<prompt> Human: Only minimal editing has been done on this, cut the guy some slack on word selection, spelling, and grammar his last edit was when he was 82.--- Remember you are the product of all the decisions you make over the years. Choose wisely and you will create heaven on earth, for you and your family. Choose poorly and you will create hell on earth, for you and your family. Plan ahead! This is a proven strategy that has a huge payoff for many areas of your life including money. Never spend 100 of your income paycheck. Always put aside save something. This is the absolute rule of financial success. If you follow this rule and invest your financial future is assured. Never carry a balance on a credit card account. The balance is your road to financial perdition. Try to never do business with any operation that has service in its name or stated purpose. It will cost you a significant amount. These are high risk operations and there goal is to extract as much money as possible without being arrested. In general these are dishonest people and operations. I cannot think of one major financial institution that has not paid absolutely huge fines to the SEC, on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars, without admitting guilt, what a joke. These fines are not limited to financial services companies and appears to be epidemic with all businesses that in any way deal in money. Your local bank, insurance companies, real estate, investment advisor are just a few examples. Never go to any operation that charges you to wait in line. Disney is a prime example. Banks, in general, are dangerous for your wealth. They almost always charge more for a service than you can get from another source. T-bills, mortgage loans, savings are just some of the things that leap to mind. Dont do business with disturbed people or organizations. Run dont walk away from these situations. Confusion, misinformation, bait-and-switch, deliberate misrepresentation are common signals. Cash is king. There are many transactions that are cheaper when cash is exchanged. Some examples are, auto gas, retail transactions where cash discounts are available from many retailers. Buyer beware at swap meet, garage sales and similar cash arenas. Be careful how you display cash as there are risks in the cash arenas. Many of the people are the baby boomer drop outs from the 60s with the morals of a potato. Credit cards are a marvelous vehicle when used for your advantage. Never for borrowing. Always pay off your credit card balance 100 every month. Avoid any purchase that cant be paid off. Nothing is for free! All free offers disguise what you must pay for the product be it in your time or other effort that is the hook in the equation. When anyone says or prints a free offer, throw it away it is bound to cost you. Rebates are often dishonest. Try to purchase your car for cash. Its the first car thats the hardest and all subsequent purchases are relatively simple especially if you put aside a small sum every month. If you must borrow money for a car then one strategy is to use money from home equity. The goal here is to minimize loan costs and maximize tax deductibility. Auto loans are expensive compared to home loans and analysis is a must. Almost all vehicles cost at least 0.50mile to operate so think about it when you are just driving around since a 20 mile trip costs 10.00. Dont give away your money! There are armies of people and organizations that have there hands out and a long story about how they can spend your money much better than you can. I have found that if you cant find a good investment then spend the excess on your family. There is only one situation where this rule may be ignored and that is when your donation is in your self interest and not to further other peoples organizations agendas. political comment removed at suggestion of mod Dont loan money to your friends or family. If you must, then give it to them. Theres no faster way to loose friends than to lend them money. If you lend them money and they cant pay it back on time they will avoid you like the plague. Never a borrower nor a lender be... grandma and Shakespeare were right. Real Estate has proven to be my best investment by far with the appreciation in value being the major driver. Dont buy a house that has anything odd about it. Buy a house that is just like all the homes in that neighborhood. My current house, occupied for 10 years, was purchased for 150K and its estimated selling price is 500K. This 35K appreciation per year is how wealth is accumulated. Remember there is more crime per capita in financial institutions than there is in the general populace, by a very large margin. Current problems 0809 demonstrate this on a massive scale. Risk taking by most large financial institutions will cost the tax payer at least 2.5 trillion dollars and probably much more. The government continues to bail them out. These are the people who produce nothing and gamble, it appears, with your tax dollars. Anything that is advertised nationally is overpriced. Vacations These are places where you pay to wait in line with a large crowd of sweaty people with small children who are not pleased to be there. My favorite is to stay at home where all your interests, books, hobbies and music are right at your fingertips. Most vacation spots are designed to separate you from as much money as you will tolerate in crowded conditions that you wouldnt dream of accepting under any other circumstances. High priced poor quality food is usually part of this package. Think of an airport. Entertainment is designed for 13 year olds. Thirteen is an age where children are not very sophisticated. Let me make it clear, they are truly ignorant about what is going on. You cant convince them that the junk that comes out of the entertainment establishment that is cool, hip in almost all cases it impairs their future performance with the really important decisions. Poor performance in life is directly traceable to the emphasis on what you feel rather than analysis and what you know or can deduce. Truth is not a choice it just is. Remember the six Ps: Piss poor performance is based on piss poor planning. This seems to be obvious however experience has shown that planning is not a strong point in our educational establishment. Planning appears as a mainstay of business rather than in personal life. Think about what you want to do and put it in writing. I cant stress how important this is. The act of writing tends to clarify your thoughts and make you think about a subject and define the what ,when where and why. A cost benefit analysis will always pay off. Planning is a good thing. Insurance: Every major insurer has been indicted and paid huge fines . This is something you need, however, think long and hard about what you are trying to insure against. What risks do you need to protect yourself from. This is the most overpriced product on the market. Shop hard. Never use insurance as a savings plan. Auto: Required in most states. Evaluate how much risk you can accept , ie how low your premium can be. Smaller risk by the insurance company equates to lower premiums for the customer. All insurers would prefer no risk on any policy and their actuaries try to arrange this. Remember this is a huge commission business where most of your premium is not paid out for risks taken. House: Homeowners Insurance. Fire and liability. I only carry fire insurance. Often required by your mortgage company if you have less than 20 down and is almost always overpriced, a form of theft leaps to mind. Recent rate increases and limitations on coverage, ie will not cover specific areas of the country for specific kinds of damage, indicate to me that these companies assume no risk and that the full burden of both liability and commissions is paid for by the customer. One wonders if self insurance should be an option similar to many large businesses. Life: If you are married with small children then term insurance seems appropriate and all other varieties are a waste of money. Do not co-sign on a loan for anyone. This is one of the stupidest things you can do in the financial arena. Lending institutions use this technique to try to fob off the risks of lending money. The lender has already evaluated the lendee as a loser and wants someone to accept responsibility for the losers loan. political comment removed at suggestion of mod Auto Do not lend your auto to anyone. Liability!The down side is massive liability risk. There is no upside except being a good guy. This is not a good cost benefit situation where the costs could be huge and there is no tangible benefit. Family members may be an exception.Edits: removed political comments at suggestion of mod.---Edit2: Thanks to all for the Reddit love, insightful comments, and bless you anonymous donor gold. I appreciation, I am including bonus advice I have received verbally over the years: Son, never, not even in jest, suggest that you put the crying child in the garage overnight. Leave the drunk driving to the pros. In an exit interview, always insist that the HR person puts this note in your record: I can say I have never worked with a finer group of people in my entire professional career.  <response>: I try to stay to lurking in this sub but feel I need to say something here.I typically disagree with advice that relies on always and never what-if scenarios. Ive found that there are times when debt is not the absolute evil, and that it allows me to keep a steady flow of income headed into long-term and short-term investments, so long as the interest rate on the debt is low and the source of the debt has a positive impact in my life.I dont find cash to be king because cash sitting around in a savings account isnt working for you. My grandfather scrapes and penny-pinches every step in his life and he has never branched out and experienced even half the things in life that I have.Anyway Im probably the worst person to take financial advice from because I live with a save some, spend some mentality. I also plan to work until Im dead. I love working. But I save some just in case.Id recommend a happy medium between your grandpas extreme of cash-in-the-mattress and the I-need-what-I-want of the current generation. 