Sound financial advice doesn't change much from year to year. Bad money management ideas, however, seem to mutate and flourish with each passing season.

Borrowing against our home equity and retirement funds, for example, was once tough to do -- and generally understood as a bad idea. Today, financial services companies encourage us to do both. Lenders also urge us to stretch farther and farther to buy our homes, often to our peril.

Use a home equity loan to pay off credit-card debt

Lenders love to tout home equity loans and lines of credit as a way to pay off your plastic. You'll even see some personal finance journalists parroting the company line that such loans make sense, because home equity rates are typically lower than the interest rates you'd pay on your cards -- and the interest is usually tax deductible.

Borrow from your 401(k)

Companies don't have to offer a loan feature with their 401(k) retirement plans, but according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, most of them do. Eighty-three percent of American workers covered by 401(k) plans can borrow against their accounts, and about one in five participants had an outstanding loan in 2005. The average balance was $6,946, said the Investment Company Institute.

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Good read, nice post!

Thanks for the heads up, tb.