If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else.
- Dave Ramsey

When you listen to Dave Ramsey’s radio show, you will often hear that quote. When you read the book, it’s printed repetitively at the bottom of each page. I think Dave’s trying to tell us something.

Extreme Finance Makeover: Ramsey Edition

Once you start reading this book, you’ll realize two things very quickly:

1. Dave Ramsey ain’t messing around
2. This plan could really work!

Americans are broke, generally speaking. Oh, we have nice things and all, but that is precisely why we’re broke. The nice things are all on loan from a bank, and we’re all “slaves to the lender.” (Proverbs 22:7)

For a practical example, when I went to Paraguay I only had student loan debt left. Especially once I found Kathy, really the only thing that forced me to head back to the US that year was the debt I had to pay off. When I went back to get her this past January, I was really upset that our future is determined by my debt.
The Total Money Makeover is a handbook to your financial freedom. It’s not easy, and it’s not quick. Dave will tell you straight out: it’s gonna hurt. He says on his show all the time that the key is living off of beans and rice and rice and beans. He means it.

If you’re not ready to radically change your way of life, this book is not for you. It’s not a collection of hard-to-maintain tips on getting debt free. No, this book takes an extremely common sense approach to debt: don’t buy what you don’t have cash for, don’t buy stuff you don’t need, and use all the rest of your money to pay off your debt as quickly as possible.

Do it in baby steps

His whole philosophy is baby steps. At the start, you’re financially obese. You can’t do much, but you do what you can. First you get yourself an emergency cushion. Then you attack debt. Then you “fully fund” your emergency stash. Then you save for retirement. Then you pay off your house. Then you live like no one else.

But it starts with living like no one else.

You might have to say “no” to some things and some people. You may have to sell a car or boat. But he guarantees that if you follow the plan, you will become wealthy.

Don’t let it end with cash hoarding

Dave Ramsey gives a ton of money away. He says the most fun he has with his money is giving it to people who need it more than he does. He even had a contest around Christmas to see who could give away $5000 – of *his* money – the best.

I didn’t read this book to find out how to get rich. I read this book to see what this Total Money Makeover is all about. I have to say, I wasn’t even done with the debt-paying-off chapter before I wanted to jump to the computer and adjust the budget as tightly as I could.

We’ve already begun implementing some techniques in our budget. For example, food purchases have been more expensive than necessary in the past. So now food is a cash-only system. When the cash is done, we eat what we have left in the house. That’s the only way my debt will be gone soon.

Definitely recommended

I highly recommend this book to anyone who has any kind of debt. You don’t need the debt. You can get rid of it. You just have to be systematic about it, and this book will help. Break the old habits and start new ones. If you live like no one else now, you can live like no one else later!

Buy
The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness
by Dave Ramsey
on Amazon!

Other personal finance tools by Dave Ramsey

Cash Flow Planning
(DVD)

Total Money Makeover
Workbook

Financial Peace
University

Financial Peace

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• Book Review: Eats, Shoots and Leaves
• Did I Finally Find It?
• We made it to the next round
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• It’s Wednesday Again

Last Tuesday, I think that ended.

Steven linked me to an article plugging a book by a guy named Tim Ferriss called The 4-Hour Body. I read the article and was intrigued by the claims. There’s essentially not much more than adjusting your diet, so I figured I’d give it a shot. I started that evening.

The gist is that you eat 3 or 4 times a day, but you eat only protein, legumes, and vegetables. Something from each category, as much as you feel like eating. The point is there’s absolutely no starving yourself. This is not a low-calorie diet, it’s simply a change in the types of food I’m eating. For example, this morning I scrambled two eggs with a bunch of peppers, onions, and some pinto beans. Essentially I have stopped eating white carbohydrates (bread, pasta, rice, etc.) and started eating legumes (lentils, beans) and piling on the veggies. This is rigidly adhered to for six days; on the seventh (Saturdays) I eat the way I used to.

I found that it was very easy to eat this restricted diet without feeling that I was depriving myself. The legumes and protein keep you feeling satisfied. I even successfully – for literally the first time in my life – was able to say no to donuts TWICE last week. I don’t even crave the sweets we have in our area at work, and I think it’s because I don’t eat sugar anymore (except on Saturdays). I can’t even explain to you how revolutionary that is to me. That has literally never happened before in my life. Sweets have *always* been a challenge to me. Now they’re just only sometimes slightly annoying.

You may be waiting for the results. Remember, the *only* thing I have changed this week was the type of food I ate. I didn’t even exercise this week (I should, I just didn’t). I was astounded when I weighed myself this morning. Last Tuesday morning I weighed 309.8 pounds.

