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What should be the biggest driver of your retirement portfolio’s stock-bond mix? How many more years of paychecks you expect.

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Taxes

Shouldn’t property taxes be a realistic part of retirement planning? Sorry, I think this is a major financial and social issue.

R Quinn  |  Sep 23, 2026

Be the first to comment.
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Taxes

What I think about taxes- all kinds of taxes

R Quinn  |  Sep 21, 2026

"You’re entitled to your opinion for sure, but do you have a viable alternative for steady funding largely unaffected by economic gyrations year to year. I have been looking. Neither sales, income nor even a VAT meets the criteria. Greater subsides from the state spreads the risk a bit, but then local communities lose control and still are dependent on a larger body of politics."
- R Quinn
Read more »

Taxes

Does the new-for-2026 $1000/$2000 charitable deduction for non-itemizers reduce AGI?

Andrew Forsythe  |  Sep 22, 2026

"I got this from a search of the IRS website… ”Beginning with tax year 2026, if you do not itemize, you may deduct up to $1,000 ($2,000 if filing jointly) of your cash contributions to certain qualified organizations.”"
- Winston Smith
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Retirement

Happy Autumnal Equinox

Rick Connor  |  Sep 22, 2026

"Mike, I Googled the coldest recorded temperature in upstate NY. It was -52F in Feb 1979 in Old Forge. That's pretty darn cold, but still about 400 degrees warmer than absolute zero."
- Rick Connor
Read more »

From HumbleDollar Founder Jonathan Clements

Lists

Why HumbleDollar?

IN OUR 20s, WE TEND to be a confident lot: We figure we know what we want from our life, that the goal is…
Read more »

Behavior

Time Is Priceless

Andrew Clements  |  Sep 23, 2026

"Mike, thank you for the very kind words, especially your comment about the writing in our family. That means a great deal to me. I also love your observation that, unlike money, time cannot be saved for the future. We spend our lives learning to save money for another day, but our time has to be spent as it arrives. And I completely agree about service to others. Sharing our time, whether with those we love or with those who simply need us, may ultimately be one of the most meaningful ways we can spend it."
- Andrew Clements
Read more »

Spending

Anyone For S.K.I.ing?

Mark Crothers  |  Sep 22, 2026

"I can see that, Dana. When Jonathan wrote of the things that might bring us happiness, he would include the joy that comes from giving--balanced by the comfort of a nice cushion in our retirement accounts!"
- Edmund Marsh
Read more »

