Confirmation Bias for my Retirement Paycheck Strategy

I attend financial planning dinner seminars to get some ideas. Most of the times, the seminar sells a product, including fear to cause folks to want the product.   Usually, the presenter earns a commission from the product  In other cases, the presenter is charging 1% of a minimum amount of AUM.

Previously, I had only met one financial presenter that I would consider.   He didn't offer any products and spoke about how he routine helped do customized planning for people.  Also, he offered to talk anytime without any charge.

Tonight, I listened to a financial presenter that talked almost exclusively about a proposed strategy and process for a successful retirement.  He shared five elements, one of which was creating a retirement paycheck, which I've been working on for the past year.  He also talk about tax efficiency planning and dealing with stock investment volatility.  In addition, he wasn't advocating or pushing any specific product.

His strategy/process for a "paycheck" and managing investment volatility is what I've been working through for the past year.  Also, I have been doing tax efficiency ever since I did a post retirement job as a tax professional.  I'm glad to hear a professional advocating my approach to financial success in retirement. Confirmation bias for me.

In addition, he is willing to do fee only analysis of one's financial situation on a long term basis.  Also, if he manages investments his AUM charge is reasonable, starting at 1.25% of AUM ( which may be a little high) but ratcheting down more rapidly that other financial advisors to 0.5%.

I haven't decided yet, but I may set up an appointed with this financial planner to have a discussion on more specifics and options of the implementation of his strategy/process.

For more on The Practice of Personal Finance, check back every Wednesday for a new segment.

This is not financial, retirement, choosing a financial planner advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2026 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Federal Elections are Choosing Between Bad and Worse

"You're brought up to believe that there's a good guy, and a bad guy. But then eventually you come to realize that there's a bad guy, and a worse guy. And nothing else." ~ Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus) in Thunderbolts.

I was talking to a neighbor about our choices for Governor and U.S. Senate.  I don't like either major party candidate.  However, I've decided that I'm no longer voting for a major party candidate since I feel .  My neighbor is aghast with my choice, ranging from "you're wasting your vote" to "the worst one may win without your vote against them."   Well, if my one vote makes a difference, I told him I would apologize to him.

Here's my wish.   What if everyone voted for the best candidate instead of choosing the least worse of the major party candidates?  Maybe we would get better government.  However, most people believe only the major party candidates can win and refuse to cast a vote for

The only exception I  make is to vote for candidates in my immediate neighborhood even if they are with a major party.

For more on Ideas You Can Use, check back every Tuesday for a new segment.

This is not financial, voting nor candidacy advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2026 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Use AI for Internal Corporate Knowledge

On of my roles was managing corporate knowledge in our organization.  We tried to create our own bank for corporate knowledge by having people write a one page summary of their work each week.  Over time this was reduced to every two weeks and then every month.  Our difficulty was the ability to search out one pagers that had enough relevant information related to our business or technical issue.  As a result, employees rarely searched for past knowledge.

However, the AI revolution has mad me think "what if?"    There was a substantial amount of internal and qualitative knowledge in those one page summaries and internal emails.  We used Google search at the time, but it was not efficient are returning useful knowledge to the submitter.  It seems AI, which did not exist at the time, would have been more effective.   Great technology and insight, but 20 years too late for me.

However, if I were ever in that role again, I'd be leveraging and internal only AI to rake through all internal documents to innovate and solve issues.    Unfortunately, 20 years too late or is it?

For more on  Strategy and Plans, check back every Monday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2026 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Rewarding Myself When 500,000 Monthly Blog Views Happens

Last month, My Wealth Builder, had 486,825 views.   I've decided to give myself a reward when the views cross 500,000 for the first time.  It may happen this month, next month or never.   I've seen short term spikes in viewership over the past year, which then drop significantly afterwards.

I haven't decided what the reward will be since I don't want to jinx the possibility of the event.  As of Friday, September 24, 2026, I will need about 20,000 views per day to reach 500,000 views in September 2026.  

I'm currently at 435,826 views this morning with 4 days remaining in September.  Wish me luck.

For more on New Beginnings, check back every Sunday for a new segment.

