FREE NEWSLETTER

There are those who seize control of their financial life—and then there are those who wake up to find a variable annuity in their IRA.

Latest PostsAll Discussions »

Carrying Humble Dollar Forward

Andrew Clements  |  Apr 7, 2026

"Andrew, What a wonderful piece, beautifully written."
- Andy Morrison
Read more »

Financial Tension

William Housley  |  Apr 17, 2026

"It is a different kind of investment. 🙂"
- William Housley
Read more »

The condo, HOA, senior citizen conundrum

R Quinn  |  Apr 19, 2026

"I can see why people might be getting a little upset over the increase in the HOA monthly fee. It's approaching, in some instances I imagine, what they pay in property tax. The difference is that the HOA fee is directly re-invested in the place they live, while the property tax is not. I don't like paying $100 for an oil change, but it preserves the value of my car. I am less fond of paying $6000 for a new engine. Sometimes you need to pay a little (relatively) now to avoid paying a lot later. But some people are more about limiting the monthly budget than protecting/enhancing the long-term value of their assets."
- John Katz
Read more »

Staying Rational

ArticleAdam M. Grossman  |  Apr 18, 2026

IT'S BEEN MORE than six years since Covid first entered our vocabulary. It goes without saying that investors have experienced a lot, and for better or worse, recent market events provide some useful lessons. The first has to do with the nature of the stock market. What drives stock prices? Open a finance textbook, and the answer will be clear: The value of a stock should equal the sum of the company’s future profits. This idea is known as intrinsic value, and it’s the textbook explanation of how stock prices work. But there’s clearly a disconnect, since stock prices bounce around far more than the math suggests they should.  How can we square this circle? Over the long term, the data tell us that intrinsic value is a valid idea. Chart the price of any given stock, then overlay the company’s profits, and there will often be a reasonably close relationship. But only if you’re Rip Van Winkle. Over shorter periods of time, anything can happen. Stocks often move far above or far below their intrinsic values in response to the news of the day.  Especially during times of economic uncertainty, intrinsic value analysis is typically cast aside and replaced by some combination of emotion, conjecture, speculation and storytelling. That’s what we saw in the early months of 2020. Stores were closed, employees had been sent home and the economy went into recession. And since no one had a crystal ball, that’s when storytellers were able to step in with their extreme predictions, causing the stock market to drop more than 30% in the space of six weeks. The lesson for investors: No one can predict when the next crisis will roll around or what form it will take. But there is one very reasonable way to be able to keep it in perspective: by remembering that, at the end of the day, intrinsic value is what matters, and ultimately that’s what drives stock prices. Basic arithmetic illustrates how this can help us manage through the next crisis. Consider that the price-to-earnings ratio of the U.S. stock market has historically averaged around 16. The average company’s total stock market value, in other words, has been equal to about 16 times its annual profits.  Now let’s imagine that the next crisis results in every company in America losing an entire year of earnings. That’s extreme and hasn’t happened since the Depression, but it’s useful as a thought experiment. In that scenario, what would be the impact to those companies’ intrinsic value? In simple terms, it would be just one-sixteenth, or a modest 6%. What if a crisis were so severe that a company lost two years of earnings? Using this simple model, the impact would be about 12%. This is meaningful, I believe, because crises typically result in stock price declines that are far more severe than just 6% or 12%. In 2000 and in 2008, the market dropped more than 50%. While every crisis is different, I think it’s useful to keep these numbers in mind whenever the next geopolitical event causes stocks to drop. When that occurs, storytellers will inevitably take over, and the news will be downbeat. But if stocks drop to an extreme degree, as they have in the past, we can probably view it as an overreaction. That won’t help anyone’s portfolio recover any faster, but it should help us tune out the worst of the forecasters and maintain our equanimity. How else can you maintain an even keel during a market crisis? It’s important to understand the impact of recency bias. This bias is the tendency to extrapolate from current conditions, to assume that the future will look like the present, and to downplay the possibility that things might change. That tendency is what contributed to the cycle of negative news during the depths of 2020, and this is why I think it’s so important for investors to be aware of market history.  Again, extensive analysis isn’t required. We need only look back across some of the crises the country has weathered, from the Civil War to the Depression to World War II. In each case, the economy recovered and went on to become larger and stronger than before. The lesson for investors: In the depths of a crisis, it’s very difficult to know when or how it will end. But a sense of history can help carry us through. Those are ways to manage through a crisis. Covid also provided a lesson on how to prepare—specifically, how to prepare our portfolios—for a future downturn. In 2022, investors were caught flat-footed when popular total-bond market funds delivered surprising losses. These funds are one pillar of the well-known three-fund portfolio and have traditionally been viewed as the default choice for a set-it-and-forget-it bond allocation. But in 2022, when the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates, these funds dropped a surprising 13%. That was during the same year that the U.S. stock market dropped nearly 20%, creating a very difficult situation for those in retirement and needing to withdraw from their portfolios. The lesson for investors: Total-bond market funds may be well diversified, but they carry risk along another very important dimension known as duration. This is a bond metric that measures, in simple terms, how long it will take for bondholders to be repaid, and it’s a key determinant of risk. The longer the duration, the greater the risk of loss when rates rise. While total-bond market funds have holdings across a broad range of durations, they average out to nearly six years. That’s why they lost so much value in 2022. What’s the alternative? Short-term bond funds tend to have a duration in the neighborhood of just two years. As a result, in 2022, short-term government bond funds like Vanguard’s Short-Term Treasury ETF (ticker: VGSH) lost a far more manageable 4% of their value. To be sure, every crisis is different, and it’s easy to rationalize about the past once it’s in the past. But these lessons, I think, can help us better prepare both our emotions and our portfolios for whatever comes next.   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.
Read more »

