Financial Feminist - 262. Why I Hate Dave Ramsey

Episode Date: November 18, 2025

Dave Ramsey has millions of followers who swear by his money advice, but does his one size fits all approach actually help or hurt? In today’s episode I’m breaking down the full picture––what he gets right, where his advice becomes harmful, and why so many people feel shame, fear, or financial stagnation after following his rigid frameworks. From emergency funds and credit cards to retirement timing, debt payoff, and the systemic barriers Ramsey ignores, I’m diving into the nuance he refuses to acknowledge—so you can take the helpful parts and leave the rest behind. If you’ve ever struggled to explain why Dave Ramsey isn’t your financial cup of tea, save this episode. Visit ⁠⁠https://herfirst100k.com/ffpod⁠ to stay up to date and find any resources mentioned on our show! 00:00 Intro 01:59 Dave Ramsey’s “Baby Steps” framework 02:56 Dave Ramsey’s appeal 03:17 Lack of nuance and ignoring systemic issues 04:04 What Dave Ramsey gets right  07:10  Major problems with Ramsey’s advice 07:37 $1,000 emergency fund is too low 09:36  “All debt is bad” is harmful and misleading 10:45 The 7% rule: When to pay off debt vs. invest 11:20 Unrealistic mortgage and home-buying advice 12:20 Why rigid rules are easier to sell, but less helpful 13:28 The role of shame and discipline 15:32 Use of Christianity and morality in marketing 16:47 Advice on combining finances in marriage 18:21 Lawsuits and toxic workplace allegations 21:48 Out-of-touch advice on childcare 22:45 How to use Ramsey’s advice mindfully 24:36 Systemic oppression in personal finance 25:44 Credit scores and credit cards Special thanks to our sponsor: Squarespace Go to www.squarespace.com/FFPOD to save 10% off your first website or domain purchase. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dave Ramsey has millions of followers in the number one radio show about money in the country. But is his advice actually good? Today on the show, we are covering all things Dave Ramsey, his strengths, which there are a few, his blind spots, which there are many, and how listeners can actually calibrate his framework for their lives. But first, a word from our sponsors. Snap Up Ancestry DNA's lowest price ever in our incredible cyber sale, with 50% off Ancestry DNA kits, it's the perfect time to help a loved one unwrap the past.

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So we get messages from our 5 million. followers all the time who talk about being reformed Dave Ramsey followers that something about his advice made them hit a wall or caused them more financial trauma than it actually helped. And we're diving into all of that today. And to be honest, I'm making this video and recording this podcast because the amount of people who have reached out to me and asked, Tori, do you recommend Dave Ramsey? And I have to tell them no. And then they go, why? And I want one resource, one concrete thing I can send them to that is a laundry list of all of the things that I disagree with and some of the things I do agree with. So let's talk about who this Walmart Santa is. Dave Ramsey is a financial

expert. He is based in Nashville, Tennessee and pretty infamously uses Christianity and specifically evangelical Christianity to talk about money. He has many best-selling books. He also has the number one radio show in the country around money that is syndicated on, I believe, hundreds of radio stations across the United States. And not only is he one of the experts of his company, but he also has a handful of other people that work around him, that help him host the show, that have their own spinoff podcasts, that are financial experts that are like Dave Ramsey approved, including his daughter, Rachel Cruz. His most infamous advice is around paying off debt. If you've ever heard the terminology avalanche or snowball when talking about debt, he coined that. And it's

something that I use all the time, actually. I use the, are you doing avalanche or snowball to pay off your debt? And that is kind of terminology that it's in the personal finance lexicon that he created. His baby steps are probably the second most infamous approach. This is the high level framework. Step number one of the baby steps is to save $1,000 for your start or emergency fund. Step number two is to pay down all debt, except your house, using that debt snowball. Step number three is three to six months of living expenses in a fully funded emergency fund. Step four, investing 15% of your household income for retirement. Step five, saving for your children's college fund.

