Why This One Money Expert Can’t Stand Dave Ramsey’s Advice

Money adept Tori Dunlap is the laminitis of Her First $100K and big of a top-ranking women’s concern podcast. She precocious made a YouTube video called “Why I Hate Dave Ramsey,” wherever she broke down galore of the points she feels helium gets wrong.

Here are her astir important criticisms.

Dunlap understands wherefore Ramsey is truthful strict with his advice. His black-and-white recommendations permission nary country for excuses and unit radical to instrumentality their finances seriously.

Ultimately, however, she believes his recommendations are excessively unyielding and don’t admit systemic barriers. Student indebtedness averages implicit $42,000 per borrower arsenic of 2025, and borrowers tin instrumentality decades to wage it off. Meanwhile, wage stagnation has near a reported 73% of employees struggling to spend thing beyond necessities.

Dunlap recognizes the trouble that this disconnect causes for radical trying to wage disconnected debt, criticizing Ramsey for his continued absorption connected subject and willpower.

“It’s rigid, it’s strict and it’s besides shaming,” she said. “If you don’t admit the biggest factors wherefore idiosyncratic can’t physique wealth, you’re selling them a lie. And you are making them consciousness blameworthy for immoderate result that isn’t 100%.”

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Dunlap criticizes Ramsey for his insistence connected avoiding each debt.

“If you presumption each of your indebtedness arsenic the same, you’re going to suffer tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Dunlap warned. “Debt is antithetic depending connected the type.”

For example, undergraduate pupil indebtedness involvement rates person mostly fluctuated from 3.4% to 6.8% implicit the past decade, but for a melodramatic dip during the COVID-19 pandemic. Average recognition paper involvement has been supra 20% since 2023.

Dunlap said that if you wage disconnected some types of indebtedness with adjacent fervor, arsenic Ramsey recommends, you’re wasting invaluable clip erstwhile your wealth could beryllium compounding successful the market.

The S&P 500, a measurement of marketplace performance, has fixed investors a astir 13% yearly instrumentality implicit the past 10 years. If you’re paying disconnected low-interest indebtedness earlier investing, Dunlap said, you’re astir apt losing money.

Dave Ramsey refers to a recognition people arsenic an “I Love Debt” score. Dunlap powerfully disagrees, calling it “one of the champion tools you person for accelerating your fiscal life.”

Dunlap believes that recognition cards are beneficial for astir radical erstwhile utilized responsibly, and galore different wealth experts agree. One is Grant Cardone, writer of The 10X Rule, who uses a recognition paper for each purchase. He uses it to way everything helium buys and accumulate points. If you don’t accumulate indebtedness period to month, this strategy tin assistance you save.