Do you remember when a basic savings account actually generated a bit of coin?  I just checked: The last time we could earn anything north of 5%—the threshold most savers used to consider “solid income”—was the summer of 2007. Crazy to think that was more than 13 years ago. In those intervening years, we’ve become […]

Another week. Another doctor.  I’ve been having strange, knife-like pains in a back corner of my tongue that no one can figure out—dentists, oral surgeons, a maxillofacial specialist, and two ENTs. I just returned from a neurologist prior to sitting down to write this. Healthy as a horse…and yet, knife pain every day. I mention […]

One of the hardest things about being a freelancer in the U.S. is the lack of affordable healthcare. Health insurance policies tend to be prohibitively expensive on the front end, come with steep deductibles, and harbor many exclusions or limited networks that make actually accessing healthcare difficult. So even when you have insurance, one accident […]

And so it comes down to this—the last day before what, in all likelihood, will be a historic presidential election. Will this end peacefully, with a known winner and a pledge to hand over the reins of government without a fuss? Or will it end…differently? I can’t say. I won’t venture a guess. Polls point […]

I had planned to write a different column today…and then I was thinking about an article that appears in the October issue of The Savvy Retiree and, well, I just really wanted to write about it. I think it says so much about the real world of freelancing and the possibilities that exist there, particularly […]

Maybe you saw this bit of recent news: ExxonMobil management has declared that shareholders are more valuable than workers. That’s about the most honest take on the financially troubled oil giant’s decision this month to conserve cash by eliminating its 401(k) retirement-savings plan match for employees…while preserving the dividend it pays to shareholders.  And if […]

I’ve spent weeks in European resorts for free. As a volunteer in English immersion programs, I’ve paid nothing for a comfortable room, three amazing meals a day (often including wine or beer), tours of charming medieval villages, and dips in the pool. In exchange, I was simply expected to participate in activities, which just meant […]

A few years ago when my grandmother died, I had the task of going through her effects and selling off everything in the house. I was struck by a piece of paper. I still remember the day she signed it. It was a carbon copy receipt for a certificate of deposit she and my grandfather […]

Talk about bad timing… You and I approach retirement, or are already in retirement, having suffered three major financial crises in the last two decades. Retirement wealth we should have had…poof. Frankly, it’s getting more than a bit annoying. You live your life frugally—or relatively so. You save for tomorrow so that you’re not a […]

All Americans, including those who live overseas, are required to file U.S. taxes, reporting their worldwide income. This is because U.S. taxes are based on citizenship rather than on residence.  Filing U.S. taxes from abroad is more complicated than doing it back home, as it typically involves more forms to file, currencies to convert, and […]

There is a certain sense of sovereignty I’m feeling today. Last week, I was texting with a childhood friend in South Louisiana, where I grew up, and he told me that amid the corona crisis, his 50-year-old sister lost her restaurant job when a ban on gathering in public spaces forced the eatery to shutter. […]

Here’s one of those “this makes no sense” stories… A few years back, my husband Dan and I had driven from our home in Mérida—in Mexico’s Yucatán state—to the neighboring state of Quintana Roo and the city of Cancún. We decided to spend the night and we pulled into one of the major resorts in […]