You may have heard the popular legend about Eskimo tribes sending the elderly off to die at sea. As the stories go, when grandpa and grandma could no longer hunt or earn their keep, the younger folks would put them on an iceberg and ship them off. Fewer mouths to feed gave the younger generations a better chance at survival. I shudder at the thought. In the farming communities where my grandparents lived,… read article

Does the little guy ever really stand a chance in the market? Well… did David take down Goliath? The mainstream media likes to peddle stories about the little investor who always loses money in the stock market. When the mechanics or teachers or dentists of this world try to compete with the big boys on Wall Street, they always seem to fail. Ordinary people like you and me appear doomed to lose our… read article

Regular readers know how concerned I am about the number of baby boomers and seniors who are financially unprepared for retirement. It's not like the downsides of aging are a secret. As we get older, our bodies wear out and we slow down. Unless we plan to work until the grim reaper shows up at the door, we need to save and invest quite a bit of money. When we published our read article

My wife Jo and I spent Mother's Day weekend at our daughter Holly's house, enjoying time with our two young grandchildren, three-year-old Brock and eight-year-old Braidyn. With two young boys, the house can get pretty loud. Not only do they run and shout like all little boys, the noisy games they play on my iPad also cause quite a racket. My wife grins when she sees me reach up and turn my hearing aids… read article

During my peak earning years, I imagined what retirement would be like based on the generation ahead of me. When those folks stopped working full time, they slowed down a bit, spent weekends watching their grandchildren's activities, and had plenty of time for a little fun of their own. They had few financial worries; perhaps their biggest concern was their health, and even that wasn't an issue until they got really old. How… read article

Are you a "Lone Ranger" investor, or do you lean heavily on a trusted financial advisor? Maybe you even take a hybrid approach. No matter what your approach is, we can all benefit from a periodic financial checkup. That's why we took an in-depth look at independent financial advisors in the February issue of Miller's Money Forever. In order to give our subscribers the most bang for their buck, we called in read article

Our wealth is disappearing, and we need to speak up now. In a recent article for the Casey Daily Dispatch, I took Obama's budget proposal and the effect it would have on Social Security to task. The president's proposal offers three alternatives for funding Social Security – the Chained CPI; an expanded Social Security tax; or additional limits on IRA and 401(k) contributions. I don't like any of these "solutions" one bit.… read article

Are annuities the greatest thing since sliced bread? Well, no, but they do make sense for some investors as part of their portfolio. However, we have to shop wisely and not allow sales agents to push us into the wrong products just to fatten their own wallets. Unfortunately, that makes some folks shy away from something that could help them make their money really last a lifetime… or longer. After we published both… read article

When once-great companies like Hewlett-Packard write off a few billion dollars because of an ill-advised acquisition, or the management of one of our investments pays themselves outrageous bonuses, it should alarm us all. Frankly, that money would have done shareholders a lot more good had it been paid out in dividends. When we buy stock, we buy ownership in a company. If I bought a local Dairy Queen franchise and hired a full-time… read article

What does life actually look like when your country and its currency collapse? In a recent Casey Daily Dispatch, two guest columnists – one from Zimbabwe and another from Bosnia – shared their respective feats of survival amid the horrors of hyperinflation and civil unrest. Sadly, their stories are not outliers. During my lifetime, far too many societies have reverted to barter, theft, and gang rule. With Cyprus' volatile banking situation… read article

When I was still a young buck out in the workplace, financial magazines periodically published worksheets for calculating when you had enough money to retire. The process became much easier when we got our first PC. Programs like Microsoft Money had a retirement planner tab where you entered your personal data, and the program did the calculations for you. For many years, financial planners considered four basic numbers to be conservative estimates: … read article

Buy, sell, hold, or pass altogether? This is the dilemma we face as investors, particularly if we subscribe to one or more investment newsletters. If a company was recommended in a previous issue, are we too late? Did the price escalate rapidly, or is it still a good choice? I subscribe to many newsletters myself, so it's an issue I deal with often. Fortunately, the answer is likely the same no matter how many… read article

Ninety-eight percent of insurance brokers do not know how to use life insurance optimally. That, anyway, is what one reader wrote in to tell me. I chuckled as I thought to myself, "You could substitute any profession for 'insurance broker' – lawyer, salesperson, politician, etc. – and that statement would still ring true." Sure, I laughed a little, but it wouldn't be funny to realize I'd been misled into investing in something only… read article

Human beings are, by nature, heuristic. Although we are immensely intelligent, our brains are not attuned to mathematical precision. Instead, we are wired to make quick decisions based on limited information gathered from experience. This quality was helpful for avoiding saber-tooth tigers on the savannah, as it allowed us to make split-second decisions when we heard a rustle in the grass. Had we evolved to stop and calculate the exact odds that the… read article

The Federal Reserve is, of course, a bank. So after it has a meeting, it issues a statement outlining the discussion – a "bank statement." Hmm... Now that I think about it, that must be where the acronym "BS" comes from. Notwithstanding what we read and hear, when Congress established the Federal Reserve as a central bank 100 years ago, its primary purpose was to protect the banking system. The Federal Reverse shifted… read article

When Kerry Lutz turned off the recorder after interviewing me for the Financial Survival Network, we started talking about a common challenge we both face: getting an entire generation to wake up and see that we have a real problem. Most seniors and savers readily admit that interest rates are terrible and don't keep up with inflation, yet – even with the terrible squeeze this puts on their pocketbooks – Kerry… read article

Several readers have asked why I use CDs in so many examples. With good reason, they wondered if I was suggesting buying CDs, which made them question my wisdom and sanity. If anyone thinks that's what I'm recommending, I must have been remiss in conveying my message. On that note, I'd like to make one thing clear: I am absolutely opposed to buying any CD denominated in US dollars. (And since we're clearing… read article

Eight percent is not good news. Last week I shared some reader feedback from our inflation survey, and in case you missed it, the Money Forever Reader Poll Inflation Rate is 8%. But what does that number really mean for us – seniors and savers trying to protect our buying power? It's time to read the tea leaves and find out. Up to Your Ass in Alligators You may remember… read article

Well, our inflation survey results are in. Thank you to everyone who participated, particularly those who shared frustrating examples of the ever-increasing cost of living. There were close to 100 pages of reader comments, and I read them all... every single word. This week's column is primarily written by you, our loyal readers. You will recognize the reader comments as they are indented. Here is one example to get us started: … read article

Before we dive into this week's article, I want to thank all of our readers who completed last week's survey on inflation. I know I promised the results today, but we're holding off until next week. We received such an enthusiastic response that Vedran Vuk, our senior research analyst, opened the survey up to Casey Daily Dispatch readers last Friday. If you are not already signed up for the Casey Daily Dispatch,… read article