Dave Ramsey Books and Show

Well today I am going to talk about someone I admire and aspire to live like. I think I may do this periodically because I have been spending much of my time reading classic literature and listening to non-fiction audio-books in an attempt to increase my knowledge. I download the free one hour podcasts for the Dave Ramsey Show; I have read Financial Peace University and listened to Total Money Make Over.

My story is that I have always hated to owe money. I have always handled our finances because my husband didn't want to do it. I have paid every loan off early except the mortgage. I was looking for a better way of handling money and a way to bring my husband into the picture. Just last week we started a budget together after many failed attempts on my part to get him involved. I became most concerned about his lack of involvement when I was in the hospital for weeks and I had to ask him to bring me the bills. He did but didn't bring me the checkbook, it is not that he can't write a check but he has just never had to pay the bills before and he had no idea if they are on automatic payment plans or are paid by check. He also had no idea to put his direct deposit in the checkbook ledger.

I read Financial Peace University about a year ago but it was not easy to put the principals into practice without my husband on board. I don't want to be the boss and tell him where he can and cant spend money I wanted us to decide together where to spend money. We only owe on our duplex so we don't have a lot of the issues Dave Ramsey talks about. We have had our fully funded emergency fund for years now. The problem was we didn't know where the money we made was going. The grocery store could eat up our money like I drink coffee (1 plus pot a day).
I tried unsuccessfully to put a plan in place off and on for about a year. I did save more and was more conscious of what I was spending most of the time but the problem was when I got tired of doing it because there was no laid out plan.

Dave Ramsey uses what he calls baby steps to help you achieve financial peace.
You can find a list of the baby steps here http://www.daveramsey.com/etc/cms/baby_steps_2867.htmlc

We have completed the first step to the third step. First you must have a 1000 dollar emergency fund this is a partially funded emergency fund according to Dave. We skipped to the third step on this one which is a fully funded emergency fund of 3-6 months of expenses saved. Then you are supposed to work the debt snowball where you pay your smallest to largest debts off. We don't have debt other than the house and that is another baby step.

The one thing my husband won't agree to is no credit cards. We always pay them off at the end of the month and he doesn't spend a lot on them so I just decided it was not worth an argument, we could keep them but I would use cash or a debit card myself. Dave Ramsey does not like credit cards at all and I do agree for several reasons; they charge the company money for each transaction and if you have rewards it they charge the company more, it makes it easier to spend money you don’t have and they prey on young people to make debt a way of life. I do however find them convenient that is why I applied for a debit card. If you pay cash you may be able to relate to the people behind you that actually get irritated because you are counting out exact change. To them it is like you are taking years instead of a few extra seconds. I had some one huffing and puffing behind me on my last trip to the grocery store because I had to dig through my change to come up with the right combination of change. If I had given the cashier more money she would have had to give me change so either way the woman would have had to wait.

Dave recommends an envelope system to budget with; I am still having trouble with this system because I can’t pay cash for most of my monthly or semiannual bills. I usually write a check but many of them are not the same each month. I need to develop a chart for the annual and semiannual bills and figure out how much we save each month towards them. We have our first budget written up for October but I can see it will need fine tuning over the next few months.

The budget is something Dave recommends early on but I find it to be the hardest part other than baby step four planning for retirement by investing 15 percent of you gross income toward your retirement. I am having trouble with this one right now it would help if we either sold the duplex or actually had paying renters in both units. If I had a guaranteed monthly check from them my budget would work differently. I would put all that money to a duplex fund and save what we spend there for retirement. Plus my husband is reluctant to really talk about that yet so we will leave that for another day.

Baby step six is a weird step for us because we have a mortgage on rental property and we rent our house. I want to sell the duplex with all my heart because I don’t have the heart of a landlord and neither does my husband. We have had lots of tenants take advantage of our kindness as they dump their problems on us month after month as an excuse not to pay rent. I don’t think we should put extra money on this house because we plan to sell it. That is a question I would like to ask Dave.

Once you have a paid off house it is time to get rich. You will have no payments and everything you earn is wealth. Then you can start buying things you always wanted and giving more to the needy. I don’t know that we will ever reach this step; I know we can and I am motivated to get there but my husband doesn’t seem to be.

I know this is a lot to swallow but I think if you follow his steps you can become wealthy. It is simple you don’t borrow money. You work for what you need you save for emergencies and you just don’t borrow. You also make a plan for where you money is going.

I would recommend either Financial Peace University or The Total Money Makeover for everyone. You really don’t need both they are very similar but I wanted an audio version and a paper version so I have one of each. Then if you don’t have money you can download one hour podcasts of the show for free of for a small yearly fee go to Dave Ramsey’s website and join.

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Help Poe Paper Topics

Actually I have been thinking about writing about The Tell Tale Heart but there are so many and I have to find a short story that I can write 4 pages about some aspect of the story. I need to be able to find something to support my points. So I thought I would ask the great blogging community to provide me with topics that would make my Literature professor proud. Just topic ideas please I want to do the research. I love Edgar Allen Poe but I actually have never really analyzed his short stories.

