Have you ever stopped to reflect on how much status influences your decisions? In professional life, it’s easy to see – titles like supervisor, director, or CEO make it clear who sits where in the hierarchy. But status doesn’t just live in the office. It quietly shapes the cars we drive, the neighborhoods we choose, the vacations we take, and …
Not Exactly – But It Can Be Well-Planned Who doesn’t love the ease of an all-inclusive vacation? You choose your destination, book your excursions, pack your bags, and when you arrive – voilà! Everything is already planned, paid for, and ready to enjoy. No surprises, no extra decisions. Just follow the plan and relax. Wouldn’t it be nice if retirement …
Summer, Status, and Social Security At a time when so much in the world feels potentially game-changing – whether political, financial, or societal – I find myself increasingly drawn to the small, grounding joys of everyday life. A long walk brings more comfort than ever. A calm evening spent with friends outdoors reminds me what matters most. And a well-prepared …
A Budget versus Budgeting: Why the Difference Matters for Retirement Life is full of goals and resolutions that come and go – some stick, most don’t. But money goals? They tend to linger. That’s because the need for money, and the challenges that come with managing it, never really go away. And when retirement starts appearing on the horizon, those …
If you were to ask me what is my very favorite thing, I think I’d say it’s choice. I suppose it’s like declaring that freedom is good. The very ability to make choices with our time, money, relationships, careers…these all make life so much richer than the alternative, having few choices. An uncluttered view of a distant horizon? Love it. …
Taxes, taxes, taxes. When we celebrate Independence Day each year, it’s easy to focus on the fireworks and forget that much of our dispute was over taxes. After all, wasn’t that part of the deal when we declared to the British that we wanted to see other people? That ‘taxation without representation’ thing, right? Well, in the hundreds of years …
Working in the retirement planning realm for so long has given me the opportunity to talk with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people about what they hope to experience during retirement. Discussions of money, time, and purpose lead to so many interesting insights about what a life well-lived might look like. A simple question like, “What would you like retirement to …
Cindy and I are celebrating fifty years of marriage this May, and while I like to joke that she’s still on trial, the truth is I couldn’t have asked for a better partner in life. My career in retail focused on developing people, which led us to move fourteen times over the years. No matter where we landed, Cindy always …
It’s the best time of the year: baseball season! Not only has my favorite (though usually heartbreaking) team, the Boston Red Sox, started playing, but high school baseball season has started, and my 12-year-old son has already played over 20 games this year. I live for this! I’m an assistant coach for both my son’s team and for our local …
It’s easy to think of retirement as one thing, one phase of life that we all aspire to experience. And why not? After all, retirement is such a stark contrast to the preceding decades-long phase that’s built around paid work. But what if retirement is made up of many different smaller phases, distinct from one another in activity level and …
