Plus Ca Change

WHAT COUNTS AS GOOD financial advice doesn’t change much from one year to the next. In 2014, you should have owned a globally diversified portfolio, kept investment costs low, avoided credit-card debt, maxed your 401(k) and avoided annuity salesmen. Ditto for 2015.

So why do folks read the business section every day, buy personal-finance books and subscribe to business magazines? There’s an entertainment aspect: We like feeling engaged with the wider world.

But there’s also a practical reason: Even if good financial advice doesn’t change much from one year to the next, our personal situation often changes a lot—and reading widely can remind us to tweak our finances to reflect our new circumstances.