The famous Dave Ramsey quotes about money, debt, and life include pearls of wisdom that will enhance your financial discipline and make you spend wisely.
An astute business personality with critical opinions on debt management and reduction, Dave Ramsey is undoubtedly a finance genius with incredible wits and unorthodox skills.
These skills, which often have been heavily criticized by critics, have no place in the financial ecosystem of the 21st century and often never prepare for financial emergencies, have their uses, and have proved productive in multiple instances.
The esteemed personal finance advisor is best known for his multiple bestseller books, notably The Total Money Makeover and his syndicated radio show, The Ramsey Show.
Way before he became the global finance sensation, Ramsey had already begun building his business wits by engaging in real estate as young as 18.
During the period he took to build his esteemed brand, Ramsey suffered multiple financial woes, even during periods of momentary growth, such as his 1988 bankruptcy filing.
Ramsey gives numerous financial advice — his debt payment method, known as the Debt Snowball Method, is most recognized.
The method which has attracted heavy criticisms is one that Ramsey continues to advocate.
With several success stories, it’s only fair that will consider some of the advice Ramsey has given in quotes on debt and money.
Key Takeaways
- Financial discipline saves a lot.
- Debt exists to make your creditor rich.
- Poor is permanent, broke is temporary.
- Make your savings and planning simultaneously.
Dave Ramsey quotes about money that will make you work smart and spend wisely
1. “The love of money, not money, is root of all evil.”
2. “Earning a lot of money is not the key to prosperity. How you handle it is.”
3. “Money is 80% behavior, 20% head knowledge. It’s what you do, not what you know.”
4. “We learned early on that if we help enough people, the money will come.”
5. “Work is a surefire money-making scheme.”
6. “Rich isn’t an amount of money, it’s a mindset about how you live. If you believe you can win, you can.”
7. “Your priorities, passions, goals, and fears are shown clearly in the flow of your money.”
8. “Financial peace isn’t the acquisition of stuff. It’s learning to live on less than you make, so you can give money back and have money to invest. You can’t win until you do this.”
9. “If you’re married, agree on the budget with your spouse. This one sentence requires a stand-alone book to describe how, but the bottom line is this: if you aren’t working together, it is almost impossible to win. Once the budget is agreed on and is in writing, pinky-swear and spit-shake that you will never do anything with money that is not on that paper. The paper is the boss of the money, and you are the boss of what goes on the paper, but you have to stick to the budget, or it’s just an elaborate theory.”
10. “Money is like a beautiful thoroughbred horse-—very powerful and always in action. But unless this horse is trained when very young, it will be an out-of-control and dangerous animal when it grows to maturity.”
11. “Don’t buy things you can’t afford, with money you don’t have, to impress people you don’t like.”
12. “If I loan money to a friend or relative, the relationship will be strained or destroyed. The only relationship that would be enhanced is the kind resulting from one party being the master and the other party a servant.”
13. “When getting help with money, whether it is insurance, real estate or investments you should always look for a person with the heart of a teacher, not the heart of a salesman.”
14. “When I do something stupid with money and lose it, I call that Stupid Tax. I have paid so much Stupid Tax that I am expert.”
15. “You will either learn to manage money, or the lack of it will manage you.”
16. “Someone who never invests money will never have any.”
17. “The first step in taking control of your money is to stop borrowing money. Start using cash today.”
18. “Twist and wring out the budget, work extra hours, sell something, or have a garage sale, but quickly get your $1,000. Most of you should hit this step in less than a month. If it looks as though it is going to take longer, do something radical. Deliver pizzas, work part-time, or sell something else. Get crazy. You are way too close to the edge of falling over a major money cliff here. Remember, if the Joneses (all the broke people) think you are cool, you are heading the wrong way. If they think you are crazy, you are probably on track.”
19. “We have a retirement crisis in America today not from a lack of money, but from a lack of vision.”
20. “Fun can be bought with money, but happiness cannot.”
21. “Measure your wealth not by the things you have, but by the things for which you would not take money.”
22. “Money is not good or evil. It has no morals or intentions on its own. Money reflects the character of the user.”
23. “Savings without a mission is garbage. Your money needs to work for you, not lie around you.”
