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He has a lot of great principles, but weddings aside he mainly preaches for people to not use credit at all. This in itself is not a great idea because if you don't maintain any sort of credit or go cutting up your cards, you won't have any credit and that's just as a bad as having bad credit. In order to have "good credit" you need to have active credit accounts. When you go to apply for a mortgage or a house, you need to have good credit history. I'm sure most of us would love to have cash to plunk down on a house, but in reality that just isn't the case. 

I think if he could encourage responsible use of credit cards rather than not using credit at all, he'd really be on to something. I personally put everything on my cards all month long as if I am using it like my debit card. I pay it off about 2x a month and rake in a ton of rewards (cash back mostly) I was averaging about $100-125+ a month for a while on my chase card, but switched to another card recently that gives me rewards back by way of a credit towards the princple on my mortgage. Now to me, that makes a lot more sense that paying with cash...

So, I guess my point is that just because you use credit to buy something, doesn't necessarily mean you are in "debt". If you pay it off and you wind up better than you were before....it puts you ahead. It's just having the willpower to do it and I wish he would teach that instead. That using credit does not necessarily = debt and he should encourage people to spend responsibly.  He does have some great advice though to those that are already in a lot of debt and how to snowball it down. I suppose a great majority of his listeners are in this position and maybe that's why he suggests that route. Sometimes it's too hard for people to break the cycle. I just wish he would distinguish the difference.

A little background on me...I had my credit destroyed about 10 years ago by an ex. It took me a year or two to know what had happened, and when I say destroyed, the guy had credit cards in my name, he had utility bills in my name...somehow he had his HOSPITAL bills in my name. I was young and never married or even engaged to him and have no idea how he did this. I spent YEARS cleaning up this mess and more often than not paying off bills that had nothing to do with me just to get them off my credit report. I couldn't get any credit of my own and I found out just how hard life was with bad credit. Getting an apartment, job, etc. I suffered for years cleaning up this mess that had nothing to do with me and now that it's all cleaned up I can appreciate how incredibly important it is to have good credit. So, I just worry that his listeners will chop up their cards and never use credit...which will lead to them having no credit at all and then when they really need to buy something like a house, they won't be able to...

Just wanted to give some history so I didn't seem like a big B.

If you could pay off the smaller cards, it would be a good idea to do that. Then you take all the money you would have been paying as the "minimum monthly payment" on those smaller cards and pay that in addition to what you were already paying on the bigger balance card. So, you are still paying the same monthly payment basically, you are just lumping it into one bigger payment on the highest balance card, once the smaller ones are paid off.

Did I explain that okay? I haven't had my coffee yet and I'm exhausted.

I hear you Charmedlife and agree for the most part. I put 25% down on my home, but still could not get the mortgage for the other 75% without credit. That's my only concern. I am debt free and agree with his overall principle I just think that he needs to teach people that there is more to credit than credit cards and everyone does need a good credit history these days...from getting a mortgage, to a job in some fields, to getting better insurance rates (which I think is ridiculus, but they still do it) to get a bank account at many places today. My credit was just pulled to open a SAVINGS account a few weeks ago at a local bank. So, all I'm trying to say is that it IS important to have good credit and having no credit is almost as bad as actually having bad credit. That's my only beef with Dave Ramsey. I think his appraoch to eliminating debt is right on!