When to Claim Social Security: The Basic Trade-off
Claiming at 62 gets you smaller checks for longer. Waiting until 70 gets you bigger checks for fewer years. Here’s how to think about the break-even point.
Tax-Loss Harvesting and the Wash-Sale Rule
Selling an investment at a loss can lower your tax bill, as long as you don’t break the 30-day wash-sale rule. Here is how it works in practice.
Roth IRA vs. Traditional IRA: How to Pick One
The real question is when you’d rather pay the tax: now or in retirement. Here is how to answer it, with the 2026 IRS limits.
The HSA as a Retirement Account
A health savings account can get a tax break going in, while it grows, and coming out. Here’s why some people never spend it, plus the 2026 limits.
Getting the Full 401(k) Match, and What Vesting Means
A worked example of a common 401(k) match formula, how front-loading can cost you money, and how vesting schedules decide what you keep.
How to Build a Simple Three-Fund Portfolio
Three broad index funds can cover most of the world’s stocks and bonds. Here is how to pick them, split your money and keep it running.
Risk Tolerance and Rebalancing Once a Year
How to set a stock and bond mix you can actually live with, and a simple once-a-year routine for keeping it on target.
Index Funds vs Active Funds: What a 1% Fee Costs Over 30 Years
A worked example of how a small yearly fee difference between an index fund and an active fund grows into tens of thousands of dollars.
Expense Ratios, Loads and 12b-1 Fees in Plain English
What the three main mutual fund fees mean, where to find them in a prospectus, and how to tell what a fund really costs you each year.
Dollar-Cost Averaging vs Lump Sum, Honestly
Why investing a windfall all at once has usually come out ahead, why spreading it out can still be reasonable, and how to choose.