WE RETIRED AND MOVED to Spain in 2018. We were excited and eager to explore our new home and a new culture. We traveled a lot, mostly in Spain, but also the rest of Europe and Asia. But since the pandemic started, our travel has been limited.

Indeed, COVID-19 sped our return to Dallas. I’m happy that we’re now closer to our sons, and can see family and friends in person. But having lived in Dallas for 28 years,

CLUTTER IS DEFINED as “things lying in heaps or crowded confusion.” Its origin as a word dates to the 1570s. More than four centuries later, you might imagine we would have got the problem under control, but it seems not.
I had a friend in high school who lived like a monk. He had nothing on his bedroom dressers except lamps and a record player. I wish I could achieve such a pristine state in my condo.

I DEVOTE A GOOD amount of time to learning, not because I worry about cognitive decline—though that’s a worthy reason—but because I enjoy sampling a host of subjects, everything from meditation to music theories.
Before online courses became popular, my self-directed learning involved watching lecture DVDs. I later discovered many free online offerings from reputed universities, including Stanford, Harvard, Yale, MIT and Princeton.
When the pandemic forced me to spend more time at home,

MY FIRST RESOLUTION for 2022 is to clean up my investment portfolio. While my garage and my closets are in good order, I shudder when I review my brokerage account.
Over the years, I’ve accumulated close to 20 mutual funds and exchange-traded funds. Overall, I’ve done well with these investments—most of which are based on stock market indexes—but it’s an unnecessary hodge-podge. By the end of the year, I plan to sell a majority of these positions and consolidate the proceeds in a target-date fund.

WHEN I WAS WORKING fulltime, my 401(k) and health savings account contributions were automatically pulled from my biweekly paycheck and dumped into the respective accounts. But when I left the nine-to-five world a year ago, the onus fell on me to invest the profits from my small business. I sent off money to some low-cost funds a few times during 2021, but it wasn’t as regular as it should have been.
My resolution: Make my taxable account investing more automated this year.

I DON’T MAKE TOO many New Year’s resolutions anymore. At age 70, it seems like most of the good ones are for people much younger than me—especially the ones that involve money.
That said, I did have a good New Year’s resolution involving money for the past few years. It was to wait until age 70 to claim Social Security. In return for my delay, I was rewarded with a far bigger check.
If I were a young fellow again,

THE FOUNDERS OF economics were prodigious thinkers. They tended to believe that others shared their brainpower and so would do as they did—wrinkle their brow, think deeply and make the best choices with their scarce resources.
Problem is, this isn’t how most of us operate. Instead, we take mental shortcuts. This is understandable: We’d never rise from the breakfast table to begin our day if we rigorously analyzed the health effects of eggs, orange juice and coffee.

FOR AS LONG AS I CAN remember, I’ve been a worrier. I’ve spent too much time fretting about any number of things. I worry about money. I worry about my health. It’s not too much of an exaggeration to say there are times when I worry about not having enough to worry about.
As I get closer to retirement, I’ve resolved to limit how much time I spend worrying about the future. I’ve come to realize many of the decisions that have kept me up at night are things I have little control over.

THERE’S A PARABLE that I don’t claim to have authored, but which I think about at the beginning of each year.
A man became justifiably upset when he realized his home had been invaded by crocodiles. He wasn’t sure where they came from, but they were there, lurking and menacing him.
He went to a local store to ask for a solution. The salesman enthusiastically proffered his answer: kittens. Kittens are cute, their purr is soothing and,

HOW DO YOU STAY centered when markets plunge and volatility is off the charts? One of the ways I cope is by pulling out a wonderful financial book to reread.

In 1951, Alan Watts wrote The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety. But his message is as timely today as it was then. “There is a feeling that we live in a time of unusual insecurity….

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,

PSYCHOLOGISTS and biologists call it a supernormal stimulus response. Basically, organisms evolve in the direction of what’s good for them. There doesn’t seem to be an off switch to this instinct, however, so organisms can pursue these “good things” even to their detriment.
For instance, field researchers have shown that birds instinctually drawn to colorful eggs will roost on more colorful fake eggs—and ignore their own. And, no, humans aren’t immune to such mistakes.

MY WIFE AND I recently took our first mini-vacation since 2019. We traveled to the Outer Banks in North Carolina for a long weekend to celebrate our anniversary. The weather was perfect, the crowds were small, the food was delectable and the morning sunrise was spectacular. But none of these memories has stuck with me like the one that wasn’t so delightful.

We spent a morning driving up the coast to enjoy the sights and sounds of the small villages and towns along the way,

AS 2022 APPROACHES, countless people will begin thinking about New Year’s resolutions—both financial and otherwise. There’s nothing quite like the start of a new year to inspire hope. Many of us will set big dreams and resolve to drop bad habits.
According to Statista, just 9% of those who make New Year’s resolutions manage to keep them all. Meanwhile, by year-end, 28% haven’t kept any of their resolutions.
What differentiates these two groups? Is it willpower or the lack thereof?

I RECENTLY WOKE UP early to try and catch the peak of the Leonid meteor shower. Because the celestial event coincided with a full moon, the best time to view the meteors was at 5 a.m., just after moonset.
The estimates I read indicated that there were typically 11 to 17 meteors per hour during the peak. But there was no guarantee.
At 5 a.m., I got up and went to the front porch,