ONE OF THE GREAT pleasures of having grown children is seeing them do things better than you ever did.
My son, who’s in his mid-20s, is already well beyond me in terms of investments. When I was his age, I was still bouncing around in grad school, living off teaching stipends and dreaming of one day being a novelist. I had no concept of what a mutual fund was, how to trade stocks and bonds,

LIVING A HEALTHY lifestyle is one of the most important aspects of a happy retirement. It is, alas, also one of the most difficult goals for many of us to achieve. A 2005 Boston College Center for Retirement Research study concluded that health was the second most important factor in determining the happiness of retirees—and those with poor health “experience dramatically lower levels of well-being.”
I stopped working fulltime on March 31, 2017. My health,

I’VE BEEN REVIEWING my past writing on HumbleDollar, my own blog and social media. I notice I often throw out personal details, such as the second home we own, paying for our children’s college and our spending on travel. My intention isn’t to boast.

In fact, I don’t even think of myself as wealthy, though the statistics say my wife and I are above average. Perhaps that’s because what we have today was accumulated over 60 years,

I DON’T MAKE TOO many New Year’s resolutions anymore. At age 70, it seems like most of the good ones are for people much younger than me—especially the ones that involve money.
That said, I did have a good New Year’s resolution involving money for the past few years. It was to wait until age 70 to claim Social Security. In return for my delay, I was rewarded with a far bigger check.
If I were a young fellow again,

THE FOUNDERS OF economics were prodigious thinkers. They tended to believe that others shared their brainpower and so would do as they did—wrinkle their brow, think deeply and make the best choices with their scarce resources.
Problem is, this isn’t how most of us operate. Instead, we take mental shortcuts. This is understandable: We’d never rise from the breakfast table to begin our day if we rigorously analyzed the health effects of eggs, orange juice and coffee.

TARGET-DATE FUNDS from Vanguard Group are, I believe, fantastic products. My first investment was a $3,000 purchase of Vanguard Target Date 2045 Fund (symbol: VTIVX) in late December 2005, shortly after I turned age 18. That was also my first Roth IRA contribution.
A target-date fund is an off-the-shelf globally diversified portfolio that automatically becomes more conservative over time. You don’t have to do any fiddling with the allocation, such as rebalancing or adjusting down your portfolio’s risk level.

I LEARNED TO LIVE a lot more cheaply after I lost my job at age 58—and that’s allowed me to retire with a less-than-average income.
After getting laid off, I spent 18 months searching unsuccessfully for a position that reflected my experience and education. I ended up taking an administrative office job at 40% less pay.
Although I was already a thrifty and cautious person, my life became a lot leaner for the next four years,

MOST FOLKS DON’T teach and write about a topic until after they’ve earned a degree in the subject. Owing to my career path, and the nebulous nature of my specialty, I’ve done the opposite—with the next step coming in 2022.
I went to law school just after college because—frankly—I had no better plan. I enjoyed being a lawyer, but I knew it wasn’t my passion, so I went into teaching. I loved it. I taught various humanities,

MY MOM HAD PLANNED to look for a new home near my wife and me in 2022. In November 2021, I searched Realtor.com to see what was available. I saw a home that looked like a good fit, but its status was listed as “pending.” On a whim, I called the selling agent. It turned out that the house was falling out of escrow. We made an offer.
We didn’t have an agent, so the selling agent offered to represent us.

“WHEN THE FACTS change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” Those words are sometimes attributed to Paul Samuelson, one of the the 20th century’s most influential economists. Due to a litany of cognitive biases—especially status quo and confirmation bias—letting go of cherished beliefs is easier said than done.
Which brings me to the topic of bonds and, more specifically, their role in the classic balanced portfolio of 60% stocks and 40% bonds.

FOR AS LONG AS I CAN remember, I’ve been a worrier. I’ve spent too much time fretting about any number of things. I worry about money. I worry about my health. It’s not too much of an exaggeration to say there are times when I worry about not having enough to worry about.
As I get closer to retirement, I’ve resolved to limit how much time I spend worrying about the future. I’ve come to realize many of the decisions that have kept me up at night are things I have little control over.

AMONG THE MANY people around the world who can impact our success as investors, two rank as the most important to know and understand. Yet many investors fail to recognize this reality.
Sure, Warren Buffett and Janet Yellen and Burt Malkiel are well worth listening to and learning from. There are also many others at home and abroad who are important. But all serious students of investing would agree that the two I have in mind are much more important.

I HAVE BUT ONE New Year’s resolution: I’ll be working on a habit that promises to lower my risk of cancer, boost my immune system and decrease the odds that I’ll succumb to Alzheimer’s disease. This activity has a host of other health benefits: lower blood sugar levels, reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease and aiding weight loss. It has also been shown to improve mood, memory and creativity.
What is this wonder drug and how much will it cost me?

DECEMBER WAS a month to remember for the stock market. The S&P 500 returned 4.5%, while small caps were up a slightly weaker 3.4%. Foreign stocks rallied 3.7%, but emerging markets continued to lag, eking out a 1.5% return.
It was a stellar year for the bulls. The U.S. stock market posted a 25.7% return, as measured by Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (symbol: VTI). Vanguard Small-Cap ETF (VB) started the year hot, handily beating large-company stocks,

LOOKING BACK OVER the past two years, one word comes to mind: extreme. It’s been a period of extremes in the market and the economy. Many have benefitted, but we’ve also seen excesses that aren’t necessarily healthy—from the rise in NFTs to the craze in SPACs to the boom in day trading. That’s why, as you look ahead to the coming year, the theme I recommend is moderation.