Lately, I, a maximalist, have been yearning to be a minimalist. I am not alone. “People are stuck in their houses and sick of their stuff,” Randy Sabin, who runs estate and Internet sales, told me ...

Laurie Sepulveda is a MarketWatch Guides team senior writer who specializes in writing about insurance, investing, personal loans, home equity loans, mortgages and banking. She lives in North Carolina ...