Where you stand should not depend on where you sit.

Financial planners who take commissions have a built-in conflict of interest...even with disclosure, my choice would be a Fee-Only planner.

Quinn's First Law of Investing is never to buy anything whose price you can't follow in the newspapers. An investment without a public marketplace attracts the fabulists the way picnics attract ants. Stock brokers and financial planners can tell you anything they want, because no one really knows what's true. The First Corollary to Quinn's First Law states that, even when the price is in the newspapers, you shouldn't buy anything too complex to explain to the average 12-year-old.

You get the most out of what you need the least.

Stock prices aren't real things. They're just froth on a wave. The wave is the only real thing, which investors forget when they're watching the ticket slither by.

Everyone can get a little sloppy with cash and it's smart to notice. But what's squeezing you is the big stuff you ladle onto your credit cards.

Buy a friend; hire a lawyer.