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Book Review: "The Total Money Makeover" By: Dave Ramsey

            It is a distinct honor and privilege to provide my book review today. For me, this is the book that changed everything in my life. This gave me the power to stand on my own two feet, live as a responsible adult, and change my life for the better. The information in this book literally transformed my life and it will do no less for you. Dave Ramsey’s “The Total Money Makeover” is the one book that we all should have read and studied during school before we were unleashed into the real world. But thankfully, even for those of us that are already adults and have experienced stupid with 0’s on the end, this book gives the written game plan on how to turn your financial life around for the positive.

            Dave does an absolutely outstanding job in transitioning from real world true life examples, to the x’s and o’s, to dispelling popular money myths. My favorite money myth that gets shattered is the tax advantage of paying interest on your mortgage vs. living debt free. The myth is that it is a good decision to keep your mortgage for the tax deduction. The truth, we are paying $10,000 in interest annually to our lender rather than paying $3,000 to the government and keeping $7,000 for ourselves. The book is filled with gems like this one that will turn your views on credit completely upside down and rock your world.           

            Now I have probably read this book close to 50 times over the last two and a half years, but every time it puts a smile on my face and reassures me of the path that I am heading down and choosing for myself. Of course the memories of reading it for the first time are still very vivid in my mind. About ¾ of the book beginning from the front cover, challenged me and presented such a plethora of information that conflicted with how I thought smart personal finance worked that I had to re-read a lot of sections over and over again. The information is presented clearly and concisely, I just needed to get my brain on the same wavelength. The layout of the book, that ¼ of it covers the baby steps, really drives home the point that smart personal financial decisions are 80% behavior and 20% head knowledge. The KISS method also fits the bill (keep it simple…STUPID!!). So to the financial goobers who bemoan that Dave’s method is way too simple I’ll say this: I got out of debt, live on a budget and keep my investing style extremely simple and I LOVE IT! To everyone else, if you read one book in 20 years, let this be the one, it will rock your world!

My October Grocery Challenge: Week 2

            Grocery shopping has never been more fun…SERIOUSLY! For week 2 of my October grocery challenge, I happily made it to the mother of all frugal shopping locations, ALDI. I love Aldi. I love everything that it is and stands for. Yes, there is a true stigma with this grocer within social communities. To the hyperconsumer it is perceived as cheap, low quality and found in the bad end of town. So naturally, if the norm is to avoid Aldi, I’ll run to it as fast as I can. I have been shopping here for a few years now, and I am sorry for not patronizing this fine grocer sooner. Aldi represents a lot of what I am all about: everyday low prices (no sales needed), not being a brand snob, quality based on content and not the name, and did I mention that they do not accept credit cards?? Cash and debit cards only. Aldi encourages (ok, forces) you to avoid going into debt, how can you not get behind that!

            Back on track though, this week our household opted to stock up on items for our ongoing and future needs for meal planning. Highlights of this week’s trip included continuing to grab fruits for under $1 a pound, and this week we scored Michigan apples, bananas and avocados. In addition, my home church also sponsors a weekly meal for the area’s homeless community, and regularly accept specific donations. So for this week we picked up extra bottles of ranch dressing for the program’s needs. With everything said and done for week 2 our total came out to $54.87 for 45 items. So after 2 weeks we have spent a total of $76.95, leaving a remaining budget balance of $263.05 with 3 weeks to go.

Book Review: "Money Matters" by: Larry Burkett

            Whether you are seasoned in practicing responsible personal money management or brand new to all of this, Larry Burkett’s “Money Matters” is an excellent pick up. While I personally do not agree with a lot of his arguments and reasoning (yes I believe credit cards are evil) a lot of the principles fall in line with my view points of personal money management and I would recommend this book. It is told in a Question and Answer format though and is broken down into several unique and interesting sections such as: Money in Marriage, Housing, Education, etc. For me, I found this most beneficial because I plan on facilitating Dave Ramsey’s FPU course in the near future and want to become more exposed to concerns that people may bring to the table. Sure, I had my own specific set of hurts, hang ups and challenges, but I imagine in a room full of people during a 13 week course, there are going to be so many questions and scenarios that everyone can and probably will bring to the table, that I at least want to have some basis covered.

            Some of the topics that I found most intriguing that I never would have thought people asked, and a lot of which is knowledge that I take for granted included:  Whether investing in the stock market is biblical (i.e. concerns that it is the equivalent of gambling), what’s wrong with the extremist that wants to get out from their overvalued home and live in a trailer as they work the baby steps and how to handle cash gifts from grandparents to grandchildren.

