Jonathan Clements's Blog

This is from my blog, but I thought interesting. You may recognize the doctors name from recent posts.

The idea of health insurance is generally said to have begun in the 1940s, but consider this.

Early in his career (around 1815) in an attempt to build his practice in Philadelphia, Dr. Philip Physick offered the first healthcare insurance package in the country. He advertised that he could take care of an entire family for a year for $20.

Dr. Physick is known as the father of American surgery. 

But some things never change🤔

Physick pursued wealth and had an income of $20,000 a year (equivalent to $343,600 in 2024) and invested nearly all his surplus wealth in real estate, which at the time of his death was valued at half a million dollars (equivalent to $13,895,588 in 2024.

The post THE GOOD OLD DAYS OF HEALTH INSURANCE appeared first on HumbleDollar.

My home has a mature garden and spacious rooms. It borders a regional park and is within walking distance of the small town I live in. There's a large hospital with a primary care facility nearby. As for curb appeal? Nothing fancy. But that lack of curb appeal let me pay 15% below the market rate for the area. Works for me.

My car is parked in a driveway with space for maybe 4 cars. It's an 8-year-old SUV with 80,000 miles on the clock, well serviced and maintained. Nothing fancy. I bought it at one year old, saving on the big first year depreciation.

If a passer-by ever spotted me regularly, they'd see me in shorts, a t-shirt, and scruffy sneakers. Once again, nothing fancy. Spending big bucks on designer clothing doesn't work for me.

This phrase weaves through my life. The sports facility I belong to isn't an expensive members-only place—it's municipally owned and managed, open to everyone. Nothing fancy. Also at least $2000 cheaper every year.

The ultimate expression of this outlook is my financial portfolio: a mix of low-cost Vanguard index funds, an annuity, a bond ladder, and some cash savings. Nothing fancy going on there. Doesn't seem right for me to pay 1% for active management.

I won't pretend I'm not financially comfortable. But it's straightforward: I wouldn't be as comfortable if I hadn't been content with simplicity. If I hadn't been fine with nothing fancy. The appearance of wealth has never interested me.

I'm sure flashier people might look at my life and shrug—"nothing fancy." They'd be right. And I'm perfectly fine with that.

After all, there's nothing fancy going on here. True wealth is not the ability to buy expensive things, but the freedom gained from not needing to buy them. That really works for me.

 

The post Nothing Fancy, That Works for Me. appeared first on HumbleDollar.

Great article and tribute about Jonathan in the New York Times. This is a link to it that hopefully you can read without a subscription.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/23/bu...

The post Financial wisdom from Jonathan appeared first on HumbleDollar.

Predictions  are the trend to enroll in Medicare Advantage plans will slow and MA plans will be forced to trim benefits. A recent article on MarketWatch provides more analysis.  

Many seniors still like MA plans for their extra benefits and generally lower premium costs, but they don’t like limited networks, required referrals, deductibles and co-pays in some cases. 

But that is not the problem. 

According to the (10/4/25) article, “The market (for insurers) remains lucrative as the government pays 22% more per Medicare Advantage enrollee, or about $83 billion a year more, than if that person had been enrolled in traditional Medicare, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, the independent federal agency that advises the U.S. Congress on issues affecting the Medicare program.”

MA plans were supposed to save Medicare money. Why the reverse was allowed to happen is questionable. Probably poor management, but no doubt politics as well. 

In any case, sooner or later MA beneficiaries will pay more, receive fewer benefits or in some cases their plan will disappear. 

The post Medicare Advantage update- it may be a bumpy ride. appeared first on HumbleDollar.

This is a knee jerk post. I just heard an ad for Schwab where they said they will sharpen your trading skills to learn how to trade brilliantly.

What immediately popped into my mind was I am not, nor do I want to be, a brilliant trader. I want to be a brilliant investor (hardly the case but I’m trying).

What about you? Do you aspire to be a brilliant trader or a brilliant investor? For I think they are totally different creatures.

The post Are You a Trader or an Investor? appeared first on HumbleDollar.

Every now and then I read an article and think "Wow, I wish had written than". I'm sure I'm not alone.

Recently I came across this article from Safal Niveshak, which is part tribue to Jonathan Clements, and part ode to simplictiy.

https://www.safalniveshak.com/money-i...

My favourite passage:

"A simple equity fund, a fixed-income option, and plain insurance are enough for most of us. But the industry thrives on multiplying choice because that’s how assets are gathered. Each new fund or product adds jargon, adds fees, and adds confusion. Bad for the buyer, but wonderful for the seller!"

We might argue a little about the details, but I wholeheartedly agree with the spirit of the article.

After reading this article, I was keen to see what else Niveshak has written. Somewhat ironically, the homepage of his website screams

"Pick winning stocks using my free, automated stock analysis Excel"

I'm not sure this really aligns with the aim of simplicity! However, the article remains a great read. Good day to you all.

