Home - HumbleDollar

How do you prepare for the long term care cost as retiree?

achnk53 | Jun 21, 2026

"Way back, when I was in my 40s, the megacorp offered employees Option 1. I figured I would likely be paying premiums for over forty years for something I might never use, and passed. Since then companies have abandoned the business, and premiums for remaining policies have risen. I do not regret that decision. Instead, I have implemented David's suggestion. In my mid-70s I moved to a non-profit CCRC that promises to keep me if I run out of money. It has been in operation for over 30 years and has an extensive wait list. Of course, this plan might be derailed by some black swan event, but that is true of any plan."

- mytimetotravel

TSP G Fund as the only Fixed Income Investment

Mark Ukleja | Jun 21, 2026

"I’d certainly consider it. I wish I still had it!"

- Michael1

What Addiction Couldn’t Take: My Sister’s Story

Andrew Clements | Jun 17, 2026

"Thank you Lester for sharing such a personal story. I’m sorry for the loss of your brother, and congratulations on your own recovery. What stood out to me was how naturally you described your brother’s gifts and talents before anything else. That’s exactly how I hope people will remember Tory, not for her addiction, but for the person she was. Thank you for your kindness and understanding. "

- Andrew Clements

Close to Everything I Need

ArticleDennis Friedman | Jun 20, 2026

I DON’T HAVE MANY regrets in life. But there is one conversation with my mother that I wish I had never had. It was about moving her into an assisted living facility. She was in her 90s, and I thought it would be best for both of us. My mother would receive better care, and I could take much-needed breaks. She could even keep her house and spend time there when I was with her. It seemed like a middle-of-the-road approach to providing care. I thought it was a win-win situation for both of us. But I couldn't convince my mother to leave the home she had lived in for 42 years. She would ask me questions like, “How far my bed would be from the front door?” I was beginning to understand that she was afraid of moving to an unfamiliar place. It was simply too much to ask of her. About six weeks later, my mother had a heart attack. She passed away a week afterward in a rehabilitation facility after being discharged from the hospital. Looking back, I sometimes wonder if our discussions about assisted living were harder on her than I realized. It's something I've thought about many times since. After reaching age 75 and coming closer to the possibility of needing more care myself, I now have a better understanding of why my mother wanted to age in place. She valued the familiarity and emotional comfort of her home. She knew exactly how far her bed was from the front door. She maintained relationships with neighbors who would stop by to chat and share a glass of wine. She also knew the people at the stores and restaurants she visited regularly. A few of them even attended her funeral. All of her doctors were nearby. She would often say, "I'm close to everything I need." Recently, when I was experiencing problems with my eyesight, I've felt more vulnerable. One day, while having lunch with my wife, I brought up the topic of how we might receive care in our later years. As soon as I mentioned assisted living, Rachel grew quiet and a sad look came over her face. I've seen that look before. At that moment, I realized I was hearing the same concern I had heard from my mother years earlier. They were thinking about leaving behind a familiar life and moving to a place where everything would be different. My wife and my mother are not alone. About three-quarters of Americans over age 50 say they want to remain in their current homes as they age. I count myself among them. Part of our long-term care planning is an effort to preserve the life we've built here for as long as possible. It's not an easy decision because none of us knows what our future health will look like. Aging in place offers advantages, but it also involves risks. If we need only limited assistance, staying in our home could be significantly less expensive than moving to a senior living community, especially since our mortgage is paid off. We can purchase only the services we need—housekeeping, meal delivery, transportation, or occasional home health care—and adjust that support as circumstances change. At the same time, we retain ownership of our home and any future appreciation in its value. That equity remains available if we eventually need more extensive care. Of course, there is no guarantee that our health will cooperate. Serious illnesses or cognitive decline could create care needs that are difficult or expensive to manage at home. That's one reason some people choose a continuing care retirement community (CCRC), which offers a continuum of care and contracts that can provide insurance-like protection against future long-term care costs. For us, the decision comes down to a tradeoff: Do we value maximum independence and flexibility today, or do we value having a built-in care system already in place for the future? For now, we're taking a hybrid approach. We plan to remain in our home through our 70s and early 80s. We're in reasonably good health, and my eyesight is no longer a major issue. We are planning to invest in accessibility improvements, including a stair lift to our upstairs master bedroom, grab bars in the bathrooms, and brighter lighting. Our house already has a walk-in shower, doorways and hallways wide enough for a walker, and space for a caregiver if one is ever needed. In addition, we’re setting aside a dedicated reserve of 20% of our investment portfolio to help cover future care needs. Most people do not spend years in a nursing home. As a result, we're not trying to fund the most expensive long-term-care scenario imaginable. Instead, we're setting aside enough money to cover the most likely care needs without significantly affecting our lifestyle. If we encounter a more extreme situation, we still have the remainder of our portfolio and the equity in our home available. That’s just basic financial planning: managing risk to a comfortable level instead of spending a fortune to eliminate it completely. We'll reevaluate our situation every few years and remain open to moving to a CCRC or assisted living community if health, mobility, or caregiving needs increase significantly. There may come a day when Rachel and I decide that a CCRC or assisted living community is the right choice. None of us can predict the future, and flexibility has value. But I now understand something I didn't fully appreciate when my mother was alive. A home is more than a place to live. It is a collection of routines, relationships, memories, and comforts that become increasingly important as we grow older. My mother knew that instinctively. She wasn't being stubborn. She was protecting a life she loved and a sense of independence that mattered deeply to her. When she told me she was close to everything she needed, she wasn't talking about stores, restaurants, or doctors. She was talking about belonging. It took me years to understand what she meant. If I had understood it sooner, our conversations about assisted living might have been very different. Dennis Friedman retired from Boeing Satellite Systems after a 30-year career in manufacturing. Born in Ohio, Dennis is a California transplant with a bachelor’s degree in history and an MBA. A self-described “humble investor,” he likes reading historical novels and about personal finance. Follow Dennis on X @DMFrie and check out his earlier articles

