Great article! =)

I just wish he had an approach to dealing with the money which was more consonant with how I see the teachings of Jesus.

I am not a Ramsey follower myself (while I am by no means wealthy, I am not in consumer debt, and so I find much of what he covers interesting trivia otherwise not very useful), but for those who are deeply in debt and truly don’t understand personal finance, he provides a sound, simple plan that encourages people and keeps them from getting lost in the details. And the entire plan is provided free of charge.

I hopped around in the site to the Guru Analysis page of Mr. Reed. Thought i’d post it directly here for your readers:

http://www.johntreed.com/Reedgururating.html

Thanks for being the spark for looking into these charlatans and genuine articles.

That's what I'm sayin'… Uncle Bill: So with the draft board breathing down our necks we started the process. And as in any group, the herd seperates. Joe and Frank and one Steve didn't have the grades or the SAT……

I think the real ones are in the past, such as Benjamin Graham, and Napolean Hill.

Trump is someone I watch for his humor and
attitude, but not for investment advice.

Kiyosaki just irritates me. I can’t see anything wrong with a good mutual fund, if you put the effort in to see what it’s costs are. I could go on, but that’s enough on Kiyosaki.

I love Ramsey’s approach to debt pay off (the Debt Snowball), but am still put-off by the “buy my special system” approach and the fact that each book seems to be a rehash of his first. I do own the Total Money Makeover and have read the newest version of Financial Peace, but don’t see the point to paying for any more advice.

I’m not familiar with Clement save as a columnist. I’ve not read his books, but will take a look at them now.

What about adding Ben Stein in the mix? He’s one of my favorite columnists on yahoo Financial, and has a sensible long term approach.

Oh, I was in Southern California last week doing a lot “crap” things. I think I went insane after day 6 with all the traffic.

Each meeting began with a taped segment of Ramsey doing his schtick on a particular topic, about 45 minutes long. After that, the group leader took the participants through a set of discussion questions.

Overall, it was money well spent, as it gave my wife and I 3 months of in-depth discussion material about personal finance.

Our approach to personal finance is about even thirds of Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez’ Your Money or Your Life, Mary Hunt’s Debt-Proof Living, and the Dave Ramsey approach.

Any person following the plan of a single guru without trying to mold the approach to their own value system is in trouble…

Dworth: haha.. yeah there probably will be a tussel, contrasting investing views and all. Still, I learned a lot from both of their work.

han meng: good point. I’ll just remove that line to avoid confusion.

Eric: yeah the whole envelope “system” and the coupon companions are a bit silly. my coupon storage = $0.03 paper clip.

Designer Envelope System – $19.95 – are you kidding me? Here, let’s look at an alternative:

Envelopes – 50CT – $1.66

I know, I know the “designer” ones are basically a coin purse/debit card holder/cash envelope system, probably made of a more durable plastic or vinyl. But I just don’t see charging 20 bucks for them to someone who has trouble with money being a great idea.

Can’t stand Trump or Kiyosaki. Total frauds.