Pull up a chair, baby ... here's the latest pitch from the campaign trail. Hillary Rodham Clinton (or as I call her, Hi-Rod) is proposing tax cuts of up to a thousand smackers a year to encourage joes and jills to chuck money into their 401k retirement plans.

It's all well and good, but remember this ... you have to do something to get something. Uncle Sam isn't gonna cruise by your house with one of those oversized checks. You have to invest money so you'll have money for the part of your life when you ain't making money. Washington can sell you all the bright ideas it wants, baby ... in the end, it's all you.

Now, I hear some of you out there with that same old jazz, 'But DEBTective, I can't afford to invest now'. Bub, you can't afford not to. Make a budget and deep-six your debt. Do it, then save it, and you'll be neck-deep in dough before long. You can thank me then.