tomorrow on sat our church is having a financial seminar on how to get out of debt. One of our members has joined all the good ideas from dave ramsey and so on to come up with this system. He says that it can work for anyone from people who are living payday to payday and behind on their bills

he is giving the seminar free. the last 2 houses that he has owned he had paid off in 3 years. and never late on a bill.

If we want him to work with us in paying down our debt including our mortage then it would cost us $250 . Which means for t hat amount he would work with us monthly until the debt is cleared including the mortgate.
He is a certified financial constulant.

I cant wait to hear what he says.

I would go and listen to him, but think about this...You can take that $250 you are going to pay him and put it towards your debt then do it yourself for free. It is prob all the same info you can get for here for free, as well as by doing your own research on it (Dave's books are available at the library).

Good luck, and please let us know how the seminar is!

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Does Money Matter?

Okay went to the seminar...the theory is ....if you are saving money like 10% or anything then stop doing that and put that money towards your debt say you make $2000 each month. Then 10% would be 200 dollars.

You are supposed to list your bills and then divide the payment into the balance in order to find out what number they should be paid off.

First you will take the extra money towards that debt then when that is gone you go towards the next number.

My question was where do you find this extra money at? espically if you arent saving right now .. he said up your dedicutables on your insurance...stop eating out,,,cut cable. (the basic stuff everyone knows

If you do this system you can pay off all your debt including your house within 5-7 years guarnteed he has done it 3x already. They had to move a couple of times military.

If you have emergency come up then put that money on a credit card and put thatbill into the system to get it paid off.

The theory is once all the debt including the house is paid off then all that extra money at that point will go into savings and money market accounts

What do you think????

Most reputable financial people out there (Mary Hunt, Dave Ramsey etc) all recommend having a small emergency fund (depending on family but around $1K). They have helped a lot more than 3 people. You can take Dave Ramsey's "Financial Peace University" for only around $100. He recommends getting rid of Credit cards completely.

I think that everything he said was a collection of David Bach , Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman! Except they all advice having an emergency fund instead of putting an emergency purchase on a CC. I would not pay him for his service. It sounds like it was all common sense stuff to do, if you can swing it.

I still say if you're determined to reduce your debt, you'll find a way. Are you following the Forget the Joneses Project? If not, check it out. Utilize your local library as this financial adviser did. Don't pay him to help you, do it on your own and take that $200 you'd pay him and kick start your mission with it (pay it toward one of your debts (either highest balance or highest interest, whichever way you're going to snowball your debt)

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Does Money Matter?

I agree. Try the Forget the Joneses Project!

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Wendy~Self-proclaimed hippie momma to Bob and Jamie

I agree. It doesn't sound like he's telling you anything you don't already know. The $250 service probably doesn't do any more than keeping you disciplined. It apprears that you know enough and care enough to do that on your own. You'd probably do better to put the money towards one of your debts, or use it to start an emergency fund.