 

The post The beauty of simplicity …. I wish I wrote this appeared first on HumbleDollar.

Times have changed. Six months ago, ten minutes of sitting still felt impossible, I got restless very easily. Since retiring, I can happily sit in the sunroom for an hour simply watching the clouds float by. I actually find it very therapeutic. It reminds me of my ten-year-old self, drifting off watching clouds from the classroom window instead of doing my work.

I keep coming back to this topic. Having time that's truly mine has changed something fundamental in me. Somewhere between those daydreaming school days and starting work, I seemed to have misplaced the ability to just...be, I suppose is the correct word.

The work-a-day world, with its pressures and deadlines, had quietly shut down that part of me, the part that could just sit and watch clouds without needing a reason. Retirement, by removing the external pressure, has simply allowed that innate, childlike capacity for wonder and ease to resurface.

I wonder if everyone rediscovers this easily, or if some people fight it, maybe that old work-world guilt makes doing nothing feel wrong, even when you've earned the right to do it. I suppose the world of work taught me that being busy was good, stillness not so much.

I personally find it wonderful. I used to meditate a few days a week to clear my mind. I don't feel the need anymore. My rediscovered ability to simply spend time doing essentially nothing has filled that need, I guess it's a form of meditation without the focus or mantra.

This ability to do nothing and feel no guilt in doing nothing is, paradoxically, a springboard toward productivity and mental insight. Writing articles only seems to happen after periods of sunroom mindfulness. At other times I find it impossible to think of anything to say. And any problems I might have seem to find solutions during these quiet periods.

My time in the sunroom has drawn back a curtain and revealed a paradox: it seems the most effective way I can be productive is during periods of deep, guilt-free unproductivity. It's the antithesis of what I formerly believed. True breakthroughs require the quiet processing time that simply watching a cloud provides. If you want to solve a tough problem or find a fresh thought, don't press harder, step away and do nothing.

Without conscious effort, I've reclaimed the part of my mind the working world had quietly shut down. The true gift of my retirement isn't freedom from work, but the freedom to remember who I was before the world told me who I had to be, that ten-year-old gazing out the window, whose peaceful, non-productive contemplation was, in fact, laying the mental groundwork for an entire lifetime of insight. By honoring that stillness, I've not just retired, I've found my way back to clarity.

I find the irony of the situation delightfully amusing. If you're reading this flow of words and thoughts, it's strange to think that it's a product of doing absolutely nothing. Try figuring that truth out with corporate efficiency and logic..

The post The Real Wealth of Retirement (Hint: It’s Not Financial) appeared first on HumbleDollar.

Jonathan Clements liked to joke that he was born at 6:00am and on January 2nd, “thus establishing a lifetime habit of starting early.” But he truly did get a fast start and seemed to waste no time.

Jonathan—who passed away this week—discovered his love of writing early on. He described his English boarding school as a “brutal” environment: “cold dormitories, disgusting food, endless bullying.” But that was also where he began to write, earning a spot on the staff of the school magazine.

With fondness, he recalled one of his first articles, titled “Organ Transplant.” It described how the school had spent an inordinate sum on a new organ while neglecting other facilities. “Somehow, I managed to get it published,” Jonathan said, “which earned me the enmity of a host of people. But in many ways, that was my entrée to becoming a journalist.”

Later, Jonathan became editor of the student newspaper at Cambridge University and, after graduation, spent time at Forbes before joining the Journal, where he became the paper’s first personal-finance columnist and wrote more than 1,000 columns between 1994 and 2008. After a stint at a wealth management firm, Jonathan returned to journalism, developing HumbleDollar to provide investors with his signature plainspoken guidance.

Jonathan was one of a kind and will be greatly missed. Jason Zweig, Jonathan’s successor at the Journal, put it best: “I have just lost a friend, and so have you.”

Perhaps more than anything, Jonathan was known for his generosity. He happily gave of his time and his wisdom. I experienced that personally. In 2016, I was unhappy in my job, and—for reasons I can’t fully explain—decided I should reach out to Jonathan for advice. I was amazed when he replied to my email the next morning, then spent a further hour on the phone. It changed everything for me. I wonder how many others Jonathan helped along the way.

This generous spirit formed the foundation of HumbleDollar, which Jonathan founded at year-end 2016. With his well-known reputation, Jonathan could’ve recruited professional journalists. Instead, he invited amateur writers to contribute to the site and happily took on the task of editing piles of submissions.

In his own writing, a favorite topic was the intersection of money and happiness. The reality is that Jonathan was a fundamentally happy person. He signed off every email the same way: “cheers.” Even after he received his diagnosis, he was never bitter and never complained, even when others expected him to.

