Working hard to earn more money and then giving it away in higher taxes isn't financially intelligent, even if you do put some of it into a retirement account.

When I was a kid, there were no credit cards. Instead, retailers offered layaway plans. My mom would go to a store, such as a furniture outlet, choose the sofa she wanted, and put it on layaway. That meant she put a little money down to hold the sofa, and every payday she'd pay a little toward the purchase.

In the simplest terms, inflation occurs when there's too much money in the system. On the flip side, deflation occurs when there are too few dollars in circulation.

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