This morning I weighed 303.8. It blows my mind that I lost six pounds this week only by changing the type of food I ate. I don’t understand it, but I accept it.

I don’t want to make this post any longer, so I’ll do a part two later on. There are a few more things I want to tell you about, but it’ll be at least as long as this post.

I’ll end by posting my numbers. In addition to weight, I’ll be taking measurements of my arms, legs, waist, and hips. I’m going to try to consistently update them. I know I’ve said that in the past and haven’t been consistent, but I’ve also never been as gung ho about fat loss as this. I’m definitely amped enough to go another week.

December 21, 2010
Total inches: 199.7
Weight: 303.8

-j

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Last night I prayed, “Lord, I should run tomorrow. Please wake me up and make me do it.” When my alarm went off at 6:30, I snoozed it once and then turned it off. Finally at 6:45 or so I got out of bed and continued farting around (not literally). But finally at 7 I was outside pounding the pavement. I began listening to a message by NT Wright on Wisdom, and I felt compelled to raise my hands to God and praise Him for the morning and the exercise and my life. It was nice. I did just over 2 miles today.

Finally, I was 301 this morning. No more fooling around! For a while anyway…

-j

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I won’t say that I’m financially *unstable*. But I could always wobble a little bit less. Before I went to Paraguay, I had eliminated my credit card debt and was working on Stage 3 of the Crown Money Map, which is establishing an emergency savings of 3 months expenses and paying off student loans. When I went to Paraguay, I put my loans into deferment, and eventually had to start tapping into my savings to pay off my mortgage when rent wasn’t coming in as timely as it should have been. I had to buy my flight home with my credit card, and I lived on it for a few weeks while I was getting my job back and a paycheck once again.

So here I am once again at Stage 2. Trying to pay off my credit card (singular…one is all you need) and establishing a savings of one month’s expenses. I’m about halfway on both fronts, but I’ve recently decided to stop saving as much and start putting more money to my credit card. I figure I’ll end up paying more in interest than I will get from my savings if I don’t. Additionally, I’m saving for my wedding, and I’ve committed to saving a specific amount each month no matter what. I don’t want to not have enough when the time comes, even if I have to skimp for right now.

For the first time in my life I am actually living from a budget. I developed a spreadsheet using a modified version of Crown’s spending plan (email me if you want it) that keeps track of everything I spend and what type of expense it is. I can play around with percentages to increase one category or another. Or let’s say I know I will need $1400 for home expenses, I can set its percentage to allocate that much, and then I can play with the rest to make sure I have enough for food and car and whatnot. It’s handy.

Now I can get to the frustrating part. I only get paid twice a month, so that means I can only see progress for about 20 minutes twice a month. The two things I’m working on are my savings and my credit card. So twice a month my savings go up a tad, I allocate money towards my credit card. I feel like I’ve been given the green light to go and make some progress, but it only lasts for a brief moment, then I have to wait again. Frustrating!

I know I’m making progress, and that’s the important part. If you’ve decided you need to straighten out your finances but don’t know where to start, I’ve included two links at the bottom that have provided direction and keep me motivated. This is definitely an exercise in patience, but it works out in the end. My goal is to be completely free of consumer debt in 5 years, which includes almost $30,000 in student loans. So you can expect to see more financial posts here between now and then.

Crown Financial’s Money Map – a guide through 7 destinations that will get you financial freedom
Get Rich Slowly – a personal finance blog that I find has lots of good tips and suggestions

-j

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I could spend some time making excuses for myself, but I’ve adopted the idea that excuses are dumb and don’t fix anything. When something’s important, you figure out how to get it done. You only make excuses for things that you know you should have done, could have done, but for whatever reason didn’t. I used to call them “reasons”, but even they functioned as excuses.

I didn’t post last week because I was irritated with my weight gain for the week. My excuse would be that I had been traveling a lot, but we all know that if I really wanted to do things right, traveling wouldn’t have stopped my good habits. Last Wednesday I was 309.

Now, that frustrated me because apart from the trip to Yankee Stadium (also known as “The Greatest Road Trip of My Life”) I thought I had been doing well. As far as I could recall, I had eaten normally and the only difference was the trip food, including Stadium food, and a lack of exercise. So I gain 5 pounds in a week? I didn’t get it. But that’s how my life usually goes. I guess the positive part about making this all public is at least you all get to see what kind of a struggle it is for some people to lose weight. My brothers-in-law could do exactly what I did and not see a change in their weight at all. But when you look at the difference between us, they’re both way more active on a daily basis than I am.

