I’ve been at my holiday home for 10 days now, feeling relaxed and enjoying myself. It’s the first ‘holiday’ since retirement. What piqued my interest, though, is a subtle but distinct difference: this break feels less intense, is probably the word, than vacations I took while still working. It’s not the same kind of escape. Has anyone else noticed this after retirement?

We hear a lot of doom and gloom about inflation these days.  Soaring prices,  the sigh every time we fill up the tank. On my side of the pond inflation seems to be receding as a major problem. Fingers crossed it stays in its box and doesn’t jack in the box back out. But what if I told you that inflation is actually a benevolent force?
I don’t want to belittle the genuine hardship that the recent bout of inflation has caused to many families around the world but I was just thinking….

My wife, Suzie, and I have just uncovered the biggest financial oversight mistake we’ve probably made in a very long time.
Since entering retirement, we have been reorganizing our everyday finances, including consolidating our two separate current accounts (a checking a/c without a checkbook) into one for the majority of our recurring bills. During this process, we realized we were paying for three mobile phone plans, two coming from my wife’s account. It turns out Suzie had always assumed my plan was taken from her account.

I was sitting on the deck of my holiday home, enjoying the morning sunshine and breakfast, when a deep rumble announced the arrival of an expensive, sporty car. It was my neighbour. He’s a very nice man in his 40s who always dresses impeccably, with two well-turned-out kids and an immaculate wife – to all intents and purposes, a family living the dream.
Contrast that with me: I drive a seven-year-old SUV with 70,000 miles on the clock,

Read any article on retirement planning and there will be something about the expenses that go away upon retirement.
Usually the top two are no more mortgage payment or saving for retirement followed by commuting and other work related costs, less driving hence less gasoline, less spent on clothes. Some articles mention no longer paying life insurance premiums, less dining out and fewer subscriptions. 
Some of these may be significant and others not so much. Certainly if a mortgage is paid off at retirement that is a big reduction and no doubt most will see a drop in their savings rate especially if saving was a significant percentage of income. 

I was watching a TV program this afternoon about a couple living really frugal lives, all so they could escape their former high-pressure jobs. And really? I just don’t get why people would choose that. It didn’t seem appealing to me. The thing that kept going through my mind was how pressurized their new, “improved” lifestyle seemed – always looking for bargain clothing, short-dated discounted food, hustling for money to pay the bills. Why not just consider a part-time job with less pressure?

My wife, Suzie, is currently visiting her dad in Spain. This means I’m fending for myself, and I’ve found myself venturing into the local supermarket for essential supplies – like fruit and nut chocolate, my little indulgence! While wandering the aisles, I made an observation that got me thinking….. again!
Morning shopping, I’ve discovered, is a real delight. There are no crowds, just a quiet hum, and I even had time to chat with the checkout operator,

The phone call from my 29-year-old daughter in London recently sparked a familiar parental concern. She and her partner were jetting home  not for a family visit, but to catch a Coldplay concert. My mind immediately did the mental math: flights, tickets… easily $500 per person. And then it hit me: this is the third major concert they’ve attended this year, on top of a holiday to the Canary Islands and my other daughter is at this very moment camping her way around Turkey and Greece.

Let’s all collectively do a real time experiment regarding my recent post/rant about the price of gas.   Facts :
1) Israel attacked Iran last night.
2) Refineries were NOT hit.
3) The Strait of Hormuz remains open
4) according to Google, it takes about 5-7 weeks for oil from the Middle East to arrive in the US
5) as I write this,  the price of oil has gone up 8.67 % since yesterday.
How long will it take,

We are starting to consider booking a trip for 2026. We would like to go outside the US, if possible.  Some of you have encouraged me to make a post asking advice about where to go, what to do, and other things we might need to know about traveling out of country. (We do already have our passports from when we took a cruise in 2019 when we paid off our house.)   So, HD friends,

When you were in your 20s and 30s, what did you dream of doing—and why weren’t those dreams realized? Here are four of the daydreams I had, but which remained just that:
Buy a sports car and drive across the country. This one got nixed by a host of factors—not enough vacation time, lack of money, the arrival of my first child at age 25. But truth be told, what seemed like a fun adventure slowly lost its allure,

Towards the bottom of Mr. Quinn’s lengthy thread on spreadsheets and budgets I mentioned that I expect to spend a bit under 1% of my portfolio this year. Dick said that he would feel nervous in that situation. I am not currently feeling nervous, but since that percentage will increase over time, maybe I should be. I thought I would ask my fellow contributors what they thought.
Some background: I agree with Dick in seeing my income as just Social Security,

It was some time in the 2000s, and I was at the outlets in Flemington, New Jersey. I stumbled upon a pair of black leather Cole Haan shoes priced at $75, marked down from $300. It was the only pair left, and the shoes happened to be my size. How could I possibly resist?
I hated those shoes. No matter how many times I wore the darned things—and, trust me, I didn’t give up easily—my feet screamed.

It has been written here and elsewhere that there is more value in using your money for experiences instead of buying stuff. I fully agree. 
Experiences with family and friends are most important especially as you get older, but beyond those, what experiences stand out for you? 
Most of our traveling was after we retired. We isolated funds for that purpose. While working, our travel was limited to business events, mostly employer paid. That’s how I had dinner at Mar-a-Lago Club.

In this weekend’s Barron’s, Jack Hough wrote that ‘…. shoppers say they’ll spend an average of $259.04 per person on Mother’s Day this year, up exactly $5 from last …”
Sadly, my mother died several years ago. But my wife and I have two children, and they are getting her a gift. However, I can promise you that total the pair spend on their mother won’t begin to approach $520+.
Does the average shopper really spend an average of $260 per person for their mother?