Your Money: Envisioning retirement, college scholarships and more
Picture yourself in retirement. What would it look like if you sketched it out?
Your Money
April 13, 2026

Hi everyone,

This week, we connected with Jamie Hopkins, a well-known voice within the retirement planning world and chief executive officer of Bryn Mawr Trust Advisors, along with Bonnie Treichel, a retirement policy and regulatory expert and founder of Endeavor Retirement, a consulting firm.

They recently co-authored a new book, “Your Retirement Sketchbook,” which tries to help people envision their retirement before they plan for it.

We posed the same question to them as we do all new authors we cover: What’s the single piece of original thinking in their book, related to money, that they’re most proud of?

Here’s what they told us:

“People don’t think in spreadsheets, they think in pictures, yet planning has been built around numbers. We ask people to flip that and draw their retirement through rough pencil sketches in each lesson. Because sketches feel unfinished, they invite people to participate and make it their own. When we visualize the future, we connect to it, and we make it ours.

Lesson 88 might be the most surprising advice: Stop saving right before retirement. After decades of “save, save, save,” spending feels wrong. Learning to spend, even stopping 401(k) contributions right before retirement, can help us fund meaningful experiences like travel that could help us work a little longer, improving retirement outcomes more than squeezing in a few extra years of savings.”

What would your retirement sketch look like? If you’d like to share yours — whether pictorially, in prose or otherwise — please send them here: yourmoney_newsletters@nytimes.com.

Below, we rounded up a collection of money-related stories from across The Times.

An illustration shows figures dressed in yellow cleaning up a room full of papers and files. One of them opens the window to show a sunny day.

Your Finances (and Mind) Probably Need a Spring Cleaning Right Now

When the world feels uncertain, spend the season of renewal taking charge of what you can control: your budget.

By Connie Chang and Juli Fraga

Consumer Spending, Engine of the U.S. Economy, Is Under Strain

Higher fuel costs are raising food and travel prices, while a shaky stock market tamps down free spenders.

By Lydia DePillis

President Trump points with his right hand while speaking from a lectern bearing the presidential seal.

DealBook Newsletter

Why Employers May Be Wary of Adding Crypto or Private Equity to 401(k)s

A proposed federal rule aims to clear the way for retirement savings plans to include alternative assets. But it may not be enough to protect employers from lawsuits.

By Peter Coy

An illustration of a red line, with an arrow on the end, heading sharply down, then bouncing back up, over an exploding cloud.

Strategies

Markets Have Faced a Year of Chaos and Still Done Awfully Well

Most stock investors have lost money during the Iran war, but returns have been splendid for the year since the “Liberation Day” tariff announcement.

By Jeff Sommer

Blue-Collar Work Has Plateaued, Narrowing Options for Young Workers

Skilled electricians, plumbers and factory workers are in demand, but job openings have dropped.

By Talmon Joseph Smith

WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST

A Delta Air Lines plane on an airport runway.

The Iran War Has Prompted Some Companies to Raise Prices

Delta Air Lines, Amazon, the United States Postal Service and others have said they are raising prices amid higher energy costs connected to the war in Iran.

By Kailyn Rhone

The Oil Shock Is Worse Than You Think

The war with Iran is preventing huge amounts of oil from flowing out of the Persian Gulf, but the prices that many people track don’t fully capture the scale of the disruption.

By Rebecca F. Elliott

A Chevron gas station sign against a sunset sky.

U.S. Inflation Surged in March as Iran War Pushed Up Prices

Soaring energy costs led to the biggest monthly increase in the Consumer Price Index since the peak of the post-pandemic inflation crisis in June 2022.

By Colby Smith

Oil Prices Surge Above $100 After Peace Talks Fail and Trump Threatens Blockade

Oil prices surged as markets reopened following news that U.S. peace talks with Iran had ended without a deal.

By The New York Times

TRAVEL

First-Class Seats Drive Airline Profits. It Wasn’t Always This Way.

Airlines used to give away most of their nicest seats, but they have increasingly found ways to persuade people to pay a lot for them.

By Niraj Chokshi

Passengers go through security checks in a brightly lit section of an airport with a wall of windows. Security agents in blue shirts sit at kiosks waiting for passengers.

Is the T.S.A. Ordeal Really Over?

Security lines are shorter, but the shutdown continues and pay is unresolved. With the World Cup around the corner, T.S.A. agents are tempering their expectations.

By Ceylan Yeğinsu

A white airplane with 'DELTA' text on its side is on a wet, icy airport tarmac. A blue ground tug pulls cargo carts in the foreground.

Think Airfares Are High? Brace Yourself for Bag Fees and Fuel Surcharges.

American and Canadian airlines, squeezed by surging fuel costs from the war in Iran, are adding “sticky” new bag fees and surcharges, on top of higher fares.

By Christine Chung

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