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The Total Money Makeover Summary

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I would like to review the book “The Total Money Makeover” by Dave Ramsey. I picked this book based on the reviews and the chapter headings. When I read “Flying Turkeys and Skinny-Dipping” and “Denial: I’m Not That Out of Shape”, I new this was the right book for me. I’m on the road a lot for work so I decided to download the book onto my phone so I could listen to it while driving. The hours flew by as I listened to this amazing book. I would like to point out five critical points of this book that I identified with and consider life changing for me. 1. DENIAL: First, you need to realize there’s a problem. Dave pointed out that “70 percent of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck” (Ramsey 41) The Dave Rant at the end of the chapter…show more content…
We are enticed by advertisements on how easy it is to get credit and buy on time” (Ashton 4). We are often counseled by our church leaders to avoid unnecessary debt and if we are in debt to get out of it as soon as possible. In the previous Pathway course, Life Skills, I learned how binding debt, keeping us from fulfilling our family and spiritual obligations. Dave Ramsey said, “If you are living in the bondage of debt, you’re not living" (Ramsey 51). 3. BABY STEPS: The first baby step is to save $1000 fast. Dave says, “You can get anywhere if you simply go one step at a time” (Ramsey 118). He also stressed creating a budget even before the first baby step saying, “You must set up a budget, a written budget every month” (Ramsey 120). I learned that budgeting is the best and hardest part of the whole process. We were able to do this in excel and watch our spending. At first the reality hit of my over, unnecessary spending. Through budgeting the last several months, we have been able to pay our tithing, pay our bills and save a little more. I say “We” because Dave also stressed the fact that as a marriage, my husband I need to do this together. He said, “The number one cause of divorce in America is money fights and money problems. Spouses just don’t know how to talk to each other about money. That’s because most of the time the husband and wife have…show more content…
THE DEBT SNOWBALL: What I loved about this step is that is very similar to the Debt-Elimination Calendar suggested in “One for the Money”. In this chapter the most profound thing I read was, “Personal finance is 80 percent behavior and 20 percent head knowledge” (Ramsey 136) The Debt Snowball is designed to modify the behavior responsible for acquiring the debt. This method required us to list all of our debts in order of smallest payoff balance to largest, paying of the smallest balance first, and then applying that payment to the minimum payment being made on the next debt and so on. I am using this method with great success and look forward to being debt free within a
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