Article snippet: Editors’ note: Here’s one of our favorite stories from the archives, now being featured in our Smarter Living collection. Managing your money should be pretty straightforward, but that doesn’t make the task all that easy. That’s the biggest takeaway from the handful of simple financial instruction lists making the rounds among the New Year’s resolution set. One list comes in the form of a 4-by-6 notecard that went viral in 2013, now the foundation of a book called “The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn’t Have to Be Complicated.” Another is the 18 steps at the back of Jonathan Clements’s “Money Guide 2016.” An older but beloved (and newly updated for this column) list comes from the Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams. Even though their lists are fairly short, these experts agree, almost to the letter, on at least four things. You must have an emergency fund. Index funds should make up most of your investment portfolio. Buy a home, but only one that you can afford. And don’t forget life insurance, as much as you might want to. Basic term insurance is the answer for most people. So this week, I did two things. First, I asked these writers why so many people fail to follow those four commandments, none of which are new. There must be a reason we all have to keep repeating them. Then, I asked them all to squeeze their best ideas onto an index card. Harold Pollack, whose initial effort inspired “The Index Card,” which he wrote with Helaine Olen, submitted a slightly r... Link to the full article to read more