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What’s a status symbol? Something we probably spent too much money on.
I’M NOT PARTICULARLY well traveled. I’ll turn age 65 at the end of this year and I’ve never been to a Caribbean island. I’ve never been to Hawaii or Bermuda. Heck, I’ve never even been on a cruise.
I’ve never been to Canada or Alaska. I’ve been to a couple of the U.S. National Parks, but have yet to visit the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and Yosemite.
I’ve been to Europe quite a few times,
WHEN I REACHED AGE 70, I felt a sense of accomplishment, a bit of weird pride. At 75, I had a similar feeling. But when I turned 80 last year, things felt different. It was like I was an overachiever. Suddenly, the future wasn’t as long.
For many years, I’d searched for a high school friend who’d been my navigator at sports car rallies, but with no luck. Then, recently, I stumbled across his obituary.
IN RICH DAD POOR DAD, author Robert Kiyosaki touts the virtues of owning real estate as a way to reach financial independence. He explains the difference between how his father handled money and invested in his education, versus his friend’s dad, who gained his wealth by investing in businesses.
There’s controversy over whether this is a true tale or just a literary device to explain how to invest in real estate.
SUPPOSE YOU WANTED to construct as simple an investment portfolio as possible. What would it look like?
Many argue that, for stock market exposure, you could go with a single fund, one that tracks the S&P 500 index. The S&P index offers broad diversification and tax efficiency, plus it includes the largest and most successful companies, making it a popular choice. But it’s not perfect.
The S&P 500, like many market indexes, holds stocks in proportion to their size,
I BEGAN INVESTING in the stock market in 2007. Within a year, I’d lost 60%. My response was like that of almost any human: I stopped investing.
That’s what happens to most people who start investing at the height of a bubble. They invest in something when everybody else does. And when everything comes crashing down, the pain of loss is so bad they swear they’ll never invest again.
While I missed out on huge returns in the years that followed the financial crisis,
GETTING OLD CAN, after a while, get really old. Here are 30 ways I’m reminded that I’m no longer a spring chicken.
Life insurance salespeople burst into laughter when I inquire about a policy.
My house is so warm I can cook without using the oven.
As I walk past the neighborhood funeral parlor, the undertaker’s eyes light up.
Decades ago, all my doctors were stern, serious men. Now, my primary care physician is a woman with a great sense of humor—who was born after I retired.
NO. 68: OUR HUMAN capital—our income-earning ability—should drive our asset allocation. Early in our adult life, with decades of paychecks ahead of us, we can risk investing heavily in stocks. But as we approach retirement and the need to replace our paycheck with portfolio withdrawals, we might shift half our nest egg into bonds and other conservative investments.
NO. 42: WE'RE OVERLY influenced by information that’s easy to recall. Think about Warren Buffett, or Amazon, or Apple. Even casual observers of the financial world know about the huge gains associated with each. The danger: We become captivated by such winners and assume it’s easy to get rich by investing with top money managers or betting on select stocks.
ACCESS FINANCIAL accounts from a dedicated device. Online thieves could load malware onto your computer, which then captures usernames and passwords for your financial accounts. To protect yourself, buy a low-cost notebook computer or other device to check your financial accounts—and never use it to read emails or visit other websites.
NO. 22: IF WE’RE saving enough each month for retirement and other goals, it doesn’t much matter how we spend our remaining money—and there’s likely no need to budget.
LIKE MANY RETIREES, I’ve thought about moving. My two children are living elsewhere, and I have no other family in the Florida city where I’ve resided for more than 17 years. For two years, I’ve researched buying a condo closer to the ocean or even moving to Mexico, where my modest fixed income would go much further. Perhaps I should return to my hometown up north—something two friends from high school have already done.
WE WERE DINING WITH close friends when the conversation turned to foreign travel. Stories were recounted of ventures to exotic and faraway lands filled with inspiring people, unique cultures and historic sites.
My wife and I were humbled by the sheer number of trips our friends had taken. We were shy to admit that our international travel bucket was relatively empty, and we had embarrassingly few stories to share.
This wasn’t a matter of keeping up with the Joneses.
I HAVE MADE SOME glaring investment mistakes over the years. For instance, in my 20s, I was too conservative. I opened an individual retirement account and regularly invested the maximum annual contribution in a mortgage-backed bond fund. I still think about how much further ahead I would have been, if I had invested more of the money in stocks.
