AFTER MY COLLEGE freshman year in engineering, I was hired for a part-time summer job by a civil engineering firm in my home town. The office was in an upscale building where a lot of respectable businesses were headquartered. The company had an impressive name. But after starting, I discovered it was just a one-man show. Mr. Jones was the owner. I became his sole employee.
Jones was probably in his mid-70s. He’d headed up his own company for decades.

HI CHRIS, IT’S BEEN 45 years since we broke up, we’re now both age 78, and I’m winding down. I wanted to touch base and catch you up, but mostly let you know that I often think back on our 11 years as husband and wife, and how much I value the time we spent together. Sometimes, that period of my life seems far in the past, but other times it’s right on my shoulder,

WHAT DRIVES THE PRICE of individual company stocks, and why do some soar while others sink? It comes down to five factors, I believe.
The first two factors are a company’s observable strengths and weaknesses. Consider Apple. Its strengths are easily quantifiable. In the U.S., it’s captured more than half the smartphone market. When you take into account the company’s premium prices, it collects a disproportionate share of the industry’s revenue. Last year, Apple’s profits hit nearly $100 billion,

IT’S HARD TO OVERSTATE how challenging it is to generate retirement income: We need our money to last at least as long as we do, and yet we don’t know how financial markets will perform, what the inflation rate will be, whether we’ll get hit with hefty long-term-care costs and how long we’ll live.
Moreover, the generic advice offered inevitably doesn’t work for many—and perhaps most—folks because we all start retirement with different attitudes,

IN 1980, MY FIRST WIFE and I spent the Labor Day weekend with friends on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. We went out for breakfast and I drank a lot of coffee. Our friends were planning a day at the beach. This is not a good idea for me because—being of Irish descent—I come in two colors, red and white. Either I look pale and sickly or I’m red as a beet. To avoid this latter state,

MY WIFE RECENTLY GOT the chance to showcase her artistic talents at a cultural festival in Kansas City, Kansas. Lori’s craft is stained glass, and this was the first time she’d displayed her creations in public.
She began working with glass five years ago, shortly after she retired. We’ve discussed the possibility of turning her hobby into a business. She’s dreamed of selling her artwork so she could at least cover the cost of her craft.

MY UPBRINGING WAS difficult. The alcoholism and rage among adult family members were often at their worst during the year-end holidays, and Thanksgiving could be particularly bad. What made this even worse was that I thought the popular images and ideas about Thanksgiving were accurate descriptions of other people’s good times.

One familiar depiction of Thanksgiving is Norman Rockwell’s iconic painting, “Freedom from Want.” The picture has come to represent the central moment of our Thanksgiving celebration: the roasted turkey arriving at the table as the prelude to eating ourselves into a tryptophan coma.

WHEN MY DAD HAD cancer, we’d take walks through the neighborhood. One day, on our stroll, we met a neighbor, Ted. My dad introduced me. “This is my son, Denny, he’s taking care of me.”
Ted gave me a smile and said, “I hope my son will take care of me if I need help.”
Not long after that conversation, my dad was in hospice care. My mother and I were standing over his bed.

LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE, I’ve made both bad and good decisions during my financial journey, and those have affected the financial well-being of my now-older self. Here’s what I consider my five worst financial decisions, followed by my five best:
1. Contributing too little to my 401(k) early on. I’ve confessed to this in a prior article. I missed out on a lot of potential growth by making only token contributions to my 401(k) during my 20s.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN you’re hit by the proverbial beer truck? Will it be easy for others to pick up the pieces—the pieces of your financial life, that is?
To my knowledge, my wife isn’t checking the delivery schedule for the Anheuser-Busch brewery here in Columbus, Ohio. Still, she’s worried about the complexities of our finances. I’ve made a concerted effort since I retired to consolidate and close financial accounts, reduce our investments holdings, and streamline where it makes sense.

ZERO-WASTE LIVING. Kondo cleaning. FIRE, or financial independence-retire early. Whatever your feelings are about these three movements, frugality is at their core, with the focus on minimizing possessions and living simply.

To these, you might want to add another, “possum living,” which has been hailed as a manifesto for living cheaply. Possum Living is the title of a book written in 1978 by a free-thinking, resourceful young woman who went by the pen name Dolly Freed.

WHEN THOMAS EDISON was a child, he apparently set fire to a barn on the family’s property. After it burned to the ground, his parents were furious.
“Why would you do such a thing?” his father asked.
Young Edison replied, “I wanted to see what would happen.”
The story may be apocryphal, but I was reminded of it recently when I came across a study titled “Not Learning from Others.” A group of economists wanted to understand more about how people learn.

WE LEARN EARLY ON whether we’re stronger, faster or have better hand-eye coordination than other kids. We might initially harbor dreams that we’ll get better. But after a while, it’s hard to ignore the mounting evidence of our athletic mediocrity.
If only life were always so simple.
I’ve heard parents say, “You don’t have to tell your kids that they aren’t good at something, because the world will do it for you.” That’s true—except there’s an additional step involved: Your kids have to listen.

SOME FRIENDS WERE recently discussing their investment performance. I couldn’t contribute to the conversation—because I have no idea what our investment returns have been.
The fact is, I don’t find performance information all that valuable, plus it’s relatively hard to calculate since you have to account for both price changes and dividend or interest payments. To be sure, investment returns are useful if you’re looking to determine whether a mutual fund manager is adding returns in excess of a benchmark index,

A MAN DIED AND MET Saint Peter at the gates of heaven. “Saint Peter,” the man said, “I’ve been interested in military history for many years. Tell me, who was the greatest general of all times?”
“Oh, that’s simple. It’s the man right over there.”
The man looked where Peter was pointing and said, “You must be mistaken. I knew that man on earth, and he was just a common laborer.”
“That’s right,” Peter remarked,