Ever wonder what it feels like to make a billion dollars? Now imagine what it feels like to lose that much, baby. It's uglier than a blind date with a good personality. But that's what happened to Brian Hunter, Nicholas Leeson and a handful of other advisors who bet big on the stock market and ended up on the losing side.

Everybody gets the short end of the stick sometimes, baby, but stuff like this makes you do a double-take. So if you are thinking about playing the stock market ... if you're thinking that Wall Street is the ticket to easy street, remember that these joes eat, drink and breathe the market and didn't come out on top here. It's stuff like this that makes Dave Ramsey tell you to not play the stock market and go for good mutual funds.

You can't invest until you have the dough. How do you get the dough? By deep-sixing the debt, getting on a budget and saving. So what are you waiting for, jack? Hustle to it.