Penny Wise, Pound Foolish

DAN SMITH  |  Apr 12, 2026

"West Bend Poppery II off Ebay, and a bag of beans is all you need. I use a wooden spoon to agitate the beans to help move the chaff off. Roast outside. It gets smokey."
- Bob Steele
Read more »

A Life You Build

Jeff Peck  |  Apr 19, 2026

"Thank you for sharing your life story. We would do well to reflect on the lessons you have learned along the way. I particularly liked the bit about having flexibility with discipline, and the need for compassion."
- ram bala
Read more »

Navigating a Turbulent Career

ArticleRichard Connor  |  Apr 18, 2026

A RECENT article by Adam Grossman relayed an interesting story of the 2015 merger of Kraft and Heinz.  One of the aspects that made this merger unique was the involvement of Warren Buffet. Adam’s story is a cautionary tale for investors – research shows that, more often than not, the hoped-for corporate synergies and growth are elusive. The story provides more evidence for the benefits of indexing to investors. There is, however, another side to this story that is very important to an individual’s personal financial life. In addition to being investors, most of us are, or were, employees of a corporation.  What if you are an employee of a company that is acquiring another company, being acquired by another company, or part of a merger?  How do you navigate the challenges of this significant career event? In late November 1985, I interviewed with RCA’s Astro Space division in East Windsor, NJ.  Several weeks later I interviewed with GE Aerospace in King of Prussia, PA.  In between those 2 interviews it was announced that GE was acquiring RCA. I received an offer for a position in the thermal engineering group of both companies. The GE offer was for $32,000, $4,000 more than the RCA offer.  The GE plant was about 8 miles from our home; the RCA plant was 62 miles from our home.   I accepted the GE offer.  When I called the RCA manager to tell him my decision, he was professional and understanding.  He remarked that “who knows, we may end up working together and you got a better deal out of it”. Four months later that RCA manager became the senior manager of the merged thermal engineering organization – my new boss’s boss. Seven years later my division was sold to Martin Marietta, whose space operations were based in Denver, CO. Two years later Martin Marietta merged with Lockheed, in Sunnyvale, CA, to form Lockheed Martin.  Later that year it was announced that the company was closing its 2 east coast plants and moving the work to Sunnyvale and Denver.   Over the 31 years starting in 1986, I was part of numerous acquisitions, mergers, two plant shut-downs, and being sold to a private equity company. Somehow, I managed to stay employed, and grow my career. I wasn’t special – hundreds of colleagues trod the same path. When I look back I can identify some of the attributes that helped me navigate a turbulent career. Build your Reputation: Be someone that people want to hire. If you move up, be someone that people want to work for. My first senior manager position came about because the hiring team remembered me from 4 years previous  Maintain Flexibility: Are you willing to travel or relocate? Would you take a lateral position, or even a step down, if it meant keeping a job?  During my career I traveled extensively, commuted 62 miles for four years, and took new positions that challenged me and my family.  Focus on your Skills: What are the skills and behaviors that are valued by your company, and differentiate successful employees? These include technical, leadership, managerial, and interpersonal skills. My first GE manager provided a sound technical base, but also taught me just as much about work ethic, and professionalism. Focus on the Culture:  Combing organizations means combining cultures, just as much as products or processes.  This may require you to be open to a different way of doing things. It requires a willingness to learn and grow.  It will also likely require some diplomacy skills.  Change is hard for employees, and nobody enjoys being told their processes or products are inferior.  When we merged with RCA, we found there was a significant difference in the way that managers and senior technical leaders challenged their employees in public forums, in front of customers.  GE preferred to work out technical differences and approaches in-house, and present a united front to customers. This took some time to resolve into a shared approach. Focus on the People:  When my first GE manager retired, we held a group luncheon. He was universally liked and respected.  Someone described him as the best “BTU chaser” he’d ever seen, which was high praise. He gave a short speech at his retirement, where he discussed the exciting space programs he had supported. He ended that the thing that made his career special wasn’t the projects and technology, it was the people.   I was also fortunate to work on some exciting, ground-breaking projects.  It wasn’t always easy, and the path certainly wasn’t straight.  Looking back, it is the people I think of most, and I miss the most.    Richard Connor is a semi-retired aerospace engineer with a keen interest in finance. He enjoys a wide variety of other interests, including chasing grandkids, space, sports, travel, winemaking and reading. Follow Rick on Twitter @RConnor609 and check out his earlier articles.
Read more »

