Financial Feminist - 54. We Read Dave Ramsey So You Don't Have To with Gabe Dunn

Episode Date: November 8, 2022

Get in, feminists –– we’re reading Dave Ramsey (so you don’t have to). In this very special episode, Tori is joined by Bad with Money’s Gabe Dunn for their review of Dave’s most recent book, Baby Step Millionaires. With their powers combined, Tori and Gabe tackle everything from the cult-y vibes to the outright bad advice and the not-so-subtle racism and classism in this particular edition of Dave’s curriculum. You’ll learn something new and get some good laughs while doing so. Learn more about our guests, read episode transcripts, get resources from the show, and more on our show notes page: https://herfirst100k.com/financial-feminist-show-notes/dave-ramsey-takedown Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, everybody. Hello, financial feminists. Oh, we got a juicy one today. Oh, my goodness. It is so good. But before we get into it, a couple housekeeping things. One is that if you aren't already subscribed, what you doing? Please subscribe. It'll allow you to make sure that you're getting alerted when new episodes come out so you don't miss any. And it also, of course, supports the show and helps us continue to grow if you hit that subscribe button wherever you get your podcasts. We are also doing our book presale. As you all know, it is getting closer and closer to the day you can actually have the audio book in your ear holes or having a copy on your Kindle or being able to hold a copy. And I'm so excited. So Financial Feminist, the book is available wherever you get your books. And we've said this on social media before, but it is especially important to purchase that book if you can from an independent bookstore. One, because I want to live in a world where Amazon is not completely monopolizing everything and killing independent bookstores and your support of indie bookstores by purchasing a copy there helps promote that mission. In addition, fun fact is that we are actually more likely as authors to

make it on the New York Times bestseller list if you purchase a copy from anywhere except Amazon. So if you only can purchase through Amazon, that's great. That's amazing. We appreciate your support. If you can purchase through even a Barnes & Noble, a Books A Million, or your independent bookstore, we have all of the links down below and independent bookstore shipped. So if you live in the middle of nowhere, you actually can get an independent bookstore to ship you a copy. Fun fact. And if you can't afford a $22 copy right now, no worries. Ask for it at your local library. We appreciate your support regardless. Okay. Today's episode, long awaited from our audience, me and my friend and fellow finance expert, Gabby Dunn, we join our powers for good to read Dave Ramsey so that you don't have to. Yes, we actually read one of his books.

Technically, you may have already heard this episode if you listen to Bad With Money, which is Gabby's podcast. we did kind of a crossover episode and they were kind enough to let us share this interview with our audience as well. It's that good. You may know Gabby from their hit podcast, Bad With Money, or from their days on YouTube and BuzzFeed. Gabby Dunn is a writer, journalist, comedian, podcaster, and New York Times best selling author of Bad With Money, the imperfect art of getting your financial shit together. bestselling author of Bad With Money, The Imperfect Art of Getting Your Financial Shit Together. Fun fact, obviously, Gabby Dunn's last name and my last name are very similar. So I have joked to them that our books are going to live side by side on bookshelves forevermore in the personal

finance section. In this episode, we go through He Who Must Not Be Named's newest book called Baby Step Millionaires. And we break down his advice from the like to the absolutely fucking not and everything in between you're gonna love this episode regardless of if you're an ex financial peace uh convert or if you're just curious as to why i disagree with dave ramsey on so many things or maybe you're like dave ramsey is worth my time this episode might convince you otherwise so it's just a riot. At one point, literally, I just tell Gabby, I'm just like, I'm so tired. I don't want to keep doing this. And it's just, it's one of the most fun episodes we've ever done. I think you'll love it. And I

think you'll love sharing it too, and maybe stirring up some shit with family members or friends. So please enjoy the episode. Let's go ahead and get into it. Hello, welcome back to another episode of Bad With Money where I torture people I like. My guest today is Tori Dunlap from Financial Feminist. And often she rails against this man. And so I thought, why not make her read his most recent book? Hello, Tori. Can you tell my audience who you are? Against is a very important word in that sentence.

Rails against him. Yep. Against this man. Against. Hello, everybody. My name is Tori. I am the founder of Her First 100K and the author and host of Financial Feminist, which is both a podcast and a book now. And I have a very public vendetta against the man we will speak about today.

And I've actually never read one of his books because I never touched it. I just I couldn't bring myself to do it. because I never touched it. I just, I couldn't bring myself to do it. And so this was, yeah, you really, you really popped my Dave Ramsey cherry here today. So thank you for that. So why do you, why did you start hating him and what, and what do you hate about Dave Ramsey? Okay. How much time we have? Okay. So I want to first, first preface this entire conversation he has helped a lot of people and i think that in a way i don't know if my work and i don't want to speak for you but like i don't know if we could do the work that we do if it if he didn't exist so that's one thing

i hate everything else for me half of it is the financial advice is either bad or it completely fails to acknowledge systemic oppression. That's one camp. And then the other camp is how he runs his business. He has fired folks who have gotten pregnant out of wedlock. He is very vocal about being anti-LGBTQ. There's the way he runs his business. Like you have to bring your own budget and your own like personal finance reality to any job interview if you want to work in his company. And he's been very, very public about that.

So you have to like unveil how much money you do or don't have, which feels like a complete violation of privacy, but also maybe vaguely illegal. So yeah, for me, it feels like there a complete violation of privacy but also maybe vaguely illegal so yeah for me it feels like there's two different camps one the advice does not acknowledge systemic oppression and is often bad advice and then very bad advice the way he operates his company is something that i have like i'm just i'm so it makes me so angry makes me so so angry. It's cultish in a way, the way that he runs things, which we will get into because I broke this book down into five categories that I will say for you.

My notes are all color coded. Okay. And I didn't know this about him, but I suspected, and then it really came full force, is that he is deeply evangelical Christian. Deeply. I thought it was kind of one of those things where all of these guys are pretty like Christian. But I did not realize how Jesus forward this is. Yeah. Like weaponizes Christianity. And the other thing, too, is Financial Peace University is like his big program and it is often taught in churches and yeah um my lovely Ashley podcast host Kristen lives in Nashville and so his headquarters is in Nashville we've talked about this a lot like yeah the Financial Peace University in and around Nashville but across the United States is taught by people like within church. And I joke that he is the diet pill of personal finance of like, he makes you, he calls you fat

and then gives you the diet pill for it. Like he, you know, and then in addition, he weaponizes Christianity in order to sell his products. The Christianity is the marketing tool. That's the tactic. Yes. Which I didn't realize. Also, I'll get into this a bit later, but his real estate holdings, a lot of it is in terms of cultishness. There's a lot of stuff within his biological family or married into his family in an almost mafioso way where his son-in-law runs the real estate corporation, but then doesn't put his name on some of the things where he sells Dave Ramsey's homes. And so it's kind of this capital realty group, which is, I'll get into it in a second, but with, which is a company that is under Dave Ramsey's purview, but he uses to sell and he puts his son-in-law in charge of it, which is and doesn't put his name on it, which is lightly illegal in some ways.

Definitely unethical. And it all kind of works in the way that like the mob puts their houses in their wives names like that kind of thing. No, it's that's a great perspective. He also he has like what he calls like the Dave Ramsey personalities. Right. So he has like all of these other people who are under the Ramsey umbrella, including his daughter. And we've seen the downfall of a couple of these people. One in particular who was having, I think various affairs with other women besides his wife. And they tried to cover up said affairs and then it came out publicly and they

were kind of forced to fire him then so again like all of the christianity feels like it's like an asterisk where it's like oh we're christian and we're going to use this and like the prosperity gospel and all those things but also like student debt forgiveness is a handout and also we will you shouldn't cheat on your wife but only if you discover that we've employed somebody who we know is cheating on their wife yeah or you know there's i watched a couple of his call-in shows there was definitely one with someone calling in about their spouse transitioning where he uh was not respectful of the trans person's pronouns. There was another one where I'm shocked that the wow, I know. No, no, no. It was it was someone calling in to be like, I don't know what to do.

