When I was in high school, I was not at all sure what I wanted to do with my life. I thought that I might be an accountant, as I had always been good with numbers, but the more I thought about it, the more I didn’t like the thought of doing it for the rest of my life.

I knew that I needed to do something with finances and I went to talk to a guidance counselor about my options. She suggested that I take several finance courses during my first year of college and make my decision from there.

Never in a million years would I have thought that I would be spending my working years counseling people about debt consolidation loans. But, that is exactly what I am doing and I really do enjoy it. I feel like I am helping people who are hopeless and that makes the job worthwhile.

For the longest time, the hot dog stand that we own has not accepted debit or credit cards.  There was a good reason for it - we thought that the price point that we were working with didn’t merit offering those types of payment options.

But times are changing and you can be hard pressed sometimes to find someone that is actually carrying around some money - in fact, most people don’t use money at all.

So, we have been looking into different payment processors that we could use at our stand that would be easy to be approved and meet our needs.

After talking to our bank, we were denied the opportunity.  They told us that we didn’t have sufficient credit so we didn’t qualify.

But, I was able to find offshore merchant accounts that didn’t require any credit and now we are in business - our sales are already up by 25% since we started taking credit and debit cards.

A number of years ago, I was floundering financially.  I thought that we were going to go under, but it was at that point that something amazing happened.  You see, a friend of mine introduced me to Joe - a successful land investment guru.

Now, he didn’t give me money or anything like that, but he did give me advice.  I learned how to manage my money better than I have in years, and now I am better at budgeting and living within my means.

But the advice didn’t stop there.  He taught me how to look at the land for sale section in the paper and pick out some winning investments.  In fact, I successfully bought some UK land and it has made me some good money.

I guess, what I have to say is that I have to thank Joe for his advice - without him, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

When I gave birth to my son, I also became a single mother. His father had not been ready for the responsibility of becoming a parent and I knew that it was going to be completely up to me to make sure that every need of my baby was met, both as an infant, and as he grew into an adult.

One of the first things I did was make a decision that I was going to put a little bit of money away for him each month, so that he would be able to go to college. I started to compare child trust funds and decide which would be the best for us.

Though funds were extremely tight those first few years, I made sure that I put a little bit away for him each month. It is really surprising how much that little bit of money grew into quite a substantial amount. When he graduated high school, I had put away more than what he would need and it made me feel good that I had made the right decision as a parent.

While on a credit card reviews website the other day, I made the choice to enter my name and e-mail to subscribe to their mailing list.  They promised to send new credit card offers on a weekly basis to let me know what new cards are available.

I thought this would be a great idea as I am in the market to get a new credit card and it would be nice to see what kind of options I might have.

Boy was that a mistake.

Not even five days after I subscribed to the mailing list, I received five offers for different American Express credit cards and I’m getting one in my inbox each and every day.  This is definitely not what I was expecting when I signed up for their "service" and I am very disappointed.  I think I will be unsubscribing from the newsletter.

Now, I don’t want to say that it is a mistake to start a business, rather I made a big one when I started my restaurant many years ago.  I thought I had thought of everything from the kitchen to the dining area, but I was wrong.

On the opening night, things went smoothly.  The restaurant was busy and the food was served quickly.  From the patrons that I spoke with, they loved the food and I was so happy things were going very well.

Everything was perfect until the first customer came to the till to pay - and asked if we could take his credit card.  It was at that moment I realized that I forgot to arrange some sort of credit card processing service, and that we couldn’t accept any credit cards at all.

Big mistake.

Considering the fact that it was a high-end restaurant, most of the patrons wanted to pay by credit card.  Though the food was a success, I lost money that night.  I will never forget about setting up payment processing again.

Over the years I have attended numerous wedding ceremonies.  Some of them have been very extravagant, while others have been simple.  What has really interested me is watching how the couples fare after their grand day financially.

I have found that those couples that spend a pile of money on their wedding usually wind up having financial difficulties.  Quite often these couples spend so much money that they need to get a loan to pay for everything.  This can set them back a number of years while they pay it off, unlike couples that stay within their means.

On the other hand, even those couples that opt for something as simple as practical favors instead of expensive ones usually come out ahead.  Instead of having a financial burden due to their wedding, they can move on into their new lives without the burden of debt.

So, if you are planning a wedding, try and keep it practical and within your budget.  Saving some money on your first day together can make the rest of your life together that much better.

I was talking to a buddy of mine that just started college in January.  I know that is a strange time of year to start, but he had been in Europe for the previous term, so he missed out starting in the fall.  Besides, he really only had one term left to finish his course anyway, so everything worked out fine.

The one thing that he mentioned though that there were more and more credit cards for students available on campus.  He told me that at first he was worried for the younger students that really didn’t know how to control their spending and feared that the college was essentially leading their students down the path of debt.  Chances are that most of the younger ones would fill out many student credit card applications and find themselves with quick access to a lot of money.

But he told me that he found out later that the large number of college student credit cards were really not a problem.  It turns out that the student union offers courses on responsible credit use, and their campus had one of the lowest bankruptcy and credit problem rate in the country.

I was surprised, but happy to hear the level of education that the campus offered.  Maybe if they would have done that back when I went to college, there wouldn’t have been as many of us that had to go bankrupt.  It is sure nice to see things have changed.

I am a firm believer that your money matters, no matter how much money you have. It may sound cliché when people are asking for donations and say that every cent counts, but I really believe that it does. A few cents from thousands of people adds up to hundreds of dollars.

Where this really comes into play for me is saving for retirement. I hear so many people say that they just can’t afford to do this and I think that you really can’t afford not to. Michael Dinich is somewhat of an expert on this and he admits that a very small amount of money now can build up to a very large amount in the future.

I kind of got a passion for this sort of thing when my mother hit retirement age and had not saved anything for her future. She is now seventy-three years old and she is still working because she can’t afford not to. I started writing a daily article on my blog, urging people to put away even a few dollars a day. It is as simple as giving up your daily coffee and it will be worth it in the long run.

I bet the headline got you to read this article, right?  Well, I know if I came across any way that I could save some money on gasoline, it would be a blessing.  The rising prices of gas have affected me more than I would like to let on, but it is getting harder and harder financially to handle keeping the gas tank full each month.

But I found a way to get free gas.

You see, my bank offers a gas credit card that pays you each time you purchase gasoline.  In my case, I get 5% cash back on all my gasoline purchases I make.  If you figure out the math, for every 20 tanks of gas I purchase, I get one gas fill free.

The funny thing is gas cards are not new.  In fact, I have a buddy that has had a couple of gas credit cards for a number of years now.  But they are becoming increasingly popular with the price increases on gasoline we are all forced to bear.

Next time you are at a service station, or your bank, ask if they have a gas credit card - and get your free gas too.