When Rachel and I got married, I was already in my 60s. After our wedding, my sister said to Rachel, “You take good care of my brother.” My cousin Barb told her husband, Kent, “I don’t know what would have happened to Dennis if he had never met Rachel.”
I got the impression they didn’t think I could take care of myself in retirement — that it would be too difficult to go it alone. I get it.

The phone call from my 29-year-old daughter in London recently sparked a familiar parental concern. She and her partner were jetting home  not for a family visit, but to catch a Coldplay concert. My mind immediately did the mental math: flights, tickets… easily $500 per person. And then it hit me: this is the third major concert they’ve attended this year, on top of a holiday to the Canary Islands and my other daughter is at this very moment camping her way around Turkey and Greece.

For those of us HD readers who have warned against the problems in using Medicare Advanatge (MA), you may want to read an op-ed published in the The Hill on Sunday. Former Republican Rep. Jim Greenwood of Pennsylvania, who helped write the Medicare Modernization Act that created Medicare Advantage, stated directly: “The program no longer lives up to [its] promise.”
Greenwood once believed private competition would drive innovation and efficiency. But today, he says,

Just read this article:
https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/financial-lessons-father-long-term-care-insurance/
about 10 lessons learned when the author was dealing with obtaining benefits from his father’s LTC insurance company. My parents had policies they bought decades before their deaths. My sister was the DPOA finance so I was not privy to the details of the policies, nor any difficulties she may of had trying to access their benefits.
We don’t have policies, but I figured this information may be valuable to other Humble Dollar readers who do.

For years, my financial trajectory was meticulously planned. I’d diligently accumulated a substantial pension pot, culminating in the recent sale of my business. The path was clear: a smooth transition into early retirement at 58, aiming for a conservative sub-3% drawdown rate. Full steam ahead, I thought, to the promised land of financial independence.
But then, something unexpected happened. In the months leading up to my planned exit, a strange attraction to Fixed-Term Immediate Annuities (FTIAs) began to grow.

Our oldest child is age 55, – three children ages 14 and 12 (twins),
our second is age 54 – three children ages 14, 13 and 10,
our third age 51 – three children 18,17 and 13,
and our fourth age 50 – two children ages 20 and 17
All ages are rounded.
Look at these ages and what comes to mind, college, retirement? Pretty sure not retirement any time soon. This is what I ponder when I read about FIRE or even early retirement before age 60.

Well, mostly FI, but some RE. (FIRE standing for Financial Independence, Retire Early). Christine Benz from Morningstar recently attended a CampFI event in Spain, and wrote about her experience here.
She comments that “A lot of people have a caricatured perception of the FI community. They assume that everyone is trying to live on $10 a day in order to hang it up at age 35.” While she met some young people, she met older people as well.

Just weeks into my retirement, while sitting on a beach beside the Giant’s Causeway on Ireland’s north coast, a profound sense of gratitude washed over me. It was for a person whose name I couldn’t recall and a face I’d forgotten.
Forty years prior, in my very first job, I served a customer who turned out to be a pension salesman. To make a long story short, he persuaded an 18-year-old me to open a personal pension,

I’m sure that there are several on Humble Dollar who have navigated this path – selling a family business and moving on to whatever is next. We are part way along that journey, and it feels like a good time begin sharing our story.
For some background, we own and operate an automotive workshop in a small country town called Heyfield in Victoria, Australia. My Dad is now a 60 year veteran of the automotive industry,

When my wife asked for a hint for the Father’s Day present I was hankering to get, I was stumped for a day or so. I don’t need a new tie or wallet, or the new garden tool that I sometimes suggest. My eventual answer didn’t surprise her, but she was amused. I’ve asked my daughter to answer two questions: What’s the origin of Father’s Day in our country, and does she think it’s worth observing?

Oh my, I’m beginning to think that some of the articles I find on the internet aren’t really news at all. Below is one I clicked on today. It reminds me of those free dinners that Mike Flack recently posted about. I also think it ties in well with Dave Lancaster’s post about calculating net worth. 
The article didn’t define how it calculated net worth. I assume it includes checking and savings, IRAs and similar accounts,

This is a decision I had to make several years ago when I turned 65. I started out with a no premium five star local Advantage plan to take “advantage” of the free perks for the first year, then switched to traditional Medicare with a plan G supplement, the most expensive plan. To most this would seem quite contradictory, but let me explain my reasoning. Medicare allows first time enrollees to trial an Advantage plan for up to a year,

Around the world there are a vast number of ways that countries seek to provide financial support to its retirees. I certainly won’t profess to being an expert in any, including my home of Australia, but I thought it might be interesting to give some insight into how our superannuation scheme works, along with some of my thoughts.
Back in 1974, around 32% of Australians had access to retirement funds via a range of pension schemes.

STATISTICIAN GEORGE E.P. Box once made this observation: “All models are wrong,” he said, “but some are useful.” This certainly applies to finance, where many of the concepts are imperfect but can nonetheless still be useful. Below are four such examples.
Market valuation. Are stocks overpriced? It’s a question without an easy answer. Even academics who have studied the topic can never be entirely sure. Consider the cyclically adjusted price-earnings (CAPE) ratio.

Here is an interesting article I just read on my weekly Boldin (previously New Retirement) newsletter.