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Business. Nonfiction. HTML: If you're afraid to open your bills, if you've never added up how much you owe, if you can't even imagine being debt-free, it's time to join the thousands of people Gail Vaz-Oxlade has helped. Her straightforward approach to money management is based on self-control, hard work, and prioritizing what's really important. Debt-Free Forever is Gail's step-by-step guide, and she'll show you how to: figure out how much you've actually been spending calculate how much you owe�??and what it's costing you build a budget that works maximize your debt repayments so you can be free of consumer debt in 3 years or less prepare for a rainy day so it doesn't mean a major setback set goals for your new, debt-free life. Make no mistake: Getting out of debt isn't easy. But in Debt-Free Forever, Gail gives you a clear strategy and the steps needed to implement it. So if you're finished with excuses, overdue notices, and maxed-out credit cards, pick up this book, follow Gail's plan, and start becoming debt-free forever.… (more)
User reviews
I read this already being familiar with Gail Voz-Oxlade's approach from her show Til Debt Do Us Part and I wondered if it would just be more of the same (the show is formulaic and once you've seen a few episodes, you're unlikely to learn a great deal more from Gail). While there was some overlap with what's shown on TV, what the book provides is a guide or how-to approach to applying the principles from the TV show to your own situation. On the TV show, Gail analyzes a couple's income, previous spending and debt and devises a budget tailored to the circumstances. Here, she shows you how to do this for yourself. Many of the resources are also available on her website (so if you are on a waiting list for this book, you can still get started by applying what you learn from her website).
One point I found striking was the emphasis on working hard. Can't make ends meet on a regular full-time job? Supplement it with an additional part-time job! Gail says that for many financially successful people, the 40-hour work-week is not the norm. Work hard and work long to reap rewards. Another aspect Gail was more emphatic about than I would have expected is the need for an emergency fund and her adamant belief that credit should never constitute an emergency fund (even when one is focussing on repaying debt).
Like any plan laid out in a book, this one sounds great -- the challenge is in applying it. There is every reason to think it can be done. For example, Gail tells you to figure out how much money you need to meet your basic needs and then do what it takes to ensure you take in that much money. If you apply this, there is no way it can go wrong as a principle.
I think this book would be useful to anyone who doesn't know that much about personal finance (there's some concepts worth learning even if you're not even in debt yet but are just starting off your adult life), and definitely for anyone who has consumer debt and who wants to pay it off. Much of the material would be self-evident if you gave some serious thought to it yourself, but having it spelled out in plain, conversational, no-nonsense language's gotta be beneficial.