I SPENT MANY HOURS reading articles and books about retirement before I actually retired. I knew I’d retire eventually because of how often I found myself out of work. Studying retirement became one more thing I needed to do so I could be successful.
Under the category of retirement, grandparenting was a frequent subject. This is understandable since many retirees are or soon become grandparents.
My situation is different. My special-needs son will not get married or have kids.

Asking for a friend… Really. My friend has a VERY SIGNIFICANT capital loss carryforward and wondered whether this impacts the typical calculations that go into deciding if Roth conversions make sense. He expects his future tax rate will be lower and his heirs will have higher tax rates.
 
My friend uses his taxable account for investments in equities, hoping to earn capital gains that can be offset by his capital loss carryforward. He intends to invest the Roth money in interest and dividend bearing investments to balance out his portfolio.

Choosing and understanding health insurance can be a challenge. Much like retirement, it requires assumptions, understanding your risk tolerance and even budgeting.
There are several key factors. 
Deductibles before benefits are paid
Co-insurance and co-payments – your share of each charge
Out-of-pocket limits-the point annually where payments are at 100% by your insurance. 
If you have family coverage, there may be a family deductible limit of two people so each individual does not need to satisfy a deductible.

There aren’t many people left on my Christmas card list. it becomes shortened with each passing year, but for more than 50 years, we have received a card from someone I never met whose name is Ben Goldberg.
My husband retired 17 years ago and Ben is a man he worked with. Ben is not a Christian, but he sends a lovely card— no personal message, just signs his full name and that’s it. Somehow as strange as it might seem,

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.