Personal Finance

I realized that I spend a lot of time blogging about our family but not much on my other interests. One thing that I really love is personal finance. I like to read Kiplinger's magazine and the Motley Fool on the Web.

I saw a great article from the Motley Fool on emergency planning. Rather than just sticking with the standard rules of thumb for emergency cash like 3-6 months living expenses, this was a very thought provoking article. I will definitely use these concepts when evaluating our emergency cash situation once we get our debt paid off (except for our mortgage).

Speaking of debt, that leads me to let you know about the system that we have adopted -- Dave Ramsey's plan (with a few tweaks). I think that Dave has a great system that is founded on truth and quality concepts. His basic steps are:
1. Get a $1,000 emergency fund.
2. Pay off debt (except for the mortgage) using a debt snowball. Once you pay the smallest one off, take that same payment amount and use it against the next one.
3. Go back and fully fund the emergency.
4. Retirement savings.
5. College savings (for the kids).
6. Payoff the house.
7. Invest and give.
Do 1, 2, and 3 one at a time. Do 4, 5, and 6 at the same time. Then hit #7. Obviously, the devils in the details but I can't give away all of his information.