So in retrospect, a lack of exercise is probably more detrimental to me than I realize. But on top of that, I still have a too-strong connection to food. I decided to start following the plan of the Bible study I’ve been doing, and today’s half-portion day has been killing me. After lunch I actually felt angry because I couldn’t eat more. Withdrawal, you are a terrible beast.

This morning my weight was down to 307. So basically since the first time I posted my weight, maybe five weeks ago, I haven’t moved an inch. Oh, I’ve had a lot of movement, down and up and down, but I’m still where I started a month ago. Maybe one of these weeks I’ll figure out why I can’t stick to things for long enough to make a difference!

Welcome to my life.

-j

ps> I don’t want to sound like I’m whining. I’m really not. I don’t feel all emo about this situation, but I said I would be honest, and that’s what I’m trying to do. For whatever reason, this is the particular struggle that Satan is using to get me down right now. It’s been others before, and it’ll be others later.

More great posts:

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My weight this morning was 304.4. Next week it will be 302 something (I don’t think I can get lower than that in a week).

I’ve been really tired since my FL trip and haven’t found the drive I’d had before to get outside in the morning. I still wake up at 6:30, but I’m really groggy until after 7 and by then I have no time to go out. I probably just need to walk around outside while I’m groggy until I get the blood pumping (which might actually be why I’m groggy when I think about it…I need to break the cycle).

-j

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When you go to visit someone after dinner and they serve you sausage and cheese, then cake, then fruit, then nuts, you get to a point where you feel rude because you just can’t eat any more. It also makes you realize how important food is to our culture. It’s actually pretty frustrating.

The other problem is that it’s so stinkin’ humid in Florida, you want to be outside as little as possible. I guess I should just suck it up and get used to it. Richmond will be the same way in short order.

I’m just gonna have to push it at the beginning of this week. Maybe I can offset the damage that has been done so far. We’ll have to see on Wednesday.

-j

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Not too much difference: 1.4 lbs. But it’s 1.4 less, so that’s what I like to see! Within a week or two I want to be under 300.

Glory to God.

-j

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I started jogging following a plan to go from the couch to a 10K in 13 weeks. I realized a few weeks ago that when I would start jogging again, I’d push myself too hard and burn out too soon. You don’t do that with anything else you do. You build up to certain abilities, you never just jump in and instantly have results. So why did I think I could do that here too?

I’ve learned a couple things while jogging. Last week I spent a bit more than 30 minutes on five of the seven mornings on the road. To the average person, that doesn’t seem like a big deal, but to me it is at least a medium-sized one. I covered more miles last week than I have all year – including the 10K – up to that point. The first day was because I was up and I figured “why not?” By the end of the week, I realized that I can actually sustain that for a while. It wasn’t much – jog a minute then walk two, 6 to 8 times depending on the day. I did notice a difference between Sunday and Saturday, and I *also* noticed my body had gotten used to the two miles I stopped at during the week as it was struggling to finish the third I stretched out on Saturday. Last week, this was my schedule:

Monday – Walk 5 mins to warm up. Jog 1 minute, walk 2 minutes. Repeat 8 times. Walk 5 minutes to cool down.
Tuesday – Same as Monday, repeating 6 times.
Thursday – Same as Monday, repeating 7 times.
Saturday – Bonus day. Same as Monday, repeating until 3 miles was covered.

By Saturday I was in a groove. I was glad I started small, but it was starting to get easy. Today I started week two. I have a feeling I’ll be on week two for a couple weeks. Running for 2 consecutive minutes and walking for two is easy the first two iterations. By the 7th, I’m ready to sit down.

If I can get past this week and continue jogging, I think I can continue jogging until the training program is over. At that point I think it should be time to train for the half-marathon, so I can conceivably see myself jogging until the end of the year. By then I’m hoping it will be a habit and will just keep going. Also by then I should be considerably lighter.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. – Philippians 4:13

-j

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A friend told me he already signed up for the Suntrust Richmond Half Marathon in November and that entry fees were already increasing. I went to go see and sign up. The fee is now $65. There’s one thing that’s keeping me from signing up – there’s a time limit to the race. The training team isn’t even for you if you can’t *already* mostly run a 5K. Dang…

The price increase is June 30. I’ll give it until then. I think that’s enough time to get my run on enough to be used to mostly running a 5K. The training team starts in August, so if I’m almost there by late June, I’ll be even more almost there by August. The *other* only problem is the training team fee is about $135. Yeah, you get good instruction, motivation, and a “technical singlet”, but that’s hefty.

We shall see. I want to run it. It’s a worthy goal, and if I can actually complete 13.1 miles, maybe I could even one day do 26.2….

“You may say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one”.

-j

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