BEFORE WE GET into it, a brief word. We lost Jonathan last year, and those of us who followed his work felt it more than we perhaps expected.  He had a saying that I always liked - that there are really only twenty stories in personal finance, and the financial industry spends most of its time telling them on repeat in slightly different hats. He was right, of course. He usually was. It struck me that a fitting tribute might be to take his core principles and do something with them, not quote him at length, but wrestle with the ideas in our own words, from our own lives. I've chosen "Resist the Urge to Act," and had a go below. If the idea appeals to any readers posting on the forum, I'd love to see others pick a principle, whichever one speaks to you, and write about it in your own voice. No need to be an economist. Just be honest. I suspect Jonathan would have approved of that approach more than most. There's a strange truth lurking at the heart of personal finance that nobody tells you about, possibly because it would put a large number of people out of work. The more urgently you feel you ought to do something with your investments, the more damage you will probably do by doing it. I find this deeply satisfying, not because I'm wise, far from it, but because it seems my instinct to do very little was correct all along. Vindication, when it arrives, should be savored. Jonathan Clements spent decades writing about money for the Wall Street Journal before founding HumbleDollar, which if you're reading this you already know, and if you don't, welcome, you've somehow stumbled into excellent company by accident. One of his core messages, boiled down to its purest form, was this: The secret to successful investing is to be comprehensively, almost aggressively boring. He had a list of principles, and one of them was deceptively simple: Resist the Urge to Act. I have a suspicion he knew it was one of the hardest ones, which is perhaps why he saved it for near the end of his various lists. Telling people to do nothing runs headlong into every instinct the modern world has carefully cultivated in them. The financial news industry has a business model, and it is not, I would suggest, your long-term wealth they're hoping to help. Their holy grail is your attention span, and attention without action doesn't keep the lights on. So urgency is manufactured. Alarm is engineered. The moment a headline about Federal Reserve policy or market volatility lands on your phone screen, the correct and sophisticated response, according to Jonathan, is to put the phone face-down and go and make a cup of tea. This is not what the headline wants you to do. The headline wants you to feel that failure to react immediately constitutes negligence. It doesn't. The information has already been digested, debated, and priced in by people who got it considerably earlier than you did. Acting on it now isn't smart. It's like arriving late to a party that ended an hour ago and wondering why nobody's offering you a stiff drink. Jonathan was a firm believer in market efficiency, the rather humbling idea that you, me, and most professional fund managers with their impressive offices and Bloomberg terminals, cannot reliably outthink the combined judgment of millions of other investors. Once you genuinely accept this, something might shift for you. You'll probably stop checking your portfolio three times before lunch. Which matters more than it might sound, because there's a fairly direct relationship between how often you look at your balance and how likely you are to do something regrettable with it. He had a line I've shamelessly adopted as my own: Your portfolio is like a bar of soap, and the more you handle it, the smaller it gets. My wife Suzie heard me say this recently and pointed out that I've never shown this level of restraint with actual soap. She's not wrong. But then again, I liberate hotel soap. The other temptation Jonathan warned against was treating the market as a hobby. There's a certain thrill, I understand, in hunting for the next great stock, the overheard tip, the sector everyone's talking about. The feeling that you've spotted something the rest of us turkeys have missed is a powerful one. He was fairly blunt on this point. If you want that kind of excitement, go to the cinema. Go to a casino. These are perfectly respectable venues for the willing suspension of rational judgment. Your brokerage account is not. The urge to act, dressed up as diligence and research, is still the urge to act. The actual solution is somewhat anticlimactic. Broad index funds, bought automatically and regularly, regardless of what the television talking heads are shouting about. When the market drops and the headlines turn an alarming shade of red, the correct response, the disciplined, intelligent, sophisticated response, is to turn the television off, close the laptop, and take yourself for a walk. Jonathan was clear on this point: Doing nothing, at the right moment, is one of the harder things an investor can do. It only looks like laziness from the outside. From the inside, when every instinct is screaming at you to move, to switch, to sell, to “do something,” holding still takes genuine effort. I have found, in my own modest experience, that retirement makes this philosophy considerably easier to live by. Urgency has a way of evaporating when you no longer have somewhere to be. The news cycle hums along without me. The market does whatever it decides to do. And I go for my walk. By strange coincidence, the halfway point often coincides with a bar serving decent Guinness. I consider this a stroke of luck. It seems I was a follower of Jonathan's advice for many years before I stumbled upon his name and writing. There's something to be said for arriving at the right answer through a combination of temperament and mild indifference. I'm choosing to call it wisdom. This piece was never meant to be anything more than one person's attempt to retell one of Jonathan's twenty principles in his own words, a tribute of sorts, filtered through lived experience rather than expertise. The voice is mine, for better or worse. The wisdom, unambiguously, was his. There are nineteen principles still sitting there, waiting. Each of them deserves exactly this kind of treatment, personal, honest, and a little bit imperfect. So, who's next? Because if there are no takers I'll have a pretty big task ahead of me.

