The Rachel Cruze Show - Best Money Habits to Make Sure You Don’t Retire Broke

Episode Date: September 25, 2023

The money habits you have today could affect the rest of your life . . . including retirement. So, how do you know you’re setting yourself up for success when it comes time to hang up your suit and spend your days with your toes in the sand? In this episode, we’ll cover the reason why most Americans won’t be able to afford to retire and the habits you can start now that will ensure you’ll live a life you love when it’s time for retirement. Plus, Dr. John Delony and I talk about how getting rid of debt improves your mental health.   What you get in this episode:   - Why 70% of Americans Won’t Retire - 4 Money Habits to Master Before 40 - The Psychological Impact of Crushing Debt with Dr. John Delony     Helpful Resources:  ·      Start making memories now and purchase Telestrations today! ·      Christian Healthcare Ministries ·      Follow Dr. John Delony ·      Preorder Dr. John Delony’s new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, now. ·      EveryDollar Sponsors pay the producer of this show, The Lampo Group, LLC, advertising fees for mentioning their services or products during programming. Advertising fees are not based upon or otherwise tied to any product sale or business transacted between any consumer or sponsor. The following sponsors have paid for the programming you are viewing: Christian Healthcare Ministries and Op Games. Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Your body's paying a price when you owe somebody else. And it's not just money, right? It's with your calendar. It's with boundaries. It's with several parts of our lives. But I have to do the hard work and say, in what areas of my life? Am I in the backseat? And somebody else is driving.

Hey, guys. Welcome to this episode of the Rachel Cruz Show podcast. I'm so glad that you're here. So in this episode, we're going to talk about the best habits to ensure that you don't retire broke. I'll go over four habits to master before your 40s. And then you'll hear a conversation. I had with my friend and Ramsey personality, Dr. John Deloney, on the psychological impact of

crushing debt. You don't want to miss it. But first, let's talk about why 70% of Americans won't retire and how to not be a part of that stat. So take a listen. According to a recent study, there's a large group of people who either won't be financially ready to retire by the time that they think they will or they won't be able to maintain the standard of living but they're used to in retirement. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm confident that 60-year-old Rachel is going to be bougie, which means current Rachel has to cut back on certain things in order to get where she ultimately wants to be. So I want to tell you about my approach to investing and what the data is predicting today and what that means for you and your future money. So a study done by the

Research Center at Boston College says more than one quarter of all U.S. households think that they're on track to maintain their standard of living in retirement, but are actually at risk of falling short. And there's a concept called wealth illusion, which suggests that high-income households that tend to overestimate how much they'll need in retirement. On the other hand, 28% of households aren't worried enough about setting themselves up well for retirement. So honestly, this doesn't really surprise me because retirement is something that a lot of people don't think about or appropriately plan for because it seems so far away, which is a bummer, because if you have a plan in place, investing in retirement is something that, to a certain

degree, you can just put on autopilot for most of your working life. So if you invest 15% of your income as early as possible, compound interest will do its thing without needing to constantly put extra attention from you to your retirement. and if you continue to adjust your retirement contributions over the years, as you make more money and check off other financial goals on your list, you should be in really good shape by the time you reach retirement age. But lots of people don't realize this. Or if they do, they struggle to overcome their current money obstacles and end up putting retirement planning on the back burner for years. So let's talk about how to approach retirement savings that you can take action steps today to avoid being in

this situation. So first, you need to get the rest of your finances in order. So before you think about retirement, you want to make sure that your present financial picture is stable, which means first do a $1,000 emergency fund. Okay, this is what we call our baby steps. This is baby step one. That's your first goal. Then number two, I want you to pay off all of your debt, but your house. So this is everything from credit cards, student loans, anything and everything of consumer debt, I want you paying it off smallest amount to largest amount regardless of the interest rate. Once all that's paid off, then I want you to have an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. You're going to bump up that starter $1,000 emergency fund to three to six months worth of expenses saved in the bank that you can get to if you need it, like in a high yield savings account or a money market account.

So once all that's in place, then you can concentrate on retirement because you are in the present financially have a solid foundation under you. All right, next, after you pay off your debt and you have your emergency fund in place, then you're going to start investing. So you're going to invest 15% of your income into retirement. So when I say the word retirement, I want you to think of things like your 401K or 403B, your Roth IRA, opening up one of those. I mean, all of these are great retirement vehicles. So what you want to do is invest in mutual funds within your 401K and within your Roth IRA.

