The first step in taking charge of your financial life is figuring out where you want to go. That may sound obvious, but it’s difficult because people just don’t want to ask for help when they need it. It’s not just Americans, it’s universal. In fact, a British psychologist found that one in seven people would prefer a visit to the dentist rather than seeing a financial planner.

Buyer beware: your bank may be trying to protect its revenue stream in the face of increased government scrutiny by adding unnecessary fees to financial instruments like your debit card. A report in today's New York Times says banks are beginning to aggressively market products like automatic overdraft protection fees. Without these fees, banks stand to lose some $20 billion annually.

President Obama signed the CARD Act back in May 2009, but the new regulations on credit card issuers took until today to come into effect. The law was designed to protect consumers from many of the hidden fees, rate changes and small print traps that cost Americans $15 billion each year, but some aspects of the bill changed along the way. Now that it's here, how will it affect your monthly statements?

All week we've been following the ways in which our lives have become inundated with fine print. For the fourth segment in our series, Takeaway contributor Beth Kobliner, author of "Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance In Your Twenties and Thirties," looks at why more people are defaulting on student loans than ever before and how you can avoid being buried by the fine print.

Click through to read Beth's five points to consider when applying for (or paying down) your student loans.

We take a look at the growing trend of buying prepaid debit cards, and whether it's financially good or bad. New York Times' finance reporter Louise Story helps us figure out if this is a good way to spend your money or just a bad decision.

Americans paid off $21.6 billion in credit card debt and other consumer loans in July. That is the biggest decline in consumer debt since 1943, when the Federal Reserve started keeping track. The Takeaway's business contributor, Louise Story, a finance reporter for the New York Times, says the economy will fundamentally change if Americans take on a new attitude about spending money they don’t have.

The first phase of the "Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act of 2009" goes into effect this week. While some major provisions of the law won't kick in until next year, credit card companies have to make some immediate changes, including giving cardholders advance notice about interest rate hikes. Personal finance expert and The Takeaway's finance contributor Beth Kobliner joins us to help explain the new rules.

U.S. banks stand to collect $38.5 billion from increasingly strict overdraft fees this year, and credit card users are seeing their cards' interest rates rocket higher for no apparent reason. As financial institutions try to increase their revenues using fine print and fees, financial guru Gary Belsky talks us through what you can and can't do in response.

A multi-million-dollar industry has been pushing brides to spend more and more money in the search for a "perfect day." But now the average amount spent on weddings is beginning to go down. How are brides-to-be pinching pennies on their way down the aisle? Joining The Takeaway with some advice is Beth Kobliner, personal finance expert and author of Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance in Your Twenties and Thirties.

New figures from the U.S. Department of Commerce show that in May, Americans saved more of their income than they have since 1993. But the only way to get a floundering economy to pick up is for people to spend their money rather than hold onto it. Wall Street Journal Reporter Kelly Evans talks to The Takeaway about this paradox of thrift.

Elizabeth Warren, Chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel on TARP and professor at Harvard Law School, continues her conversation with The Takeaway. Before she was monitoring government expenditure, she wrote several books on personal finance including, All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan. So before she left we wanted to get her take on personal finance and how the nation's families are affected by tight credit markets.

Click here to hear Elizabeth Warren's discussion of TARP and her role overseeing the multi-trillion dollar fund.

To read an excerpt from Elizabeth Warren's book, All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan, click here.

Tomorrow, government officials will reveal the results of so-called "stress tests" conducted on the nation's largest banks. The tests analyzed the banks’ finances to see how they would hold up in a deep recession. In anticipation of the results, we invited two of our listeners to come on the show to undergo their very own financial stress tests with Gary Belsky, author of Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes and How to Correct Them. He’ll make some recommendations on the best ways to make sure they keep their heads above water, no matter what happens with the economy.

Takeaway contributor and personal finance whiz Alvin Hall has been helping homeowners dissect the Obama administration's housing plan. Earlier we heard from Pamela Zombeck, a homeowner in Salem, Massachusetts who was struggling to pay her mortgage. Now we sic Alvin on a more complicated situation: the speculator, the guys who bought homes as investments and now have a lot to lose as mortgage payments escalate and housing prices fall. Scott Mintz of Los Angeles bought four homes and has a lot of questions for Alvin.

Click here for Part One