Something to Think About

David Lancaster  |  Mar 24, 2026

"This is an issue for an optimizer but not a satisficer. I'm more concerned with the total amount I convert each year than the timing. But I do have optimizer tendencies: I tend to leave maybe half or more of my Roth conversions for December so I can guess better and make my income near the top of the tax bracket and keep my capital gains in the 0% bracket."
- Randy Dobkin
Read more »

Fixing Social Security once and for all

R Quinn  |  Apr 15, 2026

"I’ve read that is so! 😂"
- David Lancaster
Read more »

The IRA Decision That Affects Your Kids

David Lancaster  |  Apr 17, 2026

"Children yes"
- R Quinn
Read more »

One Good Call?

Mark Crothers  |  Apr 14, 2026

"Jeremy. A very sharp observation, and it brings to mind that old saying: invert, always invert. To answer your question directly: no, I haven't analysed my wife's portfolio to that extent — and if I'm honest, I probably won't. She's determined to stay with the adviser, and I'm content with what we've achieved: a fee reduction and a new commitment to advise based on our total combined holdings rather than hers in isolation. Sometimes you have to know which hill to die on — and when to retreat with a partial victory."
- Mark Crothers
Read more »

What happens to Medicare Supplement coverage when moving to a different state?

Carl C Trovall  |  Mar 15, 2026

"Triple check but I believe that the Medigap insurer you originally picked stays with you if you move to another county or state (and don't change plans or companies). A few states even allow you to change companies and/or plans without underwriting or higher premiums (community pricing). Each state has an 800 SHIP (State Health Insurance. Assistance Program)  hotline to connect you with knowledgeable folks."
- R Mancuso
Read more »

Carrying Humble Dollar Forward

Andrew Clements  |  Apr 7, 2026

"Andrew, What a wonderful piece, beautifully written."
- Andy Morrison
Read more »

Financial Tension

William Housley  |  Apr 17, 2026

"It is a different kind of investment. 🙂"
- William Housley
Read more »

The condo, HOA, senior citizen conundrum

R Quinn  |  Apr 19, 2026

"I can see why people might be getting a little upset over the increase in the HOA monthly fee. It's approaching, in some instances I imagine, what they pay in property tax. The difference is that the HOA fee is directly re-invested in the place they live, while the property tax is not. I don't like paying $100 for an oil change, but it preserves the value of my car. I am less fond of paying $6000 for a new engine. Sometimes you need to pay a little (relatively) now to avoid paying a lot later. But some people are more about limiting the monthly budget than protecting/enhancing the long-term value of their assets."
- John Katz
Read more »

