Archive for January, 2013

The Heartbreak of Student Debt

Wednesday, January 30, 2013 at 1pm
By John Friedman

As a financial planner, I sometimes hear really sad stories. And sometimes I hear stories that are so . . . repugnant, let’s say . . . that I feel them in my gut and it takes my breath away and leaves a big pit in my stomach. On the […]

The Simple Math: Hey, Baby Boomer, How Much Money Will You Need When You Retire?

Monday, January 28, 2013 at 1pm
By John Friedman

Many of us baby boomers are lucky enough to have parents in their 80s and 90s. Many of those folks retired when they were in their 60s, which means that many of them have had 30-year-plus retirements. During this time many of those folks have had the pleasure, brought to […]

It’s the Least I Could Do — A Meditation on Aging Parents

Friday, January 11, 2013 at 11am
By John Friedman

As many of you know, I am fortunate at the family level in that everyone in my immediate family is still married to the first person they married — something which is not all that common, eh? In my parents’ case, that means they’ve been married to each other for […]

The First Week of January Test, 2013 Version

Monday, January 7, 2013 at 11am
By John Friedman

So how does it feel? How does it feel to be back in the saddle after the holidays? You can think of the way in which this first Monday of the working year hits you as being akin to what happens at the Large Haldron Collider when particles racing close to […]

The Tax Sunsets (Mostly) Sunset

Thursday, January 3, 2013 at 3pm
By John Friedman

We can, I suspect, all agree that taxes impact behavior. To see that this is so, one need only look to Vancouver, Washington, a Portland suburb adjacent to the Oregon/Washington border, where many Vancouverites go out of their way to do most of their shopping across the river in Portland, Oregon, where there is […]