Dave Ramsey is Wrong About FICO Scores (You Don’t Need to Pay Interest)

Dave Ramsey Is Wrong About FICO Scores: You Don’t Need to Pay “Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars” in Interest to Build Credit

Justin Vacula of the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast records an impromptu response to Dave Ramsey’s video “This Is What Your FICO Score Really Means,” arguing that Ramsey mischaracterizes how FICO scores, credit cards, debt, and responsible credit use actually work.

Original Dave Ramsey clip

In this episode, Justin responds point-by-point to Ramsey’s claims that high FICO scores require paying interest, borrowing money, “loving debt,” and playing “kissy face” with the banks. Justin explains that you can build and maintain a strong credit score by using credit cards responsibly, paying balances in full, avoiding overspending, and managing utilization, without paying a penny of credit card interest.

Justin also discusses why credit scores matter in real life, including renting apartments, setting up utilities, and accessing better financial options. He challenges Ramsey’s framing that all credit use equals debt.

The episode also covers Ramsey’s claims about debt-to-income and FICO scoring, the difference between debt and credit usage, the practical value of strong credit, and what Justin sees as inconsistencies in Ramsey’s advice, including being okay with mortgages while treating responsible credit card use as dangerous.

Justin also shares how disciplined credit card use has helped him earn rewards, points, miles, travel benefits, and real financial value without carrying balances or paying interest.

Timestamps

00:00 Dave Ramsey Misleads

01:25 Debt Versus Responsible Credit Use

02:41 FICO And Financial Health

06:13 “Kissy Face” And Real-Life Needs

07:51 Income Myths And Smart Leverage

10:22 Frugal Dining And Rewards

11:36 “I Love Debt” Claim Debunked

13:51 Costly FICO Scare Tactics

18:42 Zero Score And Travel Value

21:09 Borrowing Money Word Games

26:41 Mortgage Exception And Better Logic

28:39 Final Take: Responsibility Wins

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Rough Transcript:

Justin Vacula here with the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast, another impromptu recording responding to Dave Ramsey. I sometimes hear from people, “Oh, well, Dave Ramsey is helping people. Dave Ramsey is just for people who aren’t good with personal finance,” to which I say that Dave Ramsey is constantly misrepresenting credit.

It’s all about fear. He won’t admit that credit can actually be used for good, that you can be responsible, disciplined, not overspend, not pay [00:01:00] interest, but he makes all these blanket statements, these generalizations, and in this video, titled This Is What Your FICO Score Really Means, there’s just a lot of false information.

It’s gone way beyond, “Hey, don’t use credit cards if you lack responsibility.” I think Dave Ramsey knows better, but he’s just saying things that are false and that really make no sense, as if he’s America’s voice on money, as we often hear from him, the media, and so many more.

We’ll get into it directly responding to the video. I’ll play a little bit of what he has to say, pause the video, and respond. I don’t want to go on too long, because there might be copyright strikes if I just let him talk for 20 seconds, 30 seconds at a time.

So I’ll frequently pause the video and respond to him point by point. And right from the beginning, we’re just going to hear false information from Dave Ramsey. Not, “Oh, Dave is just helping people. Dave is just telling people not to go into debt. He’s helping people stay out of debt.”

100% [00:02:00] of your credit score is based on you interacting with debt. Okay, that’s a misrepresentation right from the beginning, interacting with debt. So here’s an example. I have a credit card with a $1,000 credit limit. I charge $200 to the credit card. I pay it off. I pay no interest. I don’t overspend. Is this interacting with debt?

Superficially, yes, but it’s not going into debt. It’s not being irresponsible. It’s not overspending, and it’s also not 100% either.. If it’s not going into debt, is it really interacting with debt? If I charge something today, pay it off after it posts, I’m not going into debt. I’m interacting with debt, but this isn’t much different than if I were to use a debit card or cash.

If I make a $200 purchase, I pay it off in [00:03:00] three days, I don’t pay any interest, then am I really interacting with debt? Superficially so, but I’m not going into debt. Let’s continue the video

Your FICO score is not determined by you winning financially. Okay, it is determined by you winning financially because if you’re overspending, you’re paying interest, you’re maxing out cards, you’re being irresponsible, then you’re losing financially, and your FICO score is going to go down because a large part that determines your credit score is credit utilization.

