Not an idea, just a philosophy of mine: don’t owe anyone money if you can at all help it. Ever. Period. It’s a bad situation to be in. If you have less, spend less until you have more. I’m watching some of my friends get into debt and thinking “Why? Was there no better way?”

I don’t even have a credit card. This isn’t an issue, because I’d max out just about any credit card’s limit before I could draw 1/10 of the balance on my debit card. This is the way I intend to keep it. There is perhaps a slightly higher risk of liability if the card is stolen or compromised, but my bank still offers me a very great deal of protection.

CDs are pretty nice, too. Put $10,000 that you almost certainly aren’t going to use anyway away for a few months and take out $10,500. Not a bad chunk of change, considering that the net impact of the CD on your ability to use your finances was probably zero.

I tend to shy away from riskier investments that are tied to markets, at least until I’ve had a chance to perform a thorough analysis, complete with time-series mining and lots of fun statistics in tandem with my own social intuitions. And then I’d probably just invest on my own. Or not at all, if I can find some better way to attain the funds necessary for my goals while still retaining my rather strict internal ethical standards.