What I Listen To - Dave Ramsey

The very first podcast I've ever listened to, and still listen to regularly today, is Dave Ramsey.

Dave Ramsey is a radio and TV talk-show host out of Nashville, and he teaches everything about life and money.  He teaches others how to manage money, living on a budget, in a straight-forward and practical manner.  He does this through his book The Total Money Makeover, where he teaches the Baby Steps:

1) Save $1,000 for a starter emergency fund.

2) List all of your debts, smallest to largest, and paying minimum payments on all except the smallest one.  Once that one is done, use those same payments and tackle the next one in line.  And so on.  He calls this the Debt Snowball.

3) Save for a fully-funded emergency fund.

4) Save 15% for retirement.

5) Save for your children's college.

6) Pay off the mortage.

7) Build wealth and give a bunch of it away.

Dave also teaches these principles in a 9-week course (it was 13 weeks when I went through it but he has recently revamped it) called Financial Peace University.  I highly recommend it.  Not only does he have classes going all across the country, he also has study-at-home DVD courses too.

What I download each day is his one-hour free podcast.  Here is a link to it here.  As it is virtually commercial-free (there is a one-minute advertisement around the 10-minute mark) but the rest of it is his show, which ends up being around 40 minutes--the perfect length for me.

What's interesting is that I've gotten a lot of my other podcast suggestions through listening to Dave.  Please include Dave in your RSS feed like I do, and you can enjoy this podcast Monday through Friday, each and every week.