Investing

Structuring Bonds

ArticleAdam M. Grossman  |  Sep 19, 2026

IT'S BEEN AN UNUSUAL week in the bond market, and not necessarily in a good way. This has many investors questioning the value of bonds, which is understandable. Bonds are supposed to be the “safe” side of a portfolio, but they’ve struggled in recent years. Arguably, the drama we’re seeing in the bond market today began more than 50 years ago. To put today’s situation in perspective, I’ll briefly summarize that long history. Then we can look at what steps you might take to better protect your portfolio from here. Back in the 1970s, as you’re probably aware, inflation rose above 10%. Policymakers struggled for years to bring it under control, but in the early 1980s a Fed chair named Paul Volcker finally succeeded. He accomplished that by raising the Fed’s benchmark rate to nearly 20%. With this step, Volcker succeeded in calming inflation, and that allowed the Fed to begin lowering rates, a gradual process that continued for most of the following 40 years. Because bond prices move inversely to interest rates, that entire stretch was extremely beneficial for bonds. As rates fell, bonds rose. Between 1980 and 2020, intermediate-term U.S. government bonds returned 7% per year, on average. That multi-decade run helped seal the reputation of bonds as an easy and reliable way to offset the risk of stocks. But then the other shoe dropped. Due to pandemic-related government spending and tangled supply chains, inflation began rising around 2021. Well aware of what the economy experienced in the 1970s, the Fed responded by raising rates aggressively. For a time, that appeared to bring inflation under control, and the government had even started to lower rates again last year. But then the war with Iran started. That caused energy prices to jump higher, and that, worryingly, has caused inflation to start creeping back up again. In response, the Fed this week was forced to take action, raising rates in an effort to contain inflation before it gains steam. Interest rates on long-term bonds are now at 20-year highs. And because bond prices move inversely to interest rates, bonds are having another difficult year. Total-bond market funds like Vanguard’s BND are now negative year-to-date. Where the bond market goes from here is anyone’s guess, but this history is important, in my view, because bonds are unlikely to see another long, positive stretch like the one investors enjoyed a generation ago. Instead, I believe investors need to be more cautious.  What steps might you take? Since we don’t know whether rates will go higher or lower over any given timeframe, the approach I recommend is to own bonds in each of several categories. That way, you’ll benefit, in part, if rates go up, and you’ll benefit, in part, if rates go down. Here’s how I’d structure a bond portfolio today: For me, the most important thing is to own mostly short-term bonds. Specifically, you might allocate 60% of your bond portfolio to short-term Treasurys, using a fund like Vanguard’s VGSH. This fund should be among the most stable investments available because it’s backed by the U.S. government, which, for better or worse, has the ability to print money to meet its obligations. And its short duration means that, all things being equal, it will be less susceptible to rising interest rates if rates do continue to rise. As a point of reference, in 2022, when rates rose quickly, this fund lost less than 4% of its value. That’s in contrast to total-bond market funds, which lost an extremely unpleasant 13% that year. If you’re in a high tax bracket (over 30%), you could split your short-term holdings between Treasurys, which are taxable at the federal level, and municipal bonds, which are exempt from federal tax. You might consider a short-term municipal fund like Vanguard’s VTES or VWSUX. Next, I’d allocate 20% to intermediate-term bonds. While these will be more susceptible to losses when rates rise, they’ll also gain more when rates fall. Last year, for example, when rates fell, intermediate-term government bond funds like Vanguard’s VGIT gained more than 7%. So I see them as worth the additional risk. That said, if this risk concerns you, there’s a relatively easy alternative: For this part of your portfolio, you could purchase a ladder of individual bonds covering maturities between five and 10 years. While it requires additional effort to purchase individual bonds, what you’ll receive in return is greater certainty. At the moment that you purchase an individual bond, you’ll know the yield to maturity. Barring a default—which is unlikely with a government bond—that’s precisely the return you will earn. For the final 20% of a bond portfolio, I recommend inflation-protected Treasury bonds, known as TIPS. Here again, you could purchase individual bonds or a bond fund, and there’s a lot of debate on this topic. But according to research I find convincing, the best way to protect against inflation is with short-term TIPS. So to keep things simple, I would opt for a fund rather than a ladder of individual bonds, which would require frequent trading. One good fund in this category is Vanguard’s VTIP. At the end of the day, the most important thing, in my view, is to build a bond portfolio that’s diversified enough that you could reliably draw on it in years when stocks are down. And recognizing that even short-term bonds carry some amount of risk, it’s worth also holding a “floor” of cash, using a government money market fund, as an additional element in your portfolio. These won’t gain in value when interest rates fall, but they’re designed not to lose any value if rates rise. Put it all together, and I see this as an effective sleep-at-night structure no matter where things go 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 »

Life Events

It’s been one year

Elaine M. Clements  |  Sep 21, 2026

"Thank you Elaine for your words. We all miss Jonathan and we thank you for keeping Humble Dollar going."
- Nick Politakis
Read more »

Investing

Target Maturity Bond Funds

DAN SMITH  |  Sep 18, 2026

"I have used these type funds before. My process was to sell the year before maturity to eliminate the cash drag."
- Harold Tynes
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Lists

15 Tasks for Today

Edmund Marsh  |  Sep 21, 2026

"Thanks, Rick! I continue to admire my 97-year-old mother, a nice lady who thinks of those who "don't get out much". For 20 years or more, she has regularly sent cards and placed calls to friends who were home-bound or in a facility. The list is shorter now, but she continues to remain a faithful friend to those still living."
- Edmund Marsh
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Investing

Two Fraudulent Attempts to Withdraw Funds in Two Days

Anonymous  |  Sep 21, 2026

"Yes, but even better, I have these recommendations from Mike Piper. https://obliviousinvestor.com/password-managers/"
- Michael1
Read more »

Taxes

Shouldn’t property taxes be a realistic part of retirement planning? Sorry, I think this is a major financial and social issue.

