Would any college student pass up a "free lunch" these days? Most of them probably do not know that there is no such thing as a free lunch, and instead would line up enthusiastically if one was offered. In prime fashion though, the latest example was hidden in front of the real deal: a prerequisite to a free Subway sandwich was filling out a credit card application at the head of the food line.

I understand the credit card companies and bank operations -- each has internal profit and customer growth targets to hit, so anyone and anything is game. From 10-year-olds to college students, credit card offers not only kill a load of trees each year, but they introduce the absolute worst financial way to purchase goods and services for consumers.

Unfortunately, most of us have to learn the hard way about credit cards -- paying those mounting balances. When taken fundamentally, credit cards are an abhorrent stain on personal finance strategies. Moral of the story: If you can't pay cash, don't buy on credit (save for bigger purchases like autos and homes). In this instant gratification society, this happens less and less frequently.

The demographic that should not be worrying about credit card balances are college students. I thought college was for developing a set of learning and networking tools, not slapping the plastic down for those Junior Mints? Although many universities are banning the marketing of credit cards on campus grounds, the snaky solicitors are, of course, finding ways to circumvent that prohibition. In this case, be wary of visiting a Subway location for a free sandwich if you're a college student.

Though August's market volatility is now a distant memory for some investors, it could be a spur to seek out assistance from financial planners. How can financial planners advise clients to deal with volatility, both from a psychological and portfolio standpoint? What does volatility actually indicate about underlying economic fundamentals (apart from fear and uncertainty)?

In my view, financial planners need to be honest about what they know and what they don't know. And they should advise their clients to prepare themselves for volatility through a combination of balancing their life – the psychological part -- and portfolio contingency planning – the portfolio perspective.

From a psychological perspective, I don't know if financial planners have a role – beyond recommending psychologists who specialize in helping people deal with psychological pressures related to money. But one thing financial planners can do is to be honest about the limitations of their knowledge:

Are you meticulous about closing out old bank accounts? Diligent about reclaiming utility deposits? Always cash your refund checks promptly? Sorry, this post probably isn't for you -- for once, the hopelessly complacent among us are more likely to come out on top (finally!).

On Tuesday's Good Morning America, contributor Mellody Hobson of Ariel Capital Management discussed options to track down your share of the nation's $32.8 billion in unclaimed assets, chiefly citing www.unclaimed.org.

Unclaimed.org, run by the non-profit National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators, explains how to search for left-behind assets, and offers links to individual state databases of outstanding cash and property.

Money has a list of 47 quick and easy steps to get yourself on the path to a better financial future. Some of the tips include switching your savings to a high-yielding online bank, haggling down your interest rates on credit cards, putting together a "forever portfolio", and checking how your salary compares to the industry average.

What's interesting about the list is how easy most of these things are to do -- and how few people will do them. It's indicative of the serious financial literacy deficit that exists in our country, and people are literally throwing money away because of their ignorance.

Print out Money's list and give it your adult children. If you have college-age kids, I'd be surprised if they've done more than 5 of the 47 smart things.

Marketwatch's Chuck Jaffe recently conducted an interview with the greatest friend the individual investor has ever had: John Bogle.

Bogle banged the drum for the cause he has made famous: Active investing generally leads to poor returns, and the best thing an investor can do is buy index funds and rely on the long-term returns generated by businesses to create long-term portfolio success.

Jaffe asked Bogle for his reaction to the numerous market gurus who have suggested that the future returns of the market will be lower than in the past. Bogle explained that lower dividend yields and slower earnings growth will lead to an average annual return of around 7%, more than 2% less than the historical yield of the market. What should investors do about that? They just have to save more money, according to Mr. Bogle.

Bogle remains a big supporter of traditional index funds, and isn't too impressed with ETFs or hybrid funds. As he said in a recent column, "Mama, what have they done to my song?"

All of his books are terrific, but an absolute must-read is his tome on corporate governance, The Battle For the Soul of Capitalism.

In today's world, people rarely carry large amounts of cash on them. People have credit cards for large purchases or even debit cards to access their checking accounts. ATM machines are on every urban street corner in America. But what happens when you're not at home in that urban setting? What do you do if you're on vacation?

I recently went to the Caribbean with my wife. We knew that most places would accept our cards but we questioned the exchange rate. Eastern Caribbean money isn't that strong in comparison to the U.S. dollar ($2.60 EC to $1 U.S.) and we knew that our credit cards would charge a service fee for purchases made in EC dollars. My wife, whom I consider a "world traveler," has always gone with the traveler's checks and prepaid card route. She would cash the checks in at the hotel and use prepaid cards so she wouldn't put her personal accounts at risk. I always used my credit card on vacation. Before our trip, I was sent to the bank to pick up a pair of prepaid cards and some traveler's checks.

