If I were a "financial expert," I'd have a lot more money than I do, but just raw experience has taught me a few things so I can take a crack at #5:

Diversification is key to protecting your investments. Generally speaking, stocks are good if you are planning on holding your money for a long time. Young people should be socking about half their retirement/IRA money in stocks. Go for funds that are spread across a wide range of stocks. Most of mine is in an S&P 500 fund. It will not make you rich, but it's safer than trying to make a Big Score.

Gold is not an investment, but a value preserver. The equivalent of putting inflation-proof money in a sock. The good news/bad news is that it will have pretty much the exact same purchasing power it had when you spend it twenty years from now, even if it costs twenty bucks for a hamburger. Interestingly, an ounce of gold buys pretty much today what it bought in the 1800s. You have to be really paranoid about the economy to put a lot of your savings in gold.

Real estate doesn't suck, either. My house is worth about three times what I paid for it 15 years ago. Of course, that's out here in California, but you have to be in a really crappy area to have a house worth less than you paid for it five years later.