Just bought Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover

If new, you just made Ramsey richer. Its pretty simple ideas and logic. Nothing groundbreaking.

quote:

---

If new, you just made Ramsey richer. Its pretty simple ideas and logic. Nothing groundbreaking.

---

kindle edition, so he can have the $7

i know its a lot of simple ideas and logic, but they're all in one place

thats worth $7 to me

quote:

---

Your thoughts on the book?

anyone here read it and have tried it?

---

Yes, it works.

I changed my lifestyle after reading his book and taking his 13 week course.

Some people will disagree and say he speaks to dumb asses, but the average American citizen has nearly $16K in debt, paying 13 % in a month in interest.

Credit Card statistics

IT is simple, but it helps organize everything and gives you a boost to get started. That's the hard part is getting started and sticking with it.

If you follow his plan, you will be debt free.

quote:

---

wegotdatwood

---

quote:

---

Any books yall recommend if you're not in debt? I'm still in school but here's my situation.


Have 10k in checking, 5,500 in roth ira. I'm 23 years old.

My car is paid off. Won't have any debt when I get out of school. Will make 40 to 50 starting out and future wife makes about 30.

---

You don't need any books, bro. You're fine just the way you are. Just don't plunge into any crazy investments.

Buy a house that's somewhere very close to triple what your starting salary IS coupled with what your wife's salary IS. Go by W-2 & paycheck stubs, not by "well I'm going to get a raise" or pie in the sky assumptions.

Great start.

It is a fairly simplified but commonsense approach. To his credit, he admits that this is not necessarily the *best* approach, but it happens to be one that works reasonably well and that is accessible to someone a lot of experience.

I generally agree with this. For an example of less than ideal recommendation, he suggests that if you have lots of credits cards you should pay off the one with the smallest balance first as a way of getting encouragement to keep at it. Actually, you should pay off the highest rate card.

Another example is that he recommends carrying as little debt as possible, none at all even. Again, this is not really true, sometimes having low-interest debt is a good thing. For example, paying a 4% mortgage early is probably not a good use of the money. It's better right now to pay the minimum and invest the extra money in a tax-deferred account like a 401(k).

All that said, if simple and effective is what you need it works fine. And he's generally good at telling you when he's trying to make things simple, which separates him from a lot of hucksters.

quote:

---

My car is paid off. Won't have any debt when I get out of school. Will make 40 to 50 starting out and future wife makes about 30.

---

Just keep saving your money and stay out of credit card debt. Max out your 401k EVERY YEAR. Save, save, save.

buy a the worst house in a neighborhood with a good location that will increase in value by the time you are ready to sell it. improve it and sell it in 7-10 years.

You'd be amazed at house much money you will make in that transaction. And most people don't realize that you'll never work your way to that "great house" unless you start small and build your way up through equity.

quote:

---

I know it was stupid to open so many (thought I was doing good by having a bigger limit) Haven't paid a dime of interest on them.

---

Many will tell you to keep them open to not hurt your credit history. The minority will tell you to close them, because you will decrease the risk of credit card fraud and if you're truly trying to be come debt free, why do you need a credit card to pay for things?

You have to weigh what is most important to you. For me, I closed all of my credit card accounts (about 5 or 6 years ago), but recently opened a credit card account with PenFed to take advantage of their cash rewards program. I am now responsible with my spending, so I decided that this was in the best interest of what I want to do and pay off my entire balance monthly.

My credit score was not impacted negatively, because of my previous credit history (auto payments and home mortgage).

Say I put 7k from my roth ira would that be smart as a long term play? Yall think it would ever split?

A split depends on what your Roth IRA is invested in, in most cases I would say no because you dont want to be heavily invested in individual stocks in your Roth. But yes, adding to your Roth would be a good long term investment. The amount would depend on how much reserve you need to keep on hand and that depends on your monthly exspenses.

Also, there is a yearly limit to how much you can put into your roth each year (the smaller of $5,000 or the amount of your taxable compensation for 2012) BUT... you have until April to contribute to 2011's limit. so, if you havent put any into your Roth for 2011, go ahead and do so and you can still contribute $5000 for 2012 as well.