My spouse is transitioning and they're going to take all my money to be trans. It was like that. And then the second thing was someone called in and said, what do I do if I don't want to leave an inheritance to my kids because their politics are more liberal than mine and they're leftist? And he was like, don't leave them an inheritance. Fuck that. So like, those are the two things that I've seen. And so before that, I only knew his name from that kind of stuff. I lightly looked into it. And then I knew that he was Christian and I knew that you hated him. And I decided so I decided to read he has God so many books.

So I decided that we would read his number one New York Times bestselling book, Baby Steps Millionaires. How ordinary people built extraordinary wealth and how you can, too. And he's just look at this man he's just a dad he's just a regular guy i call him um i call him walmart santa that's what he is regular guy um so okay so the five categories that i broke this book into are one god and jesus God and Jesus. Two, excuses and identity politics. This is great. Three, cult status. Okay.

Where things that he says or done have reached the status of being eligible to be a cult. Four, straw man arguments. And five, who is the audience for this book? That was my thing too. i was like what am i learning how is this helpful you you did you did a you did some data and half the book is the appendix of the the survey you ran which oh we're gonna get into it so those are so those are my five categories um they are color coded. And I did this with Rich Dad, Poor Dad, which is there's so much we could have said about Robert Kiyosaki.

Another whole clusterfuck as well. Absolutely. But I was like, let's just focus on the book itself. Because I feel like that's already so much. That's already so much. So we open with him talking about following God's way, live and give like no one else. And then he talks about hope and possibility, which comes up a lot because the only way that his books can function is if people have this sort of thing that we've talked about a lot on the show, which is people striving for and having the hope and possibility that they one day, too, could be millionaires and billionaires. And then when they reach that level, they won't advocate for more taxes. So they shouldn't advocate for them now, even though that would help them. So it kind of is a very insidious use of hope of hope and possibility.

Yep. You mentioned Financial Peace University. use of hope of hope and possibility. Yep. You mentioned Financial Peace University. A lot of the followers of this stuff become Ramsey financial coaches, which I thought was quite culty, very MLM. My partner once was targeted by an ADHD executive coaching group that said a lot of our they said, actually, a lot of our people that got coached, they went on to become coaches within our program. And they said that as a selling point. And I think that is a red flag. So none of these people are actually financial experts. They just went through Dave Ramsey's particular program, Red Flag. They learned the curriculum and maybe vaguely how to teach it.

It's almost like a virus spreading is how I picture it. Like, you know what I mean? The little arms are getting bigger and bigger. We're not saying he is. However, if the... I would say he's a virus. I would say he's not the virus. He's a virus. I would say he's not the virus. He's a virus. Okay.

Then I really was mind blown because I was shocked by how quickly we got to Jesus Christ is the Lord of my life. By like sentence two, dude. Like sentence two. Incredibly fast. I am simply a steward of the blessings God has given me. Thoughts? I don't. I don't.

Part of me is like, if you if Christianity works for you. Great. Amazing. Fine. Like that's I am not going to judge you. I grew up Catholic. I went to 18 straight years of Catholic school. Like that was my reality for a very long time. I don't know if I'm... I'm not an atheist. I actually

don't identify, but definitely I'm disillusioned with religion in general. But it's not that you are religious. It is not that you believe that everything you do is in service of God's plan. I have no beef with that. If you are a good person who is using Christianity as a way to become a good person, I have no issue with that. Great. Christianity, Judaism, any religion, whatever. It's, again, the use as a marketing tactic with the prosperity like prosperity gospel of if I did it, you can do it too. And it is God's plan for you to be wealthy and successful and all of these things that I have issue with. Can you give a short definition of the prosperity gospel? Basically, the idea that you are destined for wealth or success because, again, God has set

this plan for you you could probably actually give me a better definition than i can but like literally chapter one i just wrote in the margins dave ramsey equals god's plan like that's what it feels like from from jump what's insidious to me as well is well it's the idea that if people are wealthy it's because they're good people who deserve it but what's insidious to me as well is the, and he does this later on, the twisting of Christianity to be about gaining wealth when, and he goes way out of his way to explain how wealth is actually good, which we will get into. But it's the twisting of religion to not advocating for social services, not advocating for the

poor, not doing, look, I'm not, I don't know Jesus, but I'm just saying like not doing things that Jesus would particularly do, but rather self-serving and making yourself wealthy. And we're going to get into this even heavier because in terms of giving and tithing and charity, there is a really insidious undertone to all of that as well. And all of it is bootstraps narrative, right? The whole thing is if I can do it, you can do it too. And in addition, if this hasn't worked for you, it's because you did not work hard enough. If this didn't work for you, it's because you didn't sacrifice enough, right? The words gazelle-like intensity, which what the fuck is that supposed to mean shows up so many

times and this shows up in his podcast in his work too right he says gazelle like intensity i'm like this is my other this is like the big beef with my my big beef with his advice and my perspective is like diets don't work we know they don't work because if the more you tell me i can't have fried chicken the more i want fried chicken and that's not a willpower thing. That is a human psychology, human brain thing. It also, again, completely fails to acknowledge any systemic issues that may be at play, regardless of how hard you're working. And again, what is gazelle-like intensity? I don't know. He doesn't really tell us. He just says sacrifice and scrimp and basically hate your life in order to get out of debt. Yeah, there's right.

So what you say is there's no situation. What what you're referencing is this quote. There is no situation too unique or too difficult for the baby steps. They work every time. I also put this under cult because the buzzwords are god's ways heroes he calls people who have gone through his program oh but he's not a hero did you read that part he goes i'm not a hero i'm not i'm not a hero but everybody else everybody else is heroes i'm not a hero though but i'm gonna write this entire book and then i'm gonna brag about how

i'm a new york times bestseller which sure brag about it when i do it i will brag about it but like oh boy like oh i'm not a hero everybody else is a hero but I'm not a hero well yeah or like okay the other one is debt-free screams where he has people scream once they've reached being debt-free all of this in my mind I just kept going this is the vow this is nexium this is the vow so and and the problem here is that with cult status as my marker here, it's the only listen to me element of this. Right. So there's a quote where he says someone might say I don't come from the right family or neighborhood. It's also family, friends, neighbors, admissions counselors, business and government leaders talking heads in the media. Anyone who tells you the only way to become wealthy is to inherit it be a person of privilege or graduate from a prestigious school it's today's toxic money

culture telling you all this crap only listen to me i'm the only one who knows right and if you don't and you you then it didn't work right again it's like a diet. Right. It's like we're going to sell you this thing. And if you don't lose weight. Oh, it's just like from the get-go to i want to read this so this is chapter one this is literally like page one so he gives all of these like stories about people who have done it which i think in a way is probably one of the most redeeming parts of the book of like i'm giving you like stories from people because we know stories connect with people but also like who are these people i don't know who these people are you don't tell me how much they make you don't tell me what again systemic issues they're they're up against because they don't they don't matter to dave randy but you do but in a very sneaky and insidious way so he so he's talking about tiffany tiffany is this person

who he mentioned this is how it starts she She's recently divorced. She's figuring out how to be a single mom. She's 27. Oh, he does say she's working a job that pays $30,000 a year, staggering amount of debt. Okay. Quote, Tiffany had always believed God had a purpose and a plan for her, but because her life was so chaotic, she couldn't figure out what that plan was or how to get it together. So she started researching ways to get out of debt and build wealth and found the Ramsey Baby Steps. At first, Tiffany tried to do the plan Baby Steps-ish, doing some of it the way it's taught by us at Ramsey and some of it the way she preferred. But she soon realized that to make progress as fast as she could, she needed to go all in. She couldn't count on child support and she didn't have anything of value to sell to speed up the

process. But she worked extra hours, made tons of sacrifices. That tells me nothing, by the way. to speed up the process, but she worked extra hours, made tons of sacrifices. That tells me nothing, by the way, and finally saved up enough for her emergency fund. Slowly but surely, she clawed her way out of $60,000 of debt, which, and then at the end, she's a hero. And now she's, oh, she's a financial coach. She's a Dave Ramsey financial coach. And now she works for Ramsey Solutions. Exactly. Exactly. So what I wrote in the margins is I'm like, you can't a la carte it because to your point, if we're, if the, the, it didn't work. If you, if one thing, if one thing sticks out to you as wrong, or if one thing sits wrong in your gut about this, then you're not doing it. Then you're not doing it all in and you're not doing it right. And it's you. It's you, which is to your

point, full cult right if like oh if you haven't given yourself over fully that's why yeah the same thing with nexium right it's like oh you're not seeing the strides in your life it's because you didn't show up to this extra training or you didn't join like the women's group and then the next story is the one that really got me because it's just victim blame the entire time. So he's talking about a couple, John and Maddie. Quote, Maddie's prior marriage had been abusive and controlling. When she was angry, stressed, or in an argument with John, she was self-medicate by going on spending sprees. And then he basically shames her for this, as opposed to like, let's address the root of the issue,

which is that she is completely normally trying to fill a void in her life that came from trauma and abuse by spending money. And so then it was like, oh, this person invited Maddie to a total money makeover live event. And Dave Ramsey is the reason, right? Sitting in her seat that day, she came to a hard but powerful realization. Money wasn't the problem. The problem for Maddie was the person in the mirror. No, it was her abuser. It's not the person in the mirror. It's her abuser. Yeah. Can't do it.