R Quinn  |  Sep 23, 2026

Be the first to comment.
Read more »

Taxes

What I think about taxes- all kinds of taxes

R Quinn  |  Sep 21, 2026

"You’re entitled to your opinion for sure, but do you have a viable alternative for steady funding largely unaffected by economic gyrations year to year. I have been looking. Neither sales, income nor even a VAT meets the criteria. Greater subsides from the state spreads the risk a bit, but then local communities lose control and still are dependent on a larger body of politics."
- R Quinn
Read more »

Taxes

Does the new-for-2026 $1000/$2000 charitable deduction for non-itemizers reduce AGI?

Andrew Forsythe  |  Sep 22, 2026

"I got this from a search of the IRS website… ”Beginning with tax year 2026, if you do not itemize, you may deduct up to $1,000 ($2,000 if filing jointly) of your cash contributions to certain qualified organizations.”"
- Winston Smith
Read more »

Retirement

Happy Autumnal Equinox

Rick Connor  |  Sep 22, 2026

"Mike, I Googled the coldest recorded temperature in upstate NY. It was -52F in Feb 1979 in Old Forge. That's pretty darn cold, but still about 400 degrees warmer than absolute zero."
- Rick Connor
Read more »

From HumbleDollar Founder Jonathan Clements

Lists

Why HumbleDollar?

IN OUR 20s, WE TEND to be a confident lot: We figure we know what we want from our life, that the goal is…
Read more »

Behavior

Time Is Priceless

Andrew Clements  |  Sep 23, 2026

"Mike, thank you for the very kind words, especially your comment about the writing in our family. That means a great deal to me. I also love your observation that, unlike money, time cannot be saved for the future. We spend our lives learning to save money for another day, but our time has to be spent as it arrives. And I completely agree about service to others. Sharing our time, whether with those we love or with those who simply need us, may ultimately be one of the most meaningful ways we can spend it."
- Andrew Clements
Read more »

Spending

Anyone For S.K.I.ing?

Mark Crothers  |  Sep 22, 2026

"I can see that, Dana. When Jonathan wrote of the things that might bring us happiness, he would include the joy that comes from giving--balanced by the comfort of a nice cushion in our retirement accounts!"
- Edmund Marsh
Read more »

