books recommendations please

**Nath.** · 01-31-2006, 11:01 PM

okay ladies, I would like to have your suggestions please

Best book I could buy for debt reduction. Something easy to apply. Something like a step by step to do. We are not in deep debts, but we have two big one and I know that if I would get my acts into actions...we could pay thems pretty fast....it's just that I don't know where to start.

Best book I could buy to learn how to reduce my grocery bill....okay foods is very important for me. I will buy quality foods anytime over processes foods....but I'm sure I can still cut my grocery bill a bit....175$ per week ( meats not included in bill) is way to much for a family of 4!

Best book I could buy to learn (in a fast and effective way) how to declutter AND keep my house clean.

Thank you ladies

(I cannot borrow thems at the library, since I live in a french province and in a very small town...so we have very few english book around)...I will be buying thems on amazon.ca

**Emerald_Mommy** · 01-31-2006, 11:10 PM

For debt reduction: Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey

I'm not sure about the others, though. Miserly Moms is pretty good. Tightwad Gazette is intensly frugal but a little too much so for some people's taste. Sorry I don't have more advice for you. HTH, anyway.

**rebecca** · 02-01-2006, 03:29 AM

Originally posted by Emerald_Mommy
For debt reduction: Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey

I'm not sure about the others, though. Miserly Moms is pretty good. Tightwad Gazette is intensly frugal but a little too much so for some people's taste. Sorry I don't have more advice for you. HTH, anyway.

I was going to recommend Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. He is one of the best I have read so far. I follow most of his steps, except I did not stop my 401 (b) for the snowball. Started late in life saving for my retirement, but outside of that he has excellent ideas for debt reduction. I would see if its at your library first before you buy it and see if this is what you are looking for.

guest7 · 02-01-2006, 06:35 AM

Ditto on those books; And for the grocery bill
Cut your grocery bills in half! : supermarket survival / Barbara Salsbury with Cheri Loveless

Borrow these from your local library. Don't buy them.

**Nath.** · 02-01-2006, 07:56 AM

Originally posted by frugalfanny
Ditto on those books; And for the grocery bill
Cut your grocery bills in half! : supermarket survival / Barbara Salsbury with Cheri Loveless

Borrow these from your local library. Don't buy them.

Thank's girls, I'm taking notes of the title

ffanny, I live in a french place so except for some bilingual dictionnary, we have no english books available at our local librairy. I will look around the Net for used copies of these

**crunchycon** · 02-01-2006, 08:46 AM

For Cleaning, try Speed Cleaning by Jeff Campbell; I've also heard Clutter's Last Stand by Don Aslett is good.

Consider subscribing to the Flylady service at http://www.flylady.net, but the e-mails (even in digest form) may be a little overwhelming. The routines are good, though.

**Nath.** · 02-01-2006, 10:18 AM

You girls are the best!

Thank's

**canadian gardener** · 02-01-2006, 10:47 AM

Mary Hunt's Best of the Cheapskate Monthly is a little cheap paperback of hers. It contains most of her best tips from all her other books.

great tips on saving.

But most of all it explains 2 concepts really well

Snowball debt reduction and

How to deal with irregular expenses or irregular income that make budgeting difficult. Things like the dentist bill, happens on a not so regular basis, or car repairs. Or you might make a lump sum of money one month and nothing the next.

While Tightwad Gazette is entertaining, a lot of the stuff in there is about inspiration, kicking off a train of thought that helps you problem solve your own situation. It gets you thinking outside the box, but and it's a big but, I agree with the above post, it can be totally overwhelming as it goes into too much detail, and chases too many little things.

Cure the big stuff first, plug the big leaks, then if you have energy left over for doing Amy's techniques for the smaller things, concentrate on them then.

But when getting started sometimes it's best to keep the main things in focus.

**Kimberlina** · 02-01-2006, 10:51 AM

Just wanting to chime on on Dave Ramsey's TMM. You can also listen to his show at www.daveramsey.com for free- you can only downloas an hour, but you can listen to all three hours of the stream (last I knew, anyway.) I love him!

I won't comment on the cleaning books as my house isn't (clean, that is.)

**canadian gardener** · 02-01-2006, 11:54 AM

I recommend both the above books,

Speed Cleaning by Jeff Campbell and it's two sequels
Spring Cleaning
and Clutter Control first and foremost
from this site. http://www.thecleanteam.com/

My sister got me onto him back almost 20 years ago, and his system does work well. It is the fastest most efficient method of cleaning once a week, getting it all done in a few hours on one day.

his products are bar none the BEST in the cleaning business. I have used and loved his ostrich down duster for the last 19 or 20 years now. I bought his Red Juice Concentrate for years till I found a local substitute. And his Shmop was 10 years before the Swiffer or the aveda system. I still own the telescoping window squeegee that makes light work of second story windows in the last 3 houses plus rentals.

HOWEVER I found over the years that breaking his techniques down, and doing a little each day, worked better for me.

I have 3 threads I launched with my own system here in FV clean along which is an evolution of what worked well for me with health problems. In 1999 I was too ill and tired to work at anything longer than 5 minutes with rests in between.

I managed to develop my housekeeping system to be able to do it in 5 minute bursts of activity.

I cleaned the bathroom as I visited it during the day, I vacuumed by leaving it out where I got tired, and working thru the whole house 5 minutes at a time, only enough as I could stand it.

