OSCAR WILDE ONCE made this observation: “Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.” In other words, the only way to truly learn something is through experience.
When it comes to investing, this is easier said than done because learning through experience can be expensive. As Warren Buffett once quipped, “It is good to learn from your mistakes.

As I have written before in April of last year my wife and I decided to take in my 102 year old mother in law when her second husband, whom she married at 93, was sent to a nursing home. Amazingly that resulted in moving her out of their independent senior housing apartment.
Well she peacefully passed way yesterday morning at the age of just days past 103 1/4. As my wife’s cousin said in call yesterday,

WE WANT OUR STOCKS to behave like bonds, and our bonds to behave like cash investments. That leads to all kinds of portfolio contortions—some of them damaging to our investment results.
Remember, risk is the price we pay to earn higher returns. Many folks want those higher returns, but they’re anxious to avoid risk. Chalk it up to loss aversion: We get far more pain from losses than pleasure from gains.
Result? Think about stock-market strategies like purchasing equity-indexed annuities and writing covered call options.

For years I’ve used Vanguard’s “Portfolio Watch” feature, which provides portfolio analysis of assets held at Vanguard as well as those held at outside investment firms.
I’ve liked the Vanguard analyzer since, by agreeing to its aggregator feature via Yodlee (now owned by Investnet), it will update on a daily basis all your holdings’ values and analyze them as far as stock/bonds/cash; foreign/domestic; large cap/midcap/smallcap; growth/blend/value; etc. And it likewise analyzes your bond holdings as to credit quality,

I know the markets go up and down. I know anyone living from investments knows that as well. I know many people say they plan for it with various strategies.
However, we seem to be living in an environment like never before. Chaos and uncertainty is the norm on a daily basis here and around the world. The stock markets are reflecting it all.
I’ve seen my investments drop and it concerns me even though they are not providing living income.

There have been a number of articles and forum questions on best strategies for managing finances during retirement.

The choice, of course, depends on the individual situation. I came across this “three bucket” strategy that is intriguing.
First bucket is cash that meets near term needs ( one to two years of living expenses other than guaranteed income like social security.  This avoids withdrawal of investment funds during market downturns, particularly in early retirement years, which could cause “sequence of return risk”

I spent 30 years working for a US megacorp: however, I joined the company in the UK. I was on the UK payroll for about six years, and therefore a very small part of my pension is paid by the UK company (with COLA). I was astounded, when I applied for Social Security, to find that the US government was going to reduce my benefit by the amount of my UK pension.
How did that make sense?

When I was working, I saved the maximum to my 401(k) account. So, I always kept up with the plan’s savings limits. If you haven’t heard, there are higher savings limits for 401(k) plans in 2025, plus a new “super catch-up” category. And it’s still early enough in the year for salaried workers to take advantage of them.
Thanks to an inflation adjustment, the maximum regular contribution to a 401(k) plan has increased by $500 to $23,500 in 2025.

Last year I earned $16.68 an hour – sort of. That’s more than the minimum wage in all but the District of Columbia and for California fast food workers who earn $20 and hour. Fast food workers are mostly part-time, I on the other hand are no time.
That hourly rate is my dividends and interest converted to a equivalent full-time employment. 🤑 I suspect capital gains would boost that a bit- or maybe not this year.

They say at 20 years of age you have the face that nature gave you.  At 40, you have the face life gave you and at 60, you have the face you deserve. This is a variation on a quote attributed to both George Orwell, author and essayist, and Coco Chanel, fashion maven. If this is true, it means  that our choices and attitudes leave an indelible mark on our character which ultimately surfaces in our physical appearance.

I’ve read with interest posts such as Jonathan’s Taking Center Stage and Those Who Follow, both which touched on the pluses and minuses of taking on a part-time job in retirement. The conversation in the comments for both of those posts was great, too. Below, I share my own recent experience of re-entering the job world at age 64.
In my past HD posts I have written how, in our mid-60s, my husband and I appeared to be gliding into retirement.

My wife & I are 80 years old and planning to move into an over 55 age community.
We will sell our current home to purchase a home in the new community, however, the difference between selling and purchasing will leave us with about $200,000 shortfall.
Our combined total investments are:
$2.5 million in our IRA
$1.4 million in our Roth accounts
$2.1 million in our taxable brokerage accounts
Which would be the best source(s) for us to take the money for our new home purchase concerning taxes and additional financial points you are aware of?

If you could offer your fellow readers one piece of advice that you’re confident would improve their life, what would it be?
To get us rolling, here’s my suggestion: Be generous with others—but do it when they aren’t expecting it. For instance, folks expect to receive gifts on their birthday, so any gifts you give likely won’t seem all that special. What if, instead, you present them with a gift out of the blue? The element of surprise has the potential to make the gift especially meaningful.

The S&P 500 Index peaked on this day after years of dot-com euphoria. Over the next two and a half years, it lost about half its value, and it took nearly five more years to recover. But the relief was what the Fed Chair might call “transitory” —just a couple of years later, the 2008 financial crisis hit, causing an even deeper crash.
Ignoring dividends, it took over a decade from the year 2000 for the S&P 500 Index to shake off the bears and take off.

The status of the Social Security and Medicare trusts is well known. I’m not going to rehash it here. Unfortunately, the amount of misinformation and false information about SS on social media is incredible and scary.
No serious effort at necessary reform has occurred since 1983 and certainly not now which is sad given fixing SS is not that hard or necessarily that painful.
One key question is how, if at all, should changes be allocated between current workers and current retirees.