Dave Ramsey LIVE!

This is another post about something that happened a while back, but I felt it still worthy of posting, so here goes.

On St. Patrick's Day I took advantage of the opportunity to see Dave Ramsey LIVE! at UCF. A year ago, in February of 2011, I began taking control of my finances using Dave's Debt Snowball program. Let me tell you, it has made a WORLD of difference. I've paid off $13+ in debt since I started applying his practices to my wallet.

So, I'd been sticking to my budget and being smart with my money for a year or so, and I figured that attending this financial seminar could only help to keep my momentum going. So I went. I thought it was really cool that Dave only accepted DEBIT cards for online plastic purchases! Way to practice what you preach, Dave!

The seminar was set from 1-6 on a Saturday afternoon. Holy moly - 5 HOURS? Really? Really. It went by incredibly fast; it felt like I was only there for maybe 2 hours. Dave is a super energetic, down-to-earth, straight-forward guy. He's easy to listen to and knows his stuff. He also has a sense of humor: he opened the seminar with a statement to the effect of "when you leave here you will walk out thinking, 'man - I knew all that; and I PAID him!'"

Throughout Dave's seminar he outlined key concepts of the Debt Snowball program, provided financial statistics (that weren't skewed or taken out of context), and pointed out how society behaves (and how past generations behaved) when it comes to money. Did you ever pick up on the notion that your grandparents acted as if incurring debt was a SIN? Now Visa backs the Hasbro financial game, Monopoly; the game no longer has paper cash - instead it has plastic credit cards and a swipe machine. I was shocked to learn that, and grateful that I have the vintage cash version of the board game.

The seminar was a great experience and reminder of why I'm taking control of my money. I HIGHLY recommend attending one of his live events if you get the chance to do so.

PS - the book that got me started is "The Total Money Makeover." Check it out. You can thank me later.