B (1:49)

What's your take?

A (1:50)

That's true, but I also think that he paid back all of his debtors.

B (1:54)

Did he.

A (1:55)

Did he fact check that? But I'm pretty sure.

B (1:58)

Did Dave Ramsey pay back his debt? Dave Ramsey said in his books and on his show that he voluntarily went back and repaid the creditors whose debts were wiped out in his 1988 Chapter 7 bankruptcy. But there's no independent documentation confirming this, and some bankruptcy attorneys consider the claim doubtful or at least unverifiable. Ramsey supports a later repaid every penny to his former creditors. He talks about an on air comments.

A (2:29)

Yeah, so he's. So he said that he did, basically.

B (2:31)

So he lied. There's no way you're exposing Dave Ramsey here on the show today.

A (2:35)

I mean, yeah, I would tend to trust him. Like, I would have no reason to not trust him because he has so much money now. Like, that's like not even a drop in the bucket.

B (2:44)

Well. And every time you've loaned Dave money to help him in a pinch, he's paid you back.

A (2:47)

Yeah, yeah.

B (2:48)

To so far, for legal purposes. That is a joke.

A (2:51)

Yeah.

B (2:51)

Dave Ranc is like, I never did that. You're, you're, you're.

A (2:56)

Who is this guy?

B (2:57)

Your ass is grass.

A (2:57)

Who is this guy?

B (2:58)

That's what he says. That's how Dave talks. But anyway, what do you. Okay, well, setting that as saying that aside, there's a lot of people that say like, do this, do this, do this. But also like, you know, he's not

A (3:11)

following the advice that he gives you.

B (3:13)

Well, what's your, what's your take?

A (3:15)

Dave is an interesting one because he's somebody who says like, don't spend, but also has a bunch of products that teach you to not spend.

B (3:26)

Yeah.

A (3:26)

However, I think that he's done it in the best way possible and built an extremely defensible business. Like the doing. Doing nine figures in revenue in an info product company is first of all not common. It's, it's difficult to scale an info product business past, let's call it eight figures and to scale it to that degree without getting shut down or in multiple investigations from FTC or sec, like they're. My point is to say that like he would have a mass. He has a massive target on his back. So he's clearly doing something correct there and it does not make the advice wrong. That's what is interesting to me to see in online world at all these days is like something, some new piece of information comes out about somebody who you've previously respected or followed and then you automatically drop everything they've ever said because you learned this new piece of information. So even if that were true and he filed bankruptcy, it's like, okay, but is the advice that he's giving still sound or is it not sound? Like that sort of is somewhat irrelevant to me because it's like, is he, is he proclaiming the truth as he sees it or is he not doing that? And to me it's pretty clear that he is doing that and he's followed all of his own advice since that crazy event that happened and that was the inception of his entire, you know, 30 plus career, 30 plus year career now was because of that thing that happened and he's trying to help you actively avoid having to do something like that. So I don't see, like, I just don't. I don't. I don't get all the beef with Dave. I guess what I'm trying to say, it's like, I don't. I don't. I just don't. I don't see. I don't see why so many people hate on Dave Ramsey.

B (5:21)

Well, Travis, I agree, but I tend

A (5:23)

to think that about most people, though.

B (5:25)

Yeah.

A (5:25)

You know, like, you know me.

B (5:27)

Like, I'm like Jeffrey Epstein. You're. You're like, chill out.

A (5:30)

Yeah. It's like, guys.

B (5:31)

I mean, for legal purposes, that, too, is a joke.

A (5:34)

Yeah. It's just. It.

B (5:36)

I get you.

A (5:37)

No, I. I just don't find a lot of. I don't find much good in the energy involved in pouring hate on somebody.

B (5:46)

There's a lot of people. So, I mean, I talk about, like, religious stuff sometimes on my show. And so I have some people that do beef with Dave because I think just because he's in that world. But I also like when people are like, you should. And I don't get this a lot, but I've had, like, a couple people are like, when are you gonna do an episode on Dave Ramsey? And I'm just like. About what?

