In 1935, for men the average was around 65, for women about 68. Since then, life expectancy in the U.S. has continued to expand. As of 2013, according to the World Health Organization, it is now ~77 for men and ~82 for women. From those numbers it’s easy to see that setting the age to collect Social Security at 65 was a pretty good bet for the syst

The market is the single best performing investment class over time, bar none.

When should I begin taking the money? Once you reach age 62, you can begin receiving Social Security. The catch is, the sooner you start, the smaller your checks. The longer you delay (up until age 70), the bigger the checks. Of course, the longer you delay the fewer the years you’ll be collecting.

If you intend to achieve financial freedom, you are going to have to think differently. It starts by recognizing that debt should not be considered normal. It should be recognized as the vicious, pernicious destroyer of wealth-building potential it truly is. It has no place in your financial life.

2. The market always recovers. Always. And, if someday it really doesn’t, no investment will be safe and none of this financial stuff will matter anyway.

You learn to live on less even as you have more to invest.

Churning refers to the frequent buying and selling of investments to generate commissions. It is illegal. But it is also easily disguised, principally as “adjusting your asset allocation.”

Finally embracing the indexing lessons Jack Bogle—the founder of The Vanguard Group and the inventor of index funds—perfected 40 years ago.

Since we own our bonds in VBTLX—Vanguard’s Total Bond Index Fund—most of the risks in owning individual bonds go away. At last count, and this will vary a bit, the fund holds 7,843 bonds. All are investment grade (top quality) and none rated lower than Baa (see Stage 4). This reduces default risk. The fund holds bonds of widely differing maturity d