Posted in Product Review

Dig Out of Debt
Jill Cooper and Tawra Kellam
Kellam Media & Publishing, Inc.
www.livingonadime.com
Wichita, KS

 

Before I begin my review of Dig Out of Debt, let me share some basic info about the book as it appears on their website,

Tawra and Jill explain:

Dig Out Of Debt: 1,000 of the Best Ideas from LivingOnADime.com contains 216 pages of the most popular information from the LivingOnADime.com web site.

• Save over $10,000 a year on groceries!
• Stop throwing your money away in the chaos and clutter!
• Get out of debt even when you have kids.
• Learn inexpensive but creative ways to make your holidays memorable!
• Read how Michael and Tawra paid off $20,000 debt on $22,000 per year income!

This book covers tips in the following categories: Money Management, Grocery Savings, Cleaning Cents, Kids Cents and Debt Free Holidays. If you have received their weekly newsletter, you will have read some of this information before. However, it is nice to have ALL of their thoughts in one bound book. For more information about what is covered in each category, check out their ordering page.

There is a lot of emphasis on organization throughout the book and I TOTALLY agree with most of the advice on this matter. Living frugally and trying to get out of debt requires time and organization.  If I plan menus based on the sales at the grocery store, I'll save more money than if I just walk in and buy whatever I want to eat. To be sure that I pay my bills on time so that I don't accrue any late fees, I should have ONE place that I place my bills to pay later. Then I'm not looking everywhere for the bills to pay them. Good emphasis is also placed on decluttering and getting rid of items that are taking up space in your home.

Now, I can't say that I agree with all of the advice in the book. Some of the ideas just won't work for a family depending upon their own personal philosophies. For example, I don't agree that you ALWAYS have to buy a used car to save the most money. There are several cars on the market that truly hold their value as we found out when we recently bought a brand new Honda Civic. Our research showed us that this car is the #1 car for retaining its resale value and it has also been in the Top 10 picks by Car & Driver magazine. When we went to buy a used Civic, there was only a savings of about $2000 on a 3-year old car with 60K miles on it. We made the choice to buy it brand-new based on our research.  I disagreed with the advice in this section of the book because it just didn't apply in our situation.  I do agree that buying a used car makes sense most of the time, but it also depends upon the car you are trying to buy. My main point is that we all need to make the best decision for our family and so you may not agree with the authors on every single point.

The advice on throwing parties for children was good, and I loved the recipes that were included, too. I think that my favorite section was the Debt-Free Holidays chapter. There were some great ideas for celebrating the holidays on a limited budget. We shouldn't let the holidays stress us out so much! The reader that will get the most "bang for their buck" is the newly frugal person. However, I have been living a fairly frugal lifestyle for at least 10 years now and I still learned some things reading through this book. You can buy your own copy at the LivingOnaDime site.

Kris Price
Senior Editor, HomesteadBlogger.com
www.homesteadblogger.com/hsbfrontporch
www.homesteadblogger.com/athomewithkris