EARLY LAST WEEK, The Wall Street Journal ran an article with the headline “Why This Frothy Market Has Me Scared.” The author cited a number of indicators that have him worried, including a survey of investor optimism that’s at a 35-year high. Investors, the Journal said, are feeling “euphoric,” and that’s often a bad sign.
So, as we head into year-end, it’s worth taking stock of where things stand. The stock market has returned nearly 25% so far this year.

Net unrealized appreciation (NUA) is the difference between the cost basis and the current market value of shares of employer stock held in an employer-sponsored retirement account.
If certain criteria are met (death, disability, separation from service, or reaching age 59 ½) an investor can transfer everything in their 401(k) to a rollover IRA—except their employer’s stock. These shares, instead, get deposited into a regular taxable brokerage account.
This triggers an immediate income tax bill on the stock’s cost basis (at income tax rates),

The Winter Solstice occurred today at 4:21 AM, Eastern time.  The Winter Solstice is defined as the point in the Earth’s orbit  when the sun is furthest south, and the Earth’s northern hemisphere is tilted furthest from the sun. It is the shortest day of the year; days will start getting longer.
When I was an aerospace engineer, designing thermal control systems for geosynchronous satellites, the Winter Solstice was one of 4 important dates in the year,

In our 55+ community my husband and I see signs of food insecurity on a regular basis. The line of cars picking up food boxes at a local church frequently fills the parking lot. 
Earlier this year, two of the three local grocery stores started selling pork, beef and chicken sausages–made with scraps of meat trimmed away from higher end cuts–for 25 cents each. 
After Thanksgiving, many residents began setting out their leftover food on the tables outside one of the recreation centers.

As I sit here on what the media is calling “Super Saturday” (?!?), I can’t help but wonder, am I the boring aunt?  My husband and I are childfree by choice but we are blessed with five awesome nieces and nephews, consisting of 21 month old twins through 7 years old.  I love the Christmas season but as a society, we’ve lost something with all the commercialism and commoditization of this great holiday.  Thus, we give the kids money for birthdays and holidays.

I enjoy daydreaming on occasion. Many times my fantasies are historically based. For example, I often ponder what Ben Franklin would think of our various forms of communications and the declining role of print newspapers. Imagine explaining to Ben – our first postmaster general –  that we can place an order on Amazon at 8:00 AM and have it at our door at 3:00 PM.
Mr Franklin flew a kite and thought about electricity. I’d like to show him a nuclear generation station,

I’M WRAPPING UP MY final big investment. Going into it, I knew it would lose money, unleash unwanted disruption and chew up time when it’s never been more precious—and yet I still went ahead.
As readers might recall, last year, Elaine and I remodeled the kitchen in our Philadelphia home. This year, we decided we’d revamp the upstairs bathroom, despite my cancer diagnosis and the forecast that I might live just 12 more months.

“I am thinking of you today because it is Christmas, and I wish you happiness. And tomorrow, because it will be the day after Christmas, I shall still wish you happiness.
I may not be able to tell you about this every day, because I may be far away or we may be very busy, but that makes no difference—because my thoughts and my wishes will be with you just the same.
Whatever joy or success comes to you will make me glad.

I’m writing this from the infusion center, with my every-three-week cocktail of chemotherapy and immunotherapy drugs dripping into my right arm. And that’s good news.
It’s been a rough two-and-a-half months. In early October, an abdomen scan uncovered a pulmonary embolism, which landed me in hospital for two days and means I’m now on blood thinners. In early November, an MRI uncovered two new cancerous lesions on my brain, while another MRI later in the month turned up four lesions on my spine.

Anyone considering a Medicare Advantage plan should take a look the Executive Summary of this U.S. Senate report. It starts with this: “Every day, doctors evaluate thousands of seniors recovering from falls, strokes, and other ailments, and enter a recommended course of treatment into an online portal, or in some cases feed it into a fax machine.  But whether the requested service is determined to be medically necessary is a decision that belongs to people at the other end of the line. 

In an article published today titled Retiring from Farming is Complex and Not Always Planned the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College discusses the additional challenges that farmers face in their retirement planning.
https://crr.bc.edu/retiring-from-farming-is-complex-and-not-always-planned/
My wife and I are just back from a road trip Christmas visit with two of our adult children and their families that included driving across Indiana twice. After again seeing the vast farm lands and work I wanted to express my gratitude and appreciation to our farmers who keep us fed and whose efforts helps make my comfortable retirement possible.

AT LEAST ONCE A YEAR, I watch the hilarious short YouTube clip by personal-finance author JL Collins. If you aren’t around small children and can handle liberal use of America’s favorite four-letter word, check it out. Some may recognize it as a parody of actor John Goodman’s soliloquy from the film The Gambler starring Mark Wahlberg.
The clip, however, is more than just entertaining. Its content is what keeps me and, judging from the half-million views,

SIPPING MORNING coffee on the porch of my 40-year-old aluminum box in the Sonoran Desert, I’m pondering the cost of housing.
My affordable unit sits on cement piers at the end of a street within an age-restricted park, at the sparsely populated edge of Tucson. Few jobs exist nearby. Civic amenities are modest. Summer weather is challenging, with heat, thunderstorms and seasonal rattlesnakes. Still, these conditions have created a financially comfortable place for a retiree to live.

I have a friend who calls me wealthy even while he sold his business last year, owns three homes and lives in the largest condo in our community. My wealth according to him is the result of having a pension.
Am I wealthy? I don’t look or act wealthy, I don’t dress like a wealthy person – whatever that may be? I don’t have a yacht and my once “luxury” car is now over ten years old and has a trade-in value of $6,000.

WHEN I STARTED learning about investing, I stumbled upon a book at my library that immediately grabbed my attention: The Lazy Person’s Guide to Investing by Paul B. Farrell. A portfolio championed by the book consisted of just two mutual funds—one stock index fund and one bond index fund, with 50% of your portfolio invested in each.
With only two choices to make, decision-making becomes far more straightforward. Farrell’s suggested 50-50 split simplifies the process even further.