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I bumped into a neighbor at Starbucks last Saturday who quickly asked me if I thought he should move money within his IRA from bonds to stocks to take advantage of the stock sell-off that week. You know, buy low-hopefully sell high. Now, I don’t know this guy very well – I don’t even know his last name – so it’s impossible to provide him with personalized advice. So, I responded with a question: If you buy stocks now and the market drops another 20% over the next few months, will you still view your purchase as a wise one?

Let’s face it, unless you’re Homer Simpson, you are going to age and, yes, eventually die. Only Homer gets to live forever. And while death is not something pleasant to think about, nor something to dwell on, it is something we should have a plan for. A death plan, for lack of a lighter term, helps you maintain control of the main decisions that are important to you and helps take part of the burden off the shoulders of your loved ones at a time when they will need the assist. Here is a list of the primary items that should be in all of our plans:

A good friend says his dad used to tell him when he screwed up that “at least he can serve as a bad example.” In that spirit, someone told me almost four years ago that he had impulsively moved about $250,000 of his retirement account from stock mutual funds to cash because he feared the stock market was about to plummet. Any guesses what happened next? That’s right – the market jumped to new heights. This person then decided to re-enter the market by re-purchasing his stock mutual funds that were now worth much more than when he’d sold. I calculated that his sell-low, buy-high strategy cost him roughly $35,000.

I remember my freshman year of college when some buddies and I faced the first exam of our post-secondary experience. Despite being a mid-semester test in a rather inconsequential class, we decided it would be prudent – and fun – to “pull an all-nighter” studying. Well, we were partially right, it was fun - although our friends who simply studied a couple of hours and then got a regular night’s sleep did much better than we did. Ironically, until recently, it actually DID pay off to prepare your credit history by cramming right before you needed your score. Not anymore.

The comedian Stephen Colbert once said in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, "I'm not a fan of the government doing anything. But I've got to ask, why isn't the government doing anything? ... Like most members of Congress, I haven't read the bill." Colbert was referring to an entirely different issue but Congress actually did something and, as usual, one’s opinion on whether it is good or bad depends on one’s individual circumstances. Here are the highlights of the SECURE Act (even though I haven’t read the bill either):

Our ability to recall past events in detail is uneven at best. Chances are your spouse or your sibling remembers something that happened, or didn’t happen, 20-30 years ago much differently than you do. My brother, for instance, can recall 15-20 vicious things I did to him when we were teenagers while all I remember is the love and praise I showered on him. We all tend to base our expectations of the future, however, on our memories of the past. And, if our memories of the past are less than accurate, what does that say about our ability to predict the future?

If you’re like me and like to give books as gifts or just want a list of book recommendations for yourself, below are the books I read this year along with a brief review. While I enjoyed every book on this list, those I highly recommend are highlighted in bold. And, you’ll note, not a single one on finance or investing – these books are for my down time. Merry Christmas!

Have you ever lay in bed dreaming what you would do with a sudden financial windfall? Would you buy a new house or travel around the world or buy a ridiculously expensive car? Would you quit your job? Or would you create a plan to segment your newfound wealth into buckets in a reasoned, thoughtful way? Maybe 1/3 to your future, 1/3 to charity and 1/3 to the blow it out, crazy, can’t remember where that came from fun bucket?

Recently I came across separate articles of two different athletes who earned a lot of money in a short time but approached their new financial standing in completely different ways. Here are their stories:

As I penned this blog on the back of a barf bag while stuck on a Southwest plane waiting to have it’s malfunctioning electro-optical peanut butter sensor repaired, it seemed an appropriate time to remind myself of a few of the many, many things I’m grateful for.

Did you owe tax last year after the federal tax law changes? I did. Last year the IRS changed withholding guidance for employers that may have put more money into our checks but left us with a larger payment at tax time. Now is the time to check whether you’ll owe or get a refund and how to adjust if you need to.