And these are great places because mutual. financial funds will have 90 to 200 stock. Your money is spread around, which is fantastic. And you're able to really concentrate on the future with that 15% of your income. So I always tell people to go up to the match when it comes to your 401K. So if your employer matches, you know, 3%. Go ahead and put out of that 15%, 3% into that. And then the remaining money you have, I would go ahead and fund my Roth IRA. Now, if you make too much money to qualify for a Roth IRA, you can do what's called a backdoor Roth, so you can still take advantage of that.

So once you, you know, max that out and you still have some of your 15% left, you can go back to your 401K. So those are just some great options. You can even look into your HSA, if there's another place, a health savings account where you actually use that as an investing vehicle, too. So there's some options out there, but investing your 15% into retirement is a magical thing because, again, like I said earlier, compound interest will do its work. All right, my next tip is to work with an investing professional.

So having someone that you sit down with, I'd say on a yearly basis and just look at everything, your entire financial picture is really smart, you guys. These people, they breathe in and out of their souls investing in the market. Like, they know this stuff like the back of their hand. But you want to find somebody that you trust, someone that you're like, yes, telling them, you know, that you're paying off debt maybe or that, you know, here are your financial goals and that they actually understand. So I want you to check out one of our Ramsey Smart Vester pros because they love Ramsey.

They love what we teach. They are on board with this. And they want to help you not only build wealth, but to be able to look at your entire financial picture and say, hey, how can you leave a legacy to your family? How can you be generous? And seeing your entire life there is so, so key. So make sure to check out a Ramsey Smart Vester pro. Now I want to share a few other things that you should be thinking about in terms of retirement

and investing. As I mentioned earlier, it's wise to consider your standard of living. Okay, ask yourself, you know, will you be spending more or less during retirement? Do you want to be traveling? Do you want your house paid off? Yes. Or will you still need some money maybe for monthly mortgage payments? How long will you need to live off retirement savings, depending on when you officially stop working? It could easily be up to 20 years. I mean, asking yourself these kinds of questions when you're thinking about retirement, so that you can plan better is really, really important. All right, another thing that I recommend is using an investment calculator to track your progress.

So depending on when you are able to start investing, you may need to work for more or less time than you originally expected in order to reach your financial goals. And one way to measure this is by using an investment calculator. And we have a great one at ramsysolutions.com. It's really easy to use and it will give you an accurate prediction of your retirement savings in the future. So again, continuing to look to see, okay, is your income increasing? If it is, that means your investments need to be increasing. You always want to keep that 15% there. And so you want to be

able to look at even your funds. And if you have a smart investor pro, again, every year, re-looking and saying, hey, is my money in the best place possible and understanding what's going on, all of that is so key. All right, the final, most important thing to keep in mind is to start now. So whether you're watching this in your early 20s or your late 40s, or you're late 40, 40s or your 50s, no matter where you are, you need to start. The sooner you start, the better off you're going to be. And I know that's going to all seem overwhelming, because if you're sitting there with student loan debt, if you're thinking, oh my gosh, Rachel, you know, I have no savings, what do I do?

Hey, remember, those first three baby steps, start working on those, actually start seeing progress, get this foundation under you, lower the stress, and then look towards the future. Because especially when it comes to investing, like we've said, the sooner you start, the better off, to be, but it's never too late. Some people think, is it too late for me to save? Well, listen, either you start now and you have some savings or you continue what you're doing and continue to be broke, right? So yes, always start with where you are and no, it is never too late. Start now. So to find other resources about retirement and investing, visit ramsysolutions.com slash retirements. And the Ramsey Retirement Hub has links to investing professionals, the investing

calculator, and their most popular articles about investing. So it's no secret that the older we get, the more life experience we gain. And you hear a lot of people talk a lot about what they learned in their 20s and their 30s. So I figured I would take that conversation a step further and share four money habits that everyone should master before 40. And I'm curious, which are these things that you're already doing and which ones you may want to start doing? So right now I'm in my mid-30s, and it's one of my favorite seasons of life right now. Yep. So I think I spend way less time caring about what.

other people think of me than I used to. And I've finally got into a rhythm of making wise choices for myself and my family and my money without comparison and like what the world is saying. I really truly have gotten confident and like, this is what I'm doing life. And I love it. And I'll tell you, all the money habits that we're going to talk about come as a result of that. So the first habits that everyone should master before they're 40 is to live unless than you make. So you guys, this is not a crazy concept, but it is. So this idea that you don't need to spend everything you make or spend more than that and take on debt.