Now, Dave Ramsey, I’ve never heard him talk about this, and he clearly misunderstands this, or he’s just lying to people. I think he knows better. If you have a thousand dollar credit limit, you close your statement with nine hundred dollars on the credit card, your score is going to massively go down because you’ve used ninety percent of the credit limit on that [00:04:00] card.

You pay it off, your score is not going to tank, and you’re going to have a high score. But if you’re irresponsible, you’re not paying balances in full on statement close, you’re paying interest, you’re carrying balances, you’re not going to have a high FICO score because your credit utilization is extremely high

Your boss could walk in today, he’s not going to, she’s not going to, and say, “You now make a million dollars a year, and your FICO score will not change one point.”

If you got a million dollars from work, you could use that to pay credit card balances, and you won’t be carrying balances, assuming you’re responsible with that money.

You have more money, and you could use that to pay off your cards, and then you won’t have high utilization

The phone could ring and your grandmother could say your rich uncle that you didn’t know you had just died and left you $10 million and [00:05:00] your FICO score will not change one point. Or you could use that $10 million to zero out all your credit card balances. And if you’re a responsible adult, you would have all this money and you would have high FICO scores because you’re managing credit responsibly.

You’re not overspending. You’re not carrying balances. This example is even better because you wouldn’t have to wait on a paycheck or salary or whatever the case is. You would have extra money and you could use that money. But we don’t hear these things in Dave Ramsey world about moderation, about responsibility, about financial discipline, about don’t overspend on credit.

Dave Ramsey instead is just going to demonize your credit scores, your FICO scores and say it’s all bad. You shouldn’t have a FICO score. It’s all terrible. The banks are evil.

Your FICO score is not a sign you are winning with money. But it is, or at least it’s more likely that you’re winning with money. Imagine you have two candidates who [00:06:00] are in contention for renting your apartment. One person comes in and their scores are extremely low. You see their credit report, you pulled their credit.

Would you give the apartment to that person? Or someone comes in and they have high scores in the 700s. It shows they’ve been paying everything on time. They don’t have high utilization. It’s more likely that that person is winning with money if they have a high FICO score compared to people who have low scores because they’re carrying balances, because they’re overspending, because they’re paying interest on credit cards.

Now, it’s not 100% of the picture, we don’t see the full picture with someone’s FICO score.

But on average, I would wager that someone with a high FICO score is actually doing better than a person with a low FICO score. It’s a sign you have played kissy face with the bank If I make charges on a credit card and pay it off, is this kissy face? Why do we call it kissy face? Why can’t we just say this is being responsible with [00:07:00] money if you pay your credit cards in full?

That we could say and be honest, Dave Ramsey, that credit cards can be used intelligently and responsibly, and they’re okay to use if you have financial discipline, if you can pay balances in full, if you’re not going to overspend, but we don’t hear any of this from Dave Ramsey. And there’s also an out-of-touch criticism because many people who don’t have the kind of money that Dave Ramsey has will desire or even need or want a high FICO score in order to have a cell phone plan, in order to finance a car because they don’t have nine thousand, ten thousand dollars to pay cash in full for a vehicle.

Maybe they want to rent, as I mentioned, and the landlord wants to pull credit. Now, Dave Ramsey talks, “Oh, well, you could do manual underwriting. Oh, you can go through all this and that.” But why go through all these extra steps, that often pay Dave Ramsey a commission, by the way, if we could just be responsible with credit?

I hear from Dave Ramsey fans, “Oh, you can’t be winning with credit because the banks have a lot of money.” [00:08:00] They’re just repeating what Dave Ramsey says, but they don’t talk about any responsibility. They don’t talk about any discipline. They’re just saying no to credit, and that’s really silly because using credit responsibly is much better than just completely opting out if you could be responsible.

But Dave Ramsey never talking about being responsible. It’s just all credit is bad and misinformation about credit scoring. The very basics of personal finance that Dave Ramsey is often considered some expert in personal finance, but he can’t even get basic things about credit or credit scoring correct It is based on the debt that you have, the debt load, the type of debt, the length of time

he’s using the word debt again instead of credit, but it’s not necessarily debt if we’re just paying balances in full.

