I liked that too, no hasn't changed my life either except for all the wonderful extremely subsidized family vacations that we would not otherwise take every year just for signing up for new credit cards and putting normal spend on them.

But to even use the case of the caller who's single rewards card only nets him $400 a year, the clown discounts this. He is a financial adviser stating that $400 is basically worthless therefore he should get rid of the card and pay cash instead "brilliant idea"

yeah really :D:D

While he cuts up his credit cards believing them to be the center of all evil, I'll be planning my next three trips for our family of four (thanks citi and Chase) :cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::c ool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool:

PS something tells me (at least now) that Dave is no idiot and it wouldnt surprise me if he DOES collect more than "$400 cash back per year " in rewards

IIRC, Mr Ramsey over-leveraged himself in the real estate market back in the '80s and declared bankruptcy to the tune of several million dollars.

This has apparently caused him to do a 180 degree turn on the value of credit.

that would partially explain it, but he's still a crummy, questionable "financial adviser"

There are some very good points. I know I spend a lot more on a CC when I'm trying to get a sign-up bonus, for example. "Well, F it... I need to hit $3k anyway"). So in the long run, I'm sure it costs me more to use these rewards cards than if I just spent cash on things I needed. The benefit in most cases have vastly outweighed this extra cost, however, especially when it comes to international premium award travel.

I think it might be a generational thing. I have relatives don't use credit cards much, because they don't think of it as "real money". They also aren't very tech savvy, so doing things like using online banking to monitor spending is a bit beyond them... they just spend spend spend and at the end of the month realize how big the bill was.

Conversely, I'm the opposite: if I have cash, I'll spend it. I've spent my entire adult life using debit cards (and later credit cards) to do my purchases - for me, cash = Christmas = spend spend spend.

I could see where for some people, it's better that they just don't use a CC.

while I can control myself with cash in hand , I still fall under your category of people. Using a credit card is just easier. you dont have to carry a large amount of cash with you and worry about theft . Not to mention, I'm in a wheelchair so carrying a large about of stuff on me is plain old inconvenient

$400/year sounds nice, but if he were using a CSP that'd be 40,000 miles he could transfer to one of several airline programs, or enough for a free Southwest ticket or two. ;)

You may want to reign that in. I budget to the penny with YNAB and don't spend any more than I've budgeted. It works like the envelope system Dave Ramsey proposes, but allows you to do credit card spending.

True, but for most of that show's callers , I imagine travel is at the very bottom of the list of priorities. Not that I feel sorry for them. This is because I believe that getting into debt and not managing money well in most cases is a conscious choice. The only reason we are able to fly free, is because most of the people here are really smart people with self control, and our "reward" for this is free travel and perks

I sometime listen to his radio show. He spends about half of his time promoting his products and affiliates and the other half giving his opinion of peoples financial situations. This particular segment is funny to me as the caller is almost asking his permission to use a credit card to get cash back. $400 for a year? Good for him. What would Dave say if I called and told him that $400 was 1/2 of a weeks net for me? (He would probably call me a thief!).

While I do not agree with all of his points (especially the use of a debit card), he does hand out some worthwhile thoughts and common sense advise. I sometimes think that some of the calls are "seeded" and play right to his opinions but overall, considering the questions that he gets, I would agree that most of the callers would be better served by having no credit cards.

The point he makes about taking cash out of the transaction and causing the spend to be higher makes a lot of sense. I would really like to see how he made up that data.

To each their own.

Yep. The rewards programs are only worthwhile if you pay 100% of the bill every month. Dave Ramsay's advice makes sense for people who've shown that they can't really handle credit.

With regard to the second video, I do think that most Americans are too quick to buy a car without properly considering the overall cost of ownership. I do think, though, that car loans can be good things if liquidity is important.

And the sad part is that most of those people don't really understand how credit works and on top of that (or maybe as a result) end up buying stuff that they just don't need. It's just sad. All it takes is a little financial common sense and the banks literally bend over backwards for you. But why am I sad, as one poster commented above, we need these kinds of people so they continue to provide the funds necessary for banks to continue to invest in their rewards programs.

human nature I guess

If you finance a car, that means you can't afford it and you're stupid? Considering you can get rates at 1-2% that literally makes no sense. If you disagree with the overall cost of the car that's fine, but dismissing one form of payment is moronic.