So in order to do this, one of the best places to start is a budget to help you see where your income is. Because in order to live on less than you make, you have to be able to have a plan to know, okay, where is my money going? And a budget does this. And that is what is so great. it is a plan for your money. So you want to take your income for the month, minus all of your expenses, including giving and saving, should equal zero.

So every dollar of your income that's coming in is assigned to a category. Now, savings is in there. So again, you're going to not spend everything. You're going to have some buffer, but you're able to see, okay, this is exactly where my money's going, and that is so key. All right, the second money habits that everyone should master before their 40 is minimalistic thinking. So now this is obviously more than just, some mindset, but it's been a game changer for me in the recent years. Because learning that my quality of life is not equated to the quality or quantity of the stuff that I own is really important.

Because we can live like a rat in a wheel where we think the more stuff we have, the bigger the better, our life is going to be better because of it. And it turns out that stuff just keeps getting old or breaks or you want the newest thing after the thing you bought that was new, and you just keep living in this wheel, when you suddenly realize, okay, this stuff is not going to fulfill me like I think it would. Now, I know we've heard this example so often,

but if you've traveled anywhere outside the United States and you see some level of poverty, which there is poverty inside the United States for sure, but if you especially go to something like a third-world country, and you start to see how other places in the world live besides just the United States, you're able to see, yeah, they live on way, less than what we have. I mean, to the end degree, it is wild, but you also see that they are so much

more content. They have so much joy in their lives. And it always makes you wonder, okay, if we're wanting more and more and more and we're spending our life and our money on more and more and more and more, but we're not getting happier or more joyful, hmm, I wonder if there's a problem. Yes. And I would say that there is because we put so much of our value in, you guys. And stuff is not bad. I always say it's okay to have nice stuff. Just don't let your nice stuff have you. But the thing is, in American culture specifically, it has us. It has our identity, and we want to break that. So I'd say to start practicing gratitude for what you have. And I'm telling you, then this all gets easier because you're able to trim out the excess that you don't need. You're able to say,

yes, I can buy some stuff. It's in the budget and it's fun. And that's great. We're not mad at stuff. but it's not going to be the thing that I find my joy from. That is not my source of joy is this thing because it won't. Yes, stuff can be fun, again, that we have to be so careful to watch the value that we place in our stuff. All right, the third money habits that everyone should master before their 40 is budgeting. So I mentioned this earlier on living less than you make, but budgeting is so key, you guys.

And I am a spender. I'm a natural free spirit. So the idea of budgeting for me was always this like, well, it feels like it sucks the fun out of life. But I have learned that a budget is permission to spend. A budget does not limit my freedom. A budget gives me freedom. It gives me control over my money and I know exactly what's going on. I have every dollar premium, which is our budgeting app, and it attaches to my bank account.

So I get transactions in every day, like today. I had four transactions when I woke up this morning and I drag and drop them. One was our cable, because we still pay for cable. My husband hates it, but I can't let go of it. Put it in cable. We had it out to eat, and we had a grocery, and we had an Amazon, and I went and looked and was batteries for our house. So I put it in our house category. But I know exactly where our money's going, the categories where we want to spend, what's left in each category, and it just makes life so peaceful because it's organized and you know what's going on. So that is what a budget does. A budget gives you the ability to say, hey, I'm in control. I get to tell you. my income where to go. And there's no questions asked. There's no guilt. There's no shame. There's no stress over, is this okay that I'm spending this money here? It's already answered,

because if you have the money in the budget in that category, you could just spend it. All right. The fourth, that money habit that everyone should master before they're 40 is breaking generational money cycles and habits. So listen, we are all human, you guys, which means we are constantly making mistakes. And sometimes our money mistakes get passed along to our peers or passed down to our kids. But hopefully by the time you are in adulthood, you've learned to call out some of those bad behaviors and change them. Maybe like teaching your kids to practice gratitude or learn contentment or showing them how to earn money on a commission versus giving them allowance, learning that, yeah, we're not going to shop every time we're stressed. We're going to be

people that are delayed gratification is a key part of our lives, which means mom and dad want this thing or mom wants that, but we don't have the money for it. So we're going to save for it, and you're going to watch us save. And so you're able to practice good money habits and more is caught than taught. And so your kids are watching. And it's a beautiful gift to give your kids great money habits, not just handing them money, right? You don't want to create these like entire little monsters. But you're going to say, here's how you handle money. And yes, if I'm able to leave you a legacy where you have the character to handle it, what a beautiful thing for them to change their lives and their kids' lives and be generous with it with people in their community,

it's a beautiful thing. So those are four habits that have been life-changing for me over the last two decades. And like I said earlier, I'm really curious about what yours are. So leave a comment and tell me which money habits have been helpful for you to master early in life. Today, I have a very special guest joining me. My friend and co-host of The Ramsey Show, Dr. John Deloney. What's up? Welcome, John. How you doing? Back to the Rachel Cruz world. Back, and it's, it is Rachel Cruz's world. It's wonderful.

