Money Resolution?
Are you an average American? Have $10,000 in credit card debt and no money in your savings account? Is your New Year’s Resolution to get off the futile never-ending minimum payment treadmill. It may be time for Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University.
It’s a series of 13 classes in churches and community centers around the country. You meet in a group to watch these hilariously entertaining videos about money - can you believe math and finance is interesting and funny?
Then you interact with a group getting moral support. You know, sharing a goal with like-minded people can help you keep a resolution in a BIG way, that’s a scientific fact, as reported in Change or Die: The Three Keys to Change at Work and in Life
My husband and I took the course about 3 years ago and we paid off all our debt (except my student loan, which is next) - had a baby without accruing any debt, bought a used mini-van with cash, traded our gas-guzzling truck for an economy Nissan, we keep an emergency fund and learned to save and invest automatically. We just bought our first home and I not only understood how an interest rate works, I felt like I won the Haggle Olympics.
We were bankrupt before taking the class. Now I have no doubt that we’ll retire with at least a million dollars.
The classes are CHEAP at around $100 per family and they offer free childcare during the class, two books, a set of audio tapes, a bunch of planning documents on CD, and financial advice for the rest of your life.
This kind of finance is hardcore and it’s not for the weak and spineless. It’s finance like my depression-era grandparents lived by. Save first, spend what’s left, buy what you need not what you want, make hard sacrifices early so you’re secure in the future. It’s pretty hard actually. I’ll remember the last four years as some of the hardest, most painful of my life, probably. But, it’s sound and there is peace from knowing what the right thing is and doing it in the end. We don’t do it perfectly, but, we’ll get there.
Visit www.daveramsey.com - and enter your zip code and you’ll find out when and where classes are being held in your area. They might even have a live event near you.
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POSTED IN: Fabulously Cheap
6 opinions for Money Resolution?
Jen
Dec 31, 2007 at 8:16 am
Once again. I am so glad you are in my life. SO thankful for you. I love that we can each tell one another bluntly “What the hell are you thinking?!” when it is necessary. Accountability is a good thing.
Rebecca
Dec 31, 2007 at 9:14 am
I love Dave Ramsey. We bought some furniture yesterday, and when the store asked us if we wanted financing we were so happy to say “NO THANK YOU!” I help on some bankruptcy cases at work and there are so many furniture stores listed among creditors. We spent alot of money yesterday but it’s all cash. We’ve lived in our house for almost two years, without a bunch of furniture that we needed. Totally worth the wait! It’s so strange how alot of bankruptcy clients have alot nicer stuff than the attorneys who are working for them.
Tracee
Dec 31, 2007 at 1:50 pm
It really is so much better.
I think the KEY to the bankruptcies in the furniture financing. Of course your bankruptcy clients have better furniture than the lawyers - their appetite exceeded their income and they haven’t learned to resist “easy payments.”
Easy payments . . . HA! Easy for THEM.
Tracee
Dec 31, 2007 at 1:53 pm
Yes, Jen without the accountability I might definately have bought a new living rooms set. I mean - no interest for a year . . .
But, then who is going to judge me? People with nicer financed furniture? Oh, they never come to my house anyway.
Or you who will walk in and say “what’s the interest rate on that couch and when are you planning to pay it off?”
Just having someone to talk about money honestly with is “priceless” (as opposed to the crap you put on a credit card).
Jen
Jan 1, 2008 at 10:14 am
Rebecca that is very interesting, and not totally surprising. Bankruptcy scares the hell out of me, and it’s that fear that keeps me in check. I never, ever want to go there.
Recession or Sanity?
Jan 30, 2008 at 10:26 am
[…] When I hear recession I’m thinking - finally, people are starting to listen to the likes of Suze Orman, Dave Ramsey, and others (like myself) who have called for a halt to the kind of foolish borrowing and spending that’s marked the last few years with a kind of financial delirium. […]
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