There can be a person who makes charges to a credit card, pays in full every week, and they’re not in debt They are showing zero credit [00:09:00] utilization or very low credit utilization. There might be some delays in postings, but no big deal. And they’re going to have a high FICO score. They’re not going into debt, but Dave Ramsey is just considering it all as debt when it’s not, or it’s superficially so if you’re just paying balances in full and not overspending.

You’ve had the debt, the ratio of the debt to your income

it’s not based on debt to income. There’s definitely no scoring whatsoever in a FICO score about what your income is. He even said that earlier, but now he’s saying that, “Oh, well, oh, your income.” Well, what is it, Dave? You said earlier that it’s not based on your income, but now you’re saying that it is.

So what is it, Dave? How you have paid the payments on your debt. Okay, but you’re not really paying payments on debt if you’re just paying everything in full. Or you have a low-interest auto loan. Let’s say you’re paying 3%, 4%, maybe [00:10:00] even higher, but it makes sense for you to do that because you don’t have the cash in full, or you could just invest money in a high-yield savings or checking account.

Right now, I have the open bank savings account with Verizon that’s issued by Santander or Santander Bank. It’s around 4% APY, and I’m getting $15 off my phone bill every month. I’m more than happy to have money sitting in that account, earning interest, and saving on my phone bill. Now, $15 a month isn’t that big of a deal, but I’m happy to take it.

Why not? If I have extra money, I can park it there instead of paying my low-interest auto loan. It’s a close call, but why pay everything in advance if I have a low rate and I could just make money on that interest? But Dave Ramsey doesn’t want to acknowledge that. We almost hear nothing about high-yield savings accounts in his show, and it’s all, “Oh, don’t have any debt.

Pay everything off in full. Don’t leverage. You’re in debt. It’s terrible.” He even says, “If you’re in debt, you should never see the inside of a restaurant,” [00:11:00] which is very extreme and foolish because there are a lot of ways to save money on eating out. I’ve been using the PAZE digital wallet, P-A-Z-E, for several weeks now, recording in July of 2026, getting $10 off a purchase of $10 or more.

I’m a Panera SIP Club member. I’m paying about $10 a month for basically unlimited drinks or free drinks every two hours and free refills. I get birthday deals for free. There are a lot of restaurant promotions in my area and surely your area, listeners, to eat very low cost going out. It makes sense for social reasons as long as you’re not overspending.

But I maintain my frugal cred. I go to restaurants. I’m almost never spending money on alcohol, on drinks, on desserts. I’m just getting water because water is free. and I’m using credit card dining benefits. Oh no, don’t tell anybody about that Dave Ramsey, and many other ways to save. But Dave Ramsey won’t acknowledge any of this.

He’s just saying that it’s all bad. He’s using this debt [00:12:00] word to scare you, and he’s just assuming that no one is responsible. I think it’s projection in many cases on behalf of these Dave Ramsey fans. They’re not responsible with money, so they think that no one can be responsible with money It is an I love debt score.

It’s not an I love debt score. It’s showing that you can be responsible with money. That’s what it’s showing you if you have a high score. If you have a low FICO score, then you’re not being responsible with money because you’re overspending, you’re paying interest, you’re maxing out credit cards, but we’re not hearing any of this from Dave Ramsey.

Mathematically speaking, the algorithm says that you, the way to have a 750 or 810 FICO score

he doesn’t even know what the numbers are. He could just say high 700s. It’s okay, Dave. It’s okay. Mathematically speaking, because of course America loves math, so let’s see what [00:13:00] is mathematically speaking.

Only way to have that is to really, really love debt.

I don’t love debt. I pay my credit card balances in full. I think that overspending and paying interest is dumb, so I don’t do it. I don’t love debt. I love credit. I love getting miles and points, cash back.

I love leveraging. I love statement credits. I love dining credits. I love travel benefits. I can fly business class overseas and pay next to nothing using points, just paying small taxes and fees. I love staying at nice hotels. I love being able to travel wherever I want. Dave Ramsey says, “Oh, just pay for your own God dang vacation,” and I think that’s really dumb if you could responsibly use credit.

I love freedom, I love flexibility, I love credit, but Dave Ramsey is not telling you any of this, and he’s just saying, “Oh, you love debt if you have a high FICO score.” But again, if you’re carrying balances and you’re paying interest, you’re not going to [00:14:00] have a high FICO score because your credit utilization is high, but Dave Ramsey isn’t acknowledging any of this.