Six, paying off your home early, and finally seven, building wealth and starting to donate. The appeal with Dave Ramsey's work. It is very simple, which we love. we love taking the jargon out of personal finance education. It's also extreme accountability, sometimes to a fault, and there's very, very clear steps. You do this and then you do this and then you do this. Those are the clear action steps that no matter who you are, he suggests you follow. However, this is where we get into some problematic behavior because his style is not only extremely opinionated, but it is almost never nuanced. One of the hallmarks of the hallmarks of

of my work is that I talk about systemic oppression as it relates to money. I don't think we can have a conversation about personal finance or building wealth without also talking about the isms, racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, and all of the other things that are systemic that have every reason to do with why you might be financially struggling. Like a trillion dollar student debt crisis and stagnating minimum wages and the fact that eggs are like $17 and lack of paid family leave federally and climate change. Therein lies the problem because if you don't acknowledge all of the biggest factors why somebody can't build wealth, first of all, you're selling them a lie.

And second of all, you are making them feel guilty for any outcome that isn't a hundred percent self-motivated success. I'm going to try to be a level nice person. Okay. So before we get into all of the rest of it, it. Let's talk about what Dave Ramsey gets right. And yes, this will be the briefest part of the podcast. Okay, let's talk about that emergency fund. He talks about the importance of having a buffer for emergencies before going all in on debt paydown. That buffers $1,000. I think that's too

little. But the fact that we have a buffer at all is great. A lot of people recommend you just start paying off debt. And he and I both agree, you need a buffer because you need some money and savings should ship hit the fan. There's also a psychological benefit to saving money, right? that helps reduce the urgency or pressure of these small mishaps, and it also gets you a win under your belt. You're like, cool, I did something financially successful. Now I'm emotionally and psychologically motivated to keep going. His philosophy around debt awareness and discipline, for the most part, is good. I think he offers people a good wake-up call if a lot of that personal responsibility has been ignored around debt. He really encourages people to face their

debt to stop ignoring it, to do what I call unostraging yourself, like pulling your head out of the sand, and actually get a plan together to pay off that debt. And this value of snowballing your debt, meaning that you're focusing on smaller balances, not necessarily the interest rate, can help you make more progress. Again, psychologically, because you're getting those quick wins. You're like, cool, I can do this. One of the biggest things I agree with him about is this idea of actually prioritizing your retirement over saving for kids college. I see, because we talk with women and because we teach women, so many mothers want their kids to have a better life than they did, want them to be able to afford college, which is getting increasingly

more expensive every single year. And so when I talk to women, one of the financial goals they have is contributing to their kids' education. Now, that's a great goal. However, the issue is so many people sacrifice their own retirement goals because they're so focused on their kids. They're like, oh, yeah, I'm contributing maybe to my 401k, but it's not a lot or I'm just getting the match. And instead, I'm going to focus on making sure that I can pay for my kids college, or at least part of it. But here's the deal. The whole reason you're doing this is because you want your kids to have a better life financially, right? And that's a really good impulse. However, they can take out loans to go to college. It's not ideal, right? Student loans suck. But you can't

take out a loan for your own retirement. And if your goal is to make sure your kids are set off on a good financial path, you moving back in with them and becoming a financial burden 10 years after you retire because you've run out of money is not going to set them up very well. So this is one of those things that I actually really agree with them about. You've got to put on your own oxygen mask first. Again, if you're trying not to be a financial burden to your children, don't make them pay for your retirement. And finally, his advice is clear and concise. This is his strength, clear, concise rules with kind of no exceptions that many people can follow without overthinking and without stressing. This is the advantage of having like no excuses, no wiggle room approach

for so many people because you can't create an excuse. You can't say, well, what about me? I'm going to do something different. It's a very formulaic plan. And he's really good at that. Okay, that was really hard. Complimenting him was really hard. Let's talk about the things that are not great. Okay? I'm going to structure this argument into two different columns. First, we're going to talk about the financial advice that falls short or that is problematic. And then we're going to talk about the way he runs his business. This is where we do like elevator music. do, do you. It's like part two. I literally just arose from cozy earth sheets.

