Spend your money thoughtfully

Here are some helpful guidelines for evaluating and prioritizing how you spend your money, a good exercize for annual review.

Many people think about personal finance as an unemotional, detached pursuit, but it's really nothing of the sort. Money is a means to an end, and what you do with it is all about feelings and values. My wish for 2008 is that the luxuries we choose will fill our lives with warmth and that we will get the precious things that we yearn and work for.

2007 Requiem

Of the children born in 2007, we won't know for quite a while how their lives will turn out. Which ones will impact the world, which will live quiet, honorable lives, which will end in tragedy or fade away in disappointment.

But we can look back on those who passed away in 2007 and marvel at their gifts and ways they made a difference in the world. See this article in the LA Times for a list of notable people who died this year.

Among the major notables who passed from the scene this year, three of the most famous -- two masters of cinema and a genius of football -- died on the same day: July 30.