To Dave Ramsey or not to Dave Ramsey…

That is the question, according to the Wall Street Journal. Did you see this one?

This past weekend the Wall Street Journal included an article about Dave Ramsey’s views and how “people under 40 say he’s wrong”. You can check it out here. It might be behind a paywall if you have used up your free articles.

By the way, I subscribe to both the WSJ and The NYTimes. I think it is really important to get multiple viewpoints and these are both reasonable good quality sources from the right and left, respectively, at least in my opinion. If you’d like a tip on how to get them on the cheap, let me know.

But back to Dave Ramsey and “people under 40”. The gist of the article is that younger people push back somewhat on Ramsey’s take that all debt is bad and you should do whatever it takes to stay out of debt, pay cash for things, live frugally, don’t have a credit score, etc. The pushback is that some younger people think they need more of a balanced approach between living for now and living for later, and don’t necessarily think all debt is bad.

I’m not writing this to take a specific position, sorry about that. I do think some of Ramsey’s positions are not based on sound economics, but rather take into account his view of how to overcome human weaknesses. I also think some young people are naive when it comes to the power debt can have over your life.

But what I think is critically important for your financial well being is being intentional about making your own decisions about how you want to manage your money. Make your own choices! Don’t avoid, procrastinate or enter denial mode with your money! These methods don’t work. Instead, use a simple budgeting system to decide how you want to spend your money, with or without the advice of Dave Ramsey. Then use that system every month to track your spending to keep yourself honest with your own spending goals.

The more visibility you have into your own spending patterns, the better and wiser choices you will make with your money. Guess what…Dave Ramsey came up with his views after some serious early financial mistakes in his life! Just like Ramsey, I think we can all learn to make better decisions with our money if we are just honest and transparent with ourselves about what our financial goals are and how we spend each month toward those goals.

Whether you want more debt or less debt, a credit score or no credit score, more savings or less savings, or whatever your financial goals and priorities are, use a budgeting system to ensure that you are achieving your own goals.

If you’d like some help getting a budget set up, we can help. Contact us for more info.