Staying Rational

ArticleAdam M. Grossman  |  Apr 18, 2026

IT'S BEEN MORE than six years since Covid first entered our vocabulary. It goes without saying that investors have experienced a lot, and for better or worse, recent market events provide some useful lessons. The first has to do with the nature of the stock market. What drives stock prices? Open a finance textbook, and the answer will be clear: The value of a stock should equal the sum of the company’s future profits. This idea is known as intrinsic value, and it’s the textbook explanation of how stock prices work. But there’s clearly a disconnect, since stock prices bounce around far more than the math suggests they should.  How can we square this circle? Over the long term, the data tell us that intrinsic value is a valid idea. Chart the price of any given stock, then overlay the company’s profits, and there will often be a reasonably close relationship. But only if you’re Rip Van Winkle. Over shorter periods of time, anything can happen. Stocks often move far above or far below their intrinsic values in response to the news of the day.  Especially during times of economic uncertainty, intrinsic value analysis is typically cast aside and replaced by some combination of emotion, conjecture, speculation and storytelling. That’s what we saw in the early months of 2020. Stores were closed, employees had been sent home and the economy went into recession. And since no one had a crystal ball, that’s when storytellers were able to step in with their extreme predictions, causing the stock market to drop more than 30% in the space of six weeks. The lesson for investors: No one can predict when the next crisis will roll around or what form it will take. But there is one very reasonable way to be able to keep it in perspective: by remembering that, at the end of the day, intrinsic value is what matters, and ultimately that’s what drives stock prices. Basic arithmetic illustrates how this can help us manage through the next crisis. Consider that the price-to-earnings ratio of the U.S. stock market has historically averaged around 16. The average company’s total stock market value, in other words, has been equal to about 16 times its annual profits.  Now let’s imagine that the next crisis results in every company in America losing an entire year of earnings. That’s extreme and hasn’t happened since the Depression, but it’s useful as a thought experiment. In that scenario, what would be the impact to those companies’ intrinsic value? In simple terms, it would be just one-sixteenth, or a modest 6%. What if a crisis were so severe that a company lost two years of earnings? Using this simple model, the impact would be about 12%. This is meaningful, I believe, because crises typically result in stock price declines that are far more severe than just 6% or 12%. In 2000 and in 2008, the market dropped more than 50%. While every crisis is different, I think it’s useful to keep these numbers in mind whenever the next geopolitical event causes stocks to drop. When that occurs, storytellers will inevitably take over, and the news will be downbeat. But if stocks drop to an extreme degree, as they have in the past, we can probably view it as an overreaction. That won’t help anyone’s portfolio recover any faster, but it should help us tune out the worst of the forecasters and maintain our equanimity. How else can you maintain an even keel during a market crisis? It’s important to understand the impact of recency bias. This bias is the tendency to extrapolate from current conditions, to assume that the future will look like the present, and to downplay the possibility that things might change. That tendency is what contributed to the cycle of negative news during the depths of 2020, and this is why I think it’s so important for investors to be aware of market history.  Again, extensive analysis isn’t required. We need only look back across some of the crises the country has weathered, from the Civil War to the Depression to World War II. In each case, the economy recovered and went on to become larger and stronger than before. The lesson for investors: In the depths of a crisis, it’s very difficult to know when or how it will end. But a sense of history can help carry us through. Those are ways to manage through a crisis. Covid also provided a lesson on how to prepare—specifically, how to prepare our portfolios—for a future downturn. In 2022, investors were caught flat-footed when popular total-bond market funds delivered surprising losses. These funds are one pillar of the well-known three-fund portfolio and have traditionally been viewed as the default choice for a set-it-and-forget-it bond allocation. But in 2022, when the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates, these funds dropped a surprising 13%. That was during the same year that the U.S. stock market dropped nearly 20%, creating a very difficult situation for those in retirement and needing to withdraw from their portfolios. The lesson for investors: Total-bond market funds may be well diversified, but they carry risk along another very important dimension known as duration. This is a bond metric that measures, in simple terms, how long it will take for bondholders to be repaid, and it’s a key determinant of risk. The longer the duration, the greater the risk of loss when rates rise. While total-bond market funds have holdings across a broad range of durations, they average out to nearly six years. That’s why they lost so much value in 2022. What’s the alternative? Short-term bond funds tend to have a duration in the neighborhood of just two years. As a result, in 2022, short-term government bond funds like Vanguard’s Short-Term Treasury ETF (ticker: VGSH) lost a far more manageable 4% of their value. To be sure, every crisis is different, and it’s easy to rationalize about the past once it’s in the past. But these lessons, I think, can help us better prepare both our emotions and our portfolios for whatever comes next.   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.
Read more »

Penny Wise, Pound Foolish

DAN SMITH  |  Apr 12, 2026

"West Bend Poppery II off Ebay, and a bag of beans is all you need. I use a wooden spoon to agitate the beans to help move the chaff off. Roast outside. It gets smokey."
- Bob Steele
Read more »

A Life You Build

Jeff Peck  |  Apr 19, 2026

"Thank you for sharing your life story. We would do well to reflect on the lessons you have learned along the way. I particularly liked the bit about having flexibility with discipline, and the need for compassion."
- ram bala
Read more »

