Sometimes, as the Christmas season approaches, I find myself growing a bit more curmudgeonly about the secularization, commercialization, and cultural noise that tend to drown out the season’s true meaning. When I mumble and grumble about it, my wife tells me I’m being “Scroogy” about Christmas, so I want to start by saying I genuinely … Read more
As we approach the end of 2025, I wanted to share something with you that’s been on my mind—and increasingly, on this blog—over the past two years. It’s the story of how I’ve navigated one of retirement’s most anxiety-inducing topics: taxes. This compilation will be of particular interest to the following groups of retirees/near retirees: … Read more
Well, the (MY) day of ”reckoning” is here. No, not the final judgement; I’m talking about sending the IRS their due (i.e., tax withholding) for 2025 for taxes due in April, 2026. As regular readers know, I’ve done more writing than usual about taxes, charitable giving, and the new tax laws. That’s because: If you’ve … Read more
Note: This is an updated version of an article I first wrote in 2018, incorporating current tax laws (including the OBBBA), updated contribution limits, current context, and insights from other tax articles I’ve written since then. One way we practice wise retirement stewardship is by making good use of the tax-advantaged savings plans available to … Read more
In my last article, I looked at Bitcoin’s potential as a long-term investment in a retirement portfolio. This time, I want to explore a related question: Could Bitcoin serve as a hedge against a future financial crisis brought on by our nation’s growing federal debt? I don’t like to sound alarmist—and I’m not a doomsayer—but … Read more
Note: I first wrote about cryptocurrency a couple of years ago. This is the first of two new articles I’m going to publish about Bitcoin. In this one, I address Bitcoin as a long-term investment. In the second, I’ll discuss what role Bitcoin might play in the event of a “fiscal crisis” precipitated by the … Read more
Before delving into this topic, I would like to begin by drawing on theologian Herman Bavinck’s discussion of the wonderful creation of man, which I have paraphrased from parts of Chapter 12 (The Origin, Essence, and Purpose of Man) in The Wonderful Works of God: Humans are both physical and spiritual. Unlike the animals, our … Read more
Over the past few months (and years, actually), I’ve written several articles about taxes in retirement. You can read all of the Retirement Stewardship articles → HERE. If you’re younger, you might want to start with the Tax series on NextGenSteward → HERE. Honestly, when I retired, I was just as concerned about this as … Read more
In the previous article, we discussed all the ways the US Government, via the IRS, incentivises charitable contributions. In this article, we’ll discuss how to develop a giving strategy that won’t “break the retirement bank.” You probably won’t be surprised to learn that this is a little more challenging than it sounds, due to the … Read more
