One of Aesop’s fables features a hardworking ant and a lazy grasshopper. While the ant toils away, socking away food for the coming winter, the grasshopper sings, dances, and doesn’t […]
Preparing Financially for a Longer Life
The great news is, people (in general) are living longer, healthier lives. The bad news is, those long lives require a good deal of long-term planning, and many of us […]
Investment Lessons from the Dot-Com Era
Do you remember the late 1990s? It wasn’t only a time of flannel shirts and jeans. It wasn’t just Beanie Babies, “Friends,” and Leonardo DiCaprio. It was also a time […]
Why Trust the S&P 500?
Let me begin this post by saying yes, I do trust the S&P (Standard & Poor’s) 500 Index (with a certain amount of caution, of course). But why? Why is […]
Breaking the Taboo of Talking About Money
Like many good Midwestern families, we didn’t talk much about money when I was growing up. The topic came up occasionally, but never in much depth, and certainly never in […]
Give Your Child Wings to Achieve Financial Independence
When I was young, there was no such thing as “helicopter parents.” We roamed around, rode our bikes everywhere, and returned home for dinner. We were also expected to work […]
Financially Preparation is a Gift to Those You Leave Behind
No one likes to think about their own mortality. That goes against all the advice books on happiness that tell us to “live in the moment” or “don’t worry about […]
The Benefits of Being a Patient Investor
In today’s interconnected, modern world, things tend to move at a rapid pace. We can order food with the click of a button. We can get toothpaste or cat food […]
Why Long-Term Investors Are NOT Panicking
Market forecasters predicted that the past few years were going to be a catastrophe, and they were wrong. If you had listened to the doom-and-gloom forecasters at the beginning of […]
When Spouses Have Different Retirement Goals…
It happens more often than you might think. A couple will sit down with me to discuss their retirement goals and dreams…and they’ll realize that their visions are very different. […]