Dave Ramsey ROCKS!

I was NOT fortunate enough to be able to attend Dave's live event in Dallas yesterday but I have friends who were there. I'm so excited for them -- getting on the "Dave Ramsey bandwagon"! If you've never heard of Dave Ramsey, you need to check out his website here. We learned about him many years ago when we read his book "Financial Peace". He's got a newer book called "The Total Money Makeover". If you're frugal like me you will want to see if your library carries them before you run out to Barnes and Noble. However, if you're anything like me you will want your own copy to keep before you're even done reading it for the first time. If that's the case, feel free to run out to B&N or check out Half.com, eBay, or a local used bookstore (my favorite is Half Price Books).

The basics of Dave's plan can be found on his website. They are the Seven Baby Steps. No, they don't ALWAYS make sense mathematically but Dave deals in reality. Reality says that you should start by paying off your smallest debt first regardless of the interest rate so that you can get excited about the progress that you are making. Mathematically you will likely be paying a very small amount of extra money by using this method. But trust me -- it's really exciting to write that LAST check to Citibank or Discover or your student loan lender. And then you have freed up that money each month to roll into your next smallest debt. Before you know it you're calling his show on a Friday afternoon screaming "I'm Debt Free!!!!!!!" I never called but I sure did scream in my own house! Yes, I'm very proud to be able to say that we are debt-free, except for out mortgage. In future posts I'll talk about how we did that and how we continue to stay debt-free while living on one income with a family of almost 6.

One more thing -- click here to find a local radio station that carries Dave's show. You can also see him nightly on the Fox Business Network. I wish *I* could see him there but we don't get that channel in our cable package and I refuse to pay extra for a higher level package for just one channel that I want. Yes, I know -- I'm sometimes too frugal!