WHEN BUILDING portfolios, why don’t I include real estate investment trusts? REITs are large, diversified real estate companies. Some own office buildings, while others own apartments, hotels, shopping centers or other kinds of property. An example is Simon Property Group, which owns more than 200 shopping malls across the country.
A REIT is, on the surface, just like any other company, but with one unique feature: Dividends aren’t optional. REITs are required to pay out virtually all of their income,

“DON’T STOP THINKING about tomorrow,” sang Fleetwood Mac. It’s a shame they weren’t financial advisors.
We save money today so that we—or our heirs—can spend at some point in the future. A good tradeoff? I strongly believe that it is, and you wouldn’t be a HumbleDollar reader if you disagreed. Still, during this season of holiday shopping joy, it’s worth reminding ourselves that, yes, we should indeed think about tomorrow.
Living for Today.

CATS ARE NOT MY favorite animal. They don’t like me, either. I’m allergic to them. If I go into a house with cats, within minutes I have trouble breathing. I once saw Cats on Broadway. Even the actors dressed like cats rubbing against my leg creeped me out.
Recently, I was in a restaurant. In the booth opposite were two young women, probably in their mid-to-late 20s. They were chatting away between texts.

TWO WEEKS AFTER my husband’s death, we held a memorial service for local friends and family. Days later, after a reasonable amount of online research, I visited a car dealer.
It’s my experience that bringing at least one youngster along speeds up dealmaking, plus a parent can get unvarnished opinions about life in the backseat. So I brought along my 13-year-old. The two of us test drove two used cars and bought one of them.

IT WAS 1989 AND I WAS living at home with my parents after obtaining my finance degree. I still harbored dreams of playing professional baseball, but let’s just say I also embraced learning about the financial-planning trade.
A year later, my why—my purpose—was born. In 1990, my father’s employer went bankrupt. As my 59-year-old dad looked for a new job, I felt the stress level in the house rise. My mother didn’t understand why it took so long for him to find work,

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.