We have now finished reading Dave Ramsey’s book, Financial Peace Revisited as a family. We enjoyed it very much and have started gathering information and filling out the forms at the back of the book to help us make a better financial plan. I have had a plan all along that is not dissimilar to what Ramsey recommends, but this has given us an excellent “teachable moment.” If provides some structure to the life skill of financial planning that is not so onerous that it is painful to do. When I mentioned that we had finished reading the book and were jumping into our family plan, my buddy Eric popped me a note with a recommendation of another book. He wrote:
I don’t know if you’ve ever read the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad? I would encourage you to read it and have your children read it (a great and practical homeschool subject!). It is not about getting rich as much as it is about how to wisely grow and manage wealth. It is akin to Dave Ramsey’s books, but less focused on debt and more focused on wealth. (Ramsey is good but he depresses me with all the talk about the negative aspects of money.) Anyway, we read the book several years ago and it has helped us.
I concur with Eric’s comments about Ramsey being a little bit depressing. I sometimes listen to his radio show on the way home from work. He is doing good work. It is especially inspiring to hear how people got out from under horrendous amounts of debt through hard work and perseverance, but there are some pretty sad stories, too. What is fortuitous about his recommendation is that, when we finished reading Financial Peace Revisited the kids both wanted to read another book about finances. I ordered the book this morning. I think we will learn something from it and it will be a good inspirational book for us while we are going through our new budgeting process, too.
Bryan and Lyle, you are in big trouble. We had one of our ministers over for dinner and to stay the night last night. Lorena pulled out all the stops. We had shish kabobs, rice, and a big salad. I was really worried, but when I got up and weighed myself this morning, I was well below 200 lbs! I hope it is just not that the battery in the scale is starting to give out. I can see the running competition is really heating up over on Lyle’s blog. Eric thinks he is going to run a marathon. I think he is not wise and apprised him of my motto when it comes to running marathons–“No pain, no pain.” Still, he ought to get in on Lyle’s competition and show those whippersnappers how it is done.