? for all you Dave Ramsey fans

[Duckyiam71]

I have been loking at his books. I have a question though...what is the difference between his "Total Money Makeover" and his "Financial Peace Planne?" I have a friend who recommended his envelope system and now I am interested in his plans. any thoughts?

 

[sydneysmom]

Dave Ramsey is wonderful. My DH is a firm believer and when we were dating he got me started on the envelope plan. Truly, it is the greatest thing I have ever done. Now that we're married, we combined everything and still do the envelopes. and we have our budget for every paycheck of how much needs to come out for each item we have in the budget. It's FANTASTIC. I can honestly say that my husband and I have never had a fight about money. ever. Now, we make an average living and we do not live over our means. With the envelope system, you will find that you have money left over which you can then budget directly into savings. You will be amazed how quickly your savings builds up.
and if you need something, like a washer or whatever, you will have the cash to buy it....no more credit cards. If you want to pm me, I took our budget spreadsheet and made one for a friend of mine who is now hooked on it. I'll be happy to send it to you.
One thing you will find when you do this, there are NO surprises. You know what your bills are, you know what you've put aside. As long as you don't take from the envelopes, when that bill comes due....the money is there.
I can't stress to you how unbelieveable at ease you will be about your money. My DH helped me so much by turning me on to this. When I was single, I was terrified to open a bill, was scared everytime it came time to balance my checkbook, was scared every time I had to pay bills. Now, it's like nothing at all....no big deal. It's so refreshing to have money be the least of your worries. and all because YOU take control of it and YOU tell it where you want it to go.
What's also nice is you really will train yourself to say "do I REALLY need that" because you're paying cash. And if you don't have the cash, you use your savings....that will make you think I promise you !! All of a sudden you will find that you don't buy the normal crap you waste your money on. it's amazing. You will become so protective of your cash !! But when you want to buy clothes or an emergency comes up, you WILL have the cash. it's a very secure feeling. And one thing we always budget is for our entertainment (movies / dinner) and we each get $50 every 2 weeks to do whatever we want with. And oddly enough, I always have $20 left over each time...that's how picky you get with how you want to part w/ your money!! But it's so important to budget a little for fun....they you don't get resentful that you're on a budget. You have a little bit to play with and go out to enjoy yourself.
Now, we also changed and we bring our lunch to work which has saved a tremendous amount of money. We do try to go out to lunch though once a week so we don't get tired of it.
Feel free to PM me though if you want .....

 

[bumbershoot]

I can honestly say that my husband and I have never had a fight about money. ever.

One thing you will find when you do this, there are NO surprises. You know what your bills are, you know what you've put aside. As long as you don't take from the envelopes, when that bill comes due....the money is there.
I can't stress to you how unbelieveable at ease you will be about your money. .... When I was single, I was terrified to open a bill, was scared everytime it came time to balance my checkbook, was scared every time I had to pay bills. Now, it's like nothing at all....no big deal.

You are so lucky to have never fought about money! I can definitely say that money fights, or fights about other stuff made worse b/c you're so stressed about money, are just about the worst in an otherwise normal relationship.

I actually LIKE getting our bills now. I am antsy for them to come. Hubby gets something from our insurance specialty pharmacy and I have been so annoyed that we haven't gotten billed! The money has been set aside for a month. He called yesterday to get a refill and they got snarky, saying we were late with the payment. He was able to stay CALM and simply tell them that we'd be happy to pay it, here's our account info, and perhaps they should think about sending a bill, if they would like to be paid. Now that I know they aren't the brightest about sending bills, I'll be more on top of it and call them preemptively.

Anyway, this is so different from a year ago, when we'd be digging up that under 30 bucks from under couch cushions, and I might have just ignored the bill envelope b/c I was so scared, because we'd spent it all on Disneyland ahead of time.


The Financial Peace University is a program that, I've heard, is incredibly good for people! We haven't done it. We read the TMMO book, I've toodled around his website for the free content (lots of free content!), and I am on llnoe.com (living like no one else). With just that we're doing so much better now.

I imagine the FP Planner is more along the lines of the classes.

You should check to see if the books are in your library! That's how we read TMMO.

