WHEN MY FATHER DIED in 2012, my mother gave me his wedding ring as a keepsake—but I lost it. I turned my house upside down trying to find it. When my mother was alive, I prayed she wouldn’t ask to see the ring, because I didn’t know what I’d tell her.
I felt terrible that I had lost something that meant so much to my father, and I was upset with myself for not taking better care of it.

WE ALL KNOW financial literacy is important. But it’s especially important if you’re a woman.
According to the Gates Foundation, “No matter where you are born, your life will be harder if you are born a girl.” Today is Equal Pay Day—the day when U.S. women finally earn enough to “catch up” with men’s earnings from the previous year. Women in the U.S. earn 82% of what men do for equivalent work and,

MANY PARENTS ASSUME that what counts are the big events, such as graduations or elaborately planned vacations. But I’ve always found that the best moments in life weren’t necessarily the ones circled on the calendar.
The stock market is a lot like family life. Forget trying to figure out the ideal moment to get in or out of the market. Instead, what really matters is the time spent sitting around in stocks.
Jerry Seinfeld affectionately calls his mundane interactions with his kids “garbage time.” He prefers that label to what most parents aim for—the impossible-to-meet “quality time” standard.

MOST OF US WANT to help our children financially. But we also want to avoid thwarting their ambition or unintentionally instilling bad money habits. And, no, this isn’t just a problem for the wealthy: All too many kids who grow up in middle-class households end up as financially irresponsible adults.
How can we avoid that fate, while still helping our children financially? Below are five strategies. The first three are cost-free and the other two don’t necessarily require serious sums of money:
1.

MY WIFE AND I SPENT Thanksgiving on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. For 25 straight years, we’ve gathered there with my wife’s extended family to spend the week of Thanksgiving at the beach.
It started with about 15 of us in 1994, all in a seven-bedroom house. Over the years, the family—and the size of the house—have grown significantly. This year, we had 39 in attendance, representing four generations. For the past five years,

A FEW MONTHS AGO, I received an early morning phone call from a nurse, notifying me that my mother had passed away. Even though she was age 96 and recovering from a mild heart attack, it was still a shock.
Up to the time of her death, she was mentally alert and determined to show everyone that she belonged at home, not at a strange nursing and rehabilitation facility. She gave it her best,

THERE’S AN ONLINE forum where writers of articles can request “expert” opinions for pieces they’re working on. Recently, a reporter was seeking recommendations for gadgets parents can buy to keep their children amused on family vacations.
Normally, I either send what I hope is a helpful reply or I move on. In this case, however, I responded—but my answer wasn’t positive.
I first railed against the idea that children needed anything beyond the trip itself,

MONEY WAS ALWAYS tight when I was growing up. When my brother was age 10 and I was 12, my parents boosted our modest allowance. The difference almost doubled what we were getting—but there was a catch.
Our parents felt we drank too many sodas. It was the late ’80s, so I doubt the extra sugar was their concern. Rather, it was the extra items on the grocery receipts. We were inflating the family grocery bill with our beverage consumption.

“WE NEED TO TALK.” How many relationships have ended with those four words? They’re a verbal cue to take the news calmly and move on with life. But I would guess just as many relationships have ended without any words or possibly with harsh words. That’s what happens when we don’t talk about our relationship—or about our financial situation and financial plans.
A few years ago, my wife used those four words after I announced I was reducing our life insurance.

A NEIGHBOR COMPLAINED to me that his car insurance rates soared after a fender bender. I assumed that he or his wife were involved. But it turned out he was referring to his daughter’s accident. Even though she was 27 years old and had a good paying job, he continued to assume financial responsibility for her car. Is this smart parenting—or does it stymie our children’s transformation into well-rounded adults?
When my friends and I graduated college,

MY FATHER-IN-LAW Jim was born in January 1927, the sixth of eight children, to an Irish-American couple in Philadelphia. During the Second World War, his three older brothers were in the armed services. That meant that Jim, barely age 16, had to quit high school and enter the work world, so he could earn an adult’s wage. His salary must have been critical to the family’s economic stability.
Jim’s brother Bill was killed in an accident at sea during ship maintenance in 1944,

MUCH CRITICISM IS leveled against millennials, often defined as those born between 1981 and 1996. The criticism is frequently directed at their money and career decisions, including their purportedly foolish spending, excessive borrowing, job-hopping, self-absorption and sense of entitlement.
The perception is so pervasive that even millennials buy into this view of themselves.
But I wouldn’t be too quick to criticize millennials or compare them unfavorably to older generations. Each generation confronts its own unique challenges and difficulties,

MY FATHER-IN-LAW—known to his family as Papa—passed away earlier this month. After 96 years, he had developed a number of money habits that were unconventional but quite effective, including these three:
1. Focused frugality. Papa was frugal, but not in the conventional sense. He didn’t practice extreme frugality and saw no virtue in intentional self-denial. Rather, he practiced what I would call focused frugality. If something was important—his children’s education, for example—he was happy to write that check.

MY MOTHER IS 95 years old and in fairly good shape for her age. Yes, she repeats herself quite often. When she does, I tend to let it go in one ear and out the other.
When she talks about my father, however, I listen very closely. One day, as I was backing the car out of the garage, she looked at all the cabinets my father built and said for the umpteenth time,

IT’S TIME AGAIN FOR our family’s semi-annual budget review. The budget meeting is typically initiated by the Household CFO, which would be me. Who is the HCFO in your home? You can probably figure it out from the following job description provided by Thomas Stanley and Sarah Fallaw in The Next Millionaire Next Door:
“The role of Household CFO is to ensure his/her household is building wealth in order to ultimately achieve financial independence….