Not to mention the $25 you spent on a Ramsey book, $100 on his class and $20 on envelopes..
Library, no class, when I was using envelopes (now I just have line items in my interest-bearing checking account) they were just letter-type envelopes that I already had.
I don't understand why you think one needs to spend money to learn about DR.
Not smart, disciplined. It's like being 100 pounds overweight and paying someone to tell you you're fat. Some people need others to tell them the obvious before they will do something about it. If you actually have to have someone else tell you it's not good to spend more than you earn, you should save for retirement and being out of debt is better than being in debt, and you listen then you've gotten your money's worth.
Example. I grew up very poor. Dad didn't pay child support, mom lived month to month (we rented a house for 17 years, though I have to admit it was a pretty nice place for a kid to grow up...absolutely tiny but had a huge back and side yard), my mom only lived with money when she re-met her childhood sweetheart and they married (by that time I was in college).
She never had the time to teach us money management.
I never even thought about it. Hit college, applied for and got three credit cards (the first when I was 17!) when they came to campus. Did the student loan thing, just put it all off until tomorrow, didn't once think about where it would all come from.
Meanwhile, my brother spent the last 3 years of high school in the house with the new stepdad with a GREAT job, excellent pension, tons of investments. Brother is also smarter than I am (not that I'm stupid, but he's just brilliant), and thinks in an entirely different sort of way than I do, and was able to think about the future at a much younger age than I did.
Somehow, even in college, brother was working things out to create an INCREDIBLE life for himself. He has it made now. I do not.
It took FINALLY reading DR's book (free from the library) for me to somehow see HOW to get out of debt. HOW to figure out where my money should go, instead of just watching it slip away.
My husband started out in a family with money, but then his dad gave over their house to pay off a *business* debt, even though he'd been incorporated with all the protections, because he was too embarrassed to contact his business attorneys to find out what to do. So the house he'd grown up in (that his parents "owned", ha ha, ya don't OWN it until you're done with the mortgage IMO) was gone as soon as he was around 18 or so... His dad made *good* money, but it just slipped through his fingers...his dad was raised during the Depression by a father who drank and gambled his family's money away... His dad never saw good money management skills, didn't have the time to figure it out, and hubby's mom was always so interested in how things *looked* that she didn't care to know how her husband was bringing in money (when FIL died he hadn't filed taxes in 6 years but had told her he had (thank you e-filing for allowing THAT to be possible), he had taken out a 20K loan on her life insurance by forging her signature, and he didn't have any insurance on himself...all of thise to keep as much money coming in as possible to keep her in the manner to which she had become accustomed).
DH was a poor English score on the SATs away from getting into MIT (they told him that in their rejection letter), he's not a stupid man, but he never learned about money.
I'm so so SO glad that you and HHS learned how to not get in debt, how to get out of debt, and how to manage your money from such a young age.
I don't know why you have to insult those of us who didn't learn this. Obviously there are many people who DO need to read a book to really figure it out. Many of us grew up hand to mouth, with no time and no money to explore the world of money management.
DH and I had family pressuring us fro 2003 until everything crashed down around America to buy a house. They said it was so EASY to get loans, that we were stupid to rent! But, in the one big smart money-thing we did during our time together, we refused. We could rent much nicer places than we could possibly afford with a mortgage. We didn't want a "starter home", we wanted a HOME. We didn't have the money for upkeep, to furnish a place, etc etc etc. We somehow instinctively knew that it just wasn't right.
Not too long before everything went south and not long before FIL died, my MIL and FIL lost their second "purchased" home. Starting around late '07 and into '08, my father, who had finally been able to get a mortgage on a house, bought a *second* house, and then ran into problems with that house and renters and all sorts of nonsense, and he battled foreclosure on BOTH houses. He got out of that by the skin of his teeth, but they lived for an entire year on credit cards (even while my stepmom worked a good-money job, but that money just got sucked up by their crushing debt).
My good friend, who is also brilliant but had her own reasons for getting such a mortgage, faced her condo's balloon payment. etc etc.
Funny how none of those people have told us to buy a house since then...
Anyway, there are people who do need the words of someone else to help show them the way.
It's not fair of you to come into a thread where people are talking about how much a person HELPED THEM, and bash that person. If you have such great ideas, write your own book and HELP other people. But don't come in and basically tell those who have been helped that we might have flunked elementary school (and I don't remember financial planning classes in any bit of my schooling, let alone 1st-6th grades)...
I think the point here is that one can invest and ALSO pay off their mortgage sooner to save $ in interest. DR has you doing that-he's not saying pay off mortgage and stuff it under the bed.
He is on tv, radio, and the internet. So you don't have to pay. But if you do, it is a lifetime membership, how many places do that?