You have to keep a lot of it, and you have to pay it. Okay, we’re not keeping debt, Dave. We’re paying our balances off in full. We’re paying our credit cards in full, and we don’t have a lot of it, and if we had a lot of it, we wouldn’t have high FICO scores. It will cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars over a decade to build a FICO score

that’s just so false, it’s ridiculous, and no one should be giving Dave Ramsey any platform, any credibility. I’m responding to him here because it’s so ridiculous, and he still has, for some reason, good reputation, even though he’s just getting super, super basic things about personal finance wrong. He’s getting invited by churches to come in and speak.

People are paying him thousands of dollars. He’s promoting a cruise where you could pay $1,500 to have lunch with Dave Ramsey, and he can’t even get the basics [00:15:00] on personal finance right. I’ll rewind that just a little bit. We’re only a minute and 40 seconds into the video. I’ve recorded for about 15 minutes, and there’s just so much bad information.

Again, people will defend Ramsey and say, “Oh, well, he’s good for people that aren’t good with money,” but he’s just factually false. He can’t even get basic things correct. Just be honest with people Dave Ramsey. We’ll rewind that 10 seconds because that was incredibly ridiculous.

You have to keep a lot of it and you have to pay it. If you pay it, then you won’t be keeping a lot of it. You’re paying balances in full, so then how are you keeping debt? It will cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars over a decade to build a FICO .

No, you can build a high FICO score in just a matter of a year or a few years. You can have your parents add you as an authorized user to their credit cards, and when you’re 16, when you’re 18, you can get cards of your own and then have high FICO scores. It won’t [00:16:00] take decades, and it definitely doesn’t take hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars. You can have one credit card with a small limit and still have a high FICO score. But of course, the answer to everything is more credit cards, and you should have a lot of them as long as you’re responsible, because you’re getting big welcome bonuses, you’re getting travel benefits, you’re getting bonus categories.

But Dave Ramsey never acknowledges any of this, and he’s just claiming everyone’s overspending. You have to spend $100,000 on Discover to get $1,000, which is not true, because Discover cards often have bonus categories. And it’s a straw man because almost no one is spending $100,000 on a Discover credit card.

They’re spending on many other cards, and they’re not only spending at 1%, it’s also money that people would be spending anyway. They’re not just going out and buying designer clothes just to get 1% cash back. That’s really silly, Dave. Keep a [00:17:00] FICO score of 800 because that’s the only way that FICO score is calculated.

It’s not the only way it’s calculated by paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest. This is pants-on-fire false. How does Dave have any credibility? Why do people still defend Dave Ramsey? How many more lawsuits does Dave Ramsey have to be named in before people stop supporting him?

How much more does he have to fleece his own subscribers, charging $1,500 for a lunch? How worse is it going to get? It is not an I’m winning with money score. It’s an I love to support the bank because they’re so awesome. No. If you have a high FICO score, you’re paying everything in full, you are winning with money.

You don’t love the banks. You’re not in love with the banks. This isn’t a thing where, “Oh, well, look, ah, Chase, you’re so great. I’m just gonna pay interest and just give you money.” No one is doing that. Now, the people who aren’t using credit responsibly, it’s [00:18:00] not because they love the banks, it’s because they’re making poor choices.

Now, there is a small exception. I can have some sympathy for people who maybe had some sort of medical emergency. They got overcharged for some procedure. They have a complicated medical situation. There was some fraud, some people charging on their cards that they didn’t authorize, some relationships going south.

There are those edge cases, but for the most part, I would say it’s people overspending. It’s people not being responsible. But alternatively, you can be a responsible adult, get your finances in order, embrace the frugal lifestyle, be responsible with your spending, and gain so much from credit cards. And if you can’t do that, it’s not the banks that are evil, it’s you who are making poor choices.

It’s your consequences for your actions, for your overspending, for your poor choices. So please be a responsible adult and get your financial life in order rather than just saying the banks are evil, credit cards are evil, everyone [00:19:00] overspends, because it’s simply not true.

In other words, just dumber than a freaking rock

now we’re just going on personal attacks here rather than describing anything. I don’t really know what the point of this is. So here’s what happens. When you quit borrowing money and you’ve paid off all of your debt and you don’t have a single account open, your FICO score will disappear. Or you could just pay all of your credit cards in full, not pay interest, and still have a FICO score.

