When I graduated from college, I was thrilled to get a job in my field and start making some money. I had been living like the broke college student I was and driving a 15-year-old clunker of a car. So, when an older friend told me I needed to upgrade my car to "look professional," I believed her. Boy, was that stupid.

Two days after graduation, I went and bought myself a brand-new car with a $17,000 price tag. I thought I got a pretty good deal on it, since my interest rate was only 8 percent, and my payments would be around $300 a month. I was too young to realize that 8 percent wasn't anything to brag about, and that a $300 car payment on a monthly paycheck of just over $1,500 was going to be a problem.

A few months later, my student loan payments started, and I found myself in a situation where 3/4 of my take-home pay was going to my car, my rent, and my student loans. I was, to use some technical language, financially screwed.

After running up some huge credit card balances, I finally came to my senses. I sold the car, got another clunker, and took a second job to pay off what I still owed on the car. I learned a painful but valuable lesson -- not all financial advice is actually GOOD advice.

I talked to 11 other women who've also learned this lesson the hard way. Read on for some truly bad financial advice and consider this a what-not-to-do list.

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