Education through pictures
To paraphrase St. Francis, “Teach at all times. When necessary, use words.”
The value of the right expert
Imagine this scenario. We have two couples. Couple #1: Sick Sally retired a while ago; she’s married to Sam. Sam is still working and carrying the family medical insurance. Couple #2: Working Wanda is approaching 65, but doesn’t plan to retire yet. Working Wanda’s husband Wayne is turning 65 in…
The Value of Social Capital
I don’t know how your 2020 is starting off, but mine got off to a bit of a rocky start. The plumbing problems continued to the point where we had a pair of men with shovels, digging up holes in my yard to try to unstick a completely non-draining septic….
Riding the glider
I’ve mentioned how we were dealing with plumbing problems (1, 2). Unfortunately that saga continues. Which is a round about way of saying that for the second time ever, the first by myself, I was off to the laundromat today. My first experience at a laundromat wasn’t a great one….
Costs of financing
I got a brochure in the mail last month. “Get a car loan with us!” was the general theme. Now it was from my local credit union, and their rates are reasonable compared to other loan options, if borrowing money is what one plans to do for their car. But…
Merry Christmas is SECURE’d
December 27th, 2017 was the date the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) was signed in to law. Typically major tax reform is only an every ~30 years affair (with the prior set being in the 1980’s), with some non-trivial bumps every ~10 years. This week, only 2 years later,…
Be a janitor
There was a funeral I needed to attend this Christmas season. The custodian I’d worked with had died. That doesn’t sound like anything remarkable, does it? “My father was a janitor” was what one of Joe’s sons started with at the funeral eulogy. But then there was everything else. First,…
How do I know if my pension is valuable?
That seems like a weird title, doesn’t it. Aren’t all pensions valuable? After all, we’re past the golden age of the defined benefit plan, and most employers are all-in on just a defined contribution plan. Wasn’t it that pensions by definition are so valuable, that’s why they had to go…
Is your end of year bonus an actual thank you, or an insult?
The end of 2019 is approaching. Your employer has just announced a bonus! Possibly even a “we don’t usually do this” bonus! You should feel great! But have you stopped to consider if the bonus is such that it indicates actual appreciation, or a condescending pat on the head that…
Modeling giving to children
Children are inherently greedy creatures. At birth, that’s okay – baby’s needs are great, and any extra to give is almost non-existent. They eat, they sleep, they cry, they grow (and in mine’s case, that sleep part is merely a parental mirage). But by the time they become adults, we…