Book · 2003
The Total Money Makeover
by Dave Ramsey
A couple kills time in a Hawaii bookstore, reads the whole book in one sitting, and realizes nobody around them can afford the plan.
What does Reddit think of The Total Money Makeover?
r/financialindependence treats it as an origin story: someone picked it up in a Hawaii bookstore, read it in one sitting, and realized nobody in their vacation crowd could afford the plan (↑88). r/Bogleheads is split on the man giving the advice. One high-upvoted comment tells readers outright not to take investment guidance from Dave Ramsey (↑46), while another walks through the debt-snowball steps approvingly, emergency fund through paid-off house (↑32). Nobody here disputes that the early steps work as a sequence. The disagreement starts once Ramsey gets to investing. A single r/Bogleheads commenter credits two decades of boring saving and no big risks for turning an ordinary income into seven figures (↑86), which reads as the closest thing to a rebuttal of the "get rich" genre in this sample. r/datascience and r/Entrepreneur each add one incidental mention.
Community feedback & reader fit
Themes
- · The seven baby steps as a fixed sequence, not a menu
- · Debt-snowball order over which debt actually costs more
- · Boring, mechanical saving instead of stock-picking home runs
- · A credibility split between Ramsey's debt advice and his investing advice
Common praise
- + r/Bogleheads (↑32) types out all seven baby steps in order instead of just name-checking the book.
- + The Hawaii bookstore story in r/financialindependence (↑88) reads the whole thing in one sitting and comes away recalibrated about money.
- + A r/Bogleheads commenter (↑86) credits two decades of boring saving, no home runs, for turning an ordinary income into seven figures.
Common criticism
- − r/Bogleheads' highest-upvoted comment on the book (↑46) tells readers flatly not to take investment advice from Dave Ramsey.
- − The subreddit that engages with it most, r/financialindependence, treats it as an origin story; none of the displayed comments there argue about whether the strategy still works.
- − r/datascience and r/Entrepreneur only surface it in passing, so this sample says little about how it lands outside personal-finance subs.
Who it's for
Pick this up if you want a fixed order of operations instead of a philosophy. r/Bogleheads' commenters lay out the seven steps in sequence, emergency fund to paid-off house, and treat the early ones as non-negotiable. Come from real debt, not from an index-fund message board, and the "boring yet effective" outcome logged in r/Bogleheads, seven figures on an ordinary income, no home runs, reads as evidence instead of a jinx. Already sold on modern portfolio theory over debt-snowball math? Expect friction. One of the highest-upvoted comments on the book here is Bogleheads readers telling each other not to take Ramsey's investing advice once the debt is gone.
Mentions over time
Top subreddits
Which Reddit comments matter for The Total Money Makeover?
The most relevant excerpts across the subreddits where this book is mentioned — opinionated, argued takes first, then top-upvoted mentions. Click through to read the full thread.
“I'm 44 and started reading "The Simple Path to Wealth" this past Saturday morning, and finished reading it on Saturday night at 11pm. Spent this week planning on breaking up with my Financial Advisor of 15 years on January 2nd, transferring IRA and Roth IRA to a brokerage of my choice and move to lo…
“3 books are must read. 1.Your money or your life, By Joe Dominguez, and Vicki Tobin. This book is primarily theoretical, in that it talks of your relationship with money. an example might be..Was that nice meal, worth 6 hours of your life in labor to earn? 2. Total Money Makeover, by Dave Ramsey. P…
“Although targeted towards high income earners and contains additional details for medical professionals, The White Coat Investor is one of my favorites. Whatever you do, do not listen to Dave Ramsey for investment advice (e.g. The Total Money Makeover). I know his name hasn’t been mentioned at all …
“Its only fair that I mention those missteps. Discovered Dave Ramsey and bought his book Total Money Makeover. Though it helped me get out of debt I will not recommend it. 1. He talks about himself 75% of the book. 2. Only his debt advice is relevant. I have sense blocked his channel from my YouTub…
“I know Dave Ramsey doesn't get much love in the FIRE community, but maybe this person should at least read Total Money Makeover to get started improving their financial health. You can't just go from paycheck-to-paycheck to FIRE. They will certainly need to correct the underlying issues first.
