Andy Hough

Review:Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover Live

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I attended the Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover Live event here in Kansas City on Saturday. Overall, I really enjoyed the event. Dave is a very energetic and exciting speaker and kept me entertained. There was more humor than I was expecting, which was a plus. The Christian stuff was kept to a minimum. As an agnostic I prefer it this way because it makes it easier for me to ignore. He did make the common mistake of thinking he was in Kansas. The Kansas City is in Missouri! Other than that my only complaint would be that there was too much time spent hawking books and other products.

If you have read any of Dave Ramsey’s books and/or listen to his radio program than the material covered during the event will be familiar to you. Despite that, if you are a Dave Ramsey fan than going to this event would probably be worth the price of admission. If you don’t follow Dave Ramsey you would probably be better of checking out one of his books first before deciding whether to attend a live event.

Thanks again to the Prince of Thrift at Debtfree4ever.net for the free ticket.

April Expenses

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Here are my April expenses by category:

Rent/Household

$450

Transportation

$247.40

Utilities

$49.58

Food

$110.11

Entertainment

$13.43

Debt

$35

Medical/Dental

$40

Total

$945.52

My transportation expense went up a lot because I’m using my car for my delivery job. Food expense also went up since I bought too many groceries and ate out too often. Food expense will definitely come down this month as a result of my current grocery challenge. Medical/Dental will have a huge increase because I’m paying $830 to get my wisdom teeth taken out. I hope to increase the amount paid towards my debt also. Everything else should remain roughly the same.

I thought I had previously posted my March expenses but I can’t find them on my blog. I’ll be posting them later this week.

Grocery Challenge-Update 1

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So far the grocery challenge is going well. Of course, this is only the fourth day. I have hit one snag though. The grocery store where I performed the mystery shop only had skim milk in one gallon sizes. I can’t drink a whole gallon of milk before it goes bad so I didn’t purchase any. My new challenge amount will be $5 to allow me to buy a couple half gallons of skim milk over the course of the month.

Just finished my last final yesterday. Should have more time to keep this blog updated now. I’ll be attending the Dave Ramsey event here in Kansas City tomorrow and will have a post about it next week.

April Income

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Here is my April Income divided by source.

Online Income

$195.19

Ebay

$47.52

Mystery Shopping

$18.53

Survey

$10

Job

$909.58

Medical Study

$100

Interest earned

$20.13

Total

$1300.95

I started a job in April so online income will probably be lower in May as I have less time to spend online.

Update 5-5-07: I have now updated the table with my correct job income. Interest and medical study income were added also. That should be all my sources of income now unless there is another one I forgot.

Are You Frugal for Others?

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There are many ways to distinguish between frugal and cheap. One way is if you are frugal not just when spending your own money but with other people’s as well. For example, I don’t have to pay for water at my apartment but I still don’t leave the water running when I’m brushing my teeth. I just don’t like to waste anything even if I am not paying for it.

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