There's a lot. I wrote this too, that there's a lot in here about heterosexual marriage. And a lot of this is like, yes, because he doesn't believe in anything. But well, a lot of it ties the money to marriage and the marriage to happiness. So marriages are more likely to last. If you're in Ramsey solutions, you avoid bankruptcy and divorce. Like all of that is sort of tied together in this really insidious way of like, there's no, I keep saying insidious, but it is, it's very like where it's like, this is the, the reason that your marriage isn't working. The reason that, you know, you, you are getting divorced divorced is is all of this stuff that is sort of like tied to being unhealthy with money and that and promises making promises like if you come to me, your relationship will be happy. You know, not only will you be out of debt, but you won't get divorced.

And Lord knows being divorced is the worst thing you could do. Yeah. I mean, he's he's said that like this is what you should want. And then anybody who wants anything outside of that is crazy. So here is where we get into the straw man arguments. And this comes up a lot. And this is what I figured out. He will present an argument that either no one is making or that he has couched things together and equated things together that don't go together in order to hide the one that is wrong. So he'll say, so he says, what exactly is a millionaire? It's not a political statement. It's not a theological discussion. It's not your feelings or emotions. It's not the amount of money you make. And it's not your mother's opinion. So what he does here and what he does a lot in this book is he puts things together that that are and hides the real thing he's trying to say. Right. He he wants to just say it's not a political statement, but he couches it in all these other things that are sort of true. Like, oh yeah, I guess it isn't really about feelings or emotions. And yeah, my mom's opinion on what a millionaire is, that is

true, but it's all just to get political in there and hide it. Sure. Like there's another one that comes up that's like, you may think all rich people are evil or they're all virtuous. In either case, you'd be wrong. And so he's saying like instead of the nuance of, you know, I think that rich people maybe could pay more taxes or maybe, you know, there are some some areas in which there is a lot of wealth inequality. He gives you the argument. You think they're all evil. You think they're all virtuous and you're wrong. He kind of i don't know if i'm explaining it correctly but he kind of puts things it's black and white there's no there's no gray area and there's no nuance because both

of those statements i actually agree with and this is one of the only times i actually circled and i was like i agree is when he's talking about what a millionaire is and versus what a millionaire isn't he said a million dollars isn't what it used to be. That's what he says. Some people say and then other people are like a million dollars is not enough. And I see this in my TikTok comments every single day. If somebody's like, you know, I talk about investing and using compound interest to grow your wealth and people are like, oh, but like five million dollars is going to be nothing. And then other people are like five million dollars is a crazy amount of money. And so you do have a lot of that. $5 million is a crazy amount of money. And so you do have a lot of that. And I always joke that I want to build wealth not because I want a stack of government-issued paper. That doesn't get me

anything. I want what money can buy or what money can do in the world. So I think both of the statements that you read ring true to me where I think a lot of people do think, okay, rich people are either super virtuous or very evil. It's wrong. It isn't either of those things. But he isn't allowing the nuance of that statement to be like, okay, let's break down. Why do we think rich people are virtuous? Or why do we think rich people are evil? Well, maybe it's because rich people are fucking the environment over or, you know, like preventing us from having a universal health care. Like you know let's talk about that. And we think they're virtuous.

Because we have all of these you know tech bros who like it's orgasm when Elon Musk sneezes. Right so like there's no nuance to any of these things. It's either it's black. It's white. it's very like it's either this or that and he doesn't allow for conversations because this is not defending him but because if we do which you and i do i'm on a rant clearly but you and i do this is like it's very hard to talk about money and i've heard you discuss this where it's like, I want to give actionable resources around money, but also everything has an asterisk, which is like, this doesn't work if you're poor. This doesn't work if you're in poverty. That's a very complicated thing to say, especially when you're branding yourself as the God given experts, right? I struggle with this all of the time. 80% of personal finance, even maybe 90%

is circumstantial. I'm just trying to guide people in the 10 to 20% of what they can control and then using that money to go out and change everything else. But that's way more complicated and way more nuanced and takes my ego out of it in a way that Dave Ramsey refuses to do. Yes, he he argues a lot against things that aren't really being said. And I wrote that he hides accurate criticisms without landish ones. So he puts he puts whining, talks about whining. And it's this thing of like, if you have complaints, you're just jealous. If you criticize me, you're just, you're just jealous. You're just treating, you know, you're not giving yourself the benefit of hope and possibility. Um, and so he kind of, he, he, and this happens, often and there's another example in chapter three but um he like

will say you know there's false equivalency between these two things uh and this is an example of one the number of broke people writing money blogs while living in their parents basement boggles the mind you can choose what you want to do and i wrote there's a false equivalency here between living with your parents and not knowing money between liberal politics and poverty and choice. And that's a kind of like through line that happens where, you know, he's saying like he's he's almost giving the if you already are have a tendency towards the way Dave Ramsey thinks and you pick up his book, he's giving you like, this is what the other side is saying, whether that's accurate or not. And then you can go, oh, that is what

they're thinking. Well, they're stupid. And you're right. Providing the nuance does not sell books. It doesn't. There's a reason this man has like an empire that I don't have. Yep. Me neither. Like, yeah, because it's it's at the end of the day and i i so when i was writing my book the introduction took a year and a half to write because i was like i don't know how to like again asterisk everything i'm about to say in the next 80 000 words with this doesn't matter if you're poor like None of what I'm about to say matters if you're poor. I'm like, how do I communicate that while also knowing that what I have to say is valuable or else I wouldn't say it? But all of that nuance is lost here because, again, this man

does not acknowledge systemic issues, does not acknowledge anything else other than hard work. No privilege acknowledgement. No, if you are any sort of minority, this is going to be more difficult for you. Does not acknowledge that we need policy change in addition to habit change. Doesn't acknowledge any of it. Yes. Well, we'll get into that. So, okay.

So the first three steps are 1K starter emergency fund, which turns a crisis into an inconvenience. Okay. Step two, scorched earth, no room for fund budget to pay off all your debt. Fine. Baby step three, save three to six months of expenses in an emergency fund.

Now I wrote cult count because here's what he, number one, he says, family and friends will make fun of you and think you're crazy, which the common theme here is other money media and other people are inferior for not getting it. So, hey, cut off everyone in your life that doesn't also agree with this. Two, extreme sacrifice, almost monk like sacrifice to achieve nirvana which only dave ramsey can provide cult three he just starts quoting hebrews 12 yes and then talks about a harvest of righteousness so we've just tipped straight over into jim jones territory everyone if i took a shot for every bible quote in this book i I would be dead. I want to break this down, though, from a, like, I want to put my financial educator

hat on and break down this advice. Regardless of how he presents it, I want to break down this advice because it's bad advice. So again, like, regardless of, like, how he presents it, which is wrong, let's talk about how bad this advice is. Number one, baby stump number one is a thousand dollar emergency fund. I want to be clear. A thousand dollars in an emergency fund is way better than having nothing in an emergency fund, right? Don't get me wrong. A thousand dollars saved is a huge accomplishment. However, the average one month rent in a major US city is not a thousand dollars. It's something like $1,300, $1,400, $1,600.

