Bookmooching

My mom just got Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover for Christmas. While visiting, I started reading it, and started getting really into it. So before she could even finish it, I asked her if I could please please borrow it because I just wanted so badly to finish it and start my own money makeover. She agreed, on the condition that I bring it back asap.

Husband and I are recent college grads and we both had read over the majority of the book in a few hours and we were absolutely amazed. Dave Ramsey claims that we could could get out of our amazing mountain of student loan debt in 2 years or less. He breaks down his plan into baby steps (a send up to "What About Bob") and I realized that we had actually started on his plan by recently paying off a minor student loan in 4 months instead of 10 years.

I quibble with Dave on a few minor points, but then again he is the one with the wealth, and I'm the one with the student loans, so I'll post an update after we get rolling and let you know how his techniques are working for us.

Total Money Makeover wasn't the only thing I mooched though. I have been getting more and more excited about the many reading challenges online, and in anticipation of the ones I hope to join soon, I cleared out a few shelves of my parents' books. I felt like I hit the literary jackpot, leaving with 2 bags worth of books. My parent's collection is pretty sci fi heavy, but I did score with War and Peace, a short story collection by Mark Twain, Animal Farm, The Gangs of New York, and Lord of the Flies.

The final thing I was uberexcited to recover from my parent's place is a stack I had been keeping of stories I've written over the years. I didn't have time to sort through it yet, but I saw stories as far back as middle school. One of my New Year's resolutions this year is to write more stories. Hopefully I will be inspired by all of the fabulous books I'll be reading!