I’m writing this in our sunroom. From here I can hear my wife Suzie and my four-year-old granddaughter in another room, deep in earnest conversation about fairies. Through the window I can see my grandson in the garden, alternating between kicking a soccer ball and shooting hoops. In the kitchen, one of my daughters sits quietly tying bows onto favours for her upcoming wedding.
A very domestic scene.
But to me, this moment is worth more than the entire value of my investment portfolio.

Here are the results of an exercise to make Social Security last at least 75 more years. I used the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) estimator.
✔️Increase the payroll tax rate by 2% shared by employers (1% each) or raise the 2% only on employers
✔️Eliminate the taxable wage cap, and also accrue additional benefits based on those taxed earnings using a 15% accrual rate. The same percentage as the lowest accrual or “bend point” uses now.

Credit to John Mauldin and Ed Yardeni:

The three-week war in Iran is now 3.5 months, and there is zero consensus among people that I pay attention to as to when it will end. The Strait of Hormuz has been closed for weeks. As noted last week, Treasuries now come with an asterisk. China is building production capacity designed to permanently close the door on Western industry in thirty critical sectors. And the S&P 500 is up 17% in four weeks.

I OPENED MY FIRST bank account in the US at a local credit union (CU) close to my workplace. The CU had several convenient offers for employees of our company. With minimal effort, I opened checking and savings accounts, got free checkbooks and a credit card despite having no credit history in the US.
I was so pleased with the convenience that I handled all my banking needs through this CU for many years.

EARLIER THIS SPRING, Emil Verner, an economist at MIT, made an observation: The stock market, he said, seemed to be exhibiting “excess tranquility.” Despite an ongoing war, inflation and other negative headlines, investors seemed surprisingly unfazed. The market was on track for its fourth year in a row of positive returns. Through May, it had gained 11%.
But no sooner did Verner make this observation that the market did begin to wobble. Last Friday,

I know the HD readers have much in common. I’m interested to find out about our diversity.
What I’m interested in, is not the size of anyone’s portfolio, but it’s contents.
If your portfolio is a thousand, a million, or even multi millions doesn’t matter…. What is it invested in and it’s percentages.
As an example I would answer this inquiry I know that basically VUG and VTV are VOO (V Vanguard S&P 500). My wife who doesn’t really understand etf’s said it’s always done so well we should keep it.

Bonds vs. Bond Funds
A friend of mine was shocked when his “safe” bond fund fell in value as rates shot up after the Fed raised interest rates. He had to delay buying the new car. The fund wasn’t as safe as he thought. The value of his investment depended on future interest rates and on when he needed the money. Many investors do not really understand the main difference between bonds and bond funds.
Bonds mature.

The amount of misinformation out there about Social Security is astounding and to me very disturbing.  I put this fact sheet together. I hope you will share the next time you hear one of the outrageous claims being made.
The basic funding mechanism has remained essentially the same since Social Security began:

Workers and employers pay dedicated payroll taxes (FICA).
Benefits are paid primarily from those payroll taxes.
Any surplus is invested in interest-bearing U.S. Treasury securities.

I was in my friend’s workshop recently. He’s a goldsmith, the proper kind, with a laser welder, a magnifying glass tucked above one eye, and old fashioned tools he uses to make expensive things even more expensive. We were there because Suzie had lost a claw from the setting of her diamond engagement ring. One of those four tiny prongs that holds the whole romantic enterprise in place had simply given up, which made Suzie anxious until he fixed it in about ten minutes flat.

RDQ kicked off what I’d call a ‘good ruckus’ with his Billionaires, taxes and you post. I thought I would dive deeper into the “and you” aspect of the conversation. 
What about the rest of us? Below are the results of two 2025 tax returns I processed, and one based on the AARP calculator for tax year 2026. Two are retired couples over age 65. 
I included a hypothetical worker-bee couple as well,

As I review social media the angst over health care costs and insurance is apparent. Americans don’t like premiums, out of pocket costs, insurance companies or anyone interfering with their health care. Most people have no clue about the relationship between premiums, deductibles and out of pocket costs. One goes down the others must go up. 
Americans want any and all services paid without question and they want it all “free.”  
That’s quite a wish list.

I’m beginning to feel like I’m sitting on the sideline watching everyone else play. So far, I’ve asked questions (The Quiet Failure of Good Advice), listened to your answers, and fed back what I’ve heard (Reflections on a Quiet Failure). Thank you all again.
But maybe it’s time for me to say what I think.
Both questions I asked in Reflections on a Quiet Failure, in different ways, ask what financial planning is for. Let me share where my own thinking has landed.

My wife and I both feel very happy and proud today – our daughter reached her first major financial goal by buying a car and driving it home this morning.
This may not sound like a big deal, especially for a working lady in her late 20s. To us, it is.
It’s not about the physical possession of a material item. It’s a result of patience, discipline, and a few financial habits that we insisted on early.

I’m planning my first course correction 2.5 years into retirement. I thought I was going to write about Roth conversions, bucket strategies, asset location, and so on. And I am. But it turns out that that’s not the point.
I came late to the HumbleDollar/Bogleheads way of thinking. I’ve been absorbing it all for about 4 years. Thanks to Jonathan, Adam Grossman and all here. I’ve learned a lot, put the advice together into what I think is a coherent plan,

I used AI as an editorial assistant to help organize and refine my thoughts; the underlying ideas and personal experiences remain my own.
Like a lot of engineers, I spent my career solving problems the same way: build a model, gather the data, run the simulations, optimize the result. So when retirement came into view, I did what came naturally. I built spreadsheets—and got back a mountain of output and almost no peace of mind.