After you marry, every asset either of you acquires is jointly held. That's why you both need to be in sync on your long-term financial goals, from paying off the mortgage to putting away for retirement. Ideally, you should talk about all this before you wed. If you don't, you can end up deeply frustrated and financially spent.

Money will respond to you just like people do.

If your company matches your 401(k) contribution, then no matter what, contribute to your 401(k) first. You put in a dollar, they put in 50 cents. It's an automatic 50 percent return on your money. You can't pass that up. I'd rather have the 50 percent than pay 32 percent interest on a credit card.

You must remember the value that you add to others and not just what others have added to you. That's how we build self-worth, which, in my opinion, is just as important as net worth.

I get so frustrated when people tell me it's unrealistic to create an eight-month emergency savings fund, or have money saved for a home down payment, or pay off their $5,000 credit card balance.

Writing is hard work, not magic. It begins with deciding why you are writing and whom you are writing for. What is your intent? What do you want the reader to get out of it? What do you want to get out of it. It's also about making a serious time commitment and getting the project done.

It's impossible to map out a route to your destination if you don't know where you're starting from.