12 steps for managing money: Chris Farrell at MPR State Fair booth:

Live at the State Fair with MPR News host Tom Weber, our economics guru Chris Farrell suggests 12 steps for managing your money over a lifetime. We'll upload the full audio from their conversation soon, but for now here's a quick-reference list of those 12 steps he talked about:

1. Create a margin of financial safety
2. Keep it simple
3. Green is frugal and frugal is green
4. Generosity or giving is the key to managing money well
5. Save 20 percent as a goal (remember, it's a GOAL!)
6. Pay your credit card balance in full every month (there's nothing wrong, per se, with credit cards, but if you do, pay them off in full)
7. Buy inexpensive, well-diversified index funds 8. Pay attention to fees
9. Stick w/ high quality investments
10. Invest in skills for the kind of careers/jobs you want over time
11. It's ok to borrow to fund investments... like a home and education... but be disciplined!
12. Diversify. Diversify. Diversify.