I HAVE A SIDELINE writing stories for a local newspaper. Every now and then, even in a small rural community, you’ll find folks who blow your mind. One such individual is a retiree named Junius R. Tate, who goes by J.R. and who spent his youth in Washington County, Kentucky.
Tate hiked the Appalachian Trail, which crosses 14 states from Georgia to Maine and is roughly 2,200 miles long. It takes a determined hiker about six months to complete.

SOCIAL SECURITY retirement benefits are a critical source of income for many seniors. But as I’ve discovered from preparing tax returns, there’s a lot of confusion surrounding two key issues.
The first issue: the reduction in benefits that occurs when folks claim benefits before their full retirement age (FRA) of 66 or 67, but continue to work. This is the so-called earnings test. If folks are under their FRA for the full year, the Social Security Administration will reduce their benefits by $1 for every $2 earned above $22,320,

IT’S CLEAR LIFE experiences shape how we behave. But what role does temperament—the innate personality traits embedded in our DNA—play in how we navigate our personal and financial lives?
I began exploring my personality in my mid-40s. Amid a midlife crisis, I wanted to better understand why I act the way I do. I was recently divorced, living alone for the first time and determined to do some in-depth self-reflection.
I was aware my personality was the result of both inborn and environmental influences.

I OFTEN READ ABOUT the difficulties people face after retiring—difficulties that have nothing to do with money. Loss of identity, depression and boredom are all mentioned. It takes serious planning beyond finances to retire, we’re told.

As an employee, I was a type-A personality. I worked seven days a week, in and out of the office. I worked on vacations. My job required me to work with the organization’s most senior executives.

If there was anyone set for a fall upon retiring,

ONE OF MY BIGGEST retirement surprises: how difficult it is to maintain a robust social network.
My wife and I decided last Thanksgiving to travel overseas. In the past, we would have spent the holiday with family and friends. But now, most are no longer near us—or with us.
My mother passed away about four years ago. Afterward, my sister and brother-in-law moved to Tennessee to be closer to their son. My cousin Barb and her husband moved to Florida to be near their daughter.

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.

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,

IT’S BEEN MORE THAN 10 years since my retirement journey began at age 52. For almost 30 years, I’d worked hard, especially the last two decades, when my twin brother and I owned a landscaping company. Vacations were few and far between, and even on vacation I was always on call.
I was burned out and ready for a new chapter. Going into retirement, I was well-prepared financially. But how I’d fill my days was something of a mystery.

MY COLLEGE BUDDY Joe really looked forward to retirement. But in the weeks and months following his last day of work, he began to realize he didn’t have a core group of friends with whom to share his newfound freedom. Those he counted as friends were simply friendly workplace acquaintances. And several people who he thought might become deeper friends were still busy working and couldn’t “come out to play.”
So, after retiring two years ago,

FOR MOST OF MY LIFE, I didn’t plan to retire. Probably reflecting the influence of religion, I’ve long thought we were put here to spend our time working in the productive service of others.
This was reinforced by my experience as a manager early in my career. I often had to oversee folks in their 50s and 60s who were no longer engaged in their career and yearned to retire. I never wanted to become like them.

I WAS FASCINATED with retirement planning during the final decade of my career. I read many financial books and focused on saving diligently. Yet, after retiring several months ago following a 39-year career as a research and development engineer, I had a rude awakening.
You can plan all you want, but then comes an unexpected situation that derails everything. As boxer Mike Tyson famously said, “Everybody has plans until they get hit for the first time.”
In the brief time I’ve been retired,

IN A RECENT ONLINE discussion, I compared the benefits of an immediate-fixed annuity with the 4% retirement-income rule. The 4% rule suggests that investors can withdraw 4% from a well-balanced investment portfolio in the first year of retirement, and then add annual inflation adjustments without fear of running out of money over a 30-year retirement.
Using the NewRetirement annuity calculator, I found that a 65-year-old man could purchase an immediate annuity for $1 million,

RETIREMENT PLANNING is about much more than money. As regular readers of HumbleDollar know, getting the social aspects right is just as important—and perhaps more so—than nailing the financial issues. 
In 2019, before we retired, we took a trip to the desert southwest, a region we love. It was our first visit to Canyonlands National Park in Utah. I was captivated by the beauty of the rock formations, canyons and mesas. The most striking memory was the path of cottonwood trees,

I RETIRED ALMOST TWO years ago, at age 56. My wife, who is nine years younger, decided to semi-retire so we could relocate from Rhode Island to Florida. We were able to afford early retirement in part because we’d lived below our means for many years, diligently saving while also paying off our mortgage and other debts.
Relocating to a state with a lower cost of living and lower taxes also helped. In addition,

I SHIFTED TO WORKING part-time more than a year ago. It was a way to ease into retirement and give me time to explore new activities. My reduced work hours were also a way to experience life without the singular job focus that had defined my working years and, indeed, my identity.
My new part-time status was, of course, accompanied by a markedly shrunken paycheck. That allowed my wife and me to see what it was like to be without the guaranteed and steady income we’d relied upon for nearly three decades.