“Anyone listened to "The Total Money Makeover" narrated by the Dave himself? It has had me in stitches all morning.
“Total Money Makeover is a fine book. There's nothing revolutionary in it as it's just basic math and basic psychology but I did keep his debt snowball method in mind when achieving my goal of eliminating debt.
“I don't know. For us, it gave us a neutral 3rd party to bring our differences about money to light and allowed us to systematize getting out of debt and off of the cycle of bad debt. ("Credit cards are just something you use whenever you want" was a common refrain in our house). We knew all of thes…
“Stay as far away as you can from Dave Ramsey’s investment advice. He has major conflict of interests and is constantly plugging his “smartvestor pros” (whom he obviously gets a cut from) whom he says can outperform index funds. He even tells people to go to these advisors for super simple DIY things…
“You marry your in-laws. If you didn’t account for this before marriage, you made a mistake my friend. As for the land, many things can be salvaged through hard work. Might I recommend Dave Ramseys Total Money Makeover? It did wonders for me, getting me out of 50k of debt and helping build a susta…
“Check out The Simple Path To Wealth by JL Collins and maybe Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. They are pretty good starter books. The real answer is to read as many as you can and develop your own financial philosophy. There’s a reason it’s called PERSONAL finance. What works for some people her…
“Is financial peace really any good? I read Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover and it was one of the worst books I’ve ever read. Philosophically, I really connect with his no debt approach, but the book was just awful.
“I know this isn't popular here, but Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover changed my mindset on money early on. My fiance at the time had significant law school debt and without that we'd probably still be paying on it.
“Buy her the Total Money Makeover as a gift and tell her to call you if she has questions. No need to stress yourself over it. Either she reads it and it is a reality call...or it wont and never will.
“Any book recommendations? I’ve recently read The Total Money Makeover which kind of kickstarted all this when I accelerated my student loan pay downs. Thinking of diving deeper into FIRE and I’m a book learner for sure (trying to get into podcasts too)
Convinced? Pick up The Total Money Makeover
Readers also mention
Books that share discussion threads with The Total Money Makeover — counted from the comments, not curated.
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Ranked best-of lists and editorial guides where this book's tracked mentions place it.
The Total Money Makeover — frequently asked
Does Reddit trust The Total Money Makeover's investing advice?+
Largely no, once the debt is paid off. r/Bogleheads' top comment on the book (↑46) tells readers explicitly not to take Dave Ramsey's investment guidance, even as the same subreddit credits the underlying habits, saving steadily with no big swings, for a real seven-figure outcome. The debt-payoff steps and the investing chapters get judged separately in this sample.
Is The Total Money Makeover just for people currently in debt?+
In this sample, the strongest praise comes from a reader who'd already paid debt off years earlier. r/Bogleheads' ↑86 comment credits steady saving and no big risks for a seven-figure outcome on a 50-100K income. r/financialindependence's top mention (↑88) is more about recalibrating expectations than escaping debt.
What does r/financialindependence think of The Total Money Makeover?+
It shows up as an origin story, not an ongoing debate. One reader picked it up in a Hawaii bookstore, finished it in one sitting, and realized their vacation companions couldn't afford Ramsey's plan (↑88). Another comment in the same subreddit lists it alongside Your Money or Your Life as one of three books that commenter says come first (↑74).
Should Bogleheads readers actually follow The Total Money Makeover?+
Partially, per this sample. The debt-snowball sequence gets typed out approvingly (↑32), but the subreddit's highest-upvoted comment on the book (↑46) warns against taking investment advice from Ramsey once the debt is handled. Follow the first half, look elsewhere for the second: that's the shape of the disagreement here.