Navigating a Turbulent Career

ArticleRichard Connor  |  Apr 18, 2026

A RECENT article by Adam Grossman relayed an interesting story of the 2015 merger of Kraft and Heinz.  One of the aspects that made this merger unique was the involvement of Warren Buffet. Adam’s story is a cautionary tale for investors – research shows that, more often than not, the hoped-for corporate synergies and growth are elusive. The story provides more evidence for the benefits of indexing to investors. There is, however, another side to this story that is very important to an individual’s personal financial life. In addition to being investors, most of us are, or were, employees of a corporation.  What if you are an employee of a company that is acquiring another company, being acquired by another company, or part of a merger?  How do you navigate the challenges of this significant career event? In late November 1985, I interviewed with RCA’s Astro Space division in East Windsor, NJ.  Several weeks later I interviewed with GE Aerospace in King of Prussia, PA.  In between those 2 interviews it was announced that GE was acquiring RCA. I received an offer for a position in the thermal engineering group of both companies. The GE offer was for $32,000, $4,000 more than the RCA offer.  The GE plant was about 8 miles from our home; the RCA plant was 62 miles from our home.   I accepted the GE offer.  When I called the RCA manager to tell him my decision, he was professional and understanding.  He remarked that “who knows, we may end up working together and you got a better deal out of it”. Four months later that RCA manager became the senior manager of the merged thermal engineering organization – my new boss’s boss. Seven years later my division was sold to Martin Marietta, whose space operations were based in Denver, CO. Two years later Martin Marietta merged with Lockheed, in Sunnyvale, CA, to form Lockheed Martin.  Later that year it was announced that the company was closing its 2 east coast plants and moving the work to Sunnyvale and Denver.   Over the 31 years starting in 1986, I was part of numerous acquisitions, mergers, two plant shut-downs, and being sold to a private equity company. Somehow, I managed to stay employed, and grow my career. I wasn’t special – hundreds of colleagues trod the same path. When I look back I can identify some of the attributes that helped me navigate a turbulent career. Build your Reputation: Be someone that people want to hire. If you move up, be someone that people want to work for. My first senior manager position came about because the hiring team remembered me from 4 years previous  Maintain Flexibility: Are you willing to travel or relocate? Would you take a lateral position, or even a step down, if it meant keeping a job?  During my career I traveled extensively, commuted 62 miles for four years, and took new positions that challenged me and my family.  Focus on your Skills: What are the skills and behaviors that are valued by your company, and differentiate successful employees? These include technical, leadership, managerial, and interpersonal skills. My first GE manager provided a sound technical base, but also taught me just as much about work ethic, and professionalism. Focus on the Culture:  Combing organizations means combining cultures, just as much as products or processes.  This may require you to be open to a different way of doing things. It requires a willingness to learn and grow.  It will also likely require some diplomacy skills.  Change is hard for employees, and nobody enjoys being told their processes or products are inferior.  When we merged with RCA, we found there was a significant difference in the way that managers and senior technical leaders challenged their employees in public forums, in front of customers.  GE preferred to work out technical differences and approaches in-house, and present a united front to customers. This took some time to resolve into a shared approach. Focus on the People:  When my first GE manager retired, we held a group luncheon. He was universally liked and respected.  Someone described him as the best “BTU chaser” he’d ever seen, which was high praise. He gave a short speech at his retirement, where he discussed the exciting space programs he had supported. He ended that the thing that made his career special wasn’t the projects and technology, it was the people.   I was also fortunate to work on some exciting, ground-breaking projects.  It wasn’t always easy, and the path certainly wasn’t straight.  Looking back, it is the people I think of most, and I miss the most.    Richard Connor is a semi-retired aerospace engineer with a keen interest in finance. He enjoys a wide variety of other interests, including chasing grandkids, space, sports, travel, winemaking and reading. Follow Rick on Twitter @RConnor609 and check out his earlier articles.
Read more »

Something to Think About

David Lancaster  |  Mar 24, 2026

"This is an issue for an optimizer but not a satisficer. I'm more concerned with the total amount I convert each year than the timing. But I do have optimizer tendencies: I tend to leave maybe half or more of my Roth conversions for December so I can guess better and make my income near the top of the tax bracket and keep my capital gains in the 0% bracket."
- Randy Dobkin
Read more »

Fixing Social Security once and for all

R Quinn  |  Apr 15, 2026

"I’ve read that is so! 😂"
- David Lancaster
Read more »

Free Newsletter

Get Educated

Manifesto

Apr 19, 2026

NO. 59: MOST FOLKS should avoid alternative investments. Yes, they promise returns uncorrelated with the stock market and gains when shares are tumbling. But isn’t that why we own bonds?

