ROE INTENSE

Originally published by the DaveRamsey.com Blog.   Lily graduated from a four-year university with a degree in business—and $35,000 in school loans . She didn’t have any savings, so she used her credit card to pay the deposit on her new apartment. And she swiped it a few more times to buy some nice furniture and appliances. A few months later, she decided it was time to upgrade to a new car, now that she was an adult in "the real world." But then the bills began rolling in. The grace period on her student loans ended. The 90 days "same as cash" promise from the furniture store came and went. Suddenly, at 23 years old, Lily realized she was more than $60,000 in debt. Something had to change, or else she was going to drown. It was time to buckle down and dump her debt once and for all. Maybe you can relate to Lily’s story. Maybe you’re a recent college graduate, a single parent, or quickly approaching retirement. No matter your life stage, paying off your consumer d...

A word to the customer that inspired this post: Thank you so much for letting me take pictures of Brutus. I have included his pictures as promised. They will be found toward the end of this post. DogsBite.org reports that canines killed 360 Americans in the 11 years between 2005 and 2015. ( Sources .) In 2015 alone, 34 dog bit-related fatalities were reported. 41% of those were children. Getting attacked by a dog is serious. If the dog is large enough and angry enough, they can kill you. Being prepared can save you from injury and even death. So how do you prepare yourself? It’s simple. Let’s start the first point with a hypothetical: There you are, minding your delivery. You step out of your car with your delicious cargo and walk up to the fence. The ground is bare right up against the chain-link. There are holes dug in the yard. There’s a human appendage sticking out of a mound of dirt near the porch. You assume they have children and continue forward. Business as usual. You mov...

Stairwells are misnamed. Or at least misunderstood. I learned this Wednesday. “It has been crazy in here, RI,” Leff-tenant said. I stood near the check-in computer. Someone was manning a prep table. One of the cooks was talking with an underling. The dishes were done in the back. Even the man in charge of prep was enjoying a snack. It did not look crazy in the least bit. Leff-tenant saw the skepticism in my face. “It doesn’t seem like it now, but we pushed out 150 pizzas in the first 2 hours of the day,” she said. School lunches. Zoo trips. It’s not uncommon. She was right by receipt accounts. We were close to Friday levels already by the time I came in. It felt like the calm before a pizza storm. With cheese flying around everywhere and desperate teenagers trying to catch it. And I mean desperate .   Skills USA was in town again. Hundreds and hundreds of teens from across the state were gathered at the DoubleTree on 16th and Dodge. They had all just arrived. They were hung...

A hard wind kicked up last week somewhere in Colorado. It blew East and swung across Kansas. The stay in Kansas was short. There wasn’t much there. It was flat. And had some corn. That and piles of birds, dead for want of a single tree. Apparently there was too much of one of those three because a huge fire was started. After picking up terrible, billowing smoke from those short-sighted ag fires , the wind swung North through Lincoln and smacked right into Omaha. It only ever hit 40 mph, so it never had to stop. Nebraska State Patrol has bigger fish to fry. I started my deliveries when it arrived. My 3-and-5/16ths cylinders of raw Taurus power putted north on 15 th street. Every time I hit a four-way intersection, I felt the chassis of the car lift on the left side. I’d move through the intersection and the houses on the left of me would break the wind. Like windbreakers. You’re so immature. Anyway, I pulled into the Pine Street towers and parked. The way the building was situated...

It’s gardening season. Warm weather is bringing soil temperatures to ideal conditions around the nation. Here are a couple of ways that a garden can help you this year in your own money adventures. Gardens produce produce. Yes, that is a proper sentence. Gardens grow things. Yummy things. Fruits like Mortgage Lifter tomatoes (pictured above) – along with every vegetable you can think of – hold crucial vitamins and minerals in their proper plant matrix. When consumed whole or cooked with other whole foods, they provide every little bit of the chemical nutrition your body needs in the form best fit for consumption. Fresh grown produce is not just healthier for you. It’s cheaper, too. A tomato plant costs less than $5 and can yield $50 or more in tomatoes over its life. You do the math. Then there are the intangibles like lessons in patience, time outdoors and learning. These powerhouse food factories support your health from the bottom of their roots to the tips of the hairs on your...

How long does Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover take to complete? I wish I knew. Folks at Ramsey Solutions don’t have a one-size-fits-all answer. They have viable statistics for different people at different stages. Some people might get steps 1 and 2 knocked out in a year. Some might get 1 through 5 knocked out in a year. Here’s the truth: no promises are made on how long it will take to reverse your personal financial stupidity. Truth #2: The longer you wait to start trying, the harder it will be and the longer it will take. The average time to pay off all debt and compile three to six months of expenses in an emergency fund is 2-3 years. Amazewife and I did the math when we started to get our ducks in a row around two years ago. Our numbers said we could be done with step 2 – be debt free – by May 2015. Then it was November 2015. Now it’s the middle of April. By our initial count, we should be well on our way to our 6 month pile of money. We have $15,500 left in my student loa...

Being 7 is hard. You have school. You have science fair projects. (This year’s is about Black Holes.) And you know what else? You lose a ton of teeth. Ruth lost one a couple days ago. The tooth fairy missed it. Turns out training a noob makes it hard on everybody, even the customers. But we got a responsible one. Ruth brought me this note at dinner: #toothfairyproblems