It's her world. It's great. Okay, so I want to talk to you about a couple of things, but one of them being that you have a new book coming out this October, October 3rd. And it's called Building a Non-Anxious Life. Yes. John, it's really exciting. I'm super excited about it, yeah. Yeah, because you've been talking about anxiety and really just this idea of how to live and freedom of all of that, right?

And so, like, you've talked about that in the written form very little. And now this is like an expanded version of it, right? Yeah, it started on the Ramsey show. And caller after caller during COVID was calling and saying, I'm so anxious, I'm so anxious, I'm so anxious. How do I stop this anxiety? Yeah. And one day off air, I said to Dave, anxiety's not the problem.

And I explained what I was saying, and he said, you should write that down. So we wrote that little bitty book and it went bananas. And so they were asking for a deeper dive. Like, what's actually at play here? Yeah. And I'm just tired of talking about anxiety and I want people to get about, let's change our life so that we are not anxious all the time. Totally.

And one anxiety play that I feel like happens a lot in our lives is around money. And you have a chapter called Choosing Freedom. And you talk about a couple of things in that. But you do talk about money and specifically debt and how that keeps you from a level of freedom. Because you and Sheila, your wife, you guys paid off. How much in student debt? A trillion dollars. A billion dollars.

A billion. Yeah. And you guys paid it off. So you write about that a little bit in the book. So talk through like that chapter specifically choosing freedom and what, and what that means what people can do. So let's back out real quick, and here's my proposition in the book. More people than ever before in human history are under the care of a licensed mental health professional.

That's my community, by the way. I love those people. That's me. I pay a counselor, so I'm all in. And more people than ever before in human history are being medicated for some sort of mental health disorder. We have more people in our networks, right? We have hundreds of thousands of people at the touch of a button, right? That's never happened before in human history.

Yeah. And we are more anxious and more depressed and more burned out and more just frazzled than ever before. As a mental health guy, I have to back out and say, what if what we're doing isn't working, right? Yeah. So this book is just trying to pull a bunch of levers, okay, what are the areas of my life that if I heal in those areas, if I take action in those areas, that the anxiety alarms will stop ringing? One of those is if I am not. in charge of my own life. If the bank decides what I'm doing tomorrow, so I have to go work at a toxic job, if I have to stay in this abusive situation because I got nowhere to go, right? I don't have any,

I don't have any money, or I owe a bunch of money. Your body is going to be screaming at you that you're not safe, right? And so in my house, growing up, money was a bad word because we didn't have any. And it was about shame, it was about not enough, it was about borrowing too much, all of that. And I tried to run away from that with titles and big salaries, and I got the title, I got a big salary. And I still followed. But I bought a big house, and I bought two cars on notes, and I took a bunch of student loans out. And so I just recreated the cycle on a bigger scale. And so while my brain was telling me, great job, you're winning.

The other part of my brain that's designed to keep me safe was screaming. You're not safe. You say one wrong thing at work, you lose all of this, right? If you get canceled over here, you lose all of this. And so it's backing up and saying, as debt has done this in the United States, so is anxiety. And maybe there's a correlation there. And yeah, and I don't think a lot of people pair those two things together, right? And especially, you know, even here at Roomsy Solutions, we talk so much about the behavior change and getting out of debt, having that financial freedom.

But we also do pair to a degree, not to the depth that you talk about it, but of, hey, there's a spiritual freedom. There's like a freedom within your soul, all of that. But you take it, I think more even on the professional. route to say, no, no, no, this is a true thing. Your body will relax and have peace in a place that it doesn't physically when you don't owe someone something. Yeah, what was fascinating for me, I'm a nerd, and you and I are friends off camera too, and so you know what kind of a nerd I am.

