For much of 2023 it’s felt like we are climbing back from the market decline in 2022. We’ve fallen back a bit from August and can measure how far we are from what I judge as the market peak on November 8, 2021 –  exactly

I did my initial plan for our Safe Spending Amount for calendar 2024 the first week of August. I finalize the plan this month, and I can do that now. I have the two items of new information since August: 1) the 3.2% COLA

A final data point for inflation in September was issued this morning. That was for the important chart below for Personal Consumption Expenditures less Food and Energy components. This is the measure of inflation that the Federal Reserve favors. The last six months point to

Since 1982 the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has tracked what they call an experimental index for Americans age 62 and older, CPI-E. This index weights components of inflation differently than the index that Social Security (SS) uses to calculate its annual Cost of Living

I’m sure you saw this news this week: SS benefits will increase by 3.2% for 2024. At the same time, the news was that 12-month inflation was 3.7%. Why the difference? This post is a refresher: SS uses a different measure of inflation than