My Total Money Makeover

[Big Mike]

https://www.mytotalmoneymakeover.com/

This is a budgeting tool we have used to make a huge difference in our life. Check it out.

Mike

[will.vend]

I listen to dave ramsey on xm sattelite radio all the time. I have never done the total money makeover class but I am 100% debt free.

[Big Mike]

Nice! We are looking at another 1.5 years.

[Hillbilly]

I listen to Dave as well. While I am not completely debt free, I don't owe much more than my house. I should have nothing but the house within 6 month's. I do however contribute to my retirement plans wile doing his plan. I know that's not the correct way but a little variance made me a little more comfortable doing it.

[caserri]

I've always heard good things about Dave but I feel weird paying for something that is supposed to save me money.

Im interested but is it really worth the price of admission?

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[Hillbilly]

In my case the books did the trick.

[havending]

Not a Ramsey fan. Living debt free is fine but he teaches to never use credit. So what happens when you go to buy a house? Well with limited or no credit history you will be in an apt. In this country and in this day and time credit must be used at some point you just need to use it wise. Pay the credit card off every month pay off house and car early. My business is debt free but I use my net 30 accounts to order product etc. Before he started selling books about money his Benz was repoed and he filed chapter 7.

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[Big Mike]

I've always heard good things about Dave but I feel weird paying for something that is supposed to save me money.

Im interested but is it really worth the price of admission?

Sent using Tapatalk for Android.

When we signed up last year it was 89.00 and came with his book. This year we renewed for 67.00. We run a personal budget and a business budget(really a profit loss).

Mike

Not a Ramsey fan. Living debt free is fine but he teaches to never use credit. So what happens when you go to buy a house? Well with limited or no credit history you will be in an apt. In this country and in this day and time credit must be used at some point you just need to use it wise. Pay the credit card off every month pay off house and car early. My business is debt free but I use my net 30 accounts to order product etc. Before he started selling books about money his Benz was repoed and he filed chapter 7.

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I know he isnt for everyone. He recommends only buying a house on a 15 year fix note. You can buy a house with no credit or even bad credit if you pay 20% down.

Mike

[Faith Vending]

When we signed up last year it was 89.00 and came with his book. This year we renewed for 67.00. We run a personal budget and a business budget(really a profit loss).

Mike

I know he isnt for everyone. He recommends only buying a house on a 15 year fix note. You can buy a house with no credit or even bad credit if you pay 20% down.

Mike

There is another group of financial people who advocate using other people's money to grow etc., interest rates are stupid low so I can understand. I don't know how you can't use debt today in some respect.

[dogcow]

ramsey gives some marginally bad advice imo, i also echo steve the first mistake is paying someone here common sense advice the problem is he doesnt teach anything you dont already know on some level it6s just that when you have to pay to hear it (like most self help stuff) you feel you should take it more seriously. credit is a great thing if you know how to manage it properly

[Big Mike]

ramsey gives some marginally bad advice imo, i also echo steve the first mistake is paying someone here common sense advice the problem is he doesnt teach anything you dont already know on some level it6s just that when you have to pay to hear it (like most self help stuff) you feel you should take it more seriously. credit is a great thing if you know how to manage it properly

Let me try to put this to bed. The link I gave isnt for advice. It is for a online budgeting website. I use it to keep track of my spending and for a profit/loss on our business. Credit isnt a great thing. Knowing how to use it does not make your payments when your layed off or injured. Dave Ramsey gives good advise for FREE on the radio and his website. If you want to look at the link I gave for budgeting software it works great for me.

Big "Half way to Debt Free" Mike

[The Mage]

I had plenty of time in my car, and listened to the Dave Ramsey show a lot. I really do like the show.

While he does sell stuff, including his classes, books, tapes and such, you really don't need to spend a cent. His book is available at the library if not checked out, and while I have actually given his book to a couple of people, I never bought it for myself, or own a copy. After listening to the radio show enough, I know probably more then what is in the book.

