It always comes back to bite you, baby. Doing dishonest things, big or small, even if you get away with them, will end up costing you. Take WorldCom bigwig Bernard Ebbers. He's runnin' the ship when the company takes an $11 billion nose-dive and he's about to serve 25 in the cooler for everything from fraud to false filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It's an Enron thing all over again, and it serves him right.

Now, let's examine what happens when you do things on the up and up. Dr. Tom Stanley's book The Millionaire Mind found that, among America's millionaires, the character traits of integrity, hard work and honesty were right at the top of the list. And these are the people with the cash and the peace of mind. Game over; honesty wins.

The point is this: even if you do something crooked and don't get caught, that kind of behavior will always ... ALWAYS ... spell trouble for you if you keep it up. The Man Upstairs tells you to go after the square deal and not cheat to get money, and so does Dave Ramsey. So do it, or else!