6. A laser-disc player is not an investment.

You haven't suffered through that really boring accounting class yet, so you might not know what "depreciating assets" are. They're items that lose value over time. An extreme example of a depreciating asset is your brain. As you age, you lose brain cells. And there's little you can do to stop or reverse this process. For many men, hair is also a depreciating asset. They may start their thirties with 150,000 hairs on their scalp and then end the decade with only 100,000. Ouch! Big ouch, trust us.

Let's focus on depreciating assets that you have more control over, like a car. Did you know that the moment you drive a new car off the dealership lot, it loses a big chunk of its value? In fact, on average, new cars and trucks lose more than 20% of their value in just their first year. If you bought a sleek convertible last year for $20,000, today it's worth less than $16,000. Big ouch!

Consider the choices you have for your savings. If your beloved Aunt Zelda passes away and leaves you $50,000, maybe you'll decide to buy a car. If you buy a fancy $50,000 BMW, it will depreciate by a few thousands dollars almost as soon as you drive it off the lot. The depreciation will total about $10,000 in its first year alone. That's $10,000 up in smoke. Lost. Gone. And every year after, it will -- on average -- lose an additional 10% of value each year.

But if you bought, instead, a new Nissan for $14,000, you could still get most of the features you want, like a sunroof, alloy wheels, and lit vanity mirrors, and only lose about $3,000 in the first year. Heck, if you bought a three-year old car instead, you could spend even less money and lose even less money. So, if you bought that Nissan with Aunt Zelda's money, you'd still have a lot of it left. More than $35,000. If you invested that money and it grew at an average of 11% per year, you'd have over $99,000 in ten years. If it grew at 15%, you'd end up with over $140,000. See what a good decision it was to postpone buying your dream car? You settled for something pretty good and ended up with a growing pile of money instead of a pricey car that was shedding lots of value each year as your hairline tries to keep pace.

Our suggestion is that you identify all the stuff you're going to buy that will lose its value over time -- cars, bicycles, stereo equipment, and Spice Girls paraphernalia. Then plan to spend as little money as possible on them. Put off buying expensive depreciating assets like the fancy octa-phonic stereo system. Today, you'll want to be keeping your debt down, saving as much money as possible and investing it.

Step 7: Dabble in the market