So if this is an actual emergency where you lose your job, let alone pay for daycare or insurance or groceries or your car or your student loans, that $1,000 is not even going to cover your rent. Bad advice. Baby step three, which is three to six months of living expenses, should be baby step one. For me, what I call the financial game plan, that's my baby step equivalent. That is number one, is at least a three-month living expenses emergency fund. The second thing is that he says pay off all debt except the house. If you have any money above your $1,000 emergency fund that is not in a retirement plan, cash it out and use it on baby step two. This is such bad advice. I literally have this circled bad advice. And then again,

bad exclamation point advice. If you have debt that is under like 7% to 8% interest, like most student loans, it is way more advantageous for you to actually invest that money instead because you're making more money in the stock market than it's costing you by being in debt. Credit cards, sure, pay them off because 25% interest, 18% interest, that's way more expensive. But the stock market right now is averaging 7% to 8%. So if you have a mortgage or a car loan or student loan, that's something like 3% to 4% that is costing you less money and you could be making more money elsewhere. In addition, this whole, again, scorched earth, quote, scorched earth, no room for fun

budget, gazelle-like intensity doesn't work. We know it doesn't work and it's only going to make you miserable. And I can't tell you the amount of people who have come to me and said, I did the baby steps thing. It worked for a while. But I have all of this financial trauma. And I don't feel like I can spend money on anything because I feel guilty. And that is the direct result of shit like this. Yeah.

Yeah. You absolutely bounce back immediately into your into your old habits. Or you shame yourself for spending money at all because you've been told by him that any sort of seemingly small luxury like a five dollar coffee is the reason, again, that you're not rich. Also, also pay off everything but your house. These people have houses? These people have houses? So, wild. So there's also a lot of subtle things in the book that I, this is our first, who is this book for? Where he talks about an athlete

who has an unable to pronounce African name. I just put, is this racist? Yeah, it's a subtle example of the book being for white people right because he's like obviously we none of us can pronounce these african athletes names quote on the other hand you don't need to be able to pronounce his name to know and i'm like yeah i literally put is this racist question mark this feels yeah it is so then we get into baby step six which is pay off the house and this is the false idea of the modest millionaire. And Dave Ramsey has a net worth of 200 million. This is where I got into this conspiracy. It's not even a conspiracy where I dug into Capital Realty Group, which is his son-in-law, Winston, the principal broker for that group. And there's one other broker that works there. And that broker lists Dave Ramsey's homes under his name. And the website says there's like one hundred twenty five million dollars of

homes under the management of Capital Realty Group. And then Winston openly works for Dave in the property management real estate division. So there's all kinds of stuff. If you go to I'll put the link below. There's a thread on Reddit are Dave Ramsey that goes into this. Also, it makes perfect sense because all he does is I think he actually and maybe Kristen can pop on to because she knows in Nashville. I think he literally like brokers real estate deals. And so it's like, of course, go to my my son. And in addition, right, all of the narrative is around buying property. There's no like renting is all right for some people, maybe there's no conversation about that.

And to your point earlier of like, we're just assuming people have houses. We're just assuming people have houses. That's just the default assumption. Yes, there I'm going to put more links in the description. It's basically about how he sells homes in Nashville. A lot of these people that I've started reading these books and like a lot of these people really comes down to real estate and to real estate investment trusts, which basically buy up and gentrify entire cities under the sort of purview of of one very wealthy person. of one very wealthy person. So if, you know, it's also this interesting thing of the modest millionaire, everyone sort of being, he goes out of his way,

and we'll get to this later, to say that millionaires are average people. But then if you look at a picture of this goddamn house in Nashville, it is, it's so big uh i'm on mansion global.com which i have never visited in my life i didn't know there was a website neither did i uh but is this the one he just tried to sell because he tried to sell. And I don't know if anybody actually bought it. $15.45 million Nashville home.

Yeah, he tried to sell it last year. It's massive. I would argue it has a grounds. It's very big. And I guess he was also trying to sell other homes it's they they have properties in all kind of all over the place well i think i think this is probably i i we've talked many times and i think this is one of the places that you and i have a bit of disagreement because for me i don't love capitalism you talked about this so many times you and i me, I don't love capitalism. You and I don't love capitalism, but for me, this is the system that currently exists and you have to pay your rent and you

have to do it. So it's like I want to navigate the system to the best of my ability. I can't win capitalism because I don't want to win capitalism. That means exploiting people. But if I lose capitalism capitalism that means deep suffering for myself and for my community and for my my family so it's like for me how do i navigate the system to the best of my ability do what i can and then when i have money when i'm stable fuck the system up from within i would love to live in a really nice house someday. That is a goal for myself. However, if I have no interest, he has no interest in helping people is the other thing. If I've exploited somebody to get there, I have I have done that wrong. I have done that

incorrectly for me, morally incorrect. And it's also this thing where he encourages other people to live modestly. And then he's like, I need this massive house, which I understand to sort of I've reached this level. I get to continue selling my classes to these other people and I don't have to really care what happens to them. It's worse in these other ways, which I don't want to be the people who are like, he has a big house because whatever we get. Yeah, but I don't want people in five years to be like, she has a big house, too, because I want a big house someday. But it's also it's also again, if I've exploited people and I have less issue with his big house and more with how he got the big house. Baby step seven is build wealth and be generous. And this is this story about leaving a note on a car. And this is also under a huge straw man argument. Basically, he tells people to drive a beater car until they have gotten out of debt. And someone had a sticker that said, Dave Ramsey makes me drive this.

Very cultish. Dave Ramsey makes me drive this. Very cultish. And then these other people see that and they spontaneously leave cash and a keep going note on the car in order to be like, hey, we did it and we succeeded and like we want to help you or whatever. Right. But then advocating for equality is portrayed as some kind of pipe dream. And I think the subtext here that I came to realize and that I've come to realize from a lot of these books is it's not about helping all people. It's about helping people like you. It's about helping people that you agree with. They don't want to pay taxes because, and I said this in Rich Dad Poor Dad, They don't want to pay taxes because, and I said this in Rich Dad Poor Dad, God forbid the taxes go to an atheist.

God forbid the taxes go to someone who is black who you don't agree with. Maybe a gay person might succeed, you know, because of a social service. God forbid. Or somebody who maybe is what they would deem lazy, right? Like, and I think the other thing, too too is it's not just um helping people like themselves but helping people because it makes them feel better like that is that is the other thing too and we all help people to make ourselves feel better that is like that is a natural conclusion again that's how our brains work it's like we get dopamine and we get excited when we help somebody. But that seems to be the default thing is, oh, I'm helping people. Because it makes me feel good when I help them, not like how do I actually help them?

It's about control and it's about punishment. It's about punishing the people who don't follow Dave Ramsey and withholding from the people who don't follow Dave Ramsey. And it's about control, because if you pay taxes, you don't control who gets the money. But if you so he doesn't want taxes and he doesn't want equality. He wants success for people like him who follow him. Because he's he again has told you that if you work hard, everything will work out for you. And so he's he's wanting to benefit the people who have, quote unquote, worked hard because the people who haven't, quote unquote, worked hard shouldn't shouldn't be privy to that money. Yeah, we're not even into my big problems.

