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.

INFLATION IS HURTING all of us—but in different ways. Even as the Federal Reserve tries to tame the inflation beast, it’s also prudent to look at our own spending and see if there are ways we can help ourselves.
What are some of the things my wife and I are doing? We had a recent discussion about the issue and came up with a list of modest changes we plan to make:

We’ll drive less.

IN MY LATE 30s, with my architectural apprenticeship complete, I opened my own firm. Even with a low income, I saved.
Nine years later, in 1988, Philadelphia’s Drexel University invited me to develop its brand-new architectural engineering program. A retirement plan with a generous match was an unexpected benefit, and I always contributed the maximum. As I aged, family inheritances helped somewhat. By 1999, both Quicken and a financial advisor confirmed that, if I chose to,

INFLATION IS TAKING its toll on Americans’ view of the economy. But things could be a lot worse. Exhibit A: Europe.
Last week, the U.K. reported its inflation rate had surged to a four-decade high of 9.4%. June’s reading was a significant bump up from May’s 9.1%. Even higher inflation is expected as year-end approaches, with the Bank of England seeing annual inflation hitting 11%, according to The Wall Street Journal.
In fact,

WHEN HE DIED IN 1877, Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt was by far the wealthiest American, with a fortune of $100 million. In the 10 years after his death, his son William succeeded in further doubling those assets. It was an astonishing level of wealth. But that’s precisely when things began to turn.
One of Cornelius’s grandsons built the 125,000-square-foot Breakers mansion in Newport. Another commissioned Biltmore in North Carolina, which is still the largest home in America.

“REGRETS, I’VE HAD a few. But then again, too few to mention.”
What was true for Frank Sinatra most definitely isn’t true for me. I’ve had more than a few regrets, and I want to mention the most recent one.
Late last year, Mark Cuban offered me $100 in bitcoin to download the Voyager app, deposit $100 and make a $10 trade. For those of you who are lucky enough not to know what Voyager was,

EVER SINCE COVID-19 disrupted our lives, I don’t go to the gym that often. I usually work out on my own. When I go, I sometimes see Tony. Tony is still Tony. He’s a chronic complainer. It’s usually about little things.
The other day, he was chatting with a woman at the gym. While Tony was talking, she gave me a smile. It was her way of warning me that Tony was complaining again.

AS MY OLD NEWSPAPER company slid toward bankruptcy, it signed over the deeds to its newspaper buildings to the pension plan in an effort to meet its obligations. It was like burning the furniture to keep the house warm—and it worked about as well as you might expect.
When the company finally filed for bankruptcy in 2020, it laid the blame on its unfunded pension obligations. The pension fund was short by $1 billion,

ALMOST SEVEN MONTHS on, I’ve failed miserably with one of the New Year’s resolutions I wrote about for HumbleDollar—but I’ve done well with the other.
I’d like to take credit for my success in not obsessively checking my IRA, but the discouraging reality of the financial markets has a lot to do with it. This year, going online to view my account several times a day—which I’ve been known to do—would have left me feeling truly hopeless.

I RECENTLY WROTE about lifecare communities. These provide a continuum of services—independent living, assisted living, custodial care—to meet changing needs as a retiree ages. The lifecare contract guarantees that, no matter what happens to your money, there will be a place where you can receive the appropriate level of care.
That brings me to a recent innovation offered by some continuing care retirement communities. Called lifecare at home, it’s much less costly than moving into a retirement community,