In this corner, standing 5'4", Elizabeth Hasselbeck. In this corner, weighing 2 or 3 Elizabeth Hasselbecks, Rosie O'Donnell. These two dames are trying to patch things up after going at each other's throats on The View. O'Donnell got up in Hasselbeck's face for not defending some smart-aleck comment that Rosie made. I say, if you say something, you're responsible for it. Don't ask someone else to wear the bullet-proof vest when you shoot off your mouth.

Hopefully, the raging sea of estrogen has ebbed. But this fight news brings up a good point. You know what else causes fights? That's right, bub ... moolah. Loaning money to a friend or a relative will make things more awkward than Donald Trump doing an ad for Rogaine. Don't play that tune. If you want to give money to someone, and they'll use it right, then have at it. But don't put anyone in debt over it. Put that in your Dave Ramsey pipe and smoke it.

Pro football? Pretty fun, baby. It's everything I can do to keep from buying some shoulder pads and suiting up each fall. Now, the rumor mill has it that Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban wants to start a new football league to compete with the NFL for players drafted lower than the second round.

I know, I know ... football leagues that go head-to-head with the NFL don't exactly have the best track record. It wasn't long ago that the XFL became the Ex-FL. The USFL went AWOL after three seasons. Even the World Football League tanked after a while. But you gotta love the spirit of these guys, going against the rules in the hopes of getting something new off the ground.

Going against the rules is weird. Same deal with the dough. The credit card companies and car loan places tell you it's normal to need credit and debt. And the word budget to them is like garlic to a vampire. If they call that normal, I say ... be weird like Dave Ramsey, baby. Don't handle money the way broke people do. Shut up, save up and pay up.

How's this for a whale picture? A mother humpback and her wee baby swimming through San Francisco Bay toward the Golden Gate Bridge, then onto the Pacific Ocean; all the while a bunch of average joes and jills are cheering them on. It ain't just a tale of a whale ... it's a whale of a tale, baby.

These two blowhole bubs are getting close to their goal. They've been staying in the straight and narrow for a long time and sticking together, but once they hit that big blue sea, it's gonna be smooth sailin'.

Picture that when you're trying to pay off debt. You may not have a lot of wiggle room, but let that drive you to your goal of deep-sixing your debt and saving a lot of dough, Dave Ramsey-style. Then, once you're debt-free, you'll be home free, jack.

Lesson time, ladies and germs. Today, it's all about being on the same page with your wife or husband and making marriage work. In the news right now is Senator Barack Obama and how his wife likes to razz him about picking up his dirty laundry and doing some other chores. Hopefully they won't take it too far, or trouble's gonna be brewin' in the Obama abode.

Some couples can do it, but others can't. If things are going good with your other half, then that's dandy. But lots of times, bubs and dames struggle with money and that spreads to other areas of their lives. Before you know it, you got a marriage problem, broken hearts, broken wallets and a one-way ticket to Splitsville.

Don't heckle your spouse, baby ... get on the same page with 'em, like Dave Ramsey says. Work together in whatever you do, like when you pay off debt. When you have a budget meeting, you BOTH sit down and do it. When they need you, shut off the TV and listen. It's the stuff that dreams are made of.

Stupid ... there is no substitute. Tugging on Supeman's cape? Bad idea. Sptting into the wind? Buy some brain cells. But stupid with a capital "S" happens when you get an adjustable mortgage rate loan when rates are this low. People who have been doing it the last few years are gonna have the wake-up call to end all pretty soon when their monthly payments shoot through the roof.

Here's the facts, jack. Mortgage loan rates have spent the past few years lower than a federal witness wearing cement shoes at the bottom of the river, see? So why would you get a loan that doesn't lock that rate in?

Don't get fooled by jazzy stuff like lower payments ... if you ain't debt-free today, or don't have an emergency fund, or can't get a 15-year fixed mortgage rate payment that's less than a third of your take-home pay, then a house isn't your bag, baby. If that's not enough info, listen to The Dave Ramsey Show for more.