So chapter four, he talks about a millionaire is not a billionaire. And he presents another straw man argument that there is a mistaken idea of what all rich people look like and that we need to normalize the concept of being a millionaire and show that being a billionaire is hugely different. In some aspects of this, I feel as though this is put in the book in order to take the onus and consequences off millionaires. Millionaires are just nice, average people. He talks about how millionaires probably live just down the block from you in a normal residential neighborhood. They probably cut their own grass. They read prices on menus. They use coupons. They use shopping lists. They paid for their home and maybe a beach condo. For those of us who didn't grow up wealthy,

we tend to emotionally put billionaire and millionaire close together on the spectrum, which makes wealth feel unattainable. And I wrote, he's really trying to avoid the guillotine here because almost no one does this anymore. People have a very clear idea of the difference between millionaire and billionaire. And it is far far but it doesn't mean that you don't have to it doesn't mean that if you're a millionaire you are you don't have any reproach he's like look at those billionaires over there don't look at me oh and he cites billionaires multiple times and not in a negative way right so it's like the difference between a

millionaire and a billionaire but then a story of self-made jeff bezos and all of the yeah the other biggest like my other big thing with this book is he tries to play the everyman so often that's the thing yes and so about the like the house thing that you brought up earlier that's where i get pissed off is this if you want to grow wealth and if you have more wealth than other people, like I know I have more wealth than the average person my age. But I'm not out here being like, yeah, because I'm so normal. I'm just like you. Like, I know that I'm slightly I'm in a different socioeconomic class now. And it's, again, not acknowledging privilege at all. And then tries to play the everyman in order. It's like the Rachel Hollis thing of like I'm of course I'm different because I have a you know a house cleaner somebody cleans my toilets

I want to be different like it's just don't play the everyman in order to get people to like you I mean we're gonna get into that a little bit because I think I think I get there at a certain point which we talk about his his depiction of himself as a hillbilly. Don't worry, I have a lot to say about that. OK, so he says it might surprise you to know that 70 percent of the Forbes 400 are self-made, meaning their wealth was not inherited. Even Bezos grew Amazon into the e-commerce giant it is today from the humble beginnings of his garage in Seattle. This is simply not true. And if he does think it's true, it's very, very willfully ignorant. He says that. So as you alluded to at the end of this book, there is a Ramsey millionaire survey that is makes up a large chunk of this book. And it's and it's a

I would say wildly useless survey that he did of people who became millionaires through the Ramsey method. And he says that 93% of those Ramsey millionaires also described themselves as self-made. And I said, okay, so they didn't get wealth through inheritance, but did they have an inheritance? Not that they didn't get wealthy through it, but the nuanced words of did they actually have an inheritance, whether or not that contributed to their wealth. Also, what qualifies as inherited land? Did they get a home money? Did they gain access in some way from their parent having a job that they could then get that job? What are we qualifying as an inheritance? It's never said. My beef with the word self-made is either everybody is self-made or nobody is self-made.

everybody is self-made or nobody is self-made. Like everybody is self-made or nobody is self-made because everybody has some sort of help from somebody, right? Whether that's financial help, whether that's emotional help, whether that's, hey, I know a guy who you should talk to, whether like everybody has some sort of help or assistance beyond you. So either everybody is self-made or nobody is self-made. Yes. He also gives you this sort of thing where he like briefly says racism is real. Sexism is real. Does he? When was that?

I missed that. I think I have it on page 51 where he I wrote down that he vaguely acknowledges it. Oh, lots of people seem to have an unfair head start on their wealth building journey that's because everyone has a different starting line wow sex in a zero real wow i hate i don't even want to give him a cookie because this is like bare minimum shit but i'm shocked this came out of his mouth it is shocking but then here's the next thing they're not all middle-aged white guys coming from privileged homes that premise is a lie because it steals hope and spreads hopelessness it is evil so now we're back to the thing where

any sort of questioning of the backgrounds of people with wealth uh is actually evil tori right uh it's not just it's not just bad it's it's evil he also talks about any money they may have received from their families was not enough to establish a million dollar net worth. Bing, bing, bing. What did I say about inheritance? And then millionaires in this study downplayed the role of inheritance and of luck. I said, why is luck tied to inheritances and nothing else?

The thing about this survey is that if you are self-reporting your answers, we've met rich people. How often do rich people go, well, I didn't have a lot of help from my family or I didn't. It wasn't luck. I worked really hard. What fucking rich person do you know that is going to self-report? Yeah, I did jack shit. And here I am. They don't. So in research from my book when you were when two individuals were in a heteronormative relationship and the woman made more than the man when the census data was collected the man would lie and say he made more and the woman would lie and said she made less yes exactly that's just like a quote-unquote average normal person who already has reported data complete bullshit and also their own like issues with money and gender norms and like what's

expected of them right like women play small men play big if that's like one piece of data like as small like they're lying on the census then this this, what is, what is this appendix good for? Knowing that some of them drive Toyotas. Yeah. Okay. We also talk about the U of the book where he mentions people have four-year degrees. He also mentions 40% of millionaires were involved in cheerleading or sports as their most common extracurricular activity, which tells us, to me, that they are able-bodied and popular. But there's no reference to that.

There's no... Okay. Cool. You also went to a school where those were things that were offered. Able-bodied and popular. Put it on a shirt yeah the worst person in the world sticker that says able-bodied so stupid it's like a real housewives tagline she's like i'm lorraine from texas and i'm able-bodied and popular. Deal with us.

So stupid. Okay, chapter five, we get into Jackie. Jackie is black. We did it. Racism is dead. Racism found dead. Racism found dead in a ditch. Jackie is black.

She is poor. She has six kids in her family. She had a single parent home with a dad and the dad has a sixth grade education. Her dad was a proud man who didn't receive food stamps, welfare or any other form of public assistance for his family, except for having his kids take part in the school's free lunch program. A.K.A. he's a terrible father because he didn't get anything for the kids that they needed. There's also this thing which I dubbed in my notes, exceptional strong blackness. I didn't make that up. I don't think, but maybe I did. But it's basically this thing of like the deck was stacked against her. You know, she read a study that said that a black single mom is one of the most likely demographics to be in poverty. And Jackie was determined to

make sure she and her daughter didn't become that statistic and that they would leave poverty in the rear view. Obviously cannot judge Jackie, but I just want to point out when you don't become that statistic, someone else is. And when you leave poverty in your rear view, who's behind you? Say it again, Debbie. Say it again. The other thing too is like, it's like, it's token, it's token minority. This whole thing is token minority. Absolutely. Whole thing. Oh, there's so much. There's more. You wanted you wanted token minority tori there's more where that comes from okay so jackie becomes a millionaire by age 49 he does acknowledge that there is systemic racism uh but he kind of says that has nothing to do with anything other than individual willingness i'm giving him an

oatmeal raisin cookie i'm giving him the worst for what just oh because he said racism exists i don't want to give him a cookie but i feel like this is for him is like a big step so but i'm not giving you a chocolate chip cookie i'm giving you a fucking oatmeal raisin cookie then in the first of some insane cameos we have condoleezza rice baby so condoleezza's parents didn't allow her to focus on the violence and barriers of race gender economics and education they taught her there are no victims even in an unfair climate it's not your situation it's your response to your situation. The minute you think of yourself as a victim, you've given control of your life to somebody else.

And you might not be able to control your circumstances, but you can control your response to your circumstances so you don't ever think of yourself as a victim. Now, I wrote, what if someone in Condoleezza's same circumstances, what if their response is not to grow up and become a Republican, but to grow up and become a socialist? What if taking control of your circumstances, Tori, was not shoving everyone away and rising to the cream of the crop

and being the only Black person in the Bush administration? What if it was to then go, you know what? I went through a lot of hard stuff. I should probably help other people. What about that again what he's saying on paper is correct which is you can't always control your circumstances but you can't the only thing you can control is your reaction to those circumstances however there needs to be the second sentence that is sometimes your circumstances suck and they're not, they're not your fault.

Right? So how again, do we, yes, work to rise above potentially our circumstances or how do we work hard and how do we make the best of it? And then how do we change the circumstances for others? There is nothing there about that.

It is, it's just bootstraps. it's just bootstraps it's just bootstraps and then it's shame to acknowledge that anything might not be related to bootstraps right it's it yeah yep also fun fact she is the only uh to my knowledge the only woman member at Augusta National Golf Course she plays golf Jackie is no Condoleezza Rice Condoleezza Rice no they like have let in like

like a couple women and I think yeah she is either the only woman or the only black woman and there's like five women how are they looking on Jews over there? Oh, don't worry. We'll get to the Jews. So, OK, there's this other straw man argument that he does where something that is true is compiled in a group with things that aren't.