A (6:07)

Y.

B (6:08)

Like, like, there's certain. I mean, I just go back to he. He's. He's a financial dude, and he's also kind of conservative. And, like, also, if you're, you know, not into that, don't follow his stuff.

A (6:24)

Exactly.

B (6:24)

I. I just, like. I. The worst things I've ever heard about him are like, he's a super, like, hardcore personality type. And, you know, it's like, yeah, that he's a billionaire and then also, you know, and whatever. But all that to say, like, when it comes to his actual advice, I'm. I just. Sometimes I'm like, what do you. His whole thing is just don't get a crazy debt and spend less.

A (6:46)

It's literally just common sense financial advice.

B (6:49)

So. So when you see a post like this on Social, you get a variety of reactions. What do you think the comments were like on this post?

A (6:57)

It depends on the people who follow that.

B (6:59)

What do you think they were, like,

A (7:01)

probably mostly in agreement with the person who posted this a lot.

B (7:04)

They got ratioed hard. So here's a. Here's a couple comments. Just give me a yay or nay if you like some of these comments. Okay. Someone said, I followed Dave's advice and worked for me, although I'm not all the way done Yet. But for someone that spent 11 years being homeless and going in and out of jail to where I'm at now, financially, I'd say it works as well as 10 million other people.

A (7:25)

I mean, that's pretty hard.

B (7:26)

That was George Camel. He was living at Ramsey HQ for 11 years, and then they gave say you can have an office if you want. Someone said, I didn't realize squatting rights. I didn't realize Ramsey had his army of minions patrolling IG to this degree. Ooh, little conspiracy there. Yeah. Someone said, rice and beans and four jobs. Ha ha ha. Then someone said, didn't this happen in 1988, though? Before he knows what he knows now. Interested? We're using our noodles. Dave Ramsey filed bankruptcy once in 1988. He then went on to make money and paid back all the money that was owed. And. And for more than 30 years, he's been paying it forward. He's now a billionaire, if anyone knows. Is he a billionaire with. With all his assets?

A (8:05)

Yeah. I think his net worth is underreported. If you Google it. I think he's.

B (8:09)

Everybody's is. I. I quit Googling net worth.

A (8:11)

Well, it's either under or over.

B (8:12)

Always wrong. Yeah. Unless it's literally like a Forbes profile where they were interviewed.

A (8:16)

Right.

B (8:17)

It's. It's all guesses.

A (8:18)

Exactly.

B (8:19)

I laugh when I look up, like.

A (8:20)

And even those Forbes interviews, like, you think they're telling you about all their wealth.

B (8:23)

Right. I mean. And he also displays accountability by paying back his debts, even though he didn't have to quit. Like, his baby steps and formula to build wealth doesn't work. True. It was temporary for me. Not in debt anymore, thanks to Dave. Honestly, if most people just worked four jobs. Well, that's. Okay. So I said, honestly, most people just worked four jobs, stop bad spending and no vacations for two years. It'd be a much better financial situations in just two years.

A (8:49)

Well, that. So I actually. I was just as pretty.

B (8:53)

I was going. I was gonna go, this person's dumb as rocks. But then they said for two years. And I think that is a good point.

A (9:02)

Yeah. That. That there's a time limit.

B (9:03)

That's. That's the big guy.

A (9:07)

The big guy.

B (9:07)

King Keto. Oh, Bradley. Not Martin. That's the other big guy. Bradley.

A (9:12)

Brandon.

B (9:13)

Brandon Carter. That's the thing he talks about is he's like, I want to make 100 grand. So I worked with a moving company, and I did this. And I was a personal trainer.

A (9:21)

Security guard. Moving company.

B (9:23)

Yes. I was a bad security guard. Yeah. That's how you said it.

A (9:27)

And they fired me from the product store.

B (9:30)

And someone said, oh, here's a good comment. Guess what they said.

A (9:34)

What?

B (9:34)

Guess.

