How Financial Guru Dave Ramsey Missed the Mark


Ramsey has come under fire recently for a list of “Rich People Habits” he posted on his blog recently. The list actually was compiled by Tom Corley at a site called RichHabitsInstitute.com, which is intended to track what people of means do differently in daily life than the rest of us (aside from brush their teeth with platinum-bristled brushes, since that one’s a given).

On the one hand, I’ll agree that observing a cohort of people you want to emulate and learning from their habits makes a lot of sense, but I can see why Ramsey and Corley have caught so much heat for their most recent comparison of “poor people” habits to those of the wealthy.




The fact is that junk food tends to be less expensive than fresh produce and organic options. It also takes less time to prepare, which is important for so many working poor who have children while also working multiple jobs. And this doesn’t even address the issue of food deserts, which is the term for the concentration of crappy food options (and the marketing that goes with it) in depressed communities, often with no healthy options within easy access.









The wealthy also are the ones who are actively invited to participate in things like Rotary and the Chamber of Commerce. Why? Because they have more to offer others in attendance. They also have the time off of work more often to go to such things (try explaining to your Wal Mart manager that you need an hour off to go to your Rotary luncheon) and transportation to get there. Such networking groups also usually charge dues and even make you pay extra for meals, expect you to donate to their charitable causes, etc. Privilege, privilege, privilege.

You get the idea. Many of the stats have to do with spending more time reading, both alone and to our children. And yes, this has been empirically proven to make a huge impact on children’s development and future success. But having worked at a Catholic Charities organization in economically challenged, Pueblo, CO, we found there that many families had no books in the home.




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  • Jimmy James

    As someone who has lived years with absolutely no expendable cash and also lived years with a fair amount of expendable cash, I really identify with a lot of your comments. I’ve always told people that it’s so much easier to manage your money well when you actually have some money to manage. When you can’t think past meeting your basic needs, it’s hard to get inspired about making plans for the future. Thanks for your thoughts.

  • Evelyn

    I love this piece, esp. the last paragraph. Based on your experiences / research, I’d love to see a follow up piece that takes each point and suggests solutions – much like you did for the reading one, but then for some of the others. Urban gardens in food deserts etc.

    Another flaw with Ramsey’s thinking IMO is the simplification of homogeneity: all the wealthy are the same, all the poor are the same. I know it’s obvious, but there are degrees of each, and urban poverty has different issues from rural poverty. The degree to which people feel at risk from violence also shapes their decision making.

    Anyway, keep up the good work :)

  • Frank

    I don’t think this is about a level playing field. It will never be level. It’s about the wisdom of choices. Everyone can start make better choices including the poor.

    Ramsey’s made an excellent point let’s not miss the significance of it by focusing on the wrong things.

    • Mr.R

      Half of his points are a result of people being wealthy. It’s not like these choices made them wealthy. Do you think a poor person can afford to network 5 hours? Do you think a poor person can afford to eat organic foods or have access to such? Many actions of the poor are for survival minus the lottery heh.

      • tearfang

        granted on the networking point, but not on the organic. The list doesn’t mention organic it talks about junk food potato chips sodas that sort of thing, and yes poor people really can afford not to eat those- junk food (chips crackers, sodas) are a lot more expensive than real food. Audio books yes are expensive- but not if you check them out from the library (granted the selection limited in such cases). The gambling difference is dramatic. I have to agree with Frank it that the point is that choices make a difference. Most of these choices very much seem like choices every working person in the 1st world can make if they really want to.

  • Boo

    Americans do not understand poverty. Either we believe we are poor when we are not, or we think the poor should just stop being poor.

  • Plutosdad

    Looking at the original list, talk about being blind to privilege! It reminds me (almost) of the horrible Forbes oped this past year on advice for young black men.

    Telling poor people they are making bad decisions is not only border level insulting, but it ignores a lot of research that shows they are making perfectly valid decisions for people at their level of resources or environment. Telling poor people to exercise, read more, or just move out of the food desert (to where?) to buy better groceries is useless.

    Here is a great article with links to other research.


    this is more of a anecdotal article that is similar:


    One disheartening fact that comes out is: even if Ramsey were to go a step further and provide resources and advice to the poor to actually act on these goals does not help as much as we’d like due to the cognitive impairment created by not only having to scrounge for day to day living expenses, but things that cannot be undone such as having a high stress childhood which has been correlated with lower IQ and problem solving ability, growing up with lead poisoning the environment (same), whether they have the sensitive version of the CHRNA4 gene or not, etc.

  • gimpi1

    I posted this on another blog about Mr. Ramsey. I hope no one minds the pick-up, but I think it might be relevant to the conversation:

    I had a blazing fight with my husband’s friend about Mr. Ramsey. I found his belief that anyone could overcome poverty following Mr. Ramsey’s advice offensive, due to my upbringing. I was raised in poverty by severely disabled parents.

    I describe the difference in how I grew up and how my life is now as, “the difference between being poor and being broke.” To be poor is to have huge obstacles in your path, blocking you at every turn. It’s having no options, no real choices, and very little hope. When I was growing up with a father suffering from traumatic brain-damage and a mother who paraplegic due to childhood polio and suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, I was poor. There was not much my parents could do to change our situation.

    Being broke is middle-class poverty. You don’t have all you need NOW, but you have options. You can moonlight. You can study, economize, and pay down debt. There is hope. As an adult, I have been broke. I was able to make things better through disciplines not too different from what Mr. Ramsey teaches.

    Mr. Ramsey’s advice works well when one is broke. His advise is worth almost nothing when one is truly poor. For that reason, perhaps, he appears to refuse to acknowledge the existence of true poverty. That, I find offensive. It’s real. There’s more of it than any of us in the States want to admit. And, by refusing to see it, we have an excuse to not do anything about it.