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Money · Health · Home · Family · Next Chapter
RetiredHQ
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Good Tuesday morning. Mortgage rates are back above 7% just as the Fed meets on rates. A flesh-eating parasite once wiped out in the U.S. is back on American soil. And if you have a free week this month, mountain gorillas in Rwanda are worth the trek.
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| Marketplace premiums are up now that the extra subsidies are gone: The enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies expired, and in one Georgia district thousands are paying more or dropping coverage. If you are 55 to 64 and buying your own plan, your taxable income now sets your premium, so time conversions and gains with that in mind — See what the expiration is doing to premiums. |
| A flesh-eating parasite is back in the U.S.: The New World screwworm, wiped out here decades ago, has returned and is spreading north, threatening livestock, pets, and occasionally people. UC San Diego built a tracking system to predict where it strikes next; a wound that won't heal after time outdoors deserves a prompt look from your vet or doctor — Read where it is spreading. |
| States are deciding who is too sick to work for Medicaid: Under the new work requirements, states are reviewing disability exemptions, and one cancer survivor in Montana lost coverage in the process. If a family member under 65 relies on Medicaid, open every state letter the day it arrives; a missed review deadline is how coverage lapses — Read the Montana case. |
| The FDA held a hearing on psychedelic therapy: Regulators took up psychedelic-assisted treatment for conditions like depression, with the administration signaling support. Nothing is approved yet and how the drugs would be given is unsettled, so run any clinic pitch past your doctor first — Read what the hearing left open. |
| A new multiple myeloma treatment gets a global backer: GSK took worldwide rights to a myeloma drug developed in China, for a blood cancer diagnosed most often after 65. It isn't something you can ask for yet, but the options in this disease are filling in fast — Read the GSK deal. |
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| Mortgage rates are back over 7% ahead of Wednesday. The 30-year crossed 7% Monday as markets priced in a quarter-point Fed hike this week. A variable-rate HELOC follows within a billing cycle, and if you're building a CD ladder, many planners suggest waiting to lock until after the decision. Watch the mortgage rate. |
| A down day on yields and oil is not a plan problem. Stocks slipped Monday as Treasury yields and oil climbed before the Fed meets. Your withdrawal rate is the number that matters this year, and it did not change; this is what the cash bucket is for. See what moved markets. |
| TreasuryDirect now wants ID.me to log in. I-bond and Treasury holders need an ID.me account to get into the site, so set it up before a redemption or reinvestment date, not the morning of. Start only from treasurydirect.gov; any email offering to help you verify is phishing. Read the setup walkthrough. |
| 6 in 10 people regret a big purchase. One new survey found 60% of Americans have spent on something expensive they later regretted, and most have more than one. The first years of retirement are prime time for the RV or the second home; a 30-day wait on anything over five figures costs nothing. Read the survey. |
| Ask who takes over when your advisor retires. One planner built her firm for succession and then deliberately shrank it, a reminder that plenty of advisors your age have no written plan at all. Ask for theirs in writing, and for the name of your contact if they're gone tomorrow. Hear how one planner did it. |
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Bunch five years of giving into one tax year
If you give $10,000 a year to your church or a charity and take the standard deduction, that gift does nothing for you at tax time. For 2026, a couple's standard deduction is $32,200, plus $1,650 apiece once you're 65, plus a temporary $6,000 each for those under the income limit. Most retired couples never clear that. A donor-advised fund (a charitable account you fund now and grant from later) gets around it: put five years of gifts, $50,000, in at once, itemize that one year, then take the standard deduction the other four while the fund pays the charity on your usual schedule. Fund it with appreciated stock and you also skip the capital-gains tax on those shares.
The catch, new this year: itemizers lose the first 0.5% of adjusted gross income from charitable deductions, so at $150,000 of income the first $750 doesn't count. And the deduction only helps against income you actually have. Run the numbers with your tax preparer well before Dec. 31.