Ready to hit the road? You and about a zillion others, jack. Memorial Day 2007 is here; most joes and jills have already taken their families and split in record numbers. Hope they put some extra dough in the budget for fuel, because gasoline prices are at $3.23 and climbing. But here's a welcome tidbit of info ... the word from the newsboys is that people will still travel this summer, but they'll spend less on hotels and restaurants because of gas.

THAT'S the attitude to have, bub. Balancing the budget. If something's too pricey, then make up the difference somewhere else and balance things out. And make dang sure that debt never enters the picture, see? Just like Dave Ramsey says. Fun is a lot more fun when there's no bad credit card debt to spoil the fun.

Take some pond scum, mix it with a few cups of raw sewage and throw in some expired milk for good measure, and whatcha got? These two Boston bums who are accused of jerking some dame out of her car and punching her in the kisser in front of her 5-year-old daughter while trying to repo her set of wheels. You read that right. All that to get a car repossessed. You don't see that kind of collecting this side of Tony Soprano very often. These nuts are one step up from a two-bit loan shark.

I'll tell you one thing ... if I ever see a couple of yahoos beating up some dollface trying to collect, even if she owes the dough, I'm gonna personally balance and rotate their jaws, jack. If you're in debt and paying interest on bad credit card debt and car payments, these are the kind of bozos you're bankrolling. Let's do the job and put 'em out of business, baby.

Get on a budget, start saving your baby emergency fund and then get to the good part ... where you pay off debt. I gotta run ... gotta go kick some debt.

So I'm net surfing last night and come across this little gem of an article. Some dame recounts how much dough she spent when she and her man first moved into their house after they'd been renting for 6 years. I'm not talking about closing costs ... I mean property taxes, insurance, furniture ... the whole housing cost shebang, baby. We're talking 4,800 bucks a year just for utilities in the new house.

This is the reason that Dave Ramsey says to not buy more house than you can afford. It ain't just the digs that cost you the bucks. Between taxes, insurance, and start-up costs, you're looking at spending a pretty penny, even with a budget.

Here's a clue for you ... it's great to own a house, but it's not when the house owns you. So pay off debt, every last bit of it, and have an emergency fund in place before you buy the place where you hang your hat, see? Look for ways to keep your costs in check, and make sure that the house is a blessing, bub ... not a curse.

Mount Everest? Fuggetaboutit. Mount McKinley? Piece of cake. That's the word out of California, where 18-year-old Samantha Larson has become the youngest person ever to scale the tallest mountains on all 7 continents in this crazy world. Talk about impressive ... she topped Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro at the tender age of 12. Now that she's done with the Seven Summits, she's starting college this fall. Talk about a dropoff ...

This mountain climber dame didn't just have a big-time challenge ... she had 7 of 'em. The work was tough, but she didn't cave. I tell ya ... she rocks. And she sets a good example, too.

When you do the Dave Ramsey thing and start to pay off debt, it'll feel like climbing a mountain. But with each step, you're making progress. When you save that first thousand bucks, it's a shot in the arm. When you start your Debt Snowball, get angry and get an attitude toward your consumer debt, then deep-six it. Quit staring at the top of the mountain, jack ... get there.

Hope the police chief didn't get hold of this one. Some 9-year-old girl in Germany was so ticked off that her mom told her to get her room clean that she put a sign up in her bedroom window asking joes and jills on the street to call the cops. I don't know if this crime scene clean up will make for a good story on CSI, but it brings up a good point.

Who are you gonna call to clean up your money mess? The boys in blue? Not a chance. Dave Ramsey? Maybe. But to really start tidying up, it takes you. If you're in a cash catastrophe, here are some quick tips. Get on a budget. Stop buying stuff on plastic and getting into credit card debt. The sooner you stop spending dough, the sooner you have some. Shut up and do it.

Ever wonder what a world wonder looks like, baby? Well, 45 million joes and jills around the globe are voting to pick the new ones. Some Swiss filmmaker set up a contest where people vote on the new seven wonders of the world. It reads like a who's who of famous digs. You got the Acropolis in Athens, the Eiffel Tower, the Great Wall of China, the Statue of Liberty ... it's an all-star deal.