24. “You’ve got to tell your money what to do or it will leave..”
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Dave Ramsey quotes about debts and credit cards
25. “Debt gives you the ability to look like you’re winning when you’re not.”
26. “Knock out a small debt first so you get a quick win. Momentum is key.”
27. “Debt is not a tool; it is a method to make banks wealthy, not you. The borrower truly is slave to the lender.”
28. “There are no shortcuts when it comes to getting out of debt.”
29. “Debt is dumb. Cash is king.”
30. “The German root word for ‘debt’ is the same as for ‘guilt.’”
31. “Debt is not a tool; it is a method to make banks wealthy, not you. The borrower truly is slave to the lender.”
32. “I do recommend that most people sell the car with the most debt on it. A good rule of thumb on items (except the house) is this: if you can’t be debt-free on it (not counting the home) in eighteen to twenty months, sell it. If you have a car or a boat that you can’t pay off in eighteen to twenty months, sell it. It is just a car; dynamite the logjam! I used to love my car, too, but I found keeping that huge debt while trying to get out of debt was like running a race wearing ankle weights. Get a Total Money Makeover, so later you can drive anything you want and pay cash for it. When it comes to that debt-ridden item, you may have to make the decision to live like no one else; but remember, later you will be living, or driving, like no one else.”
33. “The decision to go into debt alters the course and condition of your life. You no longer own it. You are owned.”
34. “Some people are just stuck in their ways and have been brainwashed into believing that credit cards and debt are an unavoidable part of life.”
35. “Debt is so ingrained into our culture that most Americans can’t even envision a car without a payment a house without a mortgage a student without a loan and credit without a card. We’ve been sold debt with such repetition and with such fervor that most folks can’t conceive of what it would be like to have NO payments.”
36. “Debt is normal. Be weird.”
37. “Credit is an ‘I love debt’ score.”
38. “A lower interest rate doesn’t make a debt go away.”
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Dave Ramsey quotes about discipline
39. “Work is doing it. Discipline is doing it every day. Diligence is doing it well every day.”
40. “Doing a budget means learning an ancient and powerful word: no.”
41. “It is human nature to want it and want it now; it is also a sign of immaturity. Being willing to delay pleasure for a greater result is a sign of maturity.”
42. “Don’t medicate dysfunction with spending. No amount of stuff will get rid of guilt.”
43. “The accountability of a group environment causes people to change their behaviors.”
44. “If you will do the things others won’t do, then some day, you will have the life others won’t have.”
45. “A little bit of controlled pain when you’re six will change your life when you’re thirty-six.”
46. “Get rich quick doesn’t work. Crock pot mentality always defeats microwave mentality!”
47. “MYTH: Car payments are a way of life; you’ll always have one. TRUTH: Staying away from car payments by driving reliable used cars is what the average millionaire does; that is how he or she became a millionaire.”
48. “Work—get paid; don’t work—don’t get paid. Everybody is on commission.”
49. “No one got rich on a government program. Do not choose to be a common man. You can be uncommon.”
50. “Making mistakes and learning from them is crucial to winning.”
51. “Goals are visions and dreams with work clothes on.”
52. “Study the habits of the people you want to be like and then imitate them. If they are succeeding, they must be doing something right.”
53. “Repetition, volume, and longevity will twist and turn a myth, a lie, into a commonly accepted way of doing things.”
54. “No one wins the Super Bowl accidentally. Be intentional. Be Passionate. Don’t mail it in! You got this!”
55. “A typical millionaire lives in a middle-class home, drives a two-year-old or older paid-for car, and buys blue jeans at Wal-Mart.”
56. “Your greatest asset is your paycheck.”
57. “People will not buy from you if they don’t trust you, your product, and your company.”
58. “So content people may not have the best of everything, but they make the best of everything. That is who you want your children to be.”
59. “Pray like it all depends on God, but work like it all depends on you.”
60. “If you will do the things others won’t do, then some day, you will have the life others won’t have.”
61. “Hitting bottom and hitting it hard was the worst thing that ever happened to me and the best thing that ever happened to me.”
62. “Repetition, volume, and longevity will twist and turn a myth, a lie, into a commonly accepted way of doing things.”
