I tackle these and other credit questions in this video produced by my new publisher, Hudson Street Press. If you’ve got a couple minutes, take a look.

So I stepped on the accelerator instead. I drove the car at some speed into a concrete wall, and that was the end of my errand (and the station wagon).

Now, I’m not a stupid person. One of the ways I paid for that college was a National Merit scholarship. But deciding to step on the accelerator when the brake failed was a stupid act.

Some of you aren’t happy with my calling the act of carrying a credit card balance stupid. But in most cases, that’s exactly what it is. Otherwise smart people can do really stupid things with money, and that’s just one of them.

Some of the others, in case you’re interested, include:

• Not contributing to a retirement fund
• Not contributing when there’s a company match (stupid squared)
• Signing up for loans you can’t afford
• Co-signing loans for anyone, unless you’re making the payments
• Taking out refund anticipation loans
• Using a payday lender
• Rolling your debt from your last car loan into your next car loan

You can focus on your reasons/justifications/excuses for doing these things, or you can acknowledge, “Yup, that was dumb”–which could be the first step toward changing your behavior and actually getting smart about money.

But some folks are posing questions that I’m in no position to answer. I’m not, after all, an expert on expat living–I’m happily ensconced in California, where I plan to stay. So I can’t tell you how efficient the bus system is in Thailand or how to find a housekeeper in Ecuador. And I’m sure not a real estate agent, even though one woman wanted me to send her pictures of apartments in Cuenca so she could see if they were up to her standards.

There are ways to find answers to your questions, of course. There are many Web sites devoted to expatriate living, both in general and in specific countries. Two places to start are LiveandInvestOverseas.com and International Living. To find country-specific communities, type the country name and the word “expat” into a search engine.

You may need to do a lot of searching, poking around, reading and asking questions. If you can’t do that, or you’re easily frustrated when you don’t get immediate results, expat life is probably not for you. In the U.S. we’re used to convenience–what we want, when we want it. That may not be as true in other countries, even developed ones. (My friends from England frequently comment about how easy life is here, compared to home; the U.S. in general is set up to serve the consumer–toll-free customer service lines being the great exception.)

As Kathleen Peddicord puts it in her book, “How to Retire Overseas,” “Making a success of a new life overseas requires energy, commitment and a positive attitude.” I’d add that it also requires curiosity, flexibility and a certain level of tolerance for frustration. If you haven’t got the chops, you’re probably better off staying home.

Some highlights:

• No one is truly independent unless they’re financially independent. Our kids may resist cutting the financial umbilical cord because of fear of the unknown, but our job as parents is to teach them to be independent and then boot ‘em out of the nest.
• The dependent resent those they’re dependent on. Parents who support adult children may believe the kids will be grateful and will love them more, but financially dependency creates “shame and self-doubt” in the offspring.
• Living on their own is part of becoming independent. “We need to expect and prepare our children to live on their own after school,” the authors write. Financial setbacks and unemployment may bring them back to the nest, but their stay shouldn’t be indefinite. There should be a plan for returning them to the wild and they should contribute to the household in the meantime.
• College is a proving ground, for kids and for parents. “By the time a kid leaves college he should have mastered the skills of budgeting, financial planning, delayed gratification, working, spending wisely and saving for a rainy day,” the authors write. “College is a good time to practice those skills. We shouldn’t send money on demand, or bail a kid out.”

It’s still early days with our daughter (she’s only in elementary school), but I can easily understand the temptation is to keep her “close,” safe and dependent long after it’s time for her to start spreading her wings. I know it’s our job as parents to make ourselves obsolete, and teaching her to be financially independent is just one of the ways we’ll do that.

She’s already required to save $1 of her $7 allowance each week. Mandatory savings have been part of her allowance since she started getting one four years ago. With the new savings account, we made a bargain that if she saves any more than $1 week, we’ll match it dollar for dollar. So if she saves $2, we’ll kick in an extra buck.

Then, each December, she’ll be allowed to withdraw half of her savings to spend. The other half has to be left alone to grow.

The cool thing is that our credit union pays a 7% return on the first $500 in a savings account. It’s a lot easier to show the value of savings when you have an actual interest payment to show, instead of the three cents a month or so she’d be earning at a regular bank.

We think our arrangement will strike the right balance between teaching delayed gratification and making savings fun. We hope the incentive will encourage her to save more, while giving her access to the funds once a year will reassure her we’re not locking away her savings forever. (Although “hands off” savings helps me sleep better at night, most kids see it as confiscating their money.)

