I’m back in the Philadelphia suburbs today, heading to a funeral later this morning. My best friend’s Mother passed away at 91. She’s the last of my friend’s parents to go.  Of my in-laws, two mothers are still alive – one healthy and super-sharp, one quite infirm.  We attended a neighbor’s funeral last Friday at the Jersey Shore. She made it 85, and lived an active life almost to the end. An acquaintance recently died suddenly at 80.

In January, I outlined a host of money moves I’d made in the first 16 months after retiring from full-time work. Financially, things did not slow down in the first three months of 2025. Here are some of my first quarter financial actions and experiences:
Distributed gifts to charity. We cluster charitable contributions so that we can itemize on our Federal tax return every other year. During the year that we take the standard deduction,

I remember getting calls from potential clients asking me to help them after they moved all their money out of equities in response to a major market downturn  – particularly during the 2007-2009 recession caused by the mortgage crisis.
I would tell them that I wish they had called me before taking such a drastic step as I could have helped them modify their asset allocation rather than get out of the market entirely.
Everyone has a great risk tolerance when the market is hot.

From the outset let me be clear I am not a religious person for several reasons, one being my personality. My personality is the type that has to see something to believe it. However there is song  Walk On by U2 which has some of the most poignant lyrics in music history. There is a phrase that goes, “
“You’re packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been.
A place that has to be believed to be seen.”
Why am I quoting U2?

None of us is smarter than the collective wisdom of all investors, as reflected in today’s share prices. So, why did investors dump stocks, causing the S&P 500 to plunge 10.5% over two days? The selling was likely driven by both a distaste for uncertainty and an expectation of slower economic growth, though we don’t know the precise combination of those two factors.
Investors hate uncertainty, and there’s a lot of that right now. Still, that uncertainty should fade in the weeks ahead.

When the market is down, I purposely avoid looking at my retirement account.  Over the past couple of weeks, my perception was that my balance was likely lower than it had been in years.
Today I logged in to take a look. Because I can view the history of my account, I was able to see that the value it sits at today is still higher (by a fair amount) than it was just a year ago.

WHEN STEWART MOTT graduated college in 1961, he received $6 million from his father, an auto industry entrepreneur who was one of the founders of General Motors. On top of the $6 million, a family trust began paying Mott an annual stipend of $850,000.
That allowed Mott to spend his adult life pursuing a variety of eccentric endeavors. He funded research on extrasensory perception. Inside his Manhattan apartment, he built a 10,000-square-foot garden, along with a chicken coop.

You can’t put 10 pounds of potatoes in a 5 pound bag, but all my life  I gave it a good try, and had a lot of interesting life experiences. I thought of ideas for a small, part time business venture that might provide a new opportunity to explore my creativity, with a flexible work schedule.
I got my chance— a neighbor invited me to a home demonstration party she hosted for a Beauty Consultant who sold cosmetic products. 

Five years ago I wrote a HD article titled Food for Thought. It was about all the food we waste and, of course the money as a result.
Yesterday I mentioned to Connie that we have things in our pantry and fridge we don’t even know we have. She was sure that was not the case. Today I pulled out a bag of candy and other goodies we had forgotten from Christmas. I’m assuming it’s from last Christmas but that is not a certainty. 

On Tuesday, I underwent a partial knee replacement on my right knee. It was a necessary step after more than a year—perhaps longer—of persistent pain that disrupted my sleep and made daily walks nearly impossible.
But here’s the twist: while the surgery was meant to relieve my suffering, the post-operative pain is even more intense. Even with strong medication, it’s a new level of discomfort. And physical therapy? That promises its own form of agony for the next three months.

In the final month of my mother in law’s life my wife felt like  her care was failing her mother.
First she was concerned that her mother seemed depressed. Her mother started not wanting visitors, she wouldn’t get out of bed one day when my son was visiting. She lived for social interaction, so this behavior was unusual. When she was downstairs sitting on the couch with us she spent more and more time with her eyes closed with a full back heating pad.

If I were 40 years younger, I might be rattled by the stock market selloff on Thursday, the day after the President’s tariff announcement. Back then, I was living in a studio apartment above a garage on an alley, trying to make ends meet while saving to buy a home. My investments were mostly in the U.S. stock market and cash.
Today, Rachel and I find ourselves in a different place. We’re a retired couple whose house is paid off,

Earlier this week, I asked readers, “If you could go anywhere in the world on your next trip, where would it be? If you could savor any experience, what would it be?”
I didn’t offer my own response—because I didn’t have one. At this point, I don’t have a strong urge to go to some exotic locale or try some new experience. On the other hand, there are places and experiences from my past that call to me.

I searched and searched the forum for a post about what HD readers are doing in response to the effect of the uncertainty of tariffs on the stock market but I found nothing.  It’s as if the markets did nothing today.  So, please tell me what you are doing regarding your investments in the face of this unprecedented economic assault on the world economy by someone who just discovered the quaint notion of “groceries”.

I’ve had April 1 on my calendar since last July. Today is the day I can apply for a July 1 retirement date from my university. It also happens to be the date I can apply for Medicare because of my 65th birthday on Aug. 1.
I knew how to sign up for Medicare and what to do because we just did so for my husband, who turns 65 in May. Last week, I reviewed the materials from the retirement webinars I attended at the university so that I’d be