So, for instance, he says, here are some excuses. I can't do this. The deck is stacked against me. I have nothing, not even my parents. I can't afford rent, let alone college. It's too much. There's no reason to even try. The one that is true and unrelated to the others is the deck is stacked against me. So what happens here is that you see them as a group and this is a great argument. And if he was in a debate club, this is a great tactic.

Yeah. And most people won't notice it. Most people will not notice because they'll say, well, the other ones are just excuses. So this one being on the list of excuses makes sense. But this happens constantly throughout this book where I go, one of these things is not like the other, but you're trying to spoon feed it to me like it is and I'm fucking on to you I'm on to you we get into immigration because why not there's a lot of model minority stuff again this is the part where I just pause us and I go what if we learned like nothing what have we learned that we can directly apply to our own lives like what what have we learned um stop your bitching stop your bitching pay off all of your debt because it's evil we don't they don't tell you

how they just say gazelle-like intensity and then just a bunch of like stop yeah stop whining stop bitching i've learned nothing i don't know i've learned nothing. I don't know. I've learned nothing. Yeah. He talks about the difference between like legal immigrants. He mentions that people that got to be millionaires were not doctors or lawyers, but teachers and police officers. And I wrote, what is the motivation behind telling the reader this? Because these are professions held by good ethical stock of people. Christian, white, non-Jewish, which leads into non-American, right? I mean, that's the small, subtle thing.

And then that leads into his discussion of non-Americans where he says, another big distinction is the undeniable financial success legal immigrants have as compared to native born Americans. For instance, 40% of fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or children of immigrants. And then I wrote, they have belief where Americans don't. Fine. Let's not take into account that these people were raised in countries that maybe had different circumstances. Let's not take into account that there's this whole America is the land of opportunity. The way that these children are pushed in school and academically in a way that other people aren't. You know, I think that the stakes, the stakes are higher.

They if they fail, they really fail. You know, that's a whole aspect that doesn't get delved into at all. He also talks about your situation is your fault. He says right now your situation reflects your desires and choices. If you're stuck you have what you want i'm tired i want i want to nap i'm tired i know okay at a certain point i do write i am tired in my notes all right here you talked about this a little bit here's another straw man argument he says that radio executives look down on him for quote for and I wrote dot,

dot, dot being from Tennessee. And then this is what I wrote. White people love to use being a hillbilly, quote unquote, to relate to other systemic barriers. He wrote, all of us have had bad things done to us, said about us, happened to us. Everyone has an ism or stereotype that they bust through. Everyone has some unfair advantage standing in their way. Bill Gates is smarter than me. Steve Jobs knows more about computers than me. George Clooney is prettier than me. So what? And I wrote, he is couching economic privilege by hiding it behind someone being better looking, which is not comparable. Also, George Clooney is better looking than you.ave ramsey i will say that to you of course

i'm yes of course i think it's this thing where he he he wants to seem like he he understands barriers yes and that comes from being that's it's classic it's classic uh people who refuse to acknowledge privilege is it's like it we see this so often again it's like i'm just like you and like i've had my own struggles and that's my way i'm gonna relate to you because um whether we like it or not the world revolves around how we brand ourselves and the stories we tell. So if you are a rich person, it's a lot easier to seem relatable if you're like, I came from nothing and I built this business in a garage and I dropped out of the university and I made this big risk. It's a lot easier for us to root for somebody rather than being like, yep, I have a ton of privilege or I was a trust fund kid or whatever. Like, it's a lot easier to root for somebody who seemingly came from nothing.

He almost understands class, which happens again later. Almost so close. Okay. So I wrote here, he has a fundamental misunderstanding of social justice work. And then this is the quote. However, some people spend so much time focusing on the big barriers and problems of our culture that they become convinced regular folks cannot overcome their barriers. So they peddle hopelessness. Selling hopelessness to move a social agenda is evil because it robs regular folks of their belief that they can win. And then I wrote the hope of social justice work is in change for everyone. The hope is in protesting and unionizing. The hope is in making the world safe and equitable for everyone. This is a singular focus on self. This also protects Ramsey.

So what he does is he builds arguments that look like empowerment, but are actually designed to keep people from criticizing or thinking poorly of the rich. And again, none of this has nuance, right? It's like, I should write a second book. Do it. You're writing it right now. You're writing it right now. And it's great. And I'll buy it. I think, yeah, it's, it's, it's the thing of, of, again, all of this is true is it's like, we have to do our best to overcome these things, but there's no acknowledgement of like the thing itself or what we can do to change

it and it's just like he says things are true he says things that are true but he comes to the wrong conclusion yes yes or doesn't give you the like step two of it it's just like yeah overcome the ism and i'm like would you like me to single-handedly overcome sexism would you like me to single-handedly do that? How do you suppose I do that? The overcome, and he assumes that everyone defines win the same way. The win for me would be helping a business unionize, helping workers unionize. The win would not be what he believes the win is. He thinks that if you try to push a social agenda, you're causing yourself to lose. And that's such a cynical and sad way of looking at things. He says,

if you can believe that what happens in your house is more important for your quality of life over the next several decades than what happens in the White House or your neighbor's house or your enemy's house, for that matter, you can bust through the hopelessness and the barriers and embrace belief once and for all and i wrote straw man once again couching politics as the same as jealousy the white house is not the same as your neighbor's house or your enemy's house but he sneaks that in there in order to hide a political statement under a something about a commonplace jealousy And also he's tweeted this before the like, be more concerned about your own house than the White House. It's like that again, such a place of privilege to not have to worry what's going on in the White House and

how it affects you. Like he's like, don't worry about it. They're unrelated. It's like it's like be concerned. Don't be concerned about what's happening to your neighbor's dog be concerned about the seagull on the beach they're not related what are you talking about um he says believing that there's still a chance still an opportunity still an abundance available for you will keep you from a victim mentality from paralysis and resignation from envy and jealousy from greed and entitlement none of those those things. OK, so then I wrote, what if the person took not being a victim and instead decided to work for social justice and social change? What if they stood up and said abundance is a lie because scarcity is real? Social programs aren't entitlement and criticizing the rich isn't envy. What then, Dave Ramsey?

We have to talk to about the whole section called Equal is Not Fair. Do you remember this one? Oh, buddy. Oh, yeah. What page is that on? 91. I flagged it. I'm sure you did.

There's no way you get past this and not, like, there's no way. There's no way. You don't read directly. Do you have a part you'd like to read because i wrote here oh my god i am over this fuck i get it and then i wrote read directly no if you have go for it if you've got if you got it go for it and i'll i want you to take it down also he evokes guy fieri don't you dare fucking bring my king guy fieri to your trash party leave him out of it he is my my surrogate father he is the love of my life he is i love guy fieri and if you don't you dare fucking evoke the name of my one true lord and savior Guy Fieri in your book you keep saying his name with such Italian flair oh well it's not Fieri it is

pronounced Fieri with a d and that's a peeve of mine lovely mutual friend Zach Kornfeld they just try guys just got a podcast or a show on the Food Network and he keeps saying Guy Fieri and it's taking me everything I have not to slide in his DMs and be like it's Fieri. That's a whole other thing. Italians do care. They do. They do. They do.

Okay. So here's what happened. We're on chapter eight. We're going to skip ahead. We'll go back. Dave Ramsey got out of bankruptcy by following biblical principles and also God blessed him. Then God smiled upon him when he bought a Jaguar. And then he says, you're just a manager of what God owns. And yes, you have the right to enjoy the blessings and benefits of the wealth he entrusts to you. Does God print the money?

He owns it? I don't know. Then he says, we're surrounded by loud voices in our culture today who constantly beat the drum that wealth is bad. I've never heard those people. Who are they? They're there. Those people are not very loud. And they're mostly just like, I think, like left.

It would be you and I in that category. Right. Well, that's going to fuck up his whole thing about how Jews are brilliant. So anyway. Okay okay so he says i listen to their arguments i've noticed they're never based in fact okay so um okay so i'm just gonna read this okay well here's a fact for you unequal is more fair than equal or to put it another way equal is unfair. Why?