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Dave Ramsey quotes about financial peace and success
63. “Study the habits of the people you want to be like and then imitate them. If they are succeeding, they must be doing something right.”
64. “Live like no one else, so later you can live like no one else.”
65. “The average millionaire can’t tell you who got thrown off the island last night.”
66. “Where you are today is the sum of every choice you’ve ever made. If you don’t like where you are, start making different choices!”
67. “You have the clean canvas of a whole week before you. Paint well.”
68. “There’s not a party, a congressman, a senator, etc. elected that will fix your life. YOU have to fix YOUR life.”
69. “The paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice.”
70. “Broke people giving financial advice is like a shop teacher with missing fingers.”
71. “The goal is to not be normal, because as my radio listeners know, normal is broke.”
72. “Save 3-6 months of expenses in a Rainy Day fund. Know why? Cause it is going to rain, and you aren’t the exception.”
73. . “What to do isn’t the problem; doing it is. Most of us know what to do, but we just don’t do it. If I can control the guy in the mirror, I can be skinny and rich.”
74. “Savings without a mission is garbage.”
75. “You can’t work three hours a week and make $100,000.”
76. “Act your wage.”
77. “If you invest $464 in a good mutual fund every month from age thirty to age seventy, you’ll end up with more than $5 million.”
78. “Life is not a snapshot, it’s a filmstrip.”
79. “Dreaming is a sign you have hope.”
80. “I learned early on that work creates discipline, and when you have discipline in your life, you are a healthier person.”
81. “There is nothing wrong with having nice things, but when you are trying to buy nice things to be happy, you are going to hurt.”
82. “If hard work, integrity, thrift, and perseverance have caused you to succeed, then you don’t owe anyone an apology for winning.”
83. “There’s a great place to go when you’re broke—to work!”
84. “I believe that through knowledge and discipline, financial peace is possible for all of us.”
85. “The HSA (Health Savings Account) is a great way to save on premiums. The high deductible creates a much lower premium, and this plan allows you to save for medical expenses in a tax-free savings account.”
86. “For your own good, for the good of your family and your future, grow a backbone. When something is wrong, stand up and say it is wrong, and don’t back down.”
87. “I tell everyone never to take more than a fifteen-year fixed-rate loan, and never have a payment of over 25 percent of your take-home pay. That is the most you should ever borrow.”
88. “There is tremendous satisfaction in working your tail off to hit a goal, then winning. It is worth the work.”
89. “That stupid saying “What you don’t know can’t hurt you” is ridiculous. What you don’t know can kill you. If you don’t know that tractor-trailer trucks hurt when hitting you, then you can play in the middle of the interstate with no fear – but that doesn’t mean you won’t get killed.”
90. “Wealth gained by dishonesty will be diminished, but he who gathers by labor will increase.”
91. “You can get anywhere if you simply go one step at a time.”
92. “It takes some discipline and hard work, but relying on credit when things go wrong is a trap.”
93. “Poor is a state of mind. Broke is, ‘I’m just passing through.’”
94. “The good thing about principles is that they make life easy. I have heard it said that when someone bases his life on principle, 99 percent of his decisions are already made.”
95. “There is nothing wrong with having nice things, but when you are trying to buy nice things to be happy, you are going to hurt. It’s not going to work.”
96. “Too many people try to do the new job, new spouse, new house, new car thing in 18 months. That’s a good way to end up broke. We’ve got to resist the temptation to catch up with our parents in 18 months. Slow down. You have the rest of your life to play catch up. After all, it’s just stuff.”
97. “Be intense, passionate, and fired up, but about things that matter, things that change your life and your legacy.”
98. “Adults devise a plan and follow it, children do what feels good.”
99. “A big part of being strong financially is that you know where you are weak and take action to make sure you don’t fall prey to the weakness. And we ALL are weak.”
100. “Do not let your life, ministry or organization go faster than your resources.”
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Wrap Up
Being stuck in debt sucks.
As much as we all want to get out of it, the right formula seems never to work.
The above Dave Ramsey quotes arms you with the right way to get out of debt, avoid unnecessary debt, work smart, and achieve financial peace and success.
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