How financially illiterate are Americans?

R Quinn | Jun 19, 2026

"I was 8 y/o in the 1950s when my father was taking his MBA at Syracuse U. I was asking him numerous things financial, one of which was, "How do you get rich?" His answer, "Two ways, real estate and/or stock market investing." Never forgot the latter."

- B Carr

What’s in your portfolio ?

Larry | Jun 12, 2026

"I suspect you probably do know how to value an annuity in your asset allocation, but if you want to convert it to a lump sum for the purposes of portfolio management, an easy approximation is to value it as the amount of money that would be throwing off that income with an equivalent level of risk. For instance, a traditional annuity might have about the level of risk of a home mortgage, now paying perhaps 5% depending on origination date, so 10,000 in annual cash represents about $200000. Of course it's not precise, but I think it works pretty well for allocation purposes."

- Steve Spinella

Risk Adjusted: The Family Ledger

Mark Crothers | Jun 18, 2026

"W.S, thank you for that; it was a really thoughtful response. For what it's worth, I think you made a good choice. It's funny how a life is full of forks in the road, and yet only a few really shape everything after. Those are the ones that stay lit up in memory, the ones that bring on that quiet "what if." For me, it was being a teenager in the early 80s, right at the dawn of home computing. Nobody knew yet what this thing was going to become. There was no map, no established career path, just a handful of us tinkering in bedrooms with machines that felt like magic. I already had some of my own game software selling at Tandy on consignment, making decent money for a kid. And the strange thing is, I could feel the size of what was coming even then: that this was the very start of something enormous, and I was standing right at the entrance to it. But I chose a different path. Even now, that "what if" still visits me. What would it have been like to ride that wave from the beginning, to grow up alongside an industry that went on to remake the entire world? And then I look at the life I actually built, the one I have, and I feel genuinely blessed. No regrets."

