Dave Ramsey - question

[Luv Donald Duck]

I have seen on this board alot of Disers who love the Dave Ramsey program. I know nothing of this until I saw someone on this board talking about him. I have looked him up online. My question is do I need to attend a class to use his method? I see online that I can find a class near me but I would prefer to do it at home in my spare time each night if possible. Has anyone bought his product and done it at home sucessesfully?

 

[mrudman]

I have never bought a single product of his..

I've just looked everything up online.. found his baby steps... modified his program to fit what would work best for me... and have loved every minute of it.

I now have a 2k emergency fund, no CC debt (working on 1 car loan now, will be paid off in 13 months), and use the envelope system each paycheck for yearly and bi-yearly bills (trash, sewer, etc).

 

[Gr8t Fan]

Same here, never bought any of his products, but I have read his books for free from the library and found free information online too.

 

[mydisneyobsession]

I'm sure there is a lot of great information in the course, but I started out by just listening to his radio show. I've never attended the class or purchased anything. He talks about the principles in detail on his show every day, and I applied those to our financial situation and saw changes right away.

If you don't have access to his radio show, you could probably get his book the Total Money Makeover. I'm not sure if buying a book or attending the class would give us faster results, but I was open to his ideas so listening to the show and applying his principles has worked well for me.

 

[DaniB]

Disers introduced me to Dave Ramsey as well. I kept reading post after post and finally I borrowed "The Total Money Makeover" book from the library and read it cover-to-cover. It woke me up! So thank you to every DISer who talked about David Ramsey for all of 2010!!

While I don't agree with closing out savings to clear off debts, I love the snowball effect on existing debits and his book inspired me!

At the beginning of the year, our Visa was maxed out at $6,300. I have applied every dollar I receive from daycare to it weekly, and keep dumping extra money into it when hubby gets overtime pay. Next month (May 14th) we'll have the Visa completely paid off!! It would have been next week, but we had to purchase all-season tires for our van and put away the winter ones.

I also completed our 2008 and 2009 taxes, and this week will be handing in our 2010 taxes. With the money we will get back, a small portion will be used to purchase a second-hand car, and the rest will be tucked away in a savings account. I really agree with having emergency money aside to be able to live off for 6 months. Preferrably longer. And we have not had savings in a long time...

The rest of the year our goal is to pay my parents back $2,000; sign the kids up for weekly summer swimming lessons ($75 weekly); sign the kids up for 3 weeks of camp each ($800-$1,000); get that second-hand car; and have our Disney vacation.

We have a larger debt to be paid off ($17,000) but I refuse to cancel our trip. Honestly, if we don't go now, I don't see another chance for a kid-free vacation until our kids are moved out. Ohh, and finish 2 remaining years of income tax. I am so thankful that we don't owe anything on these!

Next year the goal will be paying off the Line of Credit. It might take longer than a year as we will start paying into RRSPs again, but that's ok. At the moment, we haven't been making a single payment on it for at least 3 years.

I just realized you asked a couple of questions, and I gave you practically a whole story! Like I said, the book woke me up!

 

[bdarling]

I've downloaded the snowball calculator spreadsheet online. It really worked well for me.

I had a HUGE argument with my BIL who is a VP at an investment firm when my SIL (his sister) was asking about investing. I knew she had about $15K in credit card debt paying about 18 percent on it.

I told her she should put ALL her extra cash (non living expenses) into getting out of debt and how to do it with the snowball method. She wanted to save it or buy stocks. Her brother (my BIL) agreed with her. I finally said - hey do what you want, but do you really think any investment is going to be more than that wasted 18 per cent interest a month?

After he picked his jaw from the floor from me having a different opinion, he agreed

And now three years later my SIL is out of debt with a nice house

The program is simple, but does work if you stick to it. It requires a mindset change of thinking long term about YOUR future, and that it hard to do if you want college, nicer vacations, etc. I say a few years of pain will be worth it for most!

 

[chris31997]

We listened to him on the radio/internet to stay jazzed up while working his system. I did get his book Totalt Money Make Over, just because I like to make notes and refer back to the book We did buy the membership into FPU after we were debt free.

I think you can totally do this w/o buying his system. You may want to listen to him in particular listen when he has people call in with their stories about being debt free That was very motivating.

Good luck. This was the best thing we every did.

 

[RitaE]

I'm with the others. Honestly the only product of his I recommend buying is one of his books. Really almost any of his books since he pretty much re-writes the same program every couple of years. The most recent is the "Total Money Makeover" and it is widely available in used bookstores and libraries.

If you find you need more help after that he does have some good workbooks which will help you follow the steps. But there are also several online communities of Dave Ramsey followers and many of them have developed nice spreadsheets which will do the same things and they'll provide moral support and answer questions.

Now I have seen Dave Ramsey live and I felt it was worth the ticket price because he's an excellent and entertaining speaker. I took a friend with me and she said it was one of the most enjoyable shows she'd ever seen. I think that YouTube has several videos of his live events if your interested in that.

 

[disneylove69]

Never bought a product. I listen to him on Xm radio, see him on Hulu, and internet. He even believes in the cash only program. Dave doesn't even take credit card for sales. Debit.

You don't need the class if you are dedicated.

 

[momabbate]

We have bought his program only because I homeschooled my kids. but right all you really need is his money makeover book.

 

[tpinc]

If you listen to the radio show daily you will get more than enough to make his plan work.

If you cannot borrow his books from the public library or your church library wait for a sale on his website. The sales have every item for $10 each or so. They are a bargain when on sale.

If nothing else just read his website, friend him on Facebook and follow him on twitter.

