Rather than listening to music, I recommend that you listen to the Dave Ramsey Show, which is a radio show about financial planning.  Dave’s show is on the air at various times in various markets, but typically he is on mid-to-late afternoons on AM radio.  Are you at work at that time?  Listen to the podcast of the show at your convenience.

Dave Ramsey is from Tennessee and is a devout Christian.  He had a best-selling book a few years back titled “The Total Money Makeover” that you can purchase on Amazon or maybe check out of your library.

Get Out of Debt

His main message is that individual debt is bad.  People should at all costs try to avoid going into debt in the first place and if they are in debt they should make budget cuts in other areas in order to pay off their debt as soon as possible.  Personal unsecured and credit card debt is the worst, but going into debt to buy an expensive car is a bad idea, as is too much student loan debt.  The opportunities out there to go into debt these days are abundant and Dave Ramsey says Don’t Do It.  Don’t spend what you don’t have, and if you are already in a hole, dig yourself out of it.  It seems like easy, basic advice, but apparently, too many people don’t heed it.  

Technical Controversy

Dave says that if you have different sources of debt such as a student loan, a car loan and a credit card loan, you should make extra principal payments to pay off the one with the lowest balance first while making minimum payments on the others.  Then, once the smallest is paid off, don’t cut the total amount you are paying toward debt principal, and instead, take what you were paying on the loan that is now paid off and devote it all toward paying off the 2nd lowest balance loan.  Dave’s loan payoff process is called the Debt Snowball method.  Do all of this until your debt is all paid off.  This is controversial among financial planners because it may be better to pay off the loan with the highest interest rate first, regardless of its balance, and then continue to the next highest rate loan.  This more traditional approach is called the Debt Ladder method.  Dave says Snowball works better than Ladder because the debtor will more quickly see the results of their payoff method, and because dollars are more quickly allocated toward paying off the second tier of debt.  

ETFs

Dave is a big proponent of stock ETF’s and that investors should keep the bulk of their money in stocks instead of bonds because investors will need their money to last for longer than they think they do.  Being more in stocks and less in bonds also allows investors to pull more of their savings principal out each year of retirement, a plan that Dave advocates.

IMO

While you may not agree with everything Dave Ramsey espouses, it is nevertheless good practice to listen in from time to time.  Better that then learning what the new musical hits are.  It’s a better use of your time.  Listen to the advice that Dave provides to callers and think about if you agree or disagree.  There are many ways to skin a cat (sorry, cat lovers!).  Dave advocates his ways, mine may be somewhat different, but as long as the cat is skinned at the end of the day and you are satisfied with how you got there, then all is good.