Search Results for: budget

A Review of Dave Ramsey’s Revised Financial Peace University & New Speakers

December 3, 2012 By MelissaB 3 Comments

Dave Ramsey has changed thousands, if not millions, of lives with his Financial Peace University. Now, he is looking to improve on that formula with the newly revised Financial Peace University. While this latest version of Financial Peace University has all of the benefits of the old version, some of the material has been changed, and there are new speakers added to the mix.

The revised Financial Peace University kit includes a workbook; Ramsey’s book, The Complete Guide to Money; a welcome guide that includes a pencil, sharpener, and eraser; an envelope system; a laminated Financial Peace University Progress Chart; a folder for Financial Peace forms; and most importantly, 10 audio CDs containing Ramsey’s lessons.

The 10 audio CDs cover the following topics:

CD #1: Super Saving: Common Sense for Your Dollars and Cents

CD #2: Relating with Money: Nerds and Free Spirits Unite!

CD #3: Cash Flow Planning: the Nuts and Bolts of Budgeting

CD #4: Dumping Debt: Breaking the Chains of Debt

CD #5: Buyer Beware: The Power of Marketing on Your Buying Decisions

CD #6: The Role of Insurance: Protecting Your Health, Family and Finances

CD #7: Retirement and College Planning: Mastering the Alphabet Soup of Investing

CD #8: Real Estate and Mortgages: Keeping the American Dream from Becoming a Nightmare

CD #9: The Great Misunderstanding: Unleashing the Power of Generous Giving

CD #10: Dave’s Story: Learn How Dave Found the Peace He Was Missing

There are three major changes I noticed in the newly revised Financial Peace University.

1. The course has been shortened from 13 weeks to 9 weeks. Some may say that this time frame is too short, but I think it is great. Ramsey is such a motivational speaker, that after hearing him speak for one class people are fired up and ready to get their finances in order. Shortening the course to 9 weeks allows them to make quicker progress and begin working on their financial situation sooner.

2. Content that wasn’t relevant to everyone has been moved to the website. Some content, while useful to those in a particular situation, isn’t applicable to the majority of people. For instance, Ramsey skillfully explained exactly how to deal with harassing bill collectors in the original Financial Peace University, and that information is essential to those in that situation. However, since the majority of FPU participants are not in that desperate situation, that content has been moved to the website.

3. Ramsey has brought in three new speakers–Rachael Cruze (Ramsey’s daughter), Jon Acuff and Chris Hogan. Fans of Ramsey will probably have mixed feelings about these new additions.

Rachael Cruze has the hardest job. Ramsey is a dynamic motivational speaker who makes his job seem effortless. People will naturally expect the same of his child. In reality, Cruze is young and new at this business. She is definitely not as polished as her famous father, though truthfully very few people are. However, she offers the voice of a person who has been raised following Dave Ramsey’s principles and hearing her success is encouraging.

Jon Acuff shares Ramsey’s sense of humor, but his jokes don’t go over quite as well. However, his tips on negotiation are good, and readers can definitely learn from him. A few more years of working with Ramsey, and he will have the natural, relaxed attitude as Ramsey does.

Chris Hogan is the most charismatic new addition. While he is not Dave Ramsey, he is a natural public speaker. He gives important information about buying a home, but his lessons are peppered with humor that naturally engage the listener.

My husband and I both listened to the CDs, and I didn’t mind the addition of the new speakers and know that Ramsey is probably adding them to prepare to eventually hand over his dynasty. However, my husband did not like the new additions and felt that most of the speakers were simply reiterating what Ramsey always says.

Overall, Dave Ramsey’s newly revised Financial Peace University is an improvement on the first version and can inspire participants to pay off debt and improve their financial situation once and for all.

Personal Finance Reassessment

October 16, 2012 By Shane Ede 6 Comments

Occasionally, there comes a time when you have to take a look at your personal finances and do a little personal finance reassessment. While the need may arise to do a complete overhaul once in a while, a simple reassessment can usually suffice. All it takes is a little attention, and some dedicated time to making sure that your finances are in order.

Recently, my wife and I were, more or less, forced to do a little personal finance reassessment. That’s such a nice, delicate way of saying it isn’t it? Truth be told, our finances were (are) in a mess. The ripples from when I quit my job last November are still plenty big, and the new job that I have seems to have come just in time to keep us from completely going under. Combine the drastic decrease in income that event brought about with a couple of people who remained stubborn in their budget, and it was a recipe for disaster.