The July issue of Money magazine has a great article regarding the best way to keep exchange costs to a minimum with today's weak dollar.

I found out she was completely wrong - a month too late.

The practice that involves people "renting" credit history to improve their own credit score will come to an end, according to Fair Issac Corp (NYSE: FIC), the company responsible for FICO credit scores. The change will occur in a new version of its credit score system, the sixth generation, this September.

The move ends the ability for a consumer with poor credit to be placed as an authorized user of another person's credit card, who has great credit. This person would then benefit from having the payment history of the primary cardholder on their own credit report and improve their credit scores.

The practice has grown more common with internet companies popping up offering money to people with good credit to take on those with bad credit as an authorized user, then collecting fees from those consumers for the act.

This is fraud people; plain and simple.

It's hard to believe this practice still exists in the world we live in today. In a nation where state attorney offices and the U.S. attorney's office go after anyone and everyone who looks like they participate in fraud, including UBS Financial Services, Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) and the one that started it all, the Enron case.

This was considered the "first great scam of the new millennium" by Terry Savage of TheStreet.com. She highlighted that people with poor credit could "borrow" good credit for 60 days and then apply for a mortgage at a lower rate. Maybe that's one of the many reasons why this month's
foreclosure rates rose a whopping 90% year-over-year.

What do you think of this new move from Fair Issac? Do you think this is fair to the people with poor credit? What's your opinion?

American Century Investments recently gave a 10-question "quiz" to more than 680 Americans 18-41 years old, and found some pretty disturbing information about the state of America's financial literacy. Less than 20% of respondents understood the meaning of the term "asset allocation" and less than half seemed to understand the idea of diversification. The numbers get worse as the respondent gets younger, but the news is pretty bad across the board.

This got me to thinking: I'm often critical of the idea of hiring a financial adviser, because I think that people can do just as well themselves for a lot less money. But if people are really this uninformed, maybe they do need hired help?

But then you enter into a classic Catch-22. If you don't have at least a basic understanding of personal finance, you are probably poorly equipped to evaluate and hire a financial adviser. Many of them don't provide quality service, charge high fees, or will stick you with mutual funds that have very high-expense ratios. So some knowledge is probably a prerequisite for hiring an adviser. But if you have some knowledge, you probably don't need one.

So now the question is Where shall wisdom be found? As Issac Asimov has said, self-education is the best education. But how? Millions of Americans have turned to charlatans like Robert Kiyosaki in search of financial salvation, and I strongly believe that following his advice can lead to disaster. So here is my quick and dirty list for the non-financially inclined who want to know just enough to manage their own finances:

• Andrew Tobias's The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need
• The Boglehead's Guide to Investing
• Personal Finance For Dummies

I really believe that if you can read and understand the concepts outlined in those books, you probably don't need to hire outside help.

Financial services industry, look out. The boys of Bentonville are moving in, partnering with ShareBuilder, to offer low-cost investment services to customers. If you're not familiar with ShareBuilder, it's become a pretty big player in the discount brokerage industry by targeting a market most companies don't: people who might only have a few hundred dollars to invest. They offer a program that is ideal for dollar-cost averaging with small amounts of money. By combining thousands of orders for numerous stocks into a few big orders every Tuesday, the company is able to offer investors an opportunity to invest a little each week (or month) without facing prohibitively high transaction costs.

I haven't been able to get a lot of details on the plan, except that the Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) service will offer customers a small discount from ShareBuilder's usual costs, depending on the number of trades per month. Wal-Mart describes the ShareBuilder partnership as a pilot project.

I like this a lot -- perhaps by advertising the program in-store, curious shoppers will take the company up on the offer to put a few dollars into shares of companies they're familiar with. By bringing the stock market into Wal-Mart, I believe we could see a lot of first-time investors starting to save for their future, and I think that's the goal here -- I doubt Wal-Mart thinks it can siphon off business from Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) and Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS).

I went into my local Wal-Mart the other day and couldn't find anything on this. Has anyone checked it out? Any thoughts on it?

In this multi-part personal finance series, readers will learn various ways to help save money for a college education, from off-the wall-scholarships and 529 programs to the right time to refinance your loans. Parents and students alike who read this series will find something to help reduce the costs of a higher education before, during and after it takes place.