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All right. The first thing about his advice. That $1,000 starter emergency fund, that's too fucking low. it's too little money where are you finding rent in any american major city for a thousand dollars yet alone everything else now i get the logic behind it thousand dollars you're going to save the bigger emergency fund later i get it we want a quick win we want a little bit of a buffer yes but it's 2025 dave it's 2025 i know you don't know how expensive things are so let me let me enlighten you Okay. Eggs are expensive. Gas is expensive. Daycare is expensive. And I know you don't know how

expensive daycare is. I have the clip later. So when we're talking about this $1,000 emergency fund being too low, it's just, it's so hard to think about that $1,000 emergency fund preventing people from going back into debt. Now, that's not to say $1,000 isn't a huge financial milestone. I'm not knocking the $1,000 on a personal level. If you've saved $1,000, incredible. Congratulations. Like, truly, I'm so excited for you. However, this is not enough of an emergency fund to actually prevent you going into costly debt. And it's not enough to get you out of a bad situation. And this is why we recommend a three-month emergency fund as your starting point. Yes, before you even pay off your credit card debt. Because, one, I don't want you going into more debt

trying to pay for an emergency. Two, because mental health is important at her first 100K, and something about your head hitting the pillow at night, knowing that you have enough money if shit hits the fan tomorrow, is just really, really comforting. And finally, number three, if you are a woman, if you're a member of another marginalized group, I need you to have a fuck-off fund. I need you to have enough money that you can say, ah, I'm getting sexually harassed at work. This no longer feels safe. I'm going to leave. Or this apartment doesn't feel safe. I'm going to leave. $1,000 is not enough to even cover your rent, yet alone your expenses.

Problematic advice number two. Dave Ramsey wants to talk about paying off all of your debt and that being the priority and shaming you for having any sort of debt. And he says that like all debt is bad debt. Um, no, that's not true. Um, not all debt is bad debt. And first of all, calling anything bad. puts morality on it immediately so that if you have that kind of debt, you feel like a bad

person. Like, it's not the debt that's bad. You feel bad. You feel like you did something wrong. What he means here, though, is like bad debt would be credit card debt just because it's so high in interest and because it accumulates so quickly. But he's also lumping student loans in with that. And not all debt is created equal. And this is actually some of the most harmful advice because if you view all of your debt as the same, you're going to lose tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars because debt is different depending on the type. Student loans, on average, have a like four to seven percent interest rate and the interest typically is not compounding. Credit cards have on average, like a 22 to 25 percent interest rate. And not only does the debt compound, it compounds

every single day. These are not the same. This is apples and oranges. And putting them together and saying, I'm going to pay off all of my debt before I start investing means that you're losing valuable time that you need in the stock market for your money to start accumulating for your retirement and for these bigger life goals. Because for a lot of people, student loan balances, we're talking like tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars, you're not going to pay that off quickly. Like, it might take you till you're 40, 45, 50 to start paying off that debt. But then Dave wants you to start retirement savings then? So you're 45 and you just paid off your student loans and now you're supposed to start saving for retirement? We have lost very valuable time that our

money could be compounding in the stock market. So my rule instead is the 7% rule. If your interest rate on your debt is more than 7%, that's going to be every credit card, right? You want to pay off that debt first because it is costing you more money than you could be making in the stock market. The average stock market return is around 7% conservatively. But if your debt is under 7% interest, we actually want to prioritize investing first before more aggressively paying off our debt. And this advice single-handedly from me might end up preparing you for retirement in a way that Dave's doesn't. And it's one of the most problematic pieces of advice that makes me so fucking angry because I have so many women who come to me who are 40s, 50s, and they go, I thought I was supposed

to be paying off my death this whole time. And now I'm scrambling to try to protect my retirement with only like 10 years left. Don't be that person. Third piece of advice, it's problematic. If you can afford a house, and that's a big if that he doesn't acknowledge, you should not under any circumstances get a 30-year mortgage and you should not under any circumstances put down less than 20%. That's just not realistic. Dave, okay? It might be better to buy a house earlier that you can afford with a 30-year mortgage and invest the difference. The calculations are clear. We can put a chart next to me. You might make more money doing that. In fact, in most U.S. cities, you will. No, there's a risk consideration here. Market fluctuations.

