IN OCTOBER, WHILE I was visiting family in California, I got a text from an old friend, Tass. He had lost his job.
Tass and I were close buddies in college, but we lost touch. After completing our undergraduate degrees in computer science, I started working, while Tass pursued a business degree. We soon ended up in different parts of the globe. Many years later, we bumped into each other at an airport. I learned that Tass had moved abroad to start his own offshore business.

TAX-DEFERRED ACCOUNTS are great, until they aren’t—when we have to pay taxes on our withdrawals. Millions of Americans have tax-deferred accounts, pundits laud them, companies help fund them, institutions service them and markets help them grow. But when it comes time to empty them, often the only person to guide us is Uncle Sam, who’s patiently awaiting his cut.
Efficiently managing 30 years of retirement withdrawals from a 401(k), 403(b), IRA or other tax-deferred account is just as important as the 40 years of accumulation.

ACCLAIMED AUTHOR Malcolm Gladwell talks about the importance of adding “candy” to his writing. By this, he’s referring to the asides, trivia and factoids that he uses to hold readers’ interest. Gladwell is quick to note, however, that writing can’t be all candy, with no main course, just as it can’t be all main course with no candy. To be effective, he includes both substance and entertainment.
When it comes to your investment portfolio,

THE INDEX FUND fee-cutting battle reached its seemingly inevitable conclusion more than a year ago, when Fidelity Investments launched four zero-cost index funds. You can’t get any lower than zero, right? Apparently, you can. One small fund company is now effectively paying investors to own one of its index funds.
Still, the price war among financial companies has clearly moved on, with some firms eliminating brokerage commissions in 2019 or touting the high interest rate paid by their brokerage cash account.

IS SUSTAINABLE investing a fad? Everyone seems to be talking about it—not least product providers eager to persuade us that their sustainable funds are so much better, more ethical or more likely to outperform than everyone else’s.
Leaving aside the moral reasons for investing in funds that aim to deliver environmental and societal benefits, is sustainable investing a good idea financially? Do sustainable funds, otherwise known as ESG (environmental,

A BURNING QUESTION has only gotten hotter as foreign stocks have lagged disastrously over the past dozen years: Should any of your stock market money be overseas?
Most experts say “yes.” Vanguard Group, for one, recommends investors allocate 40% of their stock investments to foreign markets. In fact, some pundits have smugly derided what they call the “home bias” of those U.S. investors who avoid or underweight foreign stocks. Those stocks currently make up about 45% of world market capitalization.

AFTER LEAVING THE hospital, our family met up at a favorite neighborhood restaurant.
“What’s next?” the teenagers asked.
“Now begins the parade of covered dishes,” I answered.
For the month after my husband’s death, when preparing food hardly seemed possible, friends and neighbors made sure our refrigerator and freezer bulged. The kids experienced a variety of main meals, side dishes and desserts. There was enough for us and our many helpers, and we experimented with time and labor-saving meal shortcuts.

SOCIAL SECURITY HAS come under political attack over the years. With the federal deficit ballooning, will there be another round of attacks in the run-up to 2020’s election?
I hope not. Here are 15 reasons we should all want to preserve Social Security benefits, no matter which political party we favor:

It helps many. About 63 million people get a Social Security check each month. That’s one out of six Americans.
It provides insurance.

ALMOST 30 YEARS AGO, I landed my first fulltime job. I worked at a state-run academic institution, earning $16,000 a year. The sole retirement benefit was a pension plan with a five-year vesting period. There were no investment choices to be made. There was no ability to invest additional funds, beyond what my employer contributed to the plan. It was a retirement plan requiring no participation on my part.
My second job came with the option of investing in a traditional 401(k) plan.

TURN ON THE RADIO and, it seems, you can’t help but hear the holiday classic It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year. My question: From an investor’s perspective, is this indeed the most wonderful time of the year?
Apparently, it is. According to a 2017 paper titled Holidays Financial Anomalies, three of the best days for the stock market are the days after Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s.

WHAT DOES IT TAKE to succeed financially? Pundits love to parse stock market returns, dig into the minutiae of Roth conversions and debate retirement withdrawal strategies. Yet, when asked what’s the most important financial virtue, almost all give the same answer: great savings habits.
That mundane reason certainly explains my financial success. Yes, I’ve benefited from owning index funds, holding a stock-heavy portfolio and buying enthusiastically during market declines. But all of that has been gravy.

WE HAVE A HARDWIRED biological incentive to promote the wellbeing of our kids, so that the family line will continue. This is the selfish gene in action. Yet modern human behavior suggests that the wiring may be at least a little faulty—for three key reasons.
Environmental. Our domination of natural resources continues to create tremendous improvements in global wealth, but it sometimes comes at the expense of the only confirmed habitable space that’s practical for our species.

FOR MANY YEARS, I didn’t own bonds or anything similar, except some bank certificates of deposit. Frankly, I was clueless.
My first dilemma: Should I invest in bonds if I have a mortgage? It didn’t make sense to me to borrow from the bank and, at the same time, lend out my money at a lower interest rate to a bond issuer. I felt I should pay off my mortgage first. A few friends and even a financial advisor recommended otherwise.

I’M GUESSING OUR credit cards are excited. It’s the holidays, so they’ll get to see the light of day more often. December is a time for spending, for throwing caution to the wind, for rationalizing what we and our children need or deserve. It doesn’t help that we’re barraged with advertising tugging at our heart strings.
Perhaps it’s time to counterattack, to apply logic and to think not about the joys of Christmas morning presents or the next Chanukah gift,

TRADITIONAL OR ROTH retirement accounts? Below are eight key questions to ask. Your decision should be based on your answers to these eight questions—including the importance you put on each.

Do you want a tax break now? Assuming you qualify, a traditional IRA allows you to deduct your contributions, resulting in a lower taxable income for the year. Ditto for tax-deductible contributions to an employer’s 401(k) or 403(b) plan. But with Roth accounts, you don’t get this tax benefit.