IF YOU’RE IN YOUR 60s or older and making sizable Roth conversions, it isn’t just income taxes that you need to worry about. You may also trigger much higher Medicare Part B and Part D premiums.
We’re talking here about those Medicare surcharges known as IRMAA, short for income-related monthly adjustment amount. These surcharges are over and above 2023’s standard $1,979 per person Medicare premium, and they’re based on income from two years earlier.

WE’VE OWNED OUR NEW 2023 Toyota Highlander Hybrid for six weeks. The technology and features are breath-taking. Until now, both of our vehicles were 18 years old. I feel like Rip Van Winkle, waking up in a time I do not recognize.
Here are some of the bells and whistles on our new SUV, and my evaluation of their usefulness. Please forgive me if some of this information isn’t accurate; I’m still learning about these features.

MORE THAN 92,000 people over age 60 reported losses to fraud totaling $1.7 billion in 2021, according to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. That represented a 74% increase in losses from the year before.
With the population of older Americans growing, the need to protect this vulnerable population is more critical than ever. Enter the concept of a trusted contact.
The trusted contact has its origin in a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) rule issued in March 2020.

THIS IS MY FIFTH year providing income-tax preparation as part of the IRS’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program. This year, my colleagues and I have seen something new. We’ve had numerous retired taxpayers who have received IRS Form 1099-K for the sale of personal property. They’d never received one before and found it confusing.
What triggered these 1099-Ks? Many retirees find ways to supplement their income—including selling items on the internet. This is the modern version of yard sales and flea markets.

JOINT REPLACEMENT surgery is a rite of passage for many retirees. I’d be willing to wager that a majority of HumbleDollar readers have either had one themselves or know someone who has.
The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons says hip and knee replacements are the most common types of total joint replacement. From 2012 to 2021, 2.55 million of these procedures were performed, according to the American Joint Replacement Registry, which is the academy’s data repository.

BACK IN 1989, AS I was finishing the final semester of my undergraduate degree in India, I managed to bag two decent job offers. The first was from a government organization in my hometown, and the second was from an out-of-state private company in western India. I had a few weeks to make up my mind.
I was leaning toward the second offer. Not only did the idea of living on my own in a faraway town sound adventurous,

IF YOU HAVE READ enough HumbleDollar articles, you’ve probably noticed that frugality has played a major role in the financial success of many of the site’s writers. Peruse the article comments and the site’s “Voices” section, and you’ll find that readers often share the same thriftiness. Frugality is also a key theme running through many of the 30 financial life stories in the forthcoming book, My Money Journey. Sure enough,

RETIREMENT IS SAID to be a time for reviewing and reminiscing. We try to understand who we were and how we came to be who we are. But the health trials of the retirement years can also project us into the future. When couples enter their twilight years, they begin to contemplate how they’d cope if the other died first. I believe “survivor rehearsal” is one way our biology helps us to contain the fear of having to cope on our own.

“ARNIE, YOU JUST HAVE to watch this video,” offers the wife. “Jessie is so adorable.”
“Honey, I’ve been thinking,” hubby responds. “I know mortgage rates are high right now, but we really should get a place near the kids.”
If you can remember I Love Lucy, you’re old enough to have had this sort of conversation. The mortgage is paid off, the Roth has done well and you’ve got the cash for a down payment.

I STEPPED TO THE podium for the first time in more than three years. My presentation skills were perhaps a bit rusty, but I jumped at the opportunity earlier this month to speak at my former employer’s annual symposium. It felt great to see so many familiar and friendly faces, including old teammates, workplace acquaintances and former clients. It was also no big secret that I was curious about an open position at the company.

WHAT SHOULD I DO with the required minimum distributions from my rollover IRAs?
I’m age 65, which means that—under last year’s tax law—I must begin taking taxable distributions in 2030, the year I turn 73. I’ve been looking at my retirement cash flow, and it appears that my wife and I won’t need the money for our living expenses.
I’m investigating using the money to help fund my grandkids’ college education. I built a spreadsheet that maps my age against the age of each grandchild and determined the years they’re expected to attend college.

WHEN I STARTED winding down my psychology practice two years ago, I anticipated freeing up oodles of time for reflection and for hobbies long cast aside, such as collecting oldies albums and the coveted rookie cards of sports legends. But my patient hours were merely replaced by my own spiraling doctor visits.
I was disappointed and concerned about my declining medical status. Still, I was reassured by the reputation of my health insurance company and the comprehensiveness of my policy.

MY AFFINITY FOR spreadsheets began in the late 1960s when I was a paperboy in Virginia Beach. I had a morning route for The Virginian-Pilot and an afternoon route for the now-defunct Ledger-Star. I used my Huffy bicycle with huge baskets front and back.
The business model was straightforward. I paid wholesale for the papers, and customers paid the retail price of 35 cents per week, or 55 cents if they also got the Sunday paper.

RACHAEL AND I WENT to Walmart the other day to stock up on dog food—and came away with a severe case of sticker shock.
We feed our two dogs a daily menu of dry food mixed into a delightful mash with a little canned wet food. Our go-to brands are Purina Dog Chow for the dry food and Pedigree Chopped Ground Dinner for the wet food.
The cost of the 40-pound bag of Purina dry food has barely budged.

WE JUST PURCHASED a new car. The whole buying process has been upended by the pandemic and today’s chip shortage, and we learned seven important lessons.
My wife and I view car buying as an unavoidable chore. We know financial experts recommend buying a car that’s a few years old, so someone else takes the big hit on the initial depreciation. We haven’t done that. We like to buy a new vehicle and keep it for 15 or 20 years.