I am a big believer that orderliness begets wealth.

If a child, a spouse, a life partner, or a parent depends on you and your income, you need life insurance.

Try handling problems in the office as dispassionately as you can and I guarantee you will have a better time of it; not least because when you bring emotion into the conversation, you furnish your colleagues with an easy "out" for dismissing you. If you are able to strip out the emotion, however, people have to deal with you based on the facts.

In January we start saving money, getting out of credit card debt, funding our retirement accounts, and we're doing wonderful. Then, every single year like clockwork, starting in November, all of you fall into this trap that says, 'I have to buy this gift... I can't show up at this party and not have something for everybody.

I'd rather make 50 percent of something than 100 percent of nothing.

If you have credit card debt and credit card companies continue to close down the cards, what are you going to do? What are you going to do if they raise your interest rates to 32 percent? That's five times higher than what your kid is going to pay in interest on a student loan. Get rid of your credit card debt.

I have always advocated doing everything possible to pay off credit card balances; it's good financial management and the ticket to a strong FICO credit score.