A (9:35)

Here's a comment. Guess. What they said is a wild way Dave quote, something about being better than he deserves.

B (9:42)

Someone says, got to live like no one else before you can live like no one else. Someone says, nice post with textbook sophistry, equating a fact that did happen 30 plus years ago, which leads to him learning the lessons that create his system today. He doesn't hide the bankruptcy used as an example in his book Being constantly in debt and renting. Everything in your life is miserable, I assure you.

A (10:02)

Yeah.

B (10:03)

And then someone said, here's another one.

A (10:06)

One more.

B (10:06)

Oh, only one more. Dang it. Two more.

A (10:08)

Okay.

B (10:09)

Someone says, that's exactly why I couldn't ever really get into his plan. I was wasting my early family years where I wanted to be, making memories with my family. I won't be here forever. I'd rather not be stuck working three jobs just because Dave said so. There's a half. There's a half valid thing there.

A (10:25)

Again, it can be phases.

B (10:26)

Yeah.

A (10:27)

It doesn't mean you have to work three jobs for the next 30 years, six months. But if you're, if you have put yourself in a detrimental financial position, then the only person that's responsible for getting you out of that position is Dave.

B (10:40)

Is Dave Ramsey.

A (10:42)

Is. Dave has taken on some of that responsibility. But ultimately, like, like he said, the only time you should see the inside of a restaurant is if you're working a second job there. You know, like that is probably true if you built up $70,000 in credit card debt and 200,000 in student loans and 90,000 in car loans and you make $82,000 a year. It's like at some point you have, you have, you have dug yourself a hole that is impossible to get out of without a phase of just grinding and accepting the new reality, which is that you're not going to see the inside of a restaurant unless you're picking up a second shift there or you're not going to go on vacation, at least to the vacation that you want to go on.

B (11:27)

Right.

A (11:27)

You're not flying the whole family to Hawaii for two weeks and staying at the Four Seasons. But you might be able to get away for three days and drive somewhere within, you know, go somewhere within driving distance and get a hotel for two, three days and take a quick break. Like there's still ways to make memories with the family without you Know, taking a cruise through the Mediterranean to Europe or something. Yeah.

B (11:49)

Someone said Dave Ramsey is selling content. Life gonna pass you by doing what he suggests, which you kind of just addressed.

A (11:55)

Yeah.

B (11:56)

Let me ask you. I'm going to shift gears. I don't want to talk about Dave anymore. Do you have something you want to say?

A (12:00)

I was just going to say. Well, that's sort of the purpose of this show is that I saw so much personal finance advice that is that it's, it's sort of, it's. It's kind of like deaf to the idea that.

B (12:12)

That you're going to die.

A (12:14)

Life is going to. Yeah. That life is not about accumulating net worth.

B (12:17)

Yeah.

A (12:18)

Life is about experiences, memories, time with those you love and things like that. So that's the purpose of this show is to sort of highlight, like, look, you. You could, you could take the next 20 years to dig yourself out of that hole and put yourself in a better position, or you could work really, really hard for the next five years and put yourself in a position to where you can do whatever you want after that, to at least a certain degree and have the freedom and autonomy to be able to enjoy the money that you're making now while without sacrificing your future self. That's. The whole concept is like, make enough money to. Where you can do both of those things. It's not an either or. You don't have to sacrifice your future for your present. You don't have to sacrifice your present for. You can do both of them. If you can learn how to upskill and make more money, you can, you can have all of those things. So I, I would agree with that sentiment, especially now. The economy is wildly different than it was when Dave started, you know, Ramsey Solutions, 30 something years ago. And, and it looks a lot different now, especially for young people coming into the job market and things. But that's, that's the whole reason that we started the show was like, people just need to make more money because you, you again, you w. Including myself for a long time. Wildly underestimate what it takes to live a good life. You know, as defined. The cool thing about it is as defined by you. Dave doesn't get to define what a good life is for you, and neither does Warren Buffett. You get to decide what's a good life for you. So think more about what that life is and then reverse engineer the finances that you need to be able to make that life happen. And then my entire thing is like, just add 50 to 100% on top of what you think you need, because life will always demand more than you think.

