As someone who has long made a living as a financial advisor, I have an inherent bias toward retaining one. I even have one myself, because I believe personal finance is more personal than it is finance. However, paradoxically, I fear that the vast majority of those who retain the services of a financial advisor…
Do you have a generally positive or negative impression of the word “retirement”? I ask because it dovetails nicely with a series of questions (inspired by Rick Kahler) that I use to begin most speaking engagements. These questions are designed to incite self-awareness, offering us clues about how our life experiences have shaped the (often…
Charleston, South Carolina. According to Travel + Leisure magazine, “Charleston is a remarkably dynamic place, so it’s no surprise that it has achieved its highest ranking ever in our survey as the year’s best city in the world.” It’s the first time a U.S. city has received the top honor, but Charleston ranked No. 2…
“A lot of career advice begins right back at age six,” writes author Chris Guillebeau in his newest book, Born for This: How to Find the Work You Were Meant to Do. But in case you’re expecting some fluffy self-help propaganda that over-inflates your ego in an attempt to win your purchase of the book,…
“I’m too [fill in the blank] to worry about insurance.” If you’re a millennial, there are plenty of words you could choose from to complete that sentence. Perhaps “young,” “poor,” “busy” and “skeptical” are good ones (for starters). You might have enough insurance. You might even have too much. But I’d bet you don’t have…
I love finding financial wisdom in unlikely places, like in art and music. These opportunities are more abundant than you might expect. For instance, the punk-Americana outfit, The Avett Brothers, dedicated an entire tune, aptly titled “Ill With Want,” to the scourge of greed and Mumford & Sons taught us that “where you invest your…
Unless you made a resolution not to read, listen to or watch the news in 2016, you’ve likely noticed that “the market” is off to a stumbling start. Indeed, one glance at the headlines, at least the ones that don’t involve the presidential election, quickly reveals that the market is having one of its worst…
The financial industry would prefer you to believe that you can’t be a successful investor without it. That’s good for business but it’s not exactly true. In fact, it may be truer to suggest that a layperson with a reasonable grasp of middle school math—combined with the rarer traits of discipline, grit and humility—is capable…
Life insurance is one of the pillars of personal finance, deserving of consideration by every household. I’d even go so far as to say it’s vital for most. Yet, despite its nearly universal applicability, there remains a great deal of confusion, and even skepticism, regarding life insurance. Perhaps this is due to life insurance’s complexity,…
Do you remember the scene from It’s A Wonderful Life—only the best holiday movie ever—when George and Mary Bailey are cruising out of Bedford Falls on their well-earned honeymoon, only to notice a literal run on the banks (including the Bailey Savings and Loan, which George reluctantly operates)? Well, as Mark Twain is attributed as…
In my hometown of Baltimore, there’s an oft-heard saying that seems especially applicable when, like now, the seasons are changing: “If you don’t like the weather today, just wait until tomorrow.” For whatever meteorological reason, it’s not uncommon for an absolutely miserable Monday to turn into a gorgeous Tuesday. Temperatures have been known to swing…
“It was totally worth it.” In this case, “it” referred to a Vitamix blender that a friend recently had purchased. He wasn’t the first. Indeed, I don’t know anyone who has purchased a Vitamix blender and didn’t share my friend’s effusive sentiment, even after spending between $429 and $719 (for the new line of G-Series…
Anthony Anderson is a funny dude. The Emmy-nominated actor has been making people laugh on television and in film for 20 years. But now he’s bringing his sense of humor to a surprisingly unfunny topic—the need for life insurance. The big question I had for him was: Why? Why, with your career exploding and recent…
The most compelling findings regarding financial decision-making are found not in spreadsheets, but in science. A blend of psychology, biology and economics, much of the research on this topic has been around for years. Its application in mainstream personal finance, however, is barely evident. Perhaps a simple analogy will help you begin employing this wisdom…
“Greece is a tiny player in global capital markets. Its default is 100% certain,” says Larry Swedroe, Director of Research for The BAM ALLIANCE and the author of 14 books on investing, including his most recent, The Incredible Shrinking Alpha, co-authored with Andrew Berkin. “The only question is how much and what they default on,”…