Congratulations! Your kid has a retirement account. You didn’t open it, you didn’t sign anything, and your seven-year-old definitely didn’t fill out the paperwork, since she’s still working on tying her shoes. On October 1, 2026, the Treasury Department finished automatically opening Trump accounts for every eligible child under 18 with a valid Social Security…

Yesterday I was scrolling through Facebook and a post in the EconoMe Conference Facebook group stopped me in my tracks. A member asked this question: “Have you ever seriously considered giving up on FIRE and living ‘normally’?” My first reaction was a little snort. Asking a group of FI conference attendees whether they’ve considered giving…

I recently signed up for Cole Krilich’s newsletter. He writes about pensions, and since pensions come up on the show more often than you’d think, I figured I should be able to talk about them without nodding politely and hoping Scott jumps in. His latest email covered what he calls a pension holder’s “golden window,”…

A friend of mine, also part of the FI community, was over at my house the other day. His youngest just moved out, and he’s finally talking about travel. He said it half joking, but it landed harder than he probably meant it to: “Well, I’ve only got another 20 years or so, so I…

A real estate agent friend texted me the other day, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. She told me about a young couple, expecting a baby, who bought a two bedroom condo in 2022 for $425,000. Right at the top of the market. Now they need to move out of state, and the…

Let’s talk about the single meanest trick the stock market can play on new retirees. It’s not that stocks go down. Everybody who’s held an index fund for more than five minutes knows stocks go down sometimes. The mean trick is when they go down. Because in retirement, timing isn’t just a detail. Timing is…

You check your bank account after payday and there’s a nice, healthy number staring back at you. Then you check it again two weeks later, right before the next payday, and that number has quietly evaporated. You make six figures. Your friends probably think you’re doing great. And yet you couldn’t tell someone where the…

You did it. You built a budget. You know exactly what you spend on groceries, gas, streaming services, and that one recurring $4.99 charge for an app you forgot you downloaded. You feel like a financial genius. Then September rolls around and your car registration is due. October brings your homeowner’s insurance renewal. November hits…

Last weekend I moved. Don’t get impressed. I’m still moving every day this week, too. (Why do I have so much stuff?!?) On Saturday, my neighbor showed up at my door with a home cooked meal and I nearly cried into the casserole dish. We sat down to dinner and of course, started talking about…