Truths

Apr 21, 2026

NO. 20: DOLLAR-COST averaging isn’t magical—but it is worthwhile. Investing the same sum every month in stocks supposedly improves the odds of making money. But in truth, dollar-cost averaging is about investor psychology: It helps us to overcome our reluctance to invest in stocks, instills discipline and makes stock market declines more palatable.

act

Apr 20, 2026

ALERT U.S. EMBASSIES to your travel plans. Before leaving on a foreign trip, sign up for the State Department's free Smart Traveler Enrollment Program and detail where you’re going. The local U.S. embassy or consulate will then contact you if, say, there’s a natural disaster or terrorist incident while you’re traveling abroad—and it may be able to offer advice or help.

think

Apr 20, 2026

INFLATION RISK. Suppose inflation runs at 2.5% a year. If you were living off a traditional employer pension or interest from long-term bonds, your income would lose more than half its spending power over a 30-year retirement. What to do? You might keep more in stocks, while also delaying Social Security so you have more inflation-indexed income.

Money Guide

Start Here
Planner
Portfolio
Retire
Invest
Final Book

Manifesto

Apr 19, 2026

NO. 59: MOST FOLKS should avoid alternative investments. Yes, they promise returns uncorrelated with the stock market and gains when shares are tumbling. But isn’t that why we own bonds?

Spotlight: Family

Easier for Rachel

Dennis Friedman   |  Dec 12, 2024

PEOPLE WHO KNOW ME say I’m sentimental, and they’re right. I like visiting places like my elementary school, the house where I grew up and my first home away from home. They bring back fond memories.
As I’ve grown older, I’ve become more nostalgic, and it isn’t just me. I heard that the ashes of my childhood friend Brian were spread over our grade school grounds. He must have had a touch of nostalgia,

Read more »

Savoring the Moments

Edmund Marsh   |  Sep 25, 2024

BASIC ECONOMICS teaches us that scarce commodities are more precious. This holds true for metals, rocks, food—and time. Which brings me to today’s topic: Time spent with my daughter and only child has reached the rare and precious stage.
In summer 2023, scarcity was far from my mind. My daughter and I traveled to visit Grandmama—my mother—five hours’ drive south of our home. The visit itself was short and mundane, with just the usual catching up with my mother and tending to her business.

Read more »

One family, two very different life experiences

R Quinn   |  Dec 10, 2024

An eighteen year old girl married her high school sweetheart who had dropped out of high school to join the army. They lived on an army base. Shortly they had a baby. They were transferred to another post.
Not many months after settling in at the new base he receives orders for the first of three tours in Vietnam. The young lady and child move in with her parents while he is in Vietnam. 
Upon his final tour,

Read more »

Am I Really Married?

DrLefty   |  May 6, 2025

I’m in the process of completing my retirement paperwork. For context, I’m retiring on the same day from two systems—the University of California (where I work now) and CalPERS (which administers the pension fund for the university system I previously worked for). My husband, who worked for a state agency, retired from CalPERS in 2016 and has been drawing his pension as well as using his retiree health benefits for both of us. We elected pensions with full survivor continuance for all three.

Read more »

How was your Mother’s Day?

luvtoride44afe9eb1e   |  May 12, 2025

This holiday can be a stressful one for many families.  Who plans it? Who hosts it? Do you go out for a meal or cook or cater in?  Who is invited?  Who can actually come (geographically and other commitments)?  How does everyone get along?
After an exhausting but great Mother’s Day at our Jersey shore home on a beautiful day here my wife and I collapsed as I reflected on how lucky we are compared to many families including many of our friends.

Read more »

How Nosey Are You?

Edmund Marsh   |  Jun 30, 2024

Last week, my family hosted my wife’s niece and family from California. The parents in this family are both in their 40s.
Prior to their visit, we resolved to ask them what plans they had made for their retirement. On their first evening with us, we were encouraged to learn they each had a pension, and were also saving additional money for retirement through their employer-sponsored plans. That was as far as the financial conversation got,

Read more »

