THERE USED TO BE a TV show called Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. I assume it was created to make viewers envy rich people and want what they had. The memorable catchphrase of the host, repeated at the end of every episode, was “champagne wishes and caviar dreams.”
Envy is one of the seven deadly sins—for good reason. All it does is cause heartache and pain. When I was younger,

MONEY CONVERSATIONS are part of my daily life. I’ve written a personal finance blog for five years and recorded a related podcast for three years. I work full-time for a fiduciary financial planning firm. All of these activities expose me to folks seeking to improve their financial literacy.
I love talking money. But the more “money talks” I have, the more I see that people overlook the most fundamental principle of personal finance. What principle?

MY WIFE CONSTANTLY reminds me that I promised to get her a dog when we purchased our first home. Problem is, it turns out that I’m allergic to most animals with fur, so that promise fell through. Indeed, all too often, the only animal in the doghouse is me.
Many moons ago, as a cash-strapped student working toward my PhD thesis, I purchased plastic roses as a Valentine’s Day gift for my fiancée. The salesperson sold me on the fact that they’d never die and always retain that beautiful bright red color.

I’M IN NO HURRY TO retire—but I am making sure I’m prepared. I’m age 56, and I plan to work full-time until 70 and part-time until 75. I’m an English professor, and I enjoy teaching, service and scholarship. I also enjoy having three weeks off at Christmas and two months in the summer.
I received a fairly large inheritance, which has been growing over the years and which will allow me to do some special things in the years to come.

I’M NOT A SAVVY investor, nor do I pretend to be. Some people get paid to analyze and make predictions about stocks, often for people like me. How reliable are their opinions? I’m not so sure.

Take the newsfeed about my largest single stock holding, the utility Public Service Enterprise Group (symbol: PEG), that I got late last month from my Fidelity Investments account:

“Guggenheim Downgrades Public Service Enterprise Group to Neutral From Buy,

LAST YEAR WAS OUR first full year living solely off our portfolio, with no paycheck coming in.
How did it go? It was a vast improvement from 2022, when we not only retired, but also got hit with high inflation, tumbling bond prices and a sharp stock market decline. We were looking at sequence-of-return risk—that perfect storm of rising living costs and a shrinking portfolio that can derail those early in retirement—and I can recall feeling a bit panicked.

“YOU CAN PAY ME NOW—or you can pay me later.” Years ago, that was the catch phrase, spoken by an auto mechanic working on a broken-down car, in ads for FRAM oil filters. The pitch: If you spend a modest sum on routine car maintenance, you’ll avoid far bigger bills down the road.
The same philosophy applies to retirement savings. There’s a constant tradeoff between now and later.
Faced with life’s challenges, we need to strike a balance.

THE S&P 500 INDEX just hit a new all-time high, topping 5,000 for the first time. Is it now too high? For investors concerned about market risk, this is an important question. But it isn’t an easy one to answer.
For starters, there’s no single definition of “too high.” Consider the price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio, the most common measure of market valuation. By this metric, the market does indeed look pricey. The P/E of the S&P 500 stands just a hair below 20 based on expected 12-month earnings—far above its 40-year average of 15.6.

HAVE WE GOT IT ALL wrong? “It” is our relentless, lifelong focus on socking away great wads of money, so we don’t have to worry about earning another penny once we reach our 60s.
In fact, adherents of the FIRE—financial independence-retire early—movement aim to reach this blissful state far earlier, perhaps even in their 30s. This, of course, involves saving voraciously, with all the financial sacrifice that’s entailed. Even retiring in our 60s can seem like a Herculean task,

I KISSED REBALANCING goodbye. In any case, I wasn’t consistent about rebalancing our retirement portfolio.
I’ve never attempted to maintain a specific stock-bond ratio. Whenever I did something akin to rebalancing, it was usually in response to some vague discomfort about the level of risk we were taking. Or it was based on a hunch about where the market would move in the near future—typically misguided.
This latter activity is also known as market timing.

I WAS WORRIED ABOUT what we’d be giving up when, a few years ago, we moved to a 55-plus community in Atlanta. We downsized from a large home to a small apartment, plus all our neighbors were considerably older. It was obvious we had to adjust and start enjoying our unfamiliar environment or we’d end up miserable.
My wife and I made a conscious decision to slow down, and make every effort to get to know other residents and their life stories.

ONE OF THE MOST exciting events at a track meet is the relay race. Each runner has to run his or her leg, and then hand over the baton to the next runner. If the baton gets dropped, the team usually loses.
My wife and I occupy two roles in our financial life. I save the money and my wife spends it. This arrangement works well for my wife. When she complains about my frugal nature,

“SO STEVE, WHAT BRINGS you to therapy?”
“I’ve been moody, sluggish and short-tempered lately. I think I’m depressed.”
“Any guesses what might be going on?”
“I do, but it’s so silly. My wife Alberta needs to make her first required minimum distribution in a few months. You know, when you reach that point in your 70s where they make you withdraw from your retirement accounts. I don’t think it’s about the tax liability. We’ve planned for that.”
“Then?”
“This is going to sound strange.

FANS OF PROFESSIONAL sports know the excitement and agony of watching each year’s fresh crop of rookies. These young players have to relearn a game they thought they knew.
The fact is, the strategies, tactics, intensity and winning habits of big league sports teams are tougher than those of college and minor league teams. That can leave rookies wondering what hit them when they move up to the big leagues.
That’s how I felt in December 2022,

I’VE WRITTEN BEFORE about the financial benefits of learning to cook and then preparing meals at home, rather than frequently eating out. I still heartily endorse that notion. Still, our recent decision to remodel our kitchen can’t be defended as a wise financial choice.
In fact, the consensus is that almost all remodeling jobs result in an increase in home value that’s less than the remodeling project’s cost, and that includes kitchen renovations. Instead,