The Total Money Makeover Review: Amazing Debt Free Strategies (2024)

Dave Ramsey is a guru in the world of personal finance. Even if you are totally new to all this financial stuff, there is a good chance you have at least heard his name. This is one reason why I wanted to do a

review.

But the second, and

more personal reason is that I used some of his strategies when I was digging my way out from student loan debt.

My dad decided to buy this book, along with a variety of other tools from Dave Ramsey, as a wedding gift for Joel and me.

This was such a practical and helpful gift when we were just starting out our married life! It was a great gift that made much more of an impact on our lives than a spatula (especially when it is the 4^th spatula you’ve already gotten).

I absolutely LOVED

and found it to be filled with practical, simple to implement strategies. As someone who gets encouragement from personal success stories, Dave’s book was also extremely helpful for me.

Seriously though, these crazy financial success stories will get you pumped up to write your own!

I’d like to dive a little deeper into this summary, because there is just SO much solid information that to do a summary of the entire book in one paragraph would probably be impossible.

So I’ve broken it up into several more manageable sections for you.

Use these to decide for yourself if The Total Money Makeover is worth reading for you. Although if you are feeling stuck in your finances, I feel that this is the number one book to start with!

At the start of The Total Money Makeover, Dave gives a rundown of what to expect in his book.

That is, simple advice tailored towards real people with real lives.

He also acknowledges that for one reason or another, there are many critics of this book. What he stresses is that people who actually use the strategies he shares are NOT the ones complaining.

Dave Ramsey is also clear on the fact that, as a Christian, he writes from that world view and includes biblical references in his book.

If that is something that you won’t be able to tolerate, the book would definitely not be a good fit for you. But if you embrace those values or even if you can overlook them for the sound underlying principles, then read on!

The Total Money Makeover really gives it to your strait and forces you to own up to where you are financially.

In America, we have come to accept that having debt is “normal”. After all, you need a car loan, a mortgage, credit cards, and a financed couch right? WRONG! The whole premise of this book is to live like no one else.

That means getting over the idea that debt is normal and good, and that you need to have debt to have what you want in life.

If you are in denial over the state of your finances, you aren’t going to be able to successfully implement any of the strategies in this book. You have to have a good hard look at yourself, your habits, and your finances in order to move forward with tackling them.

As I mentioned above, so many people thing of debt as a tool that you must use in order to get ahead financially. But as Dave stresses in the Total Money Makeover, debt increases your risks financially.

Remember when the housing market collapsed in 2008? TONS of people lost their houses. That would be devastating, but it is a perfect example of how dangerous debt can be.

If you didn’t have a mortgage on your house, you would be free and clear despite this collapse.

Yes, I know that the investors out there will say to invest your money instead. But if you ask me, I’d rather rest easy knowing that even if I were to lose my job or become really sick that I wouldn’t have to add to that the fear of losing my house. (This is what future Kathryn is planning on at least. Current Kathryn doesn’t have enough saved to buy a house yet. Someday!)

Other money myths that Dave tackles in his book are regarding car loans/leases, cash advance loans (seriously just RUN RUN RUN the other way from these), and credit cards.

He also talks about things like all the different types of insurance, credit, and making a will.

Even though I have great financial role models in my parents, the information in The Totally Money Makeover was really helpful and touched on a lot of financial and life topics I may not have even thought of otherwise.

For college students or young adults, or anyone else struggling financially, this book provides SO much value.

Seems like nowadays everyone wants to “keep up with the Joneses”.

gives it to you straight by revealing that in all reality, the Joneses are probably broke.

So many people spend money they don’t have to have the type of lifestyle they deserve. The truth is though, that money doesn’t make you happy. And spending more of it to inflate your lifestyle will not only NOT make you happy, it will probably stress the crap out of you having all those bills to pay.

At the bottom of every single page in

, you will read this quote “If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else.”

Yes, getting your financial life in order will likely require some sacrifices now. But wouldn’t it be better to sacrifice now, for a little while, to be able to build wealth and live amazingly for the rest of your life!

Imagine never having to worry about money again. That’s what

can do for you!

And besides, there are tons of things you can do that require NO money!

Dave Ramsey is well known for his baby steps to building financial freedom, and the

reviews them all in great detail. You really need to read the book to learn to implement all of these steps.

The book spends an entire chapter on each of the baby steps and how to successfully implement them. So, although I won’t go into all the details here, I will list the baby steps in case you aren’t familiar with them.

That way you can get an idea of what you will be trying to accomplish with

.

If you work through all of the baby steps and get to this point, you will be better off financially than the vast majority of Americans! Imagine what you could do if you didn’t have to worry about monthly debt payments!

If you are like me and start implementing these strategies at a young age, you will not regret it.

We are currently tackling baby step 6ish. I say step 6ish, because we don’t actually have a house yet. Rather we are making some pretty big life changes in order to save up to hopefully buy our first house in cash (or mostly cash if we can’t quite cut it).

We also don’t have any kids to save for college, so we skipped that step for now.

And, we have been contributing closer to 25-30% for retirement now so that we are able to leverage the benefit of compound interest now. That way if/when we have kids we can decrease that percentage and still be looking mighty fine for retirement.

This entire book is filled with practical strategies you can easily implement to get your financial life in order!

Dave Ramsey provides his readers with actionable steps and the encouragement needed to actually put them into practice. He does this by sharing success stories of people who have followed through on all the baby steps to become debt free.

Those success stories were one of my favorite parts of the whole book! So encouraging and shows that regardless of what your financial and life situation right now, you CAN become debt free and live like no one else.

It’s pretty great.

I can say with 100% honesty that this was one of the best financial books I have read.

This book is NOT for you if you aren’t interested in making sacrifices to improve your finances. Because this method(or probably any method of getting out of debt) takes hard work, sacrifice, and

.

It isn’t a “get rich quick” scheme by any stretch of the imagination. If the Christian values mentioned throughout this book are going to drive you crazy, you also would benefit more from a different book.

BUT! This book is definitely for you if you are frustrated with your finances, sick of being in debt, and ready to take the serious (and sometimes hard) steps needed to change your life.

It was an easy read that kept you turning the next page. It was not at all dry like so many other finance books out there.

I recommend reading it all at once to get pumped up for your financial future. Then after completing each baby step, you will want to go back and re-read the next step to implement.

All in all,

really is a financial game changer and one I would definitely recommend! The money you will spend on this book will be made up for over and over again throughout the rest of your life!