- Mark Crothers

Leverage

Catherine | Jun 19, 2026

"Completely agree. We have a sizable allocation in a 401(k) stable value fund but that’s definitely not what I consider ready cash. "

- Michael1

Pricing the Future

ArticleAdam M. Grossman | Jun 20, 2026

THE WAY INVESTORS think about the stock market may be entirely wrong. Intuition tells us, and academic research confirms, that a company’s stock price should respond to important news and information. When a company announces a new product, for example, its stock should go up. And when results fall short of expectations, it should decline. But a new paper titled “The Inefficient Pricing of News” calls this idea into question. The authors found that investors respond much more slowly and inconsistently to market news than previously thought. In some cases, it took a year or more for a stock price to respond. Why would that be the case? Tony Fadell is often referred to as “the father of the iPod.” For years, he worked side-by-side with Steve Jobs, first developing the iPod, then the iPhone. In a recent interview, Fadell shared details of what the product development process looked like inside Apple, and how the reality on the inside often differed from the way it appeared on the outside. Fadell’s comments can help us understand why stock prices often miss the mark. The nature of competition. Investors, Fadell argued, often have a one-dimensional understanding of companies. As an example, he told the story of the development of the iPhone. When it was first released, many observers dismissed it as an overpriced toy. Unlike the BlackBerry, the dominant mobile device for corporate users at the time, the first iPhone lacked key security features and didn’t have a physical keyboard. As a result, it was perceived as a niche product with narrow appeal. Fadell explained, though, that Apple looked at the market differently. Yes, BlackBerry had a very high market share among business users, but it had only a small share of the overall mobile phone market—just 1% or 2%. Apple was interested in the rest of the market: “What about the other 98% of the people? What would they want?” That was the question Apple was asking internally. Observers on the outside, though, underestimated the iPhone’s potential because they assumed they understood Apple’s competitive objectives. The definition of success. Investors often make another mistake, Fadell said. They use the wrong yardstick in measuring successes and failures. He notes that early versions of both the iPod and the iPhone had significant shortcomings. The first iPod worked only with Apple computers. The first iPhone was underpowered and wasn’t open to outside app developers. The App Store didn’t debut until a year after the iPhone’s release. For all these reasons, early critics continued to underestimate the iPhone’s potential even as it gained market share. But inside Apple, the potential was clear. They knew that all of the core components would get better each year and that cell phone networks would get faster. Fadell, who also invented the Nest thermostat, made this observation: “Everything needs three generations. I’ve never seen anyone get it right the first time.” Wall Street, however, tends to not be that patient, and that can lead to a disconnect between perception and reality in stock prices. Fadell notes that even when a product fails, it can be valuable. Apple learned a lot from the Newton, its first attempt at a mobile device. Similarly, Amazon had a short-lived mobile phone called the Fire. From the outside it was deemed a costly mistake, but Jeff Bezos saw it differently. “You can’t, for one minute, feel bad,” he said. The voice recognition technology Amazon developed for the Fire ultimately turned into Alexa. The bottom line: Wall Street’s obsession with quarterly results can cause investors to use the wrong scorecard, and that’s another reason stock prices can move in the wrong direction. The timeline to profits. Fadell noted that the first iPhone was unprofitable but that this wasn’t a concern. Because sales were increasing, Apple would be able to lower production costs. Together with technology advances, management knew that the product would eventually yield profit. “You make the product, you fix the product, then you fix the business,” Fadell explained. Companies pursuing a new idea are often underestimated because they’re judged prematurely. Consider Amazon. It was unprofitable for almost 10 years after its founding. Why? During that decade, the company was growing quickly, but it reinvested as much as it could into warehouses. The result is that it can now deliver packages to many customers the same day. That may have been Jeff Bezos’s vision from early on, but outside observers couldn’t see the roadmap he had in his desk drawer, and for that reason, Amazon was regularly criticized for its lack of profits. The most notable misjudgment: In 1999, Barron’s magazine ran a cover story with the headline “Amazon.bomb.” How did Barron’s editors get it wrong? They had no idea where the company was headed, and for competitive reasons, Bezos certainly wasn’t going to tip his hand. This pattern repeats frequently, and it’s a key reason why stock prices often end up out of line with a company’s true long-term value. "All overnight success takes about 10 years,” Bezos later commented. Timeline to bankruptcy. Sometimes, Wall Street makes the opposite mistake, failing to see when a company is headed into decline. The most famous example in this category may be Kodak, which was the dominant maker of film for traditional cameras. Remarkably, it was a Kodak engineer who invented the first digital camera all the way back in the 1970s. But recognizing the threat it represented, the company shelved the project. Over the course of the 1980s and 1990s, other companies introduced digital cameras, with the result that, between 1990 and 1997, Kodak’s revenue dropped almost 25%. And yet, throughout that period, its stock kept rising, hitting an all-time high in 1997. Investors just couldn’t appreciate the reality of what was happening. But then, just five years later, Kodak filed for bankruptcy. In general, and on average, stock prices do reflect the value of public companies. But for all the reasons Fadell cites, that relationship is often imperfect. This is a fundamental reason why, in my view, investors are best served by choosing diversified index funds rather than trying to pick individual stocks. Adam M. Grossman is the founder of Mayport, a fixed-fee wealth management firm. Sign up for Adam's Daily Ideas email, follow him on X @AdamMGrossman and check out his earlier articles.