B (14:02)

Yeah, I want to shift gears. I'm done talking about Dave.

A (14:05)

Okay?

B (14:06)

I don't want to talk about him anymore.

A (14:07)

Okay, fine.

B (14:08)

So there was a little kerfuffle in the finance world.

A (14:11)

You say kerfluffle.

B (14:12)

Kerfuffle.

A (14:12)

Kerfuffle.

B (14:13)

Whatever, dude. It's a made up word anyway.

A (14:16)

Who's all words are made up.

B (14:18)

Oh, wow. Anyway,

A (14:22)

anyway, that's from a movie. I always love that line, though. Yeah, I forget which one. I forget what movie it is.

B (14:27)

It must have been a really good one.

A (14:29)

They said a random word and it was like, that's a made up word. And he goes, all words are made up. Yeah, it's like, that is a. That is true.

B (14:35)

Yeah. Okay, that sounds like kind of line. I would be in a theater and go, wow, that's the worst line I've ever heard.

A (14:41)

That made me giggle.

B (14:43)

Yeah, well, no, I went. There was a kerfuffle in the finance world with Caleb Hammer recently. I don't know if he's been seeing this drama. There's a YouTuber named D'. Angelo. I hope I'm getting the YouTuber name right. And he made a video and his video was about. Primarily he was talking. It was. He was like talking about Caleb Hammer's content, how it's gotten more like aggressive and like his thumbnails will be like. Like he was calling out, like, he'd have like, guests on. He'd zero in. In like his thumbnail. About, like. Like calling women, like derogatory names and stuff. And was basically saying, like what? Like, this is weird that this video got a billion views.

A (15:22)

Yeah.

B (15:22)

And it's just like the thumbnail is just like a girl and it just says. And like, you know, and he's like, that's weird that that can get a million views on YouTube. And maybe we should think about how we put out certain things into the world and. But anyway, but in the video, so Caleb Hammer, like live reacted for like four hours, which he shouldn't do, and was just like going on a crazy rant, you know, responding to him. But one of the things that was a big point of contention between these two creators was he, the person who was critiquing him, also critiqued that Caleb has a course that's like a thousand dollars for financial. What's this thing called? Financial. Basically like a financial bootcamp course thing that teaches your finance. And so the person was saying, you know, I think it's Predatory. If someone's like drowning in the type of debt that is featured on Caleb show to offer them $1,000 course to like fix their thing. To which Caleb was like very upset because he's like it's not a scam and I'm going to sue you because you're saying all this stuff and like totally went crazy on it. But like the dude didn't say it was a scam, he's just saying it's predatory. I am of two schools of thought on all of the rhetoric around like coaching and courses and stuff. Like what do you think about Dave Ramsey? I feel like, like again I go back to like he's selling books like and you can get them at the library. Like, like you can get all of Dave Ramsey's stuff for free if you want to or you can call in and they usually say we'll send you a book right now, don't worry about it. What do you think about the finance influencers that are like hey, I'm dealing with people who are trying to get their finances on track. Here's a thousand dollar course or here's a $20,000 or not $22,000 coaching program. You know, 20,000 is definitely. We could. Yeah, different tier but you know what I'm saying.

A (17:15)

But I think that that's relevant to because I, I do have some, there's a lot of like biz op courses and coaching programs that are that way where they're, they're sort of predatory because they're in, they're using you know, persuasion tactics to convince an audience member who is deeply in debt to buy a $50,000 coaching program that's nothing more than like some zoom calls in a Google Doc. And that to me is predatory. But frankly to be fair, a lot of those companies have been shut down by the ftc like kind of rightfully so. You know, like they, they, that is, that is more predatory behavior to me because you're engine this environment through these events and this increase, you know, height of emotion and you're offering these, these crazy financing plans that are only going to put this person more in debt while knowing that you have like a 97 failure rate with people who buy this fifty thousand dollar program. To me, a thousand bucks, I don't have any problems with that. To me, like even if you're teaching people how to get. Because, because of the one, there's just one fact that is undeniable which is that when people pay, they pay attention Hands down, 100% of the time if somebody puts their finances behind a decision like that, they are much, much more likely to take action against the advice that they gain. Because very, very easy to say. You look at like how, how many hours of completely free content does Caleb Hammer post?

