Dave Ramsey Quotations

I have to live my books before I write them.

My children were taught at an early age how money works and that it comes from hard work. They've been on a commission - not an allowance - since they were little. They learned that if they worked around the house, they got paid. If they didn't work, they didn't get paid.

The thing I have discovered about working with personal finance is that the good news is that it is not rocket science. Personal finance is about 80 percent behavior. It is only about 20 percent head knowledge.

We are all in the business of sales. Teachers sell students on learning, parents sell their children on making good grades and behaving, and traditional salesmen sell their products.

There are no shortcuts when it comes to getting out of debt.

In order to be a great marketer, you have to be focused and intense and look at scarcity, urgency, activity and passion in the marketplace.

You don't want to have so much money going toward your mortgage every month that you can't enjoy life or take care of your other financial responsibilities.

You can't be in debt and win. It doesn't work.

People are in such a hurry to launch their product or business that they seldom look at marketing from a bird's eye view and they don't create a systematic plan.

Children who reach the age of eighteen with their entire skills set composed on Nintendo and eating Doritos have been neglected. Their parents neglected to give them the character traits necessary to live successfully.

You've got to tell your money what to do or it will leave.

I think the lie we've told people in the marketplace is that a degree gets you a job. A degree doesn't get you a job. What gets you a job is the ability to carry yourself into that room and shake a hand and look someone in the eye and have people skills. These are the things that cause people to become successful.

Hitting bottom and hitting it hard was the worst thing that ever happened to me and the best thing that ever happened to me.

I've got a young man who works for me who says you don't need to discover your dreams - you need to recover them.

You're not a bad parent if you don't save for your kid's college because instead you had to choose to feed them and clothe them. Those things come first. They can go to school and do this thing called 'work' while they're in school.

We've really got to stop looking to Washington to fix our problems. It obviously doesn't have the ability to do that. People who are successful are not successful because of the president.

You have to teach children about money intentionally - create teachable moments.

My wife, Sharon, and I started with nothing when we got married. I was driving a 1902 Pinto and eating off a card table.

You never cash out a 401(k) or IRA to pay off debt, unless it's to avoid a foreclosure or bankruptcy.

I think that anyone who wants to start their own business can, but not any type of business.

Most of the things we buy are wants. And we call them needs, but they're wants.

I believe that through knowledge and discipline, financial peace is possible for all of us.

While I encourage people to save 100% down for a home, a mortgage is the one debt that I don't frown upon.

This is a great time for the 'guerilla marketer.' The days when you used to have to buy expensive TV time and a yellow page ad to get started are gone.

I have done stupid with a lot of zeros on the end of it. I know what it looks like.

You need some quick wins in order to stay pumped enough to get out of debt completely.

I like to write books where I get a question on the radio, and I don't have an answer for it.

Pay your utilities, gas and other basic needs before paying on your debts.

Let some one else take the butt kicking on devaluation.

Winning at money is 80 percent behavior and 20 percent head knowledge. 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.

You can get anywhere if you simply go one step at a time.

The decision to go into debt alters the course and condition of your life. You no longer own it. You are owned.

There's not a party, a congressman, a senator, etc. elected that will fix your life. YOU have to fix YOUR life.

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.

Rich isn't an amount of money, it's a mindset about how you live. If you believe you can win, you can.

No one got rich on a government program. Do not choose to be a common man. You can be uncommon.

Financial Security is not enough money to buy toys. That is to learn to live with less money than you earn. So, you can help other individuals or investors. You are not a winner until done it

When we're dealing with money in relationships, when we're dealing with money in our personal lives, when we're dealing with money in our families, the flow of money in a family represents the value system under which that family operates.

I would not pre-pay. I would invest instead and let the investments cover it.

Your priorities, passions, goals, and fears are shown clearly in the flow of your money.

Pray like it all depends on God, but work like it all depends on you.

Debt gives you the ability to look like you’re winning when you’re not.

The paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice.

One definition of maturity is learning to delay pleasure.

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.

You don't build wealth with credit card rewards and airline miles. You can't beat the credit card companies at their own game.

Earning a lot of money is not the key to prosperity. How you handle it is.

