I HAVE A NEW favorite word. That word is “no.” My favorite word used to be “yes,” but no more.
I used to be a yes-man. I used to say “yes” to everything, like Jim Carrey in the movie “Yes Man.” You want me to work on that project? Yes. You want me to be on that committee? Yes. You want me to pick up that extra duty in my free time?

THESE BEING THE TIMES they are, I frequently field queries from clients who are asked for loans by relatives or friends. These would-be borrowers plead their inability to come up with the down payments for homes or who want to launch “can’t fail” business ventures. Suppose, as so often happens, the loans go sour and the borrowers’ last messages mention their entry into witness protection programs.
I remind wannabe lenders who intend to stake friends or relatives to familiarize themselves beforehand with long-standing tax rules.

I WASN’T COMPLETELY honest when I wrote a recent article. HumbleDollar’s editor asked why I reduced my stock position in 2017 from roughly 50% to 25%. He suggested I should mention it in my article. My answer: “At the time I made these changes, I was losing confidence in the sustainability of the bull market and wanted to reduce my risk.” That was true—but it wasn’t the whole truth.
There’s another reason I initially left out the explanation for reducing my stock exposure: I’m simply not comfortable discussing my finances in great detail.

IN THE FIELD OF epidemiology, researchers have long used the term “tipping point” to describe how epidemics occur. At first, an ordinary disease moves slowly, not gaining much attention. But then, seemingly overnight, it snowballs into something far larger.
Within the world of public health, this concept is well understood. But about 20 years ago, the author Malcolm Gladwell took a closer look and pointed out that tipping points can be found in a whole host of other situations far beyond epidemiology.

I’M STILL WAITING. Along with many others, I have spent much of my investing career expecting five key financial trends to play themselves out—and yet they’ve stubbornly refused to do so.
Sure, these predictions could still come true. But I have my doubts. Maybe these five financial forecasts aren’t the slam dunk they appear:
1. Stocks will revert to average historical valuations. Whether you look at price-earnings ratios, cyclically adjusted price-earnings ratios,

IF YOU’RE IN COLLEGE right now, saving for retirement probably isn’t even a blip on your radar screen. Yet this is the time in your life when every dollar squirreled away will reap the most bang. Raising your eyebrows in disbelief at the thought of saving for retirement, while in the midst of struggling to cover tuition? My two children are in college and currently making money from summer internships. Here are the five things I tell them:
1.

I FEEL LIKE THERE is a death cloud hovering over me. I have been retired for nine years. I have lost my father and two of my best friends to cancer. I have seen aunts, uncles and cousins pass away. I have watched my mother struggle every day to do simple activities. When I talk to my friends, it usually ends in a discussion about our aches and pains or latest doctor’s appointments.
I’m not looking for sympathy or pity. 

AROUND THE TIME of my birthday each year, I request a copy of my Social Security Statement. This year, as l reviewed my report, I realized many life stories lie behind the numbers that appear in my earnings record.
The first year I had taxable earnings was 1985, the year I graduated high school. Minimum wage was $3.35 an hour and my annual income that year was $861. My earnings over the following seven years were meager,

A QUESTION FOR YOU—a trick one, I admit: Should you invest in technology stocks, such as Apple?
My answer: Yes, certainly.
Another question, also a trick one: Should you invest in the stocks of entertainment companies like Netflix?
My answer: Again, yes, of course.
A third question: Should you invest in energy companies, such as ExxonMobil?
My answer: Again, yes.
You might wonder why I’m asking these questions and why I’m answering “yes” to all of them.

FORGET XBOX AND PlayStation. If you’re an investment nerd, nothing beats playing with a financial calculator, especially running scenarios that combine dollars, investment returns and great gobs of time. Here are six mathematical musings—not all of them happy:

Got a newborn daughter or granddaughter? If you invest $1,000 on her behalf and the money notches 6% a year, she’ll have almost $106,000 at age 80. That 6% is my assumption for long-run annual stock returns.

IT WAS 90 DEGREES—and we were the unfortunate owners of a broken, 18-year-old heat pump. After evaluating our system, one heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) contractor recommended replacement at a cost of $7,472.
Reluctant to spend that chunk of change, we opted for a second opinion. Company No. 2 spent an hour and a half at our house, changed out a capacitor, added refrigerant and treated the system with “stop-leak,” all for $837.99.

READ THE MEDIA AND you’ll likely be convinced that health care costs in retirement will be overwhelming. One example: The Motley Fool says the average couple will need $400,000 for retirement health care expenses—if they’re healthy.
Pretty scary stuff. But let’s be realistic: Every ongoing living expense stated as a lump sum looks scary. For instance, my total property taxes over my retirement will come to $435,000, excluding annual increases.
Not reassured? Consider this from a recent study by the Employee Benefit Research Institute: “For the majority of surveyed people,

TWO DECADES AGO, I read an article in The Atlantic magazine about building a home bank for small children. But this wasn’t a bank that would sit on a shelf or table. Its home was in an Excel spreadsheet—with a phenomenal interest rate of 300%.
If real, that kind of return would end the debate on index vs. actively managed funds. Fortunately for banks and mutual funds, the Belwick Bank—named after the street we live on—only had one customer: our four-year-old son and his weekly allowance of $1.

I HAVE A CLIENT I’ll call Irene. She became a widow in April when husband Henry died.
Like most married couples, they held title to their home in joint ownership with the right of survivorship. In plainer language, this means that co-owner Henry’s death results in his loss of all ownership in their dwelling. Surviving co-owner Irene automatically acquires all ownership in it.
Irene is uncertain what to do with her highly appreciated home.

NOT LONG AGO, I RAN into my friend Martin, who works as a cardiologist at a local hospital. In the course of our conversation, I commented on the construction equipment outside his facility and asked what they were building.
His answer: “Building? No, they’re actually un-building.”
He explained that recently his hospital had been sold and the new owner was a for-profit company. As part of the transition, the new owner had evaluated the hospital’s facilities and discovered that a group of older buildings was largely unused.