Ramit Sethi says financial advice from Dave Ramsey and Kevin O’Leary is ‘outdated.’ Here’s what you actually need to pay attention to

“Why is it that boomers were able to buy houses on a single income, but for young people, even saving for a down payment feels impossible?” asked personal finance expert Ramit Sethi on an episode of I Will Teach You To Be Rich. (2)

Sethi claimed boomers built wealth in a system that no longer exists, then changed the rules in ways that make it harder for younger people to benefit.

This can mainly be seen, according to him, in pensions and housing. “This is not about young people spending too much on avocado toast,” said Sethi.

Sethi also argued that some of the financial advice out there — from the likes of Dave Ramsey and Kevin O’Leary — is “outdated” and stuck in old financial frameworks that don’t take into account the modern economic reality for most Americans.

Here’s why he believes these frameworks don’t work and what young people should focus on instead.

Old financial frameworks don’t work anymore

Ramsey and O’Leary are two of the most influential voices in American personal finance, shaping how millions budget, invest and tackle debt. But Sethi says their frameworks were built for a different era — before today’s high housing costs and the shift from pensions to DIY retirement.

“Dave Ramsey is still recommending 15-year mortgages and these mythical 12% mutual funds that he refuses to name,” said Sethi.

He then attacked O’Leary’s habit of lecturing people about wasting money on coffee. “Did Kevin O’Leary become worth hundreds of millions of dollars from not spending money on coffee? No,” he added.

“What would have been relatively straightforward or easy decades ago is virtually impossible today — to work a normal entry-level job on one income, buy a house, have a car,” said Sethi.

One of the major changes he noted is that companies no longer fund their employees’ retirements. Sethi pointed out that companies, including those owned by boomers, rarely offer pensions anymore, meaning the “retirement burden has been shifted to individual employees.”

This observation is supported by data. Over the years, traditional pensions have been supplanted by 401(k)s and IRAs. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 15% of private industry workers had access to a defined benefit plan in 2023. (3)

More than three-quarters of respondents to a survey by the nonprofit National Institute on Retirement Security agreed that the “disappearance of traditional pensions has made it harder for workers to achieve the American Dream.”

Sethi also discussed the housing factor. Boomers, who are sitting on an estimated $18 to $19 trillion in real estate (4), bought houses when the government “was explicitly encouraging home ownership through policies and mortgages that made buying a house affordable,” he said.

That’s not the case today. Boomers account for 42% of all home buyers, while millennials account for 29% (down from 38% a year ago) and Gen Z makes up just 3%, according to the National Association of Realtors’ 2025 Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends report.

The report also found that half of older boomers and 40% of younger boomers are purchasing homes entirely with cash. (5)

Scott Beyer, a columnist fellow at the Independent Institute think-tank, believes boomers are the “lead architects” of restricting home supply. “Much of this is due to boomers buying multiple investment properties, avoiding high interest rates via all-cash purchases,” he said.

And while there’s nothing wrong with investing in housing, these purchases, he added, “naturally reduce available housing stock for younger generations.” (6)

How to overcome systemic barriers

So if the system is stacked against younger people, is there anything they can do about it?

“I don’t spend my days with my nose buried in my phone tracking my bank account in two-cent increments, and you don’t need to either,” said Sethi. Here are some areas where young people should focus instead.

Earn more: It makes sense to cut back where you can, like reviewing your subscriptions and canceling ones you don’t use anymore. But cutting back can only get you so far if you’re already stretched thin. The solution is earning more.

“That could mean learning the skill of negotiating your salary. Maybe it means starting to look for a new job that pays you more or starting a side business to bring in an extra thousand dollars a month,” said Sethi.