They're big and beautiful, but when it's all said and done, the seven wonders are just buildings, baby. Real wonders happen when you do a random act of kindness. When you have no consumer debt and can use your dough to make this crazy world a better place, THAT'S a wonder. You may have a little money now, but as soon as you do the Dave Ramsey thing and get on a budget, you'll have a lot more later. Make it happen and make a difference around here.

Ladies and germs; the man himself, Dave Ramsey. Check out this article where he talks about home equity lines of credit, and why they're about as stupid as having Kevin Federline host the Oscars. Now, I'm not saying I've never had one, but I wish someone had put a baseball bat to my head when I signed the papers to get one way back when.

Any yahoo who thinks they've paid off credit card debt by getting an equity line is kidding themselves, big-time. You go from owing a few thousand to the plastic companies to owing a few thousand to the bank. That ain't paying off your bills, jack, so grow a brain and deep-six your consumer debt for real, see? Get on a budget, stop using debt and start saving dough. It's the stuff that dreams are made of.

The first Star Wars trilogy is about to hit its 30th birthday, bub. Funny to think about it now, but everyone from the studio heads to the gophers on the set thought it was going to fail. Even today, all the cast members say the same thing ... "I never knew how big it was going to be." Even theaters thought the Star Wars picture was going to be a big-time bomb, baby. There were lots doubters in the crowd, but the doubters were all proved wrong.

If you get hooked on having a total money makeover and want to pay off debt, odds are that tons of people are gonna be doubting you ... tons of broke people. They'll look at you like you're from a galaxy far, far away. But one day, you'll wake up with lots of dough, few worries and no debt, and people will call you lucky. They've been doing that to Dave Ramsey for years, but we all know better. Get started.

Forget those high gasoline prices ... joes and jills everywhere are gonna hit the road next week for the Memorial Day 2007 weekend. Good to see that so many people have their priorities in line, baby. They may pay more at the pump, but as long as they budget for it, they are making a point to spend time with their families.

Some things are just so important that people won't let obstacles like sky-high fuel prices get in their way. It's a good reminder ... get so fired up about deep-sixing your consumer debt that you won't be denied.

Sometimes, you have to handle dough differently if you want to get the important things in this crazy world done. When you walk through the Dave Ramsey's Baby Steps and start using your dough right, people are gonna laugh at you. But don't be denied; stay money smart and see it through. You know the difference between you and those idiots? When you're done with the Baby Step plan, they'll still be broke.

Time to admit a guilty pleasure ... I never heard a joke against the French that I didn't like. So imagine how many one-liners were running through my noggin when I heard that French workers are the biggest complainers in this crazy world. I've heard that work conditions and morale aren't exactly top-notch over there, but that doesn't mean you can't do what you love and love whatcha do. Find a job that makes you WANT to put on your work gloves, bub.

Don't give yourself a reason to whine ... in life or money. If you don't like your job, then do what it takes to find one that lights your fire and makes you a happy dog. If you're tired of living paycheck-to-paycheck, then get rid of your consumer debt, and your dough will go farther. Don't believe me? Then tune in to Dave Ramsey's show and hear for yourself, baby.

Get out the world's smallest violin, jack; 'cause I got a tune to play. It's for Paris Hilton (who else). Apparently, her shrink said she's "emotionally distraught and traumatized" over having to do 45 days in the pen for violating the probation from her drunk driving deal. Now, a jail cell is something that none of us ever want to see from the inside, but the Hilton honey should have thought of that before she got behind the wheel.

Point being ... know what you're getting into before you get into it, baby. If you're thinking about running up a bunch of bad credit card debt, take note that you're gonna spend a lot of dough before you get it paid off. Don't invest money in some midnight real estate jazz before you know that it's junk. Once you see that doing debt is dumb, then you can start doing the smart money stuff like Dave Ramsey teaches. Like them apples, jack?