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Mark Crothers is a retired small business owner from the UK with a keen interest in personal finance and simple living. Married to his high school sweetheart, with daughters and grandchildren, he knows the importance of building a secure financial future. With an aversion to social media, he prefers to spend his time on his main passions: reading, scratch cooking, racket sports, and hiking.

RECENTLY, The Wall Street Journal ran a story about a new type of investment known as a digital stock token. For now, they aren’t available in the U.S., but they’re coming soon, so it’s worth taking a closer look. What are stock tokens? At the most basic level, they’re a technology designed to make stock market investing quicker and easier than it is today. With tokens, trading won’t be limited to traditional business hours. Instead, investors will be able to trade 24/7. And token trades will settle instantly, allowing investors to deposit or withdraw funds from an investment without the overnight delay imposed by traditional stock exchanges.  An additional benefit: Tokens will allow investors to purchase fractional shares. To see how this would work, consider Microsoft. Today, its share price is around $370. Through the token system, though, an investor with a modest budget could gain exposure to Microsoft with just $5 or $10. There will also be index-based tokens, so an investor could gain exposure to the S&P 500, for example. In many ways, stock tokens are the equivalent of cryptocurrencies but for stocks, allowing investors to trade more quickly and easily. That’s their key appeal, and it’s part of the broader trend toward digitizing the financial system. Along the same lines, a number of retailers are pursuing so-called stablecoins as an alternative to costly credit card networks. Stock tokens do carry risk, though. You may recall an episode that occurred in 2022, when a digital currency called TerraUSD, which was designed to maintain a fixed value of $1, suddenly lost most of its value. In that case, there was a breakdown in the algorithm that was supposed to prevent Terra from dipping below $1, and that caused the equivalent of a run on the bank. Supporters of stock tokens will tell you that Terra’s failure can be attributed to its primitive structure and that today’s technology wouldn’t be similarly vulnerable. That may be true, but stock tokens carry other potential vulnerabilities. For starters, they’re complex and rely on a significant amount of financial engineering. Unlike a share of stock which is simply an ownership stake in a business, tokens are more of a synthetic financial instrument. That’s why the recent Journal write-up referred to them as “digital avatars.” When you buy a token, you aren’t buying an actual share of stock. It’s more like a chip issued by a casino or a gift card issued by a retailer. It looks like real money, and under ordinary circumstances, it probably will function like real money. But in times of stress, they may not perform as expected. The financial firm Robinhood, which has already created a family of stock tokens for international investors, acknowledges another risk: Because tokens don’t represent actual shares of stock, they carry what’s known as counterparty risk. Under the hood, tokens are actually financial contracts, which means that the party on the other side of a given contract needs to remain solvent in order for a token to maintain its value. On its website, Robinhood includes this disclosure: “Investors may lose up to the full amount of their invested capital due to market conditions or the insolvency of Robinhood.” To be sure, counterparty failure is usually a low risk, but it isn’t zero, and actual shares of stock don’t need disclaimers like this.  Even under ordinary circumstances, stock tokens’ prices likely won’t move in lockstep with actual share prices. That’s for a few reasons.  First, because tokens aren’t real shares, they don’t pay dividends. While that might not seem like a significant factor, dividends do add up. Over the past 15 years, they’ve accounted for about 20% of the total return of U.S. stocks. Also, stock tokens don’t carry the voting rights associated with real shares. That might also seem insignificant to everyday investors, but because it is important to larger, institutional investors, it means that tokens will probably always trade at a bit of a discount to real shares. A final risk is one that is longer term but much more serious: Stock tokens are built on blockchain technology, and that means they’re vulnerable to hacking. Of most concern is the fact that blockchain technologies rely on cryptography to secure investors’ holdings. While blockchain encryption has never been cracked, advances in computing power—and specifically, a technology known as quantum computing—could one day compromise a blockchain. Most experts believe this is 10 or more years away, but companies including Google and IBM are actively working on it, so it’s worth bearing in mind. The bottom line: In thinking about this new innovation, I’d lean on a concept known as Lindy’s law. This is a rule of thumb which postulates that the future life expectancy of an idea is proportional to its current age. In other words, the longer an idea has stood the test of time, the more likely it is to continue to stand the test of time in the future. That’s how I’d look at stock tokens. They might or might not be a good idea, but it’s too soon to tell. And since the benefits they offer are more in the category of convenience rather than investment performance, I see no particular need to own them. For that reason, it might make sense to wait and watch until any bugs are worked out.   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.

