Not all money is doing the same job, even when it sits in the same household. Some of it needs to be available this month to cover the mortgage or the grocery bill. Some of it will not be touched for another five or ten years. Some of it may never be spent by the...

Set up a line of dominoes and tip the first one, and the rest fall on their own. Nobody has to push each one individually. Retirement plans can work the same way, for better or worse. One decision leans against the next, which leans against the next. When everything...

Most of us grew up hearing that markets go up over time, and over long enough stretches, that has generally held true. What gets left out of that story is timing. A loss that happens when you are 35 and still adding to savings behaves very differently than a loss that...