Tom’s Blog

How is your portfolio performing?

I’m seven months into my 12-month year that I use to calculate our Safe Spending Amount for the upcoming calendar year. (SSA, Nest Egg Care (NEC) I usually take a hard look at the end of July, but I calculate at the end

Do you pay less tax on distributions from your Traditional IRA when you delay Social Security (SS)?

I’ve read this argument: delay the start of SS and distribute from your Traditional IRA because you will pay less tax on your distributions from Traditional. I did not consider the tax consideration in my post that recommends you start SS when you are ready.

Will our SS benefits be cut by 22%?

Social Security (SS) now estimates that SS benefits can remain at 100% of current benefits through 2032; that’s one quarter less than the estimate last year. Thereafter, benefits would be cut by 22% if there is no change to SS. We’ll see changes to SS,

Are we headed to 5% increase for next year’s Social Security?

The Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) for Social Security (SS) looks like it will be at least 4.6% in 2027. Inflation for the measure SS uses for its COLA calculation ran wild the last three months – at an annual rate of 12%.

 

Your net increase

Did Energy and Food inflation slow in April?

The food and energy components of inflation were very high in April, but were a bit less than the jump in March. They are the obvious contributors to recent inflation. We most clearly see this when we compare two inflation measures: Seasonally-adjusted inflation includes

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