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Book Review The Good the Bad and the Undead by Kim Harrison

I am going to start with the rating because I really enjoyed this book. I give this book FIVE big stars. I am sure it helped that I enjoyed it so much more than the first book and that I got a great idea for a sign on my door. My dear husband sleeps during the day because of the shift he works. There was a sign posted in the Hallows that said "day-sleeper solicitors will be eaten". I am so stealing this and using it for myself but I am going to include religious zealots as well. I might even include a picture of my dog!

Anyway the book starts with an job Rachel and Jenks have accepted for a Hallows baseball team. And there is not a slow moment from that point on. It is really hard to review this book without giving things away. I have to say that I liked the book largely because I saw Rachel grow as a person. She is starting to learn from her mistakes and many times she even listens to the wise counsil of Ivy and Jenks.

We also get to know a little more about Ivy in this book and the dynamics of her living vampire state. Here characters really stands out in this book, as she struggles not to feed from Rachel and still live in such close proximity to her.

You will learn more about Rachel's' boyfriend too but I don't find him very memorable as I can't even remember is name. I found him to be a little to apt to deal with demons and he plays a little too much with the dark-side.

So for the plot there are dead witches turning up everywhere and the human police call Rachel in to help find out what is going on. They know they are in way over their heads. All paths seem to lead to Trent her arch enemy from the first book, but again there is no proof. Rachel has to go back to witch school and work undercover. In her search for this killer she has to take on a summon a few demons, take on a bad ass vampire or two, mingle with some werewolves and she even finds out what Trent really is.

I just don't want to give too much away. This was a great book, do not miss this one!

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Kim Harrison Book Review Comming Soon

I am finally feeling a bit better but have been staying right on track with assignments. I hope to use this weekend to get ahead on school work. I do have a book review that I need to do. It is The Good The Bad and the Undead by Kim Harrison. I finished listening to the book like two weeks ago but I have so much school work to do I have fallen behind on this blog. I will start one of my other audio books this week as well I have hours between classes and I have been listening to radio programs I like while doing mindless work or studying my Japanese.

The joys of being a 32 year old college student are endless. Not really but the hard work will hopefully pay off later.

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Second Assignment for Creative Writing

The professor wanted us to have the character for our short short or flash fiction piece developed. He gave us a prompt for our first piece and I din't want use Lucy so I had to start making a new character. Hopefully this works I am sick and I have been trying to get the text to copy and paste but the paragraphs end up mixed up.


Emily Alone With Her Thoughts

Today my therapist said I need to self reflect, I need to get to know myself. Since the day my mother was murdered I have hidden my true self. I have tried to live a normal life with limited emotions. All the hurt and anger that I have hidden for years is like a monster waiting to be unleashed. I told my therapist about my past but not about the things I do to keep from looking insane. I started seeing her because I do love my husband and I don’t want him to see the ugly side of me. When I let the feelings I have for him out and the feelings he has for me in I somehow feel like I am loosing control. I don’t want this to hit him like a ton of bricks. I can feel happy sometimes when I am with him and that is the best gift anyone could give me.

When I was 12 my mother was killed by a man she brought home with her. She was not a great mother but I didn’t know that then. She did what she could and that included supplementing her meager income by bringing men home. She drank a lot too but she was never abusive or mean to me and she kept the men away from me. I didn’t have a lot of rules so I was out late one of many nights and I when I came home there was a man in my home. He ran when he saw me. The newspaper said that my mother was strangled to death by a thief, but I knew better he had been there before.

I hate thinking about the past, it feels like I died that day. That man haunts my dreams, maybe if they had caught him I wouldn’t feel this way. I feel the need to control my every thought and the fear of letting go of this control is eating away at me. Mrs. Brown my therapist told me that I will have to face the past to move on to a meaningful future but I don’t know if I can do that. I have made it to 30 years of age without facing my demons, how in the world am I going to do it now.

I started out telling my self that worst things have happened at least he didn’t hurt me. As I started to understand more about what my mother was doing I was surprised nothing happened to me with her clients in the home most evenings. After my mother was killed I got to live my teen years with my very loving grandparents. They tried very hard to help me grieve for my mother and to embrace my feelings but I tried to run away from all feelings then. I loved them from a distance and they always worried about me. They did their best and I would do anything for them except give into the evil growing inside me.

The evil is not some sort of separate entity it is just sheer anger and rage that builds up inside me. I have no where to put it anymore it has out grown the box I put it in. I blow up for now reason or for something as stupid as Eric putting the dishes in the dishwasher wrong. I can’t loose the only man who has ever made me feel happy because I am loosing control of my anger.

The really evil part is that I hope to meet this man again someday I want to kill him. In my dreams I kill him or get killed by him. I don’t want to kill anyone else I am not completely evil but that thought is in my mind every time I go to the past, every time I wake up form a nightmare. I want him dead if I ever find him I am going to kill him slowly, I am going to make him suffer.

