Dave Ramsey
 

What do you think of him/his program?

I'm trying to take my finances more seriously, and want to start paying off debt and getting my financial house in order.

Let's hear your thoughts.

If you otherwise have trouble controlling your spending, his methods can be effective. That said, he goes way too far in terms of telling people to stick with cash spending and avoiding credit, in my opinion.

Creating a budget, tracking your spending, and doing some basic financial literacy training will get you what you need in most cases.

The plan itself makes logical sense but his advice seems incredibly outdated.

I am a Ramsey guy. Budgetting, tracking your money, limit the nonsense spending, all good values. He's a little extreme in some of his methods, but a large portion of his audience are people needing some extreme methodology.

Right. The way he'd have you do it by the time you're ready to retire and enjoy the money you'd saved up you'll be broken down and miserable. Now granted, there are a disturbingly large number of folks that really would be much better off doing what he advocates for because they don't have a single iota of financial sense.

Kinda basic, beginnnerish info. It's a place to start if you need to get things under control I guess

Yeah, I don't know a ton about him besides what you mentioned about staying away from credit cards at all cost, but seems like most people could just track spending from a spreadsheet or any number of apps and get most of the way to a Ramsey plan.

His plan of attack to dig yourself out of debt makes sense (snowball or avalanche), but after that is where he loses me and the fact he applies his advice to every situation when it really should be applied to only the most extreme cases where they have no discipline and live way beyond the means.

As others have said he's a little extreme. However, some people just can't control their spending and he is very helpful to those folks. However, debt isn't bad if it's understood as part of your plan.

I’ve sheets understood him to be against debt but I assume that’s just common sense type debt right? Things like don’t go into debt for things like TVs, food, or luxuries? I’m assuming his program understands debt for your house, perhaps a car (though I could see him against that).

As far as getting finances in order, definitely good to do that. Basic financial literacy is so easy yet so many people are really bad it. Definitely something that should be a bigger focus in the education system.

In the past I’ve tried various software programs but found them unnecessary and overly complicated. I just use a spreadsheet for ours. Easy to track every dollar and know where it goes each month.

In real life I can tell you paying off your house feels great. I know I know you borrowed at such a low rate you would be a fool to pay it off quickly blabla. Maybe it is just peace of mind and freedom but it helped me get ahead so I can live now.

My first house I bought for 153k. Paid it off in 6 years. Was a rental for a while then sold for 325k. House Im in now bought for 245k. Paid it off in 5 years. Worth 450k now.

I have absolutely no expenses outside of property tax, cell phone bill. Insurance and I wouldn't have it any other way.

He's 100% against car loans. He's not against mortgages but believes you shouldn't consider a mortgage until you're otherwise debt free, have an emergency fund, and can put 20% down.

It's not bad advice in concept, but it's just really difficult for most people.

He goes over the top on credit cards, but I guess it makes sense for people that cannot control their spending habits. If a credit card is giving you rewards to use it and you're good with controlling your spending habits, why pay with cash? You can get cash back rewards on the credit card usually. You give up free bonus money in your pocket if you pay with cash all the time.

One size fits all... like people who say you should never ever ever buy a depreciating asset, but probably have little to back that up in terms of always being the superior strategy.


Hopefully he at least advocates investing your emergency fund money, even if it's just Discover bank (or whatever that's called) or some low-ish interest rate account where you can't lose it all.