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On January 10 I greeted my spring 2017 class, teaching 169 students Personal Finance. It’s my eighth year at the University of Nebraska, and I always enjoy the first day of class because I love the positive reaction to what I propose to teach these students about money and life. Understanding compounding is an extremely...

There are three dates that people tend to take retirement. Any guesses? The first is their birthday … I’ll retire when I hit 65, they say. Or they make their last day coincide with the completion of a certain number of years of service. “I’ll quit after 20 years!” The last popular day is January...

This is a post you don’t want to read or think about. It’s about what happens to your money and what’s left of your hard-earned wealth when you’re dead. It’s about a very important topic that is not urgent until it is urgent.

First, the P & L: Before the year is out, make sure to check your profits and losses that have been recognized (i.e., investments sold that produced gains versus those that didn’t make money). Make a list from all your taxable accounts (not IRAs and other tax-sheltered accounts) of all the gains you have taken...

When I hear "I'm 'insurance poor'" or "I'm worth more dead than alive," I can hardly contain myself.