So my wife is 63, she was in head on collision last year and decided to retire from her job and enjoy life. She took her SSA starting in December 2025. I’m 62, turn 63 in May and deciding whether to take my SSA in May and retiring as well. The bonus for us is that I’m military retired, so our healthcare is from Tricare and I use the VA sparingly. I assume SSA is the only calculator out there, or do I create a spreadsheet to calculate returns based on years such as 63, 64 etc to see how long it would take to recoup the money if I waited until 67 to take it.

Hi @Old_Joe et al
We bumped into IRMMA during a particular one year period. Wondering if this is the monthly change you indicated. The below may provide helpful information.
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Medicare IRMAA FAQs - Tax Deductions, Duration, and How to ...
IRMAA (Income-Related Monthly Adjustment Amount) adds extra to your monthly Medicare Part B & D premiums if your income (MAGI) from two years prior exceeds certain levels, like a single person earning over $109,000 (for 2026 premiums based on 2024 income) paying a surcharge on top of the base premium (around $202.90 for Part B), increasing with higher income brackets. For example, a single filer with a $205,001 - $500,000 MAGI in 2024 might pay an extra $324.60 for Part B, totaling $527.50 monthly, plus a Part D surcharge.
How IRMAA Works (Example)
Income Look-Back: The Social Security Administration (SSA) looks at your Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) from two years ago (e.g., 2024 income for 2026 premiums).
Thresholds & Surcharges: If your MAGI is above the standard amount (e.g., $109,000 for single filers in 2026), you pay an extra amount (IRMAA) on top of your regular Medicare premiums.
Tiered System: The surcharge increases in steps (brackets) as your income rises.
Example Scenario (Using 2026 figures for 2024 income)
Standard Part B Premium (2026): ~$202.90 (no IRMAA).
Single Filer (MAGI >$205k - $500k in 2024):
Base Part B: $202.90
IRMAA Surcharge (Level 3): +$324.60
Total Part B: $527.50/month
Part D Surcharge: An additional amount (e.g., ~$85.80 for 2025, varying) added to your plan's premium

"Social Security provides an annual COLA which makes it more attractive than
most (all?) single premium immediate annuities or deferred income annuities.
I recently retired at age 62 and I'm single."
Be aware that the SS COLA can be a significantly negative number. This year and last our monthly SS was reduced because our total income from all sources, as reported to SS by the IRS, was above whatever limit that SS uses to adjust their payment. I don't have the information paper handy right now so I can't quote it exactly. But our combined SS monthly payments went from-
2024: $5334
2025: $5185
2026: $4987
Annually that's-
2024: $64010
2025: $62220
2026: $59844
So in just three years there's been a reduction of almost $4200 in SS income. Add the actual rate of inflation to that, and our actual income is significantly decreasing rather than increasing. This will be the first year that our expenses will exceed our combined SS and pension income, and that we will actually start to decrease (draw down) our retirement savings total rather than increasing that.

Playing with SS calculator today. If I wait until full Retirement age (June 2026) I get $114 more per month.
Meanwhile, I forego about $20,000 waiting 5 months. It will take 175 months (14.6 years) to recoup.
As I will only be receiving salary for 6 months this year (thinking of taxes here), I am thinking it is foolish not to sign up now. I haven't done a full analysis (again, taxes), but wonder what I might be overlooking.

@Vic_C As my dad said many years ago, " I don't mind paying taxes if I have the money to pay them".

NYT tidbits about Venezuela's oil reserves and industry:

Venezuela claims to have more than 300 billion barrels in the ground, the largest reserves of oil of any country. But it struggles to produce about one million barrels a day, or around 1 percent of global production. In addition, much of Venezuela’s oil is extra heavy, making it polluting and expensive to process.

The country’s oil fields are run down and suffer from “years of insufficient drilling, dilapidated infrastructure, frequent power cuts and equipment theft,” according to a recent study by Energy Aspects, a research firm.

Chevron is the main Western oil company still operating in the country and produces about a quarter of Venezuela’s oil. Early in this century, when other companies were forced out, Chevron stayed, figuring that conditions might eventually improve. Roughly half of Chevron’s production is exported to the United States.

In theory, if U.S. oil companies were given greater access in Venezuela, they could help gradually turn the industry around. “But it’s not going to be a straightforward proposition,” said Richard Bronze, head of geopolitics at Energy Aspects.
Analysts say increasing Venezuelan production will not be cheap. Energy Aspects estimated that adding another half a million barrels a day of production would cost $10 billion and take about two years. Major increases might require “tens of billions of dollars over multiple years,” the firm said.

Thanks for the updates @rono. A month or two ago I stumbled across a rough looking old "Prospector" 1-ounce silver bullion coin in a junk drawer. No recollection where it came from. But the kind of thing I might have gifted family members on some special occasion years ago. So maybe a left-over.
Friday I walked into a local coin shop. The dealer offered $60 for it and I took the offer. I realized that was at least $10 below spot - but more than enough to buy the bottle of Glenfiddish 12 year I'd been eying. ISTM that should the need to bribe a border guard while fleeing arise in the near future, the Glenfiddish would probably serve as well the coin.

