Know when your credit card closing dates are, and take advantage of them.
Use your credit cards to purchase all your normal monthly purchases in place of the cash you would have used.
When making your normal monthly purchases use the card that has the most time before it's closing date.
When the bills for your cards come, pay them in full, to avoid paying ANY interest on them.
By doing this you can get about a month of use out of the money (The time before the closing date), with out paying any interest, on it.
During that month the money you would have spent on your normal monthly expenses / items can be earning you interest, in your bank account.
Some of these bank accounts can be high yield money market accounts.
When you pay the balance on your credit card at the end of its month (after it closes), the interest your money earned in your bank account during that month, is your to keep.
Since you paid the card in full when it's bill was due, you will not owe the credit card company any interest.
You will be paying only the amount you spend on your normal monthly expenses / purchases.
You should substitute credit card purchases for the things that you would normally buy each month with cash you have.
Don't make purchases you can't pay off at the end of the month.
The only exception to this is of course emergencies.
If you are forced to use the card for an emergency loan, and you wont be able to pay it off at the end of the month, you will need to pay the balance off as quickly as possible, to minimize the interest you pay. Don't just make the minimum payment, it will cost you a fortune!

Here is a simple explanation of Good Debt, Bad Debt, how to recognize them, and manage them to your advantage.

Lets say you have:
a Mortgage at 5% interest
a Credit Card balance at 20% interest
a High Yield Money Market Bank Account earning 10% interest, with enough money in it to easily pay off the mortgage and the credit card.
(This could also be an investment (security), but for this example your interest earning money is in a High Yield Money Market Bank Account)

In this example your money currently earns 10% each year in your bank account.
Your credit card costs 20% on its balance (called principal) each year.
Your Mortgage costs 5% on it's principal balance each year.

The wise choice of action here is to Pay off the credit card balance, but keep making payments on the mortgage.
Many uninformed people ask, why wouldn't you pay off the mortgage? (after all you have the money to do so)
Here is why:

In a given year your money earns 10%
The credit card costs you 20%
This means you are losing 10% a year on that money, by keeping your credit card payment.
10% earned interest - 20% credit card interest gives you a 10% loss.
The credit card costs you 10% more a year than your money earns.
By paying off the credit card, you are eliminating a 10% a year loss.
Your money just doesn't earn that much.
In this example the credit card represents bad debt, because it costs you more than your money earns.
Once money is paid on debt (principal), it no longer costs interest on that money.
Had you kept your credit card payments going, you would have had to earn an additional 10% a year somewhere else just to cover your payments.
Owing nothing (0%) additional each year on a debt is better than owing an additional 10% a year (amount above your interest earnings).

In the same given year, your money earns 10%
The Mortgage costs you 5%
This means you are profiting 5% a year by keeping your mortgage payment.
10% earned interest - 5% mortgage interest leaves you 5% earned interest.
The mortgage costs you 5% less a year than your money earns.
By paying off the mortgage you would eliminating a 5% a year profit.
In this example the mortgage represents good debt.
Once money is removed from your interest bearing account, it no longer earns interest on that money.
That 5% a year is yours to keep! Had you paid off this debt (a mortgage in this example) your money would no longer be earning anything.
5% earnings a year (left after your payment) is 5% a year more than nothing!

These concepts apply to any earned interest, versus interest cost on debts that you may have.
Earned interest can be derived from any source such as bank accounts, or investments (securities), or anything that pays you interest.
Debt interest can be derived from any source such as credit cards, loans, mortgages, payment plans, or anything that costs you interest.

If you have high interest debts (Such as Credit Cards), that you can't afford to pay off, or can only make the minimum payment on, you may consider consolidating them in to one lower interest loan.
Doing so can save you a fortune in interest payments, as well as providing you with one lower monthly payment, that you can afford!
There are debt consolidation loans available, as well as other even better options available to crafty individuals.
A home equity loan, or second mortgage for property owners, may prove to be significantly cheaper, as they can offer some of the lowest interest rates. One may also try borrowing from a credit union if possible. Many of them offer lower rate loans.
Of course the idea here, is to get the best loan deal you can get, and then use it to pay off your higher interest debts.
By doing this you convert the high interest debts that are strangling you, in to manageable payments, while simultaneously raining in the excessive interest to something more reasonable.
Making the minimum payments on credit cards will keep you paying for many years, possibly for the rest of your life!
Once you pay off those cards with the money from your loan, don't go out and max them out again!!!
Give them a month to make sure the high interest charges don't get automatically grandfathered on to any new purchases.
Then, only use your credit cards in the manner described above in: Taking Advantage of Credit Cards Properly / Normal Use.

