If it hasn’t happened to you yet, there is a decent chance it soon will. The day when your spouse or partner says to you in the morning, “you hold your breath when you sleep”. Should that occur, there is a pretty good chance that you suffer from sleep apnea (SA). You would be in great company with these familiar folks; James Gandolfini, Regis Philbin, John Candy, Jerry Garcia, William Howard Taft, Reggie White, and Antonin Scalia to name a few.

Projections for the 2027 COLA are around 3.5%, but that could be the last such increase.
As part the effort to fix SS solvency, the idea of a flat fixed dollar COLA has surfaced again. In short that would mean most retirees would receive less than under the current calculation. 
For example, the COLA adjustment would be based on a certain level of benefits, say the 20th percentile. That is currently about $1,200 to $1,300 per month. 

We bought a house in 1971 for $59,000. The property taxes were $2,700 a year. We lived there until 2018. We sold the house for a little over $500,000. In 2026 that property is assessed at $483,000 and the taxes are $15,000 a year. The average annual increase in property taxes is about 3.17%. 
Over the same period (1971 to 2026), the average annual U.S. inflation rate (measured by the Consumer Price Index, or CPI) was approximately 3.92% per year.

We spend much of our lives thinking about money: how to earn it, save it, invest it and, eventually, how to spend it. If we lose money, there’s always the possibility of earning it back. Time is different. Each of us is given an unknown amount, and before we know it, a day, an hour or even a moment has passed, time that can never be recovered. Perhaps that makes time the most valuable asset we’ll ever possess,

I’m hoping Bill Perry and/or one of our other tax experts can answer this.
For tax year 2026, non-itemizers can deduct charitable contributions of up to $1000 (single) or $2000 (married). What I’m trying to understand is whether this deduction is taken before figuring AGI (Adjusted Gross Income) or after. I just did a quick web search and got conflicting answers—even from apparently knowledgeable sources.
Why worry about it long before we’re doing our 2026 taxes?

I came across a term I’d not heard before in an article from my local newspaper. S.K.I.ing: the act of spending down your retirement portfolio and assets without regard for familiar inheritance. To my mind it’s basically blowing the budget on travel and other indulgent consumption. Apparently it’s a growing “thing” now.
The article in question came with glowing endorsements from practitioners and testimonials from the potentially inheritanceless children, telling their parents not to feel guilty and they never expected an inheritance anyway.

Today marks the Autumnal Equinox, when the Sun crosses directly over the Earth’s equator, heading south. The equinox marks the official astronomical start of fall in the Northern Hemisphere and spring in the Southern Hemisphere. It occurs tonight at 8:05 PM EDT.  Days continue to grow shorter and the sun appears lower in the sky.
I wrote an article about the importance of four important astronomical days – the solstices and equinoxes – in my career as a spacecraft thermal engineer.

Earlier this year, I had two attempts to withdraw funds from different financial institutions within a couple of days of each other. The first was an annuity. The hacker submitted a withdrawal form either by fax or US mail. I discovered it when I got an email asking me to resubmit the request with the correct SS#. I informed the company that I did not submit the request and they immediately locked my account.
This may have been an inside job because I submitted a request to change beneficiaries a few days earlier which was the first time I had contacted the company since the annuities were setup 2 years ago.

When I searched HD I was surprised how many articles and Forum posts I wrote about taxes, all kinds of taxes over several years. The topic is so universal and so complex it is never dull and never not controversial. 
These days social media is inundated with posts about taxes, the very great majority are nonsense or fake information. My favorite these days is seniors should be tax free because they “paid their dues.” Or, they should not pay property taxes if they don’t have a mortgage.

Today marks one year since the death of my beloved husband, Jonathan. And what a year it’s been. To describe it as difficult is an understatement. To say it’s been painful doesn’t measure how painful. But somehow, some way, I had to adjust and accept my new life, my new reality without him. It’s not an easy thing to do. I miss his humor, his guidance, his thoughtfulness, his company (and these are only the tip of the iceberg) so very,

No, we don’t need to complete all 15 tasks by the end of this day. Still, we might knock them out by the end of the year. Meanwhile, I suspect that long before we’ve checked off the last of the list, we’ll experience less worry, better sleep–and hear fewer nagging reminders from our family.
1. Run an estimate of our 2026 taxes, while there might still be time to mull over, say, the size of a charitable donation or Roth conversion,

Our eldest daughter just recently moved out to begin her adventures as a young adult. My wife and I are suddenly discovering how quiet a house can be, and how much free time seems comes with “empty nesting”.
Given my fidgety nature, I’ve started looking for all the little jobs that have escaped my attention for a while, but can now be attended to. One of the most mundane was replacing the screen protector on my cheap Android phone.

IT’S BEEN AN UNUSUAL week in the bond market, and not necessarily in a good way. This has many investors questioning the value of bonds, which is understandable. Bonds are supposed to be the “safe” side of a portfolio, but they’ve struggled in recent years.
Arguably, the drama we’re seeing in the bond market today began more than 50 years ago. To put today’s situation in perspective, I’ll briefly summarize that long history. Then we can look at what steps you might take to better protect your portfolio from here.

WHEN MY YOUNGER brother Jonathan died, I thought I knew who he was.
After all, we had shared a childhood in England, years together at boarding school, family adventures in Bangladesh, and more than six decades as brothers. I knew the journalist the world admired, the devoted husband and father, and the man whose words quietly helped millions of readers live richer lives, not simply financially, but personally as well.
I was wrong.
Over the past several months,

I’ve never cared much for bond funds. They never mature. Their NAV is at the mercy of Federal Reserve policy. 
I like how individual bonds mature and return my investment, but I don’t want the risk of owning individual issues. 
I nearly brought this question up in Mark Corothers ‘Flipin’ post, but didn’t want to send his discussion about real bond returns down the wrong rabbit hole.
So here goes. I have a CD ladder to protect me from a lost decade.