I understand why many are still poor or struggling to make just a middle-income lifestyle. I'm a fiscal conservative, but I also have compassion for people who make financial mistakes.

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.

When you give people who are being financially responsible money, you are enabling them to continue a bad habit. So you are actually helping by saying, "Love you but no."

A foreclosure does not define you financially.

I think you can save and spend to live for however long you live. You just have to be flexible if things don't go as plan.

You don't need to waste money on a fancy program or app to do a basic budget. I've been using a simple Excel spreadsheet since 2005 to track my monthly budget.

We all fall - even me.