Book #3 - Total Money Makeover

Book #3 is done. And, I give it a thumbs up. Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey was a good read. His financial philosophy is to pay off your debt. Pay it off, pay it off, pay it off. Here's what you should do, and in this order:
1. Set up a $1,000 emergency fund;
2. Pay off the debt, using the debt snow ball (all debt except for your home mortgage);
3. Finish the emergency fund (save enough to cover 3-6 months of living expense in a very liquid, easily accessible account);
4. Maximize Retirement Investing;
5. College Funding; and
6. Pay off the home mortgage.

Overall, I think his is a great plan and I like it for the most part. There are some things I disagree on, but I think they're pretty minor. The biggest step for most is No. 2 - paying off the debt.

The debt snowball works like this: list all of your debts from smallest to largest. Every single extra cent you can find should go towards the smallest debt. Once that is paid off, roll over all that money to the next smallest and continue on. He advocates this method because as you see things paid off, it motivates you to keep paying off the rest. He also emphasizes that to pay off this debt you will have to make a lot of short-term sacrifice.

I won't ramble any more than that. A great book and I highly recommend it. I don't know what book is next--hopefully I can figure that out in the next day or two.