They’re Right, I’m Wrong, Sort Of

Dan Smith | Feb 2, 2025

"Food for thought. It took from 1930 to 1946 before the stock market was back to its 1929 level! So all your money in stocks in 1929 and a 1930 retirement date would have put you squarely behind the 8 ball!"

- john deam

He Said I Wasn’t Very Nice

Dan Smith | Jun 18, 2026

"I doubt anyone would want to make or watch a movie of me asking someone to go away."

- William Perry

Bonds vs. Bond Funds

Matt Halperin | Jun 12, 2026

"Great article, always nice to learn about Bonds."

- William Dorner

How do you prepare for the long term care cost as retiree?

achnk53 | Jun 21, 2026

- mytimetotravel

TSP G Fund as the only Fixed Income Investment

Mark Ukleja | Jun 21, 2026

"I’d certainly consider it. I wish I still had it!"

- Michael1

What Addiction Couldn’t Take: My Sister’s Story

Andrew Clements | Jun 17, 2026

- Andrew Clements

Close to Everything I Need

ArticleDennis Friedman | Jun 20, 2026

How financially illiterate are Americans?

R Quinn | Jun 19, 2026

- B Carr

What’s in your portfolio ?

Larry | Jun 12, 2026

- Steve Spinella

Risk Adjusted: The Family Ledger

Mark Crothers | Jun 18, 2026

- Mark Crothers

Leverage

Catherine | Jun 19, 2026

"Completely agree. We have a sizable allocation in a 401(k) stable value fund but that’s definitely not what I consider ready cash. "

- Michael1

Pricing the Future

ArticleAdam M. Grossman | Jun 20, 2026

Manifesto

Jun 21, 2026

NO. 65: IF WE CAN easily afford to cover a financial loss out of pocket, we shouldn’t pay an insurance company to do so. An auto policy is a great idea—but one with low deductibles isn’t.

Truths

Jun 21, 2026

NO. 64: NOBODY should be all stocks or all bonds. If you’re 100% stocks, you can reduce volatility by shifting 10% of your portfolio into bonds—with little impact on returns. The reason: Adding bonds allows you to pick up a rebalancing bonus. Meanwhile, 100% bond investors can boost returns, without a lot of added volatility, by moving maybe 25% to stocks.

act

Jun 20, 2026

GET ORGANIZED. Keep the backup material for your past seven tax returns. The rest can be tossed. If your brokerage firm and mutual funds provide the cost basis for your investments, there may be no need to keep old statements. Tell your family where they can find your will, a list of your financial accounts, and all your usernames and passwords.

Truths

Jun 19, 2026

NO. 76: TAX DEFERRAL lets you use dollars that’ll eventually go to Uncle Sam to earn extra gains for yourself. An example: If you invested $1,000 at 6% a year and paid 22% in taxes every year, you would have $3,944 after 30 years. But if you put off the 22% tax bill for 30 years by funding a tax-deferred retirement account, you’d end up with $4,700, or 19% more.

