Book Review: The Money Answer Book by Dave Ramsey

When I worked as a loan officer and as bill collector {just a job please dont shoot me}, I was amazed at how little some people cared about their personal financial situations. On the other hand, there were many who DID care, but had no idea where to start looking for answers in the huge world of finances, money, savings, investing, retirements, loans, credit scores, etc. The 'money' world can be quite scary.

Dave Ramsey, a leading financial expert, has written 'The Money Answer Book,' to help anyone and everyone charter the waters of the money world.

He covers questions such as:

"What are Debit Cards?"

"Do I need separate checking and savings accounts?"

"When should I start giving my kids allowance?"

"What is the envelope system?"

and

"What is a will?"

He also gets into more uncharted territories such as:

"I'm deceiving my spouse about money, how can I come clean?"

"My spouse just left me, how do I protect my credit?"

"Aren't private schools and private lessons and investment in my child's future?"

"How can I invest in Mutual Funds with companies that align with my spiritual values?"

and

"Is it acceptable to 'pause' tithing in tough financial times?"

My favorite question is "What's the most important financial principle?"

The layout of "The Money Answer Book" allows for a read through or a quick reference and would make a great gift for say a COLLEGE GRADUATE. This book will give you all the info you need to get started in making a budget and wise financial decisions.

As Mr. Ramsey puts it "Personal finance is 80 percent behavior and only 20 percent head knowledge." The Money Answer Book will give you much more then the needed 20 percent :)

'Get smart. Get motivated. Get going!'

Dave Ramsey

Thank you to the Thomas Nelson Book Sneeze Club for providing me with a complementary copy of The Money Answer book for my review. I was not paid for my review and the opinions expressed are my own.

Tot School Week 5

Mustang is 48 months, Charger is 22 months.

Tot School was a bit shorter this week, but we still had a lot of fun. One reason it was shorter was that Mustang had a dentist appointment. In the waiting room we found the book 'Show Me Your Smile.'



Normally, I dont recommend character books. In fact, I generally avoid them. But, this one was great! It described exactly what was going to happen when Mustang got into the big chair to see the dentist. It really calmed her fears and helped her know what to expect. If your tot is headed to the dentist, I highly recommend picking this book up first.

Back at the house...

We read the book Pastry School in Paris, which talks about measurement. It was a very cute book, but it really was a bit too old for my kiddos.


Then, we weighed things using this super cool scale we checked out at our library. Yes, we have the coolest library on earth and I am going to miss it sorely when we move :(



Mustang was interested in the weighing for a few minutes, Charger could care less. So, plan B...

I gave them each a container of beans and some measuring cups and spoons and let them measure and pour and transfer till their hearts content. Mustang wanted the scale, too. They poured for a long long time. Then they switched bean containers and poured again. 2 hours later, my shag carpet had a lot of beans on it, but they had a great time. This was by far the favorite activity of the week.






We read the book Applesauce Season. Great book!


Then, after a lunch of sandwiches and applesauce, we made these cute apples. I got the idea from My Montessori Journey. I didnt have any white paper plates and our heart shaped princess plates were not going to cut it, so I cut white circles out of cardstock.

I gave the kids strips of red construction paper and they tore them into smaller pieces to glue to the circle. I tore Charger's and he helped me put the red pieces on the drops of glue I put down. Mustang tore the pieces too small at first, but quickly got the hang of it.




Mustang received her first piggy bank from my parents for her birthday. We had fun going over the values and names of her money. But, the best part was putting the money IN the bank. Great fun and great hand eye coordination-especially trying to put the dollar bills in the little hole. I had to fold them up tight, but both Mustang and Charger were successful in putting the money in the slot. They were quite pleased.




We checked out this fantastic Time pack from our local library. It included the following items plus Eric Carle's Grouchy Ladybug. Both the Grouchy Ladybug and Monster Math School Time have pictures of clocks throughout the story. I had Mustang tell me the time on the clock in the book and then match her clock to the book. She could tell me the clocks that were on the hour, but no others. The toy clock only moved clockwise, so it really helped to teach her how a clock moves (she kept trying to make it go counter-clockwise). Charger loved the clock. He carried it around saying 'clock, clock.'

I picked up a cool workbook on time at our local Dollar Tree and took out the page that focused on clocks that were on the hour. I used Izzie, Mac & Me's reusable worksheet idea. It worked perfectly! So nice to know I can use it again in the future.





I found these big foam blocks at a yard sale for a 1.00 a few years back. GREAT investment! First we matched blocks. If you notice, there are different patterns in the blocks and Mustang thought we should make sure that not only the colors matched, but the patterns. Then we put them in order A-Z and 0-9. We stopped from time to time to sing the ABC song so that Mustang would know the next letter. This was great for increasing matching skills and alphabet order for Mustang. Charger worked on hand eye coordination and practiced the ABC song. It was also great fun!





For more fun ideas to teach your tot, check out 1+1+1=1 to see what others did this week.

Toy Yard Sale Money Learning

If you know me at all-or have read much of my blog-you know I enjoy going to yard sales. My daughter loves them too. She loves to go with me to see, and hopefully buy, toys. Well today, at her request, we had a toy yard sale.

She grabbed some of her toys and layed them on the coffee table for me to 'buy.' Using post it notes we priced her items. Then, she sold them to me.

Our local library has fantastic learning packs available for checkout, including a cool money package. It includes 3 books on money, a cool register, and play money. We used the register for our yard sale.


After our sale, we read the book Bunny Money, by Rosemary Wells. I HIGHLY recommend it.



Then we played with these neat ginormous coins we bought at the Dollar Tree on Wednesday. Mustang knew I had gotten them and was begging me to play with them. So, I had to quickly come up with a way to use them.



I found money work sheets HERE on moneyinstructor.com and printed them off. As you can see in the pictures, my printer only prints a fugly green currently (I am at the very end of my ink), so I had to write in all the details of the coins. Then, Mustang had to match up the toy coins to the right worksheet. This was very challenging for her, but I was really glad we did it. We went over each coin and she did get them all in the end, but she didnt want to play again today.