I remember once somebody complained on the radio about the fact that he is selling an envelope system kit when they could simply buy a real box of envelopes much cheaper then his kit. His response was that he could beat that by going to the bank, getting some of the ATM envelopes and not pay a cent.

When it comes to his advice, I don't agree with everything he says, but that doesn't mean he is wrong. Seems a little confusing to say this, until you realize there are many different routes to the same destination.

While he is anti-debt, he does not disagree with purchasing a house with debt.

Where I agree with him is avoiding consumer debt. There really isn't any benefit to paying an extra 20% for everything you own. Also knowing that your car can't ever be repossessed by the bank is a nice feeling.

Now I have kept some credit cards, even though they carry no debt. I have used them, mostly on vacations, and online purchases when not using PayPal, and then pay them off in a week or two. The debit cards are supposed to have the exact same rules as a credit card, so the long term is not an issue, but if there ever is an issue, I would prefer not to have to sit there while my bank account, or a large portion of it, is in limbo while they figure things out. But I do not maintain any debt on them, nor do I use ones that have any fees.

Next I am planning on purchasing Real Estate for investments, and I will be using debt for that. I disagree somewhat with Dave Ramsey that it increases your risks. If done right, you should actually be able to maintain a larger cash balance in the bank to cover any surprise financial problems associated with investing. Another benefit is that you are better able to diversify into multiple properties with debt then without. As a result I will be getting into more properties more quickly then if I do not invest this way.

But there are specific rules to using debt that must be followed when investing. You cannot invest in something that has a negative cash flow for too long a period of time. An emergency fund is more important in this case, and should be maintained, and grown as the number of properties grows. And in this case, you want as little money as possible stuck in the property as possible, so it is available just in case.

Along the same lines I could see it being used with vending, as long as you are again being smart about it. Buying a ton of stuff from a BizOp and then letting it sit in the garage is not the right way. Buying machines that you either know you can locate, or already have, then using the profits to pay off those machines may be a way to build faster. But again you do not want to be holding a lot of debt on stuff stuck in a garage. But a buy a couple, place, and replace, you could be building up fairly quickly. Unlike Real Estate though, in this case I would probably try to pay this stuff off asap.

When I first purchased my route, I used a WalMart card at the local Sam's Club to buy my candy. But then I serviced the machines, and after pulling out cash, had more then enough to pay for all the candy I just purchased, so the card was paid off in a week. I do not regret that, but now I maintain enough in my vending account to cover the cost of candy, so find there really is not reason to use credit any more.

But the use of credit in these issues does add complexity, and if not done right it can add risk. Dave Ramsy's systems are so much simpler, and take a lot of that complexity, and chance of added risk out of the equation.

Whenever you use debt in investing, you want to not make the mistake a lot of people do, and is the big problem with consumer debt, (and government debt.) You want to live off of the profits after servicing the debt, not live off the debt itself. That is the situation that gets so many people in to trouble.

It is entirely possible to buy Real Estate, and end up with cash in your pocket, (as all the Real Estate infomercials say,) but that only means you over-financed the property, not that you have any actual profit. And that money should not be spent as income, otherwise it is no different then using a credit card, other then being deductible, and at a better rate that is. But that money should either be put in the bank to cover any emergency, or for the purchase of more property.

Okay, I am complicating things.

I will say that Dave Ramsey is great, and his program should be the beginning of any financial plan. And the end for most people. But his is not the only way, and you can add more complexity to his program if done intelligently, and carefully.

[dogcow]

I had plenty of time in my car, and listened to the Dave Ramsey show a lot. I really do like the show.

While he does sell stuff, including his classes, books, tapes and such, you really don't need to spend a cent. His book is available at the library if not checked out, and while I have actually given his book to a couple of people, I never bought it for myself, or own a copy. After listening to the radio show enough, I know probably more then what is in the book.

