Regular HumbleDollar readers are likely familiar with my passion for dogs. I adore dogs and find I generally prefer their company to that of many humans. 
Three years ago I retired. I had spent thirty years working in laboratories. I generally enjoyed the work but I was never particularly passionate about it. I spent my weekdays working in order to support my dog hobby on the weekends. 
Right after I retired, my husband and I toyed with the idea of starting a dog training business.

Some people’s recent experience with the Social Security and Medicare sign-up process has been smooth. Mine for Medicare? Not so much.
I turned 65 in November 2024 and wanted Medicare Part B to start January 1, 2025. Medicare.gov says that if you apply in the month after your birthday, Part B will start the following month. Perfect! I filed for Medicare on the Social Security site on December 2nd and even included a note that I wanted Part B coverage to start January 1.

In the personal finance corner of the internet, the conventional wisdom seems to be to work hard, save as much as you can, invest wisely and retire as soon as you can. The FIRE movement takes that further, to an extent that I think many of us find difficult to truly grasp.
And I get it. Retirement, or at least semi-retirement, has lots of attractions. Feeling tired? Sleep a little longer. Find something new and interesting?

Question: If someone has a relatively small IRA—say, around $54,000—do they need to be as diversified as someone managing a much larger retirement portfolio?
Here’s what prompted the question.
My neighbor recently lost his wife. She had taken the lead on their finances, working closely with an advisor at a national investment firm. Now he’s on his own, trying to navigate retirement decisions without much guidance.
I tried to help by simply asking questions—not giving advice.

Let’s all collectively do a real time experiment regarding my recent post/rant about the price of gas.   Facts :
1) Israel attacked Iran last night.
2) Refineries were NOT hit.
3) The Strait of Hormuz remains open
4) according to Google, it takes about 5-7 weeks for oil from the Middle East to arrive in the US
5) as I write this,  the price of oil has gone up 8.67 % since yesterday.
How long will it take,

As much as I hate to admit it and exercise regular self-denial, I am old. All the signs are there, my date of birth for one, right in the middle of WWII. There are maybe ten of us born in 1943. Actually 2.9 million of which about 50% can still read HD.
I take the occasional nap-unintentionally though. I bother people by engaging in conversation and telling stories, my grandchildren call me Pa. Actually nowadays my children do as well. 

There have been several posts and commentary in recent months about potential changes to social security, the consequences of the removal of the Windfall Elimination Provision, anticipated issues because of the President and DOGE, etc.
I posted on May 21 that my spouse was going to schedule an appointment with the nearby social security office and file. (There are 14 in this state, and our area population is about 1.2 million). Here is how it went.

I’ve owned stock-index funds for more than three decades—and that’s made a huge difference in my financial life. What if index funds didn’t exist? I can think of five key ways my financial life would be worse:
I’d allocate less to stocks. With broad market stock-index funds, I know I’ll get whatever the market delivers. If the alternative was actively managed funds or individual stocks, there would be far more uncertainty—and I’m not sure I’d have the confidence to allocate as big a portion of my portfolio to stocks.

“Which Is the Better Inflation Hedge? Both have some merit, but one is better than the other.”
Over at Morningstar Amy Arnott posted a short article to answer the question.
Here’s a part of her analysis:
“As shown in the table below, commodities were more consistent as an inflation hedge. They outpaced inflation in all five of the periods shown, while gold fell behind in two of the five periods. Gold did excel during the two separate inflationary periods in the early and late 1970s…..

Someone on HD asked if my inflation adjusted retirement income today still equaled my base salary when I retired. 
The answer is a resounding no. For every dollar of base pay in 2009 I would need $1.50 today. Since my pension does not have a COLA, any automatic adjustment is up to Social Security, but that is less than a quarter of our income. 
So, now I am 50% behind – no panic yet, but I am glad I didn’t start out say,

We are starting to consider booking a trip for 2026. We would like to go outside the US, if possible.  Some of you have encouraged me to make a post asking advice about where to go, what to do, and other things we might need to know about traveling out of country. (We do already have our passports from when we took a cruise in 2019 when we paid off our house.)   So, HD friends,

This past weekend I did the 200k Ride To Conquer Cancer.
On Saturday we rode from Toronto to Hamilton and on Sunday from Hamilton to Niagara Falls.
I knew it was going to be hard because I had only done one 100k training ride so far this year because of the bad weather we were having.
Also I suffer from bad allergies as well as exercise induced asthma and the day before it looked like it was snowing here due to all the white fluff in the air never mind the smoke from the forest fires out west.

Dear HD readers:  We had so much fun with the original version of this post, that I thought it might be fun to add a 3rd possible route to funding retirement at $138,000/yr.   Of course, there is no reality in this, no real personal info, it is just a scenario.  And, most important, any legal route that get you to your desired retirement income is the right one for you.
 
One of my friends is hitting 73 in August and we were discussing his need to do an RMD this year. 

What triggered this post was a Facebook meme claiming the wealthiest 0.1% have gained $4.4 trillion in the past two years, that they have grown their wealth at the expense of average Americans and that “without them your wealth would have doubled”
When I read that, my reaction is “that’s just wrong and so what, they earned it.”  I wish I was that smart. But that is not the typical reaction. Many people readily believe such a meme and are willing to bash the wealthy.

Of the things I have learned from HumbleDollar, and more specifically from Jonathan, is that increasing birthrates and immigration alone won’t solve our Social Security and Medicare quandaries. People need to work longer. 
I have pushed back on that idea by pointing out that for many employed in what I call the brutal occupations, working longer is easier said than done. While I stand by that sentiment, I know people who have changed lanes, expanded their wheelhouse and learned some new tricks.