If the US Government was a family—they would be making $58,000 a year, spending $75,000 a year, & are $327,000 in credit card debt. They are currently proposing BIG spending cuts to reduce their spending to $72,000 a year. These are the actual proportions of the federal budget & debt, reduced to a level that we can understand.

Adults devise a plan and follow it, children do what feels good.

Doing a budget means learning an ancient and powerful word: NO.

Every person falls down at some point. Successful people choose to get back up!

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.

Fear is the enemy of hope.

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.

True leadership is servanthood. Put the interests of others at the center of your decisions.

We buy things we don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't like.

Remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.

Goals convert vision into ENERGY.

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.

Financial winners don't run sprints, they run marathons. They don't rush. They do it step by step over time.

A budget is telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went.

Debt is dumb. Cash is king.

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.

Money... is like a beautiful thoroughbred horse - very powerful & always in action, but unless this horse is trained when very young, it will be an out-of-control & dangerous animal when it grows to maturity.

Work is a surefire money-making scheme.

The average millionaire can't tell you who got thrown off the island last night.

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.

You must plan your work and then work your plan.

Outrageous generosity is a character quality of people who win with money.

Nothing happens without focus. Don't try to do everything at once. Take it one step at a time.

If you will make the sacrifices now that most people aren't willing to make, later on you will be able to live as those folks will never be able to live.

Poor is a state of mind. Broke is, 'I'm just passing through.'

Ideas are a dime a dozen. People who execute them are not.

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.

Debt is normal. Be weird.

Making mistakes and learning from them is crucial to winning.

If you help enough people, you don't have to worry about money.

You must walk to the beat of a different drummer. The same beat that the wealthy hear. If the beat sounds normal, evacuate the dance floor immediately! The goal is to not be normal, because as my radio listeners know, normal is broke.

Knock out a small debt first so you get a quick win. Momentum is key.

I came to realize that my money problems, worries, and shortages largely began and ended with the person in my mirror. I realized also that if I could learn to manage the character I shaved with every morning, I would win with money.

When you create a basic budget and stick to it, it will suddenly seem like you have more money.

Success is a pile of failure that you are standing on.

If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else.

How you handle or mishandle your money tells us who you are and, more important, it tells YOU who you are. Your priorities, passions, goals, and fears are shown clearly in the flow of your money. Your value system, or lack of one causes money to flow around you, passed you, or to you. When money is in your possession, what you do with it screams loudly who you are.

Goals are visions and dreams with work clothes on.

Change is painful. Few people have the courage to seek out change. Most people won’t change until the pain of where they are exceeds the pain of change.

Delegation requires the willingness to pay for short term failures in order to gain long term competency.

You can't work three hours a week and make $100,000. Get rich quick doesn't work. Crock pot mentality always defeats microwave mentality!

You must gain control over your money or the lack of it will forever control you.

Broke people giving financial advice is like a shop teacher with missing fingers.

Work - get paid; don't work - don't get paid. Everybody is on commission, .. Try not coming to work for six weeks. Work gets paid; don't work, don't get paid. When they earn those dollars, and when you're 4, and you clean up your room, it really means mom cleaned up the room and you did two toys. When you're 14, it means you cleaned up your room. But still, we got the money caused by work, and then, we have teachable moments on how to handle the money they earn.

Leading a family is the hardest job a man can ever have.

Without a mission statement, you may get to the top of the ladder and then realize it was leaning against the wrong building!

Money is 80% behavior, 20% head knowledge. It's what you do, not what you know.

Those who don't manage their money will always work for those who do

Servant Leadership is the only #leadership that ultimately works.

We started in our living room on a card table in our living room, and we have a multi-million dollar company and we know it can be done without borrowing a dime. It takes a while to get it started and to turn the wheel over, but the next time it's easier and the next few hundred times, it's easier than that. Have a budget where you reinvest a percentage of every dollar you earn to grow it.

The world will try to tell you that you need stuff to be somebody. Don't listen

There's a great place to go when you're broke--to work!

Higher calling matters. When you care so deeply about the why-why you're doing what you're doing-then and only then are you operating in a way that allows you to overcome the obstacles.