Last fall, he wrote: “I’ve been endeavoring to approach these final months as a cheerful warrior, making the most of each day and avoiding anger over my grim prognosis...I’m not grieving my own demise.”

After he died, Jonathan’s wife, Elaine, posted a final message: “I consider myself beyond fortunate,” he wrote. “I had spent almost my entire adult life doing what I love and surrounded by those that I love. Who could ask for more?”

In many ways, it was the simple things that brought joy for Jonathan. Though he and Elaine traveled more in his final year, he emphasized the value of simple pleasures: “that first cup of coffee, exercise, friends and family…” He got special joy from living an eight-minute walk from his daughter and grandchildren in Philadelphia and, despite his illness, was able to see his son get married in London last December. That was how Jonathan measured wealth.

Part of Jonathan’s formula for happiness may have been his even-keeled outlook on the world. I doubt readers ever detected an inkling of his political leanings. I certainly never did. In recent years, Jonathan co-hosted a podcast with Peter Mallouk, the president of Creative Planning. Peter noted that it was Jonathan who named the show: “Down the Middle.” Jonathan’s even-tempered outlook helped investors stay focused on what really mattered.

I never heard Jonathan say a critical word about anyone, but he certainly had strong feelings about the investment industry. In that way especially, he was ahead of his time. Jonathan began preaching the virtues of index funds back in the mid-1990s, when they represented just a fraction of investor dollars. But Jonathan knew he had the facts on his side, having reported on the mutual fund industry long enough to have seen their pattern of underperformance up close. Jason Zweig lauded Jonathan’s persistence: “Brokerage and fund executives hated what Jonathan wrote. He persisted through a nonstop blizzard of complaint and criticism.”

Index funds were one pillar of Jonathan’s philosophy. Frugality was another. “I credit the frugality to what I call our big family story,” he said. “When my great-great grandfather died in 1888, the newspapers said that he was one of the richest men in England. All that money was inherited by my great-grandmother Lillian, and she lived the Downton Abbey lifestyle.” From there, “the fortune was blown in short order.”

“That was the story I grew up with, and the message was clear: You’ve got to be careful about money. My two brothers, my sister and I are all very different people, but all of us are frugal, and I credit this great family story.”

A point of pride for Jonathan was that he successfully conveyed those values to his children, though he worried sometimes that he’d conveyed them “too well.”

Another key pillar of Jonathan’s philosophy: humility. That was a personal characteristic—he often talked about “squeaking” into Cambridge University—but it extended to his view of investment markets as well. Hence the name HumbleDollar.

In his early years at the Journal, Jonathan observed the lackluster results of “sophisticated” financial strategies. So in the advice he gave, and with his own investments, Jonathan’s approach was simple: He took the long view. He never tried to outsmart the market, recognizing that as a fool’s errand, and never let the news of the day worry him. “I’ve always had a strong faith in capitalism and in the stock market,” he said last fall. I’ve never had any doubt during a market decline that share prices would recover. I’ve almost always had at least 80% in stocks. Right now, I’m at 92%.”

At the end of the day, though, investing wasn’t just about dollars and cents. “What is the reason for all this saving and investing?” Jonathan asked in his final column at the Journal. It was, he said, to enable us to enjoy our time here.

For his wit and his wisdom, his generosity and good cheer, Jonathan Clements will be greatly missed.

The post Remembering Jonathan Clements appeared first on HumbleDollar.

I’ve heard it many times, it’s all over social media. I earned my Social Security benefits, I paid for them.

We certainly paid taxes (actually under a separate law) to fund Social Security and all its benefits beyond retirement income, but we did not pay for OUR benefits. 

According to SSA actuaries and Congressional Budget Office studies:

A typical medium-wage worker retiring at full retirement age (66–67) usually recoups their own payroll contributions within about 3–5 years of collecting benefits.If we include the employer’s 6.2% contribution as well, the break-even point is more like 6–9 years of collecting benefits.

A medium wage worker with a non-working spouse also collecting on the workers earnings will shorten the recovery period. 

Connie and I are collecting on my earnings record and after looking up my SS earnings record our combined benefits exceeded both my and my employer’s taxes paid about ten years ago. 

If workers received SS benefits based only on FICA taxes they and their employers paid, their benefits would generally stop after 6-9 years. 🤔

The post Nope, you didn’t pay for YOUR Social Security benefits appeared first on HumbleDollar.

This is  just in case you missed it. 

Dave Lancaster was kind enough to post all the information for Jonathan’s memorial on Saturday, November 8: 

https://humbledollar.com/forum/information-on-jonathans-memorial-service/

He also asked if there was interest in HDers meeting for pizza at Pizzeria Vetri on Chancellor St on Friday 11/07. I would sure like to put faces with the names of my HumbleDollar friends. I hope you can add your name to the list.

The post November 7 HumbleDollar Reader/Writer Meet Up appeared first on HumbleDollar.