Ramsey provides plain advice and explains everything in terms simple to read and understand for those of us who are financially ignorant. Yes, that's me. I am in debt with little enough in savings, like many Americans fresh out of college. But because of Ramsey I've already used the worksheets provided to plan my way out of debt and learn to use my money wisely. Extravagant material goods are nice, but I can do without them for a couple of years while I pay off credit cards, my enormous student loans and car note.

That's the best advice in the book, the "debt snowball," where you pay off the smallest debt (like my MasterCard) as fast as possible while paying the minimum on everything else, then when that's paid off use what you had been using on the smaller debt to pay the next one off, and so on and so on.

One note for those who believe Christianity has no bearing in anything we do except in church: Ramsey sprinkles in dozens of references to the Bible concerning money. God advocated using money wisely, investing it successfully, and that money itself is not evil, but it's the love of money that is the root of all evil.