Ready for class, boys and girls? Good. The word of the day is tween. What in the name of Bugsy Siegel is a tween, you say? A tween is a girl between the age of 8 and 13. And according to the newsboys, they're responsible for hundreds of billions of consumer bucks spent each year. And the advertising boys are after them.

The new marketing gig is to find out which dame is the "alpha girl" and have her host a slumber party at her house with a bunch of her friends, see? The alpha girl acts like a secret agent for the marketers to tell all her friends how big-time the new stuff is. Before you know it, wee ones are being exploited and wallets are being exploded to buy all the junk for the kids.

Anyone else have a problem with this? Kids need to learn how to save money, invest money and give money away, not spend their formative years as cheap labor for some bigshot tech, toy and T-shirt companies. Get your kids to do the Dave Ramsey thing with the dough, like make a budget and do those three things from above. Simple, simon.

Anybody else notice that gasoline prices are a tad high? Thought so. Prices at the gasoline stations are taking a bite out of wallets and purses everywhere. Joes and jills everywhere either have to get creative with getting around town or find ways to make pump prices fit into the budget, see?

Let this be a reminder to you, jack. Don't get so careless with your blow money spending that you can't afford the essentials. You can't control gasoline prices, but you can control your cash flow. If you need some extra dough, then do the Dave Ramsey thing and deep-six your consumer debt. You may need to get an extra job to make it happen, but that's trading a short time of sacrifice for a lifetime of freedom with the dough. Sound simple, simon? Then quit reading my blog and get to saving, baby.

Lights, camera ... 50 years of action, jack. You might know Bob Barker, baby. The host of The Price is Right game show is calling it quits after 5 decades in show biz. That's right; BB is coming on down. Think about that ... 50 years ago, the big news was Sputnik and segregation. But not everyone knew about Bob. He started small-time and built up over time. Now, he's at the top of his game and is worth (and loved by) millions.

Money works the same way. Invest money consistently over a few decades and it will turn into big-time dough. Waste it by piling up bad credit card debt and car payments and you'll be as broke as the contestant who guesses that a matching dining set is worth 100 bucks. Don't be a sucker ... do Dave Ramsey's plan, make a budget and start making the moolah work for you-la.

It's tough dealing with college tuition nowadays. And not just in the U.S., either. College students from all over the world are up to their sweet necks in debt and it's gotten so bad that the government boys from all over this crazy world are trying to come up with ways to deal with it. They've got it all backwards ... you don't start from the top with this, you start from the bottom.

The best thing to help students with student loan debt is students, jack. Dave Ramsey's got it right. If you are gonna head for higher education, don't bankroll it with a bunch of bad debt. If you're already best friends with Sallie Mae, then make a budget, get out of debt and kick the old broad to the curb. And don't even come back to me with all that tax deduction jazz. Don't blow 10,000 bucks in interest so you can hold back 2 grand from Uncle Sam. Bad math, baby.

Guilty pleasure of mine ... watching shows about Vegas. Back in my debt days, I could take a trip to the Las Vegas Strip, drop a couple grand on the craps table and not bat an eye. Nowadays, I just stick to watching it on the tube. So imagine my surprise when it's revealed that Mr. Magnum P.I. himself, Tom Selleck, is joining the cast of NBC's "Las Vegas". He's been out of the action for a while, but he's back and taking names.

Only in Hollywood can you jump right back into something and not miss a beat, baby. It's not the same when you do the Dave Ramsey thing and get out of debt. If you take some time off from deep-sixing your debt, then it gets tough to just go right back into things.

Get some momentum on your side and keep it there. Don't make a budget and stick to it for a couple of months ... make it part of your life. When you find ways to save money, don't go back to doing things the old way. The more time you spend broke, the less time you have to be getting rich, bub.

Here's some college football news for you, baby ... Doug Flutie is finally in the College Football Hall of Fame. And it's about time, too. At 5'10", DF has been under-sized and over-performing his whole life. That 48-yard TD pass against Miami in 1984 was just the tip of the iceberg. Flutie has been fighting the odds and the doubters his entire life; he's just relentless in his will to win, and that's what sets him apart.

