THIS IS THE TIME of year when many folks rush to purchase last-minute gifts. Not me. While others are out buying, I’m at home selling. You see, this is when I make moves in my brokerage account to limit my tax bill.
What have I been up to? First, I logged on to my Schwab account and reviewed my year-to-date realized gains and losses. I had generated $8,000 in long-term capital gains earlier in 2021 by selling an appreciated exchange-traded fund.

I QUIT MY JOB last year and then found I needed medical care. My old employer was required to offer me health insurance—but it was expensive. Luckily, I found a loophole that allowed me to obtain the coverage I wanted at a bargain price. I got the treatment I needed, and saved almost $1,000.

First, a bit of background. More than half of the U.S. adult population gets health insurance through their employer. Indeed,

ALDI IS A POPULAR grocery store chain with a cult-like following in some parts of the country. This family-owned business is based in Germany but currently expanding in the U.S. I always knew that frugal shoppers loved Aldi.
Still, I was surprised to learn just how inexpensive the company’s products are. According to a recent Bank of America Global Research study of the Nashville area, Walmart has the cheapest prices among conventional, mass and specialty grocers,

I HAVE A SECRET to share. I’m a Fire God, and quite proud of it. My first engineering job was with General Electric’s Aerospace Division in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. I started in the thermal engineering group. The group was responsible for the design, fabrication, integration, testing and operation of spacecraft temperature control systems.
An important part of the design was managing the heat input from the sun. Since the group “controlled the sun,” someone gave the group the moniker “Fire Gods.” I knew none of this when I joined as a young graduate.

ONE OF MY FAVORITE movies is based on A Christmas Carol, the Charles Dickens classic. It’s about the mean and miserable Ebenezer Scrooge, a money lender who constantly bullies his poor clerk, Bob Cratchit, and rejects his nephew Fred’s wishes for a merry Christmas.
Scrooge lives only for money. He has no real friends or family, and cares only about his own well-being. As the story goes, on Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited by three ghosts.

ECONOMISTS SUGGEST we stop spending excessively on Christmas gifts and instead buy more prudently or efficiently, according to an NPR story. Modern scrooges, you say? Not really.
The economists questioned believe huge amounts of money are wasted because we buy gifts that recipients don’t want, like or keep. In the interview, economist Tim Harford suggests more thoughtful gift-giving by, say, using wish lists to buy folks what they really want. We’ve been doing this in my immediate family for years,

BUY NOW PAY LATER is an online payment method that’s growing in popularity. Money and investors have moved toward participating companies big and small, as they seek to stake their claim in this growing market. What’s the big deal and why is everyone excited?
Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) allows consumers to purchase goods and pay for them in the future. Approval happens in seconds. You make a down payment, such as 25% of the total purchase,

HOW MUCH INCOME do I need to retire? That’s a question many Americans have. I recently learned the hard way how different the answers can be. On a Facebook group, a person posted the question, “Can I retire on $40,000 a year?”

I thought the question was about living on $40,000 a year after earning a much higher salary. I was wrong and insensitive. I replied from my life perspective that it would be tough to live on that amount for 30-plus years in retirement.

EARLIER THIS YEAR, I swapped the Vanguard Short-Term Bond Index Fund (symbol: VBIPX) in my 401(k) for an inflation-indexed Treasury ETF (VTIP). The trade worked out well: The replacement fund has since fared better, thanks to this year’s accelerating inflation.
To buy the inflation-indexed ETF, I had to open a brokerage subaccount within my company’s retirement plan—a feature some 401(k)s offer, though these “brokerage windows” typically aren’t heavily promoted for fear employees will end up trading too much.

I HATE TO BE WRONG. I’ve written before about the technique I’ve developed for evaluating health insurance. My wife and I have used it over the years to decide which plan to select. I’ve shared it with friends and colleagues, and many have found it useful in gaining insight into their own health insurance options. I still think it’s a valid and valuable method.
But our recent experience, after switching health insurance mid-year, made me realize it was missing one important variable—the length of time you’ll be in the plan.

THE HOLIDAYS MARK a festive period for stock market bulls. The final two weeks of the year and the first several trading sessions of January have historically seen unusually strong gains for the S&P 500 stocks, according to research from Bank of America. Since 1928, the final 10 trading days of December have averaged gains of 1.19% and the first 10 sessions of January have returned 0.72%.
Why has the S&P 500 performed well during this stretch?

WITH THE SURGE of urbanization in the 19th century, many folks became concerned by the seeming rise in bad behavior. This behavior could be illegal—such as theft—or legal but undesirable, like alcohol abuse.
Nascent social sciences, including sociology and psychology, developed two alternative theories. “Moral Deficit” theorists said people engaged in bad behavior because they were internally “weak.” You might have seen a movie scene where a hysterical person is slapped with the admonition to “get a hold of yourself.” Or you might be familiar with the approaches of The Salvation Army and YMCA,

LAST WEDNESDAY, the Federal Reserve’s policymaking committee concluded its quarterly meeting with two big announcements. First, the Fed is going to scale back its monthly purchases of Treasury securities. Because these multi-billion-dollar purchases have helped keep interest rates low, the Fed’s objective here is to let interest rates begin to rise. That was the first announcement.

The second is that the committee expects to raise its benchmark rate by nearly a full percentage point next year.

EVERY YEAR AROUND this time, I think about one of the most memorable events in my life.

As a child, I was fascinated by trains. My father was a railway tower signal man during the Second World War and later a station master. My first toy trains were plastic and battery operated, not true electric trains. One year, I pleaded for a real set. To my surprise, American Flyer trains were under the tree Christmas morning.

I WAS WRITING magazine stories back in 1996, recommending stocks and mutual funds. Privately, I worried that readers might think I had some genuine insight—and they might even invest in the ways I suggested.
Propelled by that fear, I favored safe stories, like the best electric utility stocks or the outlook for U.S. savings bonds. I ransacked the library, looking for sure-fire, can’t miss investments. Surprisingly, I found one—something called an index fund.
Twenty-five years ago,