Behavior

If submissions could be anonymous, it would be very interesting to learn about the demographics of the HD readership.   For example ;
current age,
female or male,
primary occupation (either present or past),
age at retirement (if retired),
net worth (excluding cars and primary residence- other real estate holdings can be included,
etc…..
Editor(s) – is there a way to do this ?

I’m writing this in our sunroom. From here I can hear my wife Suzie and my four-year-old granddaughter in another room, deep in earnest conversation about fairies. Through the window I can see my grandson in the garden, alternating between kicking a soccer ball and shooting hoops. In the kitchen, one of my daughters sits quietly tying bows onto favours for her upcoming wedding.
A very domestic scene.
But to me, this moment is worth more than the entire value of my investment portfolio.

EARLIER THIS SPRING, Emil Verner, an economist at MIT, made an observation: The stock market, he said, seemed to be exhibiting “excess tranquility.” Despite an ongoing war, inflation and other negative headlines, investors seemed surprisingly unfazed. The market was on track for its fourth year in a row of positive returns. Through May, it had gained 11%.
But no sooner did Verner make this observation that the market did begin to wobble. Last Friday,

I was in my friend’s workshop recently. He’s a goldsmith, the proper kind, with a laser welder, a magnifying glass tucked above one eye, and old fashioned tools he uses to make expensive things even more expensive. We were there because Suzie had lost a claw from the setting of her diamond engagement ring. One of those four tiny prongs that holds the whole romantic enterprise in place had simply given up, which made Suzie anxious until he fixed it in about ten minutes flat.

I’m beginning to feel like I’m sitting on the sideline watching everyone else play. So far, I’ve asked questions (The Quiet Failure of Good Advice), listened to your answers, and fed back what I’ve heard (Reflections on a Quiet Failure). Thank you all again.
But maybe it’s time for me to say what I think.
Both questions I asked in Reflections on a Quiet Failure, in different ways, ask what financial planning is for. Let me share where my own thinking has landed.

My wife and I both feel very happy and proud today – our daughter reached her first major financial goal by buying a car and driving it home this morning.
This may not sound like a big deal, especially for a working lady in her late 20s. To us, it is.
It’s not about the physical possession of a material item. It’s a result of patience, discipline, and a few financial habits that we insisted on early.

“Family. Readers. Words.”
At Jonathan’s memorial service, one of the songs he selected was the Bee Gees’ Words. At the time, I simply thought it was a beautiful melody, a favorite of ours from the Bangladesh days. Only later did I realize how perfectly it captured his life.
A few months before his death, Jonathan wrote the final chapter of his book Money and Me. Knowing his time was limited, he reflected on how he hoped to be remembered.

A week ago I posted “The Quiet Failure of Good Advice.” More than two dozen of you replied with experience, candor, and care. Thank you, sincerely. I’ve been thinking about what you wrote, and I wanted to come back and share what I took from it.
A few patterns kept surfacing.
The first is structural. Several of you named the same diagnosis: financial planning as a profession is calibrated to serve the wealthy. Mike Lynch, a retired CFP and longtime industry educator,

I don’t use Instagram. I drive a 21 year old car. Many of my clothes are from the charity shop. I really do spend most of life completely oblivious as to how I compare to others.
But my guilty pleasures are the “See the average net worth for Australians….” articles. It’s reassuring to think that you’re going better than average. That the hard work and moderate spending have actually led you to a healthy financial position.

Do you know Peter Cancro? Peter is 69 years old and someone to be admired, someone who started out very ordinary and in one transaction became a new US billionaire, around $4.9 billion netted from selling his business. 
I greatly admire such people, I wish I was as ambitious, a risk taker and committed to success. Sure he had help along the way, notably his high school football coach who was also a banker, but he started this journey at age 14 and took the big risk at age 17. 

I’ll be honest — I’m a little worried.
A few months ago, in a moment of weakness, I agreed to run a 10k road race. That’s 6.25 miles, for those of you who’ve never had cause to think in kilometres. The problem? Although I’m retired and theoretically swimming in free time, I’ve somehow managed to be too busy to train properly. I’ve done a few 5k fun runs, my comfort zone distance, and told myself that was close enough.

JUNE MARKS THREE years since my mum passed from complications of vascular dementia. It was a tough couple of years, watching her mind slowly fail and her world shrink a little more with each passing month. Anyone who has cared for a loved one in the late stages of dementia will know how difficult and disjointed even the simplest conversation becomes. The loops, the confusion, the frustration of trying to redirect someone you love from a thought they can no longer find their way out of.

I was at our local annual civic parade and town carnival yesterday. One of those days we’d planned well in advance, arranging to take the grandkids and meet up with some thirty-something friends who also had young children in tow. It turned out to be a wonderful day. Vintage car rallies, a fairground, plenty of food stalls, live music, and costumed performers all doing their bit to keep the crowds entertained.
I’m a bit of a people-watcher at the best of times,

My wife, Jiab, was cautiously excited when she told me she received a strange message from a fellow member of her group-messaging app. Containing over 200 members, the group is dedicated to discussing the where and when of pickle ball in Dallas. It has members of all adult ages.
The person contacting my wife called herself Lissa. She said she was an artist and her profile pic showed a woman in her thirties in an art studio.

“JOIN US”
“PASSIVE INCOME SOLUTIONS FOR YOUR RETIREMENT”
The tri-fold color high-gloss mailer went on to say, of course, that “SEATING IS LIMITED. REGISTER TO ATTEND!”
Registration required entering a code at WWW.YOURSVP.COM, which makes it clear that not only has financial advisory services become an industry but so has signing up for their free steaks (in this case BBQ, though at one of Kansas City’s finer establishments). I had previously been to JackStack Barbecue for a previous “COMPLIMENTARY DINNER PRESENTATION” that was a whole bunch of nothing but decided to return as the thought of unlimited beef brisket and writing “Jack .