Although money alone won't make us happy, the lack of money surely will make us miserable.

Your goal should be to pay off your credit card bills in full at the end of each month and set aside money toward your emergency savings.

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 come to think that money is very much like a person, and it will respond when you treat it as you would a cherished friend - never fearing it, pushing it away, pretending it doesn't exist, or turning away from its needs, never clutching it so hard that it hurts. ... if you tend it like the living entity it is, then it will flourish, grow, take care of you for as long as you need it.

If you're saving for the long run, it's actually a good thing when the market is down because the more shares you have, the more you can potentially make when markets rise. And over time - decades, not months - the markets rise more than they fall.

I love, love, love that you want to use your debit card. But to keep your credit score solid, you still need to keep a few credit cards and use them at least once every few months.

The happiest moment of my life happens once a day.