Jim, nice grab for attention using Dave’s name to generate views on this post. Seems like you banged this off in 10 minutes with no research. This post = FAIL

anyway, they generally have some decent things to say, but you have to filter them through your personal experiences.

what gets me is that it’s usually pretty obvious to me what they are going to tell their call-in listeners . . . but i guess those people just need to hear it for themselves.

He is generally very supportive and encouraging to people on his radio show. He will call a spade a spade and tell someone when he thinks they are being stupid, but I think he’s genuinely trying to dish out some “tough love” when he does that. I think you’d also probably agree with his assessment. The typical caller in these cases is over their head in high interest credit card debt, and is way upside down on one or more car loans with payments way too high for their income.

Car debt IS stupid, IMO. You’re paying interest on a depreciating asset, and you often owe more than the (now used) car is worth–you can do the math on that. Leases are even worse. So many people buy cars not based on the price or the interest rate, but on the status (ooh, shiny!) and the monthly payment. They do the same thing with credit card spending, adding monthly payments until there’s no paycheck left or a financial tragedy strikes, at which point the house of cards collapses.

Dave doesn’t tell you to walk to work. He’s actually a big car guy. But if you’ve bought a car you can’t afford and it’s nowhere near being paid off, he tells you to sell it and buy a used one for cash to get out of the hole you’ve dug yourself into. Once you’re out of debt he tells you to save your money and trade up to a better used car when you can afford to pay cash for it.

Zero percent financing deals? He’d suggest negotiating a cash discount instead, and most car dealers will give you one, probably giving you greater savings in the process, and eliminating the risk of something bad happening to your finances and then not being able to keep up with the car loan terms.

I haven’t had a car payment in 9 years, and man it sure feels good. We have a 10 year old Accord and a 7 year old Odyssey, and when one of them breaks down to the point it’s not worth repairing (no mechanical problems so far), we’ll buy another 2-3 year old car for cash. Not having payments makes it easy to have the savings for that and then some.

The people Dave tries to reach are those who likely won’t listen until Life has smacked them in the face — or at least, until the Backhand of Life is well into its wind-up. If Dave’s “smack” gets through to the listener or caller, then it was effective medicine.

Dave wasn’t the only voice responsibile for my personal Money Renaissance, but he WAS in the top three or four. Like a whole lot of my peers, I needed to hear what he had to say. And the manner in which he said it was what carried the most weight with me.

Not that I agree with treating adults like chlidren, but that’s the rationale behind it.

PF blogs give a lot more diverse opinions than MSM anyway. No need to water everything down to traditional wisdom.

Car payments suck… buy a car you can afford, even if it is only a $500 beater to get to work with, until you can save up for something better that more truly expresses your ego. And yes, pass up the promotional “0%” financing. You can almost always demand a further discount for forgoing this “free” money, if you really think a new car is a necessity, or you have so much money saved up that the depreciation is a non issue for you over the car’s useful life (to you.) It seems that the best financing perks, rebates, etc. are offered on the cars that are the hardest to sell because of their repair records, gas consumption, huge markup, etc. You do not see that stuff, to the same extent at least, on Camry’s and Accords.

Reading Fatwallet is probably more useful than all the guru’s combined, if you stay out of the “hot deals” section!

BR,

D

He must be doing something right because he is making beaucoup bucks.

I’ve been listening to Dave for 12+ years since the Money Game days with Roy Matlock. Way before he went national.

I don’t agree with everything he says but at least it gets people thinking about their finances and getting out of debt to get ahead.

He does give people hope. If your reading Fatwallet or other financial blogs you probably don’t need Dave Ramsey, but there are sure people out there that do.

Cheers

Wizard83

Instead of spending time on personal finance blogs, learning better money skills, you should be putting in double time at work to earn more money!

RAWR!

Actually I remember Dave Ramsey said if you are going to have a car, make sure it is worth no more than half of your annual salary. Example: if you make $30K a year, you should purchase a car that is 15K or less.