I remember once somebody complained on the radio about the fact that he is selling an envelope system kit when they could simply buy a real box of envelopes much cheaper then his kit. His response was that he could beat that by going to the bank, getting some of the ATM envelopes and not pay a cent.

When it comes to his advice, I don't agree with everything he says, but that doesn't mean he is wrong. Seems a little confusing to say this, until you realize there are many different routes to the same destination.

While he is anti-debt, he does not disagree with purchasing a house with debt.

Where I agree with him is avoiding consumer debt. There really isn't any benefit to paying an extra 20% for everything you own. Also knowing that your car can't ever be repossessed by the bank is a nice feeling.

Now I have kept some credit cards, even though they carry no debt. I have used them, mostly on vacations, and online purchases when not using PayPal, and then pay them off in a week or two. The debit cards are supposed to have the exact same rules as a credit card, so the long term is not an issue, but if there ever is an issue, I would prefer not to have to sit there while my bank account, or a large portion of it, is in limbo while they figure things out. But I do not maintain any debt on them, nor do I use ones that have any fees.

Next I am planning on purchasing Real Estate for investments, and I will be using debt for that. I disagree somewhat with Dave Ramsey that it increases your risks. If done right, you should actually be able to maintain a larger cash balance in the bank to cover any surprise financial problems associated with investing. Another benefit is that you are better able to diversify into multiple properties with debt then without. As a result I will be getting into more properties more quickly then if I do not invest this way.

But there are specific rules to using debt that must be followed when investing. You cannot invest in something that has a negative cash flow for too long a period of time. An emergency fund is more important in this case, and should be maintained, and grown as the number of properties grows. And in this case, you want as little money as possible stuck in the property as possible, so it is available just in case.

Along the same lines I could see it being used with vending, as long as you are again being smart about it. Buying a ton of stuff from a BizOp and then letting it sit in the garage is not the right way. Buying machines that you either know you can locate, or already have, then using the profits to pay off those machines may be a way to build faster. But again you do not want to be holding a lot of debt on stuff stuck in a garage. But a buy a couple, place, and replace, you could be building up fairly quickly. Unlike Real Estate though, in this case I would probably try to pay this stuff off asap.

When I first purchased my route, I used a WalMart card at the local Sam's Club to buy my candy. But then I serviced the machines, and after pulling out cash, had more then enough to pay for all the candy I just purchased, so the card was paid off in a week. I do not regret that, but now I maintain enough in my vending account to cover the cost of candy, so find there really is not reason to use credit any more.

But the use of credit in these issues does add complexity, and if not done right it can add risk. Dave Ramsy's systems are so much simpler, and take a lot of that complexity, and chance of added risk out of the equation.

Whenever you use debt in investing, you want to not make the mistake a lot of people do, and is the big problem with consumer debt, (and government debt.) You want to live off of the profits after servicing the debt, not live off the debt itself. That is the situation that gets so many people in to trouble.

It is entirely possible to buy Real Estate, and end up with cash in your pocket, (as all the Real Estate infomercials say,) but that only means you over-financed the property, not that you have any actual profit. And that money should not be spent as income, otherwise it is no different then using a credit card, other then being deductible, and at a better rate that is. But that money should either be put in the bank to cover any emergency, or for the purchase of more property.

Okay, I am complicating things.

I will say that Dave Ramsey is great, and his program should be the beginning of any financial plan. And the end for most people. But his is not the only way, and you can add more complexity to his program if done intelligently, and carefully.

i agree with what you are saying, basically. debt can be a very powerfull tool if you manage it right and to big mike, a person who takes on debt without a contingency plan isnt managing it right.

the way i evaluate debt is opportunity cost.... for most things it makes sense to pay cash but in some cases it makes sense to invest the cash and buy something on credit, if you expect to earn a higher rate of return from the investment than thee thing you buy (assuming you cant forgo buying whatever it is). an example would be in late 2008 i needed to buy a car. i took my car money and invested in the stock market instead (because it had crashed). i bought the car on credit with a low interest rate. at this point i could cash out my investments , pay off the car, and still have my original investment money in cash plus some extra. it was riskier than buying the car for cash but it was a calculated risk which i could afford to take. generally buying an asset of declining value for credit is a bad idea,as you pointed out/

