MY HUSBAND AND I purchased a home near Phoenix, Arizona, in 2019. It was the second house we’d bought in less than a year, so we were only able to come up with a 10% down payment. That’s meant paying $70 a month for the past 30 months to cover the cost of private mortgage insurance (PMI).
With property values in the Phoenix area up 30% since 2020, I knew I should contact our mortgage company to see if we could get the PMI payment removed.

I REALIZE MOST FOLKS don’t find personal finance as enthralling as I do, so I apologize in advance—this article’s topic is the least thrilling of all. It’s time to talk about life insurance.
I’ve been trying to come up with a good analogy for life insurance. The best I can think of: Life insurance is like the airbags in your car. No one ever gets excited about airbags. No one ever shows off the airbags in their new car.

IN THE COMPUTER gaming world—and I’ll openly admit to occupying that realm often—one measure of a game’s value is its replayability. If you shell out $60 and play a game through to the end, how likely are you to do it again? Each time you replay, you’re getting more value from your initial outlay, making it a better decision.
I sometimes use that economic logic to try to persuade my wife it’s better for me to “shoot and loot”

I ONCE JOINED a book club led by an amazingly smart guy. We were reading a challenging book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the philosopher, investor and probabilities expert. Our discussion leader was a Chartered Financial Analyst who had solved one of the most enduring riddles at Vanguard Group, where I worked at the time.
For many years—decades, really—Vanguard hadn’t offered an international bond fund. Our founder, Jack Bogle, wasn’t a fan of international investing in general.

I DID ACHIEVE financial independence and retire early—if you count age 64 as early. My friend Jose, a true believer in FIRE, or financial independence-retire early, celebrated his retirement at 44. That took a steely nerve that I lacked, plus I had big college bills to pay before retiring.
One big challenge of FIRE, of course, is that your savings might need to last 40 or even 50 years. Vanguard Group recently published a research paper to help FIRE followers go the distance.

THE SECURE ACT, which took effect Jan. 1, 2020, made inheriting an IRA even more complicated. Before 2020, beneficiaries typically had the option of taking distributions from an inherited IRA over their lifetime, potentially squeezing many more years of tax-favored growth from these accounts.
The SECURE Act drew a new line, eliminating some beneficiaries’ ability to make use of the so-called stretch IRA. Beneficiaries now are divided into two groups. Some have to empty an inherited IRA within 10 years of the original owner’s death.

HI, MY NAME IS MIKE and I’m a stock picker. Actually, I stopped picking a few years ago after I hit rock bottom and finally realized I had a problem. But there’s no such thing as an ex-stock picker.
I still frequent Seeking Alpha, read the occasional Barron’s article and, every now and then, have the urge to buy an individual stock. I still occasionally fall off the wagon, but nothing like the ol’ days.

THE S&P 500 JUST HAD its worst week since March 2020’s COVID-19 crash. Ironically, the decline happened as coronavirus cases were finally dropping after the December surge. Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (symbol: VOO) fell 5.7%, while Vanguard Small-Cap ETF (VB) lost 7.3%.
Returns were not as bad overseas. Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-U.S. ETF (VEU) dropped 3.1%. Coming as a surprise to some index fund investors, Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (VWO) is actually positive so far in 2022.

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,

I DESCRIBED A SET of ideas last year that I called truisms of financial planning. They’re concepts I’ve found helpful in navigating the world of personal finance. Below are seven more.

1. Jeff Bezos is a bad role model. So are Bill Gates, Elon Musk and pretty much every other billionaire. Of course, they’re all great geniuses, so why would I say that? The problem is how they made their money. In each case,

LIKE SOME OF YOU reading this, I get a thrill from seeing my 401(k) contributions start at zero in January and tick up to the annual limit. I’ve been fortunate to maximize my contributions for most of my 24 working years. Last year, my contributions topped out at the 2021 limit of $19,500. In 2022, I’m aiming to make the maximum contribution of $20,500. For those age 50 and older, you can contribute up to $27,000 in 2022.

WE’VE BEEN BRAINWASHED by advertisers and financial firms into believing that retirees are a homogeneous group who all want the same things. They aren’t. Instead, they have differing needs, values and wants, and this divergence is getting greater because of things like increasing longevity, dwindling job security and the elimination of pensions.
Let’s consider the standard bell-shaped distribution curve—and then apply it to people’s retirement behaviors. On the far left and far right of the curve are the outliers,

DESPITE WHAT’S SHOWN on TV medical shows, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) can be a traumatic procedure that has a low likelihood of success. Even if successful in immediately restarting the heart, the fact that it was necessary doesn’t bode well for long-term survival.
Some injuries or illnesses happen so suddenly that there’s little time to consider options. But for many, old age creeps up slowly or a serious illness drags on and worsens. This is the point where it’s helpful to have not just a living will and a health care power of attorney,

QUICK FINANCIAL scores can be thrilling. The idea of plopping down a few bucks to hit it big with a lottery ticket or the roulette wheel is alluring to many. Even folks who know the odds are stacked in favor of the house engage in these gambles.
That brings me to a recent M1 Finance survey of more than 2,000 investors. A particularly sobering stat involved alternative assets: 73% of those who described their situation as “struggling to survive financially” planned to invest in some form of alternative asset,

OVER THE PAST 25 years, the Federal Reserve has become more transparent than ever. Much of this is the result of political pressure. Still, the Fed has taken it further, believing greater transparency to be a good thing in helping the public understand the likelihood of future policy changes. Talking more may have helped us move past the 2008 financial crisis. But it isn’t helping us now.

Congress created the Federal Reserve in 1913.