It's all about heart, jack. How hard you try with what you've got. It's the same deal when you talk about money. I've seen big-shot millionaires who thought they could do no wrong, but they went belly-up in business because they had tons of bad debt and no discipline. I've seen joes and jills make $20,000 a year and are on their way to retiring with seven figures of money in the bank, baby. Plan for something great (like beating your debt problem), get intense about it and do it, just like Dave Ramsey says.

So, some big news in the entertainment world today is that Billy Ray Cyrus got booted from Dancing with the Stars. He put in a lot of hard work, so give him points for that. But his footwork was as awkward as Elaine Benes dancing on a high-wire over a shark tank. It was time for him to head to the house, if you ask me.

There comes a time in everyone's life where you need to say sayonara to something bad. Could be Billy Ray Cyrus dancing ... or your debt problem. I heard Dave Ramsey say on the radio that when you get to the point where you yell "I've had it!", your situation gets better right there. Is that you? Odds are, it is. So get started on making things better. Make that budget and get on a plan. Save an emergency fund and do some debt elimination. It's the stuff that dreams are made of, baby.

Be careful when someone tells you about a sure thing, bub. Lots of times, it won't happen. Don't believe me? Then check out this British joe who was told by the docs that he had pancreatic cancer, and they gave him two years to live. He didn't bother getting cancer treatment, so he does what anybody with a pea-sized brain does ... he stopped paying on his mortgage, spent all his dough and ran up a bunch of credit card debt.

Then lo and behold, baby ... turns out the doctors gave him the wrong info, and he's healthy as an ox (dumb as one, too). So now he's suing the hospital to get back part of what he spent. Even though he thought he was gonna shake hands with the Angel of Death, he wound up doing the tango with the angel of debt.

No such thing as a sure thing, jack. Everything has risk, so do the best you can to take risk out of the situation and go from there ... that's what ol' Dave Ramsey says. If some buddy tells you about a can't miss chance to invest money, be wary and stay out of trouble.

Seen the new Spider Man 3 movie? Odds are, yes ... it sold a cool $151 million worth of tickets at the box office this weekend. The Hollywood gossip is that this flick was a risk, given its $258 million budget. If it doesn't turn a profit, some heads are gonna roll, baby. And if you think some Tinsel Town stiffsuits will get in trouble for not doing right by the numbers, think about what happens when you don't pay attention to your own.

When it comes to your budget and taking a gamble ... don't. Leave the risk-taking to Hollywood, jack ... you don't need to do it. Do the smart money stuff and don't make things tough. To get out of debt, you just need a plan and a bunch of hard work, like Dave Ramsey talks about. When you invest money, don't go for some screwy two-bit midnight real estate deal. Stick to mutual funds instead. Make it happen and make some dough, baby.

It's always funny when stupid stuff happens to people who don't do things honest, like drug traffickers. Take this yahoo on board a flight from Vietnam to Australia. They get up to cruising altitude and he upchucks a nylon bag full of white powder, see? The authorities think it's heroin, turn around and head back to the airport.

Before they can do a drug test, this genius coughs up two more bags. Turns out, he had 30 more in his stomach. All this bozo needed to do was swallow a scientist and he'd have a drug laboratory in his gut.

Doing stupid is bad enough, but doing dumb with the dough can lead to big-time trouble. Don't buy into all that jazz about how using credit card reward points or car loans is the way to get all the good stuff. You'll just use up that stuff and have nothing but a bunch of bad debt to show for it. But paying cash, like Dave Ramsey says to do ... smart stuff, baby.

Say it ain't so, joe! Could it be that Paris Hilton got in trouble and is in the news? Afraid so, baby. Seems the Blonde Blank is gonna do 45 days in the cooler for driving drunk and violating the terms of her probation. But here's the kicker ... her publicist thinks it will actually make her more popular. I'll say this ... if Paris wants to be famous, what better place to start than in a jail cell? She'll be REAL popular there.