[will.vend]

imo the majority of people that dave ramsey caters to have abused credit and need some program to give them hope, hope that they can recover from their financial crisis, I also feel that most people have good intentions when using credit but at some point lose their focus and end up with a mess, the dave ramsey way is extreme and not for everyone, I follow his general philosophy but tweek it along the way to fit my individual needs.

I agree with most of what he says but just ignore the things that I dont. one thing that is for sure I am a hell of alot better off financially since I started living within my means and not abusing credit cards and other consumer credit.

[havending]

Let me try to put this to bed. The link I gave isnt for advice. It is for a online budgeting website. I use it to keep track of my spending and for a profit/loss on our business. Credit isnt a great thing. Knowing how to use it does not make your payments when your layed off or injured. Dave Ramsey gives good advise for FREE on the radio and his website. If you want to look at the link I gave for budgeting software it works great for me.

Big "Half way to Debt Free" Mike

The way to make sure you dont loose the house and car if your laid off is to live below you means and have money saved for those things. I agree that the people who make 80 k and spend 140 k a year are idiots. And in my opnion if they loose the job and can't pay they asked for it by how they live. But Ramsey says dont use a credit card its not realistic. It cost us about 8 to 9 grand to go to Hawaii for a week so am I going to carry cash heck no I'm going to carry 2 grand in cash and use the American Express and when the bill comes

Pay it off in full. Me and route driver both use a gas card and its paid off every month. Most small business is funded by personal credit. When some one buys in to a franchise taco bell, dq, or what ever its funded by credit. Credit has to be used wisely. But credit is a must have and to have it you must use it.

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[antoniocinisi]

I agree with havending on this one

[Big Mike]

The way to make sure you dont loose the house and car if your laid off is to live below you means and have money saved for those things. I agree that the people who make 80 k and spend 140 k a year are idiots. And in my opnion if they loose the job and can't pay they asked for it by how they live. But Ramsey says dont use a credit card its not realistic. It cost us about 8 to 9 grand to go to Hawaii for a week so am I going to carry cash heck no I'm going to carry 2 grand in cash and use the American Express and when the bill comes

Pay it off in full. Me and route driver both use a gas card and its paid off every month. Most small business is funded by personal credit. When some one buys in to a franchise taco bell, dq, or what ever its funded by credit. Credit has to be used wisely. But credit is a must have and to have it you must use it.

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I think we will just have to disagree on this one. Credit never has been and still isnt a must. It is a want by definition. You want something now and dont have the money you buy it on credit or you wait 2 months and buy it cash. I chose to wait 2 months. I understand your paying off your credit card when the bill comes so your really not using credit your just using the card. I can do the same thing with my debit card. As far as buying a Taco bell or DQ. This was a very bad way to prove your point. What do you think the numbers are for people who have made it buying a franchise on credit and those who went belly up? We made the choice two years ago to stop adding debt and payoff what debt we do have. We were not behind and had money to spare at the end of the month. We sold the Harley and started our debit snowball. The snowball is still rolling and we buy all our machines and product cash. I do however love to hear your thought on vending.

Mike

[antoniocinisi]

Credit has to be used wisely. But credit is a must have and to have it you must use it.

I was mostly agreeing on this.

what would you do if a big location wants a couple of cranes and a couple of racks and didnt have the money??

