I used to cry when I turned on the Extreme Makeover television show. Some joe or jill is having hard luck or makes some big sacrifice, and whammo! The producers, volunteers and the makeover crew show up and turn shackville into Palace Place, 90210.

Now, some family in Georgia is getting foreclosed on. But here's what steams me the most ... the joint was PAID FOR! They took out a loan for almost half a million smackers to start a business, which went belly-up. Now they got no one to blame but themselves for turning the blessing to a curse.

THAT'S why you don't need to do the debt deal, baby. Not only did it ruin this family, but it got a whole bunch of nice people mad at them. People who donated dough, time and prayers to make sure they'd be all right. Lesson to learn: when you get something good, don't turn it bad. No do-overs here, baby.

Anybody who knows me knows that I'm a sucker for going to see a moving picture. Apparently, so are about 44 million other joes and jills. The 2008 Batman movie that just came out, "The Dark Knight" has racked up over $314 million since it hit the screen a week and a half ago. But don't get your hopes up ... we're in a recession (*COUGH*).

To me, these numbers mean 1 of 2 things. Either a bunch of people are spending dough they don't have and need a total money makeover, or they're doing all right for themselves and have the cash to blow on food and a flick, which means this "recession" everyone's gabbing about is as legit as Al Gore’s chances of winning the election.

Know what I'm doing this coming weekend, jack ... anything I want! Because I worked, saved and got the cash. Quit belly achin' and start money makin', baby.

ATTENTION! ATTENTION! YOUR PROBLEMS ARE SOLVED (well, not really). The stiffsuits in DC just pulled a federal minimum wage increase. At the new rate of $6.55, you'll be rolling in the moolah, won't you?

I know what you're thinking, jack. With gas and food costing what they do, a new minimum wage won't mean a hill of beans. Congratulations ... you figured out that Washington ain't gonna solve your money problems. That duty has your name stamped all over it.

Bottom line, baby ... you end up with more dough when you budget what you've got and save what comes in. Think of it like a bucket under a hose. The water is the cash and the bucket is the budget, bub. You ain't gonna have much water left over if there's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza. It'll just keep flowing out. But when you fix the bucket and stop the spending, pretty soon your bucket will overfloweth with dough-eth.

Making another 70 cents an hour doesn't mean squat if you go out and spend 85. Find your calling, work hard, mind the money, don't go into debt. Get promotion for working hard, earn more money and mind it. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Sorry, but I had to pop this one, jack. Sort of like when the bully in the schoolyard falls in the mud and gets kicked in the head with an iron boot. Looks like Wachovia Bank took an $8.86 billion nose dive in the second quarter of this year and has to help make ends meet by giving 6,350 of its workers the axe.

But wait, there's more. Seems the reason Walk-All-Over-Ya bank got smacked around is because they lost a bunch of dough from bad mortgages ... the kind of loans that are made to joes and jills who don't have any business borrowing money.

Now don't get in a tizzy ... this doesn't mean the market is heading south. This is a case of things getting good and ugly for the bad. Keep deep-sixing your debt and let's cut into their bottom line even more, baby.

Forget the falling star ... this joe had a whole solar system behind him when he jumped off the cliff. The name? Scott Storch. The job: big-shot music producer. The story: riches to rags. Storch was living it up a few years ago: the Miami mansion worth 8 figures, more dames than you could shake a gold record at, and recognition as the man who produces the top pop tunes.

Fast forward to 2008; where Storch is being scorched. He's down 500K in back taxes. He hasn't had a hit song since 2005 and the boys in blue have a warrant out to send him to the cooler. You've fallen a long way, baby.

Even though this yahoo has put out as many hits as Vanilla Ice in the last 3 years, he didn't even need to. He had the dough, but he made bad choices and wasn't smart when it came to the green. Just goes to show, joe ... bad decisions can deep-six even the best of 'em.

