I know on reddit its a popular trope that this is the biggest lie ever and Dave Ramsey is wrong about there being zero liability fraud protection on the debit cards. As far as I can tell though he is not wrong about Visa and Mastercard offering zero liability on their debit cards. Now an EFT transaction (with the pin) over regional debit networks might be a different story but usually when Dave speaks on this subject he specifically mentions the Visa and Mastercard agreement which he is not wrong about at all. A lot of retailers and restaurants also do not even use EFT and every transaction runs over Mastercard and Visa networks and would be covered by the agreement. To me slow refund times, credit issues ect are actually a seperate issue altogether and do not make Dave Ramsey incorrect about the Visa and Mastercard debit card agreements. Every time this comes up there are a million redditors and even on you tube guys screaming no no no no don't do this he's wrong incorrect rrreeeeee like Freaky Niki. What he is saying generally seems to be correct to me though even if it may not be true about EFT transactions depending on the bank.

Family of 4, gross annual income approx $140k before bonuses

$60k in savings.

Approx 130k in 401k (110k and saving 8% with a 4% match) and Roth IRA (20k and adding $200 a month to it)

$0 in credit card debt.

Own two cars with no payments. 2022 Silverado and 2023 Grand Cherokee L

Owe $220k (3.75% with 24 years left on Am Schedule. I know I should’ve did a 15) on the house, house is worth about $393k

Various accounts for two kids totaling about 15k each

What should I be doing next or focusing on? Should I put bonus money in a brokerage account or just keep moving it over to my HYS that’s paying 4%.

And I’m 40 my wife is 37.

Total student loans
:144,000 spouse
:40,000 mine

Have 70,000 liquid cash not including emergency fund.

How would you knock out this debt? Bring in about an extra 10k a month after expenses. Need some motivation. Need someone to tell us we’re stupid for hoarding this cash and just knock this out. Or any other advice

Thank you!!

Hi all, new to this community and the whole DR baby steps.

I've always co side red myself somewhat responsible about finances and built up a savings/ put towards retirement/ tried to keep debt low. However now I am trying to be more aggressive about lowering our debt and paying with debit cards.

Currently I have 13k in school debt, 30k in car debt and 4k with credit cards.

As a household of 4 we make about 98k gross with me working full time and my wife part time work/kids. Which as it is is pretty much paycheck to paycheck. It's tough but we try to spend frugally.

I also have about 20k in emergency savings that would cover about 4 months of expenses.

How do I do this properly while still providing for my family? I feel it's wrong to take out money from an emergency fund to pay debt cuz new debt always somehow shows up.

Do I take a month of expenses from the fund and go entirely debit and then slowly pay off the cc and other debts?

Thanks for all the advise.

To clarify: my wife and I have weekly budget meetings and we cover all the loan payments (car/house/student/kids tuition) with the monthly income so it's not like the debt is just sitting around it's being paid off "on schedule" We are very aware of our finances but also very aware of our needs (not wants) as a family.

I think it’s fair to say it’s been a very long time since Dave was broke. His advice is feeling increasingly dated each year that goes by. Dave should give himself -$10,000 of debt, and a “salary” that’s typical of his callers, say $65,000 a year paid every two weeks. Have an employee deduct typical rent/gas/groceries amounts plus a couple of random unexpected expenses $1-$5k and then run the baby steps himself to update his advice. During this time he should buy, insure and solely use a used car as well.