Money Guide

Manifesto

Jun 21, 2026

NO. 65: IF WE CAN easily afford to cover a financial loss out of pocket, we shouldn’t pay an insurance company to do so. An auto policy is a great idea—but one with low deductibles isn’t.

Spotlight: Insurance

Insurance to cover losses from hacking?

eludom | Nov 7, 2024

I view it a matter of when, not if, large companies will be hacked. A list of breaches from this year alone shows hacks at Truist, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America. I don’t think the likes of Vanguard, Fidelty or Swchab are immune. And while I practice reasonable infosec hygene (2FA wherever possible, etc) I KNOW I’m not immune: the computers, smartphones, etc that I use to manage my accounts can be hacked.
That said,

Où Est l’Hôpital?

Kathy Wilhelm | Oct 5, 2023

I’D JUST ARRIVED IN the charming, car-free village of Murren in the Swiss Alps, and was trying to find my B&B on the helpful signpost near the station. Stepping back for a better view, I tripped over the curb, with my backpack pulling me further off-balance. I went down with my left wrist under my hip.

Two wonderful British couples rushed to my assistance. One pair took my backpack to my B&B and the other escorted me back down the mountain to a doctor’s office.

Home, Auto & Umbrella Insurance—“Longevity Benefit”?

Andrew Forsythe | Jan 23, 2025

Recently, and spurred by the horrific fires in L.A., there’s been a lot of attention on home insurance, including skyrocketing premiums. Like many people, we have our home, auto, and umbrella policies with the same company, and have seen our premiums increase dramatically in the last few years.
I’ve occasionally heard mention, without much in the way of specifics, of a “longevity benefit” in staying with the same insurance company rather than constantly shopping around and switching.

Is buying long-term-care insurance a good idea?

Jonathan Clements | Apr 12, 2021

Fatten That Policy

James McGlynn | Sep 15, 2020

I WORKED IN THE investment department of three different insurance companies. But I never had any interest in buying a whole-life insurance policy. I knew term insurance was the best way to get the maximum death benefit for my premium dollars.
Instead, as a mutual fund manager, I was always more interested in investing in the stock market. (That said, I didn’t invest in the first mutual fund I managed. Why not? I didn’t want to pay the 7% “load”—the upfront sales commission.)
But my attitude toward whole-life insurance changed six years ago.

Grab an Umbrella

Adam M. Grossman | May 2, 2021

ON FEB. 27, 1992, Stella Liebeck ordered a cup of coffee from a McDonald’s drive-through. Moments later, as she attempted to open the lid, the cup spilled, causing a burn that sent her to the hospital. Her injury was serious but self-inflicted and not life-threatening. Nonetheless, she sued McDonald’s, and a jury awarded her almost $3 million. That award was reduced upon appeal, but this case is often cited as an example of an out-of-control legal system exploited by personal injury lawyers.

Well: That’s Just Inconvenient!

Mark Crothers | Dec 29, 2025

My wife Suzie has a particular look she reserves for my more idiotic ramblings. I noticed the look developing as I started to discuss the tax implications of my engaged daughter's announcement for a possible wedding date. I've been married a long time and have developed a survival instinct. I closed my mouth and decided to listen with rapt attention as my daughter and future son-in-law explained their reasoning for the possible date for the big day…apparently February flowers are delightful. It was lovely my London-based daughter and fiancé managed to get time off work over the holidays and flew back to Ireland, joining us for Christmas dinner. But I have to say, the suggested wedding date—February 2027—is rather inconvenient. I'm going to walk my wife Suzie through this, but I thought I'd start with you, dear readers. For some random, unknown reason—possibly involving medieval sheep farmers and the Julian calendar—the UK tax year starts on the 5th of April. Yes, April. Not January 1st like sensible countries. I'd had the idea in my mind that 2027 would be the wedding year and had prepared my finances accordingly. Bumping myself up against a tax threshold before the end of March 2026 and doing so again for March 2027, resulting in enough free cash flow at a lower tax rate to pay for the wedding. Now my tax plans are in tatters because of the rather inconvenient wedding timing smack bang in the middle of the two tax years I was optimizing for. I'm sure you can see my problem. I've even got my argument ready for Suzie: "Now, Suzie, darling, don't give me that look. Just hear me out. It's a matter of basic arithmetic and the peculiar stubbornness of the tax authorities. You see, if the kids would simply…