IF YOU HAVE a Money Market Fund (e.g. VUSXX, VMFXX), Treasury fund (e.g. SGOV), or any other Treasury ETF (e.g. VBIL), you need to know how to report it on your taxes correctly. If you don’t, you are overpaying on your state taxes unknowingly. 

How and why?

These funds hold U.S. Treasury Bills. Treasuries are exempt from state and local taxes. Of course, this only matters if you hold these funds in a taxable brokerage account, which most people do.

The broker sends you a 1099-DIV form, but it’s your responsibility to figure out how to report it on your taxes correctly. By the way, bad tax preparers can miss this sometimes, or if you self-prepare, this may be something you aren't aware of (I hope most of you reading HumbleDollar are familiar with this!)

This is one of those areas where the reporting rules are technically simple, but the execution is where people mess up. The IRS gets their share regardless (since interest is fully taxable at the federal level), but if you don’t adjust properly, your state will too, even when it shouldn’t.

The 1099-DIV doesn’t break out how much of the dividend was allocated to Treasuries. The software also wouldn’t know how much based on the 1099-DIV. This means that you generally have to figure out how to report it (or ensure your CPA does it correctly).

Now, the 1099-DIV will have a breakdown of every single stock/ETF you have, but you have to find out the percentage of a fund that holds Treasuries.

This percentage is not on your brokerage statement. It comes directly from the fund provider (Vanguard, iShares, Schwab, etc), usually buried in their “tax center” or “year-end tax supplement” pages.

Let me give you an actual example.

Say, in 2025, you received $5,000 of dividends from two funds.

Then, if you scroll down, you will see a “Detail Information” of your dividends:

We can see that $2,456.78 came from Vanguard Federal Money Market fund.

The entire $2,456.78 will be taxed at the federal level, but how do we figure out what’s taxed at the state level?

This is where the extra step comes is.

During the end of the year, the fund manager (e.g Vanguard for VMFXX) will post a “US government source income information” on their Tax page.

This report tells you what portion of the fund’s income is derived from U.S. government obligations (Treasuries), which is the key to the state tax exemption.

We can see that 66.61% of VMFXX holdings for the 2025 tax year were income derived from the U.S. government and, therefore, are not taxable at the state level.

So, we would take $2,456.78 * 0.6661 = $1,636. Of the total, $1,636 is derived from U.S. obligations, and you would only pay state taxes on the remaining ~$819.

That $2,456.78 is still fully taxable federally. This is strictly a state adjustment.

It’s also important to note that some states say "if less than 50% of the fund is from the U.S. government (like Treasury Bills), you can treat it as 0%.”

For example, California, Connecticut, and New York are some of these states. So, if the fund has only 35% coming from the Treasury, you shouldn’t even calculate the exempt amount for these states.

Now, if you buy Treasuries directly from TreasuryDirect, they will send you a 1099-INT, and you can just enter that information directly into the tax software. No extra calculations are needed. That’s because the income is already clearly identified as U.S. government interest, no allocation required.

So, how do you report that dividend interest calculation?

In most tax softwares, after entering the 1099-DIV, it will ask: "Did a portion of dividends came from a U.S. Government interest?'

So, you would just check it off/select and enter the amount from Treasuries ($1,636 in our example).

Behind the scenes, this flows into your state return as a subtraction or adjustment, depending on the state.

Some software might ask for the percentage of dividends that are state tax exempt. However, this is a bit tricky because you might receive other dividends in your brokerage account.

In that case, calculate the amount from the Treasury, say $1,636, and divide it by your total dividend amount (e.g. $5,000)

If you have someone do your taxes and you have some of these Money Market Funds or other Treasury ETFs, double-check your state tax return and see the amounts reported. This will save you some money. It's also not too late to amend your tax return if this was missed.

Specifically, look for a “U.S. government interest subtraction” or similarly labeled line item on your state return. If it’s zero and you held these funds, that’s a red flag.