            One of the biggest differentials though between Burkett and myself is our viewpoints on God’s involvement with our daily budgets and goal forecasting. (In a marriage scenario) You’ll often find Burkett, in questions of discernment, lay the line “You should pray about it along with your spouse and see where God wants you to be.” While I do believe in prayer and embracing a spiritual connection with my spouse outside of church, I also believe that thinking for yourself and working along with your spouse is apart of God’s plan. Sure, he may know which decisions you are going to make, but with sound fundamentals in personal finance and spirituality, I do believe that we should be able to rationalize for ourselves which decisions need to be made. So while most of this review found its way onto my soapbox, I will say that “Money Matters” gives a great overview of the ways in which living under the strains of debt keep us slaves to the lenders.

My Spiritual Warfare

            I feel like I am fighting a cold war, and am being attacked (at least metaphorically speaking) from two separate sides. On one end, there’s the relentless and beckoning call of hyperconsumerism. Technology wants me to have the latest and greatest, (although I thoroughly enjoy it) I have to hunt for bargains, deals and the like for everything from groceries to clothing, and even being televisionless, print advertisements ARE EVERYWHERE insisting that my life is not fulfilled unless I drinkthisbeerspendmoneyatthiscasinodrivethiscareatthisfoodwatchthismovie. Sometimes I literally feel like I need to crawl into a cave to re-energize myself from being bombarded with all of this advertising. But when I emerge I’m armed with the frugal fury of Jeff Yeager, the wisdom of Dave Ramsey and the heart of Larry Burkett, and I feel like I can take on any advertiser trying to tie up my income with monthly payments, and can battle as well as look down upon with disdain at any investment advisor with all the little letters at the end of their name who think that my investing style is elementary (BTW I’ve always felt if you have all of those stupid letters after your name: i.e. cpa, cfa, cfp, its certified proof that I need to keep people with those letters as far away from my investments as I possibly can. Essentially, they were forced feed the idea that debt is a tool used to create prosperity, and those letters mean that you accept this myth as truth). For any and all of those people, I give no second thoughts to (figuratively speaking) slicing their heads off with my frugality sword.

            It’s the other side of the attack that, and I think this is the first time I’ve ever admitted this even to myself, troubles me the most and drains my spirit. Just thinking about it I feel like I have to stop and catch my breath. It’s a fight that strains and even weakens my soul. It’s a fight that’s best summarized in a lot of Christian churches and is being played out across our great country via protests. The ideology that having wealth makes people evil, that the playing field known as competition needs to be equalized, and that people are absolved from personal responsibility and accountability because loan agreements that they could not afford were made available to them.

            I can fight tooth and nail against consumerism and never think twice about the feelings or pain that I can render, but against peers and people of the same faith, it literally breaks my heart. I’ll start with faith. In Christian circles, I feel that there is an intense hatred and disdain for wealthy individuals and successful corporations. It’s like there’s an unspoken mantra, “Wealthy and successful people need to humble themselves and give (more), and the poor worker needs to be exalted as the paradigm of what a good Christian should be.” Dave Ramsey lays the counter argument out so majestically, I wish I had said it. Money is AMORAL, period! It’s the human involvement and interaction that makes money take on life and form. In FPU, Dave uses bricks as a substitute for money. For example, if I were to take a brick and fling it through and destroy the window of someone’s home, I would be (in every sense of the word) a bad person. Now if I take a ton of bricks and build a hospital in the poor end of town, I would be doing good works. The bricks don’t care, but this irrationalized judgment call is made, “He has a ton of bricks and he must be evil, but this person has no bricks they must be good,” THEY’RE JUST BRICKS PEOPLE!!! And to my Christian brethren that fight me, I’ll say this: If more “good” people have more “bricks” than “bad” people, WE CAN DO MORE GOOD IN THE WORLD. By changing our habits and views towards credit and building personal wealth, together we can change the balance of who owns wealth. If more “good” people worked Dave’s baby steps and built wealth, we can give like no one else to help: our churches, unwed mothers, families in poverty, areas of the world with limited access to water, seniors who find themselves in financial messes (goodbye social security!!), etc. etc. etc. Essentially, if we band together and build personal wealth for ourselves, we can change the world. Now a lot of this runs in direct opposition to identifying myself as a (partial) objectivist (A LOT more on that later) but basically what I’m trying to say to my Christian brothers and sisters is this: It is in your personal interest to erase debt from your life, build monetary security and wealth for your family, and give whatever you want to whoever you want. Now if you really believe that “rich” people and corporations are evil, then do something about it, capture some of that wealth for yourself (by working Dave’s baby steps) and change that balance. I challenge you, show “them” what good a wealthy person can do in the world by being that example.