The relationship between Stocks and Bonds:
Stocks and Bonds fluctuate inversely to one another.
When Stocks go Up, Bonds go Down
When Stocks go Down Bonds go Up
There is a seesaw effect between stocks and bonds.
Keeping both stocks and bonds in ones portfolio helps minimize extreme drops in portfolio value, when the market is down.

Volatility: (Dispelling some misconceptions)
Volatility can be good or bad, and it is necessary.
The more volatile something is the more it is prone to fluctuate, either up or down.
The more volatile something is the more you stand to profit, or lose from fluctuation.
This directly relates greater risk to greater earnings or loss potential.
Stocks are typically more volatile than bonds.

Index Funds:
Index Funds are funds that invest in an entire market (such as NASDAQ or the S&P500) at once.
Traditionally, by investing in an index fund one would earn what the market earned. (The market traditionally earned approximately 10% per year)
For a long time this was considered to be a sort of auto pilot for investors.

Simple theory on beating the market: (Don't throw good money after bad!)
The market has many investments listed in it.
There are investments that have historically been nothing but losers, existing in each and every market since their inception!!!
By simply eliminating the markets losers from your market based portfolio, and keeping only the winners, you should in theory, beat the market.
Refinement to the theory:
Pick a diversified portfolio of only the historically consistent top winners and none of the losers.

Keep a buffer of cash available:
The market goes up and down like a rollercoaster.
Emergencies happen, in addition to every day living expenses.
You want to buy low (cheap) and sell high (get top dollar).
When you need money for living expenses, or an emergency happens, you don't want to be forced to sell while your investment share price is low.
If your emergency is time critical, you also may not have time to liquidate (sell and convert to cash) your investment in time.
You need to budget, and maintain a buffer of cash to ride out the down market times as well as day to day living expenses, and emergencies.

The economy fluctuates, and effects many things.
Inflation and Recession are opposite extremes. These extremes are both extremely undesirable.
This is why there are always attempts to regulate and balance out the economy, by the agencies that preside over them.
In America, the Federal Reserve commonly referred to as the FED, is the agency that has the job of regulating the American economy.

To begin one needs to understand how business is done. Business is done on credit!
For example:
When a buyer places an order to a company for 10,000 of the product they manufacture, that company must buy the parts necessary to produce that order. Lets say the parts will cost them a million dollars. They don't have a million dollars on hand, so they obtain the parts with credit.
They then build their products and sell them to their buyer.
The buyer pays them, and they take a portion of that payment and repay their creditors and pay their employee salaries.
The remainder of the money is their profit.
The company that bought that product, may be putting that product in to a more sophisticated product, that they manufacture.
As a business, they have a buyer purchasing their products, and they get loans / credit to purchase what is needed to produce their product.
When interest rates are down it is more attractive for businesses to stock up / buy on credit what they need to do business, or to expand their business. When interest rates are up it is less desirable to buy any thing on credit.

The interest rate that the Federal Reserve regulates, is the very interest rate that businesses borrow money at, in order to do business.
When the market falls, sales and purchasing are down, and we head towards recession, the FED lowers interest rates to stimulate the economy.
Lowering the interest rate businesses borrow at, makes it more attractive for them to do business.
When we are facing inflation (the devaluation of  our currency), and markets are approaching dangerously high levels too fast, the FED raises interest rates, in order to slow business, and the economy. This has the effect of raining in the inflation.
Raising the interest rate businesses borrow at, makes it much less attractive for them to do business.

This also effects market psychology.
Investors tend to do less in fear of what the FED will do when they meet, particularly when approaching inflation or recession.