The Distance: Time Grinds On

Mark Crothers | Jan 2, 2026

Another year begins, and I’m already thinking about how it might end—or if not this one, the next. I’m not sure “lucky” is the right word, but I’m past the hardest of my own sandwich years. Both my parents are gone now. My mum was the last to go, two years ago, after five years of slow decline from vascular dementia—five difficult, traumatic years. Through the pain of her loss, I also felt grateful it was over. My wife Suzie has been estranged from her mother for forty years, but she's very close with her father. He lives alone in Spain, thousands of miles from his children in Ireland and England. He's approaching eighty, and age is beginning to show its hand. I worry about what's ahead for my wife and her siblings. The distance makes everything harder. When I spent time with my father-in-law in late September, I noticed he was repeating himself more than before. After I got home, I raised it with his kids and suggested it might be time to think about him moving closer to family. I even suggested Suzie and I would be willing to build a granny annex on our property if that helped. They weren't particularly engaged with the idea. My father-in-law wasn't receptive either when I mentioned it to him. Maybe I'm jumping the gun, worrying about problems that aren't real yet. I've been through difficult years and my tripwire is maybe set too high. I brought it up with Suzie again recently. Throughout, I could see she was upset and uncomfortable with the topic. "Mark, we've talked around the subject with him." "There's not much we can do at the moment." "Dad laughed and said his body will be cremated in Spain—what more can we do?" After a bit of…

A Personal Encounter with the Psychology of Money

Mark Crothers | Jul 28, 2025

I've been in a bit of a financial funk these last three months, and I've finally managed to overcome my heart and listen to my head. I'm really surprised how difficult I've found it, especially with my business and financial background. I mean, truly difficult. It all started when I was setting up a 10-year fixed-term annuity before retirement. I had initially decided on a purchase amount and, to fund it, liquidated some of my developed world index tracker. I moved the cash into my Vanguard money market fund to keep the money safe prior to the annuity purchase. After more research and some analysis, I decided to purchase a smaller annuity, leaving me with approximately $120,000 still sitting in my money market fund. Because of market behaviour this last while, I kept putting off reinvesting the money back into the original fund it came from. I've looked at it nearly every other day for the last three months, and I couldn't pluck up the nerve to simply reinvest. It's absolutely ridiculous, and the annoying thing is I knew I was being pretty dumb and needed to get a grip, but man, was it hard! I got a severe case of status quo bias with a large helping of loss aversion, all wrapped in a blanket of analysis paralysis, and I'm here to tell you it's as real as a brick wall and nearly as hard to knock down. I was literally mentally stuck and couldn't execute a simple financial transaction for three months—unbelievable. I think this experience has really hit home that financial decision-making isn't purely rational, even with my strong business and financial background. Emotions, biases, and an irrational fear of making a "wrong" move overrode my logical understanding. I guess this is why personal finance is often…

A Quick Question about Retirement Vacations

Mark Crothers | Jul 9, 2025

I've been at my holiday home for 10 days now, feeling relaxed and enjoying myself. It's the first 'holiday' since retirement. What piqued my interest, though, is a subtle but distinct difference: this break feels less intense, is probably the word, than vacations I took while still working. It's not the same kind of escape. Has anyone else noticed this after retirement?

Framed by his Side Hustle?

