okay, dave ramsey...

Matt and I have just started reading a Dave Ramsey book. The Total Money Makeover. His brother George had been URGING us to read it. He actually bought us our very own copy and mailed it from Colorado. He also sent us the Financial Peace University book and the Sink Reflections/FlyLady book about cleaning and organizing and decluttering.

Although some of you might be thinking that those kind of gifts are kind of like when a man gives a woman a new mop for Valentine's Day, for us it was a much-desired tool for improving our lives.

I've been reading the FlyLady book and although we aren't doing all of the things it says (because the book is geared towards stay at home moms), we are already learning some useful tools. Within 10 minutes of reading I had already gained knowledge and could actually DO something. I appreciated that.

Yesterday Matt and I read, together, the full intro to the Total Money Makeover book. We also read the first 10ish pages of the book. We spent 45 minutes reading the dang thing, and when we were done we had learned nothing to help us in any way. Oh, we definitely learned what the book is NOT and how DR came to writing it, his life situations that he's recovered from, that this information is from God and your grandmother and about the people who lost it all in 2008.

We realized that Matt and I are reading this book because people we love and care about have said such good things about it. It occurred to us that most people reading it NEED to be convinced and they need to be shown examples of this book's amazingness. We get it. But we have George and George who are advocates of this system, and Leanne is too. So we didn't need further encouragement, you know? But still. So.

So I decided to just "flip through" to see how long it would take to get "instructions." And I finally found baby step one in Chapter 6, many many pages into the book. And, fortunately, it's something we already have. We are also already working on baby step 2. But DANG. Six chapters in a self-help type book before you get to any meat??? I don't mean to be insensitive, but I'm glad this isn't a book about depression or having ADD, because really??? yikes.

anyway. we will read more tonight, I am sure. but I just had to rant about that. it's like a chemistry textbook waiting 60 pages to tell you what an element is and instead just trying to convince you, up front, that chemistry is scientifically sound. or something. it just kind of boggles.