Just thought I'd share some of the most important things I've learned that could maybe help other people.

1) Never, ever go into debt.  Get out of debt, pay everything off.  Believe me, your life will be better.

2) Buy a smaller house.  Getting a big house is such a waste, especially when you fill it up with the uncessesary garbage it takes to decorate it, not to mention the amount of space you now have to store stuff which causes you to hoard and buy more.  Get a smaller house and get rid of crap.

3) Stop buying crap.  We all waste so much money on stuff we don't need.  Put it in the bank, save up for a trip or a concert or a play or an adventure or retire early instead.

4) Spend money on things that you enjoy.  If you like riding a bicycle, spend a little more and get the good stuff.  I regret to this day buying the $500 bicycle to save some money when I could have spent a little more and had a much better experience the 5 times I rode my bike from San Francisco to Los Angeles.  The more you enjoy it, the more you'll do it.

5) Adventures and Events leave better memories than 'stuff'.  The highlights of my Christmas were seeing my wife and kids get excited by snow coming down, our trip to New York City, going to a Hockey game with our friends, watching our 2 year old dance to an Xbox game, my teenagers eyes light up when she opened Skyrim.  I got great gifts which I'm very thankful for, don't get me wrong, but the memories are what I'll keep forever.  The best memories of the past 12 years with my wife and kids always include trips and things we have done, never stuff.  Stuff is a great short-term gift, but activities and adventures are where memories come from.  I love Disneyland, but seeing my daughter meet Winnie the Pooh or Tinkerbell for the first time, or the look on our teenagers face in her ziplining pictures are priceless.

6) Buying a house is over-rated.  If you're going to live there for decades upon decades, it's great.  It's not an investment.  You can make a ton more money investing in stocks without the headaches than any home at this point.  Sure, if you got your house for $26,000 in the 60's, it was a great investment, but I assure you, that $500,000 house isn't going to appreciate like that and the bills and upkeep and taxes and insurance will kill you.  You're better off keeping the cash.  With that said....

7) If you buy a house, pay it off as quickly as possible.  That mortgage payment is a huge raise to yourself.  Imagine having $1500-2500 extra cash a month for life.  Get rid of your mortgage.  If you're keeping a mortgage for a tax write off, you are either ignorant or bad at math.  Get rid of your mortgage, it's an anchor on your life.

8) Give to charity.  Believe me, good karma rewards you.  I always freak out when we write the checks for charity, but you know what?  We always make it back and it makes us feel good knowing we helped others.  

9) Never loan money to a friend or relative.  If you give them money, you gave it to them.  It's gone, move on.  Loans are just setting up disappointment.  

10) Enjoy where you work.  No matter what you do for a living, it's just a job.  If you are miserable, start looking for a new one.  Don't stay there because you get paid $X an hour.  If it sucks, quit.  It's not worth going through life unhappy.  Heck, even if you love your current job, always be on the look out for new challenges or opportunites, you never know when a better fit might become available.

11) Spend time with your family.  My family goes on all sorts of crazy adventures.  Sometimes we do it through credit card points.  Our year passes to Disneyland were free using our Disney credit card.  We charge or stuff to it, pay off the credit card in full and reap the rewards.  Plan ahead and you can have a years worth of memories and fun and it will cost you nothing.  We go on walks, go kayaking, go to the beach, to the park, go swimming at the Y.  Don't make family time sitting in front of the TV.  DO something.  BTW, we eat every meal as a family at the dinner table with all electronics banned during meals.  It's important.

12) There is nothing better than reading a book with your kids.  Do it.  Daily.

13) You are never too rich to use a coupon.  The only 100% guarenteed investment payout you can get is a coupon.  If you could invest $100 at 10% interest, wouldn't you do it?  Then why don't you use that 10% coupon to purchase something for $100?  That's a 10% return on your money instantly.  Use coupons.  Wait for sales.  Buy video games 6 months after they come out.  Saving money is easy, you just have to be patient.

14) Don't invest in anything unless you have 6 months pay in the bank.  ALWAYS have an emergency fund.  You can invest later.