Spotlight: Saha

Aging Well

Sanjib Saha   |  Jul 3, 2023

LIKE MANY IMMIGRANTS living in the U.S., I regularly return to my hometown to visit family and friends. My trips to Kolkata are usually short and jam-packed, seeing not just contemporaries, but also the older generation, including aunts and uncles, my parents’ friends and my friends’ parents. My two recent visits—one last fall and the other this spring—were no exception, but I had mixed feelings this time. Most of the older generation are now in their 70s and early 80s, and two of them had passed away since my last pre-pandemic visit. I was happy to be able to catch up with the rest. But I was also saddened and surprised to find that, since my last visit, a few didn’t seem to be doing well emotionally, as if they’re struggling to find meaning in life. On the surface, health problems and mobility issues are to blame, but that alone doesn’t explain such a change within a few short years. With most of their family members or adult children living elsewhere, these folks have no one to lean on for day-to-day support. They resist getting professional in-home senior care services or moving to retirement communities. This mental block is cultural and emotional, not financial. Meanwhile, the rest of my older acquaintances seem to be having a great time in their golden years. They, too, face health and mobility issues, but these don’t appear to affect their positive outlook on life. The best example is my maternal aunt—my mother’s younger sister—whom I call Mashi. Despite dealing with several family tragedies within the past year, including losing her husband of 50 years after a long period of ill-health, Mashi remains upbeat and full of energy. If you were to guess her age based on appearance and activities, you’d probably be off by…
Read more »

Got Gold?

Sanjib Saha   |  Feb 7, 2020

YEARS AGO, I SPENT a few days in Bangkok touring the city. A highlight of my short stopover was the temple of Wat Traimit, which houses a five-and-a-half metric ton Golden Buddha, made of approximately $250 million of gold. Cast more than 700 years ago, the statue symbolized the prosperity and cultural heritage of Sukhothai, the first Thai kingdom. Sometime in the 18th century, the statue was completely plastered over to conceal its value from Burmese invaders. The significance of the statue was forgotten for some 200 years, until the plaster accidentally chipped off to reveal the gold underneath. The miraculous 1955 discovery made headlines and the statue was restored to its former glory. I was mesmerized by its brilliance and beauty. Our longing for gold is as old as recorded history. It was significant thousands of years ago, as evidenced by Egyptian archeology. Ancient Greeks, Incans, Aztecs and many other civilizations used gold. It was viewed as a status symbol to separate the elite from the ordinary. Holding gold was synonymous with holding power. Why such a deep-rooted fascination? There’s no simple answer. The color and luster of the metal create a unique aesthetic appeal. Gold is scarce, yet durable and resilient, hence it’s historical role as a way to store wealth and transfer it to future generations. Even today, in many countries, gold is widely used in social ceremonies and religious offerings. Strong consumer demand persists. For centuries, gold also played a vital role in monetary systems. The gold standard, a system that promised a fixed gold-based exchange rate for circulating paper currency, was widely used by many countries until World War I. In 1944, gold’s importance was reestablished by the Bretton Woods agreement. This new system pegged all other currencies to the U.S. dollar and allowed them to…
Read more »

Behind Closed Doors

Sanjib Saha   |  Dec 3, 2020

IF YOU OWN AN actively managed mutual fund, you expect the fund’s managers to buy and sell stocks and bonds as they see fit—and yet all that trading isn’t necessarily driven by their investment decisions. Why not? Imagine the fund has had a few years of underperformance. That might prompt impatient investors to take their money elsewhere. This exodus can create headaches for the shareholders who still have faith in the fund. How so? When shares are redeemed, the fund has to pay departing investors their share of the fund’s assets. The fund would have some money set aside for this purpose. That cash, alas, can drag down a fund’s performance in rising markets. What if there isn’t enough standby cash to cover large outflows? Unless a fund can transfer assets in-kind to departing shareholders—a rare occurrence—it’s required to sell part of its holdings to raise cash. That’s where the trouble starts. First, a fund’s own selling can further drive down the price of a stock or bond it’s looking to unload, hurting the fund’s return. This selling also generates trading costs, taking a bite out of the fund’s performance. To make matters worse, selling appreciated assets can cause the fund to realize capital gains, leading to big tax bills. Who foots that tax bill? Not those who jumped ship. Instead, it’s the investors who hung tough. Sound bad? Given a choice, I wouldn’t want the destiny of my funds to be controlled by the actions of my fellow investors. That’s why I became intrigued by a possible alternative, closed-end funds, or CEFs. A CEF is an actively managed fund that can be bought and sold in the secondary market, just like the shares of any publicly traded company. At its initial public offering (IPO), a closed-end fund raises money by selling a fixed…
Read more »