            *LOOOOOONG breath pause*

            Now onto my peers out protesting. We, are supposed to be the greatest generation that the world has ever seen in any age. We, are the most educated generation to walk the Earth. We have existed without witnessing the burdens of those that fought for Civil Rights and Women’s Suffrage. We have always been able to work and vote side by side regardless of gender or race. We were also witnesses to acts of war on our country’s soil, and are also witnesses to 10+ years of our country being at war. We understand the impacts of climate change, and whether man made or not, we love hybrid cars/mini coopers/high efficient light bulbs/recycling programs for all of the same reasons. We were supposed to think for ourselves. What has happened is that we bought into several myths as truths. Some, which are the most damaging, is that debt is a tool and that a college degree was a one way ticket to success.

            We chose to use debt to pay for our college educations. With those loans we rented places off campus, went on vacations and in every sense of the word lived beyond our means. We thought credit cards were good deals. We enjoyed the “college experience” and did not work credible part time jobs while in school that would have given us insight into the fields we were pursuing academically. We bought into the hype of “The Great Recession” of 2008 and, afraid to apply for jobs, went to grad schools paid for with student loans.

            Now we are out of school and expected to have cushy $30k plus entry level white collar jobs handed to us, just like our degrees. So now we point our fingers to the government, banks, and wealthy people as if they are at fault for our inability to think for ourselves. We say there are no jobs, but yet we are “too good” to deliver pizzas and wipe down restaurant tables or take an entry level sales job and muscle our way into a company. What we have become are entitled brats expecting success to happen to us, rather than us happening to success. I feel like we have never had the drive to fight, scratch and claw our way to achievement.

            Dave Ramsey talks about the path of working the baby steps. He says that before you even begin the first, that there’s an obstacle course difficult to navigate (myths we accept as truths) and that along the way you will be made fun of and mocked from those that think you’re a fool and “uneducated” for even thinking about going thru the obstacle course. Now once thru the course, the remaining six steps are like a giant mountain. It’s daunting to look up at from the bottom, but the view from the top and the ride down make you wish you could do it 100 times. It has always been my vision, my dream, to get to the top of this mountain, setting mile markers (as well as kilometer markers for my readers overseasJ) during my ascent. And once at the top, unpack the longest strongest ropes that man has ever made, and pull as many of you up the mountain to join myself and my fellow “weird” people as I possibly can, even if it breaks every bone in my body. But I, the followers of Yeager, Ramsey and Burkett, and all of the other blogs in the world can’t elude one fact: We have to make change happen for ourselves. In our personal lives, unemployment is either 0% or 100%, and doing what’s best for you, breaking free of debt, getting an emergency fund, saving for retirement, saving and working through college, having the heart and drive to take ANY job that’s available until you can stand on your own two feet, is a decision that we have to make one by one – individually. No one is going to do it for us.

My Quarter End: 3rd Quarter 2011

Quarter ends are typically joyous times in my household. My wife, with a look of disgust, shakes her head in disbelief as I take time and energy calculating out our net worth at the end of every quarter. As simple and thorough as can be, I find the total between our assets owned against debt outstanding. As of September 30^th, 2011, our net worth stood at $223,509.49. Now if you would have told me, at the start of this 3^rd quarter in 2011, that my net worth would have FELL in value at the end of the quarter by -$18,038.22, and that I would be as happy as a clam, I would have had serious doubts. But it’s so weird, even over the last few months I have just been in a completely different headspace when looking at my personal finances.

            I feel like during this bear market, what I consider my “financial rock” has shifted away from the $60K plus in investments, and towards my six month emergency fund. As we take this ride down the bear market of 2011, my liquid emergency fund is a huge piece of what I take solace and security from (in a financial sense). Should I have a true emergency: medical, a family member passing away, etc. I can ride out the market cycle as long as I have my six month emergency fund intact.

