Finally after waiting for my queue in my doctor consultation, I finished listening / reading to "The Total Money Makeover" audiobook and ebook[1]. I should actually reallocate my priorities to actually make more time in reading non-fiction self help books since I've been reading / listening to these kind of books whenever I'm /only/ idle. Especially I'm currently in the financial genre era LOL
The main problem I see with this book is that I find it highly geared towards Americans and the Western culture of debt and credit card culture. But that doesn't mean the "Baby Steps" discussed in the book cannot highly help towards financial peace - which I learned a lot and will really help.
I really liked that the author was upfront that what was written in the book is "common sense" or something that everybody already knows about - which is actually getting harder nowadays. Also liked a lot that the methods written in the book aren't original ideas and can be found elsewhere. But what I liked best in the book is that it was upfront that it's 80% behavior and 20% technical knowledge towards finances. Also, Murphy's Law - bad things happen.
Here are the seven baby steps from the book (partly copy and pasted from Wikipedia):
1 - Save a USD1,000 beginner emergency fund (so that's around PHP60,000), this should be in gazelle intensity and should be done fast (like in less than a month). Personally, I haven't checked and research around yet if PHP60k would be feasible in Philippine economical setting and will ask around.
2 - Get out of debt using the debt-snowball method. This means to list all debts arranging them by smallest to largest amount. Make only the minimum payments on all except the smallest debt. Use any available money to pay as much as possible to the smallest debt. When the smallest debt is paid off, add that money to the payments of the next smallest debt. Repeat until all debts except the house mortgage are paid off.
3 - Save a proper emergency fund that is 3-6 months of expenses.
4 - Invest 15% of household income for retirement.
5 - Save for children's college.
6 - Pay off the home early.
7 - Have fun with money, invest, and be generous.
I would suggest the Swedish Investor's bite sized video[2] on the key takeaways if you don't or can't listen to the audiobook or read the book.
Probably the next book I'll read is "The Barefoot Investor" by Scott Pape.
PS: I am still on the fence to really get an e-ink device for reading stuff like these haha