“Woodstock for Capitalists”—the annual Berkshire Hathaway meeting—was held last weekend in Omaha, Nebraska. I spent some time Saturday afternoon reading the live blogging from the meeting and I was struck by a big change this year. Warren Buffett always waxes poetic about using the float of his insurance operations ...

Age seems so important when we’re young. Then we start dating and it becomes less relevant. After we marry, we socialize with couples of all ages and don’t really care at all. Then comes retirement and age takes on new meaning. People start counting the years to 59½ [when ...

Back when people got a paper copy of their tax return from their accountant, they would put it in a drawer along with their other important papers and never look at it again. Now that many people file electronically, that tax return is probably sitting in an email inbox ...

New disclosure rules for 401(k)s mean that employees now have more information than ever about their work-based retirement plans. With that new information, some will look at the plan they have at work and wonder if they could be doing something better with their money. Most people believe that ...

Fire, flood, tornado, hurricane, theft (including identity theft), sudden illness, disability or a sudden death in the family—any of these can lead to a financial emergency. Yet most of us are not prepared. We should all have some extra food and water, but it is the financial ramifications that ...

It is that time of year when everyone believes tax planning is happening. But there is a big difference between tax planning and tax preparation. Don’t blame your accountant if you owe money, and don’t praise them if you get a large refund; whatever happens now is just an aftereffect ...

In my last post, I outlined how much has changed since the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010. Over the past several years, subtle adjustments have been made to health care, with more of the actual rules being written in 2013. Last week, I laid out what the changes ...