Want to learn the ideas in The Total Money Makeover better than ever? Read the world’s #1 book summary of The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey here.

Read a brief 1-Page Summary or watch video summaries curated by our expert team. Note: this book guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by the publisher or author, and we always encourage you to purchase and read the full book.

Video Summaries of The Total Money Makeover

We’ve scoured the Internet for the very best videos on The Total Money Makeover, from high-quality videos summaries to interviews or commentary by Dave Ramsey.

1-Page Summary of The Total Money Makeover

Introduction

Imagine a life without debt. You’d have no monthly payments on credit cards, car loans, student loans or mortgages. However, most people are in denial about their debt problems and don’t know how to fix them. The solution is the TotalMoney Makeover plan that will help you get out of debt by following seven steps: 1) Save $1,000; 2) Pay off all your debts from smallest to largest balance; 3) Build an emergency fund; 4) Invest in retirement savings; 5) Save for college with cash and scholarships instead of taking out student loans; 6) Pay off your mortgage completely so that you can live free of financial obligations later in life when you’re retired; 7 ) Invest wisely so that your money grows faster than inflation over time so it does more work for you while you do less work yourself.

Getting financially fit requires you to take a hard look at your beliefs and behaviors around money. If you’re not wealthy, the only person responsible for that is you. You’ve probably been buying into instant gratification and appearing wealthy.

If you want to be wealthy, you must work hard and save your money. No one is going to help you get rich except for yourself, so don’t expect anyone else to do it for you.

Denial: I’m Not That Out of Shape

In order to change your financial beliefs, you must first recognize that you’re in denial about them. One of the biggest reasons why people don’t make changes is because they deny their problems and ignore them until they become too big to handle. Kelly took out a loan for $20,000 to furnish her apartment while she was in school. She thought it would be easy enough to pay off after graduation when she had a job. However, by the time she graduated, her loan grew from $20,000 into over $40,000 due to interest charges and deferring payment on it. This made her unable to afford payments on this large debt so she kept pushing back making these payments until one day when she realized how much money was actually owed.

In the US, it’s easy to seem as if you are financially fit when you’re actually in financial trouble. With credit and debt, people can have a lifestyle that makes them look rich—when they’re not. Therefore, most of those who live beyond their means end up feeling nervous about paring back. They’re afraid of looking like phonies to other people on account of their high-profile lifestyle or lavish spending habits in the past. People find it difficult to change because they feel bad about themselves and worry about money; if your status changes, this will be a hardship on them as well.

Debt Myths

Wealth

Cars

Financial and banking industries promote myths about debt. They make money off of your debt, so they depend on these myths to survive. You might think that having a lot of debt is just something you have to deal with in life. But it’s possible to live without any debt at all by avoiding certain things like buying cars on credit or using credit cards for purchases. Many people believe that being in debt can be used as a tool for wealth creation—but this isn’t true because wealthy people don’t use much debt at all, and those who do often lose their wealth quickly due to the risk involved with borrowing money instead of saving up cash before making big purchases like houses or cars later on.

Second, some may assume that wealthy people lease cars because they want to avoid the risk of depreciation. In fact, leasing a car is the most expensive way to drive it. If you lease a $22,000 car for three years and return it at the end of those three years with $10,000 worth of wear and tear on it, someone has paid for that depreciation—and probably made money in the process.