Right at the beginning of this worth reading book you find the answer to the question on how to lose debt: "The primary key to living without debt is to keep and save more of what you make than what you spend." Sounds like pure logic, but we all know that there are just too many people living like there was no tomorrow and who like to think that there will be eternal growth without ever seeing a downturn.. And sadly enough, this is also a general truth for our Western economics.
I read this book from an European perspective, and I was reading it with growing astonishment. It confirmed my impressions obtained from numerous visits to the US, but also the general view on this question of the people and media from the "old" continent: For most people in Europe (especially when not very young) it is quite deeply anchored in their mentality that saving money for difficult times ahead as well as paying back debts as quickly as possible is of outmost importance. In the US this seems to be totally different as immediate spending of all income (and very often above the total income) is what people are looking for. Banks do encourage this behaviour and they earn a lot of money when customers stay in debts for a long time.
Ross describes all this very nicely and his recommendations on how to get out of this ever increasing debt problem are extremely useful. Actually, a copy of this book should be offered free of charge by credit card companies to all of their customers - but this is certainly asking too much as it would kill their fantastic debt business. I was shocked to read that overdrawn interest rates can reach 30 percent; this would not work in Europe as the laws here are much more in favour of consumers than in the US.
"How to lose debt" is indeed very well written, it flows easily, it is entertaining, but primarily it is of great usefulness to all people suffering a dramatic debt situation. A must read for people in debt trouble.