15) Use my strategy to invest in stocks: a) Only buy 'name monopoly' companies, companies that you instantly think of when you think of a type of business.  McDonalds, Walmart, Target, Coke, Pepsi, Disney, Costco etc...they won't go out of business.  b) Only buy when they are under their 50 and 200 day averages. c) The more shares you get, the more you make, so buy more shares of a cheaper stock if you have the opportunity.  50 shares of Disney is better than 5 shares of Google. d) Leave it alone.  If it drops a million dollars today, it will just be a blip on the radar in 5 years.  Save your money and let it sit and do it's thing.  I've averaged a 17% return in the stock market for the past 10+ years.  It's not hard.  Buy low, buy more lower, don't buy risky companies.  Never buy an airline, a cellular company, energy companies, anything that technology can kill in an instant.  Stick with huge companies.  Pretty simple really.

16) You know the car you are currently driving?  It's a used car.  Buy used cars.  We all love the new car smell and the shiny and all that, but there is very little in the world that wastes more money than a new car.  If you bought a used car for $6000 and the same car new is $26,000, you'd have to spend $20,000 in repairs just to break even.  You know how many new engines you can buy with $20,000?  And just because you hit 100,000 miles doesn't mean your car is broken and needs to be replaced.  My Pontiac had 200,000+ on it and some people have literally hit 1,000,000 on cars.  Take care of it and it should last a long, long time.  BTW - if you drive a 'clunker' it's not going to get stolen and you won't care when it gets scratched.  

17) People tend to suck.  Instead of fighting it and trying to change people, move on and spend your time with the people that don't suck.  

18) You will become what those you let hang around you are.  This is an important one.  Why are successful people successful?  Because they hang around with successful people.  If you look around and your friends are alcoholic potheads, maybe you should rethink things a bit.  Especially if you're 40.

19) Make your goal to retire at 50.  Or better yet, 45.  Save money now and save it constantly.  Don't live life planning to work until you're 65 to get Social (in)Security.  Believe me, by the time you hit 65 there will be no money in SS and the amount you get will come nowhere near what you need to live.

20) The best way to save money is to stay in shape.  Go to the gym, run, ride a bike, exercise, take walks, go swimming, walk around the mall.  Health costs will wipe out your savings in an instant.  Try to avoid that by staying fit.  Look around you.  Who are the oldest people you know?  In my life, they are all people who lead active lifestyles and are out doing things constantly.  My moms neighbor mowed his lawn well into his late 80's!  He rode bicycles until he was in his 70's.  Eat mostly good foods, get off your ass and do things and stay healthy.

21) Try to wait before you say no.  My wife has had some crazy ideas.  A 6 week road trip across the United States and Canada with a 1 year old?  Let's drive to Newfoundland?  Now I find myself doing it, "A 12 hour drive to New York City sounds fun!"  "Ride my bicycle from San Francsico to Los Angeles?  That's crazy!"  I've done it 5 times and my wife has done it once and we're both planning on doing it again.  You don't get many shots at crazy adventures.  No matter how crazy they sound, they just might be the highlight of your year.

22) Don't watch or read the news.  This is a hard one for me to this day, but my wife swears by it and she's right.  Her homepage is www.happynews.com.  She only reads good, uplifting stories.  The news is all skewed to make you scared or fearful of everything and chock full of negativity.  The more scared you get, the more you watch the news, right?  If something is truly important, you'll see it on Facebook or Twitter or someone will call you and tell you, but do you really need to know about a killing 5000 miles away?  Or that some schmuck thinks Apple stock is going to drop because he woke up on the wrong side of the bed?  All stock analysts are dumb-ass know nothings, all newscasts are skewed to what they want you to hear and 99.999% of news never will affect you in any way, shape or form, so don't bother.  Avoid that shit like the plague and be happy in your little world with your smaller house, your huge savings, your investments and your family and go and DO things and have fun.  Life is too short to listen to or read the News.

So, these are probably 22 of the more important life lessons, skewed towards money and life more than relationships, I've learned in the past 40 years.  I hope you find some of these to be helpful in your life.  By all means, if you have some more to add, please do!

Invest in peace...