In Retirement

I am incensed when I read nonsense posted on social media about social security – “Congress stole the SS funds and never paid it back,” “there would be plenty of money if we didn’t give it to people not eligible” and worse. All nonsense.
Is it worth me getting upset over? It is, because uninformed people believe it and now it appears people are acting on the lies and misinformation they read and hear. They don’t understand that SS can’t go bankrupt or run out of money and that there is a different between SS’s ongoing revenue and the reserve trust.

WHEN A HUSBAND dies, his widow inherits his IRA. Somewhere in the paperwork of the months that follow there is a decision to make, and nobody presents it to her as one. She can take the account as her own, or she can leave it titled as inherited.
Taking it as her own means filling something in. Leaving it means doing nothing, and the IRS tells custodians they may assume that is what she wants.

DEEP DOWN INSIDE, I want to be the richest person in the graveyard. 
I retired at age 62, confident in our financial plan to survive market fluctuations. We saved over 25% of our income for nearly three decades. Perhaps a bit too much, but we lived well and always had sufficient funds to raise a family, maintain our household, and put our children through postgraduate education.
If anything, our retirement spending level is conservative,

Geoffrey Schmidt is a CPA and retirement planning expert with a YouTube channel called HolySchmidt. 
In a recent video “The Map is Wrong” he analyzed the five best and worst states to retire and challenged the idea that the best choice was states with no income tax. He based his analysis on median home values and retiree incomes. 
He used the estimated combined spending on property taxes, sales taxes, income taxes and property insurance.  When added together the results showed no income tax is sometimes a misleading criteria,

THE CHOICE BETWEEN a traditional retirement account or a Roth is a frequent topic on HumbleDollar. The choice is generally framed as a choice between paying taxes up front (a Roth), or deferring taxes until withdrawal (traditional). I thought it would be interesting to evaluate a real-life example of how this choice might work out.
In December of 2016 my wife and I had an opportunity to each open a Roth IRA. My wife took a partial sabbatical that year,

NOT TOO LONG ago, Treasury Inflation Protected Security (TIPS) was a relatively obscure investment for safe long-term fixed-income investments. For the first twenty years of the new century, consumer prices were mostly stable or rising at a too-slow-to-notice rate. Why bother with anything related to inflation?
Sadly, persistently low inflation made us complacent on the biggest long-term risk of bond investments — the insidious unexpected inflation that robs us of the purchasing power of our “safe” investments.

We all get notified on near regular basis on the compromised data but these numbers are staggering. Clark has some common sense advice on how best to play defense.
https://clark.com/credit/data-breach-credit-freeze/?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_campaign=ClarkDailyNewsletter&_bhlid=909bb4deb2191a6a5b918be72d6953a9308bf113
I would add freezing your SSN via the e-verify site (so your SSN can’t be misused), and I think this is especially true for those of us who are retired.

In 2002 the Social Security Trustees explicitly called on Congress in their report summary to act sooner rather than later fixing SS funding
They emphasized that taking early legislative action would allow changes to be phased in gradually and give workers time to adjust. They issued the same warning in every report since.
For twenty four years Congress and each administration has ignored those warnings.
Those trustees reports were signed by the Secretary of the Treasury,

With all that’s going on with SS (COLA, taxation, potential cuts) and some changes certain in the next six years, is it time to rethink the income replacement percentage you shoot for in retirement?
I won’t give my theory again, one or more of the Clements family will be upset with me😅
However, self preservation, a hedge against longevity, hence inflation and peace of mind still tells me that a goal of replacing 60, 70 or 80% of pre retirement income is not sufficient.

AFTER YEARS OF heady gains in the stock market, many investors are facing the same question: To manage risk, they’d like to cut back on one or more of their holdings. But because of the potentially costly tax bill that might result, they aren’t sure exactly how to do that.
How can you square this circle?
One easy option would be to donate appreciated assets to charity. But that would make sense only if it aligns with your charitable goals and,

I noticed a book excerpt in the Harvard Gazette yesterday (5 Aug 2026) that goes into some depth on a topic that is raised here on HD with some frequency, notably by R. D. Quinn, most recently with regard to the Social Security issue. The book in question is:
“Gerontocracy in America: How the Old Are Hoarding Power and Wealth ― and What to Do About It” by Samuel Moyn, J.D. ’01, and published by Farrar,

A recent Barron’s article notes, “for most retirees, the greatest fear is not death—it is running out of money before they die.” As one survey they cite put it, “The prospect of running out of money in retirement is scarier to more people than death.” The same article described a new tool that promises to estimate more accurately how long we are likely to live. Life expectancy is one of the most important assumptions in any retirement plan because it answers a fundamental question: How long will my savings need to last?

A retired actuary name Ken Steiner has a article today, 8/4/2026, titled Social Security’s Short-Term Crisis,  published on Advisor Perspectives.
I like Mr. Steiner’s thinking on breaking the funding or reduction of the future social security shortfall problem into short and long components.  His discussion of one alternative is a three-year COLA freeze starting around 2033. If you are part of the grandfathered group who is receiving a current social security benefit you may want to consider this possibility  in your planning.

Long-time Lurker who read Johnathan’s WSJ columns for decades and had several delightful conversation with him.
 
I thought I would share “Yet-Another Social Security Spreadsheet Analysis on what Age to Start taking Benefits” as I would appreciate (candid) commentary on how I can improve this from the financial wizards at Humble Dollar.
 
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

AT FIRST GLANCE, Social Security appears straightforward. During our working years, we pay into it, and in retirement, it sends us a monthly check, guaranteed for life. Unfortunately, it isn’t always so simple. Below are five aspects of the system that are frequently misunderstood.
Benefits estimates. Look at a Social Security statement, and an easy-to-read chart provides estimates of the benefits available at various ages. The heading above the chart reads, “Personalized Monthly Retirement Benefit Estimates Depending on the Age You Start.” That seems clear.