Dave Ramsey has some great ideas about personal financial solvency. He also has a simple plan for getting out of debt and building wealth. But he has a lousy way of presenting his ideas. The lack of clear presentation makes his new book, The Total Money Makeover, difficult to read and does a real disservice to Ramsey’s simple but powerful ideas.

Ramsey’s first task is to sell his readers on the idea that debt is bad all around–it creates stress; invites emergencies and destroys wealth. Ramsey spends almost 100 pages repeating the “debt is bad” mantra. If, like this reader, you understand that debt is agonizing and dangerous, then the first five chapters are going to crawl by. Add to that repetition the “testimonials” which interrupt Ramsey’s text as well as the random pull-quotes interspersed with no real reason, and this is really going to be a slow read.

On page 93, Ramsey starts his “Baby Steps” program–seven steps to financial fitness. The program sounds simple, at times, simplistic, as many details are not covered. There is a good reason for this. Dwelling on details is not Ramsey’s purpose because he knows that, like physical fitness, the battle is 95% attitude. Once Ramsey can win a reader over to a positive financial attitude, that reader can sort out the details for himself. Each reader’s financial details will be different after all.

What distracts more than a lack of details is the lack of an outline. Sure, Dave knows where he’s going with his plan, but the reader doesn’t. What would be invaluable to his program is a synopsis of the seven “Baby Steps” before he went into his explication of each. Even simple enumeration would help. Why, for example, are the chapter names not along the lines of “Baby Step 1″? Instead, Ramsey’s chapters have sub-sections where he lays out the Baby Steps.

The result of this is that the reader must force himself through even more of Ramsey’s set-ups to learn where he’s leading. Obviously, the reader can push on and follow Ramsey’s lead blindly, but the effect is like being dropped in the jungle with only a radio. We trust you, Dave, but let us see the map.

To nit-pick even more, Ramsey includes several helpful organizing forms but no detailed explanation of how to use them. If Ramsey wants to “Baby Step” his audience then he needs to baby step them all the way. Especially when some of them (not to name any names) never balance their checkbooks.

Ramsey may think that the testimonials, pull-quotes, forms and cute-mantras help keep people interested in his program. Perhaps they do have a powerful effect on the average reader, when, as Ramsey reiterates, “average is broke.” As mentioned, though, once you’ve accepted the value of being debt-free and are committed to changing your financial ways, then these cute extras just get in your way.

A good critique of Ramsey’s style is that he writes just as he speaks on the radio. This is probably the best description. Cute platitudes abound. So do Bible scriptures. Neither should deter the reader from hearing out Ramsey’s plan. And though the testimonials, et cetera, are sometimes poorly placed within the text, they do serve to show two things: 1) many people are worse off than you and 2) there is hope for getting out of debt and growing wealth. Ramsey has a fine plan, a simple plan, and a proven plan. He just needs an editor.

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