If a great retirement was easy, everyone would have one. Like everything else, the more you put into it, the more you will get out. Start your plan by reading this week’s terrific links. Stories are more effective than stats. A Wealth Of Common Sense The first year of retirement isn’t easy but the price is worth it. Humans vs. Retirement Showing up is a huge part of any retirement plan. The Retirement Manifes…The post I Don’t Like Mondays…..When Is My Retirement? appeared first on A Teachable Moment.

Save, invest, prosper with My Own Advisor. Weekend Reading – 2026 Big Bank Earnings Hi DIY Investors! Welcome to a new Weekend Reading edition, highlighting big bank earnings for Q2. In case you missed a few recent posts, well, here they are below! I recently wrote about this: there is no perfect portfolio. There is no perfect portfolio Even if that portfolio… Early retiree thanks to DIY investing in stocks and ETFs. The article Weekend […]

What caught my eye this week. .memberful-global-teaser-content p:last-child{ -webkit-mask-image: linear-gradient(180deg, #000 0%, transparent); mask-image: linear-gradient(180deg, #000 0%, transparent); } Weekend Reading – featuring the week’s best money and investing articles from around the web – can be read by any logged-in Monevator member. Alternatively please subscribe to our free email newsletter to get future editions direct to your inbox. The post Weekend reading: will the SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic floats sink index funds? appeared first […]

I recently finished reading Retirement Starts Today by Benjamin Brandt. Overall I think it’s a solid read. I wouldn’t put it among the best retirement books I’ve ever read, but it does make one GREAT point: you need to actively plan for and practice your retirement life before you retire. There are plenty of retirement books that focus almost entirely on the financial side of retirement. They cover withdrawal rates, tax strategies, Social Security timing, […]

What I mean by this blog title is that Trust Funds are not a financial catch-all. They cannot really be trusted until the money is actually in your hands. Disney Child Star lost millions The Tax Man can giveth or taketh away. My favorite young actress from the 60’s is none other than Haley Mills. Her turn as twins in the 1961 movie Parent Trap rocketed her to the top spot of most popular actresses […]

The Short Version: Why couples who agree on almost everything else still fight constantly about money and the specific dynamic driving it The mistake most financially-minded partners make that quietly builds resentment instead of alignment What Brian and his wife learned about money disagreements after years of navigating very different financial personalities The one question that tends to unlock a productive money conversation when every other approach has stalled Money causes more arguments in relationships than almost anything else. More than parenting. More than household responsibilities. More than how someone loads the dishwasher. That’s not a surprising statistic anymore. Most couples have heard it. What’s less discussed is why the conversations go wrong so consistently, even between two people who love each other, share their lives completely and genuinely want the same things in the long run. I’ve thought about this a lot. Not just from my own marriage, but from watching it play out among the people in our investing community over the years. Smart, capable couples who can’t seem to get on the same page financially. One partner ready to invest. The other full of hesitation. Conversations that start as discussions and end as arguments, without either person quite understanding how they got there. The good news is that most of these conversations fail for predictable reasons. Which means they can get better. Why These Conversations Go Wrong The most common pattern looks something like this. One partner has been reading, researching, listening to podcasts. They’ve built up real conviction about a financial decision. They bring it to their partner excited, maybe a little impatient, ready to move. The other partner hasn’t been on that same journey. They’re hearing this for the first time. Their instinct is caution, skepticism, maybe a little defensiveness at the implied urgency. They ask questions the first partner already answered for themselves weeks ago. The first partner gets frustrated. The second partner feels steamrolled. Nobody is wrong here. Both people are responding rationally to their situation. But the conversation breaks down because they’re operating at completely different points in the same decision-making process. The financially-engaged partner mistakes their partner’s hesitation for stubbornness or fear. The hesitant partner mistakes their partner’s conviction for recklessness or pressure. Neither reads the situation accurately. And the conversation either stalls into silence or escalates into an argument neither of them wanted. The Part Nobody Talks About Here’s what I’ve come to believe, having watched this dynamic up close: most money arguments between couples aren’t really about money. They’re about security. Control. Trust. The feeling of being heard versus overruled. The fear of being wrong about something that can’t easily be undone. When one partner resists an investment idea, they’re often not saying ‘this is a bad investment.’ They’re saying something closer to: ‘I don’t feel like I understand this well enough to feel safe. And I don’t feel like my discomfort is being taken seriously.’ When the other partner

Most retirement planning conversations revolve around the financial side of the equation. People spend decades focusing on how much they need to save, when they can afford to retire, how their portfolio should be invested, and whether their assets will support the lifestyle they envision. Those questions matter, but many retirees discover that the financial transition into retirement is only part of the challenge.  The more difficult adjustment is often psychological. After spending decades operating […]

Our latest monthly FIRE budget: A $250K net worth swing, motherhood charities, and our last month as a family of two! Continue reading Last Month Before Baby (Apr. 2026) at TicTocLife.