Investing

Structuring Bonds

ArticleAdam M. Grossman  |  Sep 19, 2026

IT'S BEEN AN UNUSUAL week in the bond market, and not necessarily in a good way. This has many investors questioning the value of bonds, which is understandable. Bonds are supposed to be the “safe” side of a portfolio, but they’ve struggled in recent years. Arguably, the drama we’re seeing in the bond market today began more than 50 years ago. To put today’s situation in perspective, I’ll briefly summarize that long history. Then we can look at what steps you might take to better protect your portfolio from here. Back in the 1970s, as you’re probably aware, inflation rose above 10%. Policymakers struggled for years to bring it under control, but in the early 1980s a Fed chair named Paul Volcker finally succeeded. He accomplished that by raising the Fed’s benchmark rate to nearly 20%. With this step, Volcker succeeded in calming inflation, and that allowed the Fed to begin lowering rates, a gradual process that continued for most of the following 40 years. Because bond prices move inversely to interest rates, that entire stretch was extremely beneficial for bonds. As rates fell, bonds rose. Between 1980 and 2020, intermediate-term U.S. government bonds returned 7% per year, on average. That multi-decade run helped seal the reputation of bonds as an easy and reliable way to offset the risk of stocks. But then the other shoe dropped. Due to pandemic-related government spending and tangled supply chains, inflation began rising around 2021. Well aware of what the economy experienced in the 1970s, the Fed responded by raising rates aggressively. For a time, that appeared to bring inflation under control, and the government had even started to lower rates again last year. But then the war with Iran started. That caused energy prices to jump higher, and that, worryingly, has caused inflation to start creeping back up again. In response, the Fed this week was forced to take action, raising rates in an effort to contain inflation before it gains steam. Interest rates on long-term bonds are now at 20-year highs. And because bond prices move inversely to interest rates, bonds are having another difficult year. Total-bond market funds like Vanguard’s BND are now negative year-to-date. Where the bond market goes from here is anyone’s guess, but this history is important, in my view, because bonds are unlikely to see another long, positive stretch like the one investors enjoyed a generation ago. Instead, I believe investors need to be more cautious.  What steps might you take? Since we don’t know whether rates will go higher or lower over any given timeframe, the approach I recommend is to own bonds in each of several categories. That way, you’ll benefit, in part, if rates go up, and you’ll benefit, in part, if rates go down. Here’s how I’d structure a bond portfolio today: For me, the most important thing is to own mostly short-term bonds. Specifically, you might allocate 60% of your bond portfolio to short-term Treasurys, using a fund like Vanguard’s VGSH. This fund should be among the most stable investments available because it’s backed by the U.S. government, which, for better or worse, has the ability to print money to meet its obligations. And its short duration means that, all things being equal, it will be less susceptible to rising interest rates if rates do continue to rise. As a point of reference, in 2022, when rates rose quickly, this fund lost less than 4% of its value. That’s in contrast to total-bond market funds, which lost an extremely unpleasant 13% that year. If you’re in a high tax bracket (over 30%), you could split your short-term holdings between Treasurys, which are taxable at the federal level, and municipal bonds, which are exempt from federal tax. You might consider a short-term municipal fund like Vanguard’s VTES or VWSUX. Next, I’d allocate 20% to intermediate-term bonds. While these will be more susceptible to losses when rates rise, they’ll also gain more when rates fall. Last year, for example, when rates fell, intermediate-term government bond funds like Vanguard’s VGIT gained more than 7%. So I see them as worth the additional risk. That said, if this risk concerns you, there’s a relatively easy alternative: For this part of your portfolio, you could purchase a ladder of individual bonds covering maturities between five and 10 years. While it requires additional effort to purchase individual bonds, what you’ll receive in return is greater certainty. At the moment that you purchase an individual bond, you’ll know the yield to maturity. Barring a default—which is unlikely with a government bond—that’s precisely the return you will earn. For the final 20% of a bond portfolio, I recommend inflation-protected Treasury bonds, known as TIPS. Here again, you could purchase individual bonds or a bond fund, and there’s a lot of debate on this topic. But according to research I find convincing, the best way to protect against inflation is with short-term TIPS. So to keep things simple, I would opt for a fund rather than a ladder of individual bonds, which would require frequent trading. One good fund in this category is Vanguard’s VTIP. At the end of the day, the most important thing, in my view, is to build a bond portfolio that’s diversified enough that you could reliably draw on it in years when stocks are down. And recognizing that even short-term bonds carry some amount of risk, it’s worth also holding a “floor” of cash, using a government money market fund, as an additional element in your portfolio. These won’t gain in value when interest rates fall, but they’re designed not to lose any value if rates rise. Put it all together, and I see this as an effective sleep-at-night structure no matter where things go 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 »

Life Events

It’s been one year

Elaine M. Clements  |  Sep 21, 2026

"Thank you Elaine for your words. We all miss Jonathan and we thank you for keeping Humble Dollar going."
- Nick Politakis
Read more »

Free Newsletter

Get Educated

Manifesto

Sep 23, 2026

NO. 20: FRUGALITY isn’t just the key to financial success. It’s also no great sacrifice, because spending often brings only fleeting happiness—and sometimes even pangs of regret.

act

Sep 23, 2026

LOOK FOR TAX savings—by reviewing your recent tax returns. Two danger signs: lots of interest income and realized capital gains, especially short-term capital gains. What to do? Avoid trading so much or, if necessary, confine it to a retirement account. Also use a retirement account to hold your taxable bonds and other tax-inefficient investments.

