UNTIL OUR SON TURNED 15, most of our financial education efforts focused on having conversations about money, but in different buying contexts. How we decide on food purchases. How much we budget for clothes. Why we use credit cards. What a credit card bill looks like. The consumer research we do before making a major purchase.
We figured no one conversation would stick, but the knowledge and the ideas would create a general understanding over time.

THE SELF-PROCLAIMED fortune-teller Nostradamus published more than 6,000 predictions during his lifetime. With the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy to see that his prophecies had little substance or predictive value. In fact, in his day, even astrologers dismissed Nostradamus as incompetent.
But what if the person making a prediction is the opposite of Nostradamus? What if he is a serious individual, someone who is universally respected and whose forecasts have a demonstrated track record of success?

AT 75 YEARS OLD, I find myself living paycheck-to-paycheck. I now understand how that feels and how it can happen. But you can put away the violin: It’s only temporary.
Being fiscally conservative, I don’t like being in debt or having unpaid bills. I even pay credit cards before they are due—or I used to. Until a month ago, I paid all my bills, with considerable money left over at the end of each month.

I HAVE A NEW favorite word. That word is “no.” My favorite word used to be “yes,” but no more.
I used to be a yes-man. I used to say “yes” to everything, like Jim Carrey in the movie “Yes Man.” You want me to work on that project? Yes. You want me to be on that committee? Yes. You want me to pick up that extra duty in my free time?

THESE BEING THE TIMES they are, I frequently field queries from clients who are asked for loans by relatives or friends. These would-be borrowers plead their inability to come up with the down payments for homes or who want to launch “can’t fail” business ventures. Suppose, as so often happens, the loans go sour and the borrowers’ last messages mention their entry into witness protection programs.
I remind wannabe lenders who intend to stake friends or relatives to familiarize themselves beforehand with long-standing tax rules.

I WASN’T COMPLETELY honest when I wrote a recent article. HumbleDollar’s editor asked why I reduced my stock position in 2017 from roughly 50% to 25%. He suggested I should mention it in my article. My answer: “At the time I made these changes, I was losing confidence in the sustainability of the bull market and wanted to reduce my risk.” That was true—but it wasn’t the whole truth.
There’s another reason I initially left out the explanation for reducing my stock exposure: I’m simply not comfortable discussing my finances in great detail.

IN THE FIELD OF epidemiology, researchers have long used the term “tipping point” to describe how epidemics occur. At first, an ordinary disease moves slowly, not gaining much attention. But then, seemingly overnight, it snowballs into something far larger.
Within the world of public health, this concept is well understood. But about 20 years ago, the author Malcolm Gladwell took a closer look and pointed out that tipping points can be found in a whole host of other situations far beyond epidemiology.

I’M STILL WAITING. Along with many others, I have spent much of my investing career expecting five key financial trends to play themselves out—and yet they’ve stubbornly refused to do so.
Sure, these predictions could still come true. But I have my doubts. Maybe these five financial forecasts aren’t the slam dunk they appear:
1. Stocks will revert to average historical valuations. Whether you look at price-earnings ratios, cyclically adjusted price-earnings ratios,

IF YOU’RE IN COLLEGE right now, saving for retirement probably isn’t even a blip on your radar screen. Yet this is the time in your life when every dollar squirreled away will reap the most bang. Raising your eyebrows in disbelief at the thought of saving for retirement, while in the midst of struggling to cover tuition? My two children are in college and currently making money from summer internships. Here are the five things I tell them:
1.

I FEEL LIKE THERE is a death cloud hovering over me. I have been retired for nine years. I have lost my father and two of my best friends to cancer. I have seen aunts, uncles and cousins pass away. I have watched my mother struggle every day to do simple activities. When I talk to my friends, it usually ends in a discussion about our aches and pains or latest doctor’s appointments.
I’m not looking for sympathy or pity. 

AROUND THE TIME of my birthday each year, I request a copy of my Social Security Statement. This year, as l reviewed my report, I realized many life stories lie behind the numbers that appear in my earnings record.
The first year I had taxable earnings was 1985, the year I graduated high school. Minimum wage was $3.35 an hour and my annual income that year was $861. My earnings over the following seven years were meager,

A QUESTION FOR YOU—a trick one, I admit: Should you invest in technology stocks, such as Apple?
My answer: Yes, certainly.
Another question, also a trick one: Should you invest in the stocks of entertainment companies like Netflix?
My answer: Again, yes, of course.
A third question: Should you invest in energy companies, such as ExxonMobil?
My answer: Again, yes.
You might wonder why I’m asking these questions and why I’m answering “yes” to all of them.

FORGET XBOX AND PlayStation. If you’re an investment nerd, nothing beats playing with a financial calculator, especially running scenarios that combine dollars, investment returns and great gobs of time. Here are six mathematical musings—not all of them happy:

Got a newborn daughter or granddaughter? If you invest $1,000 on her behalf and the money notches 6% a year, she’ll have almost $106,000 at age 80. That 6% is my assumption for long-run annual stock returns.

IT WAS 90 DEGREES—and we were the unfortunate owners of a broken, 18-year-old heat pump. After evaluating our system, one heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) contractor recommended replacement at a cost of $7,472.
Reluctant to spend that chunk of change, we opted for a second opinion. Company No. 2 spent an hour and a half at our house, changed out a capacitor, added refrigerant and treated the system with “stop-leak,” all for $837.99.

READ THE MEDIA AND you’ll likely be convinced that health care costs in retirement will be overwhelming. One example: The Motley Fool says the average couple will need $400,000 for retirement health care expenses—if they’re healthy.
Pretty scary stuff. But let’s be realistic: Every ongoing living expense stated as a lump sum looks scary. For instance, my total property taxes over my retirement will come to $435,000, excluding annual increases.
Not reassured? Consider this from a recent study by the Employee Benefit Research Institute: “For the majority of surveyed people,