[havending]

I think we will just have to disagree on this one. Credit never has been and still isnt a must. It is a want by definition. You want something now and dont have the money you buy it on credit or you wait 2 months and buy it cash. I chose to wait 2 months. I understand your paying off your credit card when the bill comes so your really not using credit your just using the card. I can do the same thing with my debit card. As far as buying a Taco bell or DQ. This was a very bad way to prove your point. What do you think the numbers are for people who have made it buying a franchise on credit and those who went belly up? We made the choice two years ago to stop adding debt and payoff what debt we do have. We were not behind and had money to spare at the end of the month. We sold the Harley and started our debit snowball. The snowball is still rolling and we buy all our machines and product cash. I do however love to hear your thought on vending.

Mike

I do agree with you that being debit free is a great feeling. If the US had less personal debt the country would be much better off.

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[mission vending]

I listen to him mainly for entertainment purposes as I am pretty much in lock step with Antonio and Havending regarding the use of credit. I have very little personal debt, cards are paid off almost every month, I will carry a small balance over a few times a year due to the fact that it supposed to help boost your credit rating.

I do have one very big issue with Ramsey and the advice he gives though.I have heard him a number of times when talking about life insurance tell someone that if their spouse dies and they get (for example) 500K from insurance that they can pull 10% off of that to replace the deceased spouse's income forever. If you take 10% out of you nest egg annually you basically have a 0% probability of your portfolio surviving (when adjusted for inflation) past 30 years.

Here is a link to some info about safe withdrawal rates

Click here

[Big Mike]

Credit has to be used wisely. But credit is a must have and to have it you must use it.

I was mostly agreeing on this.

what would you do if a big location wants a couple of cranes and a couple of racks and didnt have the money??

But I do have the money. I just make sure I dont get into a spot like that. We are out of racks and cranes right now. Racks are ordered and paid for. Working on a crane deal right now. We are told all the time we "have" to use credit if we are going to get anywhere with our small business or that we are "never" going to be debt free. I just dont see why people find this idea so strange? Just do one thing for me. Look at every debt you have. House, Car, Cards. add up all your interest charges for the month. Thats what did it for me. I work to hard for my money to spend it on interest charges.

Mike

[antoniocinisi]

we owe for our house my vending warehouse and my motorcycle.none of those could have been bought out right, nor could I have waited until I had the money to buy,we had to use credit.

on the other hand we rarely use the credit cards unless it`s to rack up points and pay off the bill when we get it. earlier in the year I ordered 5k worth of machines lock and product.I put it on my regular card that gives me 1% back.I took one of the 0% interest offers that come in the mail, transfered the balance,and have almost paid it off,interest free.I did have to pay a balance transfer fee of $100,used to be no fee.in the end it is costing me 50 bucks for whats making me hundreds a month.still a lot for some I guess but not too bad.

It stinks to pay interest and I do my best to pay as little of it as I can,like pay loans off early,shop for rates etc..home loans are the worst as far as how much goes to interest,but buying a home outright isn`t really an option most of the time.we put as much as we could down to help reduce interest.

how did you pay for your house if you don`t mind me asking?

you have to remember that some of us are younger then you and are still building up to be in the pay no interest club

[Big Mike]

we owe for our house my vending warehouse and my motorcycle.none of those could have been bought out right, nor could I have waited until I had the money to buy,we had to use credit.

on the other hand we rarely use the credit cards unless it`s to rack up points and pay off the bill when we get it. earlier in the year I ordered 5k worth of machines lock and product.I put it on my regular card that gives me 1% back.I took one of the 0% interest offers that come in the mail, transfered the balance,and have almost paid it off,interest free.I did have to pay a balance transfer fee of $100,used to be no fee.in the end it is costing me 50 bucks for whats making me hundreds a month.still a lot for some I guess but not too bad.

It stinks to pay interest and I do my best to pay as little of it as I can,like pay loans off early,shop for rates etc..home loans are the worst as far as how much goes to interest,but buying a home outright isn`t really an option most of the time.we put as much as we could down to help reduce interest.

how did you pay for your house if you don`t mind me asking?

you have to remember that some of us are younger then you and are still building up to be in the pay no interest club

I wish I was in the club now. Still working on it.

Mike