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Many people in countries with developing economies have been lifted out of poverty by working for companies that sell goods and services to the U.S. and other countries with wealthy economies. I support efforts to discover, identify and discourage companies that exploit workers and I try to...

Had my first W2 job at the age of 15 and retired at 64 so 49 years for me. When I was in HS and college I always worked two jobs as I self funded college. After grad school I had a primary job with ten years of a side gig as an adjunct professor. I have been happily retired for 7.5 years now...

It can be reasonable to have an independent and objective look at your finances on occasion to check for any blind spots you might have. Just make sure that you know how much the services that you are signing up for will cost expressed in dollars not just as a percent of assets and make sure...

Interesting thread ... we are self insured for Long Term Care so one gift that we are giving is trying to manage our portfolio in a manner that will cover those costs should they be needed without becoming a financial burden for our daughters. Meanwhile we have paid off both of our daughter's...

That's a bit harsh ... as Ross Perot once said "We have the best politicians that money can buy".

If I was dead set on getting out of equities and my expenses were more than covered by SS and pension(s) I would invest half of my portfolio in a rolling TIPS ladder with enough rungs to get me to age 90 and I would invest the rest in Tbills and an intermediate term treasury bond fund such as...

My wife and I are in our early 70s and we built a 17 year TIPS ladder (for now excluding the 5 years where TIPS are not available). Our ladder represents 16% of our portfolio and in conjunction with SS and a TIAA annuity it provides enough income to meet all of our annual spending needs with...

Approximately 8% of my portfolio was invested in a TIAA Traditional Retirement Account and when I retired 7 years ago I began taking interest only payments from it. Last year I checked and if I annuitized (joint lifetime annuity with 20 years certain) the payout percent was nearly double the...

Timely discussion. I just picked up two pair of glasses at Costco last week (sun and transition). They took time to adjust them so they fit properly and they gave me a chart with progressively smaller lines of print to verify that I could read the smallest line.

Might also check into the price for Costco's program if you are a Costco member. I have found that 1) Medicare Part D is usually the most expensive option 2) Good RX is usually better but Good RX pricing varies a lot by Pharmacy 3) Costco's price for Costco members is usually lower than 1 and...

I don't think that it was a dumb question. Your question and the community's response is likely educational and helpful to many readers.

I turned 70 this year and my wife is one year younger than me. We let our equities bob up and down between 40% and 50% and seldom if ever have to rebalance with this target. Midpack's chart reassures me that we are not doing anything foolish. Our fixed income includes a ten year TIPS ladder...

I set my international equity exposure at 20% several years ago and have not rebalanced so it has dropped to about 18% and change. I plan to leave it alone and let it bob up and down. I have HUGE concerns about the U S. national debt which is both a taxation and spending issue that our...

After an hour on hold I reached SS using their national number. The person that I talked to gave me a number for their KC office that is responsible for reviewing/approving my application. I called the KC office twice today. Each time I was asked to stay on the line for the next avail rep. Both...

Sadly I am not sure if I will ever get Social Security. I applied online on March 02 for benefits to begin this month as I turned 70 this month. The SS site states that the review should have taken 2 -4 weeks and I am now at 15 + weeks with no approval. I am on hold now trying to call the...

We are a warrior nation with 50% of our discretionary budget going to the military, something Eisenhower warned us could happen in his farewell address. I am fine with supporting Ukraine but instead of borrowing the money to do so we should have a temporary tax increase to fund that support. If...

f you own a total stock market fund such as Vanguard's VTSAX or a similar fund from Schwab or Fidelity they include REITS. So all of the major investment firms consider REITs to be equities which they in fact are.

I was in a somewhat similar situation with my mother approx 10 years ago. Our situation had another layer in that my mother had very few assets other than her house and she needed to go into a nursing home. She also needed expensive meds and at that time medicare did not cover medications. It...

You can likely get higher returns in the stock market but a well constructed portfolio has a bond or fixed income component in addition to equities. Annuities are more appropriate substitutes for the bond portion of a portfolio. I would not invest more than 1/3 of my portfolio in them because...

You seem to understand this stuff and I suppose your post is helpful to people smarter than me that have the ability to comprehend it. For physics challenged people like me can you say some more about this? Is it a good thing? Does it have as much or more promise for replacing fossil fuels than...

We have two that account for approx 1/3 of our portfolio. One is a fixed annuity that yields a guaranteed minimum of 4.5%. It is fully liquid and not annuitized. Since I have not annuitized it I can withdraw any amount at any time without penalty and it is fully inheritable to my beneficiaries...

I purchased a 2020 CRV (EXL trim) last June and I like it a lot. I have approx 7,000 miles on it and so far I have had no problems. This is the first car that I have owned that has some of the modern safety features and I do feel safer in the car. The car gets good mileage and has good comfort...

This is an interesting discussion. At some point, and most of us know when, it is time to move on despite the opportunity to stack additional retirement savings. The six month time frame mentioned in this thread is interesting because when I gave my notice 3 1/2 years ago my employer of 27...

Thank you for your response but I still feel fortunate to have my TIAA Traditional Variable Annuity. Three points in your response that I disagree with 1) I highly doubt that I can invest in a bond ladder with a yield of 4.0% unless they are very risky high yield junk bonds 2) Returns on the S...

Perhaps, but I have two of these TIAA variable annuities, an RA and an SRA, neither of which I have annuitized that are paying a blended average 4.0%. They are a nice bond substitute because the yield is high by today's standards and the principal does not fluctuate with changes in interest...