Don't do something stupid just to impress your friends, like buy a new car or some new clothes and run up a bunch of credit card debt. Buying stuff you can't afford is for suckers, see? Getting on a budget and living on less than you make gives you a big-time sense of freedom (which is something ol' Paris won't be feeling for the next month and a half). She should probably look on the bright side ... she'll have some time to listen to The Dave Ramsey Show.

Here's some pants that cost a pretty penny, baby. Some judge in Washington is suing his dry cleaner for a cool 65 million. He says they lost a pair of pants of his, and even though they tried to settle with him three times, he's bringing a lawsuit against them. They're so distressed they might move back to Korea.

This judge joe is being a jerk. He's being greedy, see? It's all right to want good customer service, and the owners of the cleaners offered three times to make things right. But when you start pushing people around and copping an attitude, that's when things turn sour.

Don't be a jerk, jack. Lots of people in this crazy world have had to deal with worse than a lost set of threads. Stick to the basics ... make a budget, get out of debt and use those random acts of kindness to give away piles of dough. And listen to The Dave Ramsey Show while you're at it.

The relationship between mother and child is a pricey one, jack. A study was just done by Salary.com, and they say that if a stay-at-home-mom was paid for being a cook, housekeeper and psychologist, she'd be pulling in 138 grand a year. That's a lot of dough. She also works about 92 hours a week ... that's a lot of time. So here's a shout-out to all the dames with kids, see? Mother work may be worth 138K, but mother love is priceless, baby.

It takes hard work to make a home work. The hubby and wife both need to put in the time. And gentlemen, with your wives as overworked as they are, it would make her feel a lot better if she knew you both were in control with the dough. Having a budget is key to making sure everything goes smoothly. And if you save money and get out of debt, she'll be more relaxed than warm Jell-O, jack. Heard that one on The Dave Ramsey Show.

News flash from the lab boys ... the Arctic ice cap is due to melt 30 years ahead of schedule. The reason, they say, is because global warming is heating things up in this crazy world. Hate to see it happen, but look on the bright side ... the vacation rates at the North Pole will be a lot cheaper after it hits.

It's a screwy comparison, but it punches the point home, baby. When you start to do your Baby Steps and get momentum on your side, things start happening faster than you thought they would, see? You plan to get out of debt in two years, and it happens in 18 months. You start investing money to make you a millionaire in 20 years, and it happens in 17.

Dave talks about momentum on The Dave Ramsey Show, so listen in. It's the best thing, bub. Making a budget will get those good vibes moving your way. Once that happens, start saving money. Once you get that out of the way, start working your debt snowball and put your debt problem on ice. It'll happen sooner than you think.

It only takes a little to make a lot of difference, jack. What do I mean? I can answer that with two words ... Joe Torre, manager for the NY Yankees. He's got four World Series rings, 1,000+ wins and a resume that makes him a lock for Cooperstown. But the recent rumor mill has it that he could get the axe from Yankee General Manager George Steinbrenner because of an "unacceptable start to the season". Now, GM GS has said that Torre's job is safe, but it wouldn't even be an issue if it hadn't been discussed, see?

Even with all he's done, Torre could still be collecting unemployment checks if he messes up. You may think you're doing great with the dough, but if you decide to do stupid with the moolah (like get a unsecured loan or a bunch of credit card debt), your situation can get uglier than a bookful of "yo mama" jokes. Get a plan for your money and knock it out of the park. Have a budget in place and working your debt elimination plan (aka the Dave Ramsey Show Baby Steps, baby).

Bet they didn't plan on this one at the wedding shower. Some joe in India showed up at his wedding drunk as a sailor on New Year's Eve, and so the bride married his sober brother. Big deal; I bet this kind of thing happens in Vegas all the time. All I can say is ... hope nobody got them a set of monogrammed towels as a wedding gift.

Not having a plan for your dough is about as stupid as becoming inebriated and showing up at your nuptials under the heavy influence of alcohol. Doesn't matter if it's money or a mate ... each one is a big-time commitment, so give 'em each their due. In other words, don't be stupid, baby. Get on a budget and find out how you can save money and get out of debt. Listen to The Dave Ramsey Show to get fired up. Do you dig?