This is not financial nor blogging advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2026 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Accounts are Mostly Down This Quarter

I do summary of my account statuses at the end of every quarter.  I decided to take a peek at the expected results for the quarter ending 9/30/2026.  The accounts are mostly down from last quarter with a couple down for the year and one that is up.   I'm not worried...yet.

Here's why I'm not worried:

• Almost all the declines are due to falling principal values in bonds, CDs, and bonds funds.  
• Stocks, as a group, have advanced slightly since 6/30/2026.  The stock index funds and individual stocks have done well overall.  Some of my buy the dip stocks have advanced as much as 100% this quarter.
• Bonds, CDs and bond funds are expected to keep paying the same amount for interest and dividends.

At this point, I believe that inflation and interest rates will continue to go up, despite claims to the contrary from the Trump administration.  Thus, I expect the principal values for my bonds and bond mutual fund to keep dropping.

Oh well....

For more on Reflections and Musings, check back every Saturday  for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2026 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Preparing for Fixed Income Buying Opportunity

Interest rates are going up.   And going up big, it appears.  I'm using the 1980s 10 year treasury interest rates of 15.84%  as reference for a worst case scenario.  10 year treasuries are currently at 5.15% a 19 year high.

Here's what I'm doing:

• Closely monitor the effect on my "retirement paycheck" strategy.   My expectation is that the payments shouldn't drop, but the bond value and mutual funds values will fall, maybe even significantly but up to 15%, which will cause unrealized losses in those accounts.  Currently, they have fallen around 3-4% and may result in a negative net worth return for the first time since 2022.
• Hold current bonds and mutual funds investments, even if they go down significantly.  Plan on doing tax loss harvesting in the future with municipal mutual funds losses.
• Choose a long term interest rate to begin making major purchases of fixed income investments.  Tentatively, I'm thinking of 10% for the 10 year treasury.   Below 10%, I may scale in smaller amounts to buy treasury bonds or municipal bond funds.

For reference, a 10% yield would result in $10,000 year for every $100,000 invested or $100,000 per year for every million dollars invested.  Add 50% for a 15% yield for $15,000 or $150,000 per year respectively.  Now that would be great retirement paycheck..

For more on Reaping the Rewards, check back every Friday for a new segment.

This is not financial, interest, bond nor investment advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2026 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Opening Trump Account Challenges

From what I read, Trump Accounts can be opened for child under 18, limited to $5000/year contributions by anyone, no earnings requirement, and convert to a traditional IRA in the year they turn 18.  When withdrawing, the earnings are taxed as ordinary while the original after tax contributions are not taxed.  A possible tax benefit is to do Roth conversion in a manner such the the conversion is tax free.

I decided that I wanted to open a Trump Account for our son to potentially take advantage of the Roth conversion tax benefit. I thought it would be as easy as opening an account at any financial institution. However, it wasn't as easy as going to a custodian provider, opening an account, and depositing funds that are then invested. In fact, there are no simple step by step instructions written anywhere on the IRS website nor the Trump Account website.

I started filling out IRS form 4797 to upload to the IRS.  Then I realized there were no instruction on how to make a deposit nor how to open an account.   I called our brokerage firm and inquired if I could open a Trump Account there.  The representative wasn't sure and had to read through public information, just like I had.  I continued to read.   My conclusion was Trump Accounts are initially Treasury accounts that can only be held at BNY/Robinhood and can only be opened using a downloaded app, which sets up a link to one's bank account for deposits.  Rollovers to other financial institutions are not possible yet, but may be in the future.

Hmm.  While I'm OK with buying Treasury Bonds, I'm a little hesitant to give funds to the Treasury to invest for me, especially with financial institutions that I don't have any affiliation with.  I think I will wait until Trump accounts are made available through other financial institutions that I already use.

For more on Crossing Generations, check back every Thursday for a new segment.

This is not financial nor investment advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2026 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Avoid Accidental Wash Sales

Darn, I executed a wash sale for the second time, last Friday.  Completely, my miss.  I tried to get the brokerage to reverse the trade since it didn't settle with the Mutual Fund company until Monday (T+1).  Unfortunately, they were not able to do it.