Truths

Sep 22, 2026

NO. 102: ALL HOMES should be priced to deliver the same expected total return. That total return consists of price appreciation plus rent or imputed rent. Yes, some markets regularly see big price gains. But in those markets, rents tend to be modest as a percentage of a home’s value, leaving landlords with total returns that are similar to elsewhere.

think

Sep 21, 2026

HALO EFFECT. If we admire one feature of a person or object, the good feelings can spill over into other areas, hurting our judgment. We love the huge markdowns at the car dealership—and find ourselves buying a vehicle we don’t especially like. We purchase a fund that performs well—and end up owning other funds from the same company that aren’t nearly as good.

Money Guide

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Manifesto

Sep 23, 2026

NO. 20: FRUGALITY isn’t just the key to financial success. It’s also no great sacrifice, because spending often brings only fleeting happiness—and sometimes even pangs of regret.

Spotlight: Happiness

Wealth: A Short List on How to Recognize It

Mark Crothers   |  Nov 10, 2025

The old adage “money can’t buy you happiness” is a concise articulation of a simple truth: there are much more important things in life than the accumulation of riches. A reminder of the shortcomings of wealth can be a positive step toward embracing other, more meaningful uses of our time rather than focusing on the value of one’s portfolio and constant low-level worry about the markets. And, after all, we all love a little list.
So what are these intrinsic values,

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Free to Be

Jonathan Clements   |  May 6, 2023

HOW WOULD YOU DEFINE financial freedom? That’s the intriguing question I’ve been asked twice in recent weeks by journalists curious about the new HumbleDollar book, My Money Journey: How 30 People Found Financial Freedom—And You Can Too.
Financial freedom is something that pretty much everybody wants, and yet there’s no agreed-upon definition. Still, I think most folks would focus on two key elements: time and money. But I don’t think it’s a simple matter of having lots of dollars and lots of free time.

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Does a Happy Country Lead to Happy Individuals?

David Lancaster   |  Jun 20, 2025

I have decided to post this as a separate post, not to distract from Jonathan’s post today, but to further explore the concept of what makes not an individual, but a country happy. If a country is happier as a whole it seems intuitive that the individuals in said country would be happier as well.
I have received some of my highest negative net rating in the past for posting these facts on Humble Dollar but since I am a glutton for punishment will post these facts again:
Every year World Population Review ranks the happiest countries.

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Slowing the Clock

Casey Campbell   |  Dec 29, 2023

THE FIRST TIME I remember realizing that “time flies” was during my senior year of high school. One of my class periods each day involved working in the school’s main office. My primary duty was to walk the hallways, gathering attendance sheets from each classroom.
It was a highly repetitive task, each day a replica of the prior one, with the route through the hallways never changing. On one of those days, I recall thinking,

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Around the Obstacles

Dan Smith   |  Apr 25, 2026

I WAS 48 years old when the judgement was final and the papers were signed. My former wife and I split our net worth 50/50. There were no arguments over household items like furniture; I didn’t care about that stuff. Pam gladly accepted my proposal that she keep the house, and all its equity, in exchange for me keeping an offsetting amount of the IRAs and my 401(k), a very good move for my future self.

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Still Above Ground

Sundar Mohan Rao   |  Feb 9, 2024

I WAS WORRIED ABOUT what we’d be giving up when, a few years ago, we moved to a 55-plus community in Atlanta. We downsized from a large home to a small apartment, plus all our neighbors were considerably older. It was obvious we had to adjust and start enjoying our unfamiliar environment or we’d end up miserable.
My wife and I made a conscious decision to slow down, and make every effort to get to know other residents and their life stories.