 

[bumbershoot]

Another person who hasn't spent a dime on Dave's stuff.

Read all the free parts of his website, joined llnoe.com (living like no one else, a sort of "fan" site with a TON of good info and helpful people), got the book from the library.

I think that the class can help with motivation if you're lacking, and I believe that it can help when a spouse isn't getting it and needs some help. I have a friend who attended the class with her husband and they really enjoyed it.

But you certainly do not have to attend the class!

 

[gatormom2tots]

INitially I spent no money (got book from library and googled the worksheets and stuff and dowloaded for free.)

But we did eventually buy the book (there was a huge waiting list so you could only keep the book for 3 weeks!).

Honestly, his promotion of some of his products kinda leaves a bad taste in my mouth.....but you take what you need and leave the rest.

Love his program....but won't spend any money (he taught me too well!) on his products other than the book!

 

[SplashMo]

Teh book Total Money Makeover is great.

It is all you need. It is designed to be do able if that makes sense...

 

[mrodgers]

...joined llnoe.com (living like no one else, a sort of "fan" site with a TON of good info and helpful people)

After visiting this site for a few months and figuring some stuff out budget wise, I bought the TMMO book just to read it and didn't learn a single thing that I didn't pick up at the website.

 

[JDUCKY]

I have seen on this board alot of Disers who love the Dave Ramsey program. I know nothing of this until I saw someone on this board talking about him. I have looked him up online. My question is do I need to attend a class to use his method? I see online that I can find a class near me but I would prefer to do it at home in my spare time each night if possible. Has anyone bought his product and done it at home sucessesfully?

First, he's WAY overrated.

Second, his basic advice about getting out of (credit card) debt is just common sense and in no way should anyone pay that guy a red cent for the privilege of hearing what everyone should already know: Pay off high-interest debt first and work your way down. In the meantime, work on budgeting monthly expenses and cutting out luxury and unnecessary items.

Third, his advice on avoiding using credit cards is nothing short of ridiculous. With wise use, credit cards really are the best way to pay for monthly expenses (esp. now that debit card reward programs are going bye-bye). 5% back on gas from June - August on my Discover card? Woo hoo! 5% off any purchase at Target with my Target card? Oh yeah! 0% for 12 months on my credit union Visa for balance transfers? SWEET!

Just be sure that whatever is purchased on a credit card was a normal, budgeted monthly expense and pay the credit card bill off in full each month.

Also, using a debit card online opens you up to losing your actual money and not the credit card's issuer (also, many credit cards now offer damage protection, extended warranties on purchases, etc.)


The key thing to getting out of debt is fiscal discipline. Paying that quack any of your money is like paying on an interest-only loan.

 

[Mickey1Fan]

The alternative to Dave is Gail Vaz-Oxlade - she is my hero. She has financial worksheets on her website that I use and find easy to work with.

http://www.gailvazoxlade.com/resources.html

 

[Bob NC]

First, he's WAY overrated.

Second, his basic advice about getting out of (credit card) debt is just common sense and in no way should anyone pay that guy a red cent for the privilege of hearing what everyone should already know: Pay off high-interest debt first and work your way down. In the meantime, work on budgeting monthly expenses and cutting out luxury and unnecessary items.

Third, his advice on avoiding using credit cards is nothing short of ridiculous. With wise use, credit cards really are the best way to pay for monthly expenses (esp. now that debit card reward programs are going bye-bye). 5% back on gas from June - August on my Discover card? Woo hoo! 5% off any purchase at Target with my Target card? Oh yeah! 0% for 12 months on my credit union Visa for balance transfers? SWEET!

Just be sure that whatever is purchased on a credit card was a normal, budgeted monthly expense and pay the credit card bill off in full each month.

Also, using a debit card online opens you up to losing your actual money and not the credit card's issuer (also, many credit cards now offer damage protection, extended warranties on purchases, etc.)


The key thing to getting out of debt is fiscal discipline. Paying that quack any of your money is like paying on an interest-only loan.

If you were to go back and read slowly, you'll find that absolutely nothing in this post answers the OP's question in the least.

I guess you had fun posting that though, right?

 

[mydisneyobsession]

I find all the "Dave Hate" on the budget board pretty interesting.

In our case, we never really needed Dave Ramsey until we had a job loss, a relocation and an extended hospitalization for one of our kids in a short period of time. These three things wiped out our savings, and still left us with too many bills to cash flow. We were in a really tight spot, and it felt pretty hopeless for a time.

The one detail that JDucky is missing is the "common sense" thing we were trying to do and not making a lot of progress - going after the highest interest rate debt first. Dave Ramsey actually recommends the opposite, and that is attacking the smallest debt first. This one change made a huge difference for us, because we got the "snowball effect" going much sooner than if we had been focusing on our larger, higher-interest rate debt first. I've seen the numbers laid out before, and the difference in time to the payoff is negligible between the two approaches.

All I can say is that Dave Ramsey provided a concrete plan that I could put into effect right away and it made a big difference in dealing with our personal financial crisis. I'm really grateful to him, and I'm glad he's available to those of us that don't have all the answers.

 

[RitaE]

If people were really good at only charging "normal budget expenses" on their credit cards and then paying them off --- Dave Ramsey would have been run off the airways and put out of business years ago.

Obviously he's flourishing, so I'm thinking otherwise.

Most of these celebrity financial authors have good things that will fit your life well, and other things that you can just say Not For Me - and put aside. Understand that they are entertainers as well as experts however, and make sure you understand fully anything you undertake (especially before handing over money). I rarely discount all their advice though, even those that I strongly disagree with on many topics.