Luckily, we’re usually pretty good at talking about money with each other. Don’t get me wrong. There’s plenty of room for improvement. But, we’re good about not getting into any heated arguments with each other, and being able to figure out where we’ve gone wrong and correcting it.

So, we sat down and caught up our dreadfully behind budget. And, let me stop here to say something. What kind of idiot doesn’t keep doing the budget when he quits his job and is making a fraction of what he used to? This guy. Dumb. So, yeah, we caught up the budget. About 6 months worth of financial data entry. Some by hand because our bank doesn’t keep history online over 90 days. So, one by one, directly from the statements I printed off. Did I mention how dumb that was?

In case you’re curious, catching up on about 6 months of budgeting takes about 6 hours. 6 HOURS! It’s done though.

One of the things that we discovered, after having done all of that, is that the reason that we were in the pickle that we were in wasn’t because of the loss of income, although that played a part, but more because of how badly we had slipped in the last few months with our spending. July and August in particular were well above what June was. In our defense, those are usually higher spend months because they’re usually the only real summer months we get up here in North Dakota, but it was still way off. And it cost us. The last several weeks have been pretty hairy, financially.

The scary part of all of that is that we haven’t had a bad financial situation like that for over 5 years. And, maybe, in that 5 years, we’ve become a little bit lax in our budgeting, and in our finances in general. No more. We’re taking the control back, and keeping our finances in order. Not doing so could mean disaster. It surely means stress, and that’s something we just don’t need.

During our little reassessment, there were several things that we picked up on. Like the fact that we didn’t have any life insurance on me. In my previous job, my employer kept a policy on me that would have been more than sufficient. For some reason, they decided to cancel that policy when I quit. 😉 So, we’re now budgeting for life insurance policies. Or, the fact that our spending on eating out and groceries had gone way up. A simple attitude adjustment helps with the eating out, and we’re going to start trying to use menu plans to keep our grocery bill down and to spread it out over the month. Another thing that seems to be part of the issue is the timing of some of our bills. Before, I made enough that it wasn’t an issue when the bills came due, we always had at least enough to make it to the next payday. Now, with my lower salary, it’s getting a bit tight right before the 15th (when my wife gets paid), and a few of the bills that come in right before the 15th are adding a little extra stress. I need to call a few of them and try to get them moved to a slightly later due date.

In the end, our personal finance reassessment came just in time. We kept a close enough watch on our finances to see the need arising, and were able to meet the need and keep things from getting any worse. Chalk it up to a lesson learned. The (almost) hard way.

When was the last time you had a personal finance reassessment?

img credit: Matt Mcgee, on Flickr

What’s Your Personal Finance Dedication Level?

September 11, 2012 By Shane Ede 9 Comments

You’ll hear me talk about it all the time. Well, you won’t likely hear me at all, but read me write about it just doesn’t sound right. 😉 If you want to succeed at your personal finance goals and your personal life goals, you need to continually work towards them. (Make some if you haven’t already)

And working towards your goals sometimes doesn’t get the required dedication that it deserves. If you’ve set goals for your personal finance, but have never met one on time, you probably suffer from a low level of PF dedication. If, however, you always meet your goals on time or early, you not only likely have a high level of PF dedication, you also need to set higher goals! 😉

In the course of my day to day life (and yours, I’d bet) I’m constantly tempted with things that I would like to have or places I would like to go. And to get those things or go to those places costs money. Money that might not be in the budget. The temptation can sometimes be strong to put aside a budget item for this month so that you can have that “want” now. Time for a self check.

It’s at times like that, that I try to remind myself of the goals that I have set. That $50 gadget could be a $50 payment towards the next debt item in the debt snowball/avalanche/snowflake. It could go towards retirement, or towards college savings, or towards down payment savings, or… You get the idea. Often, that little reminder is enough to keep me on track.

But it’s only because I’ve decided to have a very high level of dedication to my personal finance goals that it works. If I had a much lower PF dedication level, it might not be so easy to turn down that gadget. And I’d be that many more months behind schedule on paying off my debt.

What is your PF dedication level? Do an inventory of the goals that you have set and decide now how much dedication you want to have towards those goals. I’ll let you in on a little secret. If you set a goal, you want it to be a 100% dedication item. Maybe you don’t realize that, but (consciously, or sub-consciously) you created that goal with the intention of giving it 100% dedication. And if you aren’t giving it the dedication that you intended for it, you’re letting yourself down. And maybe it’s time to rethink your goals and set new ones.

Whatever the case may be, your dedication level to your goals is the deciding factor in meeting those goals.

image credit: Duchessa