No one's ever achieved financial fitness with a January resolution that's abandoned by February.

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.

Remember that in most cases, student loan debt is not dischargeable in bankruptcy. So you continue to pay it off anyway. Those who have very low interest rates (2-2.5 percent) on student loans and know everything is secure, great.

Absolutely invest in retirement. You can always get a loan to get kids through school. I do not know of any loans to get you through retirement. The markets are seriously low from where they were (even though they've gone up 30 percent recently). Now is the time to be dollar cost averaging; the more money you put in, the more shares you buy. Save for your retirement, people.

Cleanliness is a state of purity, clarity, and precision

Bad debt is sacrificing your future day needs for your present day desires.

We are all powerless as children, and money looms so powerfully... we don't grow up to claim our financial power until we look money directly in the eye, face our fears, and claim that power back.