Odds are, you've got less wiggle room than Mr. Brother-Can-You-Spare-A-Dime here. If being irresponsible will bring him down, imagine what'll happen if you try to buy that new couch or plasma TV without cash. Shivers my timbers, baby. Stay simple when using your money, and stay smart. See you Monday, suckers.

You hear Dave Ramsey and yours truly raise a fuss about saving up for retirement, right? Well, here's the why. The boys in the press are breaking the news that the Baby Boomer generation might be ready to outlive its savings as a group.

Even if someone from the Infant Bang age bracket adjusts their budget and watches how they spend the dough, they may face hard times. Sure, the media is probably doing its usual blow-things-out-of-proportion job, but the fact remains that too many people are saving too little cash for when they call it quits on the career. Their golden years will be more like copper.

Some time in your life, you're gonna see a sad old bub or dame who didn't save enough. Look closely; in 30 or 40 years, that could be you ... unless you start now. Get out of debt and stash away as much as you can. If you save too much, I'm sure you'll forgive me for that. If you save too little ...

If mazal tov means good fortune, then MasterCard tov must mean "your fortune's in the hole!" Some wiseguy in Israel figured out that no wedding is complete without finding a way to move credit cards into the mix.

Here's the latest gadget; you pay a few shekels to rent some gizmo that looks like a bank ATM. You set it up at the front of the wedding hall. Instead of buying a wedding party gift like most normal joes and jills do, here you just swipe your plastic through and punch in the amount that you want to give to the bride and groom.

Bada-bing, bada-boom ... the machine prints out a receipt, you stuff it in an envelope to give to the happy couple, and the dough is moved to their bank account the next day. I don't know about you, but I know that a slip of paper would mean a boatload more to me than some simple present that somebody HAD TO PUT SOME THOUGHT INTO!

This ain't nothing but another easy way out. If you're gonna give a gift to someone who's taking the plunge, give cash ... give a blender ... but don't give yourself a headache in the process, baby. Stay away from debt. I'm out.

This one took me totally off guard. I mean, the reverend must have been nuts to let this happen. I won't go too much into detail, jack ... there are dames and kids watching. Safe to say that Rev. Jesse Jackson was giving an interview, thought his microphone was cut off during a commercial break, and made a flip remark about having Barack Obama join the cast of The Sopranos, if you know what I mean.

Lesson to be learned: you never know who's watching. I'm not sticking up for JJ or leaving him hanging, but you always need to be doing the right thing. Let down for a second, and the wrong person will see you and follow your bad example. Best behavior, baby ... it's the stuff that dreams are made of.

I got a full plate this weekend, jack. Grill-outs, good times and great big explosions on the sky. But before I go in feet-first to all the fun ... just wanted to remind all you joes and jills out there that we got boys and girls overseas making all the fun and freedom possible. So I declare this RANDOM ACT OF KINDNESS TO A SOLDIER WEEKEND.

Here' s a great chance to have some fun. When you're out this weekend; if you see anyone from the military, do something for them. Pick up their restaurant tab. Have your kid go up and salute them. Shake their hand and thank 'em, or buy them a Coke and a smile, see? If you do it, lemme know what you did, where, when and how. I want stories.

Til next week ...

The real estate market in Florida ain't THAT bad! Some dame in the Sunshine State is having trouble selling her digs. She's asking a cool 340 grand, but since she ain't gettin' any offers, she decided to up the ante. For half a million, you get the home and the hottie. That's right, joes and jills ... this big love offer includes 2,000 square feet of happily ever after.

Bless her heart, I hope she finds a prince charming with pockets to match. Sure, she's more eye candy than if Willy Wonka became an optometrist, but I gotta think this deal will make the first date kind of awkward. Hope she doesn't put the deed next to the dinner bill and you sign the wrong one.

Just a reminder, as long as the subject's up: You can't buy the best things in life. There are different ways to get your kicks; be it a date with a knockout or knocking out your debt. But the stuff that really means something doesn't have a receipt or appraisal attached to it. Remember that on your next anniversary.