No Non-Cents Blog

For most of your working life, retirement planning has a fairly straightforward message: Save money. Then save some more. Max out the 401(k) if you can. Contribute to an IRA. Invest for the long term. Don't panic when the market falls. And, most importantly, try not to touch the retirement accounts. You follow those rules for 30 or 40 years, finally reach retirement, and then someone like me says: “Great job. Now start spending it.” Understandably, that can take some getting

Every April, the same pattern shows up, and if you’ve been through it a few times, you already know how it goes. People suddenly become very interested in taxes. Receipts that have been sitting quietly for months are urgently rediscovered, passwords are reset multiple times in a single sitting, and there’s usually a brief stretch where it feels like things might not be so bad — right before the realization sets in that they are exactly as complicated as expected. Then everyth

Most financial mistakes don’t feel like mistakes when you’re making them. They feel reasonable, even responsible, in the moment. You save consistently, you invest when you can, and you try to make smart decisions along the way — which, to be fair, already puts you ahead of most people. The problem is that good intentions don’t always translate into optimal outcomes, especially when decisions are made in isolation or without a clear long-term framework. And over time, small in