Part IV: Financial Aid

Last year, 1.8 million low- to moderate-income families missed out on help from the government because they did not fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA for short, which is needed to qualify for any federal, state and some institutional financial aid awards, according to the American Council on Education. In addition, the Council estimated that 1.5 million families missed out on the Pell Grant, an award of $4,310 that does not have to be paid back, just because they failed to file the proper paperwork.

If I told you the government would give you $4,310 if you simply filled out a form, you'd do it in a heartbeat right?

In this multi-part personal finance series, readers will learn various ways to help save money for a college education, from off-the wall-scholarships and 529 programs to the right time to refinance your loans. Parents and students alike who read this series will find something to help reduce the costs of a higher education before, during and after it takes place.

Part III: Work For It

When my friend James was in college, his parents made him learn the value of a dollar the hard way. They forced him to work during his education and didn't give him cent towards his schooling. He took out student loans and worked several jobs in his four-year stint at State, from after-school swim instructor to late-night security guard, he worked them all. Believe me; after all those hours of working while going to school full-time, he learned the value of a dollar. What he didn't know at the time, was the amount of college loans that piled up in the four years he was away.

Here are a few ideas that could help you not make the same mistakes he made:

Princeton Survey Research Associates International conducted a study into the personal finance habits of 1,003 Americans on behalf of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling. Here are some of the findings:

• Less than half have ever ordered their credit reports.
• Less than 40% use monthly budgets.
• Almost 1/3 don't know the interest rate on their credit cards.
• Nearly half saw no need for further financial education (A deadly combination of arrogance and ignorance)
• 1/3 expressed a desire to learn more about money.
• Four in ten credit card holders don't pay the full amount due each month.
• 59% reported that they usually pay the full balance rather than incur interest and finance charges on their credit cards.
• More than 1/3 of respondents had received financial guidance from professionals.

These numbers are pretty scary -- With the vast majority of credit reports containing errors, people are flushing money down the toilet in the form of higher interest rates by not making sure their credit scores are as high as they should be. The survey indicates that 1/3 or respondents didn't know the interest rate on their credit cards, and I have a hunch that a large percentage of that third are part of the four in ten credit card holders who don't pay the full amount each month. People who aren't knowledgeable about their finances tend not to be responsible either.

If you're reading this site, chances are you at least make an effort to be on top of your financial situation. But you also probably know someone who isn't. If you have knowledge of financial matters, offer to help those less fortunate. You could be the difference between poverty and a comfortable retirement for them.

I just wanted to take a minute to thank Kiplinger's Janet Bodnar for her look at what I consider to be one of the social justice struggles of my generation -- the importance of teaching underprivileged kids about money. In her column, she writes about a letter that she received from a sixth grade teacher in a low-income area who wrote that ""Sadly, most of my students believe that the only way they will ever have wealth is to win the lottery." Ms. Bodnar points out two very worth organizations that are working to level the financial literacy playing field:

On the surface, target retirement funds make a lot of sense. Sometimes referred to as life-cycle funds, these are packages that are set up to allow you to put your retirement planning on autopilot -- Depending on your age/financial status, the portfolio starts out more aggressive (e.g. lots of stocks) and, as you get closer to retirement, shifts toward more conservative investments.

The allure of these funds is obvious -- They're convenient, and the market has responded well to them. Assets in target funds are up to $114 billion in 2006 from $12 billion in 2001. But, according to Money Magazine, there are problems with them -- mainly the same problems that plague traditional mutual funds. excessive fees and poor management: "Moreover, target funds aren't created equal. Many companies use these funds of funds as an opportunity to layer extra costs on top of the expenses for the individual component funds. Some are poorly designed or overly complicated. And choosing one based solely on your age can be a bad move."

So be careful. Remember to analyze target funds the same way you would analyze any mutual fund: The expense ratio is the most important, and don't let the allure of auto-pilot investing lull you into complacency.

My wife and I were at our local Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) branch today and we signed some important papers. The documents we put our names to probably represent the single best investment we have made in our time together. Utilizing a portion of a rather handsome income tax return and some carefully thought out timing, we as a couple today reduced our consumer debt load by approximately 25%.

Being in debt has always made my skin crawl, though I fully understand the reasons why we do it. If you want a nice house and a fine automobile or two, the chances are that the only way you can pull it off is by borrowing the funds to make it possible. That doesn't change the fact though that I hate being in debt, and whenever the opportunities present themselves I do what I reasonably can to reduce my debt level.