Your discipline around investing. The interest rates of mortgages, which are pretty high as of this recording. Also, like the housing market risk, are we going into another recession? Is this asset going to decrease in value substantially? But again, this is where the rigidity is not helpful. doesn't work. Personal finance is personal. People have different lives. People make different amounts of money. They have different systemic barriers. You have to take that into account. And I'm going to go on a quick tangent here before I go to number four. I get why Dave does this. I get why he has these very rigid rules of like, you must do one through eight. And under no circumstances, should you do this thing? And under every circumstance, should you do this thing? And like, he's very black and white.

why is he black and white? Because talking about systemic oppression is messy. It is hard. It is difficult. I've struggled with this in our own work. I remember writing the intro for my book Financial Feminist and struggling with the fact that this book had so much good information but was not going to be actually helpful for somebody who was truly in poverty. Like somebody who is truly poor who does not have two sticks to rub together, they don't need to know how to save money because they don't have money to save. So if you're trying to sell something, if you're trying to build a business, which he and I are both doing, it is a lot easier to sell these rigid rules, this, you absolutely must do this. And my plan works because if you do the plan and then

it doesn't work for you because you have systemic barriers, you're the only one he gets to blame, right? It's because you didn't work hard enough. It's because you didn't stick to the steps. It's because you weren't disciplined enough. Not because you had to move to. a higher cost of living area, not because you didn't get the raise because your boss is sexist. Like, as soon as we bring nuance into it, this whole house of card starts crumbling. That's by design. This is how he builds his business, is these rigid rules, this rigid dogma. And then if it doesn't work for you, it's because you didn't work hard enough.

You weren't disciplined enough. And speaking to that, let's talk about number four, because this is one that is very easy to gloss over that feels a little more psychological or a little more touchy-feely, but is actually, I think, some of the most harmful advice. He deals in such frugality, okay? The infamous Dave Ramsey tweets, I don't remember what year it was. We'll pop it up. Quote, if you're in debt, the only time you should see the inside of a restaurant is if you're working there, woof. I have that memorized. That's how many times I quoted this. This is the kind of nature of Dave, because again, it's rigid, it's strict, and it's also shaming. It's also,

if you have debt, you're a bad person, right? If you're in a restaurant, it's because you don't have enough discipline. You don't have enough willpower. You're not sticking to the plan. My critique of so much of his advice is it's super unrealistic, it is very harsh, and it can lead to burnout. 99% of diets don't work. You know why? Because every time you tell me I can't have fried chicken, I want fried chicken more. And that's not willpower. That's literal psychology. That's how brains work. And all or nothing, this like go so hard with absolutely no breaks, no fun days, no off days leads to burnout and it leads to binging, right? So if you have somebody who's already in debt who already might not be the most mindful spender and you tell them you can't do anything

fun, you can't live any part of your life the way you want to, guess how long that's going to last for like two seconds, right? It's the same thing with diets. We want lifestyle changes here, right? We want to have no bad foods, right? We just want to think about moderation. It's the same thing with spending. Budgets need breathing room. This is not a sustainable practice. And so when you talk about using shame or using this rigidity, it's not helpful.

One of my favorite quotes is, if shame works, it would have worked by now. Like, if shame works, it would have worked by now because we're all very good at shaming ourselves. I don't need somebody else who is supposed to be there encouraging me and is supposed to to be this financial expert who is hopefully empathetic and kind yelling at me and telling me I'm a piece of shit if I go out to eat once. Life's hard enough, Dave. Back the fuck off. Another piece of Dave Ramsey advice that I and so many other financial experts disagree with. His view on credit and credit cards. He says all the time that you don't need a credit score because a credit score is, quote, a I love debt score.

No, no, no. You need a credit score to do anything. Your credit score is your adulting GPA, right? Your credit score and the whole credit system is kind of fucked from a, like, from a structural standpoint, but the truth is, it's one of the best tools you have for accelerating your financial life. Like, good credit unlocks a ton of doors for you. If you want to buy a house, you need a credit score.

