I’VE TAKEN TO TELLING folks that HumbleDollar is the site for folks who are striving to be rational about money—but who are acutely aware that they’re human.
Figuring out what’s rational is relatively easy. We should save diligently, diversify broadly, invest in stocks if we have a long time horizon, favor index funds, take on debt cautiously, only insure against major financial risks, avoid buying a house that’s larger than we really need and,

ONE OF MY GOALS is not to think about money. This might sound odd coming from someone who has written about money for 34 years, runs a financial website and, indeed, wrote a book entitled How to Think About Money. So let me clarify: I’m happy to think about money in general. I’m even happy to think about your money. I just don’t want to think about my own.
I used to think about my finances all the time.

SHOULD THOSE OF US who are better off financially feel guilty? When I read about income inequality, folks living paycheck to paycheck and the like, I occasionally feel a twinge of guilt. But it quickly passes.
This lack of guilt doesn’t imply a lack of empathy on my part or that of others who have been financially successful. Indeed, wealth is frequently used to help others. Society has benefited greatly not just from the jobs created by the Rockefellers,

FOR MUCH OF MY adult life, my view of financial planning was similar to that of many others: Simply put, financial planning equaled investment management.
I spent my career in aerospace engineering, surrounded by highly educated, mathematically competent colleagues. I was lucky enough to span the transition from defined benefit pension plans to defined contribution plans. My colleagues and I closely followed the market’s performance, our own company’s shares and emerging tech stocks. Some of the more mathematically inclined dabbled in options.

IF YOU LIVED through the Great Depression of the 1930s and then the Second World War, your view of money was likely molded by those traumatic back-to-back experiences. You might respond by trying to build wealth, so you’re better prepared for the future, whatever it brings. Alternatively, you might hunker down and become ultraconservative for fear of losing everything.
My parents, born in 1910 and 1918, took the hunker down approach. When I was born,

WANT GREATER financial success? It may all start at the local gym and in the fresh food aisle.
“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” —Benjamin Franklin.
Well, Ben, if only it were that simple. While the timing of our repose may not produce all of these outcomes, this aphorism offers food for thought. Are there connections between cognitive ability, physical health and wealth accumulation?

THE FINANCIAL SITE MarketWatch has been running a series about the lives and budgets of Americans who retire abroad. My wife Jiab and I—who moved from Texas to Spain—were one of the first couples featured, along with a husband and wife who now live in Chile. Both articles made clear there were plusses and minuses to such a move—experiencing new things, but also being away from family—and that we weren’t advocating this for everyone.

OUR EGOS CAN TORPEDO our investment decisions. Here are four examples, plus some suggestions for how to avoid these pitfalls:
1. Confirmation bias. People often support their strong financial opinions by only seeking out confirming information. One of my financial-planning clients worried about inflation and its potential impact on his savings. He only read articles that stated inflation and interest rates would soon be going through the roof. But this economic prediction didn’t come to pass.

WE DON’T NORMALLY think of classical philosophy as relevant to modern money management. Perhaps it’s the perception that philosophers live humble, financially insecure lives ruminating on ethereal matters. Or, as my businessman father said when he saw I was taking a philosophy course, “That will make you interesting at parties, but how will you eat with it?”
Meet Marcus Aurelius.
If you aren’t a classics person, Marcus was born to a powerful and rich Roman family,

I JUST ATTENDED THE Madrid Open, a major clay court tennis tournament. It’s one of nine Masters series tournaments, ranked just below Grand Slams like Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. It was amazing to witness the players’ speed and agility at such close range.
Because it was early in the tournament, most of the matches I saw were part of the first and second round, with top 10 players pitted against contenders outside of the top 100.

SOME YEARS AGO, I had a health scare—and it taught me an important lesson about my relationship with money. My primary care physician wanted me to see a hematologist. “Your white blood cells have been trending lower for the last five years,” he opined. “We need to find out what’s causing it.”
After a number of tests, the hematologist thought I might have a rare blood disease. He said the test results were inconclusive,

MANY OF US SUFFER from so-called loss aversion: We get more pain from losses than pleasure from gains. In other words, we’d rather not lose $5 than find $5 we never had.
Loss aversion has been extensively studied in financial decision-making. But it also applies to sports—especially golf. For instance, tournament coordinators might change a hole from a short par 5 to a long par 4. Par measures the number of strokes a golfer is expected to take to complete the hole—and,

FAMILY MEMBERS OFTEN look to me to “sort out” their financial problems. That’s no great surprise: I’m a fee-only financial planner. But I’ve resisted the “financial fixer” role.
Instead, I try to act more as an educator—by reframing the issue at hand and encouraging family members to take an active role in solving their problem. Consider three examples:
1. I have a relative who graduated from an expensive university. He was understandably concerned about his high level of student debt.

THREE YEARS AGO, I decided to write a book about money for my children, then ages 9 and 11. Raising Your Child’s Financial IQ: The Most Important Things is now finished. Here are six things I learned along the way—which apply not just to writing a book, but also to life more generally:
1. Yes, you can find the time
I’m a physician, working 50 to 60 hours a week.

IF YOU ASK MY WIFE what my favorite food is, she won’t hesitate to answer: It’s avocados. I make a large bowl of guacamole almost every week. Maybe that’s why I take offense when I read articles saying avocado toast is the reason millennials aren’t saving for retirement.
Avocado toast has a bad reputation with personal finance writers, because it’s an expensive and favorite brunch choice, especially among my generation, those born in the 1980s and ’90s.