Who's in. Not a resolution but a Goal

Heres my plan. OK Dave Ramseys plan. I am starting my plan to be debt free in 18 months. Who's in or better who here has used his ideas for there debts?

I have started my budget, got the wife on board and have committed to this. So mabey i can get back to racing sooner than i was origanaly planning.

 

I am pretty close anyway and didn't need to pay Dave for a lesson in common sense.

 

Very true. His teachings are a "kick in the nuts"...

 

If you listen to his radio show, you don't pay a dime, you are re-affirmed of your bad spending habits every night when you hear all the others calling in that are in in worse shape than you are. It boost your confidence that you can have the will power to NOT be stupid and end up like them.

Its a win win, its free and its good for the economy for you to use common sense and not add to the current economic crisis.

I wish you good luck sir, stay gazelle intense and stick to the budget. If you haven't picked up his total money makeover book, its helpful when it comes to pre-built budgets and workbook stuff to make it a little clearer. You just fill it out with your info and you are good to go! Get that debt snowball rolling and hope to see you post 'I'm Debt Free' in 18 months.

Good luck!

 

I could be debt free in 18 months if somebody would give me 150k.

 

K.....who's Dave Ramsey and what's his magical mystery plan for getting outta debt? I could certainly use some help!


He has books or ??

 

Jesus, no seriously, thats the base of his financial advice. Nothing he says is a revelation, it's just "Don't spend money you don't have on sh@t you don't need", and "Pay off bills instead of going out to eat". Well i take that back, i'm sure plenty of Americans have never really thought about why they are broke before. I just found his book (a gift from my sister) pretty superficial. I'm more of a fan of Robert Kiyosaki.

 

^^^ well that certainly makes boat loads of common sense. I just thought there was a trick to paying down CC's or some junk. I'll have to investigate both authors and see what they say.

 

Here's an idea............

Spend less than you earn and you can reduce your debt.

it's rocket science I tell you...........

 

Yeah lol, the guy's a Beast!

Look at his book, Financial Peace....I'm reading it right now

 

List your debts from smallest to largest.

Pay everything you can on the smallest. Sell so much stuff that's lying around that the dog and kids get nervous. Put that money on the smallest debt. Once it's paid off, move to the next one. Take the amount you were paying before on the smallest and add that to it's payment.

It's called the debt snowball. As you move up your list, the payments grow, just like a snowball.

 

When I was selling cars I had this married couple that had jumped onto the Ramsey bandwagon. They were living WAAAAAAAAYYYYY above their means. He was a pastor and she was a state employee, so between the two of them they only made about 45-50k per year. He drove a long bed, crew cab loaded diesel truck, she drove a really nice mini van and had been getting a new car every couple of years and just piling on the negative equity (they had good credit so the bank kept giving them loans). He was able to trade in his truck on a low mileage but older basic 2wd dodge. I actually gave him back 10k. She was a different story. She owed nearly 40k on a van that had depreciated to less than 10. Nobody would touch her, so she was stuck with it. She'd call me every few months to see if she could trade it in, as if it was going to miraculously go up in value. Never did. I actually got call from her a couple days before I left the car business. I should of just told her the truth, that the only way out of that van was to set it on fire. Instead I told her that I was leaving, but she should come in and see another salesman, that he could help her out. Who knows, maybe they could find away out from under it.

 

This is a current goal for me, have not exactly formulated anything resembling a "plan" though. Still struggling with the concept of taking a year off from racing...

 

Quit spending so much money and then send some my way

 

Don't get me wrong, Ramsey is pretty sharp and I think he is right in just about everything he says. I just don't like that he wants you to pay a bunch of money per month for his "plan". Yeah you can listen to his radio show also.

Of course most won't follow his basic first rule.....cut up the credit cards.

 

18 months? Um, yeah, no. But I have resolved to not finance (with credit cards) any of my track endeavors this year, and aggressively pay off what I can. Last year, I paid off about 10k in debt, but ran up about 8k more. No more of that (now that the wedding's out of the way!), I can just pay shit off and leave it that way. By the end of the year, I'd really love to have all the credit cards paid off, or close to it. We'll see.

 

http://www.feedthepig.org/

Lots of everyday common sense suggestions.

 

I'm glad you're starting on this! Ignore most of the doubters. You need to do what you need to do to be debt free. I have his book and bought one for the kiddo. She's halfway through paying off a 6k debt in 18 months. She makes $10/bucks an hour. She's also trying to purchase her first home. We have a prime equity loan that will hopefully be paid off in 2-3 years. House will be paid off in about 13. Other than that we pay cash for everything. If we don't have the cash, we don't get it.

 

Don't start racing, then maybe you can get out of debt instead of digging a bigger hole!

 

I've listened to Dave Ramsey for years...followed most everything he said, have been for debt free for years (except my mortgage) blah blah blah. The fact is I NEVER paid him, nor any of his sponsors, a single dime.

Sure, he's a business man, but that doesn't in any way negate the value of his ideas and plan. Some personalities respond better when they have the concrete plan written out in front of them...those are the folks who need to pay for his plan. If you are not one of them, just listen to the radio show...and not just once. listen to 5 or 10 shows to really get a flavor of what he's talking about.

NO, there is no magic or unraveled mystery, but he addresses the human factor, which is not so obvious to most.

I agree...ignore the doubters. You'll be on track sooner than you think.