I TUTOR MY 10-year-old niece once a week in math and science. After the study sessions, we often talk about other things—mostly kid stuff. Recently, her treasured piggybank got a nice boost on her birthday and we discussed what she might do with the money.
That’s when my niece asked, “How much money will I need when I grow up?” I guess she was trying to figure out if she did indeed have to study hard and get a job—or whether her current savings would be enough.

HAVE YOU PROTECTED your paycheck? As I discussed in my article last week, becoming disabled is a serious financial risk—and typically the best way to get coverage is through your employer. What if you don’t have long-term disability insurance through work or if coverage isn’t sufficient? An individual long-term disability policy can fill the gap.
Disability insurance is one of the more complicated products to price, because insurers need to assess two dimensions of risk.

MY ELDERLY MOTHER’S credit card was recently compromised. This required her to move all her automatic payments to a new credit card.
That, in turn, prompted her to reevaluate these various charges. Her cable bill, for instance, had gone up more than 15% over the past two years. My mother complained that, while she gets many channels, she only watches broadcast TV. She dropped the cable package.
As she added the autopay information to her new credit card,

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,

IT CAN BE HARD TO find time to make healthy meals, plus—with the convenience of fast food restaurants—why bother? It’s way easier to enter the drive-through at the local burger joint than it is to scramble together ingredients at home and make a healthier version.
But these decisions come at a cost, financial and otherwise. Most fast foods are loaded with sodium and calories, while lacking the nutrients you need for optimum health. This can lead to weight gain,

BE HONEST: WHEN WAS the last time you thought about disability insurance? As co-founder of a website that sells insurance, it’s a topic I think about every day, but I realize most folks have other things on their mind. Yet becoming disabled is one of the biggest financial risks that working people face.
Disability can result from accidents or sickness and can impact people of all ages. According to the Social Security Administration, a 20-year-old entering the workforce has a one-in-four chance of becoming disabled for a year or more before retirement.

YES, EDUCATION IS invaluable. But should young adults go to college to obtain a piece of paper that may mean little in the real world? Is the student debt we hear so much about really worth it? Could pushing college attendance for all be as misguided as pushing homeownership for all?
I’m not against formal education. I put four children through college. In fact, I believe parents are obligated to cover their children’s college costs,

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,

WHEN I MARRIED FOR the first time, I didn’t think much about it. I was in my 20s. My new husband (and future ex-husband) and I had already been living together for nearly a decade. Neither of us had any items of real value, so the financial implications of joining our lives meant very little. Marriage, it seemed, was just the obvious next step in our relationship.
When I married for the second time,

I JUST WENT TO SEE a lawyer about making changes to my trust and will. It’s been some 20 years since I had my revocable living trust drawn up, and a lot of things in my life have changed since then. 
For most folks, it’s difficult to decide how they want their estate distributed upon their death. Consider five questions:

Should the division of your assets be based solely on relationships, leaving your assets to immediate family,

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?

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.

U.S. CREDIT CARD fraud topped $8 billion in 2015 and should surpass $12 billion next year. You can reduce your exposure to such incidents with a few simple steps. Why bother? Won’t the bank pick up the tab when unauthorized purchases show up on your account? Generally, yes, thanks to the Fair Credit Billing Act and the Electronic Fund Transfer Act. But there may be limitations on that protection, based on how quickly you notify your bank when you discover unauthorized charges.

IN THE PAST, WE’VE always bought certified preowned cars. We know new cars lose a big chunk of their value when you drive them off the lot, so we had our eye on a used car when we started our search earlier this year.
Our goal was a Mercedes Benz GLC 300 AWD 4MATIC. My husband enjoys the negotiating and drama that comes with buying a car, so he investigated choices, checked out prices at dealerships and was ready to start his usual two-to-three-month car hunt.

I HAVE LONG ADMIRED my good friend Nick for his generosity with friends—but also for his inspiring ability to pinch a penny. The man can pinch so hard he makes Lincoln cry, so I knew the world was changing fast when he installed a Ring video doorbell. Really? Pinch me.
A decade ago, new technologies inspired fantasies of living in a Jetsons-style “smart home.” There was a nascent market for internet-connected products,