If you want to get an apartment to rent, you need a credit score. You want to buy a car, you need a credit score. Sometimes if you want a job, you need a credit score. So this idea that you don't need to build credit because you don't need a credit score is so damaging. And again, is one of the things I hear I get hundreds of messages about from women who are like, I am now 40 and I don't have any credit because I was told that I didn't need it. You do need it. you need a credit score. In addition to that, with his demonization of credit and credit scores is

his demonization of credit cards. I love credit cards. Credit cards are tools. They're like knives. Knives can make you dinner. Knives can cut you and send you to the hospital. Fire, right? Same thing. Can cook you dinner. Can also burn you. This is how tools work. Now, if you have an irresponsible relationship with credit cards, yeah, we might not want to use. credit cards right now. But really, we want to dig into what is the financial trauma or what of the narratives we are believing about money that make us unable to use a credit card responsibly? What are the triggers? What is the impulse spending that happens when we get a credit card in our hands? But for the vast majority of people, you can and should have a credit card. It is one of the best

ways to build credit. It also gives you free shit. I'm literally traveling to Europe twice in the next six months for free using credit card points. But the thing with Dave is that he's nothing, if not, a contradiction. Because sources have said that as you progress through the Ramsey method, he also teaches you how to start and run a business. And in the start and run a business curriculum, getting a credit card is one of the first things you do. So which one is it, Dave?

Do you believe credit scores and credit cards are the devil? Or do you believe they're a smart tool? My final big issue with Dave and his advice is how he uses his version of Christianity to market Ramsey's solutions. We've done multiple episodes of Financial Feminist about this, about using evangelical Christianity as a form of control, as a form of oppression for marginalized people, especially women, and he cites scripture all the time. Now, I grew up Catholic. I went to 18 years of Catholic school. If anybody knows her Bible, it is Tori Dunlap, okay? You want to bring me in for like trivia when they're doing Catholic time,

okay, because I'm ready to go. I know my sacraments. I know stigmata. Here we fucking go. Okay. if you have a personal religious belief, that's great. Even if you are sometimes incorporating that into your work, okay, starts to get problematic, but okay. However, when your entire marketing scheme is about morality and is about what Jesus wants you to do and is about the prosperity gospel of Jesus and God want you to have money and want you to get rich. Again, all of this just feels gross and icky. Part of this whole doctrine has also influenced directly the advice he gives.

One of the pieces of advice that he and the rest of the Ramsey experts talk about is that a husband and wife, and notice it's always husband and wife because you can't be gay here. It's a husband and wife. If they marry, they should completely combine their finances. this is bad advice. Like, no exceptions to this rule. You should never completely combine finances with your partner. A clip went viral a year or two ago, partially because I responded to it, of Rachel Cruz, Dave Ramsey's daughter, talking about how when couples get married and combine their finances completely, they're less likely to get divorced. Rachel, do you know why they're less likely to get divorced? Because they can't. You can't leave a situation that you don't want to be in

anymore, even if you love the person, but dramatically, if you are abused, because you do not have money. You do not have resources. You do not have an escape hatch. Of course you're married. Of course you're staying married. You're trapped. You and your partner are trapped. Neither one of you can escape because you have completely combined your escape hatches together and eliminated any option of, you know what, this relationship might not be working and I'm going to take the money that I brought into the relationship or even the money I have in savings, the small outside money that I didn't combine and use that to restart my life. That's rough. In this theme of using Christianity of not acknowledging systemic oppression, of realizing that not everybody starts from the same

place, let's add another thing, the lawsuits. Okay. Ramsey Solutions, Dave Ramsey's company, has been involved in several lawsuits alleging discrimination and creating a toxic work environment. This is allegedly. Let's talk about some of these. One, he is allegedly fired employees for having premarital sex. In 2020, former employee Caitlin O'Connor sued Ramsey's Solutions, Dave Ramsey's parent company, after she was fired for getting pregnant while being unmarried. Court documents revealed that the company fired multiple employees for violating this righteous living policy against premarital sex, though the policy was allegedly enforced inconsistently. After an appeals court decision related to another lawsuit, O'Connor's religious

discrimination claim was reinstated in 2025. But at the same time this was happening, Dave Ramsey knew that one of his personalities, one of the people that he had platformed, Chris Hogan was actively having an affair, which is against, I think, the Bible and the Ten Commandments last time I checked, okay? And not only did he know this affair was going on, and not only was he not fired, this personality, this Ramsey personality was not fired. He was not, like, de-platformed. But Dave Ramsey went after Chris Hogan's wife calling her quote, a world-class bitch. Woof.