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Spotlight: Gartland

The Simple Life

David Gartland   |  Dec 17, 2024

WHEN I STARTED learning about investing, I stumbled upon a book at my library that immediately grabbed my attention: The Lazy Person’s Guide to Investing by Paul B. Farrell. A portfolio championed by the book consisted of just two mutual funds—one stock index fund and one bond index fund, with 50% of your portfolio invested in each. With only two choices to make, decision-making becomes far more straightforward. Farrell's suggested 50-50 split simplifies the process even further. The strategy underscores the beauty of simplicity—a lesson I took to heart. Why complicate matters with additional funds if just two could suffice? Diversification is a popular investment strategy. But how many funds do you truly need? Do you need exposure to private equity, gold, real estate? The options seem endless. But perhaps less is more. For some investors, constantly tweaking their portfolio is comforting. The activity gives them peace of mind. For them, tweaking and touching and buying and selling is a wonderful way to live. Doing something feels better than doing nothing. Yet a landmark paper, based on Schwab trading data, suggests the more people trade, the lower their investment returns. Often, the stocks they sell perform better than the new ones they buy. That’s why Vanguard Group founder Jack Bogle used to advise investors, “Don’t just do something—stand there.” All this strongly suggests that investors could benefit by doing less. Frequent trading may reflect overconfidence in our investment expertise. It reminds me of the scene in The Wizard of Oz when Judy Garland and crew drew back the curtain to reveal the Wizard. He’s just an ordinary man, busily pulling on different levers to make impressive sound effects. My “simplicity is best” approach applies to more than just my investments. My wife and I approach retirement differently. She fills her…
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Killing Time

David Gartland   |  Mar 25, 2024

WHEN I WAS A TEENAGER, my father and I went to the local mall. I don’t recall why we went shopping together, but I do remember going into a Tandy craft store and buying a customizing kit for leather belts. Tandy Corp. would later become well known as the owner of RadioShack. On the way home, my father and I were talking about the kit, and I made the comment, “It’ll be a good way to kill time.” My father shot back, “Never kill time.” Later that year, he died of a massive heart attack. While I never forgot what my father said, I wish I could tell you I took it as inspiration and went on to accomplish great things, but I never did. I did use time well, but I also wasted time, killed time and have blanks in my memory where I’m not sure how I used my time. But that’s changed. Today, I pay more attention to the ages at which people die. Suddenly, people my age and younger are dying of natural causes. Just yesterday, I went to the dentist for a checkup. As soon as I sat in the examination chair, he told me that his wife recently died, and yet previously she’d almost never been sick. Such stories have changed my perspective on life and money. We can always make more money. But we can’t make more time, and we never know how much more we have. This makes time the more precious commodity. Still, we should carefully consider how we use both money and time. Money can be saved, invested and spent. My wife and I aren’t great investors. But we’ve been good savers and thoughtful spenders. My wife’s family were blue collar. When she was growing up, her family’s budgeting process…
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Give Peace a Chance

David Gartland   |  Jan 18, 2024

I'VE SPENT MY ADULT life on a self-improvement journey. It’s kept me moving forward or, at least, trying to move forward. I take great pride in what I’ve accomplished and have no regrets about the goals I set. But a funny thing happened. I retired. I’ve applied the brakes to my life, and now I’m reevaluating what I’ve done and what I want to do. I’m not Catholic, but I’ve attended many a mass. During the mass, the priest says, “Peace be with you.” The response is, “And also with you.” I love that. Peace is something we can all have. We just need to seek it. My definition of peace encompasses satisfaction, contentment and happiness. Among investors, there’s the goal of “beating the market.” It seems most of us have the need to be better than average. If we aren’t, we feel we’ve failed. Many of us are also focused on having more this year than we had last year. But measuring how much more we have—and how we compare to some market benchmark—will lead us down the road not to satisfaction, but to dissatisfaction. When is “good enough” good enough? Jimmy Buffett’s death last year gave me pause. Here’s a guy who struggled to established his musical brand, but eventually came to be identified with a lifestyle of fun and happiness, and he became a billionaire. But now he’s dead. Did he have peace? From the articles I’ve read about the people he helped and the satisfaction he got from his concerts, he appeared to have it all. But if his sense of peace came from amassing ever more money, maybe contentment eluded him. I’m seeking contentment, and one strategy I’m using is simplifying my life. When I stopped working, I rolled my 401(k) and Roth 401(k) from…
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Mind Games