Best Buys

Sanjib Saha   |  Jun 22, 2021

MY SPRING CLEANING this year was less eventful than last year's, except I found my fanny pack. I bought it in the early 1990s but misplaced it some years ago. It was so handy for air travel, especially international trips, that I ignored all fashion worries. I forgot what I paid for the fanny pack, but it was certainly one of my best buys. Frankly, only a few such purchases stand out. Here’s my list of half-a-dozen similar items. Spoiler alert: The correlation between price and satisfaction seems rather weak. 1. Best car. I’ve owned a dozen cars over the past 30 years, from a compact coupe to a luxury SUV. I have little interest in cars, but I developed a special attachment to one. It’s a 2003 Honda Odyssey that my daughter still drives. I bought it years ago from a close friend who was moving abroad, and it’s proven to be reliable, comfortable and low maintenance. We drove it to almost all the major national parks in the west, including a few in Canada. Even now, it comes in handy for hauling stuff and occasional airport rides. I recently replaced the transmission, so it should be with us for some years to come. 2. Best financial asset. To jumpstart my wealth building in mid-30s, I had to tighten my belt. The apartment rent was an easy target. With a realtor’s help and my own research, I found a two-bedroom townhouse for sale. It was neither in the most sought-after neighborhood nor aesthetically pleasing, but it was good enough for a recently divorced engineer with a hectic work schedule. Despite my modest expectations, the quality of life in the townhome was surprisingly pleasant. Amenities like libraries and convenience stores were all within walking distance. My parents were delighted to come…
Read more »

Identity Crisis

Sanjib Saha   |  Jul 22, 2020

MAY 18, 2020, STARTED as an ordinary Monday. I was busy with office work. An email from our human resources department hit my inbox. It said something about fraudulent unemployment benefits. I couldn’t pay attention right away, so I saved it to read later. That evening, I found five letters from our state’s unemployment claims department in the mail. I’d never heard of such a department, but it reminded me about the email I got earlier. This time, I read the email more carefully. It turned out that someone had filed for unemployment benefits using my personal information. Many coworkers were also affected. They’d had little luck in contacting the state’s unemployment claims department directly. On behalf of the impacted workers, our employer was working with the department to flag these claims as illegitimate. Needless to say, I was surprised and worried. The letters from the state, dated between May 14 and 16, had bigger surprises. First, the department still seemed unaware that the claim filed on my account was fraudulent. Second, it appeared the department had started making payments without complete verification. The third surprise was most disturbing. Sensitive personal information about my employment and wages were included in the letters. I couldn’t tell whether that information was also sent electronically to the fraudulent claimant. That would surely make me a target for future, possibly more sophisticated, cyberattacks. I was curious about how this had happened, but first I needed to worry about my own vulnerability. My personal information had previously been exposed by a few of the well-known security breaches, including one involving my former mortgage lender. It had taken me months to sort out an identity-related tax fraud a few years ago. That experience was frustrating. The prospect of repeating that same drill was daunting. Sadly, I had no…
Read more »

Logic Check: 401(k) Loan – Paying Taxes Twice?

Sanjib Saha   |  Nov 2, 2025

I have a question for my fellow humble members of this Forum. I’ve often heard financial professionals discourage borrowing from a 401(k) plan, citing what they call a “double taxation” issue. The claim goes like this: when you repay your 401(k) loan, you use after-tax money, and then later, when you withdraw funds from your 401(k) in retirement, you’ll pay taxes again on that same money. Therefore, they say, you’re taxed twice. While there are many valid pros and cons to taking a 401(k) loan, this particular “double tax” argument never quite sat right with me. For one, if you borrow from your 401(k) and instead of spending the money, use it to repay pay-off the loan quickly—before any meaningful interest accrues—there’s no additional tax involved. Still, I recently heard the same claim again in a podcast, repeated confidently by another financial professional. That made me revisit my thinking—and I continue to believe this reasoning is flawed. Here’s why: when you borrow from your pre-tax 401(k), the loan amount you receive is tax-free. You can spend it just like after-tax money, but without paying any tax upfront. If you had instead used money from your regular income or savings, that money would already have been taxed before you could spend it. Let’s look at a simplified example. Suppose someone needs to spend $100 they don’t have today. They have two options: 1. Borrow $100 from their 401(k), or 2. Wait until they earn and save $100 from their paycheck. To keep things simple, let’s assume their marginal tax rate is 20%, the 401(k) loan is interest-free, and the 401(k) investments earn zero return. Scenario 1 (401(k) loan):They borrow $100 from the 401(k) and spend it. Later, they earn $125, pay $25 in taxes (20%), and use the remaining $100 of…
Read more »
FREE NEWSLETTER
How To
Follow Us