my worst financial advice!

The Big Cajun Man has challenged some bloggers he knows to describe their worst mistakes in advising people on their finances.

Here's a few I made myself:
- Advising people with their finances! What do I know about finances, really? If something were to go bad, it would really make my life miserable! Nowadays, I try to repeat advice from the pros and stick to he obvious (minimize your fees, diversify, etc.).
- Advising somebody when to sell a stock ... the person did sell them with a small profit but the stock went much higher after!
- Telling friends and family to open direct brokerage accounts! It feels like suggesting to people that they should buy a plane for their personal travel even if they don't know how to fly it ...
- Giving stock advice taken from a newsletter to friends and family without proper disclaimer that this was still risky!

from Men's Health: why you don't need a debit card

Here's an article in Men's Health that confirms what I always believed: debit cards were invented for the benefit of the banks, not the consumers: http://www.menshealth.com/fitinvestor/carmendebit.html .