Imagine how much peace you would find and wealth you would build if you could take all the money you pay each month on mortgage, car, loans, and credit cards and sock it away in an investment making 12 percent. Financial fitness guru DAVE RAMSEY says an essential key to becoming wealthy is to free up your most powerful wealth-building tool—your income—by getting rid of debt.

In his latest book, The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness, Ramsey presents the famous seven-step program that tens of thousands of ordinary people have followed to become debt-free, regain a sense of confidence and control over their money, and create a prosperous future for themselves and their families.

By following the Total Money Makeover plan, you will:

1. Immediately build a thousand-dollar emergency fund.
2. Pay off all debts, except your home mortgage, at an accelerated speed.
3. Create a financial safety net that covers three to six months’ expenses should you lose your job or become ill.
4. Invest 15 percent of your income in a retirement fund.
5. Sock away enough money for your kids to go to college.
6. Pay off your home mortgage in fifteen years or less.
7. Reach a point at which your money is earning more than you are so you can live off 8 percent of your nest egg.

Ramsey declares war on America’s most entrenched money myths and shows us a better and more responsible way to live. For instance, how many times have you heard that mortgages are “good” debt because the payments are deductible at tax time? Or that it is important to have credit if you want to purchase a house or vehicle? Or that you need plastic to shop online? He shows us how to spot the fallacies behind the moneylenders’ fuzzy math so we understand why it is to their benefit, not ours, that we remain ignorant of the facts.

This is not a quick-fix book. Ramsey says that those people, including himself, who accomplish their goals by working all seven steps do so through intense focus, hard work, and determination to succeed. But the pay-off is worthwhile. With his plan, you stop blindly following the debtors’ pack and gain the opportunity to get rich so you can have fun, invest, and give generously to others.

Peppered throughout with personal testimonials from people all over the country who have achieved financial serenity with the Total Money Makeover, the book also includes useful worksheets to help you plan a budget, create a debt-payment schedule, manage investments, and allocate spending.
Readers learn:

• How to get a home mortgage if you have no credit history
• The advantages of a 15-year mortgage over a 30-year one
• How to teach your kids to be fiscally fit
• How to calculate the wealth you will have by age sixty-five
• How to invest your money safely with good returns
• How to plan for a worry-free retirement
• Five types of insurance no one should be without
• How to pay cash for your children’s college education

With his no-nonsense, tough-love approach, Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover plan has made believers out of countless Americans who can now look in the mirror and see a financially fit person brimming with optimism about the future.