He eventually was fired, but only after all of this information became public. That's lawsuit number one. Lawsuit number two, LGBTQ discrimination. In 2021, former employee Julianne Stamps sued after she felt forced to resign for coming out as gay. A settlement was reached in 2022, but Stamps stated it did not achieve the goal. of any discrimination within the company. Of course it didn't. COVID-19 policies.

A 2021 lawsuit by former video editor Brad Amos alleged he was fired for his religious belief in taking pandemic precautions like wearing a mask seriously, which conflicted with Ramsey's stated belief that such measures showed a weakness of spirit. Dave Ramsey also infamously at this time, peak COVID, so this is December of 2020,

through a unmasked Christmas party, for his employees. In August 2024, an appeals court revived Amos' religious discrimination claim allowing the lawsuit to proceed. Hostile workplace allegations. Reports and depositions have detailed additional allegations of a hostile work environment, including Ramsey pulling a gun out during a staff meeting. No, I'm not making this up. You can Google it. Pulling a gun out during a staff meeting, which was confirmed in a deposition. I have more. But I think those are the ones that speak for themselves. The other one that just personally grinds my gears, in addition to like literally the five bullet points I just gave you, bullet points.

Get it because he pulled a gun on his office? Okay. The other one that grinds my gears is that when you interview for a position at Ramsey Solutions, his parent company, he makes your spouse come in an interview. how is that relevant? How is that relevant? What if you don't have a spouse? When, I believe the article is taken down, we'll try to find it. I have screenshots. When asked why they would do this, they said, because your spouse is the easiest way to figure out if you're crazy. And crazy people do not make good employees. In addition, not only are they requiring you to introduce your spouse during the interview process, but you're also required to turn over your financial records.

They want to look at your budget, they want to look at how much you make, and you're thinking this seems illegal. Nope, apparently it's not, at least not in Tennessee. Because, quote, broke people don't make good employees. My not-so conspiracy conspiracy theory, while they're taking a look at your money to figure out what is the least amount of money we can pay her. Gross. And finally, not only did he vote for Trump, he platformed Trump. Invited him on his podcast, told him how great he was, and encouraged every single person who listened to his show, which was millions of people, a couple days before the election, that they should vote for Trump to. I remember I mentioned the whole daycare thing? You didn't think I forgot about that, did you? In an infamous clip on the Ramsey show, his radio show and

podcast, a caller called in to ask about the price of daycare, which if you have children, and even if you don't, you know is extraordinarily expensive and getting more expensive every single year. For just one child, you're typically paying almost a second mortgage. And when asked about the price of daycare, he not only recommended that you should find a camp to take your children to in the summer, but make sure it was a free summer camp. Or just give them to grandma and grandma will take care of them. Here, let's hear it in his own words. How much are you paying a month in child care? It's about $80,000 a year.

Why? You bought them in college? The base tuition for the child's daycare we use is $25,000 per kid. Then we pay extra for early care and after care, and it doesn't go during the summer. I'm going to be as nice as I can, Dave. You guys have lost your minds. There's cheaper routes. Oh, you think?

There's cheaper routes. That's all I can say, because here's a thing. Well, you got them in some kind of dadgum. I mean, are they going to Harvard? What the crap? It is a pretty fancy day. But then you can downgrade. You think?

They're not even in school, and you're already paying $25,000 ahead? Yeah. Come on, dude. That's just dumber and crap. Find you a free summer camp. Anything during the summertime. So we're going to borrow money now. We're going to take out student loans for the four-year-old.

Oh, gosh. Because that's what we're coming down to. Don't do it. You're killing me here. Daycare can be expensive, but it's, daycare can be expensive, but it's It doesn't have to be that expensive. Let's just put that out there. 25,000 a kid? Yeah, I think not.

Unbelievable. I think not. Woof. That's my official response. So not only are you just supposed to have friends and family take care of your children all of the time. What happens if your mom is dead? What happens if your in-laws live across the country? What happens if that's not an option?

