WITH THE RELEASE of March’s Consumer Price Index, we now know that a risk-free investment yielding 9.6% will be available as of May 2. I’m speaking, of course, about Series I savings bonds from the U.S. Treasury, which have lately been all the rage. To take advantage, all you need to do is open an account at TreasuryDirect.gov. Last year, it took me all of 10 minutes to open my account.
I first wrote about I bonds back in October 2021.

THIS IS MY FOURTH year serving in AARP Foundation’s TaxAide program. I prepare federal and state tax returns three days a week for a mixture of retirees and lower-income citizens.
Each week, I see clients who are baffled by the complexity of our tax code. Many have been paying hundreds of dollars to commercial preparers because they’re afraid of making a mistake.
And no wonder. The federal tax code has myriad twists and turns that can confound the average taxpayer.

EXPERIENCED INVESTORS know that the stock market and the economy sometimes diverge. Early 2020 offered a stark example: Even as the economy was still contracting rapidly, stocks started bouncing back.
But right now, many areas of the stock market are doing about what you’d expect. After all the efforts by the Federal Reserve and Congress to prop up the economy over the past two years, rising inflation is front and center, along with rising interest rates. 

MANY FINANCIAL questions have clear answers. Does it make sense to engage in day trading? Probably not. Should you invest everything in bitcoin? I wouldn’t recommend it. Is it smart to carry a big credit card balance? It’s hard to think of a good reason.

Many other financial questions, though, might seem to have clear answers. But upon closer examination, they actually fall into the “it depends” category. Below are six such questions:

1.

I WAS OFFERED a “free retirement review” by Carlson Financial a year ago. The review would—among other things—”help me answer the five biggest questions I have about retirement.” I didn’t realize I had only five questions. Still, I decided a financial review might be in order.
I then forwarded an uncomfortable amount of personal information, financial statements and tax returns to a man I’d never met. Scott seemed like a nice enough guy, but hey,

WHEN I RETIRED 10 years ago, I need to replace my biweekly paycheck. Because I was retiring early, and there would be no pension or Social Security for many years, my goal was to use savings to create a synthetic paycheck.
During my final few years of work, I prepared by channeling most of my paycheck into both taxable and tax-deferred accounts. My pay was much higher than what I needed for living expenses.

I LEARNED SOMETHING new while preparing a tax return recently for a widowed senior citizen. I volunteer for AARP Foundation’s TaxAide program. A widow in her mid-70s had received her 2021 required minimum distribution (RMD) from her IRA—and it consisted entirely of Exxon Mobil stock.
Her account’s custodian, instead of selling the stock and distributing cash, gave her the actual shares. This had never happened to her before, and she hadn’t requested it. Why did the custodian do it?

MY WIFE AND I PAID just $234 in federal income taxes on 2021 adjusted gross income of $98,370, giving us an effective tax rate of less than 1%.
How did we end up paying so little? It all started with my October 2020 layoff. I was age 57 and had, until then, enjoyed a 34-year newspaper career. One of my immediate concerns: getting health insurance coverage.
That turned out to be easy in 2021.

AFTER THEY MARRY, some people discover their spouse has hidden debt. We had the opposite situation.
Several years after we were married and while living in Illinois, my wife got a letter from the New York Secretary of State saying she may be the owner of an unclaimed savings account in the town where she was raised. This was before the internet. We had no idea how New York found her. Neither my wife nor her parents remembered the account.

MY FATHER WAS BORN in 1936 in Brooklyn. He attended Erasmus High School, earned a degree in chemical engineering from Brooklyn Polytechnic High School and then went on to study dentistry at New York University. He was a strong bridge player and loved tennis, golf and—most of all—downhill skiing. Just about everything my father wanted to do, he did well. But he wasn’t without flaws.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, my father had a stockbroker friend through whom he bought shares,

SAVED A BUNCH of money so you could retire and buy that sporty car you always wanted? My advice: Do it.
In almost 50 years of owning vehicles, I have bought just one car that was almost fully impractical. It had a shallow shelf of a trunk. My wife couldn’t drive it because it had a stick shift. More than a few times, I had to start it by pushing it down a hill,

CONSUMER REPORTS and other authorities will tell you that you get the greatest value for your car-buying dollar by purchasing a two- or three-year-old vehicle. They also often recommend selling your current car after you’ve owned it for about seven years.
We favor a different strategy—one that suits our family but certainly isn’t for everybody.
My wife’s No. 1 priority is that her vehicle be reliable. She insists that every time she gets in the car,

TAX DAY IS ALMOST here, and I have a feeling that some of you may be less than excited. The cash that changes hands every year around this time gets a lot of attention, but it tells an incomplete story. The size of the check you write—or the refund you’re receiving—doesn’t, by itself, say much of anything about your tax situation.

Back in the days before technology made transferring money so convenient, did you ever let a tab run both ways with a friend?

RECENT NEWS ARTICLES have noted the sharp increase in early retirements, many triggered by the pandemic. Just over 50% of Americans age 55 and older are now retired, a two percentage point increase from 2019, according to a Pew Research Center analysis.
I have several friends and colleagues who are bucking that trend and instead delaying their retirement. They’re financially set but concerned about the transition from fulltime work to “doing nothing.” Yet some of these same workers are also struggling with changes in their companies and industries.

IN THE MARKET FOR a home loan? Chances are, you aren’t pleased. Amid soaring real estate prices and intense demand, mortgage rates have climbed above the psychologically important 5% threshold. Mortgage News Daily published its rates update on Friday afternoon, and the figures weren’t pretty for prospective borrowers. The 5.06% average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is close to the highest mark since late 2008.
Meanwhile, over the past 12 months, home prices are up 19.2%,