From the shelf · 102 money books
Does The Total Money Makeover hold up?
The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey is one of the 102 money books on The Money Shelf. The shelf links it to 3 of the 22 claims that the book tests against official records from the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. Each verdict below comes from that test.
Claim 5 · The book makes this claimDebt snowball: pay off the smallest debt first
Holds with conditionsThe arithmetic favours the highest rate first in every country, and the support for the smallest-balance-first order is behavioural: one observational study of real debt (Gal and McShane) and one lab task (Brown and Lahey), while a third study (Amar and co-authors) found that people tend to pay small debts first, at a cost, and that prompts about accumulated interest helped.
Read the full test →Claim 6 · The book makes this claimEmergency fund: keep three to six months of expenses in cash
Holds with conditionsUK and Australian guidance supports a buffer of three months or more, and the US guide leaves the amount to the household.
Read the full test →Claim 16 · Linked to the book by the shelf; its publisher’s description does not confirm itRent or buy: buying a home builds more wealth than renting
Not establishedOwners hold far more wealth than renters in the US, Great Britain and Australia, and a long-run study of 16 economies finds that housing returned about as much as shares with less variation, yet the gap can reflect who becomes an owner as well as what ownership does (inference by this audit).
Read the full test →The Total Money Makeover raised the question. The records take it further: every figure dated, every source named, and the arithmetic worked through for three countries.
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