Lido Lanes died a slow and painful death. It had always been a microcosm in its neighborhood. Bowling in Toledo used to be a huge pastime, generations of neighborhood families shared the lanes, participating in leagues and tournaments, eating and drinking together. My first connection with Lido was when I began working for the beer distributor in the 70s. The camaraderie there sucked me right in, it truly was a place where you were only a stranger once.

This recent article in the WSJ got me thinking.
https://www.wsj.com/personal-finance/inflation-proofed-retirement-cd2a387a?st=cvZSf3&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
I read it and tried to relate to it. I wanted advice on how to invest with this inflation that is causing my nest egg to be worth less. I found the article telling me to stop spending.  I got that under control but what about investing?
so HD readers what are you doing to inflation proof your retirement?

Readers of HD know I’m a big fan of a steady income stream in retirement, obsessed perhaps. You may not agree on how that can be achieved, but as interest rates have risen and likely to go higher, is now the time to consider an immediate annuity to supplement SS income or perhaps just enough to cover some key monthly bills?
With higher rates you get more for your money. MarketWatch just had an article with a chart showing how the monthly payment for a fixed annuity purchase grows with higher rates.

Spare a thought for your future self.
Down the road, will we be happy with the financial decisions we make today? I think this question has four crucial aspects.
First, there’s the obvious: Will our future self be happy with the amount we’re saving each month? Every dollar we spend now is a dollar our future self can’t spend.
Second, when we borrow money, the loan may come from a bank or a credit-card company.

Standing on a small stepladder in the understairs closet, I recently passed an uncelebrated milestone: I swapped out the last incandescent lightbulb in the house. It was hardly a grand achievement, just the natural result of traditional bulbs failing one by one over the years. Still, my frugal nature found it pleasing, and worth (pardon the pun) shining a light on.
Having changed every bulb with my own fair hand, I can confidently tell you there are 78 in the house.

I just asked ChatGPT for the median household income of Americans age 65-75 and 75- 80.
The answer was a bit of a shock. It said in part, “If you’re interested because you’re comparing this with your $x income, I can also show what percentile $x puts an 80+ American in, which is a very different comparison.”
The scary part is the $x it quoted was my income in 2025 and it knew my age group.

I was 9 years old when my parents sent me to boarding school in England. I would spend the next seven years there, far from home, struggling academically, enduring the teasing of other boys and counting the days until I could leave. At the time, I couldn’t have imagined where my life would eventually take me. I only knew how that young boy felt: frightened, lonely and, in many ways, broken.
Nearly 50 years later, I tried to put those feelings into words in a poem I called A Broken Boy,

Hoping the HD community can provide some clarity on this issue.
We are in retirement, have some pension income, drawing the lesser social security benefit and deferring the larger till 70.  We are 4 years from the larger SS benefit and 9 ears from RMDS.
We have relatively large traditional IRAs as well as Roths which were funded during our working years,  however, we have minimal taxable investments.
We are starting to visualize the tax, IRMAA,

In 2027 my and Connie’s Part D premiums will increase from $72.30 to $130.00 per month and our individual deductible will increase from $615 to $700 per year (the maximum allowed). Those new premiums do not include IRMMA extra premiums.
That’s quite a jump in out-of- pocket costs, I’ll cope, but given these premiums have nothing to do with income, such increases will be a true burden for many retirees. More consequences in retirement virtually unable to plan for. 

I listened to an interview with a former Social Security deputy commissioner, and one point stuck with me: Social Security isn’t going to vanish, but Congress still needs to deal with its funding problem.
I’m getting close to retirement, so I’d like to know what to plan for. I can run the numbers with a smaller benefit. What I can’t do is guess which changes Congress might make—or whether they’ll wait until the trust fund is nearly depleted before making them.

There are policy makers and think tanks who believe that Medigap coverage, especially Plan G (the most popular option) insulates retirees from out of pocket costs too much and as a result encourages them to use unnecessary health care, to not care what it costs.
I don’t know about you, but I have no desire to use any healthcare beyond what is absolutely necessary. In any case, discussions are underway to increase the out of pocket costs under Medicare with the idea of saving federal funds.

WHAT’S THE MOST important idea in personal finance? It’s hard to single out just one, but over the years, I’ve found the following dozen ideas to be among the most useful.

Whether it’s on TV or online, there’s never any shortage of market prognosticators. Especially during a bull market, everyone seems to have an opinion on where things are headed. The reality, though, is that people can only guess about how the economy, the market or any individual investment will perform.

A RECENT post by achnk53 about the impact of a spouse’s death on the survivor’s taxes piqued my interest.  The post referenced an interesting Kiplinger article about the “Widow’s Penalty”, or the negative tax implications on a surviving spouse after the death of a spouse. A surviving spouse can file Married Filing Jointly (MFJ) in the year of their spouse’s death. In the full year following the spouse’s death you must file Single. 

A few months ago, one of my daughters was home for a visit when she caught me red-handed, fishing a sock out of the kitchen trash bin. Cue the accusation: I was being “tight.” Some context first. Earlier that day, she’d been pairing up socks fresh out of the dryer when she found a hole in one of my sports socks and binned the pair without a second thought.
I should stress: I really don’t make a habit of rummaging through the rubbish.

It was my mother’s birthday, so I placed some flowers on her grave. I learned a lot about growing old from taking care of her.
When I was planning for retirement, I was mostly concerned about having enough money and how I was going to stay busy. But after spending time with my mother, I realized there was something more important—or at least just as important.
It was companionship.
I learned from my mother that no matter how many people you have in your life,