"Okay, smile at the camera. I said smile, don't frown. Kid on the right, open your eyes. You in the back, what are you doing?" "Ready? You, the short one, look at the camera, not the old man." "Perfect. Daughter Sneed and Mr. P are in Yuma, AZ. at a rodeo this weekend. Mr. P is one of those civic-minded do-gooders, so they are there, helping to make the rodeo there a big success. Noah is staying with us from Friday until Monday. Last night he stayed at his cousin Aiden's house, so that Mrs. Sneed and I could go out. That meant that this morning we went to Son Sneed's house for a visit and to collect the little weasel. Miss Riley was the star of the show. Three months old and as cute as a button. E asked me if I had any recommendations for books similar to the Millionaire Next Door. A couple of things spring to mind. When I think of financial advice books, I'm interested in advice that eschews debt and advocates for living below your means. They are few and far between. Rich Dad, Poor Dad, was pretty good. The original, that is. Robert Kiyosaki has branched out into buying real estate using leverage, which we can all agree is a formula for disaster. That's why the "experts" are getting rich by selling books about how to do it, rather than getting rich just doing it. Robert Kiyosaki and guys of his ilk, teach that anyone can get rich in real estate, with the right advice. If that were true, we wouldn't have a zillion homes being foreclosed upon. As a side note and in support of my point, Son Sneed and I were talking about a house across the street from his, which is for sale. The buyer paid $440,000 for it in 2007 and is desperate to sell it now. It is listed at $339,000 and is advertised as a short-sale, meaning the lender has agreed to take that amount to satisfy their loan. When you hear that a bank has toxic assets on their books, this is one of the things they are talking about. The banks have tons of loans on the books listed as assets, but backed by properties worth far less than the mortgages. This lender is carrying the $440,000 mortgage on their books as an asset, but you can see that by the time this is sold, there will be a $125,000 write-off against that asset. That alternative is still more attractive to the bank than repossessing it and trying to resell it. But, as always, I digress. I'm also a huge fan of Dave Ramsey and his philosophy of having no debt. Dave has a series of books, Financial Peace and The Total Money Makeover, to name two. Some people find Dave's advice simplistic. I've seen him referred to as a one-trick pony by the smart guys, but the reality of life is that financial prosperity s simple, it's just not easy. As a caution, Dave is a fundamentalist Christian, which can be a bit off-putting to some, me included. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky