Businesses love monthly subscription services, also called recurring charges. Why collect money just once from a customer when you can collect from them again, and again … and again? Even better than that: Most of the time, the recurring charges just happen, magically, without the customer’s intervention … unless they want to quit, of course. … Read more
My tax-advantaged retirement account from my employer offers a valuable piece of information on our annual statements. It’s the amount of monthly retirement income I can expect, given the amount I have in there now. This amount really was nothing to write home about. (It amounts to about 6% of my gross income.) But I’m … Read more
I ran across this article on MSN about retirement planning if you’re broke. There were five main suggestions in the article: Postpone pulling the trigger on Social Security payments. As in, retire later, so that your check is larger and has more room for growth. Take advantage of home equity. For reverse mortgages, and an old-age … Read more
Here’s an purported end-run on worrying about saving for retirement: spend some of those golden years in prison. The argument goes like this: Are you staring down the loaded barrel of ten or twenty years of old age on two months’ worth of living expenses? No family to take care of you? Well hey: If … Read more
I met Mike Piper of The Oblivious Investor briefly at FinCon11 and he came bearing gifts. (I guess I was The Oblivious Conference Attendee and did no such thing myself.) I snagged two copies of his newest book, Can I Retire? (I’ll offer the second copy to a randomly-picked subscriber of my newsletter soon, so … Read more
A couple of months ago, the headlines reported that that babies born today have a 40% chance of living to be 150 years old. That’s about 25% longer than the oldest living humans in recent history. Experts base this claim on the advancement of regenerative medicine and the like. Let’s just say for grins that … Read more
My wife, daughter, and mother-in-law have been traveling around Wyoming for a week. The stated purpose of the trip was to do some research for a sequel to her first historical fiction, but my daughter sure is learning a lot out there having a good time, too. They’ve been to Yellowstone National Park and a … Read more
Peak oil. Peak water. Great Depression, Part Deux. The Rapture. Justin Bieber. OK, that last one was pretty scary. Sorry. But seriously, there are about 24.5 bajillion different bad things that could happen anywhere between 30 seconds from now until the Second Coming. And every last one of them has enough reading material and commentary … Read more
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