More Churches Enlist Dave Ramsey

"Biblical finance is about sowing and reaping," Christian financial guru Ramsey said on Thursday, while speaking to a national conference of preachers meeting at Mount Zion Baptist Church in Whites Creek. "You sow stupid and you will reap desperate."

Link

Alternative Model Real Estate Brokerages

I found this blog post by Rob Arnold interesting. He had heard Clark Howard talk about the need for these Real Estate alternatives and how the National Association of Realtors is a cartel. Rob is of course for them, as we all should be. Competition in the real estate industry will only help the consumer.

If you read the book Freakonomics, you will know that the current model is not in the best interest of the consumer. Real Estate Agents do not have the incentive to get the best price for you. Their only incentive is to get a deal done fast. If you haven't read Freakonomics you should - it's a quick and great read.

Go A La Carte: Get Rid of Recurring Bills

I Will Teach You To Be Rich has a nice post on Subscriptions and their cost on your budget. Subscriptions are basically the inverse of David Bach's Automatic Millionaire idea:

Subscriptions are a business’s best friend: They let companies make a
reliable, predictable income off of you — with no action on your part. Without
doing anything, you invisibly pay money each month.

On the A La Carte Method:

Here’s how you can use the A La Carte Method for yourself. Cancel all the
discretionary subscriptions you can: your magazines, annual Rhapsody plan, cable
— even your gym. (It would be totally ridiculous to cancel your Internet,
though. I’d cry like a little girl if I couldn’t get online from my house.)

Next, buy what you need a la carte:

Instead of paying for a ton of channels you never watch on cable, buy only the episodes you watch for $1.99 each off iTunes
Buy a day pass for the gym each time you go (around $5-$10)
Buy songs as you want them for $0.99 each from Amazon or iTunes

These are some nice ideas. Other things that I have done is change our cell phone plan from a $39.99/month plan (plus the multitude of taxes) to a pay as you go plan with Tmobile. You get voice mail, caller id, long distance and a great national network for the average cost of around 7 to 10 cents a minute depending on the cost of the minutes that you purchase. (I have seen Target run ads for a 1000 minutes for $80).

On the internet, I have Comcast Cable internet and pay one year at a time to get a decent deal on my internet access.

Dave Ramsey's Baby Steps

Here is a link to a PDF printable version of the 7 baby steps on the Dave Ramsey website.

These Baby Steps are a nice guide for everyone to follow to get themselves out of debt and keep them on the path to financial freedom.

Dave Ramsey's Debt Snowball

Here's a nice blog post from Smart Spending.

Basically, it cites a blog post by Kristy at Master Your Card where Kristy states that Dave Ramsey's debt snowball does not work mathematically or psychologically.

Kristy writes:

I’ve already mentioned that I don’t like the debt snowball method, so for me
Ramsey’s number two is ridiculous. As a financial “expert,” he should be
teaching people the right way to manage their debts and offer advice on how to
overcome their discouragement with regard to paying off those high interest
debts. He shouldn’t be offering easy-out solutions that don’t teach people the
value of working to pay down their debts. Beyond that, I’m just opposed to
giving financial advice that costs people more money.

I think that Kristy looks at it from a much more savvy financial frame of reference than the people that Dave Ramsey attempts to teach. Like Kristy, I would not follow his Baby steps line by line, nor would I pay of the smallest debt first (unless of course I could do it within a couple of months). I would rate myself above average, when it comes to finances, which is where Kristy probably is as well. Dave Ramsey's advice is great for average to below average financial minds.

Upromise Program

Have you signed up for Upromise! Upromise is a program where your every day purchases can give you cash back.

I have been able to save up quite a bit for college in this way. I've used some other tricks with Upromise, as well, but I will get into those at another time.

For now, you should sign up with Upromise just to get started, so that you can take advantage of their $10 promotion for shopping online before 6/30/08. Once you sign up, shop online at one of their many partners (all names that you know) and get a $10 credit into your account. When you sign up, use promotion code shoponline.

What is Upromise? (from the Upromise website)

Book Review: Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki

Over at The Enhance Life is a nice review of Robert Kiyosaki's book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. If you have not read the book, it is a good read, though many of his ideas are not actionable for every person. Here is the synopsis of the review:

I found Rich Dad, Poor Dad to be very inspiring. Somehow, I felt that I was reading this book, a few years too late, into my life. The book doesn’t overwhelm people with technical jargon. It simply concentrates on the inner being of what it takes to be rich.

I’d recommend this book as an good way to challenge your thinking about work and money, in ways you haven't thought before. However, if you need technical "how to's" and "to do's" in personal finance, this book is not for you.

Here are a few other reviews:

The Simple Dollar
Profit Advisors
Wikipedia