Of course I'm not following it completely with our 30 year mortgage, but we are making extra payments in order to pay it off early. After doing all those other things — saving, investing, college funding, mortgages — Dave says you move on to the mythical 7th step where you just continue building wealth, and giving a large percentage of what is left over. For me I think the giving portion should be stressed as it is such an important part of this. We're all happiest when we're giving to other people, and building wealth for wealth's sake is pretty pointless. I'm glad he points out that giving is so important, and I'm glad that he points out that money and wealth won't make you happy, but having a personal relationship with Christ — and giving as he did — will.

I believe the process it lays out is a sound one whereby you plan for the present through emergency funds, you pay off your debts incurred in the past, and then you set about planning for your own and your family's future. For a full look at Ramsey's 7 Baby Steps, head on over to his site: But the more I reflected…. The recession has popularized his teachings about saving, eliminating debt,…. Here is an in depth look at Dave Ramsey's Baby Steps plan for getting out of debt, building wealth and giving.

The plan really is…. Peter Anderson is a Christian, husband to his beautiful wife Maria, and father to his 2 children. He loves reading and writing about personal finance, and also enjoys a good board game every now and again. You can find out more about him on the about page. Don't forget to say hi on Pinterest , Twitter or Facebook! If you have to cut her, try a community college for a couple of years. You will save tens of thousands in cash or debt.

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Bill Muhlenfelds last blog post.. The College Credit Card Trap. What is more important retiring with dignity or sending your child to school? Were as not having enough resources to retire can actually kill you. Better to raise a child with good character and a good education, the better to qualify for scholarships.


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And working to fund your own education builds character. It opens limited doors on its own. It DOES put you in a different hiring poo however; light years above high school grads. THAT degree will make much more use of itself. College for your children: But our son went to school based on his grades. He got full scholarships not sports and state grants and he is debt free right out of college! He has a good job and can pay all his bills! My husband and I did pay for college for both of our children through the Florida Pre-paid College Plan.

We locked in the rates, and our payments were extremely low. My son has a degree through Florida State. My daughter chose another route, took four years of pottery at the college level, never graduated, and is now a master potter. My husband started working for our local utility company in , and in two years will be able to retire at the age of He had no college education at all, only on the job training.

Rowe says putting an emphasis on college education sends many graduates into the work force saddled with high debt—and without skills that could have been acquired more affordably at vocational schools. College is not a necessity for success. Worst case scenario, your kid will have to do the same. Having college paid for is a luxury that your kid may not even deserve. I thank you for going over this subject.

My fiance and I are starting out on this road before we get married. I think is the one of the best book and ideas I have read in a long time. The best part is that we can start our life out debt free and start saving for a house within a year of being married. This book should be a must for everyone, all high school and college kids should be given this as a class.

I really wish I knew these things then and I would be in such a better place now. What I love about Dave is that even before I read his book or knew who he was I shared a lot of his principles with my clients.

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It really changed our lives for the better. Since teaching the class myself this winter I know it can change others lives as well. For us, Baby Step 0 came in as we started thinking about having children. By fall of we were blessed with a new baby boy, had graduated from Financial Peace University, started our emergency fund, eliminated 42K of our 50K debt snowball, and dropped down to a single-income family. I just found this site and I have to say that it rocks! I cannot wait to learn more and read the comments!

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It will not be achieved overnight but sticking towards the goals and trying to achieve will eventually be rewarding to the individual. I think the best thing the Baby Steps and the Crown Money Map have done for people is to give them a guide and a set of priorities for financial goals. I know for my wife and I, our efforts were diluted for a long time becasue we were trying to pay off debt, save, invest, etc.

Once we found these tools, we were able to have a focus. We could somewhat forget about everything else which can be overwhelming and focus on our immediate goal. I look forward to reading the rest of the series. Good thing we did, lost my job this march…been diagnosed with MS. Wife has to support me now. House is all we owe for and in 5 years that will be done. Thanks Dave for opening our eyes.

Tithe is the first thing. Then hit the small stuff…7 baby steps.. My itty nitty bone to pick is his unwillingness to adjust to the current economic conditions. I understand the principle, but with layoffs and companies folding left and right, we decided to flip steps 2 and 3.


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  • I think you have to balance the need for security, and the need to get out of debt. If you were looking at a possible layoff I think I might be more inclined to see the need for saving up a bit more in the old emergency fund. I personally like how Suze Orman had readily admitted that the economic times may call for different strategies, depending on your situation of course. But I am grateful to Dave, because he gave us the wake-up call to look at our money in the first place. I certainly see your point.

    Also at that point the gazelle intensity concept starts to wane a bit as well. But as you say, difficult times call for difficult measures. All happened in one week, we cant get past baby step one. Yeah, at times when it rains it pours. We have just had a huge medical bill show up this week for a trip to the ER and overnight hospital visit that we just had. Sorry about the big bills! So many people cannot save a dime so these steps are for them. However, most people swimming in debt would have to be told absolutely not to a credit card, it most likely got them into their situation to begin with.

    Yes I adjusted the baby steps and kept more emergency cash and still had the car loan a bit longer. Just jot down your budget categories! Now that you have a list of your budget categories, you want to identify the ones where you think you have the most room for improvement. What are you wasting money on?

    Here are the envelopes for those three categories. I set a budget for each of them and went to the bank to get the cash. My goal was to make it last for two weeks. I wrote down the deposit amount on the back of each envelope, and I kept track of my spending using a note-taking app and the calculator on my smartphone. Immediately after shopping online, I took money from one of the cash envelopes and transferred it to the envelope for online spending so that I held myself accountable for that purchase.


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    • Some people will instead use prepaid cards or gift cards to shop online while on a cash budget. Before I made a trip to the store, I took out the money I needed and left the rest at home.

      How It All Works

      Debt is corrosive, almost to the point of being a moral failure. Ramsey, 53, got his start in radio with a show in Nashville in By the time he came to the attention of the coastal elites in the mids, his show was already a national force, with 2 million listeners. Ramsey tells people that no matter the state of their financial lives, there is hope for recovery if they will just take responsibility and start to take action. We are a society that is drowning in debt.

      Major institutions are in debt.

      The radio stations that carry his show are in debt. The government that provides the airwaves for the radio show is in debt. People are stressed because people live in a very tempting culture. Ramsey also lends his name to a mortgage company, a business that buys gold, and family web-filtering software. Top financial advisers counsel the affluent about the fine points of how to invest their money, maybe along with estate planning and sanding down tax bills. Ramsey focuses his advice mainly on people struggling to get out of costly consumer debt. His bestselling book The Total Money Makeover has about two pages describing which mutual fund to invest in.

      Only then can you move on to investing. According to the Census Bureau, half of U. As Ramsey points out, it makes more sense mathematically to target high-rate debt, but the idea is to quickly see evidence that you are on your way to being debt-free. I have never before felt like I had total control over my money. Other tips, though, are strangely vague. More consequentially, Ramsey advocates a portfolio of only stock funds, with no bonds.

      He does say that those with low risk tolerance might add a balanced fund, which includes some bonds as well as stocks. In fact, this is unhinged from the reality of the investing world. Goetzmann, professor of finance at Yale. Part of the issue is a wonky-sounding math point, which you can see illustrated below click the image for a larger view.

      But here are the numbers, using data from Morningstar.