It's called "Total Money Makeover"
Great easy read. Have fun!!

I agree - Dave's "The Total Money Makeover" is the best book to read! LOVE IT!

Here's the baby steps off his website...

$1,000 to start an Emergency Fund
Pay off all debt using the Debt Snowball
3 to 6 months of expenses in savings
Invest 15% of household income into Roth IRAs and pre-tax retirement
College funding for children
Pay off home early
Build wealth and give!
Invest in mutual funds and real estate

If you go there they also have a printable version - great to have on hand (guess I should find mine)!

Baby Steps

I agree some of his ideas are hard to get behind but if you understand the reasoning they make perfect sense! Like taking out the 401k - that's hard and dh & I haven't done it since we're making enough progress on our debt, but if we were you KNOW we'd work even harder to get it paid off faster so we can start contributing again! We probably should, but since we're single income and we're not sure how much longer he'll be at this job we want to contribute as long as possible!

Even though we're not "Gazelle intense" and don't follow his steps to a T, reading his book REALLY did change my way of thinking - it's helped A LOT!!!

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Stay at home mom to my 3 boys... ages 5, 3 & 1!

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

To me, some of his ideas are hard to swallow, like pressing pause on your 401(k) especially if your company matches a certain amount (who wants to give up free money) BUT there is always a flip side, putting that extra money towards debt will help illiminate wasting your money on credit card interest rates FASTER and the faster you illiminate debt, the more cash flow you'll have to be able to SAVE MORE! (I hope that makes sense)

THe other idea im strugling with, using my savings to begin the snowball! So many what ifs in my mind, but it is much easier to focus on one thing at a time. Paying off debt is actually SAVING money if you think about it.

I guess im just convincing myself to take more of a risk, or do something I wouldn't normally do.

OH lord, ive become a RAMSONITE! I just can't wait to see myself in 10 years, paying off my mortgage and paying for my next house WITH CASH!

Thanks for all the replies. I have the savings set up on an auto deduct from my paycheck and I really don't want to mess with changing that with my employer. So I think I will just transfer it out and pay the credit card with it for now.

As far as stopping the 401K contributions I don't want to do that because it would be another year before we could start up again.

Our debt is really very minor right now but we have had problems in the past and I don't want it to get that far again.

Thanks!

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AMY