And are you really paying debt if you’re just paying everything off? No, we’ve addressed that many times, but he keeps saying it. You can pay your balances in full, and you can still have a high FICO score, paying zero interest, Dave Ramsey, and still have high FICO score. But now he’s gonna go on this thing about, “Oh, I’ve canceled everything.

I don’t have any relationship with the bank, and they’re thinking I’m weird.” This is Dave Ramsey, who is supposed to be this financial expert, [00:20:00] but he’s not engaging with the system where he can make cash back, points, miles, get travel benefits. He’s just paying cash in full for his travel.

I think that’s incredibly dumb. Anyone who’s paying full price for travel, you’re really, really missing tons of value. Hopefully, this video can be a wake-up call if you’re still listening and you are anti-credit card because alternatively, you can be responsible with credit and have a world of travel. I’m going to Antigua in coming weeks at an all-inclusive resort that would otherwise be $2,000 a night.

I’m staying for three nights using Hilton free night certificates from American Express cards. Earlier this year, I went to Brisbane, Australia. I’ve gone to Poland. I’ve gone to Hawaii, Alaska. I’ve gone on eight cruises in one year, all thanks to credit cards and promotions. And Dave Ramsey just says, “Pay for your own vacation.”

That sounds really dumb. Within about a year As a matter of fact, they will treat you like you have, um, [00:21:00] moved to Mars. Yes. If you’re not engaging with a system that is incredibly rewarding for being a responsible adult, you might as well be on Mars. So what is the problem with Dave Ramsey? Why is he not leveraging credit?

Why is he not getting cash back points and miles? It’s just, “Oh, the banks are evil.” That’s really the argument here. Can Dave Ramsey be responsible with his spending? If so, why is he not getting the rewards? Why is he paying full price for travel? Is it that Dave just has tons of money, he doesn’t care, this is just his brand?

That’s interesting, to say the least. He might as well be on Mars at that point Like you have one eye in the center of your head. Your FICO score is now undeterminable. You mean you can’t determine that I haven’t borrowed money? Okay, he’s saying borrowed money again, but this is superficially so, as I’ve mentioned.

If we have a credit card, we’re using the [00:22:00] bank’s money or the bank’s line of credit, whatever you might wanna call it, and then we’re using our money to pay it back. So are we really borrowing money? Not really, if we’re just paying everything in full. It’s not like we’re taking out a personal loan. The bank is just ACH-ing us, say, $10,000 and we’re paying an interest rate to do that.

We’re using a credit card. We’re paying it in full. I treat it like a debit card in many cases, and I’m not overspending on the card just because the banks say that I can spend. This is very different than I go to the bank and say, “Hey, can I borrow money? Can I take a personal loan?” Or someone lends me $100 and I promise to pay them back.

This is very different. It’s weird how he frames all these things, going into debt, borrowing money, playing kissy face with the banks. It’s just an incredible bias that he has and just not framing it in an honest manner. I think it just means it’s zero, but it’s undeterminable. I don’t see why he has such an issue with this about what they call it.

[00:23:00] He’s opted out. It’s zero. It’s undeterminable. Whatever it is, what does it really matter? And we’re going off topic here. Ooh. It’s like going to the airport. It’s a terminal. I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna do things that- Okay, undeterminable and terminal, it’s a different word root, I suppose.

I don’t understand what… He’s trying to go for humor here. Now the co-host is gonna pop in soon. Terminal. I wanna do things that bring me life. If they say you have terminal cancer, that’s not good, but we go to the airport and we call it a terminal. Okay, now he’s just criticizing the word terminal, but words have very different meanings and uses.

I- Is this some sort of rant against the English language? What is going on here? Undeterminable. Oh. We go to a terminal to board a train, and this isn’t a bad thing. Just because someone has a terminal illness, a train terminal or a train station is not necessarily a bad thing. What is the problem here, Dave Ramsey?

Ooh. Ooh. [00:24:00] Sounds spooky. The problem is, so years ago I quit borrowing money, so I haven’t had a FICO score in like 30 years Um, I’m not really here. I’m off the grid. This is actually a hologram. I don’t really exist.

