Retirement

Young adults entering the job market often focus on the salary or hourly wage first, and that makes sense. Pay matters. But the benefits package can be just as important, and sometimes a slightly lower-paying job with stronger benefits is actually the better deal.
Health insurance, deductibles, retirement matching, vesting rules, paid leave, sick time, disability coverage, tuition assistance, promotion potential, and work-life balance all have real value. A 401(k) match, for example, is part of your pay.

RETIREMENT IS LIFE’S most expensive purchase. During our working years, we deprive our present selves of immediate pleasure by refusing to spend money for nicer cars, a bigger house or a vacation to boast about. Instead, we squirrel away those saved dollars with an eye toward keeping the future us fed, clothed and living indoors. 
At age 64, after decades of choosing to save and invest a large chunk of each paycheck, rather than spend it,

I posed this question to an AI program (because I don’t know how to use a spreadsheet).
“If my income is $3,000 per month, I save 10%, I expect to earn 8% per year on invested money and my income will increase by 2.5% per year (basically inflation). How much will I have in 40 years?”
Here’s the answer.
You’d have about $1.29 million after 40 years, assuming you invest the savings monthly, earn 8% per year compounded monthly,

I LOVE TO PLAN. My wife, Sharon, often catches me nestled in my chair, gazing out a window at a distant object as my mind wanders even farther afield. My musings become scribbles on a scrap of paper, destined for discussion with Sharon at length over coffee and long walks. Eventually, we hammer out the settled strategies we think will best bring us happiness in adventures ranging from our next hike to the next few decades of life.

Like most people, I’ll get to feeling overwhelmed. Too many choices, too much complexity, just too much. Once the overwhelm kicks in, there are two ways forward; take a big deep breath and calmly work through the issue, or simply put the whole thing aside. I would like to think that I do more of the former, but as a human being, sometimes it’s the latter.
And it worries me that when financial advice is broadcast to a wide audience,

In some of my previous posts I have touted the Australian Superannuation program as a possible solution to America’s retirement funds problem. I admit that this was based on limited knowledge. This is Morningstar’s take on if this is the answer to our problem:
https://www.morningstar.com/retirement/what-us-could-learn-australias-retirement-savings-system?utm_source=eloqua&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningDigest&utm_content=None_73036&utm_id=38090
I would be interested in our Aussie HD readers take on this assessment of their system, and whether they agree with the conclusions about their system.

From what I read, many if not the great majority, of HD readers are the exception to much of this dilemma.
The responsibility for retirement income has steadily shifted to individuals and away from employers (unless you work for government), but far too few workers have accepted that responsibility. Longterm thinking does not seem a widespread skill. I find this information a bit depressing. How do we change the situation? 
Frankly I don’t know, but if we don’t make changes- if individuals don’t make changes in their financial behavior and if we don’t do better for those with inadequate means to fend for themselves,

LAST WEEK THE government released its monthly employment figures for February. The results weren’t great. Payrolls declined, and unemployment ticked up. These numbers square with other downbeat data, including a recent uptick in bankruptcy filings.
Another worry: Oil prices have been rising, a result of the conflict in the Middle East. That’s a concern because it could lead to a reacceleration of inflation. It could also dampen consumer spending because higher gas prices act like a tax on consumers,

A witty, honest and poignant short film:
Retirement Plan
With a lesson:
“Time is the one asset you can’t compound; spend it while the market is still open.”
 

A POPULAR JOKE about retirement is that it can be hard work. That’s because financial planning is like a jigsaw puzzle, and retirement often means rearranging the pieces.
In the past, I’ve discussed two key pieces of that puzzle: how to determine a sustainable portfolio withdrawal rate and how to decide on an effective asset allocation. But there’s one more piece of the puzzle to contend with: taxes. Especially if you’re planning to retire on the earlier side,

According to a May 2025 Gallup survey, only 61% of Americans age 65 and older own stocks in any way, including IRAs, 401ks, etc. I found that a bit shocking and a little sad. I’m pretty certain HD readers and writers are not among the 39%. 
If that is an accurate percentage, no wonder many retirees are in poor financial shape, no wonder social media is full of videos with seniors claiming they need and deserve higher social security benefits and higher COLA adjustments.

I don’t have the right stuff to be an engineer, as the math involved boggles my mind. But that didn’t stop my infatuation with spreadsheets in the nascent days of computer ownership. That was around 1990, roughly the same time-frame as the implementation of my employer’s 401k. 
Oh boy, enabled by my new love of Excel, my life was planned out via extrapolations of future earnings, savings rates, and stock market performance. My plan had me comfortably retired at age 55.

Most personal finance advice is beautifully simple: save more.
Early in life, that advice is almost always right. But like most good rules, it has limits.
There comes a point in a saver’s life when retirement growth is driven far more by compounding than by new contributions. Past that point, continuing to save aggressively still increases your balance—but it may no longer be the best use of every additional dollar.
Recognizing when that shift has occurred can create flexibility without recklessly undermining your future.

I WAS THINKING ABOUT Jonathan the other day on my morning walk, which happens more often than you might think. It’s hard not to think about him when you have HumbleDollar coasters in your living room and a HumbleDollar shopping bag in your car that you use for groceries. My wife confiscated the HumbleDollar cup I had been using for my morning tea, and it now has a new home in our bathroom holding her toothbrush and toothpaste.

My wife was laid off the other day. After thirty years at one company. For the first time in her working life, forty years, she was told her services were no longer needed.
Even though we’re financially fine, and now that she may join me in retirement, I’m unsettled. I think it’s because we have both crossed the retirement line. We’re no longer actively working to make money. We’re now 100% earning money passively. We’re relying on all the acorns that we’ve saved,