SERIES I SAVINGS bonds have lately garnered a lot of investor interest because—if you buy during the current six-month purchase period—your initial annualized interest rate will be 3.54%. You’ll only earn that for the first six months. Thereafter, your yield will match the inflation rate. For bonds purchased between May and October, there’s no additional interest paid, over and above the inflation rate.
Still, the higher inflation climbs, the more interest your I bonds will earn.

RETIREMENT SAVINGS and decent health insurance are major goals for most Americans. Politicians attempt to help. Yet the resulting laws and regulations are confusing to the point of being counterproductive.

Can the average worker figure all this out? Nope. It’s too complex and unnecessarily so. Lucky Americans may get help from an employer, but many folks are on their own. Consider seven examples:

1. You can contribute up to $19,500 to a 401(k) in 2021 if you’re under age 50.

FOUR OF CANADA’S five biggest banks recently announced they’re going to raise service charges, even though they continue to rake in billions in profits. Taking advantage of people, when they’re struggling to make ends meet during the pandemic, is beyond comprehension—and it’s in direct conflict with my values.
In their defense, the banks stated that the increases were made after careful consideration and that other options were available to customers. This is classic bank-speak.

MY EMPLOYER’S 401(K) plan is great, with a generous matching contribution and lots of investment options. Those looking for even more choice can open a brokerage subaccount within the 401(k), allowing them to buy thousands of securities.
I’ve stayed away from the brokerage option, in part because I feared the extra choice might affect my investment discipline. But my growing anxiety about inflation forced me to reconsider.
I want a predictable cash reserve to cover my expenses for the next 10 years,

OFTEN WRONG, never in doubt. That describes many economic prognosticators. A rational response: Treat their predictions like hazardous waste—handle with caution, or better yet, don’t handle at all.
Among the countless examples, consider newsletter writer Harry Dent. Armed with a Harvard MBA, Dent makes market predictions that are fantastic and frequently wrong. In late April and more recently in June, he predicted that the market would crash, adding that if he’s wrong, he would quit his job.

GROWING UP, I WAS heavily influenced by the ideals of the Protestant work ethic. Working hard and finding career success provided great satisfaction, so I assumed I’d handle the second half of my life in the same way as the first.
This wasn’t a great plan.
I was around age 50 when I came across the writings of psychiatrist Carl Jung and his discussion of the two halves of life. For me, the timing couldn’t have been better.

THOSE WHO FOLLOW financial news know that mid-to-late July is the middle of earnings season. While I enjoy learning how companies are performing, I also get agitated by the way the media reports earnings information.
Having spent more than 20 years in corporate finance, I know the rigor involved in preparing earnings reports. Company accountants usually take one-to-two weeks to compile financial results, which then are reviewed by external auditors. In addition, investor relations,

AS JULY BEGAN, there was happy news for Chase Freedom Visa cardholders like me: One of the categories for 5% rewards this quarter is grocery stores. We spend a lot on groceries, which means I’ll get a nice cash reward from Chase.
I’m a big believer in credit card cash rewards for two reasons. First, of course, there’s the reward money. The second reason is psychological: Credit card companies are notorious for the outrageous interest and fees they exact from anyone who doesn’t pay off every nickel every month,

THE 4% RULE IS ONE of the best-known ideas in personal finance. But is it really a rule? And does it apply to you?

Let’s start at the beginning. The father of the 4% rule is a financial planner named William Bengen. Back in the early 1990s, he became frustrated with the prevailing rules of thumb for retirement planning. He found them too informal and set out to develop a more rigorous approach. The question he sought to answer: What percentage of a portfolio could a retiree safely withdraw each year?

IT’S SOCIETY’S responsibility to provide for those in need. “Need” is the key word here. It bothers me that so many resources are directed to those of us who made it to old age.

Although there are many low-income seniors, the generalization that we’re all income-challenged is a fallacy. According to the Congressional Research Service, “The poverty rate for individuals aged 65 and older historically was higher than the rates for adults aged 18-64 and children under the age of 18,

LAST MONTH, the Federal Reserve released the results of its latest stress tests of major financial institutions. As an investor in Wells Fargo, I took special interest in the Fed’s findings. Why? If Wells Fargo passed the Fed’s stress test, it would be allowed to raise its dividend, which currently stands at a paltry 10 cents a share, amounting to a dividend yield of just 0.9%.
I’m fully aware that my obsession with stock dividends is less than rational.

WE JUST LAUNCHED our newest feature: A blog that’ll be updated two or three times a day with new posts that typically run some 300 words. These posts will, I hope, complement the site’s longer articles, which we’ll continue to publish, though perhaps less frequently.
Why introduce a blog? It’ll allow HumbleDollar to be more timely. It’ll be a way to tackle topics that don’t require full-length articles. And it’ll be another opportunity to highlight the financial philosophy that drives much of what we write—and what makes HumbleDollar different from most other financial sites:

We think harping on the stock market’s daily action is foolish and that the forecasts of Wall Street’s chattering class aren’t just worthless,

MY 2007 HONDA CR-V’s air conditioning system started having issues about three years ago. I took it to a shop where they added refrigerant and declared the problem fixed. A year later, the AC stopped working again so I took it to a different mechanic, who declared the problem solved after adding refrigerant and replacing a relay. Several months later, I was once again driving around in a car at ambient temperatures. Because I spent much of the summer of 2020 working from home,

I RECENTLY WROTE about how my wife and I downsized to our beach home. It had long been a dream of ours and we’re thrilled it came about. Right after the move, we climbed on a plane and experienced another common dream of retirees—living in an exotic tropical paradise.
We visited our son, daughter-in-law, grandson and their Boston terrier in Nosara, Costa Rica. Nosara is a beautiful village and resort area carved out of the jungle on Nicoya Peninsula,

THIRTY YEARS AGO, I took a course on sales and entrepreneurship. We had to buy a few books, subscribe to The Economist and The New York Times, and buy an HP 12C calculator. This was not your usual sales class. I felt like I was piloting the space shuttle as I learned how to use that HP calculator.
I’ll never forget the first time the instructor had us calculate how much money we’d need when we retired.