JoAnneh Nagler - The Debt-Free Spending Plan: An Amazingly Simple Way to Take Control of Your Finances Once and for All

Advance Praise for The Debt-Free Spending Plan

A riveting debt-breakthrough and a great read. In the world of debt-free living, this book is a trailblazer!

Stephen Dover, International Chief Investment
Officer, Franklin Templeton Global Advisers

The Debt-Free Spending Plan offers real-world, practical, and pragmatic advice to help those struggling to balance their cash inflows and outflows. In minutes each day and without a lot of technical mumbo-jumbo, JoAnneh teaches us to set goals, stop racking up debt, and create long-lasting financial security. I loved reading this book and will recommend it to many in need of its wisdom!

Mary Crawford, Professor, Stanford Continuing
Studies Program, Values-Based Life & Wealth
Planning and Twenty-First Century Retirement

If youre struggling with debt or cant get your money under control, following JoAnnehs plan will get you on the right track ASAP! The Debt-Free Spending Plan provides a great, easy-to-understand system for getting a grip on anyones finances.

Trent Hamm, author of The Simple Dollar: How One Man
Wiped Out His Debts and Achieved the Life of His Dreams

THE DEBT-FREE SPENDING PLAN

An Amazingly Simple Way to Take
Control of Your Finances Once and for All

JOANNEH NAGLER

AMACOM AMERICAN MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION
New York Atlanta Brussels Chicago Mexico City
San Francisco Shanghai Tokyo Toronto Washington, D.C.

Bulk discounts available. For details visit: www.amacombooks.org/go/specialsales Or contact special sales: Phone: 800-250-5308 / E-mail: specialsls@amanet.org View all the AMACOM titles at: www.amacombooks.org American Management Association: www.amanet.org

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional service. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Nagler, JoAnneh.

The debt-free spending plan : an amazingly simple way to take control of your finances once and for all / JoAnneh Nagler.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8144-3243-3
ISBN-10: 0-8144-3243-3
1. Finance, Personal. 2. Consumer debt. 3. Budgets, Personal. I. Title.
HG179.N33 2012
332.02402dc23

2012010889

2013 JoAnneh Nagler.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.

This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of AMACOM, a division of American Management Association, 1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.

About AMA
American Management Association (www.amanet.org) is a world leader in talent development, advancing the skills of individuals to drive business success. Our mission is to support the goals of individuals and organizations through a complete range of products and services, including classroom and virtual seminars, webcasts, webinars, podcasts, conferences, corporate and government solutions, business books, and research. AMAs approach to improving performance combines experiential learninglearning through doingwith opportunities for ongoing professional growth at every step of ones career journey.

Printing number
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is dedicated to Theresa Hanneman Boer, who encouraged me to write it, to Bonita Banducci, who helped me learn to live debt-free, and to Michael Nagler, with whom all good things in my life are possible.

CHAPTER 2 In with Structure, Out with Stringency:
The Simple Tools of the Debt-Free Spending Plan

CHAPTER 3 Make It Work Every Day:
Your Personal Debt-Free Spending Plan in Action

CHAPTER 4 Deprivation Will Never Get You Debt-Free:
A Plan for Everything We Need, Want, and Dream of

CHAPTER 5 To Cut or Not to Cut:
Taking a Reasonable Look at What You Can and Cant Afford

CHAPTER 6 Nailing Down the Octopus Arms: How to
Pay Back Your Debts without Gouging Your Living Expenses

CHAPTER 8 Mom, Can I Borrow?:
How to Stop Asking for Money and Start Paying It Back

CHAPTER 9 Creativity, Not Credit Cards:
Learning from the Spending Plans of the Newly Debt-Free

CHAPTER 10 Keeping on Track and Keeping It Real:
Using the Tools That Help You Stay on the Plan

CHAPTER 11 To File or Not to File:
Bankruptcy and Our Future Financial Health

This is a book for people who are in debt and dont know how to live within their means. Its a book for people who spend and dont know where their moneys going. Its a book for people who hate numbers, never liked math, and rarelyif everbalance their checkbook.

The Debt-Free Spending Plan is a simple program that will help all of us who have had money trouble stop incurring debt, live on what we earn, and begin building our dreams. Dream building is the most important part of this book. Most of us who are pressed by debt or have a lack of clarity about our spending feel we have no opportunity to build anythinglet alone our dreams. We go from year to year in a tightly wound survival mode, and we dont feel as if theres ever any financial breathing room to plan for things that are truly meaningful to us.

The Debt-Free Spending Plan will help you change all of that. You will learn to liveand live wellon what you earn, on what youre bringing in. Youll learn to use your creativity rather than your credit cards. Youll have a plan to cover your living expenses that addresses all of your needs, including entertainment money, vacation money, and fun money to spend however you like. Youll have a debt-repayment plan that wont control your spending or your life. And you wont have to live on canned soup and crackers.

Youll finallyand for goodrid yourself of money stress.

That sounds terrific, you say, but there are stacks of finance books out there that promise the same thing. So whats so different about this one? This is whats different about this book: Its simple. It doesnt require that you sift through chapters of high-minded financial advice. It doesnt call for an anthropological dig into your past spending history or your childhood. It doesnt ask for knowledge of any specific software, nor does it belabor you with a history of the credit industry. It assumes you need help right now with your debt and spending issues and it gives that to you.

This book offers easy, daily strategies for working with your expenses and needs. It teaches you simple tracking mechanisms that keep you solvent. It gives you foolproof tools to help you when you do the inevitable and overspend. And it does all of that in the first thirty days of using it.

Most of us who have debt problems pick up finance and investment books, and put them down before we finish the first chapter. These books assume we know too much. They tell us the downside of debt but dont tell us how to get out of itor worse yet, dont help us create tools that will help us stop racking up debt. This book does. Its clear, straightforward, and uncomplicated. Its designed for the eight-year-old in us who froze up in math class and never recovered.