The April 2026 CPI number came in hot, confirming what most of us are feeling in our pocketbooks — rising prices. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for April crept up to 3.8%, the highest since May 2023. Core Inflation, an adjusted number that excludes food and energy prices, rose to 2.8%. This one isn’t as…
Our perceptions of the value of time and money shift as we age. In early adulthood, time is abundant, while money is scarcer. We want more money and are willing to sacrifice our time to get it. By middle age, a thriving career helps us earn more, but job and family obligations consume our time….
One of the more common retirement concerns I hear from new subscribers is the transition from saving for retirement to spending retirement savings. During our careers, we’re programmed to sacrifice spending to invest in accounts we don’t plan to use for decades. But when “decades later” arrives, retirees don’t want to spend what’s accumulated. The…
Many RBD followers are aware that I have a second brand/website/podcast called Access IPOs that initially spun out of RBD way back in 2016. Access IPOs helps ordinary retail investors find opportunities to invest in the world’s most innovative and disruptive private companies. Recent innovations from two familiar names — Fundrise and Robinhood — have…
I was an IT Modernization Engineer for much of my professional career before leaving to be a full-time creator in December 2022. My specialty: IRS information technology (IT) Yes, that IRS. After 19 years there as a contractor (never a Fed), I became an expert in several components of the astronomically complex web of more…
Over the past 150 years, the U.S. stock market (including dividends) has ended the year positively roughly 75% of the years, according to many studies, including one by Visual Capitalist. So if you max out your IRA during the first week of January in the tax year of the contribution, there’s a 3-in-4 chance your…
My friend Andy Hill from Marriage Kids and Money just launched a new book called Own Your Time. I’m giving away four hardback copies (snail-mailed from me) to newsletter subscribers (check your email). Own Your Time is a family finance-focused book. Young professionals and working parents who are starting to learn about personal finance will…
One thing I’ve learned from 30 years of investing and DIY money management is that there is always another way — and often the other way is more “optimized” than the current way. I put optimized in quotes because the opinion of what is better or perfect is based on history, not a crystal ball….
There are about half as many stocks trading in the U.S. today as there were in 1996 — 4,010 vs. 8,090. Fewer public companies means less of the economy is available to everyday investors. Passive index investing has become less diversified AND more concentrated, as the largest 10 companies (Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, etc.) now…
I recorded a new YouTube video this week about the various benefits of a simplified retirement portfolio and how to get there (I’ll share when it’s live). Most of us — myself certainly included — have a portfolio that is more complex than we want it to be or that it should be. Complexity does…
I recently had lunch with a former coworker. He was on the interview team that hired me years ago, and my direct manager on the very last day of my corporate consulting career. Our conversation provided an opportunity for me to explain in more detail why I left. Ultimately, it was a data-driven decision. I…
I follow an X/Twitter account that regularly posts the following chart, updating it frequently. The chart compares the Nasdaq’s performance — between Netscape’s 1994 release and the year 2000 (dot-com bubble peak) — with its performance since ChatGPT’s launch (red) in late November 2022. Netscape’s release in December of 1994 marked the beginning of the…
For almost three decades, I built an income-producing portfolio of dividend stocks and ETFs to support my targeted early retirement. The idea was that it would fund my lifestyle approaching retirement age, before I could fully tap my IRAs and 401(k)s. Since I’m no longer pursuing an early retirement, the dividend stock portfolio has become…
When I’ve written about dividends over the years, it’s been about cash payouts from stocks, funds, and alternative investments. But dividends can be more than just money hitting your brokerage account. Years of saving, investing, and running a business now pay a different kind of return: Lifestyle dividends — the freedom, flexibility, and opportunities that…