Howdy folks,
Doc, I've been riding SILJ for ages, I also like SLVR but it also contains bullion. SIL are the global large cap silver miners. For gold I own SGDJ. For a nice bullion ETF that I trust, I like CEF. As a core portfolio holding for some 25 years, PRPFX.
and so it goes,
peace,
rono

I'm reporting, not recommending, big guy.

No worries, I definately wasn't being critical of you, David. Just grousing about the jargon of the industry in their prognostications. And like you, I'm not out to beat anybody but my own ability to SWAN with an eye on being able to do so well into my retirement years with an acceptable RoR.
Irony of ironies, of all the AI platforms, I have not yet played with Claude!!

I'm reporting, not recommending, big guy. Vanguard, and others, appear to believe that over the next 5 to 7 years you'll be able to make about as much money in the Total Bond market index as in the Total Stock Market index but with less volatility. Research Affiliates reaches pretty much the same conclusion and their asset allocation research isn't trash. That having been said, My own allocation, as you know, is 50/50 and is mostly executed by managers who have multi-asset access (Romick, Leuthold) or who are exceptional in a niche (Sherman, Seafarer). That reflects the fact that I am not out to "beat" anybody and that I simply don't have the brain space to commit to tracking minutia anymore.
If you are interested in AI beyond the purely operational, i.e, what can you do for me, level, I would recommend reading some of Anthropic's research. The simple fact that two iterations of Claude Sonnet will, if given the opportunity, talk to each other all night long and end up writing metaphysical poetry, is really intriguing to me.

@Observant1
Sorry to hear that.
Their loss, I am certain.
I hope you are/were able to parlay that into improved circumstances, better job, better pay, early retirement...

Thanks!
I can't really complain about the situation.
My employer was a good company with many fine people.
A reasonable severance payment (not life-changing but ok) was made.
I was planning to retire in 2-3 years but decided to retire early instead.

Nice — 45 years with the same corporate entity is extraordinary nowadays!
I was with the same company for 21 years, 8 months before my employment
was terminated due to a "reduction in force" which occurred Feb. 2025.

@Observant1
Yes, telecom hardware/software is my specialty field. I retire with 45 years at essentially the same corporate entity. A job that I truly enjoyed for most of that time.

That's a rare thing these days -- to be at the same entity for one's entire career. And I thought I was doing well with only a handful of entities on my resume over the past 30 years. Bravo!

@Observant1
Yes, telecom hardware/software is my specialty field. I retire with 45 years at essentially the same corporate entity. A job that I truly enjoyed for most of that time.

My portfolio and returns are quite close to @Observant1. I had almost no INTL equity allocation, so TR was about a percent lower. Same footnotes, basically. I had slightly more equity and slightly more cash.
Will be moving some MMF/TBUX to bond oef in 2026, as I continue my pre-retirement allocation shift. And as rates continue down. I started that process today.
Also, doubled my 401K contribution to reach IRS limits by mid-year. And halved my HCRA, so not to leave money on that table. Then, I "officially" retire. My company had asked me to stay until then, when our legacy hardware is fully retired as well. They have paid me to remain as a SME, with few duties or requirements for almost 5 years. I could transition to a related platform (new tech), but not interested.
Shooting for 60/30/10 future portfolio. Work in progress.

Here's my own, from a different thread:
We don't like to do this through the year. Once per year, on 1st of Jan. might be OK to look back and see if there's been any progress?
My stash is 52.66% stocks, 46.09% bonds. I just went to the calculator to work the numbers, comparing the end-total from 2025 to the total at year-end of 2024.
+8.05%. I can't complain, with so much in bonds. I can smile. That kind of performance will not shoot the lights out, but it's pleasing. I'll take it with no complaints. Surely, others have done better. It's a good thing just to see a positive, rather than a negative, number. Naturally, such a big stake in bonds is going to throttle-back the growth, in order to get income. And since other people depend on me, it's satisfying to be able to assist them.
"CASH" is 1.25% of total portfolio.
BLX is 7.66% of total.
ET is 5.97%
FBP is 3.65% of total.
EWS is 0.42% and I'll be growing it. Everything I see says US gains will shrink over coming years, yet I wanted a developed foreign Market in Asia, rather than EM.
PRCFX is 13.99%
PRWCX is 39.78%
PRCPX is 21.31%
TUHYX is 1.3% I'm growing this guy in baby steps, inch by inch.
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@dily said:
Glad this portfolio works for you, but your cheapest mutual fund charges 65 basis points. You are paying A LOT in expenses every year by holding “pricey” TRP funds accounting for about 75 percent of your total portfolio.
My reply: Thanks for that nudge.... Surely there are some good alternatives. I'll look. Happy New Year.
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I am deliberately looking for dividends at this stage, at least 3%. I am deliberately avoiding anything that would withhold a portion of dividends before they are received. My understanding is that Singapore is a safe bet, though the ETF is domestic, with iShares. Why avoid withholding? In my tax bracket, I pay zero on dividends and cap gains. Why let someone else keep it? This precludes a range of options, but still gives me quite a big sandbox to play in.

