The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness

Dave Ramsey (b. 1960) is a financial expert and advisor, host of the popular self-syndicated radio program The Dave Ramsey Show, author of the New York Times bestsellers Financial Peace and The Total Money Makeover, and founder of Ramsey Solutions (formerly the Lampo Group), his financial counseling business. He is married to Sharon Ramsey and has three children. Ramsey lives in Nashville, Tennessee, and Ramsey Solutions is headquartered in Franklin, Tennessee.

During his childhood in Antioch, Tennessee, Ramsey earned money and learned important business values through various entrepreneurial projects, such as lawnmowing and selling leather bracelets. At 18, he passed his real estate license exam and proceeded to work through college, obtaining a bachelor of science degree in finance and real estate from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He graduated with almost nothing, but by age 26, he had amassed a real estate portfolio worth $4 million and a net worth of $1 million.

But Ramsey plunged into bankruptcy in 1988 when his largest lender was acquired by another bank. He was given 90 days to pay $1.2 million, and within a few months, another bank asked him to pay back $800,000. He managed to pay off most of the debt, but despite his efforts, he had to sign the bankruptcy papers.

In the mini-documentary Live Like No One Else (2014), Ramsey discusses how financial ruin impacted him and his family and how it drove him to turn to God and reexamine his beliefs about money through a “commonsense” and Christian lens. He learned the hard way to make a budget, stay out of debt, and save for emergencies. Shortly thereafter, he met to discuss what he had learned with a member of his church who requested his advice, thus beginning his financial counseling career.

In 1992, he self-published Financial Peace and cohosted a financial radio program, which eventually became The Dave Ramsey Show. The show helped him sell his book and contributed most substantially to his fame—he was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2015. In 1994 he released his financial course Financial Peace University.

Today, Ramsey continues to talk about finance on The Dave Ramsey Show. He receives calls from people in diverse financial situations and communicates his convictions about good and bad money decisions, convictions informed by his Christian and conservative values. All his major teachings are expressed in The Total Money Makeover.

As of 2023, Ramsey’s net worth is estimated at around $200 million. In the mini-documentary, he says that he continues to work because he views his radio show, books, and business as a ministry, a “blessing” from God that allows him to give millions of people hope. This foregrounding of hope manifests in The Total Money Makeover from the introduction to the last chapter.

Ramsey’s personal experiences play an essential role in The Total Money Makeover. The financial and personal principles he advocates for he learned through the chaos of becoming rich, losing everything, and climbing back up. Importantly, the fact he went bankrupt despite having excellent academic credentials simply because he made “stupid” decisions profoundly influences his authorial strategy and, by extension, much of the content of The Total Money Makeover. He doesn’t theorize, derive his arguments from textbooks or experts, or offer a quick and easy path to riches because he got the degrees, was an expert himself and quickly amassed wealth, yet lost everything.

The style and content of The Total Money Makeover are also influenced by Ramsey’s radio show host experience. The book is informal, conversational, accessible to a wide audience, and entertaining because Ramsey writes in the persona he maintains on air. Personal testimonies from diverse individuals, couples, and families are interspersed throughout the book because Ramsey’s show is not a monologue—he gets callers regularly and answers questions and concerns while also inspiring hope. And Ramsey chooses to share many stories that he knows because of the interactions he has had through being a famous radio personality.