I know it is wrong and I hate myself for thinking this way. After 18 years I should be able to let go of this but I just can’t. When I was young I would imagine that I found this man and blew him away with my grandfathers’ shotgun. I didn’t know how to use it the gun let alone get it but the thought of the murderer dead somehow comforted me.

How do I face this side of me without letting the world see, without letting Eric see. I don’t want him to know this about me. I want him to see a sweet caring woman who loves him. I don’t think I do a good job at that image but I have been trying since we married about a year ago. I will do anything not to loose his love not to loose that look in his eyes that speaks loud and clear that he loves me.

That is where the problem starts, he still gives me that look but now he has a look of fear. Fear that he might say the wrong thing to upset me. Fear that he might do the wrong thing or even the right thing but in the wrong way. My issues have started to affect him and the way he sees me. When I realized what was happening I began to see this therapist who wants me to get to know myself. The dishwasher incident was bad I had a huge, screaming fit because he put the glasses on the bottom rack but I couldn’t explain why they went there just that they did. His face was so shocked at my outburst and quickly turned to sheer hurt at my insensitivity. He would never tell me how much I hurt him nor would he cry in front of me. After I calmed down I went to him and told him I was going to find a therapist in the morning to help me deal with my anger issues. I told him that he was not to blame and that the dishwasher thing was not a big deal at all. I think that helped but I still don’t think it will ever be like it was. Maybe if I work hard enough at this he can trust me again but for now I will have to work on building the trust back.

That is my motivation if I have to dig up what has been buried for 18 years I will do it for my marriage. I can’t say I am looking forward to this but next session I am going to the therapist all of this. It is not like she can tell anyone else and if she is good at her job she can help me. I hope I don’t have to tell Eric about what I talk to her about, these are my secrets. He knows the history but he doesn’t know what it has done to me. Now that I am here and have been thinking about this I am wondering if the reason that I am having issues is because I found someone who stirs up emotion in me like now one has since my mother died. That is something I have been thinking that in order to truly love him I have to feel and not feeling much is how I have gotten this far.
I am done rambling I will just have to ask the therapist. I need to read to keep my mind off this until I get to speak to her again. I need to find a way to harness what I have let out until I know how to deal with it.

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How to Save Money?

I love this blog and I think this is my best bet to get some good money saving tips. So for all of you out there who have great tips on how to save please send them my way.

I have been having issues with my computers and my laptop is running like it is on dial up so I could use a new laptop. On top of that I will be taking at least five classes next semester, and it will be expensive and make it very hard for me to do parties with my Pure Romance business. I have some ideas to work on to get my website business going, although I could always use more.

I have been using Adsense on my websites and have already made more than I have with Adgetize but I am not relying on that for anything big.

I have been listening to Dave Ramsey, who I love to keep me motivated. I don't follow all his advice it is not something my husband wants to do. The only debt we have is our mortgage on our duplex, everything else we pay off each month. The duplex is up for sale and we hope to sell it soon but there are so many foreclosures in our area we are having trouble with that. Before I quit my job I paid rent through January for the home we live in.

I would love to hear tips on saving on regular items. Small or big things I can do to save on groceries or household items and utilities. Cheap cheap meals would be great. Good website links would be great. With just my husbands income we have more than enough to live on but I don't want to take out student loans if at all possible. If one or both of the computers crash I would also like to have a fund for that.

I am looking at selling some stuff on craigslist as well. If anyone knows what sells on craigslist I would love to hear about it. I do have one big item to sell a weight machine and I am not sure how to price it. I am not sure what else sells. I have so much stuff that just needs to go but it is so random.

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First Creative Writing Assignment

The assignment was to write three different lead paragraphs for the same story. Use three different tones. I tried to think of something funny but as always comedy is not at all my forte. I have had Lucy in my head for a long time, she is ever changing. I can never decide for sure what I want to do with her. I was having so much trouble with the assignment I thought if I started with her I could at least finish the assignment on time. I had other paragraphs but it was difficult to make three from a story I have not given much thought to. I suppose that will come, or it could just be the pressure of a deadline getting to me. So anyway here is the first paragraph to a story.








Lucy awakes to near unbearable pain coursing through her body. She thinks “Not again, the doors of hell can not open and release the wicked so often.” She opens her eyes to see a world fiery red with violence and misery painted in blood. Lucy blinks a few times to see with her human eyes.





I woke up this morning to pain shooting through my body, like a red hot burning in my veins. I can’t win something else has escaped hell, just can’t wait to see what the vision brings this time. I open my eyes to the fire and chaos, burning and blood is all I see. I want to go back to the human world now, I am getting sick of this.





Today starts with pain, my heart is pumping fire through my veins. Each painful beat means my satisfaction. Hell has released my prey, my vision is clouded, I see blood and fire and crave it. With the promise of a good hunt I force my human side to control the beast

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