WHEN I STARTED OUT as a mom-and-pop property owner 40 years ago, I was burdened by both my naivete and the shibboleths promoted by the real estate industry.
In particular, I had to overcome two egregious misconceptions: that a well-written lease is the key to successful small-property investing and that aggressively raising rents is the surest way to maximize profits. Adopting an alternative management philosophy has saved me both money and heartache.
Character counts.

I’VE SPENT MY ADULT life on a self-improvement journey. It’s kept me moving forward or, at least, trying to move forward. I take great pride in what I’ve accomplished and have no regrets about the goals I set.
But a funny thing happened. I retired. I’ve applied the brakes to my life, and now I’m reevaluating what I’ve done and what I want to do.
I’m not Catholic, but I’ve attended many a mass.

MY FATHER LEFT US—my mother, sister, brother and me—in 1951, when I was age 10. With the help of her parents, my mother managed to raise us three children until we each got married. I knew I wasn’t as well off as many of my parochial school classmates, but I never felt poor. Still, we didn’t waste a cent, and that became a lifelong habit.
It’s been a long journey since then—service in the Army and Army Reserves,

VICKY AND I ALWAYS knew our retirement home would need to be near our two sons and their families, so we could be part of our grandchildren’s lives. It’s taken a few years and a pandemic, but we finally made that happen.
We purchased a new home in Monmouth County, New Jersey, in September 2023. We’ve now moved in, and we’re already enjoying more time with our grandsons. We’ve also met some very welcoming neighbors.

WE SOLD OUR PRIMARY residence in the Philadelphia suburbs and moved to our New Jersey beach home in March 2021. The sale allowed Vicky and me to take advantage of what’s arguably the most valuable tax break available to everyday Americans: the capital-gains tax exclusion on the sale of a primary residence.
But while the tax break is valuable, it comes with strict and often-confusing rules—and those rules may work against us now that we’ve moved home yet again.

FOR MOST OF MY LIFE, I didn’t plan to retire. Probably reflecting the influence of religion, I’ve long thought we were put here to spend our time working in the productive service of others.
This was reinforced by my experience as a manager early in my career. I often had to oversee folks in their 50s and 60s who were no longer engaged in their career and yearned to retire. I never wanted to become like them.

THE END OF ONE YEAR and the beginning of the next is always a time to look back, and to think about the successes and failures of the year past.
It was a good year in many ways. My wife and I enjoyed excellent health, we’re surrounded by happy, talented and nearly perfect grandchildren, and we had an outstanding corn crop.
Financially, though, it was the pits. 
Although I’ve retired from one job, both Julie and I work every day at our farm and small business.

CHARLIE MUNGER, WHO died recently at age 99, always had a colorful turn of phrase. But entertaining as he was, his comments were also invariably full of wisdom.
In fact, taken together, Munger’s ideas offered investors a masterclass in investing. Here are some highlights:
Choosing an investment strategy. Munger, along with his partner, Warren Buffett, often commented on the limits of his knowledge. But this wasn’t false modesty. What Munger was saying was that the universe of investments is too broad for any individual to fully master.

I DROPPED OFF OUR Honda Civic at the dealer for routine maintenance. A young Uber driver gave me a ride home in his new Tesla.
I was embarrassed when he picked me up, because I couldn’t figure out how to open the car door. I told the driver I owned a Honda Civic, not a luxury car. “Those Honda Civics are good cars,” he said. “That was the first car I owned.”
Our conversation seemed backward to me.

CAN IT REALLY BE TWO years since I wrote about sending my twins off to college? One is a chemistry major, midway through her junior year. Meanwhile, for her twin sister, the artist, there have been big changes in her college trajectory.
My initial criteria for college selections included published statistics on cost, likelihood of admission, timely graduation and low rates of loan default. I took this last stat as a reasonable proxy for post-college success.

MY FAMILY ATTENDED the wedding of our neighbor’s daughter. I was seated next to a friend of my neighbor. My wife believes the seating chart was based on the fact that the family has special needs children. This has happened frequently over the years. It’s as if those of us with special needs children speak a different language.
During the course of the evening, the husband asked me if I had a pen. I knew I did,

AS I’VE TRIED TO HELP folks understand financial issues, I’ve come across numerous money misconceptions. I wasn’t surprised—because, before I learned better, I too misunderstood some of these issues.
Here are the top eight misconceptions I’ve encountered:
Misconception No. 8: Consumer prices drop when inflation falls. Inflation measures the pace of price increases. Declining inflation simply means that prices aren’t rising as fast, but they’re still going up, albeit at a slower rate.

DECADES AGO, WHEN I was trying to save consistently for retirement, I found that my impulse purchases were standing in my way. Like many, I wanted feel-good stuff or the latest gadget, and I was willing to spend money to get it.
Once, I saw an expensive jacket in a store and badly wanted it. I was about to buy it when reality struck. I said to myself, “Let me think it over for a day.

THE LAST TIME I HAD a job where I was eligible for a pension was 1994. People with pensions seem to count the days till they’re eligible to collect their monthly check. That makes sense: They know there’s gold at the end of their working life. I didn’t have this sort of “golden parachute.” If I didn’t save, I couldn’t retire.
From 1994 on, funding my 401(k) and IRA were my only paths to a comfortable retirement.

MORE THAN 40 YEARS ago, I was an agent for the Internal Revenue Service. During training, we learned about auditing individuals, corporations, subchapter S corporations, Schedule C businesses, partnerships and probably a few other areas that I’ve since forgotten. But there was one area we didn’t touch: trusts.
That puzzled me, so I asked the trainer why. His response: “You aren’t smart enough to audit trusts.” He told me that how trusts operate might change drastically based on slight differences in wording.