NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - You probably have some financial skeletons hiding in your closet. Debts, a horrible credit score, lies, missing money...financial woes you wish would just go away.

In Part III of our series, "Cleaning up your financial act," we take a look at five cardinal sins in finance and explain why you must get these financial skeletons out of your closet. Here are today's five tips.

Holy matrimony, this is a big one. Before you two even say, "I do", any marriage counselor and financial adviser will tell you to have the "money talk."

It's tough to admit one has horrible credit or a mountain of college debt. However, those secrets will come back to haunt you. One spouse's bad credit can affect your ability as a couple to buy a home or car. Worse, running up bills and hiding credit card debt from your spouse could eventually ruin his credit too.

The best plan is full disclosure. While you and your spouse vow to face life together, Dee Lee, financial educator and author of "Women & Money" says you ultimately are responsible for your own debts.

With the goal of buying a home or saving for retirement, it may be in your best interest to work together to fix that spouse's credit history and pay off that debt. Remember, sharing your financial goals is equally important.

Bad move. College isn't cheap: the total average package at a four-year private university costs more than $27,000 according to the College Board. You only have 18 years to save for all that and then you take a chunk out?

According to Lee, you have plenty of other options to free up cash including tapping into your home equity line of credit, asking for a raise, reducing your contributions to your 401(k) for a brief period, cutting out a vacation, or keeping the car for another year.

Depleting Junior's college savings means your family will have to count more on financial aid, which you aren't guaranteed to get. Financial aid takes into account a lot of things: how much the parents earn and have saved for college, how much the student earns and has saved, the mortgage on your home and your other investments.

Replace what you took fast, especially if Junior is closing in on his campus days. You want the money in those funds to keep compounding. Consider asking the grandparents for a loan, says Lee, or it may mean tightening your belt to quickly pay back that cash.

Tell any twenty-something it's time to lay off the fun and save for retirement -- they'll think you're crazy. However, experts say there is no replacement for starting your savings early between the ages of 22 to 35.

Having no retirement savings "would be the number one mistake for a twenty-something to make -- it's even worse than credit card debt," says Lee.

It's all because of compounding. For example, a 25-year-old invests $2,000 a year for just eight years and never invests again after that. She will have earned more by the age of 65 than a 35-year-old who invests $2,000 a year for 32 years, even though the 35-year old invests four times as much.

So there is good reason you're ashamed to admit to your friends you haven't even started your 401(k). You can find the money in your budget. Lee says that twenty-somethings that can shovel $1,000 to $2,000 a year towards their retirement will be golden later in life.

At least contribute to the level where your company will match you in your 401(k). Try to gradually push your contributions higher, one percentage point at a time. Your ultimate goal is to contribute to the max to really milk all the pre-tax savings.

To get an idea what different percent contributions will do to your take-home pay, check out the financial calculators at www.choosetosave.org.

Many of us have borrowed money from Mom and Dad with the promise to "pay it back." Lee says that parents who loan their kids money should just assume it's a gift.

However, many parents, especially those from Baby Boom generation are struggling to gather the funds for their retirement. Since your parents love you, they're not likely to refuse giving you money when you need it.

But keep this in mind: say you borrow $10,000 from Mom & Dad now. Ten years from now, that could be worth $19,671, according to Lee, who used an average investment return of 7 percent. In other words, you essentially depleted nearly $20,000 from Mom & Dad's retirement fund.

Remember, your parents' lack of retirement funds could become your problem in the long run. If you can pay back the loan from Mom & Dad, you should. Lee advises you treat it like a mortgage, paying off maybe $100 at a time so it doesn't feel so cumbersome.

Your ambitions with investing are good, but you may be just too lazy to keep up with it. As a financial educator, Lee sees one cardinal sin often: people have sloppy portfolios.

"There will be random stocks still in there from a stock split years ago...or people are still holding onto their Lucent shares long after they dropped," she says.

Right now, the major stock averages are at very healthy levels. The Dow Industrial Average hit a three and a half year high earlier this week.

"By now, most stocks have rebounded. It's time to get rid of those shares you lost on -- you think they could rebound, but some things are just not going to bounce back," Lee says.

Get in there and clean house. Lee advises you get rid of the losers in your portfolio. If you own stocks in companies that went bankrupt, get a letter from brokerage confirming the bankruptcy and the value you lost because of it. You can use that for a tax deduction.

And also keep an eye on your mutual funds. If any have under-performed other funds in their peer group for more than two years, it's time to dump them. You can compare performance on mutual funds on www.morningstar.com.

By cleaning up your portfolio, you might actually become more engaged in your investing and may be more inspired to stay tuned. If not, consider dropping the idea of playing the market with individual stocks and buy index funds, which offer more diversity to your portfolio.

Gerri Willis is a personal finance editor for CNN Business News and the host for Open House. E-mail comments to 5tips@cnn.com.