TUCKED AWAY ON Greece’s rugged north Aegean coast lies a place seemingly frozen in time, where men lead simple lives, much the same as they have for the past 1,000 years. It’s a rocky, narrow peninsula covered in wooded valleys and terraced farms that comes to an abrupt end at a dramatic 6,000-foot peak—Mount Athos.
Here, the men live in strict, self-enforced isolation. No women have set foot on the peninsula for more than 1,000 years and even female animals are removed upon their discovery.

USE THE RIGHT TOOL for the job and you’ll get the best result. If you need to connect two boards, you could use a hammer and a nail or a screwdriver and a screw. Either methods work—and they’re certainly better than banging in a screw with a hammer, which I’ve seen tried. It was not effective.
Participants in 401(k) plans, alas, display similar behavior with target date funds, or TDFs. A TDF offers a diversified portfolio in a single fund,

BAD INVESTMENT AND personal finance books get cranked out every year with catchy titles and celebrity authors. But skip such pulp fiction. Instead, give yourself or someone you know the gift of timeless investment wisdom with one—or all—of the following classics. 

Why? Perhaps you’ve heard that indexing is the way to go. Or that you should insist on low-cost funds. Or that stocks are the best asset class, and should be bought and held.

MEDICAL EXPENSES ARE a big worry for retirees—leading many to purchase supplemental insurance. But you need to think carefully about which Medigap policy you buy.
What does this insurance get you? Medicare Part B, which covers doctor’s visits and other outpatient care, typically only pays 80% of the expenses that retirees incur. To plug this and other coverage gaps, many folks buy a Medigap insurance plan. Want to keep your current doctors and not be restricted to the network of medical professionals offered in a Medicare Advantage plan,

IT’S LATE NOVEMBER. Is there anything you can still do to trim your 2019 tax bill? There might be. One overlooked aspect of mutual funds is how they can significantly—though quietly—impact shareholders’ tax returns.
By way of background, mutual funds—including exchange-traded funds (ETFs)—are required to pay out to shareholders, on a pro-rata basis, all of the income that they generate each year. This includes interest paid by bonds, dividends paid by stocks and capital gains created when a fund sells an investment at a profit.

LOGIC AND DATA MAKE it abundantly clear that we’re highly unlikely to beat the market averages—and that indexing is the best strategy for the vast majority of investors. Yet half of U.S. stock fund assets remain actively managed and, for money that isn’t in mutual funds, the percentage is likely far higher.
That brings me to today’s contention: Maybe we should spend less time making the case for indexing. Instead, perhaps we should focus on the more obvious conundrum: If beating the market is a game that we’re extraordinarily unlikely to win,

SOME PEOPLE ARE into fashion, changing what they wear depending on the season, their whims or what others say should adorn our bodies. In fact, I would go so far as to say some of us are addicted to clothes.
Don’t believe me? Check out sites like Poshmark, which—it says—is “a vibrant community powered by millions of Seller Stylists, who not only sell their personal style, but also curate looks for their shoppers, creating the most connected shopping experience in the world.” Got that?

IT STARTED INNOCENTLY. A doctor’s visit. A blood test. Results. Admit to hospital for “a couple days of observation” that instead cascaded, over six days, into my husband’s death at age 71. His death certificate states “etiology unknown.” While doctors suspected prescribed medication, we will never know just what caused his liver to fail.
Throughout, the situation had been confusing. Clarity regarding treatment options—and the likely outcome from procedures—was in short supply. He and I and doctors made medical decisions in the face of this uncertainty and without regard to costs.

TERM LIFE INSURANCE is best for most people: It’s affordable, simple to understand and provides the two or three decades of coverage they need. But that doesn’t mean that permanent “cash value” life insurance is always bad.
The most obvious situation: You actually need insurance permanently. Suppose you’re a business owner and you want to provide money for your family to pay inheritance taxes. By buying life insurance, you’d make sure your family receives a pool of income-tax-free money upon your death,

TAKING CARE OF AGING loved ones is almost always difficult. You’re worried about them and want them to be comfortable and happy. But they’re also concerned about you and what you’ll have to deal with after their death—settling their estate, funeral costs and the hassles involved.
As my grandmother approached the end of her life, we asked questions that I was initially afraid to ask. But it was the right thing to do: Answering those questions relieved stress for both my grandmother and my entire family.

WE’RE FASCINATED by the recent college admissions scandal—and the wealthy parents and celebrities who were arrested. This drama has all the elements of a reality television show. The parents, who get starring roles as villains with no moral compass, scheme to ensure their children gain admission to sought-after colleges.
The lively plot doesn’t bother with common concerns, such as how to afford the high cost of college tuition, which continues to rise much faster than inflation.

THIS MONTH SAW THE publication of a remarkable biography: The Man Who Solved the Market chronicles the life and career of hedge fund manager James Simons. Over the past 31 years, Simons’s Medallion Fund has clocked average returns of 66% per year. Even after Medallion’s fees—which are the highest in the industry—investors took home average returns of 39% a year.
By way of comparison, the U.S.

WHEN WE THINK ABOUT portfolio building, we tend to think first about stocks. They’re our engine of investment growth—and the source of endless anxiety. Indeed, to make stock market investing palatable, we take all kinds of precautionary measures, including diversifying broadly, adding bonds, throwing in cash, purchasing gold and goodness knows what else.
But maybe we have this all wrong. Perhaps, instead, we should start with cash: how much we currently have in safe,

A WRITER RECENTLY asked my opinion of gig economy jobs and how they could benefit retirees looking for extra income. I looked up the term to be sure my understanding was correct. It was—except we used to call the jobs “temporaries,” “part-time,” “project work” or “consulting.” As I told the writer, a gig economy job sounds pretty good for us retirees who want to keep active or supplement our income, especially if it doesn’t involve being a crossing guard.

IT BAFFLES ME that people often favor stock-picking over index funds—and yet they fail to measure their portfolio’s performance against a proper benchmark. I’m not talking about those who buy a few individual stocks for entertainment or education. For them, it’s a worthwhile pastime and the stakes are low.
But there are others who ignore the evidence and arguments against active management, and devote serious money to picking stocks and timing the market in hopes they’ll earn market-beating returns.