WHILE SITTING AT MY desk a few months ago, I received a text message from Citibank notifying me of “suspicious activity” on my primary credit card. I immediately logged onto my account and discovered someone that morning had attempted to use my credit card number at a luxury resort—one located several hundred miles from where I work. The charge had been denied, but the damage was done. I immediately cancelled the card. I also began notifying the companies I have automated payments with,

I RECEIVE MANY queries about taxes. Most of the questions people send are pretty much the same: They want my advice on how to lose less to the IRS.
Most of the answers I send back are pretty much the same: I advise them to plan ahead and stay on top of tax-law changes, especially whether they will be hurt or helped by the Republicans’ proposals for the most sweeping revisions in more than 30 years.

I BOUGHT MY HOUSE in Silicon Valley by launching a Kickstarter campaign. Together, the team blew past our target and disrupted an entire industry—all while driving for Lyft (not Uber) and Airbnb-ing our couches, of course.
Just kidding.
First, what is a house in Silicon Valley? In the lauded land of garages-turned-unicorns, owning a house means any number of things: A wall, if one’s lucky. A floor. Perhaps a couch.
Not so for the wise who live elsewhere—like my Phoenix-based high school best friend.

IN NOVEMBER 2015, I got a notice from Amazon advising me that its security had been breached by some clever hacker and that my password may have been compromised. I was locked out of my account and instructed to set a new password.
In typical mindless fashion, I immediately set out to do just that. But then my inner contrarian stepped up and shouted some questions. I love this guy, even though most everyone around me thinks he’s a truculent moron.

HAVING RECENTLY LOST several people, I was in a bit of a daze. Grief stopped me from doing some of the things that brought me incredible joy, like downhill skiing and whitewater kayaking.
Enter Sheila.
Being the Swede I am, I fell in love with Sheila—my gently used Volvo AWD V60 sedan. My attraction to Volvos included family nostalgia, safety and longevity. The dealer was a friend of my aunt, so I was able to negotiate a very reasonable price,

MANY OF MY CLIENTS make donations to their favorite philanthropies in the final months of each year. With lower tax rates in the offing, this could be a good year to make such gifts—especially for those who have appreciated property to donate.
Many clients reflexively write checks, as that’s the easiest way to qualify their gifts for charitable deductions. But before they reach for their checkbooks, donors who want to make major gifts—and also lose less to the IRS—will do themselves a favor if they first familiarize themselves with other often-overlooked ways to contribute.

I JUST INVESTED $1,000 on behalf of a grandchild who may never be born. This reflected two of my enduring preoccupations: figuring out the best way to use my limited wealth for my family’s benefit—and getting an early start, with an eye to squeezing maximum advantage from investment compounding.
To those ends, when I visited my daughter in Philadelphia last weekend, I helped her open a 529 college savings plan. Hannah humored her father by committing to invest $25 automatically every month.

A FRIEND RECENTLY asked me the interest rate on my credit card. I admitted I had no idea. I pay off the balance in full every month and therefore don’t know, or care about, the interest rate.
I’m a minority in this regard. Only 35% of us pay off our credit card balance each month. We’re dismissed as “deadbeats” by profit-hungry credit card companies, perhaps with some justification: We reap the benefits of credit card rewards programs designed to lure the other 65% of the population into using their cards on a regular basis—and then foolishly carrying a balance.

FOR THE FIRST TIME in my life, I’ve hired a housecleaner. It’s absolutely worth it—but embarrassing to admit, at least at first.
I’ve always been a neat freak, demanding clean, organized and tasteful living quarters, so I’ve spent a good portion of my life cleaning and organizing. A lot. I have even declined an invitation to go boating and hiking because I was color-coding my books.
Lame, I know.
After purchasing our home, I realized something had to give.

SOME OF MY CLIENTS are political junkies; others don’t follow politics. Either way, they’re mostly aware that the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, overhauled the rules for medical insurance. But lots of them are unaware that ACA’s overhaul also significantly changed some tax laws—and those changes adversely affected their pocketbooks.
I remind my clients that ACA included a provision that increased Medicare taxes for employees with high incomes. Similarly, it increased self-employment taxes for freelancers with high incomes.

LIKE MOST PEOPLE, owning a car is my second largest monthly expense, right after housing. But unlike a lot of people, I also strive to be a super-saver, loosely defined as folks who max out their retirement accounts each year. That means I’m constantly looking for ways to cut my transportation costs.
Four years ago, when I found myself needing to buy a car, I settled on a gently used Honda CRV. Even though it was nearly six years old when I purchased it,

“IT HAS LONG BEEN important to us to help our children and 12 adult grandchildren learn some of the fundamentals of saving and investing,” wrote Henry “Bud” Hebeler in a Feb. 26 email to me. “I sent them each a booklet that I wrote, illuminating the key elements that I have talked about in the past. To test their comprehension, I sent the following message.”
Bud died in August, nine days after his 84th birthday.

WHEN TALKING WITH home sellers, I’ve long ceased being surprised by how many routinely overlook or fail to take maximum advantage of a valuable tax break: the exclusion when unloading their principal residence.
The exclusion—meaning you pay no taxes—is capped at $500,000 for married couples filing jointly and $250,000 for singles and married couples filing separate returns. I frequently need to remind sellers that these exclusions apply to profits, not sales prices.

ONE OF MY FAVORITE activities as a child was to play with a tomahawk at my grandparents’ house. Yes, that was in the days before the Consumer Product Safety Commission. But in this case, it wouldn’t have made a difference: This particular tomahawk was no toy, but rather the real thing. It belonged to my grandfather. His name was Walking Buffalo, and he was a member of the Assiniboine, a Native American tribe who live on the Plains of Montana.

THE EQUIFAX DATA breach seems to be a tipping point, unleashing a barrage of articles—and a boatload of angst—about the security of personal information. What are the potential problems and what’s the best way to defend yourself? I got some great ideas from followers of my Facebook page, where I posted a draft of this article and asked for feedback.
It seems there are five key scenarios where hackers could potentially wreak havoc with your financial life.