The sad thing is many people learn how to manage money after they've made a lot of financial mistakes, some that take decades to fix.

A smart couple with a healthy financial relationship is always talking about money and how they're handling it. If there's a medical emergency or a job loss, talk about it. If there's a windfall, talk about it. Your financial situation is a constantly changing thing.

Kids can and are a blessing. But plenty of people without kids live and die just as happy.

You are rich if you have enough to meet your most basic needs. You are rich if you have access to clean water, food, shelter, love, a roof over your head.You have to count your blessings to see that you are richer than you think.

We all only have a certain amount of money and that means yes, we have to make choices and sometimes those choices mean we don't get what we want.

My Big Mama is my No. 1 financial role model. Much of my advice stems from what she taught me. She never made more than $13,000 a year, yet she paid off her home before she retired. She saved money from every paycheck. She taught me to be skeptical. It makes me cry to think that I'm a nationally syndicated personal finance columnist for one of the world's best newspapers and my core advice comes from my black grandmother who was a nurse's aide with just a high school education.

My first piece of career advice is find your gifting. Find the thing that you are skilled at and figure out if you can make a living doing it.