All's fair in love and purchasing.

If you asked me which gives me more joy, my work or my family, there is no question that it's my family. Hands down. If I had to give one up, it wouldn't even be a contest.

Adhering to budgeting rules shouldn't trump good decision-making.

The key to good decision making is evaluating the available information - the data - and combining it with your own estimates of pluses and minuses. As an economist, I do this every day.

How much is an hour of your time worth? It's worth whatever wage you would get if you spent that hour working. If you work for an hourly rate, this is an easy calculation. Even if you work for a salary and a fixed number of hours, the principle is the same: It's whatever your salary works out to per hour.

Every time you have a carrot instead of a cookie, every time you go to the gym instead of going to the movies, that's a costly investment in your health. But how much you want to invest is going to depend on how much longer you expect to live in the future, even if you don't make those investments.