Regular readers of HumbleDollar may recall some of this as it has been mentioned by me in various articles over the years.  In essence it is a summery of my adult life. 
There were no moments of financial brilliance. It was mostly just plugging along with an absence of misfortune while trying to avoid doing anything exceptionally stupid. 
I don’t recommend any similar actions for anyone. In fact, if I had to do it over, I suspect I would not recommend all of it for me either. 

Here are the 1-year trailing returns for various asset classes according to Morningstar:
Bloomberg Commodity 9.16%
LBMA Gold Price PM 34.59%
Morningstar Global Core Bond GR 2.17%
Morningstar US 5-10 Year Treasury Bond 3.09%
Morningstar US 10+ Year Treasury Bond -5.85%
Morningstar US Cash T-Bill 4.63%
Morningstar US Core Bond 2.61%
Morningstar US HY Bond 8.18%
Morningstar US Market 16.79%
Morningstar US REIT -1.17%
Morningstar US Small Cap 10.85%
A portfolio which contained an equally weighted amount of each of the above would show a gain of 7.7%.

I had just dropped my grandson off at soccer practice and was heading home when my car’s overheating warning light began flashing, accompanied by a piercing “ping ping” noise. I quickly pulled over and turned the engine off. Shrugging my shoulders, and since I was in my normal uniform of shorts and a t-shirt, I decided to jog the two miles home.
The next morning, the mechanic called to let me know it was a coolant system failure.

The secret is revealed at the end.

TIME VALUE OF MONEY, asset class, diversification, dollar-cost averaging: This is the language of investment professionals. But it isn’t the language of everyday Americans, including those saving for retirement in their employer’s 401(k) plan.
Trust me, I know. During my nearly 30 years overseeing 401(k) plans, including providing financial education to participants, it became clear to me that using such plans as intended wasn’t easy for most people.

I’m gifting a WSJ opinion piece on how to achieve FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) by 30. It’s not about podcasts and side gigs, but about ignoring work-life balance and front loading earning. I wouldn’t want to live that way, and was happy to retire at 53, but looks like the author may well achieve his goal. He suggests that others his age are following the same path.
 

“U.S. Stocks Are Now Pricier Than They Were in the Dot-Com Era
The S&P 500 has never been this expensive, or more concentrated in fewer companies” – WSJ 9/1/2025
Edited 9/2/2025 per Morningstar:   Morningstar US Market Index +10.90%  since June 1, 2025!  Tech stocks +16.1% over the same period.
==
Summary 200 Day Simple Moving Average:

As of today (September 1, 2025), SPX index 200-day simple moving average is 5959.47,

This morning, as I was drinking my coffee, I realized it was September 1st. Today, with the kids returning to school in Ireland, grandparents across the country will be taking on after-school care duties.
This got me thinking. Just after I retired and before heading to my vacation home, I had an eight-week window into one aspect of my retirement future: helping out a couple of days per week minding the grandkids.
This was a new and unique adventure that I’m looking forward to resuming in late September.

Numerous readers have asked about my health, and the answer is “not good.” I’m not in any pain, but I suffer a lot of fatigue and brain fog, a product of two rounds of radiation, one of my brain and the other of my back. I also had a “brain incident” in August that caused me to lose the ability to read and write for a few days.
All this has made it taxing to run HumbleDollar and to correspond with readers.

(Full disclosure: I used AI to help me write specific comments since I started writing them before I was fully awake)
My comment to Mr. Quinn’s very popular piece (8/22/2025) on Social Security appears below. It might even continue his discussion on a topic that affects all of us who are US citizens.
As a small business, in the late 1970s, we converted over to a 401(k) plan as a means to provide our employees with a way to save for their own retirement.

Jonathan,
Since you haven’t posted much on HD in over last two months (that I’m aware of anyway), I assume you must be suffering the full brunt of your disease. Please know this community you built thinks of you often, and that we continue to offer our collective thanks and encouragement to lift your spirits in whatever small way we are able.
As a reminder to others, I sent a $1,000 gift to the Bogle Center for the Jonathan Clements Initiative,

NEW RESEARCH CAN help with an age-old question: When constructing a portfolio, how much risk is too much? Especially today, with the market again near all-time highs, this is an important issue.
On the one hand, we could dismiss this concern by noting that all-time highs aren’t as uncommon as they might seem. According to one analysis, the U.S. stock market has been within 5% of an all-time high on 44% of trading days since the 1950s.

Many times in the past I’ve proclaimed that our guaranteed sources of income fully fund our retired lifestyle. An exception was in 2023 when we had a new home built, but that was more like moving money from the IRA bucket into the real-estate bucket. 
We have been taking a 3% distribution from the IRAs, mostly from my account due to the Required Minimum Distribution (RMD), and end up transferring excess funds into non-qualified savings and brokerage accounts.

The IRS recently released the new 2026 W-2 form.
Just as I predicted in the “OBBBA Tax Breakdown“, the IRS included new boxes for line 12 of the W-2:
TA – Employer contributions to your Trump account.
TP – Total amount of qualified tips. Use this amount in determining the
deduction for qualified tips on Sch. 1-A (Form 1040).
TT – Total amount of qualified overtime compensation. Use this amount
in determining the deduction for qualified overtime compensation on
Sch.

I am a newcomer to Humble Dollar. I didn’t have the privilege of Jonathon’s writing & wisdom through his long career with the Wall Street Journal. So I write this from the perspective of someone only recently introduced to this community.
With recent discussion about “up-votes” and “down-votes”, I just wanted to offer my humble (no pun intended) opinion, and a hope that we can all find some gratitude for this very special place on the internet.

re RDQ’s “down arrows” —> My 1 cent :

Rather than being lost in the middle of a prior post, I thought I would put this more front and center given:

1) it  currently has 7 down votes
2) which prove my point
3) Thanks to David Lancaster for your comment, included below, for what seems to be a “courageous  act” on your part !
 

Why is there “voting” on peoples comments ? If you have a comment,