Because you have weird unhealthy family. dynamics. And you're supposed to find those free summer camps. You know, all of those free summer camps, I can name 12. I can't. That's the whole point. But if there is a free summer camp, you know what it is? It's Bible study. It's Bible study. Okay. So what do we do about this? And yes, this was like 20 minutes of me just dunk in on Dave. Like it's my full time job because it is. But how do we actually use the Ramsey advice that is helpful, but in a mindful way? If you love financial feminist and you're listening, so I hope you do, we've got something to take your learning even deeper from the podcast, especially if you've ever felt like personal finance

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First, this discipline structure, use it as scaffolding as a general guide. A lot of my financial advice, especially what I call the financial game plan, which is my version of the baby steps, feels very similar. However, it is more adaptable. It's modified based on your situation.

So my financial game plan. First, three months of living expenses in a high-yield savings account. That is for emergencies. Two, paying off that high-interest debt. That is credit card debt. Three, prioritizing saving for retirement. Well, also, number four, prioritizing your big life goals. Getting a master's degree, buying a house, starting a business, those other kinds of things. That's the basic four steps. And they're going to evolve and change depending on where you're at in your financial journey. We also want to focus on paying off our debt, especially credit card debt, and I do think discipline is helpful here. However, diet-based discipline, restriction-based discipline is not going to work. Again, if it works, it would have worked by now. So instead,

we want to budget in flexible buffers for joy spending. This is what I call mindful spending or value-based spending in our work. And we want to think about spending our money towards the things that are going to give us the most happiness ROI, right? Those are the things that are going to bring us the most joy. And finally, you must think about systemic oppression

and how it fits in with this equation. 20% of your personal finance equation is your own personal choices. How seriously do you take your financial education? How much do you know about paying off debt? How are you saving? What are your habits like? that's about 20%. 80% is all the rest of it. And I'm so sick and tired of folks like Dave

convincing you that if you are not financially successful, it's because you didn't do enough or you didn't work hard enough. And that shame, it's so, it like seeps into every part of your life and your spending. And that's what we hear from so many people is they're like, I tried Dave Ramsey. It worked for a bit. But then I feel shame and guilt. for spending any amount of money on something that brings me joy, even if I can afford it. And that's the kind of stuff we're looking to avoid. Money is a tool. Money is meant to bring you joy in life.

It is not meant to be the reason you can't do something. So, thank you for allowing me to defend my thesis. Is Dave Ramsey's information good? Sometimes. And with the biggest asterisk that even the good information, information is probably going to make you feel bad about yourself. And not only is some of the most popular advice really damaging, it can cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars, but the way he runs his company is not the way I would like to see companies be run. And hopefully not you either.

So send this video to somebody who's still obsessed with Dave. And this is my video. I will continue to send to people who message me and go, why do you dunk on Dave so much? And I'm like, here, here's 45 minutes of me doing it. You're welcome. Thank you, as always for being here, financial feminists. I hope you stick around. If you want me to go ham on somebody else, Caleb Hammer, great. Maybe that'll be a future episode. But I just really want to discuss how not all financial advice is good advice. Am I perfect? No, absolutely not. I make mistakes all the time. I don't think our advice is crystal perfect, but nobody's is. And I do think it's a spectrum. I think it's a spectrum of both accuracy, but also decency. And I want to support the

kind of people who support other people. That's it. Thanks for being here. Bye. Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, a Her First 100K podcast. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First 100K, our guests, and episode show notes, visit Financial Feministpodcast.com. If you're confused about your personal finances and you're wondering where to start, go to her first hundredk.com slash quiz

for a free personalized money plan. Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap. Produced by Kristen Fields and Tamisha Grant, research by Sarah Shortino, audio and video engineering by Alyssa Midcast, marketing and operations by Karina Patel and Amanda LaFew. Special thanks to our team at her first 100K. Caitlin Sprinkle,

Masha Bach-McGieva, Sasha Bonar, Ray Wong, Elizabeth McCumber, Daryl Ann Ingman, Shelby Duclose, Megan Walker, and Jess Hawks. Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton, photography by Sarah Wolfe,

and theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound. A huge thanks to the entire her first 100K community for supporting our show. Thank you.