How was saving encouraged in your family, if it was? What are you trying with your kids to make savings a habit?

I announced this offer last week on my Facebook fan page, and based on feedback there, I offer the following clarifications:

• This is a Kindle deal only. No freebies for Nook, Sony Reader or iPad owners. Sorry, guys. I didn’t make the deal–FT Press did. Bug them.
• This is a download. No physical books will be given away. Just ebooks.
• If you don’t have a Kindle, you don’t have to buy one because of this deal. It doesn’t make sense to spend $189 to get a $13 book for free, now, does it? Go to your library. They’ve probably got a dead-tree copy there you can read. Or hang out at Barnes & Noble. There’s usually at least one on the shelf. If not, you have my permission to ask why. (UPDATE: You can also download free Kindle software to get the book. See below.)
• No, I don’t get an incentive for selling Kindles. And I don’t get royalties on books that are given away for free, either. My publisher tells me this may spur sales in coming weeks, but sales have already been fine, so I’m not holding my breath. I just think it’s cool you can get something besides Jane Austen books for free on Kindle. Not that I’m against Jane Austen. Love her. Kiss kiss.
• You don’t have to love the credit scoring system to want to know more about it. Credit scoring formulas can be opaque, frustrating, seemingly illogical–but they’ve also become important to our financial lives, and knowing how they work can save you tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in your lifetime. A little education can go a long way.
• Update: You don’t need a physical Kindle to get this deal. You just need a Kindle app on your phone or the software downloaded to your PC (link to download HERE) or Mac (link to download HERE).

The change should save customers a whole lot of money if they don’t sign up, since over-limit transactions using debit cards will simply be declined rather than generate $35-a-pop fees.

But there are still plenty of other ways your bank can gouge you. You probably know about foreign ATM fees, monthly maintenance fees and even fees to talk to a teller. But you may not know about:

Other types of overdrafts. The change requiring an opt-in for bounce protection applies only to debit card and ATM transactions. It doesn’t apply to overlimit checks or automatic payment for recurring bills, which the bank can still process and assess you with a bounce fee. So you still have to pay attention to your balance, and I’d recommend signing up for true overdraft protection, which links your checking account to a savings account, line of credit or credit card. However, you should beward:

Credit card overdraft. Linking to your savings account or a line of credit will typically be much cheaper than having your true overdraft protection linked to a credit card. That’s because overdrafts typically will be treated as a cash advance, triggering fees of 3% to 5% plus sky-high interest rates that kick in immediately with no grace period. Credit card overdraft likely still will be cheaper than bounce protection, but you’d be wise to choose one of the other two options, if available.

Excess activity fees. If you make too many withdrawals or transfers from your savings account, your bank can slap you with a fee. Banks will say this is because of federal Regulation D, which limits such transactions in savings accounts, but the reality is that banks have an option: they can charge fees, or simply refuse to honor the excess transactions. Guess which option many banks choose? Oh, and some banks have their own definition of what constitutes an “excess.” Regulation D says the limit is 6 transactions, but Bank of America starts charging you after 3 if you have less than $2,500 in your account. Know your bank’s limits and make sure you stay within them.

Overdraft fees in “closed” accounts. A bank can honor outstanding checks and recurring payments, generating bounce fees, even if you’ve closed the account and taken your money elsewhere. If you’re switching banks, follow these rules for a bounce-free transition.

Returned deposit fees. You get a check, deposit it and see the amount reflected in your balance. You start spending the money, only to get a notice from your bank that the check wasn’t good. Not only are you out the money, but you’ll likely have to pay a fee on top of that, plus deal with any overdrafts the bad check caused. It’s hard to avoid getting stiffed this way, but you might want to avoid spending any deposited money for at least a week. If you get assessed a returned deposit fee, you can add that to the amount the check writer owes you.

As a fellow parent, I sympathize. Kids grow up quickly and our time with them is all too brief. But that doesn’t justify taking on enormous debt.

Here’s where I think we go wrong when we’re trying to talk ourselves into a purchase we can’t afford:

We confuse wants with needs. We go pretty quickly from “Hey, a pool might be nice” to “A pool would help us create great family experiences” to “We must have a pool for the good of our family!” Once you convince yourself you “must” have something, it’s easy to take the next step to justify taking on debt to purchase it.