Mark Crothers | Jul 12, 2025

I bumped into a friend a few months ago. I knew he'd retired about two years prior, and since I was just on the cusp of doing so, I steered the conversation toward how he was enjoying himself. As we talked, he revealed he was pretty stressed out and far too busy to enjoy himself. Surprised by this confession, I pressed him for the reason. It turns out, being good with his hands, he had always fancied having a go at picture framing and purchased some equipment for this endeavor. He thought he could maybe make a few dollars and fill a bit of his spare time. Things have gone better than he expected, and it's snowballed into an enterprise taking up all his time, to the extent he may as well be working full-time and more! He's also breached the UK turnover threshold for sales tax (VAT) and needs to register with the tax authorities and keep detailed records of his sales. He's somehow let it get out of control because he doesn't want to let customers down. Thinking about it during our conversation, I remarked he was maybe letting himself and his wife down, and that was possibly more important than the customers. That may sound a bit blunt, but I knew he and his wife had been looking forward to his retirement and had quite a few plans to enjoy their time together, which now seemed to be on long-term hold. We finished our conversation and went our separate ways. But this got me thinking: side hustles in retirement are possibly not always what they're cracked up to be. Maybe my friend should have thought things through a bit more, and although he couldn't have known he was going to get so busy, having some guidelines around…

Please Sir, Can I Have Some More?

Mark Crothers | Dec 22, 2025

I was mulling over a thought recently. It seems that over the last nine months I've become so enamoured with the fixed income I secured with an annuity when first retiring that a little voice in my head keeps whispering to load up on some more. At the moment I have a term annuity that lasts ten years and covers all my essential spending. Out of curiosity I decided to get some quotes for a single payment immediate annuity (SPIA). And although I've put the idea on the back burner until I'm older, probably mid to late sixties, the numbers looked quite good: 4.95% with a 3% COLA for my spritely 58 year old self. Alternatively I could have got a level annuity with a 7% rate. Even though I'm not buying, it occurred to me that working through the figures would be an excellent example on the effects of long-term inflation on fixed income. The contrast is illuminating. That level annuity at 7% sounds good at first look—for every $100,000 I hand over, I'd receive $7,000 annually for life. Simple, straightforward, and the payout never changes. The COLA option at 4.95% looks anaemic by comparison, delivering just $4,950 in year one for the same premium. But then it gets interesting. Fast forward a decade, and that 3% annual adjustment has compounded quietly in the background. By year ten, my COLA annuity would be paying $6,460 annually—still trailing the level payment, but the gap has narrowed considerably from that initial $2,050 difference. Another decade out, at year twenty, the COLA payment reaches $8,440 while that level annuity stubbornly sits at $7,000. The inflation-adjusted income has overtaken the fixed payment, and the crossover happened somewhere around year fourteen. The real eye-opener comes when you extend the timeline to thirty years. That…

How do you prepare for the long term care cost as retiree?

TSP G Fund as the only Fixed Income Investment

What Addiction Couldn’t Take: My Sister’s Story

Close to Everything I Need

How financially illiterate are Americans?

What’s in your portfolio ?

Risk Adjusted: The Family Ledger

Leverage

Pricing the Future

They’re Right, I’m Wrong, Sort Of

He Said I Wasn’t Very Nice

Bonds vs. Bond Funds

How do you prepare for the long term care cost as retiree?

TSP G Fund as the only Fixed Income Investment

What Addiction Couldn’t Take: My Sister’s Story

Close to Everything I Need

How financially illiterate are Americans?

What’s in your portfolio ?

Risk Adjusted: The Family Ledger

Leverage

Pricing the Future

Free Newsletter

Get Educated

Manifesto

Truths

act

Truths

Money Guide

Manifesto

Spotlight: Insurance

Insurance to cover losses from hacking?

Où Est l’Hôpital?

Home, Auto & Umbrella Insurance—“Longevity Benefit”?

Is buying long-term-care insurance a good idea?

Fatten That Policy

Grab an Umbrella

Spotlight: Crothers

Well: That’s Just Inconvenient!

The Distance: Time Grinds On

A Personal Encounter with the Psychology of Money

A Quick Question about Retirement Vacations

Framed by his Side Hustle?

Please Sir, Can I Have Some More?