Because effort is not equal. Talent is not equal. Intelligence is not equal. Here's a different kind of example. If one college student goofs off in class, doesn't do his homework, and makes an F on the test, should he get an A in the class just like the student who pays attention, turns in his homework, and aces the test? Of course not. That would be unfair.

There was a different level of effort and a different level of intelligence. The results should not be equal. The same goes for wealth. It would be unfair if we all had equal income or wealth. That's because we don't all bring the same level of economic service to the marketplace. That's not the same thing as your value as a human being. You have great value as a human being when you all have equal value before God. But don't confuse your value as a human with the value you bring to the marketplace. Your pay is not a reflection of your value as a person, and it shouldn't be. Your pay is a reflection of the service you bring to the marketplace, and that's what generates wealth. The restaurant owner who runs his business well serves the marketplace in a larger capacity than the host or cook or dishwasher who works there. So the owner's income is higher. If he

opens more restaurants, hires more employees, and serves the marketplace at an even greater capacity, his income should reflect that. And then he talks about wealth redistribution. He says, everyone's a philosopher until they start writing the checks, right? Sounds like those good hearted young folks turned into some old, greedy, rich people, doesn't it? I wrote, what the fuck? Jesus. He also talks about Guy Fieri and he says he's a better TV host than me. That's why he gets paid 80 million dollars. And I said, why does that have value? Again, to your point, what the argument of like, oh, the restaurant owner should make more has nothing to do with the previous statement. Nothing to do. Also, the character of the college student who does worse if he has some sort of i don't know systemic barrier death in the family disability he does get assurance it he

does get extra time he does get extra like that okay i'm sorry okay then he says he's trying to make an equity-based argument He just doesn't know it. He's so close. He's so close. He's so close, but yet doesn't just doesn't get there. And also, yeah,

I just, if you can't see me, I put two middle fingers so far in the air, just like, this is where he's mad at me in particular. The gap between the rich and the poor is getting wider and that's not right, they'll say, or the system is rigged in favor of the rich and big business. It's unfair. There's a lot of emotion in what they're saying, but very little fact. And that's not truly shocking. After all, they hear the same message

as I do that greedy rich people are what's wrong with the world. And we all know that's not based in fact. What's really happening is that those folks are operating with a scarcity mindset. A scarcity mindset says there's only so much wealth to go around. And because I have more than you do, I've taken away your opportunity to have more. They're picturing it like a pie and they're fighting to get what's left after the greedy rich people have taken a huge piece for themselves. They believe that for the world to be fair, wealth and income must be equal. Resources are finite, my dude.

Like there is only so much water and food and housing the latter half of that is accurate scarcity mindsets pitting people against each other that 100 happens right we've been told as women if you're a person of color if you're a member of a minority there's one seat at the table right so we fight each other that's how the patriarchy wins right as we fight each other for that one seat at the table as opposed to building another table that is is accurate, right? But again, he couches that. He equates that to, oh, but we don't have a problem with filthy rich people. They're not the problem. It's you that has a scarcity mindset. Also, income and wealth are two different things. Him talking about income with regards to, oh, of course the chef should not get paid the same as

the owner of the restaurant, but then he fails to address wealth. He's like income. He puts wealth with income to hide it. Yep. Wow. Well, let me just go through. Like how it's it's again, not about the stack of government issued paper. It's about what you do with it.

And if you are the Zuckerberg Bezos out here that's ruining democracy, you need to be held accountable for that. Versus I don't know if we can pick I don't like there's some billionaires that I think can stay. I'll keep Rihanna. I will keep Rihanna and like Sarah Blakely, you know, so it's like those those a cup of maybe Oprah, Oprah can stay right like there's like three billionaires that I'm like they can stay right because it's again what you do with the money what you do with your success what you do with your influence and so again he's saying though if again if the reason you if you're not rich you didn't work hard enough and you blamed other people for your problems and it's like there's no nuance to that statement there's no like hey maybe the problems that I'm facing have

nothing actually to do with me. Also, I know that there's some things I can control. But there's, yeah, there's no acknowledgement that actually these problems are, again, systemic and way beyond us as individuals and what we individually can control. individually control. Yes, I'm going to breeze through some stuff. He almost understands class at the end of chapter five, where he says science suggests you emulate those around you. Your income will be influenced by the incomes represented in your social network. Again, class, he means class. I feel pressured to keep up with my friends and family when it comes to money implies economic class. He talked and this is another thing where he has the right information, wrong conclusion,

where he says talks about body positivity. And he says your perception of acceptable body size and behavior will adjust accordingly if the circles of friends around you are obese. And he he uses that as a bad example. And I am like, this exactly proves what I say all the time, which is it turns out representation matters. With a little sprinkle of fat phobia. A little sprinkle in there. Yes. Your perception of acceptable body size and behavior will actually... Did you know that if you

meet more fat people and if you meet more fat people and if you meet more trans people and if you meet more black people you will actually have more of an idea no instead join my capitalist cult we haven't even gotten to the paragraph of um the whole thing is i want you to get a good bible do you remember that one where is that chapter six oh is i think i'm i'm breezing ahead at this point i'm like i think it's at the very end i'm just so tired gabby i'm like this is no i understand it's not anything to do with either of us he is exhausting me it's just so he says a couple things you can do to continue learning i want you to get a good bible there's a whole bunch of different translations to choose from get one that works for you and begin to study. Begin to learn what God's love letter says to us. It'll change your life. Also, find a good

church. You're not going to find a perfect one. There are people in them. Oh, a joke. Oh, so funny. But find one where the worship style and preaching style fits your style. That's great. Okay. Good advice. But again, assumes one, you are Christian. Two, you go to church. Three, find one where you can ask questions and learn. Oh, yes, because we all know that Christian organizations love when you ask critical questions. They love it. 10 out of 10. All all religions love it find one where you don't feel like the people are looking down on you and ask them to teach you about baptism and then as you learn and grow ask them to baptize you cue baptize me from the book of mormon i'd like oh my god wow yeah um i'll jump i i there's i'll jump ahead to one thing which is uh i did not expect to just go so hard left into the jews 94. I was, I knew this man was a certain way, but I really didn't, I gasped. What page are we on?

94. He says, he jumps into a rabbi who's a friend of his. And he says, why would an evangelical Christian like me be interested in what Jewish people believe about wealth? And then he says Jewish people, who are a minority in America, consistently have a disproportionate amount of wealth. First and foremost is that Jewish tradition views a person's quest for profit and wealth to be inherently moral. Inherently moral is the opposite of evil. Then he talks about the Havdalah ceremony, which I grew up incredibly jewish and i slap havdalah out of your goddamn mouth i love how you feel about that is how i feel about guy fieri you're like jewish tradition and i'm like food network star i cannot believe that we have gotten into the Jews love money so fast. I,

I really, I really gasped out loud. This is a book that came out this last year, this year, and somebody let it go to print. Somebody said, no, because he prints his own books.

It's his own publishing company. We haven't even talked about that. Cause why go to Harper Collins or penguin random house when you can just publish your own book? Which honestly, girl boss. Hashtag girl boss. You get, you fucking get that publishing.

You set up a publishing company where you don't have to pay royalties to somebody else. Like, you do it. You do it, girl. I've been joking that with my friend who's a farmer, who's a guy who's a farmer, I've been saying that he's a hashtag boy boss. It's great. I'm literally looking. When was this?

When did that come out? 2022, March 17th, 2022, 2022. Well, it's good because there aren't enough. There hasn't been a huge resurgence of anti-Semitism. So I'm glad we're still here. Anyway, a quick note from chapter seven. He does bring up the COVID, no one wants to work anymore handouts bullshit.

He misunderstands social services and only wants people to give to their churches. If you do have this book or you see it somewhere and you want to absolutely lose your mind, page 79 to 82 is some of the worst shit I've ever seen. I wrote worst shit in this book. There's also a part where he talks about making your kids work for money, doing fast food or mowing lawns. And I wrote, oh, fast food and mowing lawns are just stepping stones for these type of people. Those are not seen as jobs.

