THIS YEAR SAW THE passing of two giants of the investment world. The first was Harry Markowitz, who in the 1950s developed a concept now known as Modern Portfolio Theory. His key insight was one that today we view as so fundamental that it’s easy to take it for granted: Markowitz was the first to articulate and quantify the importance of diversification. He later won a Nobel Prize for his work.
This year also saw the passing of Charlie Munger.

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO with your money next year? The same things you should have done this year, and the year before, and the year before that.
The rules for a successful life—financially and otherwise—are, I believe, pretty timeless. What rules? Here are 24 of my favorites.
1. Ask why. If you don’t know where you’re going with your finances, you’ll likely end up somewhere you don’t like. What are your money goals for 2024 and beyond?

IN A RECENT ONLINE discussion, I compared the benefits of an immediate-fixed annuity with the 4% retirement-income rule. The 4% rule suggests that investors can withdraw 4% from a well-balanced investment portfolio in the first year of retirement, and then add annual inflation adjustments without fear of running out of money over a 30-year retirement.
Using the NewRetirement annuity calculator, I found that a 65-year-old man could purchase an immediate annuity for $1 million,

THE FIRST TIME I remember realizing that “time flies” was during my senior year of high school. One of my class periods each day involved working in the school’s main office. My primary duty was to walk the hallways, gathering attendance sheets from each classroom.
It was a highly repetitive task, each day a replica of the prior one, with the route through the hallways never changing. On one of those days, I recall thinking,

MY WIFE WAS STILL waking up from the general anesthesia. She’d had a Cesarean, or C-section. Meanwhile, I was in the nursery, helping the nurse record my newborn son’s vitals.
The Harry Chapin song Cat’s in the Cradle came over the loudspeaker. For readers unfamiliar with the song, it tells the story of a dad who is more interested in his job than his son. Having kids was never my priority. Making money was,

REMEMBER WHEN YOU got that first AARP card in the mail? I must have been 50, not at all ready to begin thinking about senior discounts, and slightly offended. That was 12 years ago.

Well, I’m feeling that way again. You see, the grim reaper—oops, I mean retirement—is getting close. That means it’s time to reduce my exposure to stocks, while boosting my holdings of income-oriented investments. It’s a strange feeling for someone who has spent his life investing almost exclusively for capital appreciation.

WE OFTEN IMAGINE WE know something about the future that’s unknowable—and the result can be costly investment mistakes. Below is an edited excerpt from the new book “From Zero to Millionaire: A Simple, Effective, and Stress-Free Way to Invest in the Stock Market,” published by Harriman House.
“I don’t think the United States is going to survive.”
Several years ago, I was having lunch with a friend in a San Francisco restaurant when he made this confession. 

IS A STORM COMING? Long before I discovered HumbleDollar, I regularly read articles by Scott Burns. Now in his 80s, Burns was a popular financial columnist who wrote for the Boston Herald and later The Dallas Morning News. He’s a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, so he’s comfortable presenting quantitative arguments. Burns is an advocate of low-cost index funds, and he helped popularize couch potato investing,

ANDREW CARNEGIE emigrated from Scotland as a boy, began working at a young age in a telegraph office, and eventually started Carnegie Steel. When J.P. Morgan bought the company, Carnegie found himself with a lot of time on his hands—and a lot of money.
Obviously, he was wealthy, with homes in both the U.S. and Scotland. But it’s what he did with his money that always intrigued me: He gave it away. Instead of building monuments to himself,

DECEMBER IS A BUSY month for everyone. But it seems especially busy for clergy and those who work with money.

If you work with money, there are important tasks to complete, such as planning for taxes, ensuring your investment allocations are where they should be, making charitable contributions, and getting ready for the new financial year.

Meanwhile, when I was serving a congregation as a minister, December was full of gatherings and services to celebrate the traditions and holidays that come this time of year.

AS AN EPISCOPAL priest, I’ve lived for more than 40 years with two calendars for every December.
The first calendar is widely recognized. It begins on Thanksgiving Day, with the arrival of Santa Claus in the Macy’s parade, and runs through Christmas Day, with all the celebration that’s entailed.
These few weeks are a huge feature of modern life in America. Businesses depend on a good season. Extra work and part-time jobs are available.

WITH NO DISRESPECT TO our representatives in Congress, a new rule taking effect in January reminds me of a scene from The Jerk, an old Steve Martin movie. Playing the role of a carnival huckster, Martin shows off a wall of attractive prizes, but then narrows the choices to an impossibly small set of options.
Congress did something similar when it instituted a new rule governing 529 education savings accounts. The rule in question opens up greater flexibility in how surplus 529 funds can be used.

IT’S THE HOLIDAY season, which means I get to enjoy one of my favorite movies, A Christmas Carol. I’ve watched it every Christmas for as long as I can remember. I guess you could say it’s cast a spell over me, but in a good way.
To be honest, I don’t watch it in its entirety anymore. Instead, I usually just tune in for when Scrooge wakes up on Christmas Day as a changed man,

AT THE RISK OF CAUSING readers to think too much on a Saturday morning, let me start by offering a pair of seemingly contradictory statements:

The financial markets are efficient, but occasionally go stark, raving mad.
Nobody knows what stocks are worth, but they have fundamental value.

My contention: There’s a payoff to be had from grappling with these two apparent contradictions—a payoff that takes the form of greater calm in the face of market turmoil and improved long-run portfolio performance.

I PAY FOR MY OWN partial retirement with a university pension, income from rental properties, income from the remnants of my private psychology practice and, of course, Social Security. I long ago emptied my retirement accounts to pay for our son Ryan’s college education and to help launch his career.
What about my wife Alberta? She has income from her fulltime psychology practice, her share of our rental income and Social Security. But unlike me,