This will be difficult to make come across as intended, but here goes.
What is the point of being financially secure, of having adequate assets and income and not having a comparable standard of living?
No, it doesn’t mean buying a Vacheron Constantin watch for $195,000, but it also doesn’t mean driving a ten year old junker. 
We can claim to enjoy living modestly, “comfortably”, but is it true? Wouldn’t we rather live a bit, just a little bit,

Most people use a version of the 4% SWR in retirement. I think it’s the wrong approach for most, although it offers a tempting idea: an extremely high probability of not running out of money and genuine income stability. These reasons are its biggest Achilles heel—it causes the median retiree to pass with a large amount of unspent wealth. Many studies suggest two-thirds to four-fifths of retirees end with a portfolio equal to or larger than their starting balance.

This is from my blog, but I thought interesting. You may recognize the doctors name from recent posts.
The idea of health insurance is generally said to have begun in the 1940s, but consider this.
Early in his career (around 1815) in an attempt to build his practice in Philadelphia, Dr. Philip Physick offered the first healthcare insurance package in the country. He advertised that he could take care of an entire family for a year for $20.

My home has a mature garden and spacious rooms. It borders a regional park and is within walking distance of the small town I live in. There’s a large hospital with a primary care facility nearby. As for curb appeal? Nothing fancy. But that lack of curb appeal let me pay 15% below the market rate for the area. Works for me.
My car is parked in a driveway with space for maybe 4 cars. It’s an 8-year-old SUV with 80,000 miles on the clock,

Great article and tribute about Jonathan in the New York Times. This is a link to it that hopefully you can read without a subscription.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/23/business/jonathan-clements-wsj-personal-finance.html?unlocked_article_code=1.rk8.3FoY.S-b5ghKuzDQY&smid=url-share

Predictions  are the trend to enroll in Medicare Advantage plans will slow and MA plans will be forced to trim benefits. A recent article on MarketWatch provides more analysis.  
Many seniors still like MA plans for their extra benefits and generally lower premium costs, but they don’t like limited networks, required referrals, deductibles and co-pays in some cases. 
But that is not the problem. 
According to the (10/4/25) article, “The market (for insurers) remains lucrative as the government pays 22% more per Medicare Advantage enrollee,

This is a knee jerk post. I just heard an ad for Schwab where they said they will sharpen your trading skills to learn how to trade brilliantly.
What immediately popped into my mind was I am not, nor do I want to be, a brilliant trader. I want to be a brilliant investor (hardly the case but I’m trying).
What about you? Do you aspire to be a brilliant trader or a brilliant investor? For I think they are totally different creatures.

Every now and then I read an article and think “Wow, I wish had written than”. I’m sure I’m not alone.
Recently I came across this article from Safal Niveshak, which is part tribue to Jonathan Clements, and part ode to simplictiy.
Money Is Simple. Why Do We Make It Complicated?

My favourite passage:
“A simple equity fund, a fixed-income option, and plain insurance are enough for most of us. But the industry thrives on multiplying choice because that’s how assets are gathered.

Times have changed. Six months ago, ten minutes of sitting still felt impossible, I got restless very easily. Since retiring, I can happily sit in the sunroom for an hour simply watching the clouds float by. I actually find it very therapeutic. It reminds me of my ten-year-old self, drifting off watching clouds from the classroom window instead of doing my work.
I keep coming back to this topic. Having time that’s truly mine has changed something fundamental in me.

Jonathan Clements liked to joke that he was born at 6:00am and on January 2nd, “thus establishing a lifetime habit of starting early.” But he truly did get a fast start and seemed to waste no time.
Jonathan—who passed away this week—discovered his love of writing early on. He described his English boarding school as a “brutal” environment: “cold dormitories, disgusting food, endless bullying.” But that was also where he began to write, earning a spot on the staff of the school magazine.

I’ve heard it many times, it’s all over social media. I earned my Social Security benefits, I paid for them.
We certainly paid taxes (actually under a separate law) to fund Social Security and all its benefits beyond retirement income, but we did not pay for OUR benefits. 
According to SSA actuaries and Congressional Budget Office studies:

A typical medium-wage worker retiring at full retirement age (66–67) usually recoups their own payroll contributions within about 3–5 years of collecting benefits.

This is  just in case you missed it. 
Dave Lancaster was kind enough to post all the information for Jonathan’s memorial on Saturday, November 8: 
https://humbledollar.com/forum/information-on-jonathans-memorial-service/
He also asked if there was interest in HDers meeting for pizza at Pizzeria Vetri on Chancellor St on Friday 11/07. I would sure like to put faces with the names of my HumbleDollar friends. I hope you can add your name to the list.

LARRY ELLISON, THE 81-YEAR-OLD cofounder of Oracle Corporation, recently became the world’s wealthiest person.
Oracle, a software company, isn’t nearly as large as its peers. So how did Ellison’s net worth manage to surpass that of Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and the founders of other much larger companies?
The answer is simple: In the nearly 50 years since Oracle’s founding, Ellison has almost never sold a share of his company’s stock. According to an analysis by Smart Insider,

IMAGINE YOU ARE already doing all things possible to minimize your taxes:

You are maxing out your pre-tax 401k
You do tax loss harvesting
You did tax efficient placement
You are maximizing Roth IRA through Backdoor Roth

But what other strategies can you use to minimize taxes? You also might not want to start a business or buy real estate.
Another option that many people aren’t aware of is the cash balance plan (CBP).

Ah, retirement. That grand, glorious moment when I traded the frantic pace of business ownership for… well, for whatever mischief I could inflict on my wife Suzie. I don’t like spreadsheets, the temptation to take a stab in the dark when your spreadsheet adverse is strong.
It’s easy to do, isn’t it? You look at your savings, you subtract a few zeros, and you just decide—right there, in a sudden burst of confidence—that you can safely withdraw,