Computer crash? Fuggetaboutit. How would you like to be this guy? A computer technician for the Alaska Department of Revenue was doing some routine maintenance work, see? What happened next is fuzzy ... except that he accidentally wiped out a disk drive with a $38 billion account on it. What's worse, he reformatted the backup disk. Can I hear a "D'OH!"?

Honest mistake made, good lesson to learn. You never know when the bottom is gonna drop out from under you, jack. Murphy will stroll into your life and make you have a car wreck or a job loss. So what's the best remedy? An emergency fund. Learn how to make a budget, save a baby EF (about a thousand smackers), then go to work to get out of debt. If disaster hits, your rainy day fund will hit back; harder.

One more thing. You don't have to listen to The Dave Ramsey Show to get fired up about doing all that jazz ... but it helps.