David Gartland   |  Mar 4, 2024

IN MY ENGLISH CLASS in junior high school, we read a play called I Remember Mama. It was a story about a poor Norwegian immigrant family living in San Francisco in the early 1900s. The mother ran the household while her husband went to work and the children went to school. The mother was in charge of the family’s finances. Any time a family member needed extra money, he or she would have to ask Mama for it. She’d listen to the request and, if it was critical, she’d get the money from the petty cash fund. If there wasn’t enough petty cash, she’d ask the person if it was important enough to justify withdrawing money from the bank. Upon further review, the person would say it wasn’t. The big surprise: As we learn at the end of the play, there was no bank account. Instead of saying, “we can’t afford it,” Mama wanted family members to decide on their own that the item wasn’t important. This would allow them to save face and not feel poor. They squelched the desire themselves and moved on. My mother-in-law would tell me of her upbringing in New York City. Her parents were Chilean immigrants who didn’t have a lot of money. They raised their six kids on her father’s salary. They were poor, but so was everybody else in the neighborhood, so they never thought of themselves as poor. My mother-in-law’s life was just like the characters in the play. With money so tight, she constantly had to decide that some purchases just weren’t important. A digression: Two famous actors came from the neighborhood. When they were kids, Lauren Bacall and Burt Lancaster were friends with my mother-in-law’s siblings. What I found most interesting about I Remember Mama: Because family members believed…
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There Is a Season

David Gartland   |  May 13, 2024

THE FIRST ROCK concert I attended was The Byrds at Bowdoin College in Maine. We stayed nearby at a cabin in the woods. It was there that I had my first experience with marijuana. It was not a good experience—thank goodness. My drug days were short-lived. One of the songs made famous by The Byrds is Turn! Turn! Turn! The song was written by Pete Seeger, who derived it from verses in the Bible. One of the verses is, “To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.” There’s a proper time to do something. You can do it another time, but it probably won’t work out as well. A farmer must plant his seeds in the spring, and he must wait for the growing season to finish before harvesting. Trying to rush any step will lead to a bad crop. There’s much talk today about the financial independence-retire early (FIRE) movement. I believe in financial independence. It’s the “retire early” piece that’s always baffled me. Why retire unless we’re done with working? Many in the FIRE movement apparently have skills that command high wages at a young age. The trouble is, it seems they also hate these high-paying jobs. Saving prodigiously allows them to quit work early and lead the life they’ve dreamt about. But instead of suffering through a job they hate so they can retire early, why don’t these folks find work they love? As the saying goes, if you love your job, you’ll never work a day in your life. If these FIRE enthusiasts are so talented, they should have plenty of employment options. They could move to wherever their ideal job is located and be happily employed. When they feel like they’ve had the career they wanted, they can then…
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My Unemployed Life

David Gartland   |  Oct 19, 2023

I HAVE BEEN FIRED, downsized, restructured and laid off 10 times in my life. The first time was at age 16, when I worked for a McDonald's-like hamburger joint, and the last time was shortly before I turned 70, when I was working for an insurance company as the manager of regulatory compliance.   I can't blame this on discrimination. I’m a white Christian male, five feet 10 inches tall, college educated, and of sound mind and body, so there are no obvious reasons for my lack of consistent employment. Instead, it seems my employers simply didn’t like or need me. My goal in life has been to be rich. I will hold off providing reasons for choosing this goal, but needless to say it was my goal. It’s this goal that has provided me with the fuel to keep going after every interruption in my employed life. I never let my frustrations after each termination prevent me from picking myself up, dusting myself off and moving on to the next job. This process wasn’t always easy, but it’s what I did to keep going. I’m telling my tale less to benefit HumbleDollar’s readers directly, many of whom are retired, but rather in case their children or grandchildren encounter similar misfortunes in their life. If you have family members who lose their job, you might suggest my strategy for not getting too discouraged. One of the best pieces of advice that I got in my life came from a guy I worked with, Steve Devito. Upon hearing me complain one day about some negative situation at work, Steve said to me, “Dave, all you can do is keep on keeping on.” That sage advice hasn’t just stayed with me throughout my career. It’s also influenced my approach to life in…
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