After thirteen weeks, Financial Peace University has come to an end. So, was it worth it? Was it something that I would recommend to someone in financial trouble? The answer isn’t a simple yes or no. There were many things about the class that I enjoyed, but there were many things that left me shaking [...]
This final lesson was about Baby Step 7, Build Wealth and Give. Everything has been leading up to this. We’ve been taught how to get out of debt, save money, and invest so that we can build wealth, not only for ourselves but so that we can give some away. I’ve mentioned the religious nature [...]
This week we tackled Baby Step 6: Pay Off Your Home Early. Or I should say that was what the lesson was supposed to be about. Instead we got the most boring lesson of the bunch, and one of the longest. I was looking forward to some creative and sound ideas for paying off a [...]
All of our other lessons up to this point have focused on saving money and paying off debt. But this week’s lesson was about making money. It makes sense. You need to make good money to pay off debt, build wealth, and plan for a secure financial future. That doesn’t have to mean hundreds of [...]
This week we moved on to Baby Steps Four and Five, which are saving for retirement and saving for your kids’ college education. Baby step four was on deck first, which is to save 15% of your household income in tax-advantaged plans. Dave points out that, at the time this class was filmed, 53% of [...]
This week was about the basics of investing. Once you’re out of debt and have your emergency fund, it’s time to move on to creating serious wealth. You do that by investing (or winning the lottery, but Dave doesn’t advocate that method). Obviously in a one-hour lecture Dave can’t touch on all of the intricacies [...]
This week’s lesson was about how to find big bargains. I thought this was kind of a funny topic because the last thing people in debt need to be doing is shopping. But then I realized that the lessons are starting to transition to topics that will be used after the class becomes debt free. [...]
Class this week was about insurance. You could hear the groans and sighs around the auditorium. Insurance is boring and it isn’t fun. Plus, I think people don’t like to talk about it because it means thinking about your mortality (in the case of life insurance), catastrophe (home and auto insurance), illness (health, long term [...]
This week’s lesson was about the power of marketing on our buying decisions. This was my favorite lesson so far. Being a finance/consumer nerd, this kind of stuff really interests me. Dave starts out by telling us that we live in the most marketed and advertised culture in the history of the world. It’s no [...]
This week’s lecture was about credit reports, credit reporting bureaus, identity theft, and collection agencies. Quite a scattering of topics. The first part of the class was on credit scores and credit bureaus. Dave makes the point that a FICO score is an, “I love debt score” because the only way to get a FICO [...]
