Saturday, November 22, 2008

Getting out of debt

As we head into the holiday shopping season I appreciate this great video clip from Dave Ramsey about basic money management. He says we should sell so much stuff the kids think they're next and name our dogs "Ebay".
1) Live on less than you make.
2) Get out of debt. (Attack smallest to largest debt.)
3) Create a budget.
4) Save money for a rainy day. (Emergency money.)
5) Give, Give, Give (Be a blessing to others.)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Hello Arloa, This post, along with nearly one-third of the posts on this page, is inaccessible to large parts ot the Third World, i.e. sets the technical bar too high. Would you like to comment on this? Is this intentionally a Developed World blog? Or is there some other thinking behind this? Or is this simply what you happened to post? Anyway, there's interest in your blog the Third World. :-)

Arloa Sutter said...

Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean by the "technical bar". If you mean a post about getting out of debt is not relevant to people in countries outside of the US, I can understand. I guess I am writing from my context and I like Dave Ramsey's video message because I think those of us who are Christians in America could give more to kingdom work throughout the developing world if we managed our resources better, myself included. So in that sense I am writing for residents in the US. If you are referring to something else, please help me understand. It's nice to know there is interest in my blog outside the US. Thanks for commenting so I know you are out there!

Tom Neumann said...

It is interesting that as our society is in it’s present problem due to a lot of things yet one of those is the need to buy more or want more. When one is content first with what they have that that bought and use it well then the need to always looking to buy more will be less. We get so much stuff we have to store it in our basements, our garages if you have one or rent a garage or rent a space just to store our “Stuff”.

I am most intrigued that the other day when a major economist stated that the worlds economy will come around again once Americans start buying goods starting off with small things and looking at the big ticket items. He ended with the point that once the housing market gets back on it’s feet we will then see the real money coming in as the need for items to fill up those new homes will be needed.

I really wonder is this good and sound economics at this time?

I will say I like the list I saw however I would try to turn it upside down if I could as we give more to Gods work and His Kingdom we will be blessed indeed. As for savings Americans used to be near the top years ago when it came that and now we lead in the world in “debt”. What an example.

Anonymous said...

Hello Arloa, by 'technical bar' I was referring mainly to bandwidth (I am in Africa) - also the number of elements that need to be downloaded (e.g. the icons of the various followers of your blog, other assorted images, and so on). So supposing that we have an actual (rather than theoretical) less than 10 kbps bandwidth in many places in Africa - and that's surely optimistic - in this case videos and podcasts and similar things place much of your blog outside of the 'Africa friendly' realm - I worked out that it's about one-third of your blog. And I would guess that in some areas of Africa, all of your blog is inaccessible - due e.g. to the need to display the first frame of YouTube videos, and again multiple elements. So my own blog, as an example, is constituted quite differently, to cater to 'my own' Third World. It would depend a lot of course on who you're catering to, or have in view. So at the moment, I perceive that there's quite a technical bar between your blog and the Third World. However, it's one of my favourites, and my own 'luxury' connection enables me at least to download those first frames and various images.