who gets paid and who gets shorted?
I’d always heard that funeral expenses were the first priority, and then unsecured creditors got everything else. I’ve recently learned from personal experience that the rules are more complex—and more generous to widows and widowers.
A 60-year-old friend of mine recently died. He hadn’t written a will.

I SPEND SIGNIFICANT time reading the viewpoints of people who are planning for retirement or who are already retired. My frequent reaction: What are they thinking?
When I review retirement planning discussions on Facebook and elsewhere, I often find the participants show little understanding of how to proceed or even what some basic terms mean. Here’s a sampling of the confusion and uncertainty I come across:

Should people aim to replace 70%, 80% or some other percentage of their preretirement income?

MONEY MARKET YIELDS are no longer zero. Far from it. With the Federal Reserve raising short-term interest rates by another 0.75 percentage point last week, investors can now park their savings in a safe money-market mutual fund and earn more than 2%.
If you look at Vanguard Federal Money Market Fund (symbol: VFMXX), you won’t see a seven-day SEC yield that’s that high—yet. But give it a few days. Right before the Fed’s move last week,

THE MEGA MILLIONS drawing on Friday was worth more than $1 billion. Would you be happy if you’d been the lucky winner?
Last week, I talked about the Vanderbilts. Once the wealthiest family in America, they saw their fortune dwindle because of aggressive spending. Back in the 1890s, for example, the family spent $7 million building the Breakers, a summer home in Newport, Rhode Island. That’s the equivalent of $220 million today. When it was completed,

YOU PROBABLY RECALL many firsts: Your first car, your first kiss, maybe even the first stock you purchased.
Firsts are exciting. Firsts are easy to demark. You’ve never purchased an item before, so—when you do purchase it—it’s a first. By contrast, lasts sneak up on you. There’s always a chance that you’ll replace an item one more time.
My wife has caused me to start thinking about my lasts.
This winter, my 36-year-old winter mittens finally wore out.

WHEN MY WIFE AND I were young, it was common to receive savings bonds for major events, such as birthdays and religious celebrations. We carried on the tradition with our two sons and we’re planning to do the same for our grandchildren.
With our sons, we bought savings bonds to mark significant childhood milestones. We held on to those paper bonds for many years, and gave them to our sons when they graduated college.

IF WE GO TO THE movies and buy a mega-tub of popcorn, we’ll eat a lot, probably too much. If, however, that same amount of popcorn is packaged into four bags, we won’t eat nearly so much.
Why? With the four bags, we keep arriving at a decision point—that moment when we have to ponder whether it’s worth opening a new bag. This is the insight of behavioral economist Dilip Soman of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management,

WHEN I GRADUATED high school in 1961, my parents offered this advice: “Find a good company to work for and stay there.” At the time, my choices were the phone company, a major insurance company and a utility. I applied to all three and would have taken a job with any of them, but ended up at the utility. I worked there until I retired in January 2010.

Today, my parents’ advice seems almost quaint,

MY FATHER WAS BUILT like a linebacker and hollered like a coach. One evening in the late 1950s, I accompanied him as he went door-to-door to collect rents.
A tenant called Schoenfeld—I only recall his surname—paid his rent reliably, but he was always a month late and he didn’t include the late fee. This drove my father nuts. That night, he unloaded on him. When I asked my father why he had to be so hard on Schoenfeld,

I WOKE UP THIS morning at 4:15 a.m. I don’t need an alarm clock. My internal clock makes sure I’m up at that time.
I hopped out of bed and did a quick shave with my electric razor. I put on my running shorts, shoes and T-shirt. I headed down to the kitchen. I ate half a toasted organic sprouted-wheat muffin with a thin layer of peanut butter and a small portion of a banana.

I ADMIT I’M ENVIOUS of people who feel passionate about their careers. People who have no desire to stop working. People who can’t imagine how they’ll fill their days when they finally retire.
I spent 37 years in the workforce. My first few years, I held multiple part-time jobs to put myself through college. Once I completed my master’s degree, I began working fulltime. For 30 years, work was just a daily chore.
During three decades of employment,

FALLING IS ONE of the scariest health risks that seniors face. According to the Centers for Disease Control, more than one in four seniors fall each year. The CDC estimates that over three million older people are treated in emergency rooms for falls annually, and more than 800,000 are admitted to hospital.
Most hospitalizations after a fall are to treat head or hip injuries. Falls also cause broken bones, especially in wrists, arms, ankles and hips.

I RECENTLY CHATTED with a clerk at an art supply store. We both complained about the Texas heat. Whenever I engage in small talk or meet new people, the weather is my safe, go-to topic. As the saying goes, “Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it.”
Changes in the weather affect us to varying degrees—pun intended. Some effects are minor, like rain interrupting our outdoor plans. Others are more serious.