In my 30s, I received a $5,000 performance award from my employer. I wanted to invest the money,
FINANCIAL MARKETS are often quick to punish investment sins. By contrast, if we err with our borrowing, spending and other personal-finance issues, problems might not show up until years later—but the damage can be just as great. Here, to complement last week’s list of 12 deadly investment sins, are 12 deadly personal-finance sins:
1. Pride: Keeping up with the Jones by buying luxury cars and fancy clothes.
Antidote: Realize the folly of buying depreciating assets you don’t need,
PERHAPS YOU’RE TOYING with seeing a therapist to help you cope with, say, the transition to retirement or the loss of a loved one. How can you get the best return for the time and money you’ll invest? Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer.
Early in my career, I was an academic psychologist whose area of specialty was the effectiveness of psychotherapy. I published many papers on the topic, and also presented several at the proceedings of the Society for Psychotherapy Research.
NO. 22: IF WE’RE saving enough each month for retirement and other goals, it doesn’t much matter how we spend our remaining money—and there’s likely no need to budget.
NO. 68: OUR HUMAN capital—our income-earning ability—should drive our asset allocation. Early in our adult life, with decades of paychecks ahead of us, we can risk investing heavily in stocks. But as we approach retirement and the need to replace our paycheck with portfolio withdrawals, we might shift half our nest egg into bonds and other conservative investments.
NO. 42: WE'RE OVERLY influenced by information that’s easy to recall. Think about Warren Buffett, or Amazon, or Apple. Even casual observers of the financial world know about the huge gains associated with each. The danger: We become captivated by such winners and assume it’s easy to get rich by investing with top money managers or betting on select stocks.
ACCESS FINANCIAL accounts from a dedicated device. Online thieves could load malware onto your computer, which then captures usernames and passwords for your financial accounts. To protect yourself, buy a low-cost notebook computer or other device to check your financial accounts—and never use it to read emails or visit other websites.
LIKE MANY RETIREES, I’ve thought about moving. My two children are living elsewhere, and I have no other family in the Florida city where I’ve resided for more than 17 years. For two years, I’ve researched buying a condo closer to the ocean or even moving to Mexico, where my modest fixed income would go much further. Perhaps I should return to my hometown up north—something two friends from high school have already done.
WE WERE DINING WITH close friends when the conversation turned to foreign travel. Stories were recounted of ventures to exotic and faraway lands filled with inspiring people, unique cultures and historic sites.
My wife and I were humbled by the sheer number of trips our friends had taken. We were shy to admit that our international travel bucket was relatively empty, and we had embarrassingly few stories to share.
This wasn’t a matter of keeping up with the Joneses.
I HAVE MADE SOME glaring investment mistakes over the years. For instance, in my 20s, I was too conservative. I opened an individual retirement account and regularly invested the maximum annual contribution in a mortgage-backed bond fund. I still think about how much further ahead I would have been, if I had invested more of the money in stocks.
In my 30s, I received a $5,000 performance award from my employer. I wanted to invest the money,
FINANCIAL MARKETS are often quick to punish investment sins. By contrast, if we err with our borrowing, spending and other personal-finance issues, problems might not show up until years later—but the damage can be just as great. Here, to complement last week’s list of 12 deadly investment sins, are 12 deadly personal-finance sins:
1. Pride: Keeping up with the Jones by buying luxury cars and fancy clothes.
Antidote: Realize the folly of buying depreciating assets you don’t need,
PERHAPS YOU’RE TOYING with seeing a therapist to help you cope with, say, the transition to retirement or the loss of a loved one. How can you get the best return for the time and money you’ll invest? Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer.
Early in my career, I was an academic psychologist whose area of specialty was the effectiveness of psychotherapy. I published many papers on the topic, and also presented several at the proceedings of the Society for Psychotherapy Research.
Nobody wants to pay healthcare bills, Quinn says he knows why.
Who wants to be a millionaire?
Feeling Lucky by Jonathan Clements
Vanguard vs. Fidelity: When First Class Is Cheaper than Economy by Steve Abramowitz
What got you interested in investing?
Signing up for pre-planned funeral services – Is it worth it?