3. Never buy or sell ... (In "The Index Card," Pollack and Olen altered this to "10% t0 20%"). 5. Pay your credit card balance in full every month. 6. Maximize tax-advantaged savings vehicles ...

But does that mean you can basically fit everything you need to know on an index card? A friend of mine ... One is having 3-6 months’ worth of necessary expenses in savings.

After a talk with personal finance expert Helaine Olen, Pollack managed to write down pretty much everything you need to know on a 4x6 index card. And it would probably fit on a 3x5 index card if ...

Pollack said that the best personal finance advice "can fit on a 3-by-5 index card ... how is this person being paid?" Rule No. 6 on the index card is to make your financial adviser commit ...

(My index card was actually the small kind--3x5--but I still managed to cover the basics.) [In case you can't read the text on the index card above, it reads as follows: Goal: To build a low ...