Dave Ramsey
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40 free Dave Ramsey trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Dave Ramsey has spent more than three decades telling America to stop borrowing. Millions listen every weekday, buy his books and work through his Baby Steps, and plenty of economists argue with him. Love the advice or not, the story behind it is a good one: a young man who got rich fast, lost it all and built a company out of the lessons. This quiz covers the whole picture. There are questions on his early life and the crash that shaped him, the Baby Steps and the budgeting rules that go with them, the show and the people who host it with him, and the books and courses that carried his plan into homes across the country. It suits longtime listeners, anyone partway through the plan, and people who just want to know what the fuss is about. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will pick up the reasoning as well as the score.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Dave Ramsey urges people to flee debt with the intensity of which animal, an image from the Book of Proverbs?
Gazelle
Gazelle intensity is his phrase for running from debt as if your life depends on it. He coined it after reading a proverb about escaping the hand of the hunter.
Q 02Which Dave Ramsey method pays off the smallest balance first and ignores interest rates to build momentum?
Debt snowball
Debt snowball payments roll from each cleared balance into the next one. The rival avalanche method starts with the highest interest rate instead.
Q 03Dave Ramsey teaches that personal finance is only 20% head knowledge and 80% which other factor?
Behavior
Behavior matters more than math in his teaching, which is why his plans favor quick wins that keep people motivated over the cheapest route on paper.
Q 04A Ramsey Solutions survey of 10,000 millionaires put engineer, accountant and which job among their top careers?
Teacher
Teacher sits in the top five beside management and attorney. The study's point was that steady investing, not a huge salary, built most of the fortunes.
Q 05Dave Ramsey first sold copies of his self-published 1992 book Financial Peace from which unlikely place?
His car trunk
His car trunk was the first bookstore for Financial Peace, which he wrote from what he and his wife learned after going broke. It soon became a bestseller.
Q 06In which industry did Dave Ramsey build a $4 million portfolio by age 26 before losing everything?
Real estate
Real estate made him rich on paper, but the deals ran on borrowed money. When his main lender was sold, the new owners called in his notes all at once.
Q 07Which hands-on budgeting method promoted by Dave Ramsey stops spending in a category once its cash runs out?
The envelope system
The envelope system puts a month's cash for groceries, gas or fun into labeled envelopes. When one is empty, spending there stops, and TikTok has revived the idea as cash stuffing.
Q 08Which debt does Dave Ramsey's second Baby Step deliberately leave untouched until the sixth step?
The mortgage
The mortgage waits while Baby Step 2 clears every other debt, smallest first. Ramsey says a household that then attacks the house payment can own the home outright in 10 years or less.
Q 09How did a 12-year-old Dave Ramsey first earn his own money after his father told him to get a job?
Mowing lawns
Mowing lawns under the name Dave's Lawns was his answer when his dad said he needed a job, not money. He passed a property licensing exam straight after high school.
Q 10Dave Ramsey's first Baby Step asks people to save a starter emergency fund of how much money?
$1,000
$1,000 is only a starter cushion, meant to cover a flat tire or a broken window while all spare money goes at debt. The full fund comes later in the plan.
Q 11Dave Ramsey's third Baby Step builds a fully funded emergency fund covering how long a stretch of expenses?
3 to 6 months
3 to 6 months of expenses is the target once consumer debt is gone, enough to ride out a job loss or a dead air conditioner without borrowing again.
Q 12Once debt-free with savings in place, Dave Ramsey says to invest what share of household income for retirement?
15%
15% of household income before tax is the Baby Step 4 target, and an employer's 401(k) match does not count toward it.
Q 13Dave Ramsey's fifth Baby Step, which follows retirement investing, is to start saving for which goal?
Children's college
Q 21Under which title did Dave Ramsey's radio show first air in 1992, with three rotating hosts?
The Money Game
The Money Game began when Ramsey offered to fill an empty slot on a struggling station for free for a month. The program was renamed after him in 1999.
Q 22Ramsey Solutions' headquarters, where The Ramsey Show is broadcast each weekday, sits in which city?