Anyway

I also HIGHLY recommend Don Aslett's Clutter's Last Stand. I think it remains the best book on Clutter that I've ever read, and I've read quite a few and own quite a few.

Not for Packrats Only is the second Don Aslett book I'd recommend.

he isn't AS good as Jeff Campbell on speedy cleaning methods, but very nearly. I read and applied his techniques first, and I have to say they were a complete improvement. But when my sister introduced me to Jeff's system, it took it up a notch.

**canadian gardener** · 02-01-2006, 11:56 AM

here are my "book posts" over in the clean along:
the kitchen that cleans itself the Kitchen that cleans itself
the bathroom that cleans itself the bathroom that cleans itself!

and the house that cleans itself
The house that cleans itself!

**QuilterMom** · 02-01-2006, 12:01 PM

Financial Peace by Dave Ramsey for the debt reduction.

As far as one for lowering your grocery bills, I really don't have a suggestion. It seems so many focus on heavy couponing, which I know is hard to do in Canada, plus so many coupons are for convenience/pre-packaged items and I personally consider scratch cooking cheaper and healthier.

For decluttering/keeping the house clean, check out Mrs. Clean Jeans http://www.mrscleanjeans.net/ . If you're interested in making homemade cleaners, I like Clean House, Clean Planet by Karen Logan or there are tons of homeamade cleaning recipes available online and good info is posted here in the Make It Yourself forum http://frugalvillage.com/forums/foru...1000&x=13&y=10 .

**Nath.** · 02-01-2006, 12:10 PM

Wow! I'm all excited! I feel like a kids in a candy store! Thank's girls for all theses suggestions and the websites! I will surely check thems out b4 purchasing the book.

At least now I know which one are the best

I will probably start with Jeff Campbell for the cleaning
Dave Ramsey for debt reduction
and Barbara Salsbury for the grocery bill reduction ...I will first check how much are each of theses books.

CG, Yesterday I've readed (and took notes) on the treads you posted on the kitchen, bathroom and house cleaning. they will be very helpful to me...since I mostly only have 5min. free time here and there....and if I can do 2things at the same time, it's even better LOL

Thank's

Nath

**QuilterMom** · 02-01-2006, 12:14 PM

Check out the mix recipes on Budget 101 as well (food and drink items) for lowering your grocery bills (cheaper to make your own than to purchase convenience items/mixes). http://www.budget101.com/102mix.htm

**canadian gardener** · 02-01-2006, 12:22 PM

beyond those two authors, Jeff Campbell and Don Aslett I also highly recommend the following books and authors:

Peg Bracken wrote 3 funny out of print books that you can find in second hand bookstores-- The I hate to housekeep book, the I try to behave myself book and The I hate to Cook book (which has a sequel cookbook).

I love them and even though they were written in the late 60's, they are as fresh and new and appropriate for today as the latest and best authors in the home keeping genre of the 2005 era.

Bonnie McCullough wrote many that I love but 2 stand out. Totally Organized and Bonnies Household Budget Planner. Time management, and money management from a home keeping perspective. Practical, witty and easy to read. Terrific ideas.

Long before flylady she was preaching the need for a daily and weekly routine that becomes a no brainer that you refine and make quicker and easier the more times you repeat it till it's like breathing.

Flylady from flylady.net has a good book with much of her wisdom in it, called Sink Reflections. It's an excellent book. Her emphasis on battling perfectionism and taking change slowly is her strength and it's well worth reading for inspiration and some excellent ideas. Her email system (you can sign up for the daily flood of reminders and inspiring stories and essays or the digest form) is often overwhelming in spite of frequent reminders by flylady to go slow, and ignore the stuff you aren't working on. Some people are ok and can cope, others run screaming in the other direction.

I think she is still overwhelming for a lot of people who need and want just the basics, stripped down. Jeff Campbells Clean Team 3 book approach works best for people like that. He wrote others but the 3 above are the best.

For those wanting more hand holding and a lot of inspiration and encouragement while making serious changes in their lives, I think there is nobody better than flylady.

Confessions of an Organized Homemaker: The Secrets of Uncluttering Your Home and Taking Control of Your Life by Deniece Schofield is another good book in this genre, but not quite as good as Bonnie's Totally organized. She has some excellent suggestions though and it would be a pity not to read this one at the library and see if you didn't want a copy.

There are others, but those are my main picks

One I don't recommend buying, is Sidetracked Home Executives by Pam Young, Peggy Jones simply because like flylady, the system they recommend can be overwhelming. You spend more time fiddling with and maintaining the card file system they recommend than actually doing the housework. Flylady started with this system which I also started using and dropped after a year back when dd was about 3 (she is now 23)

Some organizational systems don't work well for a lot of people if they require a lot of tending and maintaining.

You spend a lot of time updating the system, rolling things over in the franklin day planner or the binder or the card file or scrolling thru the email reminders.

I happpen to enjoy the reminders flylady sends, but more because it's fun for me to delete them saying hm, did that, did that, got that, did that last week.

BUT the problem with a lot of systems that rely on a huge rotating file of things to do, they force you to maintain a system (take time and effort) and often do work that doesn't need doing yet.

Neither flylady or sidetracked sisters have quite dealt with those flaws in their systems and unless you are able to spot the problem and avoid it

you might have trouble on their systems.