Dave Ramsey reveals how he taught his children financial responsibility and what Gen Z can learn from it

It’s never too late to teach your kids how to be financially responsible. In fact, the earlier, the better, according to personal finance expert Dave Ramsey.

“It starts early,” the Ramsey Solutions founder said during an interview on “Cavuto: Coast to Coast” on Wednesday.

Ramsey spoke on a number of topics during the interview and drew from his own experiences with his family, when it comes to instilling financial responsibility in kids.

“We taught them to work, it’s an old-fashioned thing. I think it’s called child abuse now,” he joked. “But they had to work, all of them, and they all developed a work ethic.”

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His children even considered work ethic when choosing who they wanted to marry, he said. 

“Rachel, my daughter… she’s on your show quite often… she works really hard, and all three of them do,” he pointed out. “They married people that are hard workers because they don’t have any respect for people that don’t work hard and they’re not victims.”

He said his children are “self-determinant” and once a strong work ethic is achieved, “you’ve got someone of character that can carry the weight of wealth, because wealth is heavy, and you don’t want to put it on someone that’s weak because it’ll destroy their life and turn them into a trust fund baby, and they’ll have their own reality show.”

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Pointing to the youngest generations. Ramsey lauded how Gen Z is “amazing” and “powerful.”

However, the expert noted how some in the generation “have a legitimate problem today.” 

“Their wages have not kept up with the house price increases, and for today, they’ve been boxed out of that housing market because it just took off,” he said. “They have a lot of anxiety around that that is legitimate.”

That anxiety is something the personal finance guru can relate to himself. He shared that when he was 23, he was also “boxed out” of the housing market when interest rates were at 17%.  However, it was only a brief moment in time. 

“Your life is not a snapshot. It’s a field. It’s a filmstrip. It’s going to be another frame, and another frame, and another frame, and another frame,” he said. “And so as you go along, there’ll be a moment in time when this turns around in your favor and you’ll be okay.” 

“You’re going to get there, but today it sucks,” he concluded.