Why do I put money and happiness together? Because for a lot of people money troubles seem to lie at the root of their unhappiness. Any couples' therapist will tell you that money issues are often a major source of friction for their clients.

The hard part about examining assumptions is that they're often wired in by years of mental habit, in some cases reinforced by conventional wisdom (even when it turns out to be unwise) and even commercial messages.

On my fictitious mental list of things I would have liked for Christmas is inevitably a host of items with varying price tags and degrees of necessity. It's perfect for a Christmas Wish List, and alleviates the need for my benefactors to guess (often wrongly) what I'd like or need.

Are you ready to reap? It's getting to be harvest time for farmers, but I want you to think about what you're ready to harvest in your own life.

Thing is, you need good habits, too. Demonstrating your own good habits will help the kids form theirs, and there's no better time of year to do it than right now, when everybody's still adjusting to the school schedule.

Contrary to popular belief, you don't need to be rich to warrant the services of a financial planner.

That's the kind of person you'd want to look up to. Sure, he was successful in his profession. But he also did what he loved and put a high premium on his relationships, not just his work or the money and accolades that came with it.

For the rest of us, excuses are vain attempts to make ourselves feel better about not doing what we know we need to do. They don't achieve anything good. So please discard them right now. Your life will instantly improve -- in fitness and other areas, too.

If a financial planner recommends investments before determining what you need the money for (ie: your goals), they're either skipping a step or have an alternate agenda. Financial planning is all about structuring your finances to help you get to where you want to go in life - now and later. Goals are crucial to the plan.

So even though I liked her post, I'm going to suggest five reasons you should do your Christmas shopping early.

THREE TIMES as many U.S. children are obese today as 30 years ago. Childhood obesity is just one part of the bigger obesity epidemic affecting the United States, but it's particularly troubling when you consider that:

But despite this "flawless" plan, everything fell apart in December. Here are five reasons why you shouldn't do your Christmas shopping early!

Just think about what's important to YOU and write it down, starting with your most cherished wish. Do you want to run marathons? Get married and move away with your new spouse to some exotic corner of the world? Run your own business? Write a book? All of the above?

It's the swimsuit time of year. Do you find yourself saying things like this when you're out at the beach or the pool? Do you look at the swimwear models in advertisements and mail-order catalogs and think that you should live up to their standard?

After four years of full-time travel, I've got a few tricks for finding great deals, and I'm always discovering new techniques and loopholes. Here are some ways to find cheap airfare and get the most value for your money.

It's gonna be a long, hot summer. Are you going to use that as an excuse to put off your fitness plans until later? (And does "later" mean two months? Six months? Ten more years?) Or are you going to get your act in gear and find ways to work out despite the heat?

Air conditioning is the salvation through the Texas summer, but sometimes you -- and especially any kids you need to entertain -- need an outdoor activity that everyone can enjoy without roasting.

Although things may feel the same, more changes than we think. And if we review finances regularly, it's not a long arduous process; it's empowering and easy.

If not, there's still time to get on track -- not just for the rest of this year, but for every timeframe from the rest of this day to the rest of your life.

What do you want to achieve with your fitness in the second half of this year?

By having a working holiday, you can earn money as you go to cover your expenses, and in some cases you can even return home with some extra money in your pocket.

As we head toward the dog days of summer, it can become more of a challenge to keep the kids from getting bored.

In the bigger picture, though, there are just a lot of things I want to do -- and hitting 39 is a sharp reminder that I'm not a kid anymore.

I was stuck in a rut and I didn't know what to do to change the vicious cycle I was in. Arriving at my wit's end, I had to do something. Self-help books weren't particularly effective, meditation was lost on me, and keeping busy to take my mind off the ever-growing void in my heart was only making me stressed out and sick.

For the rest of us, though, how we choose to think is the biggest factor in our sense of happiness and well-being.