The Right Choice

“Debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice.” – Dave Ramsey

I listen to a good amount of talk radio in a week.  I find it relaxing and stimulating for the mind.  Recently, I have started listening to the Dave Ramsey show.  His show is about having fiscal responsibility and helping people climb out of debt.  I listened to his show twice this week and each time I found that I couldn’t turn it off.  The one day I even sat in my car parked at my driveway for about 20 minutes listening to the show, well after I had arrived home.

Ramsey’s show is basically him taking calls and e-mails from people that have debt problems, some of them are of the extremist of problems.  He listens to each person’s story and gives them advice that is applicable to each specific problem.  In most cases his advice is just common sense, but these people that call in have forgotten somewhere along the way that “if you can’t afford it, don’t buy it.” Most of these people with debt problems (most of them stemming from high credit card debt) are not bad people, they were just in some sort of fog about their financial situation, and they have come for help.  As college graduates with student loans to be paid off, our generation needs to avoid this fog and start thinking wisely about our finances.

As seen in the video above, Ramsey has certain steps to follow in order to achieve financial bliss.  He also urges for every family to have their own specific game plan unique to their situation.  That’s another thing; I would say that the most important decision in your lifetime is your spouse.  They say that opposites attract. It’s funny how things work out sometimes.  I hear numerous callers a day that one person in the relationship is kind of a spendthrift, and the other is kind of stingy. Fiscally speaking, this situation for a family is about as perfect as it gets. There will be some saving for the future but not so much that you feel the need to slit your wrists because the blood gushing might entertain you.  You will be able to have some reasonable fun, and save money for paying off debts, kid’s education, and retirement.

Ramsey likes to end the week on a good note.  He devotes the entire Friday show to success stories.  Just like all the other shows, he takes callers and they tell him about their story.  Only this time the stories are about how they got out of debt and what it’s like to finally have callers’ shoulders at the end of the call when they get to yell on nationally syndicated radio “I’m debt free!!!!!”  Just listening to it will give you a sense how unbelievably happy these people are and how hard they had to work to get to where they are that day when they are debt free.

I basically just gave you an overview about Ramsey’s show.  There of course is so much more to tell, but I’m going to let you guys find out about it for yourselves.  You can catch Dave Ramsey weekdays from 12:00pm-3:00pm on Altoona’s The Big 1290AM (no, I don’t work for them, I will not benefit from this plug in any way…..bummer) and for all of you DirecTV owners (I don’t work for them either) Dave’s show can be seen on the Fox Business Network from 8:00pm-9:00pm channel 359.  So check him out someday while driving down the road, and pay attention, but please, please, don’t wreck into me.

“Live like no one else, so later you can live like no one else”. –Dave Ramsey

Trivia: Who wrote the book “The Wealth of Nations” which was considered as the foundation of modern economics in the year 1776? (Hint: the answer is not Dave Ramsey)

Last Week’s Answer: The Tri-City Steamers