            Overall though I do feel like I’m in an amazing headspace. The books I have read (and reviewed) this quarter have really given me nuggets of information that I have been able to put into practice, and a lot of my personal relationships have improved, and I’m happy to note especially my marriage. Though not perfect and we are still working on understanding one another, I feel like we can talk to each other and understand one another a lot more efficiently than at any other time in our relationship. In the past few weeks I have spent a lot of time with some of my extended family and in-laws, and I’ve been reminded time and time again about what is most important to me: interpersonal relationships. I loved going to my dad’s 65^th birthday and loved being able to share it with my in-laws. So with my emergency fund intact I can focus on the more important things in life, like family and letting my long term investments work through market cycles:

3^rd Quarter 2011 Recap

             The herd is moving in the direction echoed in my August 9^th column “As the Market Turns,” (I hate being right J) and that is towards a very steep bear market. Equities are down. Housing is down. And unemployment numbers (though intrinsically flawed in calculation) are floating above 9%. Essentially a big chunk of the problem is that trading overall is reacting to news from government entities rather than the private industry. News of QEII and Operation Twist churned the market up, while fears from the EU and American debt ceilings lead to massive runs on equities. Announcements of mergers & acquisitions, earnings expectations and the like stayed away from our front pages (if it bleeds it leads right?? God I hate Comm. Majors). Until we reach a true bottom in housing and the KGB  US Government can get a handle on letting us know how they are going to behave in the next year, our best and brightest companies are going to hold off on completing long term forecasting projections and are going to wait on hiring until the moochers in DC provide solid information for ongoing policy.

            Looking forward I am expecting good growth during the 4^th quarter of this year. INCONCEIVABLE you may say?! How can I be so sure? You mean, besides the 80+ year track history of our stock market which has shown, since 1929, that October, November and December, that the DOW has historically returned average annualized returns of 2.31%? Hmmm, call it a hunch! I expect 3^rd quarter earnings reports will be better than expected, thanks to lowered expectations. I also continue to believe in Black Friday, which follows Thanksgiving, as well as the Santa Claus rally to provide some positive padding to help end the year. The KGB US Government set a couple of “crucial” deadlines that, at first glance, provided a perfect opportunity to derail Black Friday and Santa. Around the time of “Friday” and “Santa,” our elected officials will convene around the times of these historically proven rallies, to find agreed upon ways to cut government spending. I have no confidence that they can accomplish this whatsoever. Admittedly, I am happy to report (with absolutely no pun intended) the KGB’s US Government’s self imposed time clock will prove beneficial. When they are unable to reach a consensus on spending cuts after an established date and time, automatic self-imposed cuts will be implemented. Now the automatic cuts themselves do nothing to solve the KGB’s US Government’s problem of overspending and lack of planning, but having concrete news is all the market asks for, and these automatic cuts, I expect, will allow private planning and forecasting to push ahead with plans that include: purchasing,  hiring, M&A, expansion, etc. Ultimately, once both sides, right AND left, get out of our way, we can get back to the business of being the greatest economic force this world has ever known. Happy 4^th quarter to everyone out there!

My October Grocery Challenge: Week 1

My October grocery challenge got off to a stellar start. Being limited on time during the weekend, Saturday in Michigan and Sunday back in Chicago, we were short on time to take the bus to Aldi, and opted for our local grocer “The Market Place.” This is what I would consider a higher end grocer that runs limited sales and avoid this place like the plague when needing to restock heavily for groceries. So before my wife and I stepped out our door, we set our meal plan for the week:

Lunches at work: Leftover vegetarian chili from the prior week

                            Freshly home-made lentil soup

                            Snacks of apples, pretzels, and (for me) PB&J

Dinner options for the week: Vegetarian Boca-burgers

                                                Fresh homemade green salad

                                                Pasta

                                                Homemade Pizza

                                            

            Obviously I have learned to enjoy leftovers. Thankfully we were under budget for September’s groceries and were able to stock up on solid amounts of items entering the dreaded 5 weekend month of October, so went in for essentials and “need to have” items.

1.      Romaine Lettuce: Yes Jeff Yeager, I am following the only buy produce at $1 a pound and under rule, and I still love it

2.      Boca-burgers: Best vegetarian burger option around. With chicken and cheeseburger flavors, EVERY time these are on sale my wife and I are sure to grab at least a few!

3.      Plum Tomatoes: Also under a dollar a pound and are excellent additions to our salad and fresh pizza for the week

4.      Loaf of wheat bread: Currently I’m eating my way thru half a loaf in our fridge, have a full loaf in the freezer, and grabbed this guy as insurance as it was on sale. If I had gone to Aldi I may have grabbed 2 or 3 of these

5.      Buffalo Mozzarella: Happy wife = happy life

6.      (2) Dozen Eggs: My nemesis. Yes you are cheaper in just about every state around me, but I’ll best you one day.

So our total for the 1^st week ended at $22.08, leaving a remaining balance of $317.92 with four weeks to go. And yes, I LOVE paying cash!