 

[Teacher03]

Dave Ramsey is wonderful. My DH is a firm believer and when we were dating he got me started on the envelope plan. Truly, it is the greatest thing I have ever done. Now that we're married, we combined everything and still do the envelopes. and we have our budget for every paycheck of how much needs to come out for each item we have in the budget. It's FANTASTIC. I can honestly say that my husband and I have never had a fight about money. ever. Now, we make an average living and we do not live over our means. With the envelope system, you will find that you have money left over which you can then budget directly into savings. You will be amazed how quickly your savings builds up.
and if you need something, like a washer or whatever, you will have the cash to buy it....no more credit cards. If you want to pm me, I took our budget spreadsheet and made one for a friend of mine who is now hooked on it. I'll be happy to send it to you.
One thing you will find when you do this, there are NO surprises. You know what your bills are, you know what you've put aside. As long as you don't take from the envelopes, when that bill comes due....the money is there.
I can't stress to you how unbelieveable at ease you will be about your money. My DH helped me so much by turning me on to this. When I was single, I was terrified to open a bill, was scared everytime it came time to balance my checkbook, was scared every time I had to pay bills. Now, it's like nothing at all....no big deal. It's so refreshing to have money be the least of your worries. and all because YOU take control of it and YOU tell it where you want it to go.
What's also nice is you really will train yourself to say "do I REALLY need that" because you're paying cash. And if you don't have the cash, you use your savings....that will make you think I promise you !! All of a sudden you will find that you don't buy the normal crap you waste your money on. it's amazing. You will become so protective of your cash !! But when you want to buy clothes or an emergency comes up, you WILL have the cash. it's a very secure feeling. And one thing we always budget is for our entertainment (movies / dinner) and we each get $50 every 2 weeks to do whatever we want with. And oddly enough, I always have $20 left over each time...that's how picky you get with how you want to part w/ your money!! But it's so important to budget a little for fun....they you don't get resentful that you're on a budget. You have a little bit to play with and go out to enjoy yourself.
Now, we also changed and we bring our lunch to work which has saved a tremendous amount of money. We do try to go out to lunch though once a week so we don't get tired of it.
Feel free to PM me though if you want .....

What a refreshing post! We are determined to live without credit cards, pay only with cash and what we can afford, and I am happy to say we are on a good start. I just found out that I willl be losing my job within the next year, which is sad, not only financially but because I LOVE my job, but it has lit a fire under me that I can't explain. I understand about not fighting about money, since my husband and I have been honest about our money situation, we have been getting along much better.

 

[LoriKutchey]

sydneysmom, thanks for taking the time to write the detailed post. I have been contemplating on going the envelope system, at least for the grocery store. I always overspend there. I think this will help me from throwing all the extra's in my cart.

Thank you,
Lori

 

[extremesoccermom]

We are also a Dave Ramsey success story. We have been debt free for over 2 years. We were well on our way just listening to his radio show and posting his baby steps on the fridge.
From the information I found the difference in the two books is ::not much.
I thought Financial Peace would tell us what to do with our saved money but I really did not find it to helpful in that respect. It really just repeated his ideas that he laid out in Total Money Makeover.

 

[minnie1928]

From the information I found the difference in the two books is ::not much.
I thought Financial Peace would tell us what to do with our saved money but I really did not find it to helpful in that respect. It really just repeated his ideas that he laid out in Total Money Makeover.

I totally agree, you could read one or the other but reading both is repeating a lot of the same material.

This month is our 5 year anniversary on the DR system. All we have left is the house (debt wise) and we're currently working on the 6 month emergency fund and retirement savings.

 

[Duckyiam71]

Thanks everyone for their great responses. I am going to ahead and do it. My husband is deploying and he is the budgeter and I am the spender(not overspender anymore). I am just a little nervous and think the envelope system will help me control my spending. We already go without credit cards so that part wont be hard. I just am attached to my debit card. I will fork out the $20 for the envelope wallet and go to the library and read his TMM. Thanks! I want to be on his show in year shouting debt free! We have my one car payment and one loan to pay...not counting the house because our Basic Allowance for Housing pays for that and the phone bill.(Love the military for that one) Thanks again! I am excited about the challenge over the next year.(not the deployement part, though)

 

[sydneysmom]

Thanks everyone for their great responses. I am going to ahead and do it. My husband is deploying and he is the budgeter and I am the spender(not overspender anymore). I am just a little nervous and think the envelope system will help me control my spending. We already go without credit cards so that part wont be hard. I just am attached to my debit card. I will fork out the $20 for the envelope wallet and go to the library and read his TMM. Thanks! I want to be on his show in year shouting debt free! We have my one car payment and one loan to pay...not counting the house because our Basic Allowance for Housing pays for that and the phone bill.(Love the military for that one) Thanks again! I am excited about the challenge over the next year.(not the deployement part, though)

Congratulations for taking the first step !! And you know, you don't have to buy the envelope wallet....we bought a box of 6x9 envelopes from Staples and I've made an envelope for each item. (it's alot cheaper!)