Dave Ramsey? What are your thoughts?

The best way to decide about Dave Ramsey is to listen to his broadcasts. They are available at his website.

While we don’t follow his plan, I do enjoy listening to the broadcasts and getting some information about setting up budgeting. Ds9 enjoys his Jr book series and is attempting to do the save/spend/give envelopes.

I really appreciate Dave Ramsey. Sometimes he comes off a bit ornery, but I truly think he’s trying to help people. My husband and I attended one of his seminars at our church and it changed our lives. In five years we were able to pay off $60K in debts. My husband then went on to train with Dave Ramsey to become a certified financial counselor. What he says is based on scripture and a whole lot of wisdom. We’ve bugged our kids for years (while paying off the debt) about what it means to live free and to be able to use more money for kingdom purposes. My oldest two boys have sat through the seminar and it has given them a framework for understanding money and opened dialogue about why we spend money and what we should spend our money on… and what all of this means for their future. Even if you don’t agree with everything he says, these are great dialogues to have with our children before they leave home and make the same stupid decisions I made.

His views are really well summed up in his book the Total Money Makeover. He is very motivating and has a moving personal story of “making it big” and then losing it all from too much debt. Your local library probably carries this book and it’s an easy read. We give it as gifts to friends who are getting married or graduating from college.

http://www.daveramsey.com/store/books/dave-s-bestsellers/the-total-money-makeover/prod326.html

Someone turned my husband and I on to Dave Ramsey 10 years ago when we were first married and I am *so* glad they did. We worked our way out of student loan and credit card debt and really created a solid financial foundation for ourselves that has continued to help us today. We almost never fight about money and are on our way to having a paid for house by the time we turn 40. We thank God for his wisdom and motivation in our marriage early on. What a gift!

I’m assuming his material (which I am familiar with, have his book Total Money Makeover) is for personal finances only and would not be considered for the Economics that is “required” for high school credits/units, right??  Or does he have something that could be counted for that course of study for highschoolers??  I have several ideas for Economics for my ds but hadn’t thought about Dave Ramsey’s material. If I’m way off base with this, please correct me, as I’ve seen Notgrass and Jon Stossel’s materials mentioned (as well as a few others) for Economics.

Thanks!

Two of mine did the high school course in the latter part of their high school years. They really enjoyed it and I really appreciated that they could do it independently. Some of this they knew from family conversations, but having that “outside” person telling them. Perhaps one of the biggest testaments to me of it’s effectiveness is that one of my kids often (after that course) talked about the “opportunity cost” of her purchases, or even how she spent her time. That concept was really a lightbulb moment for her.

One good thing is that the course can be found on sale regularly, either from the Dave Ramsey site or HSBC, and it has good resale value as well if you decide it’s not a good fit. 

We bought the Monster Pack http://www.daveramsey.com/store/kids-teens/kids-monster-pack/prodmonster.html when HSBC had it last month.  The Jr. books are fun and present good messages.  I’d rank them on the twaddlish side, but my kids (DD7, DS5 and DD3) have enjoyed them.  There are six that show Junior in different situations learning about work, debt, budgeting, etc., all from a child’s perspective.  For example, in ‘Battle of the Chores’, Junior borrows money from his sister (without his parents’ knowledge), then can’t pay her back right away and ends up doing all her chores.  It shows how the relationship deterioriates between them, even though at the beginning the sister was trying to be kind and helpful to Junior.

Financial Peace Jr. is a workbook style set of lessons to present to your child.  It helps set up a system where they can earn ‘commission’ for doing specific jobs around the house (over and above the standard chores they are expected to do as members of the family.)  They learn to separate their money into Give (tithe and other charity), Spend, and Save (Long term saving, such as for a car, or college.)  It isn’t anything that we couldn’t already have done ourselves, but it has some nice tools (such as envelopes for give, save, spend, and a chore chart to keep track of commissions). 

I’ve heard very good things about the high school course, but I haven’t seen it.  Dave Ramsey’s principles are sound.  As someone said, it is common sense, but many, many people don’t use that common sense that we assume they should have!  It would be a valuable way to help a student prepare for adult life before they get out in the world and make the mistakes that so many people make.

My 18 yo took the course when we were in a co-op a couple of years ago.  It is a very good course, well thought out, has sound principals which are illustrated in a way that resonates with teens who do not have a full time job and the bills that come with adulthood.  Both dd and I highly recommend it.