Note: This article was released to newspapers on Nov. 1, 2019 Liam, an eager, blond-haired third-grader, wasn’t playing the odds. He didn’t care about losing five pieces of candy; he couldn’t pull them from his bag fast enough. “You’ve got to go for the big money,” he excitedly told his friends as he shoved …
For years, consumers and financial advisers have wrestled with the “right” amount to set aside for emergencies. The long-lived rule of thumb on the subject is that three to six months of salary is necessary to have an adequate emergency fund, but few people actually live by that guideline. Not only is that a lot …
In 35 years covering investments, I have seen “the end” countless times. Dividend investing purportedly was dying while the Internet bubble was inflating in the 1990s, buy-and-hold investing has been on the way out countless times in the last quarter century, asset allocation hasn’t worked as expected throughout the current bull market, international diversification is …
I know one thing that kids like more than candy for Halloween. Cash. For the last three years, I have answered the cry of “Trick or treat?” with a very different question: “Cash or candy?” It’s my effort to change the game on All Hallows Eve, to nurture the children not with nougat and caramel …
My father had one bad financial habit that he never got over. Over the years, he built a diversified investment portfolio that covered virtually all corners of the investment spectrum, except for one. He could never buy a small-cap mutual fund or invest in small or micro-cap stocks. Oh, he tried a few times, but …
It’s all about the acronym. That’s why a 20-something member of the “FIRE movement” – which stands for Financial Independence Retire Early – told me last week at FinCon 2019 that I “don’t qualify as FIRE.” Mind you, this young blogger is working a corporate job, driving an Uber on the side and is anxious …
Most bad financial experiences at least come with a lesson, something good where you can say that money lost was the cost of your education as a consumer. This is not one of those stories. Instead, it’s about pure financial pain and emotional misery, something I’m facing again mostly in the hope that you can …
Patricia Russell wanted to help. That’s what she wrote me in an e-mail offering to be a trusted, helpful resource for my work. She was a certified financial planner, and the founder of FinanceMarvel.com, a web site about getting out of debt, repairing and improving credit scores and more. I get a lot of offers …
Rich in Orchard Beach, Md., likes to check in on his investment portfolio most nights after dinner. It’s a quick look-see to make sure everything is fine, as expected, all right. It was not any of those things when he checked in on Monday, August 12. His shares of Vanguard Wellesley were …
Americans are no more likely to collect the “Freedom Dividend” than they are to win the next Mega-Millions lottery jackpot, but just as playing the lottery can fuel dreams and shape financial priorities, so can the unusual political promise of free money help consumers and savers re-evaluate their finances. The Freedom Dividend is the unconventional …