What happened?   

• Since 2025, I've to doing tax loss harvesting for the municipal bond mutual funds due to rising interest rates.
• I started by doing only one fund at a time.  Typically, I buy the shares, wait at least 31 days before selling other shares at a loss.  This has worked well since shares have gone up after I make the purchase.
• Based on the trend of interest rates, I decided that selling first and buying back later might be better since interest rates appear to be trending up.
• I decided to try the strategy of selling first on one municipal bond mutual funds.
• When choosing which fund from which to sell,  I mistakenly chose a fund that I assumed had no purchases made in the last 30 days, but did not specifically check the recent transactions.

The result is that the realized loss I was planning to take was eliminated and added back to the shares that was purchased within the past 30 days.   The loss is now unrealized and will need to be taken with a future sale.

Since I am tax loss harvesting multiple mutual fund or stock/ETF concurrently, I am adding a quick check to confirm whether there have been buys/sells within past 30 days, before making any trade.   While a wash sale is not the end of the world, not even close, I prefer not to cause one to happen in the future.

For more on The Practice of Personal Finance, check back every Wednesday for a new segment.

This is not financial nor trading advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2026 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

I Won't Rent a Short Term Option

I know people rent a Short Term Rental (STR) and have good experiences.  Personally, I won't rent a Short Term Rental, not because of a bad experience, but for the reasons below to avoid a possible bad experience.

• The STR owners are not licensed nor professional to do temporary lodging.
• Renters are usually charged cleaning fees.
• Rental issues may not be solve quickly.
• I like knowing I will get good service from known hotels.

Personally, I don't see enough benefit, financially or accommodation wise, for renting STR.  Maybe if I need to rent a place to hold 10 more people, but I only need accommodations for 4.  So, I stick with hotels, and I usually can use points from credit card rewards. 

I have stayed with with people who rented a STR.  Often there are small issues (like dishwasher not working), that are resolved, but I don't want to personally deal with handling such issues, when traveling on my own. Thus, I continue to rent from hotels when needing short term lodging.

For more on Ideas You Can Use, check back every Tuesday for a new segment.

This is not financial nor short term rental advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2026 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Personal Questions at Social Volunteer Event

I recently attended a large outdoor volunteer recognition event.  It was in a park and catered as a cookout.  For reference, my volunteer assignment is by myself and I interact very little, maybe 30 seconds each time, with other volunteers or employees.  Thus, I attend the recognition by myself and sit with people I meet for first time. 

By chance, I usually sit at a table where people have met for the first time.  The conversations are usually superficial, like where does one volunteer, and enjoyable.  This year I sat with a group where the three of then women knew each other well.  After sharing where I volunteered, I mostly listened to the conversation, about various topics, sports, kids, volunteer opportunities.  

Then the most talkative of the women turned to me and asked what I was passionate about.   First, I wasn't ready for anything other than small talk, or chit chat conversations.  Second, I wasn't interested in sharing my passions with strangers that I just met, like finances, taxes, retirement income, etc. I froze and she tried to help me by offering my volunteer work area.   Finally,  I said, "I really don't have anything I'm passionate about," which led to her joking she was passionate about the volunteer work she did.

Afterwards, I thought about this and concluded I ought to have a ready response in the future.  

• I'm passionate about investments, income and taxes.  True, but it sounds too nerdy.  I didn't think briefly about giving this answer, but decided not to do so. I didn't feel it was  a good answer for people that were strangers.
• I'm passionate about helping my kids to be successful.  True and probably relevant with a group of women, but not my style.
• I'm passionate about making it to the next day.   Yeah, that's me also, but probably too cynical for a social discussion.
• I'm not passionate about any area.  What are you passionate about?  I think this would have been the best answer to strangers.   Tosses the focus back to the original requester, which I feel is appropriate.

Yeah, next time I'll be ready with the fourth option, which I feel is best in the situation.

For more on Strategies and Plans, check back every Monday  for a new segment.

This is not financial nor socializing advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2026 Achievement Catalyst, LLC