Walking past the shiny cars in the dealership towards the exit with the mortified 23 year old daughter of a friend trailing behind me, her face bright red with embarrassment, the thought crossed my mind: When did it become normal not to ask “how much does this car cost?” and start asking “what’s the monthly payment?”
I was walking out the door because, unbelievably, the sales person refused to engage with that simple question.
A recent trip to help this young,

Modern life depends on constant upgrade; but I am sitting this one out.
My 5-year-old laptop runs on Windows 10, and it cannot be upgraded to Windows 11 due to hardware requirements. Turbotax 2025 cannot run on it, and I’d rather avoid using the online version. Schwab’s ThinkorSwim app for stock market data display and transactions will stop supporting the Windows 10 version. Since Windows 10 support already stopped, I also worry about the security of my laptop with all the personal data stored locally.

Today, December 14, is our 57th wedding anniversary. Like back then, the weather is terrible, it’s snowing. In 1968 it was raining and that night  there was a blizzard and we were stranded at Kennedy airport for almost 24 hours before getting out for our shortened honeymoon for which I had taken advance leave from the army. 
Looking through some old papers I found the receipt for our tickets to Freeport. One ticket cost $143 round trip.

EARLIER THIS WEEK, the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee met and decided to lower interest rates by a quarter-point. This immediately sparked a war of words.
At a press conference, Fed chair Jerome Powell took a swipe at the White House, blaming the president’s new tariff policies for an uptick in inflation.
President Trump wasted no time in responding. All year, he has been lobbying Fed officials to move rates lower. And while they have been taking steps in that direction,

THE IRS JUST provided some guidance on how the tips and overtime deductions will work. I wanted to spend a few minutes going over the details so that you can learn how it would be reported on your taxes and share this with friends and family.
Overtime
As a reminder, the OBBBA created Section 225, which allows you to deduct qualified overtime compensation.
This deduction is capped at $12,500 per return ($25,000 for joint filers) and is subject to a phaseout based on modified adjusted gross income.

I posted a link earlier today about a scam perpetrated on a retired attorney in an article in the New York Times. So here is another article from the Washington Post on how your info can be stolen from one of the credit bureaus, TransUnion. This is scary as well. Here is a free link:
https://wapo.st/4pZzLcm
 
 

27 months. No, I’m not talking about the gestation period of a Black Alpine Salamander.
It’s been just 27 months since I responded to Jonathan’s request for new writers to come forward with their stories. In my first attempt, I talked about the unlikely path that my work life followed. From driving a beer truck for 30 years, to being the owner of a tax preparation practice, to my present situation as a full time retiree,

Another day, another article about a scam perpetrated by fraudsters. This one from the New York Times that starts with a retired lawyer having problems with his iPad and connecting to Microsoft outlook and wanting to get technical assistance. He googled Microsoft’s number and wouldn’t you know it, the number google provided was that of a scammer. To read the rest of the story go to:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/12/business/tech-support-scam-bank-fraud.html?unlocked_article_code=1.8E8.0Dgr.Bku6U1c1S2Yo&smid=url-share
 

During his final months, my husband Jonathan worked tirelessly to complete his last book, Money and Me.  The book is now available for pre-order and will be released in May 2026.
What’s so special about this book?  This book features Jonathan’s best and most personal HumbleDollar articles.  The articles are curated in such a way to teach everyone about personal finance through Jonathan’s own money journey.  And sadly, his terminal cancer diagnosis is part of this journey about which he candidly writes.

Is there such a thing as a perfect “normal” day? I don’t mean vacations and special occasions, just a normal day. I’m not sure if there is: but I can easily describe my days that come closest.
For me, any Wednesday is an ideal candidate. That’s when automatic payments from two separate annuities drop into my checking account—easily covering all my essential spending. Getting to this point took decades of consistent saving, long hours and some luck,

Occasionally I meet a customer who has a sophisticated technical requirement. Recently it was a visiting corporate IT specialist who pinpointed a laptop he liked because the solid state drive could be expanded. Before completing the purchase, I suggested he look at another high performing computer on display in which both the memory and solid state drive could be upgraded. After some deliberation and research, my recommendation made sense to him. 

There are instances when someone may need a computer that can be performance enhanced based on potential future needs.

We always told our four children they could attend college anywhere they were accepted. My pathetic college experience drove me to want much better for our children. Was it a prudent money decision, probably not. These days I am skeptical that college is even a good value. 
At the time our ten years of college spending started, there was no plan, no dedicated funds, no large pool of any assets, except our house. It was an interesting ten years with monthly college payment books for two or three at a time. 

Creating a will or trust is an important part of financial planning. Consider how the asset allocation of your retirement investments might change with age, perhaps being aggressive when you’re young and becoming more conservative as you get older. When you create your will as a young person with a growing family, your concerns are different from when you are older and evaluating your ability to retire.
For example, my first wife and I created wills that provided for each other if one of us died early,

A few weeks ago we had another strong winter storm. We lost a large, mature tree and being the frugal person I am, I saw the opportunity to convert it into a few years of logs for our wood burning stoves. Unfortunately my cheap electric chainsaw gave up the ghost during operations.
Yesterday I purchased myself a gas powered chainsaw from the online website of a large DIY business. While navigating through the purchase and hitting the click and collect button,

We recently watched a Netflix series, The Beast In Me. A looked down upon family member, was asked why he didn’t want in on the greedy wealth that his brother and nephew had. His answer, “I’ve got something that they don’t; enough”.
I think that sentiment holds a lot of wisdom for many of us as well.