Think about the four or five happiest retirees you know. Do they have anything in common? For instance, they might share some of these attributes:

Enough wealth
Sufficient monthly income from a pension, income annuities and Social Security
Companionship
Friends and family nearby
Good health
Strong faith
Activities that give them a sense of purpose

Or is it simply that these folks are innately happy people?

ONE OF THE PERILS of being a HumbleDollar contributor is that you sometimes get hit up for advice that you aren’t necessarily qualified to give.
Such was the case recently when I was having breakfast with an old buddy. The topic turned to money and investments. Joe and I have been good friends since the days when we played on the high school basketball team. We try to get together every month or so to catch up and reminisce about old times.

MILESTONES MARK the growth of a child as she moves from infancy through school age. In similar fashion, we adults tend to measure our life’s progress with “firsts” or other significant events. Perhaps we remember the feeling of maturity that came with our first kiss or our first job. Milestones help us attach meaning to the course of a life that sometimes seems beyond our control.
Financial milestones often command special significance, like my first “real” job at age 15.

SOON AFTER GRADUATING college and starting work, I visited a dentist I found in the Yellow Pages for a long overdue teeth cleaning and exam. Although I had never had a cavity, the dentist informed me that I had multiple cavities that urgently needed to be filled. Naïve me allowed this dentist to fill the two supposed cavities of most concern.
Somewhat traumatized, I avoided dentists for a time. Finally, I queried several older coworkers,

“Do your own research” are words that pop up in many forum posts, and I agree it’s important for people to dig into various things before making a purchase or forming opinions on important matters. Research for an unbiased writer probably includes things like interviewing sources, checking their facts, citing references, furnishing bibliographies, and etc. At the other end of the spectrum someone like my friend Bubba down at the local watering hole might consider Facebook,

I’m seeking advice and suggestions from the people I trust and value, each of you.
My wife and I recently retired. Our two S.S. accounts and three pensions cover not only all of us current expenses. We are transferring some excess money from our miscellaneous savings account into our car account and vacation account (buckets of sorts) biweekly. But we still have a couple of thousand dollars left over.
Would you recommend we continue to fund our Roth accounts or our taxable investment account or simply build our savings in our high yield savings account?

Would you recommend stocks and funds without knowing anything about the investors in question? Would you skip even the most basic investment research? Would you promise investors that they’ll double their money within months? Would you ignore the risk that your advice could cause irreparable financial harm?
Welcome to the world of cancer advice.
Multiple times each week, I receive messages offering advice that has the potential to severely damage my health. There are more than 200 types of cancer,

Just finished my annual investing phone call with my daughter. We hold this meeting annually before she files her taxes to make tweaks to her portfolio for the upcoming year. With Vanguard she has a brokerage account, traditional IRA , and a Roth IRA. She also has a 401K, and HSA through her work. These I am all familiar with.
The one component of her portfolio I am not familiar with is Acorns. I hadn’t paid much attention to this component as it was just rounding of purchases from her credit card.

As one saying goes, there are three things that should not be talked about in polite company: money, politics, and religion.  Here at HumbleDollar, we are given license to discuss (politely) the first topic. And have we ever discussed money here! Pretty much any aspect of personal finance you can think of has been addressed thoroughly and intelligently somewhere on this website.
When the conversation has veered into the second topic, politics, the discourse can get a bit chippy.

THIS MONTH MARKS the five-year anniversary of the start of the pandemic. That makes this a good time to look back and ask what lessons we might learn.
In early 2020, when COVID-19 was first identified in the U.S., the stock market dropped 34% in the space of just five weeks. But later in the year—after the Federal Reserve stepped in with its bazooka—the market rebounded, ending the year in positive territory. For full-year 2020,

DOGE is considering sending all Americans $5,000 as a dividend on all the savings that have been achieved by firing, slashing and burning various government agencies.  My question is what will you do with your $5,000?
If it sounds too good to be true, see:https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-mulls-giving-americans-165329483.html

Hello, first time user, been reading posts for awhile. I’m looking to fully retire in July from farming and go see our county’s sites & visit friends down south during the winters. I still want to manage our money,  My question is: Is there reliable and very secure software (our info is on the dark web through no fault of our own & had to freeze all) out there that can give me options on how,

Just starting to look as we are 81 and I’m nearly 75.  As we struggle with fire insurance in California and hassle with Comcast – they took away our local sports and baseball season is imminent, and other house and neighborhood activities are time consuming and complex.  We are Firewise neighborhood leaders and the responsibility is a challenge.
Our health is excellent for our age but cancer treatment and a chance of Alzheimer’s for me,  lots of experience taking care of our elders,

A recent Wall Street Journal article presented the stories of a number of professional and volunteer tax preparers who are still going strong well into their 80s, 90s, and beyond. In my seven years supporting AARP’s TaxAide program I’ve worked with dozens of volunteer preparers in their 60s, 70s, and 80s who are extremely knowledgeable and quite sharp. I would trust them with my tax return.
The article could have been greatly improved by interviewing some HumbleDollar’s tax experts,

WE’RE ALWAYS STRIVING—the next pay raise, the next consumer purchase, the next self-improvement goal. But to what end?
Our time on this earth is fleeting, our impact minimal and our legacy quickly forgotten. A decade after we’re gone, we might be remembered by family and close friends, but not by many others. And yet we keep pushing forward.
Does death’s approach shed any light on this curious behavior? Far from it. If anything,