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Lynn O'Shaughnessy is the author of the "Retirement Bible" and "Investing Bible."
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Dec 26, 2006)
Just about every time I visit the grocery store, I am reminded this is the season of giving. Standing next to a big red kettle swinging from an old chain, a bell ringer from... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Dec 19, 2006)
Do you know how well your mutual funds have been doing?
For many of you, this will sound like a question that would stump only a simpleton. Turn on your computer and you can... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Dec 12, 2006)
If you spend much time in bookstores, you'll appreciate that the nation is in no danger of running out of personal finance books. Most of these books are written by financial... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Dec 05, 2006)
When should you begin taking Social Security payments?
The process that many people use to answer this question is more reflexive than contemplative. A lot of folks have... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Nov 28, 2006)
For many years, my mother taught in a sunny, spacious classroom in our neighborhood school in St. Louis. She was such a wonderful teacher that every year parents lobbied the... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Nov 21, 2006)
If you own a cash-value life insurance policy, you could have insurance agents pestering you to sell it. Behind the scenes, there are some powerful - and sleazy - reasons why... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Nov 06, 2006)
Last week, I asked readers if they knew how much their 401(k) plan is costing them. Since then, I've heard from many irate readers who suspect that they're being ripped... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Oct 31, 2006)
My column last week probably prompted many readers to panic when I asked a simple question: Do you know how much your mutual funds cost? I should have mentioned that this is... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Oct 24, 2006)
Can you remember the last time you received a bill for your mutual funds? Think hard. Maybe you paid it when you wrote the check to the cable company and for your credit... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Oct 17, 2006)
A year ago, a popular financial magazine featured a story about an enterprising fellow who purchased a fixer-upper and then sold the house for a quick profit after remodeling... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Oct 10, 2006)
How would you react if some guys with impressive credentials approached you with this financial pitch:
We can make you unfathomable riches, but we can't divulge how we'll do... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Oct 02, 2006)
When students returned to their college campuses this fall, I'm sure it never occurred to them that getting stuck in the slowest line at the campus bookstore or eating dorm... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Sep 26, 2006)
When Americans try to figure out their net worth, they often find that their biggest chunk of wealth isn't stashed in a bank or a brokerage account. For many of us, our true... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Sep 19, 2006)
As I mentioned last week, millions of people don't enroll in 401(k) plans because it seems like a hassle. It doesn't matter that getting started would probably take less time... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Sep 12, 2006)
When a member of Congress introduces a bill that weighs more than a stack of best-sellers, do the politicians read it?
For one particularly unwieldy slab of legislation, the... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Aug 29, 2006)
If you're the parents of a student who has just one more year to go in high school, you might be telling yourself the worst is over.
Kids who are now seniors have slogged... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Aug 22, 2006)
Just about every news cycle seems to bring the release of yet another study that clearly illustrates how investors are in denial about retirement.
The Employee Benefit... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Aug 14, 2006)
Have you seen the commercial in which a guy carts around his nest egg - about the size of a Mini Cooper - everywhere he goes? Presumably he does this so nothing bad happens... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Aug 08, 2006)
An elderly woman in my community learned not too long ago that she needed dentures. She had enough money to pay for the new teeth, but she discovered that her funds, while... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Aug 01, 2006)
I've got to start this column with an admission. My lack of knowledge about cars is appalling. V-8? Isn't that what's stocked between the cranberry and grape juice in the... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Jul 25, 2006)
Thirty-seven billion dollars is a nearly unfathomable amount of money. If you counted each dollar bill of that fortune, it would cripple your wrist and consume years of your... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Jul 18, 2006)
If you want to learn to invest wisely, one of the best ways is by reading. Unfortunately, many personal finance books are schlock.
In fact, you may actually improve your... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Jul 11, 2006)
It wouldn't be a stretch to say that most of the planet has gone gaga over the World Cup, which has brought together 32 of the globe's best soccer teams to compete in a... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Jul 03, 2006)
Inflation has spooked Wall Street. Fearful of inflation, the stock market has lost its traction and is behaving like a kid careening down a slip and slide. These inflation... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Jun 26, 2006)
One of the rituals of buying a house or refinancing a mortgage is signing a stack of paperwork. The time it takes to slog through these documents can seem interminable, but... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Jun 19, 2006)
If you owe money on your home equity line of credit or if it feels like you have a gazillion payments left on an adjustable rate mortgage, you are probably feeling the pain... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Jun 04, 2006)
Because this is the column's second anniversary, I wanted to try something different. I asked my two children, Caitlin and Benjamin O'Shaughnessy Bigelow, to share what it's... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (May 30, 2006)
If you have company stock sitting in your 401(k) account, you'll have to tackle more complicated choices when leaving your job than the folks who are only ushering plain old... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (May 22, 2006)
It's only human nature to postpone unpleasant chores. Some are easier to put off than others. While there are obvious consequences to not emptying a diaper pail, there may... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (May 16, 2006)
People rarely worry about their Individual Retirement Accounts, but perhaps they should. IRAs may seem as threatening as a golden retriever pup, but these accounts have claws... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (May 09, 2006)
Not long ago, a son who had inherited his father's Individual Retirement Account wisely decided that he wanted to preserve his windfall. He concluded that the best place for... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (May 02, 2006)
If you had been brilliant enough to get into an Ivy League school, do you think you would be a wiser investor today?
The answer is probably no. Ivy Leaguers may know how to... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Apr 18, 2006)
Over the years, my experience with gold has been extremely limited. Except for the gold wedding band I've worn for 21 years, my only significant encounter with the precious... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Apr 12, 2006)
Most television shows that devote themselves to stock picking are fairly staid. I'm thinking back to the old financial show hosted by Louis Ruckeyser, who chatted with his... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Mar 27, 2006)
During the dot-com fiasco, millions of chastened stock investors vowed that they'd never chase hot returns again after discovering they could vanish quicker than a box of... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Jan 30, 2006)
If you're like millions of Americans, you receive a reminder every month of a financial obligation that may outlast all your other ones. This particular commitment can... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Jan 23, 2006)
Recently, currency strategists were in a tizzy about the dollar.
The dollar rang in the new year by recording its biggest two-day plunge against the euro in five years. The... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Jan 16, 2006)
Already need help sticking to your New Year's resolutions? Perhaps you're tired of eating egg-white omelets without bacon. Or maybe the nicotine patch you bought isn't... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Jan 10, 2006)
What would happen if you threw a party and nobody came?
The federal government could discover how that feels in January. That's the date for the official coming-out party of... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Jan 10, 2006)
Sometimes my interviews can turn tedious. During one such interview I had recently with a university law professor - the subject was endowment fiduciaries - we both... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Jan 10, 2006)
If you own a house, you probably receive the same junk mail that stinks up my mailbox. The aim of these junk mailers often is to wheedle you into refinancing your house.... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Jan 02, 2006)
Who would ever think of spreading caviar on a hot dog? Or dropping a Rolls-Royce engine into a Toyota Corolla?
Of course, this isn't remotely practical, but these sorts of... more
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Lynn O'Shaughnessy (Jan 02, 2006)
Late last year, Frank Warren, a guy who lives in Germantown, Md., passed out 3,000 postcards to strangers, inviting them to mail him a secret they had never divulged to... more