My parents got put into American Funds mid 00's and its been largely a middling pile of meh for them compared to other options. prior to the past few years, they've all basically underwhelmed their categories (outside of their global options that skew US) since like 05 when they moved over largely convinced because the funds had spent decades prior as world beaters.
They've been ok the previous few years as I've said but still not really all that impressed and overall their portfolio has underperformed by a small bit compared to a similarly allocated index portfolio. The biggest loser has been Growth Fund of America which has been their large growth option which has underperformed incredibly over that time period.

Statistics show that the S&P 500 has been positive in over 80% of the years since 1980. Despite this, most, or even all so called “experts” have been wrong repeatedly (see link). The takeaway is simple: being consistently bearish is a losing strategy most of the time.
Given this track record, it’s hard to understand why people continue to read or post market predictions when history shows they are largely unreliable.
Warren Buffett famously said, “Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.” While catchy, this advice is often overstated. If you had sold at any point over the last 15 years because “others were greedy,” you would likely have underperformed the market, unless you had near-perfect timing.
Markets have been labeled “overvalued” for years (= greedy investors), yet they continued to deliver strong returns. Even Buffett himself has been accumulating cash over the past three years, during which the S&P 500 gained roughly 90%. For most investors, that cash-heavy positioning would have resulted in significant underperformance.

tnx

A link here to a Faber interview with Rick Rieder in which they chat quite a bit about how much end-of-year performance really means. I've linked the thread containing the interview to avoid cluttering up this thread.
American Funds often comes in near the top. Must be doing something right. I've never owned their funds but wish I had. Kudos to @Old_Joe who owned them in the past and has spoken highly of them for a good many years.
If it was as easy as "1, 2, 3" we could all load up on the top performers and be super rich together in a few years. It is not, of course. Missteps are part of the process. (Except for one individual).
For moderate risk appetite investors, here's how a few "middle of the road" or conservative funds fared over 1 year according to M* as of today:
PRWCX: +12.46%
DODBX: +14.44%
LCORX: +15.01%
ABRZX: +8.18%
TRRIX: +11.18%
PRPFX: +30.35% (Huh?)
I have owned all of these in the past. Did not own any of them in the last year.

This January issue of the Observer lingers over a stretch of the River of Time that many hurried past. Amid the noise and anxiety of 2025, extraordinary things went quietly right: a vast expansion of green energy in China, meaningful progress against several endemic diseases, and other developments that rarely commanded headlines but may shape lives for decades to come. The publisher's letter spends a bit of time on the good news (with a fuller exposition and cool pix in a separate article) and also works through Vanguard's recent rec to reduce default equity exposure from 60% to 40%.
Uncertain times require clear thinking, and clear thinking requires … well, a functioning brain. In “New Year’s Resolution #1: Avoid lobotomies” we look at the threat that AI seductively poses to brains … yours, your alma mater’s, and your investment advisor’s. A short sidebar piece, “What Five AI Told Me About Investing in 2026, and what their answers tell you,” highlights the problematic patterns in AI’s response to an (admittedly unfair) question about what’s going to win in the year ahead. As a matter of clarity, there's a short third piece on how AI contribute to MFO.
Lynn Bolin contributes two complementary pieces exploring income-focused investing for the uncertain years ahead. In “My 2026 Investment Plan,” Lynn walks through the construction of his conservative Core TIRA portfolio – a traditional IRA designed to generate a steady income of at least 4% while limiting drawdowns to -15% during severe bear markets. He demonstrates how different funds yield differently depending on whether they’re responding to interest rate cycles or stock market cycles, and evaluates adding Standpoint Multi-Asset (REMIX) to improve diversification. Particularly valuable: Lynn’s analysis of how his portfolio performed through both the COVID bear market and the Great Normalization’s rising rates, and his discussion of why he’s moved from a 65% stock allocation to 50% as forecasts from the OECD, Federal Reserve, and Conference Board all point to slowing growth ahead. Vanguard’s own time-varying model now recommends a 40/60 stocks-to-bonds allocation – a near-revolutionary flip from the traditional 60/40.
In “A Closer Look at Income Strategy,” Lynn drills deeper into the mechanics of generating steady income in an environment where short and intermediate Treasury yields are falling while long-term rates rise. Working from 30,000 feet (which Lipper categories produce income in low-yield environments) down to ground level (specific fund recommendations), he identifies funds that maintained consistent yields through multiple market cycles. His analysis reveals that some funds distribute more when stock market opportunities appear limited, while others fluctuate with interest rates – and a select few provide genuinely steady income regardless of market conditions. The payoff: an example portfolio that achieved 7.7% annual returns with a maximum drawdown of just -9.8% over the past six years while yielding 5.2%.
The Shadow, as ever, surveys the month’s most consequential changes in the fund and ETF world in “Briefly Noted.”
We also pause, briefly and with gratitude, to acknowledge those who have sustained the Observer—financially, intellectually, and through simple acts of encouragement. And then, before the current carries us onward, we raise a glass to what has been, to what is, and to what may yet emerge from upstream.