According to the Federal Reserve, 64% of current retirees age 65 and older have a defined benefit pension. That includes me and today (last work day of the month) is payday as Connie calls it. Our “house” checking account as it’s labeled, is replenished. The pension deposit has not changed in fifteen years and will not change in the future.
The second and fourth Wednesdays are also paydays when our Social Security arrives at our bank.

AT A FAMILY DINNER in the early 1980s, I remember one of my brothers—probably then age 20 or so—saying, “But isn’t the economy built on sand?”
My economist stepfather offered one of his trademark droll responses: “The economy’s always built on sand.”
The same could be said for the stock market. In the minds of many investors, it’s always teetering on the verge of collapse. After two years of rising share prices, and amid concerns about high stock valuations,

Ran across this. Not HD content or indeed probably the average HDer being discussed but interesting on the general problems faced by over 60s
https://sherwood.news/personal-finance/boomers-money-secrets-millennial-gen-z-troubles/
I’ve always thought inheritance would eventually be the only way many of their grandkids would achieve real financial security but it seems some may be passing on a millstone in legacy.
 

Manhattan was purchased from Native Americans, hundreds of years ago, for something like 23 dollars. At first glance , it appears to be the greatest bargain, ever,  for the purchasers, while the biggest rip off ,for the sellers.
I have no idea what even the approximate value of Manhattan is currently, other than more than 23 bucks, so I respectfully ask those far more astute at real estate values, compounded returns and the like, to approximately value the entirety of Manhattan,

When investors talk about dollar-cost averaging, they often confuse two strategies—one widely used, the other more controversial.
Do you regularly add new savings to your investment portfolio? During our working years, many of us do that. When we get our paycheck, we slice off a few dollars and toss them into our employer’s 401(k) or 403(b). We might call this dollar-cost averaging (DCA), but it’s less a strategy we consciously adopt and more a function of how we get paid.

I’m getting ready to take my annual RMD (minus QCDs), which seems like a good time to take a look at re-balancing my portfolio. My stock percentage has crept up from 50% to 53%, and while I’ll take my RMD from my stock funds, I’m not going to spend it, so it will be going into Total International (VTIAX) and Total US (VTSAX) funds in taxable.
About 10% of my funds are in a CD ladder and a money market fund in taxable.

Seeking to conserve my driving time, energy and long term parking rates, I decided to drive to my regional PA airport, Scranton/Wilkes Barre, an easy one-hour highway drive, rather than 2 1/2 tense, traffic – ridden hours to LaGuardia or Newark for a direct flight to St. Louis. It’s a tiny, empty airport with honor system self checkout at the souvenir and snack shop. As I’m sitting at the gate, I hear an announcement that our “landline flight” to Philly (where I’ll be transferring for the St.

MANY FOLKS CLAIM TO be ready for retirement, both financially and psychologically. But they’re often surprised to discover that the reality is different from what they expected.
I started planning well in advance of my 2023 retirement. I read dozens of books on the subject, and talked to many classmates and friends who’d already retired. Of all the books and videos that I reviewed, one talk on YouTube stood out: a TEDx Talk by Dr.

WHEN I WAS A NEWSPAPER reporter in Florida in the early 1980s, we were preoccupied with the chance that a hurricane would spin out of the Gulf of Mexico and slam into Florida’s West coast. It would be the biggest story of our lives if a big one struck the low-lying coastal city of St. Petersburg. It never came our way, fortunately for everyone.
The most serious storm I covered back then was called the “no-name storm” because it didn’t muster hurricane-strength winds.

IT WAS 1982 OR thereabouts. After attempting to be a landlord for several years, I decided it wasn’t for me. I sold the house and the four-family apartment building I’d been managing.
The final task in closing out this adventure would come at tax time. Keeping the books was the one aspect of being a landlord that I didn’t mind. I understood how accumulated appreciation would be recaptured and how capital gains tax would affect that year’s taxes.

Connie and I had four children between July 1970 and September 1975. That was a fun decade especially given I was going to school three nights a week until 1978 when after nine years I received a degree.
Those fun times were only surpassed by the ten years when we had one, two or three children in college at once. Our oldest went to Carnegie Mellon on a required five-year program and the others all went to Franklin and Marshall –

WHEN I WAS GROWING up, I’d receive Series E savings bonds as birthday gifts from my parents. It was the start of many to come. My parents had great respect for savings bonds and, as I got older, I came to hold them in high regard as well.
Savings bonds never offered the highest interest rate. At a defense plant where I worked, a guy in the accounting department questioned my bond buying. He noted that savings bonds paid less interest than the certificates of deposit then available.

For us Medicare types, it’s that Part D time of year again. In mid-September I received an email from our Part D insurer, Aetna Silverscript, saying I could see the Annual Notice of Change online. I did so and got a shock. My wife’s and my monthly premiums were going from $9.80 each to $44.80 each beginning in January 2025.
I did a little reading online, and contacted our broker, and learned that due to some recent legislation Part D plans were in for some big changes in 2025.

I’ve made the trip from Pennsylvania to California six times. The first time I went, I didn’t have to pay for my plane tickets. Each of the next five times, the entire trip was completely free.
I was asked to be the best man in a college friend’s wedding a couple of years after we graduated. He lived near Los Angeles. I planned my trip out there with another college friend, Robert. Like me, he was an engineer and single.

IS IT WORTH OWNING international stocks? There’s far from universal agreement. The traditional argument for investing outside the U.S. is straightforward: diversification—since domestic and international stocks don’t move in lockstep, and sometimes diverge significantly.
At the same time, however, international stocks have lagged behind their U.S. counterparts for so many years that it’s been trying the patience of even the most tenacious investors. Domestic stocks have outpaced international stocks in eight of the past 10 years.