Dave Ramsey

Dave Ramsey (legal name David Lawrence Ramsey III, born September 3, 1960, according to Wikipedia) is an American personal finance author and broadcaster. He holds a bachelor's degree in finance and real estate from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and filed for bankruptcy in 1988 after the collapse of his real estate business. According to the Ramsey Solutions website, he then began offering financial counseling at his church and formed The Lampo Group, the company now operating as Ramsey Solutions in Franklin, Tennessee, where he is founder and CEO. His company describes its mission as "biblically based" money education.

He hosts The Ramsey Show, a call-in radio program also distributed as a podcast and on YouTube. The official YouTube channel @TheRamseyShow showed 4.59 million subscribers and his TikTok account @daveramsey showed 3.3 million followers, both read on September 14, 2026. His method is built around a sequence of "Baby Steps" for paying off debt and building savings. Books under his name include Financial Peace, The Total Money Makeover (updated 20th anniversary edition published by Thomas Nelson in May 2024) and Baby Steps Millionaires.

His main paid education product is Financial Peace University (FPU), a nine-lesson video course that can be taken alone or in in-person or virtual groups. On the Ramsey store it is listed at $99.99 with one year of access, a self-study workbook and three months of the EveryDollar budgeting app. Financial Peace All Access is an annual subscription at $129.99 for the first year, renewing at $119.99, which adds a full year of EveryDollar, more than 20 audiobooks, live group budgeting coaching and additional video content (prices read on September 14, 2026). The company also sells the EveryDollar app separately and runs Financial Coach Master Training, a program for people who want to work as financial coaches; its official pages stated that enrollment was closed and not accepting new coaches in 2026. Ramsey Solutions' figures on how many people have taken FPU or paid off debt are its own claims and have no independent verification.

Regulatory records: Dave Ramsey presents himself as a personal finance educator, not as a registered investment adviser. A search of FINRA BrokerCheck and the SEC's Investment Adviser Public Disclosure (IAPD) on September 14, 2026 returned no record under "David Lawrence Ramsey" and no registered individual named David Ramsey located in Tennessee. No FTC action under his name was found in a search on the same date; an FTC case against the fintech company Dave, Inc. is unrelated to him.

Litigation: In April 2023, seventeen listeners filed a proposed class action (Patrick v. Ramsey, W.D. Washington, No. 2:23-cv-00630) against Ramsey, The Lampo Group and the marketing firm Happy Hour Media Group, alleging that Ramsey was paid more than $30 million between 2015 and 2021 to promote Timeshare Exit Team (Reed Hein & Associates) on his show (CBS News, June 5, 2023). Reed Hein had agreed in 2021 to pay $2.61 million to resolve a lawsuit by the Washington State Attorney General and later shut down. Ramsey and his company did not respond to CBS MoneyWatch's request for comment. The district court dismissed the unjust enrichment claim but let other claims proceed, and denied the defendants' motion to compel arbitration; on November 12, 2025 the Ninth Circuit affirmed that denial in an unpublished memorandum, so the case continues in district court. No verdict or settlement had been located as of September 14, 2026.

Two former employees have sued Ramsey Solutions for religious discrimination. Caitlin O'Connor (O'Connor v. The Lampo Group, M.D. Tennessee) says she was fired in 2020 after telling her employer she was pregnant and unmarried; the company says she was dismissed for violating its written policy against premarital sex, a policy under which it acknowledged firing other employees (NBC News). In June 2025 the judge reconsidered an earlier ruling and allowed her claim to proceed (Religion News Service, June 2025). Brad Amos, a former video editor, says he was fired in 2020 over his stance on COVID-19 precautions; his suit was dismissed in December 2023, and in August 2024 the Sixth Circuit reinstated the religious discrimination claim while upholding the dismissal of his other claims (Nashville Banner, August 9, 2024). No final verdict or settlement in either case had been located as of September 14, 2026.

Not confirmed: current enrollment figures for FPU, and the reopening date or price of Financial Coach Master Training, since no current official price was published.