thanks bear!

We have a couple stks we like

The rest is with a money manager

The trick with the money invested with the money manager is to take a given amount of principal out, pay the tax and then reinvest, paying tax as usual. The tax burden obviously becomes  more onerous as the  taxed principal increases. We are locked into this system as the money was invested tax free when my wife worked.

Don't know if I would advice anybody to do the same as we did as our income is more today than when my wife worked. Isn't inflation great.?? Now we pay tax on inflated dollars, as this is not our only source of income

We have invested in a couple of stks when money was available from time to time. Not a large amount. The dividend has been a steady 5 - 5 1/2%, plus has increased in value

As of now any int  at 5 - 6 % does not make us notice the dividend or value enough to want to sell the stk

My retirement fund was the land I bought. At the time we assumed both land and stks would not be a failure or at least that was the plan. Today both have appreciated and our tax burden has increased. At least we make enough to pay taxes, with some left over to keep the wolf away. Wasn't always that way

Just our situation. Yours may be different

Have some physical silver and gold insurance metal, just in case the bottom falls out of the system

Like the other day, when Powell was trying to convince us inflation was not a problem