B (18:58)

A lot.

A (18:58)

You know what I'm saying? Like so much free stuff that he gives out. You do not have to buy that thing in order for you to engage with this person and gain some result from it. Yeah, but if you want to go a step further and get this, whatever blueprint or plan or whatever, the thing is that he's selling for a thousand bucks, you pay a thousand bucks for it because it takes a lot of time and energy and effort to put that out into the world, to have customer support, to make sure people are getting results, that you have customer service things dialed in. Like there's, there's cost to fulfill, therefore there's cost to invest. And to me that's, that's not a problem for me at all. Just because of that, that, that first thing that I mentioned is that in an ideal world everybody would just give out all the information for free. And that is how the world works. Like all of this information is free. But courses are probably not going to go away because of that one simple fact that people will not take something seriously unless they pay for it. Whether, whether now whether it's a thousand bucks versus fifty thousand bucks, I think that they're like, you know, at some point you get into this predatory nature where you are quite literally taking advantage of this old person who you just convinced to cash out their 401k to buy this again, a coaching program that's some Google Docs and a couple zoom videos that you could have sold for a thousand bucks, been totally fine. So there, there's, there's definitely a point where it stops being super effective. But then, you know, it's, it's still, it's still personal responsibility of the person making the ultimately, but at some point you are doing something predatory in this particular scenario. I don't see any problem with that. Like this thousand dollar price point. Like you're, how many things have people spent a thousand bucks on? Like, people spend that like nothing. You know, they'll upgrade their TV every six months because oh, this one's QLED or this one's Ultra hd. And so they, they, people, people buy stuff all the time that they don't need that has zero chance of ever putting a dollar back in their pocket. So if you're putting them into a program that's supposed to actually fix their financial future, and they're not willing to put a thousand bucks down to do that, then maybe you just don't take this that seriously. You certainly take all the other things seriously. You take having the newest Nikes seriously. You take being a member of the nicest gym seriously. And that's put you in a bad financial position. So maybe take this as seriously as you're taking all the other things in your life, and you'll probably figure out that you'll get better results doing it that way. So in those types of contexts, I don't have a problem with that call.

B (21:26)

Yeah, but you do have a problem with giving me $1,000 to try a push up or a pull up.

A (21:32)

To be fair. You said $10,000.

B (21:33)

No, I didn't.

A (21:34)

You said $10,000 for a pull up. I thought you said 10.

B (21:37)

No, I said a thousand. And you were like, I would never do that.

A (21:40)

Yeah, because I think you can do a poll.

B (21:41)

I can't do a pull up.

A (21:43)

If you, like, tried.

B (21:43)

For those of you listening, I can't do a pull up.

A (21:46)

We'll see.

B (21:47)

And I said, I said, even if you gave me a thousand dollars, I can do a pull up. And you were so scared because you're so confident my abilities that you're like, I'm not even gonna put that on the table. I am confident, but I'm telling you, your money safe. We'll go out. We're gonna go outside right now. Let's go ahead and close out the episode. I'm gonna go outside right now. I'm gonna go try to do a pull up and.

A (22:05)

And win a thousand dollars.

B (22:07)

And I won't even get a thousand dollars out of it. I'll just be sore. My arms will hurt anyway. Go. Just like my back from sitting in this chair. So let's go ahead and close out this episode.

A (22:14)

Well, that is it for this episode. Remember, money only solves your money problems, but it's easier to solve the rest of your problems with money in the bank. So let's start there, here on the Travis Makes Money podcast. And for tuning in, catch you next time. Peace.

C (22:25)

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