We fail to consider alternatives. If you want to swim, you’ve got tons of other options, including:

• An above-ground pool
• The local Y
• A neighbor’s pool (perhaps you can share maintenance costs in exchange of access)
• Local rivers, lakes or oceans
• Swim clubs
• Local hotels and motels
• Water parks

If what you want is to create family bonding experiences, your options are even greater. You can have backyard barbecues, outdoor movie nights, regular game nights, trips to local parks, picnics, and on and on.

We don’t consider the real cost. When we borrow money, we often focus on the monthly payments rather than the total cost of what we’re buying. A $25,000 home equity loan at 8% paid over 20 years means you’ll pay $50,000. That would pay for a lot of truly fabulous family vacations. You’ve got to ask yourself if a hole in the ground is really worth that expense.

If you still think it is, and a pool would add value to your home (it doesn’t always; talk to local real estate agents), then you might be able to justify financing half of the cost. Remember that home improvements aren’t investments; you rarely get back what you paid for any remodeling project when you sell the house. If you can’t save up even half the cost, you really can’t afford the project–no matter what your contractor, lender and kids are telling you.

Changing your own oil. I learned how to do this as part of a high-school driver’s ed course (yeah, once upon a time schools offered those) and used to regularly do it myself, but now I’ve learned better. It’s not just that safely (and legally) disposing of the used oil is a pain in the butt. It’s also the fact that I’m not a mechanic and could easily miss problems that could cost me big bucks later. I avoid the chain outfits, though, and take my car to a trusted mechanic who checks belts, refills fluids and generally gives it a good once-over. The result: reliable transportation, and enough early warning that I can fix problems before they turn into major bills.

Doing your own taxes. DIY is fine if you’re filling out a 1040A or 1040EZ form, or if you’re a wage slave (W-2 earner) taking standard deductions on a 1040. If, however, you’re growing your wealth as you should be with investments and a side business, a tax pro’s help can be invaluable—not just to fill out the forms, but to provide you with feedback and strategies year-round. There’s no way that you, who focuses on taxes for a few days every April, can be as informed as someone who arm-wrestles our tax code for a living. An enrolled agent is an affordable alternative to a CPA, but if your business is sizeable enough to consider incorporation, you’ll probably want a CPA’s help. I used to test tax software for an annual column, so would do our 1040s seven or eight times over every season, but I still used a tax pro and she always found deductions and other savings I’d missed.

Home improvement projects. Patching, painting and planting flowers are pretty easy to figure out, and there are plenty of other tasks a reasonably handy homeowner can take on. If the project involves wiring, pipes, electric saws or heights, however, you want to make darn sure you know what you’re doing. (Two members of my family have died trimming trees, and a friend’s brother just died from a fall during a painting project, so the dangers of ladders and heights are particularly on my mind.) I can clear a drain clog, empty first-floor gutters or rewire a lamp, but anything that involves digging around in walls, shutting off any systems and sawing through something that might be important gets turned over to the pros.

How about you? Any money-saving strategies you’ve tried that you wished you hadn’t? Let me know in the comments.

Our friends have long raved about streaming Netflix, either using a Roku box or more recently through video game consoles like Wii. We don’t have a gaming system and our wireless network signal was pretty weak near our television, though, so I just kept renting from Blockbuster.

Until Blockbuster made renting ridiculous by charging about half of what some of these movies would cost to buy. So I spent a few bucks to boost our signal and $80 more on a Roku. Because we already have a Netflix subscription, we now have instant access to thousands of movies and TV shows for free. The Roku was dead easy to set up and link to Netflix, and the selection is spectacular—so much so I’m kicking myself for not doing it earlier.

I’m also taking a moment to savor the irony here. Blockbuster was once a hugely successful company that dominated its sector but it failed to see the Next Big Thing—Netflix’s DVD mail service, which made renting movies a lot more convenient and less annoying (no late fees). Now that DVDs themselves are being made obsolete by video streaming, the smart thing to do would be to make DVD rentals really cheap for late adopters like me—but Blockbuster instead raised its rental fees and tightened its late-fee policies. Blockbuster is forcibly pushing its last remaining customers away, in essence speeding up its own obsolescence.

The lesson I’ll take away from this is that success is never permanent. If we don’t keep looking over the horizon, What’s Next is likely to run us over. And oh, yes, another good take-away: Don’t piss off your customers. Even the slow-to-learn ones will eventually go away.