When we grow up and create a new way of living In response to the bad habits of those around us, going against the grain can be exactly what we need to move forward. With that in mind, this blog caught our eye: "7 Ways To Eat Good On A Hood Budget."

John Roderick is the leader of the Long Winters. Hear how his experience growing up has shaped his business—as a musician and a bandleader.

Eleanor Friedberger of The Fiery Furnances and solo-music fame shares what money lessons she learned from her family and living as a musician.

In about 2.5-3 years my husband and I have a balloon payment due on a second mortgage. The mortgage amount is 42,000 that we will need to pay back. After the addition of twins to our family in dec. 2011 I became a stay at home mom and while we are mostly breaking even we aren't making a dent in that balloon and have no idea at this point how we are going to pay it back. Our house value is underwater and all attempts so far at refinancing have not resulted in anything. The solution seems to be to take a loan from our 401K but I am sure that there are all sorts of things that I am not realizing or thinking of since the number one rule of retirement finance seems to be "don't touch the 401K". My husband currently makes 100K a year at a stable job. That will never increase but he gets variable bonuses twice a year equaling about an additional 30K. He is 31 and has 190K in his 401K. I have about 90K in retirement savings between a roth IRA and my 401K that I rolled over after leaving work. In a few years I may go back to work but right now that is up in the air. We are just worried that when the balloon payment hits our only option at that point will be to borrow from the 401K and were wondering whether doing it now versus then made more sense. We would certainly save a lot of interest in the mean time on the mortgage. We have several other debts as well that we are working on including car payments, student loans, and an IVF loan. In a few years our financial situation will be greatly improved with paying some of these off but we will still have the second mortgage to contend with. Any thoughts would be appreciated, Thanks, Gin Braband

My husband and I have no credit card debt but we have $130,000 in student loan debt. We have a 4.5 percent fixed interest on our mortgage and 26 more years on the loan. We have $15,000 in savings. After our bills (not food, clothes, entertainment etc) are paid we have about $3,000 a month. What is the best way to budget that money? We do not have any investments and we have an infant baby.

I have been unemployed or underemployed for several years now. I'm ineligible for unemployment and not likely to be hired anytime soon. I am 54 years old and own a home with an adjustable-rate mortgage. The monthly mortgage payment is far lower than rent would be if I were to move. I also have some money in a 401K retirement account. The sad fact is that I need money for living expenses, and that means either sell stock from my 401k or sell my home. But I have no idea how to quantify which of these bad options is worse. Can you help?

My husband and I are both public school teachers. We have 403b retirement accounts, state-supported teacher retirement system pensions, and other savings accounts, including a 529 plan for our 12 year old child. It seems to me that we are putting a significant amount of money into these accounts, but have little left over to spend on things we can enjoy now such as family vacations. How do we know how much to save without compromising our current quality of life? I would like to be able to enjoy life more now, not save everything for the time when we retire. I do not want an extravagant lifestyle, I'd just like to enjoy our time together as a family while we still have it. Thank you, Jill Hanson

Financial resolutions, cutting back frivolous spending and big student loans. Must be another round of Ask Carmen!

Gifting stocks, retirement account tax implications and 529s. Carmen tackles them all in rapid-fire for this month's lightning round.

I have about a quarter of my retirement money with a financial advisor who charges the following: The advisor gets 1 percent of assets under management; 0.2 percent goes to the third-party custodian; 0.3 percent goes to the company that decided the asset allocation that was set up, based on my age, answers to questions about risk, volatility. Now I find out there is an expense ratio for the ETFs; as well as the costs of commissions when buying and selling the ETFs to rebalance, as well as something called the bid/ask spread. I am thinking of moving this money to Vanguard.