No, no. Which is where we're going to get into Miguel. Miguel. So Miguel is a young man who works at the country club and he is, he like does his job really, really well, I guess. And Dave Ramsey is, talks about how he works really hard and talks about how all, you know, all these millionaires that he knows are extremely generous. And I'm just going to talk about Miguel for a second. I'm trying to find, where is Miguel? So I can follow along. This is page 99.

Okay, thank you. Oh, also the quote, normally, I just want to read this quote. Normally, I feel like a wiener in a steakhouse in a place like this. Tattoo that on my forehead. He's folksy. Yeah, every man. But a wiener in a steakhouse in a place like this. Tattooed out of my forehead. He's folksy. Yeah, every man.

But a wiener in a steakhouse. Is that a title of a porno or is that a quote from a Dave Ramsey book? You tell me. So he gets to know Miguel, who's a golf attendant, who smile on his face because he's a little servant boy who likes to smile. He couldn't wait to serve me. He told me he listens to me on the radio and would be honored to care for me during my day with him. Miguel is always like that, smiling, caring, serving. He takes pride in his work. Miguel and I snapped a picture

together and I was honored to do it. Later, he wants him to sign the picture. After Miguel leaves, one of my new friends tells us Miguel is about to graduate with his master's degree in engineering. I'm loving him more every minute, but that's not all. My new friend shares with our group that Steve, a friend of my friend that I never got to meet, is paying Miguel's tuition. None of the other guys in the group had any idea he was paying for Miguel's schooling. We all smile because we understand. Steve didn't do it to show off or win some generosity award. First-generation millionaires, baby steps millionaires, are some of the most generous people you'll ever meet. But you'll never know this side of heaven

just how generous they are because they don't do it for the attention. Before I left, I talked to Miguel again. He trotted out to save me from the hassle of having to carry my own bag to my car. I told you, Miguel's a prize. I shared with him that I'd learned he was getting his master's in engineering and if it's possible, he lit up even more and I think I saw his chest stick out a I said, you naive fuck. Because he doesn't understand. why support student loan forgiveness why support student loan forgiveness he wants to choose who deserves his charity he says evil doesn't pay for people's groceries or gift people college tuition or donate used cars but evil does give to only those who follow yours and your God's principles. And that's it. What if it wasn't on individuals to do things like pay for each other's groceries?

What if it wasn't just the people that you, Dave Ramsey, deem worthy? What about that? And what if you didn't also like applaud those people and say like, basically make them the point of the story of like, oh, he was the secret benefactor and he does it because he's really nice. And that's what everyday Dave Ramsey baby step millionaires do for the people around us. It is such a dichotomy and calling the kettle black when he says things like this directly compared to the no one wants to work. Everybody wants a handout. Student loan forgiveness is bullshit. Like it's such just so obviously a contradiction, but he fails to realize it. Yes. So for the last three minutes, I want to just dive into the survey itself. And but again like data from a particular source of people who

again self-reported i guess like data self-reported and self-reported in hindsight and i wrote rich people tend not to brag on their advantages or paint themselves as undeserving they have an inflated sense of the hardness of their jobs and lack of honesty about the ways they exploit others that's me i wrote that also for me i'm like i've always dreamed of like running a survey like this for our community or her first interk but like am i gonna put all of this in my book and make other people read it no i'm gonna release it and like hopefully get some press about it and that's it i. I'm not going to put it in a book. What is, are you trying to play like socioeconomic grad student? Like, what are we doing with this? So here's my takeaway.

The average person that he interviews is 63 years old. And Ramsey concludes that the millionaires are that old because they have more time to make money and they don't have student debt. Now I'm saying, I'm thinking, could it be that it's not time, but rather generational problems? And he says, if they're diligent over time, the young generation can become millionaires, too. But to me, this is not true because there have been different experiences, different economies of these generations. Studying their attitudes this way is essentially useless. Rich is a different stratosphere for every

generation. And then he says, likewise, the millionaires did not place as much value on inheritance while the general population felt it was very important. Non-millionaires also indicated luck was relatively important while the millionaires ranked it lower on the list. In general, the responses indicate that millionaires tend to focus more on elements within an individual's control while non-millionaires believe financial independence depends on elements outside of an individual's control. There's no context for politics or world events. He says, along with this apparent skepticism about what millionaires did to build their wealth, younger generations demonstrated a more negative attitude towards millionaires in general. The study comes to the

conclusion that we are more cynical and that older generations have more experience in building wealth and have discovered that these beliefs are not necessarily accurate. The idea that as you get older, you become more conservative. I wonder why we're cynical. I wonder. Crazy. I don't think it has to do with generation. I think it has to do with like the fact that this study is of boomers because those are the only long-term subjects you can study. It is too early for this study to be of anyone but boomers. So to act like this is an accurate picture of millionaires or of the ways in which younger people could achieve this is like simply scientifically incorrect. Also, they're Dave

Ramsey followers. So they're going to think a certain way they're already going to believe a certain thing and hopefully he's actually helped some of them so the data is going to skew towards people having more money hopefully in theory because i guess his thing works or they're going to prove his thing works right so it's like yeah this is from a sample size of people that have already been cut in a very distinct fashion. It's not the general public. For my thing, I want to just end on and then I'll get your closing thoughts, is that I thought about this and I was like, OK, so all of this research is done. He writes this whole book. But I realized that he's coming at the research from the place of believing the millionaires and not believing the general population about their experiences. So the people who actually need your help are telling you what they believe and what they need. And you are saying no from a gilded tower while you listen to other people in the tower.

So that's actually not the purpose of you. You've taken the data you collected and used it in a purpose that is for a purpose that is actually opposite of what it should be used for and that's science do you have any closing what tell me your whole rant tell me your all your closing thoughts i just again i'm just tired uh just tired my my first thing is um this is a a New York Times bestseller. Buy bad with money and financial feminist instead for yourself and for your loved ones. Two. I've said this before. I mean, what hasn't been said? I don't know. For me, I always come back to there are other voices in personal finance that give just as good if not better advice who acknowledge all of the things that need to be acknowledged.

And I hear from a lot of people, they go, well, Dave Ramsey helped me get out of debt or like Dave Ramsey's plan works and I don't need to care about his politics or whatever. It's like who you give your money to matters, who you give your attention to matters, and the way people make you feel matters. So if you are seeking advice from someone who does not share your values, who does not work to understand you, even if he doesn't share or they don't share the political leanings that you do or the background that you do, if they don't work to understand you or systemic issues or to think critically, they are not deserving of your time, attention, energy, money. I agree. Also, the advice is bad and the science is incorrect. And that I cannot abide. No. Wow. Well, thank you so much for joining me. I'm glad we are both baby step millionaires now.

We did it. Where can people find you and more about you? And also, I apologize for everything that I've put you through today. I weirdly apologize to you as well, because I imagine. Yeah, this is hard enough for me as a cisgendered white woman I imagine for you it feels like a little knife every single time one of these pair because yeah it's just it's so much bullshit um you can find me at her first 100k h-e-r-f-i-r-s-t 100k uh we also have a podcast and a book called financial feminist but again really just be critical of whose content you consume and who you support.

And if somebody makes you feel like shit, just don't do it. Don't do it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you once again to Gabby and their team for inviting me on Bad With Money

and letting us share this hysterical and necessary episode with our audience at Financial Feminist. You can follow Gabby on social, subscribe to their podcast, Bad With Money, or check out their book of the same name. As always, we'll have links to these resources in the show notes. Thank you again for joining us for another beautiful week of Financial Feminist.

Should we deep dive into another financial author next? Maybe Rich Dad, Poor Dad guy, who is also problematic? Let us know. Leave us a review. Send us a voicemail of who you might want to have us cover next. Thank you for being here, Financial Feminist. Thank you as always for your support and we'll catch you later. Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, a Her First 100K podcast. Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap, produced by Kristen Fields, marketing and administration by Karina Patel, Olivia Koning, Sharice Wade, Alina Hilzer, Paulina Isaac, Sophia Cohen, Valerie Oresko, Jack Koning, and Ana Alexandra. Research by Arielle Johnson. Audio engineering by Austin Fields. Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton. Photography by Sarah Wolf. And theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound.

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