If you live in a no tax state, this would not apply to you, but still good to know in case you move!

I hope you found this one valuable.

  Bogdan Sheremeta is a licensed CPA based in Illinois with experience at Deloitte and a Fortune 200 multinational.

IF A SALESPERSON had tried to get me to sink my hard-earned money into an investment that’s illiquid or issued by an insurance company, I would have shut down in a New York minute—until now. My spouse and I recently became owners of a deferred income annuity (DIA), with plans to put perhaps 15% of our savings into these products. Also known as longevity insurance, a DIA involves plunking down money today in return for regular monthly income starting at a future date. What convinced us to buy DIAs?

• Income hedge. We want income we can’t outlive. The DIAs will provide us with a safety net if the withdrawals from our 401(k), IRA and taxable savings fall short of what we expect or if our Social Security benefits get cut.
• Shrinking yields. Treasury bonds—both the conventional type and those that are indexed to inflation—are mainstay riskless assets in our portfolio. But today, they yield less than inflation. Yields on municipal and higher-quality corporate bonds are also disappointing, especially when you factor in the added risk involved. By contrast, with a DIA, we can collect handsome income, in part because the insurance company will be effectively returning part of our initial investment to us each month.
• Longevity risk. Some of us will live much longer than our birth year cohort. It’s impossible to know how life will go, but my spouse and I are keen to stay independent to the end.
• Simplicity. Our plan is to collect income from annuities and Social Security, while also taking required minimum distributions from our retirement accounts. Put these three together, and we have a simple plan for turning our savings into retirement income. That simplicity will be useful as we age.

My first concern with buying an annuity was the usual—that our chosen insurer could go belly up or fail to generate the income needed to meet its obligation to us. After the 2008 subprime mortgage fiasco, I’m skeptical of ratings agencies. But I used their ratings and my own review of audited financial statements to choose a top-rated insurer for our first purchase. Annuities are not 100% guaranteed by the FDIC or anybody else. But should an insurer fail, our state’s guaranty association provides a mechanism to recover a portion of our premiums. My bigger concern was inflation. We bought a joint annuity with a 3% annual cost-of-living adjustment. The DIA will pay guaranteed income every month starting when I’m age 72 and ending when the second of us leaves this vale of tears. The 3% inflation rider reflects my bet that inflation will be similar to the historical average. [xyz-ihs snippet="Mobile-Subscribe"] Yes, I remember the high inflation of the 1970s. But for a broader perspective, I reread Triumph of the Optimists, which shows annual U.S. inflation averaged 3.2% during the last century. Since then, personal consumption expenditure inflation has averaged less than 3%, according to FRED, the data tool maintained by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. What if inflation is much higher in future? With dependable income streams from both Social Security and our DIAs, we can afford to keep a healthy amount of stock market exposure in our investment accounts, which should help if 1940s- or 1970s-style inflation returns. My last question was about the likely benefits, beyond the peace of mind offered by guaranteed lifetime income, and the costs involved. Ideally, we’ll get back our investment plus a modest rate of return. The two big variables are how long we’ll live and the related issue of opportunity cost—how we would have fared if we’d used the money instead to, say, buy bonds. Bottom line: We have decent odds of breaking even on our DIAs while achieving the main point of our investment, which is hedging longevity risk. For our DIA purchase, we turned to the same online sellers who offer immediate fixed annuities. The buying process was straightforward, though much slower and more complex than buying a mutual fund. Our purchase took just under two weeks from quote to policy delivery. It would likely have gone faster if we’d used a local insurance agent, rather than buying online. There’s a healthy stack of paperwork involved—less than closing on a house, but far more than a mutual fund prospectus plus a trade confirmation. If I could change one thing about DIAs, it would be to increase the transparency about the transaction costs involved. We received no cost disclosures similar to those offered by mutual funds. To be sure, all costs are already reflected in the income you’re quoted. Still, I would like to have known more. For selling an immediate or deferred income annuity, it seems a salesperson might collect a commission of between 1% and 5% of the sum invested. That’s certainly high compared to index fund costs. But it’s a lot less than other annuities, notably variable annuities and equity-indexed annuities, which between them have given annuities such a bad reputation. David Powell has written software or led engineering teams for 36 years. He enjoys work, vegan fine dining, cycling and travel with his spouse. His previous articles include Beat the Cheats, Get Me a Margarita and Making a Mesh. [xyz-ihs snippet="Donate"]