Total Money Makeover - Dave Ramsey

I probably read this a couple of months ago, now I think about it, but I have been processing it quite a lot since then.

As the slogan shows this book is written as a way to move people toward financial fitness.  There are a few other slogans that Dave Ramsey tries to get into your head through the book, the main one I remember is "live like no-one else now so that later you can live like no one else."  

Basically, he is addressing one of the downfalls of western culture the "I want it now" mentality that has made credit cards so popular.  I definitely saw his point that America especially has some severe problems with over spending and so I really thought about his approach to solving it. He has a seven step plan as follows:

       Build up a $1000 emergence fund

       Get out of debt

       Build up an emergency fund of 3-6 months

       Save 15% income for retirement

       Save for children's college

       Pay off home earlier

       Build wealth and give

These seemed like pretty simple steps and the way he illustrated his points, which includes lots of sarcasm and yelling, made me think this was something I should be doing so I started on this process.  

Prior to these steps was making a budget.  I did this with my wife fairly easily. The harder part has been sticking to it.  Mint.com has been really helpful for this though, I would recommend it.

We had some money saved already and this became the $1000 emergency fund. We recently figured that we had the money to pay off the loan we took to pay for my green card. Next is the much larger student loan debt. 

It feels good to have some financial goals at the moments and I would recommend this book to most people especially those in debt. I would recommend the audio book if you don't mind being yelled at by a southern accent.  It is also not a get rich quick book.  The way these steps really work is by, as he says, "getting gazelle intense."  This requires getting serious, making sacrifices and probably working more.  Hence, live like no one else. 

A couple of things I'm not so sure about though is his numbers for the return on mutual funds. He claims an average of 12% yield. You would definitely struggle to find that right now, if some one can please show me.  Also, he is extremely anti-credit, which is fine, even saying that experts are wrong and that America would be fine if all credit was gotten rid of. However. As my friend pointed out you can go to his website and pay for his classes by credit card.