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An admission: There's a reasonably well-known money personality/expert that wasn't on my radar screen until I started running this site. I'm referring to Dave Ramsey. I've become curious about Ramsey as I've seen many mentions of his name, shows, books, or courses in answers here at Basically Money:

I'm assuming my ignorance was because Ramsey is popular in the U.S., but not so much in Canada. I'm aware that Ramsey has a TV show, but I've never seen it broadcast here and I regularly browse the TV schedule. (Whereas, I do watch the Suze Orman show, but that's easy because I get CNBC.)

My questions are:

  • If you had to start with one thing to get to know the Dave Ramsey "philosophy" about money, what would it be? A book, the show, something else?
  • In a nutshell, what are the main points Ramsey teaches listeners / viewers / readers about money?
  • Are either of his TV or radio shows available on the Internet? Free, or e.g. iTunes?

Thanks! I'll be using the answers to this question to help me address my ignorance. :-)

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3 Answers

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Start with his website, specifically his seven steps. Most everything else is around motivating people to actually do the plan. As he often says personal finance is 80% personal and 20% finance, by which he means that things that make sense finantially (paying off high interest debt first) don't necessarily motivate action (so instead pay off the smallest debt first to get motivation).

Really the rest is details around those seven concepts. On his site there is a link to a free one-hour podcast for the iPod, and you can pay for the full three hours of his radio show on podcast. He started on radio, and it is probably his best format.

The reason Dave Ramsey has limited appeal beyond the US is that he is explicitly evangelical. He views his system as an extention of his Christian beliefs. That sells very well in parts of the US, but doesn't port very well. There is actually nothing religious in his program, other than the occational reference to biblical verses in an attempt to tie his program into his religion, but people who are really interested and want to teach his program, not just practice it, are going to find they need to be an Evangelical (or at least a Christian) to fit in.

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+1 Very good answer to the question. – Jesse Gavin Feb 10 at 19:34
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His books:

The Total Money Makeover - This is a very step by step approach to what he teaches about how to handle money.

Financial Peace - This is a more philosophical approach to the same topics. More idea and less application based.

You can catch his radio show online for free - or an hour podcast each day in the itunes store - this is free.

You can watch his TV show on Hulu.

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My beef with day (and to ape Yishai's answer a little) is that his good advice is no different than anybody's good advice. The seven steps are on the home page, Clark Howard, Suze Orman and probably quite a few others all chat about spend less, save more, shop wisely and live within your means.

Anything specific is just motivation, and it sort of irks me that Dave Ramsey charges $100+ buck to go to a seminar about how to save money. A $30 book to read anecdotes and examples of how to follow the seven steps. (Probably, I won't buy his books)

I have no problem with somebody making money, but I doubt that Dave is just barely breaking even. I was stand corrected if he is, but I just don't suspect he is.

Clark Howard recommends that people go to the library and check out his book; he is a lot closer to practicing what he is preaching.

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