The following comes from my new book, Everything You Need to Know About Safing for Retirement.

This is Chapter 23, the 20 Rules of Personal Finance.

Picture yourself getting ready for a Clark Griswold style family summer vacation.

You have an itinerary all laid out for every stop along the way, including the hotels you'll stay at,

the sites you'll see, even some Yelp reviews for the various restaurants you plan to eat at on your trip.

The day finally arrives and the

anticipation is building. Everyone piles into the minivan, ready to go until someone

realizes dad forgot to fill up the gas tank. No one packed their suitcases.

Someone forgot to pack the snacks and there isn't a single iPad on board to keep the kids happy in the backseat.

The finance equivalent here is coming up with the world's greatest investment strategy

without saving in the first place. Yes investing is important if you'd like to compound your wealth over time, but it doesn't matter if you're the second coming of Warren Buffett if you can't save money and get your personal finances in order first.

The whole point of this book is to drive home the importance of personal finance and saving.

So just to sum up, I wanted to provide Ben's 20 rules of personal finance to hammer home these points.

Number one, avoid credit card debt like the plague.

The first rule of personal finances never carry a credit card balance.

Credit card borrowing rates are

egregiously high and paying those rates is an easy way to negatively compound your wealth.

Obviously not all debt is bad, but credit card debt is by far the worst.

If you carry a credit card balance on a regular basis, you're definitely not ready to invest for money in the markets.

Number two, but building credit is important.

Some of the biggest expenses over your lifetime will likely be the interest costs on your mortgage, car loans and student loans.

So having a solid credit score can save tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars by lowering those borrowing costs.

...