Spending

LIKE EVERYONE ELSE, I’ve been experiencing sticker shock lately when I step into the grocery store.
Meats, vegetables, paper products, canned goods—everything is costing a lot more. One example: My favorite brand of Good’s thin pretzels now costs $2.50 a bag—75 cents more than I was paying a year ago. Compared to the other brands in the snack aisle, those Good’s pretzels are still a bargain, but it sure doesn’t feel that way.
Along with steeper prices for gas,

I’VE TALKED IN EARLIER articles about asset-liability matching. It’s ​a concept popular with insurance companies to manage investment risk. It’s a very formal approach and not one I would expect an individual investor to follow too literally. But it’s a notion that, in general, can help individuals make asset allocation decisions.
In his book, The Outsiders, William Thorndike highlights another well-known principle in corporate finance that can also be applied to personal finance: It’s called capital allocation.

MY FAVORITE NOVEL by Jules Verne is Around the World in 80 Days, which I first read as a child. It was published in 1872, and documented Phileas Fogg’s attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days.
The book has been made into a play, six movies and a half-dozen television series, including a recent entertaining PBS series. The Three Stooges even released a feature film version in 1963.
The Wikipedia entry for the novel lists 10 real-life attempts to replicate the fictional journey.

MY HUSBAND AND I CAN now say we survived our first Arizona summer. When we moved from Portland, Oregon, to Phoenix, we weren’t sure how we’d cope with the abundant sunshine. There was also another unknown: How much would it cost to keep our home comfortable when the temperature outside soared?
We heard stories about residents in our retirement community paying upward of $350 a month for electricity during the summer season. Since we’re living on a fixed income,

SIX YEARS AGO, I made one of the worst investments of my life.
I got a dog.
Ignoring the age-old advice to never invest in anything that eats, I signed up for a purebred German shorthair pointer puppy. I thereby locked myself into an indefinite stream of future cash outflows in the form of dog food, treats, supplies, annual checkups, vaccinations, flea and tick treatments, heartworm pills, procedures and other expenses required for keeping man’s best friend healthy and happy.

IN THE SOUTH, it’s common for a restaurant server or store clerk to refer to me as “sweetie” or “honey.” I’ll often respond by asking, “How did you know my name is Sweetie?”
This will usually bring a smile to the face of even a harried worker. Our friendly banter is the worker practicing some of the charm and hospitality that the South is famous for, and me returning the courtesy with “reverse hospitality.”
A commercial transaction doesn’t involve just money.

I RETIRED TWO YEARS ago this week. I’d been in a job that was a bad fit for my skills, experience and university degrees. The pay was paltry, but it was the only job I could find four years earlier.
I calculated that my Social Security and state pension would match my take-home pay because they were based on my highest earnings, which were many years earlier. COVID-19 was a threat to old guys like me and my employer was offering a modest retirement incentive,

I’VE NEVER BUDGETED, meaning I’ve never planned every expense in detail. But I know many people do, especially as they look ahead to retirement.

This doesn’t mean I don’t know what I spend. My utility bill is $127 a month, my homeowners’ association fee is $870, my property taxes are $3,117 a quarter and my BritBox subscription is $5.99 a month. Or is it $6.99?

By the end of each month, our two credit cards are paid in full.

I MUST ADMIT THAT a part of me finds the subject of inflation a little boring and yet endearing, because it reminds me of conversations with my late mother. She’d balk at paying $2.50 for a cup of coffee at Dunkin’—hey old-timers, that’s what they call it now—as she distinctly remembered buying a cup of coffee for a nickel the day Pearl Harbor was bombed.
Another part of me, though, is feeling a little pinched.

I ADVISED LAST OCTOBER that loading up on holiday gifts ahead of the main shopping season probably made sense, given problems with the supply chain. Foreign manufacturers were struggling to produce enough goods, plus many items were stuck in ships anchored off the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, California. Parents across the country, flush with cash, were frantic about getting their kids the latest hot toys.
What a difference a year makes.

A FAVORITE QUOTE in the world of personal finance comes from Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises.
“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.
“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually, then suddenly.”
Money troubles are a common theme throughout literature. Charles Dickens probably summed it up best. In David Copperfield, a fellow named Micawber laments: “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds,

WE BUY LOBSTERS from the backdoor of a fisherman who we know here in Maine. On Tuesday, my wife texted him to say she’d left $35 in cash for the four lobsters he’d set aside for us in a cooler. He texted back to say $25 was more than enough.
In a year of spiking inflation, I have a morsel of good news. The wholesale price of lobster has crashed since March, down 45% according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St.

MY WIFE AND I JUST returned from the first extended road trip of our retirement. We were away two weeks, drove 2,800 miles and visited 10 states. The primary reason for the trip was to stay five days on a houseboat on Beaver Lake, Arkansas, with seven friends.
We broke the trip into three phases. The first part took us from New Jersey to northwest Arkansas in two-and-a-half days. Along the way, we stopped in St.

MY WIFE AND I GET together occasionally with our neighbors for a glass of wine. We became good friends with Larry and Kathryn since they moved into our neighborhood. They‘re retirees, just like us.
When visiting them, they often serve cheese and crackers. One day, Larry said to me, “Try one of these whole wheat crackers. They won’t hurt you. I can’t say the same thing about the cheese, though.” He knows I try to eat healthily.

COUNTLESS ARTICLES on HumbleDollar speak of the need to save, especially for those early in their careers, so they can eventually retire in comfort. The powerful effect of compounding means that the sooner those dollars are saved and invested, the greater the sum down the road.
But where can folks find those extra savings? Let me offer a suggestion: learn to cook.
The amount Americans of all income levels spend on eating out,