BEING STUCK AT HOME lends itself to some less-than-healthy habits, including binge watching TV, snacking at all hours and ignoring daily hygiene. One of the most tempting activities: online shopping.
I’m not normally a shopper, but even I can be lured by the thought of that daily delivery. Amazon, FedEx and UPS trucks go up and down my street all day long. With my older grandsons quarantined in California, buying and shipping a small treat to them—and then seeing their expressions of excitement via Zoom—is priceless.

THE GREAT RECESSION and accompanying stock market plunge didn’t seem so bad to me. At the time, I was a 20-year-old college student with a little money in a Roth IRA that I’d opened and funded since my high school days. Sure, it was no fun losing half my investment account, but it wasn’t a lot of money—at least compared to today.
In the years since, I’ve fallen squarely into the super-saver category, socking away a large portion of my income.

TO STAVE OFF the financial impact of COVID-19, the government has unleashed an unprecedented array of stimulus programs, tax law changes and other incentives to encourage economic activity. Result: There’s a slew of financial planning opportunities that can benefit almost all of us. Here are nine of them:
1. Refinance your debts. With the Federal Reserve’s recent rate cut, interest rates are now at their lowest level since 2008. These lower rates will take time to filter through the lending system,

I HAVE A BIG PROBLEM with a small word. But before I get to that, I’ll start with a little bit of history.
In his book The Success Equation, Michael Mauboussin tells this story: Back in the 1970s, a Spanish man won the country’s biggest national lottery, called El Gordo—the Big One. Awarded annually at Christmastime, it’s the rough equivalent of our Powerball. In this particular year, when the winner was interviewed,

GOT QUESTIONS? WE’VE got answers. This week, a new chapter was added to HumbleDollar’s online money guide. The chapter’s goal: to tackle basic financial questions that often crop up, especially among those new to the world of investing and personal finance.
This might seem like an iffy moment to make financial changes. I’d argue just the opposite is true. With the stock market down sharply, this is a great time to get started as an investor.

THE SAGA IS FINALLY over—18 months and $50,000 later. That’s what my clever moving strategy cost, including taxes, interest, insurance, utilities and some maintenance on the house I hadn’t lived in for more than a year. My strategy was intended to lessen stress, but instead it did just the opposite.
This all started because our 1929 house became too much to cope with, the stairs became too much for my wife—and I resisted moving for too long.

DESPITE THE NEGATIVE press, long-term-care insurance can be a smart buy. In fact, policies can be affordable for those as old as age 79. But as with any financial product, it’s important to understand what you’re buying—and make sure it fits with your goals.
In my last article, I discussed how much money you might earmark for long-term-care (LTC) costs. Need insurance to hit your goal? Today, the two main products are “traditional policies” and “hybrid life and long-term-care policies.”
Both types of policy offer similar LTC benefits.

MY WIFE AND I RECENTLY read The Ant and the Grasshopper, from Aesop’s Fables, to our youngest daughter. If you recall, the grasshopper mocks the ant for spending all his free time amassing food. But when winter comes, the starving grasshopper begs for assistance—and the ant refuses.
Lately, I’ve been struck by the irony of this parable. As we celebrate the role of physicians in keeping us all safe from a virus,

SAVING FOR THE FUTURE entails a pinch in the present. Every so often, it makes sense to reconsider how much we save—and whether it’s time to take a break from saving. As a recent early retiree, I was pondering this, even before the latest stock market disruption.
Unfortunately, none of us has a reliable crystal ball that tells us when to buy low or sell high. We also don’t have complete knowledge of our future self.

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.

MY PARENTS AND grandparents were forever affected by the Great Depression of the 1930s. They shunned debt, paid cash for everything, never invested in stocks and kept their modest savings in the bank, mostly in a checking account.
Following the 2008-09 Great Recession, many Americans also changed their financial ways, at least temporarily. We increased our savings rate immediately after the recession. But a few years later, we returned to our high spending ways.

ARE YOU WORTH IT? According to many sellers, you are—even if they have no idea who you are.
Economics generally divides consumed goods into necessities and luxuries. But behavioral economists understand that we need luxuries, at least psychologically. Purchasing things for ourselves is a way to self-validate, to say we are more than our base needs.
Who hasn’t felt good about an accomplishment and used that as a reason to splurge,

WHEN I WAS IN GRADE school, I remember a field trip to a highflying local company called Prime Computer. At the time—it was the 1980s—Prime was a Fortune 500 company with a popular line of minicomputers and a runaway stock. Today, Prime is long gone and barely remembered. A Wikipedia page is about all that remains.
For a long time, I didn’t understand this. How could a company so successful simply cease to exist?

IT’S BEEN AN unpleasant seven weeks for the stock market. Is it over? I have no clue. Still, last week’s rally offered investors at least a temporary respite. My suggestion: Use this moment to think about the market’s recent rollercoaster ride—and how you’ve handled it emotionally.
Financial experts distinguish between risk capacity and risk tolerance. It’s a useful distinction. Risk capacity is our objective ability to take risk based on our personal situation, notably the reliability of our paycheck and our investment time horizon.

HERE IS WHY I DON’T trade, and don’t make big market bets, and why you shouldn’t, either.
Headlines last Monday at 6 a.m.: Nation Braces for Brutal Week, At Least a Fourth of U.S. Economy Goes Idle, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson Hospitalized.
Headline at 9:30 a.m.: Dow Surges as Tech Stocks Rally
I got spooked last weekend. It was epic. I was actually scared after days of hearing about the bungled federal response to the pandemic and about states fighting over medical supplies.