See how a donor-advised fund works →
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Trek to see mountain gorillas in Rwanda this month
Volcanoes National Park is finishing its dry season now through early October, when the trails up to a gorilla family are at their firmest and the trek itself is manageable rather than a slog through mud. You'll spend an hour with a habituated troop once you reach them, sometimes twenty feet away. Permits run out months in advance, so if this fall or early winter appeals, start the paperwork this week rather than after the holidays. How the permit process works.
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Cruise the Lower Mississippi from New Orleans to Memphis
A paddlewheel steamboat covers this stretch at a pace that lets you actually see the river, docking in Natchez and Vicksburg with live jazz playing on deck most evenings. September through November trades away the summer humidity for cooler nights and easy walking at every stop, no flights or transfers between ports. Compare the river routes.
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Brew your own ginger beer this month
All it takes is grated ginger, sugar, and water left on the counter for about a week to build what's called a ginger bug, a wild ferment that does the carbonating for you. No equipment beyond a few jars and some patience. Bottle it now, while the evenings are still warm enough to sit outside with a glass over ice. A simple ginger bug recipe.
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Join a duplicate bridge league this fall
Community centers and local bridge clubs are starting new fall sessions this month, and most will pair a rusty player with a patient partner or run a short refresher before the first hand is dealt. It's a standing weekly date on the calendar., and the bidding and memory work involved is exactly the kind of mental exercise that keeps a mind sharp. Find a club near you.
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| A knee brace ranked highest for arthritis pain. A new analysis of 139 trials, nearly 10,000 people in all, ranked a simple brace best for reducing knee osteoarthritis pain, stiffness, and trouble moving. Water-based exercise ranked near the top too. Ask your doctor before you accept an injection as the only option. Read the coverage. |
| Two or more chronic conditions are where the bills pile up. A KFF survey of more than 25,000 adults found people managing several conditions commonly struggle to pay medical bills and to get care and medication, hardest of all when uninsured. If that describes you, your Medicare plan's out-of-pocket cap matters more than its premium. A free Medicare counselor can compare them. See the KFF findings. |
| Bring every bottle to the next appointment. The American Geriatrics Society's Beers Criteria lists medicines that carry extra risk after 65, including common sleep aids like diphenhydramine and benzodiazepines, tied to falls and confusion. Medicare's annual wellness visit includes a medication review, so use it. Ask your doctor or pharmacist which ones can go. See the Beers list. |
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Your kids get 10 years to empty the IRA you leave them. Most non-spouse heirs must drain an inherited IRA by the end of the tenth year, taxed as ordinary income, often in peak earning years. Some families convert a slice to Roth now so it lands tax-free. Ask a fiduciary advisor whether that fits your brackets and theirs. — Plan the inherited-IRA taxes. |
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Nobody can get into your email without the passwords. Heirs can be locked out of email, photos, and accounts for months without written digital access. A password manager with an emergency contact, or a sealed list with your attorney, fixes it. Most states let a will name a digital executor. — Set up the digital handoff. |
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Pick the executor for temperament, not birth order. The job is a year of paperwork, deadlines, and sibling phone calls, done while grieving. The organized, even-tempered child is the right one, and telling the others why now heads off the resentment later. Ask an estate attorney whether a professional co-executor fits. — Choose your executor. |
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Tip of the Day
Let a free AI decode your next medical bill
Next time an EOB (explanation of benefits) shows up full of codes and fine print, photograph it or type out the line items and paste them into a free tool like ChatGPT or Google Gemini. Ask it what you actually owe, why, and whether any charge looks worth questioning. Bring what it flags to the billing office before you pay. Try it on your next EOB.
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Reader Wisdom
The health lesson you learned too late
Most of us have a health habit we wish we'd started, or stopped, ten years earlier than we did. What's yours—the thing you'd tell a friend to do differently if you could go back?
Hit reply and tell us in a sentence or two. We'll share the best in a coming issue, first name and state only.
Share your wisdom →
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