I really wonder about that though. Is everything that Dave Ramsey has completely based on his own cash?

The studio, the payroll, the bills, his real estate, his properties, is it really all going through a checking account and debit cards? And if so, that sounds incredibly dumb because if he has all these operating expenses, he could at least be earning 2% cash back on those purchases and just paying everything in full using the checking account.

This is a really, really silly position. It’s the dream to be a business owner and have all these operating expenses, and then get at least 2% back on everything, and also getting welcome bonus, travel benefits, high spend goals, and so much more. I talk to people who are business owners. They already have the spend, so the credit card rewards are more meaningful because they’re able to scale things [00:25:00] without having to get into things like reselling and more advanced tactics, let’s say, but that’s a video for another day.

Because according to you people, I don’t have a FICO score, so I’m a nobody. But, uh, according to my banker, I’m a nobody with millions of dollars in her bank Okay. You can also have a million dollars in your bank and have a high FICO score. It’s really foolish not to have the high FICO score and just have this zero or indeterminate or whatever Dave Ramsey is calling it here.

He’s really, really missing out Uh, so, uh, and I still have a zero FICO score

How far is it really going to go? Oh, the banks are evil because they’ve done this or that. They charge interest, but then you’re engaging with all these platforms that have had their problems. You can’t really escape association.

You can live in the mountains, live in a cave and have no engagement with any company, any corporation, but at some point you could just have arguments against almost [00:26:00] any business or the bigger businesses that have engaged in wrongdoing, that have been sued, that have not paid people. They’ve been accused of some human rights abuses.

They’ve polluted the environment, whatever the case might be, but Dave Ramsey is just focusing on the banks being evil, but yet he’s partnering with these different businesses, these big corporations the undeterminable FICO score. And guess who just joined the club? It’s my zero FICO score day. The co-host is celebrating.

She’s missing out on credit card rewards, cash back, low-cost travel, and much more because she’s just listening to what Dave Ramsey says rather than taking advantage of the system. You could choose not to participate, but then you’re paying extra on everything, or almost everything, because merchant fees are jacked up due to their acceptance of credit cards in so many cases.

You’re spending this extra time working for Dave Ramsey to pay for your [00:27:00] travel when instead you could use credit cards, use points, miles, benefits to save on travel. So one way or another, you’re going to pay, and that sounds really, really dumb to just not take advantage of a system that’s here for you to make and save money.

Sold our house in May, took about five and a half months, and my FICO score is zero. That was your only debt. Yep. And you sold the house

He is okay with mortgages. We have heard this from Dave Ramsey in the past, that you can have a reasonable mortgage with a reasonable rate, not something like a 30-year mortgage, or potentially even longer.

So he’s okay with that. He’s okay with engaging with the banks and borrowing money there. He’s used that term borrowing money. That is borrowing money, but then he draws the line at credit cards. You could have a mortgage, but you can’t or shouldn’t have an auto loan, and you can’t or shouldn’t have any credit cards according to Dave, but the mortgage is okay.

So why is one okay and not the other? When you are borrowing money and going into debt, what is the argument there? Oh, you don’t have the money for the house, therefore [00:28:00] you have to take out the mortgage. But with credit cards, you do have the money and you can pay it off, and you could use credit responsibly, like you can drink alcohol responsibly, like you can drive responsibly.

Oh, no, Justin, people abuse alcohol, so therefore people shouldn’t drink alcohol at all because so many people misuse it. They drink too much. They spend too much money on it. Will Dave Ramsey make those arguments? Because that’s how his logic is.

It’s just so laughable. It’s so bad. It’s not about going into debt. It’s not about borrowing more money. You can have more credit limits and not use them. But if you do in a smart way, that makes sense. And then actually over time, your score is going to go up because your utilization improves.

You have more available credit, you have more diversification of credit, your age of accounts go up over time. So why not do this? You can even get business credit cards that don’t appear on personal credit and take advantage of that, and you could use 0% [00:29:00] APR and leverage that for your business as well.

Why not? Why not use $10,000, $15,000 and pay it back later with no interest, Dave? But he’s making it seem like it’s all paying interest

Just because some people are overspending and not being responsible doesn’t mean that everyone is overspending and being irresponsible. This is just so hard for Dave to understand. Justin Vacula here with the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast signing off.

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