MY WIFE AND I ARE going to New York City for a vacation. One reason we chose New York: We wouldn’t have to deal with inflated rental car prices. We can walk and use public transportation to get where we want to go. Also, it’s just a fun place to visit.
Trouble is, I’ve been suffering from foot pain and a bum shoulder. The past few months, I’ve been trying to stay off my feet to give my foot a chance to heal,

A FEW WEEKS BACK, I talked about the good-is-better-than-perfect principle. A close corollary: Approach financial decisions incrementally. What do I mean by that? An example is dollar-cost averaging, where you invest a sum of money in regular increments, rather than all at once.

Does dollar-cost averaging guarantee a better outcome? No. But it takes what would be one big decision and breaks it into several smaller ones. The benefit: Each of those smaller decisions ends up carrying lower stakes.

OUR HIGH SCHOOL principal returned from a teacher recruitment fair and announced to the school board, “Tell your children or grandchildren: Do not get a degree in elementary education.” He went to the recruitment fair looking to hire some very specific specialty teachers for the high school. He mostly met new grads with credentials to teach elementary school—who were looking for jobs that simply don’t exist in our region.
Our superintendent explained that our region had several large,

HOW DO WE KNOW we’re ready to retire? When I posted a link to Mike Drak’s recent article on HumbleDollar’s Facebook page, one commenter offered three questions that those approaching retirement should ask themselves:
1. Do I have enough? This, of course, is the question that gets asked most often. Do we have the financial wherewithal to carry us through a long and comfortable retirement?
2. Have I had enough? This may be easy to answer for folks who are lukewarm about their work,

BEFORE THE FIRST World War, serious investors invested serious money in bonds, real estate and railroad shares. Other stocks were deemed “speculative” and “not investment quality.” Then came Edgar Lawrence Smith and his extensive 1924 study, Common Stocks as Long Term Investments, in which he documented the higher returns to be had by investing in stocks.
Soon, the focus of institutional and individual investors was centered on stocks, but bonds were still considered important for every investor’s portfolio.

AFTER A 13-YEAR drought, value stocks surged over the past year, and arguably no fund rode the wave better than the venerable Dodge & Cox Stock Fund (symbol: DODGX), which was launched in 1965. Long one of the largest and most respected mutual funds, it’s run by a nine-member investment committee, though the fund is perhaps most associated with Charles Pohl, who has been a manager for 30 years and is set to retire in 2022.

I READ A LOT—AND every now and then I come across an “aha” book that ends up changing the course of my life. Here are two of the most important:

How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free by Ernie Zelinski

In my mid-50s, I wasn’t happy in my banking job. The stress was starting to get to me. Don’t get me wrong: I was good at my job and it paid well.

FOR THE RECORD, I’m a card-carrying member of the FIRE—financial independence/retire early—movement. Except I don’t believe in the RE part.
All the folks I know who advocate FIRE, and who have achieved financial independence, are still working in some capacity. Many of them have websites, put out podcasts or write books on how to retire early—which is funny because they’re still working and making money.
For some reason, they feel the need to deny that they’re still working.

IT’S OPEN SEASON for many of us—time to choose our health insurance for the year ahead. It’s a topic I got seriously interested in when I took over management of 500 mathematically astute engineers. They challenged me daily to understand how the various plans stacked up against each other. I spent a lot of time looking at various ways to assess the value of the different plan choices, and came up with a framework that worked for my family.

THE NEWSPAPERS ARE full of reports that a new tax on billionaires may be uncorked. The Washington Post even ran an article estimating what the 10 richest Americans would pay over the next five years should it pass.
I take no stand on the politics of the proposal. But I have seen enough trial balloons to be skeptical that Elon Musk will soon write a 10-digit check to the U.S. Treasury. As Chuck Collins has written in The Wealth Hoarders,

WE SPEND TOO MUCH time worrying about stagflation. The term describes a period of high inflation with stagnant growth—a disastrous economic condition. It was seen at times during the worst of the mid-1970s recession, and again when inflation spiked in the early 1980s.
Do we see it today? No way.
Everyone over 60 surely recalls how difficult it was decades ago. Consumer prices were out of control. The unemployment rate jumped. Real wages were on the decline,

“I SORELY MISS the peace of mind that comes with universal health coverage.”

Those are the words of a 32-year-old woman from Canada, who is currently a PhD student residing in the U.S. When I read them recently in the comment section of a blog, they changed my thinking about health care.

I’ve been involved in health benefits, health insurance and health plans of various types since 1962. I’ve designed employer plans. I was on the boards of four health maintenance organizations.

THIS IS THE LAST year that my income won’t affect my Medicare premiums.
At issue is IRMAA, or income-related monthly adjustment amount, which is the premium surcharge for Medicare Part B and Part D if you exceed certain income thresholds. The surcharge is based on your modified adjustment gross income from two years earlier. Like almost all retirees, I’ll begin Medicare at age 65. That means IRMAA will be based on my income for the tax year when I reach age 63,

LATE OCTOBER and early November mean two things to me. First, I spend a lot of money on trenta-sized pumpkin-spice cold brew at Starbucks. Somewhere, Suze Orman is no doubt cringing in horror. But that’s not what this post is about.
Second, late October usually means I’ve moved on to other pursuits—because the sports teams I follow either have a terrible record or have been eliminated from tournament play already.
Except this year. The Atlanta Braves are still alive and competing in the World Series.

INVESTORS SHOULD diligently track two things: their portfolio’s performance and their asset allocation.
To monitor overall performance is humbling. If you’re like me, you eventually realize how much your cockamamie market-beating schemes have lagged the market—and it dawns on you that you could do much better by simply mimicking the market with index funds and occasionally rebalancing.
What percentage of your portfolio should be in U.S. shares, foreign stocks, cash, bonds and other assets?