You get the most out of what you need the least.

Auto insurance is a toll bridge, over which every honest driver has to pass.

Savings will not make you rich. Only canny investments do that. The role of savings is to keep you from becoming poor.

You don't date an annuity, you marry it. An annuity isn't a mutual fund that you buy today and sell tomorrow. Nor is it a certificate of deposit, ready for any new use at maturity. When you buy an annuity, you are making (or ought to be making) a 15- or 20-year commitment, at least.

It seems like only yesterday that savers were dorks. They kept piggy banks. They drove last year's cars. They fished in their change purses for nickels while the superstars flashed credit cards. Today, values have changed. The new object of veneration is not money on the hoof but money in the bank - and the dorks all have it.

Life insurance can be numbingly complicated. Clients often turn off their brains and surrender their judgment to the very agent or planner who brought on their coma in the first place.

Everyone said, 'You can't lose money in real estate, because they're not making any more of it.' Hmmmm. Where did everyone go wrong?