Dave Ramsey

Every few months I like to giveaway a copy of Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover (TMMO) just because I think it is such a helpful and great book…

He covered quite a few topics over the course of the two-hour session, but it seemed the primary message he was trying to get out was that freaking out is not necessary. … He suggested not doing business with big banks, but rather small local banks or credit unions He suggested not to buy gold - arguing that since 1835 it has only returned 1.5% and it is currently at a 175 year high.

…This week’s giveaway So in honor of Dave, we are giving away a copy of the Total Money Makeover on CD for this week’s winner.

Dave Ramsey is creating a town hall meeting and is recruiting churches, businesses, organizations or anyone to open their doors on April 23rd at 8pm EST to broadcast it live. The event is completely free for the venues and the attendees, so you can just show up at any of the local venues hosting it that night to watch it live. If you are interested in finding a local venue in your area, you can visit this page.

Saving money for college vs. retirement …I will say that I completely agree with Dave about this. His stance has always been to save first for retirement and if you have that covered then work on saving for the kids’ college. The simple point is that (worst case) you can take loans for college expenses at reasonable interest rates. While Visa and Mastercard are the only ones offering “Retirement Loans” at 25%. Thinking about it in those terms makes it pretty easy to decide.

I was just watching a Financial Peace DVD yesterday and Dave Ramsey had a really good tip for those having family budgeting troubles. As we all know, finances cause the majority of problems in marriage, and as someone said in the video, when a husband and wife are in agreement about money, everything else seems to fall in line.

These are some simple ways to become poor… 1. Spend more than you make - Actually if you only do #1, you won’t have to worry about the other 9. This is the easiest way for anyone to become poor. It doesn’t matter if you make millions or hundreds each month, the same principle applies.

I just finished James O’Donnell’s book called The Shortest Investment Book Ever: Wall Street Secrets for Making Every Dollar Count. Long title isn’t it? Like the title suggests it is short - about 140 pages and it is smaller in size as well.

These are the pros and cons of money merge accounts… Doing the research, building spreadsheets and running the numbers about MMA’s has led me to one conclusion… So, those are my thoughts on Money Merge Accounts…

I found a good video from Dave Ramsey that goes over the basics of his plan for getting your finances in order. It is pretty funny to watch him try to squeeze everything from his book Total Money Makeover into a 5 minute video.

Debt Snowball: Dave Ramsey’s method for getting out of debt. Creating a debt snowball is Dave Ramsey’s preferred method of getting out of debt. The strength of using this method is that it focuses on the behavioral side of finance rather than the mathematical. Since we are not robots that always do exactly what we know we should, I recommend this method for most people.

The biggest hurdle for most people is saving money. As Dave Ramsey would say, it is a behavioral problem, not a money problem. Getting in the habit of consistently saving is far more crucial to your success than getting a better rate of return (at the beginning). Let me show you why: