ziggy29
Moderator Emeritus
Yeah, but for the average person that needs Dave Ramsey's advice - staying away from credit in any form is a darn good idea. Most of them are in way over their heads on cc debt, student loans and mortgages on too much house. Too many of them have not learned their lesson, and if you paid their debt off they would be back in over their heads before you knew it. Telling these people it's okay to take on some debt is like telling the fat ballerina it's okay to have just one cupcake.
Sure, I agree that Dave needs to talk to the "lowest common denominator" on his radio and TV shows, because as soon as someone admits there are exception, *everyone* will think their situation is the exception and it usually isn't. And that can get them in big trouble.
But the audience on this board is not the audience on the radio show. The folks on this board are considerably more financially literate in the average case than the typical listener or caller to his radio show. So in *this* forum I think it's reasonable to accept (or at least entertain the idea) that there can be exceptions to his rules -- providing you have the savvy to have good reason to believe you may be one and providing that you've demonstrated such with responsible money management in the past. For example, I would never advocate charging routine expenses on a credit card and paying it off at the end of the month to someone unless I *knew* they had a significant history of responsible use of credit and not carrying balances. To someone who had recent credit problems and had not convinced me they were "cured" of bad habits with credit, I would say "cash only" all the way.