Franklin
Franklin is home to the company campus, where more than 1,000 team members work, including all three of the founder's children.
Q 23Dave Ramsey's counseling company, now called Ramsey Solutions, was originally known by which name?
The Lampo Group
Children's college comes after retirement because, in Ramsey's reasoning, the kids might never enroll but the parents will definitely retire.
Q 14Dave Ramsey's seventh and final Baby Step pairs building wealth with which other lifelong habit?
Generous giving
Generous giving is the payoff of the plan: with no payments left, a household can fund causes it cares about and leave an inheritance for the next generation.
Q 15Dave Ramsey advises splitting retirement savings evenly across four types of which investment?
Mutual funds
Mutual funds in four flavors make up his mix: growth, growth and income, aggressive growth and international. Spreading money equally across all four keeps a retirement from riding on one bet.
Q 16Dave Ramsey steers followers away from whole life policies toward which cheaper kind of life insurance?
Term
Term coverage simply replaces lost income for a set number of years. He suggests a policy worth 10 to 12 times annual income and argues that mixing insurance with investing makes an expensive mess.
Q 17Which kind of home loan is the only one Dave Ramsey recommends, capped at a quarter of take-home pay?
15-year fixed-rate
15-year fixed-rate loans are the only kind he endorses, with the payment, taxes and insurance kept to 25% of take-home pay so the house stays a blessing rather than a burden.
Q 18Which style of budget does Dave Ramsey teach, with all income assigned a job before the month begins?
Zero-based
Zero-based means income minus planned outgoings leaves nothing over. That does not mean an empty bank account: saving and giving count as jobs for the money too.
Q 19What does Dave Ramsey call money saved monthly for a known future expense such as Christmas gifts or new tires?
A sinking fund
A sinking fund spreads a known cost over several months so it never becomes a crisis. An emergency fund is different: that one is for the surprises nobody planned.
Q 20Dave Ramsey's Four Walls, the bills to cover before anything else, are food, utilities, shelter and what?
Transportation
Transportation completes the Four Walls, the basics he says to protect first in a crisis: keep the family fed, housed, powered and able to get to work.
The Lampo Group took its name from a word meaning light, because he wanted the company to be a light in the world, an idea he drew from Matthew 5:14.
Q 24Which daughter of Dave Ramsey became a bestselling author and joined him as a radio co-host in 2020?
Rachel Cruze
Rachel Cruze joined Ramsey Solutions in 2010 and co-wrote Smart Money Smart Kids with her father. She was still a baby in a crib when her parents lost everything.
Q 25Which Ramsey Solutions personality, a mental health author, earned two PhDs from Texas Tech University?
John Delony
John Delony spent over two decades in crisis response before joining the company in 2020. His doctorates are in counselor education and higher education administration.
Q 26What did Dave Ramsey do in 1988 on the day a sheriff was due to seize his furniture?
Declared bankruptcy
The Ramseys declared bankruptcy with a toddler and a newborn at home, after two and a half years of fighting their debts. It was a Chapter 7 filing.
Q 27Which luxury brand's car did Dave Ramsey buy as a rich 26-year-old, shortly before his finances collapsed?
Jaguar
Jaguar was his dream car, bought alongside jewelry for his wife and a luxury trip to Hawaii. That wealth turned out to rest entirely on borrowed money.
Q 28Financial Peace University grew out of a six-month class that Dave Ramsey first taught under which name?
Life After Debt
Life After Debt drew only five families to its first session, taught with an overhead projector. Streamlined to nine lessons, the course has since been taken by almost 10 million people.
Q 29Which 2003 Dave Ramsey bestseller lays out his seven Baby Steps as a plan for financial fitness?
The Total Money Makeover
The Total Money Makeover has sold more than five million copies and spent over 500 weeks on The Wall Street Journal bestseller list.
Q 30Which 2011 Dave Ramsey book, now also a coaching brand, is written for people running their own business?
EntreLeadership
EntreLeadership draws on three decades spent building his own company from a one-man operation, and the name now covers events, coaching and a podcast.