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 …
Face it, you’ve been hacked. Your data has been breached. You are right on the edge of every bad thing that could happen to you when it comes to identity theft, fraud, damage to your financial accounts, credit files and your credit score. And it’s your own fault. Sure, you could blame Capital One, the …
About five years ago, I noted that financial consumers should favor naps over apps and put down their smartphones to give their finances and themselves some rest. While noting that typical consumers will fare better by focusing less on money than by watching the numbers change moment-by-moment, I acknowledged that there were plenty of cool …
“Grandpa Jack” is 80-years young, and along with scrapbooks and mementos of a life well-lived, he still has every check he’s ever written, along with copies of every bill he ever paid. As he prepares to move from his long-time family home in Pembroke, Mass. to an apartment attached to his daughter’s house …
I attended an investment sales seminar this week where the speaker tried to persuade the audience to take his approach to retirement investing. It involved something most of the audience had never heard of. Pitched as a “7702 Plan,” it was actually a life-insurance policy, a twist on the more standard annuity-sales pitch …
When it comes to mutual funds, investors have always gotten what they didn’t pay for. Now that they aren’t paying much, they need to decide if the money they’re spending is worth the results they’re getting. Morningstar Inc. recently released its latest fund-fee study, which showed that what investors paid to own …
The recent furor between personal finance icon Suze Orman and members of the FI/RE movement shows a significant gap in the language all savers, investors and retirees are using. Fixing the problem means coming up with new definitions for common terms. FI/RE stands for “financial independence/retire early” and its proponents tend to …
Marty in East Weymouth, Mass., asked recently if I would tackle what he considered an “oddball question.” His problem is one everyone might wish for: Too much cash. “I have a lot of cash and not much in investments,” he said. “I don’t have much faith that I will be in the …
Over breakfast one summer morning in the late 1990s, I asked Vanguard Group founder Jack Bogle – creator of the index fund and staunch believer in passive investing – what he would say to anyone who suggested that frothy times had made it “a stock-picker’s market.” I can’t recall Bogle’s exact answer, but …
Steven S. in Sylvania, Ohio just hit one of his lifetime savings goals, and now he’s freaking out. You’d think it would be a big celebration, reaching a big round savings number ahead of the rule-of-thumb schedules for being able to retire comfortably. Instead, Steven’s freak-out is that he’s worried about breaking …
