I had an extra couple of days to spend in Atlanta and was fortunate enough to have been given a couple of tickets to the Dave Ramsey show this afternoon when a client/friend was unable to attend. While I have listened to Dave Ramsey on the radio for years and watched his show almost daily when it was on the Fox Business channel, I had never seen him in person.
He had a pretty good-sized audience at today's event and was a pretty engaging speaker. He is the kind of no nonsense guy that I grew up with years ago. Lots of common sense, spoken at higher and higher decibels until you clearly 'got it.'. Kind of the no-BS type of approach that is sadly missing from today's "kinder, gentler" world where you would rather let people do stupid things instead of correcting them because you might hurt their feelings.
Anyway, the gist of his presentation is how to get out of debt and build wealth with a few simple steps...
#1--set aside $1000 for your starter emergency fund
#2--pay off debt with the debt snowball, starting with your smallest to largest debts
#3--fully fund your emergency fund in the amount of six month's living expenses
#4--invest 15% of your income in Roth IRAs and other pre-tax retirement plans
#5--fund your children's college education
#6--pay off your home as quickly as possible
#7--build wealth and give
Those are paraphrased, of course. For a complete explanation of what he calls the 'baby steps', click here.
Some of this stuff sounds near impossible if you are currently drowning in debt, but it is amazing how fast you can work through these steps when you are super intense and motivated. It is also amazing how you can do something as huge as paying for your kids college or paying your house off early when right now you can barely see past your monthly debt payments, but, just think of how much money you would have if you didn't have any debts to pay when your check comes in each week. A nice thought isn't it? Find out more about Dave Ramsey here.
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