But I track everything. And what was fascinating to me when my wife and I got completely out debt and didn't know anybody anything, there was a slow descent of my heart rate all day, right? my heart was beating slower because it wasn't at war with itself, right? My HRV, my sleep got better. And it was my body settling in after years of having my day-to-day life dictated by a bank or a mortgage company or a car dealership or a student loan servicer. It was just me.

It was just me and my wife. And we got to decide what you were in. And your literal heart rate. My literal heart rate went down, right? Yes, yes. And so all that to say is your body's paying a price. when you owe somebody else. And so the chapter about Choose Freedom,

and it's not just money, right? It's with your calendar. It's with boundaries. It's with several parts of our lives. But I have to do the hard work and say, who is running my life for real? In what areas of my life? Am I in the backseat and somebody else is driving?

And the goal is, I want to get in the driver's seat of my own life. Yeah, it's so good. Okay, so what would you say to someone, though, that may have two car payments and credit card debt that keeps rolling, that balance month to month and some student loans. But they're like, John, I'm good. Like, I'm just, I'm not freaked out or stressed out about it.

What would you say? I would go back to the great Bessel van der Kolt book title. The body keeps the score. And so I can feel so good in my day-to-day life. Look at all this cool stuff I have. I'm running and gunning. Your body knows you're not safe. Your body knows you're one or two decisions away from losing the cars,

losing the food on the table, losing your house. And so it's easy to distract ourselves these days. It's easy to numb ourselves these days. It's easy to know intellectually. six years with no interest, that's actually a good mathematical deal. That's a good deal. But your body knows, your brain knows. If you say one thing, they take the car away and then we got nothing, right?

And so until you've been on the other side of not owing anybody anything, I just want to promise you there's a different well to drink from. Yes, it's so good. Now, you talk about in that chapter specifically about discipline and boundaries and how those things are so key in dictating, I think, your life, right? And you could set your calendar, all these other areas, but specifically with money. So talk me through those tools specifically

when it comes to paying off debt. The reality is I didn't know a different path. Yeah. Right? And so I've got a lot of empathy towards folks who just are doing what their parents did, who are doing what their grandparents did.

And also I've got a lot of empathy because I think I'm a smart guy. But when they sat down and explained this to me at the car dealership, like, hey, this is a good deal for you. I looked at the math. The math worked. It made sense, right?

Totally, totally. So I've got a lot of empathy. Or when I went and bought up my last house, the banker laughed at me. And I said, I will not go over this number. And they laughed and go, do you realize what you qualify for? And I said, I won't go over this number. And they were like, oh, my gosh.

Right. So the whole world is saying do something different. And so I've got a lot of empathy for folks who find themselves, oh, gosh, and just underwater, right? And really the only path out is you look in the mirror and saying, I'm going to make different choices. Because let's be honest, we've all waited for the last several years. the government told us they were going to come help us out. And they were going to show up. They were going to show up.

They didn't show up. And if we look back, they haven't shown up a lot. And so at the end of the day, I'm going to look in the mirror and I'm going to take control and say, okay, I've got to make some major changes, especially in the short term, to get this stuff taken care of. Yeah. So you mentioned the debt payoff stuff, again, with that discipline and boundaries. And would you say, because I mean, even when you say, like, your calendar, like, I look back,

I remember Winston and I, one of our, like, top five biggest fights of marriage was around this. And it was around even like planning like, when are we going to have kids and all this? But I'm like, well, we have this and this and this on the calendar. And I remember he was like, our calendar doesn't dictate our life. We dictate our life until the calendar what's doing. I was like, but no, look at all this stuff. You know, I'm so much more apt not to be the break pedal in life. I'm more apt to be like, sure, this like access of stuff. I'm a spender to it, right? So in that way. And then also all these other parts of your life, of my life. And so I look at that now and I'm like, golly, there is such wisdom. And I think COVID did give us that gift of slowing everything

down and people are like, oh, well, this is how life could be if we didn't choose to be in the rat race of everything, you know, from kids' sports to all the school stuff, all the job. I mean, it's just, there's so much. So what area do you think personally is the hardest for Americans to have that discipline and that boundaries? Like, is it money? Is it calendar? Is it relationships? Like, what's the thing that you're like, this is going to be an uphill battle? Or maybe it's all of it. Yeah. If you're a mess like me, it's all a mess, right? Yes. So the four areas I talked about in the book are your money, clutter, stuff everywhere.

Yep, yep. And there's a lot of emerging research about anxiety and chronic stress and being surrounded by so much stuff. Our friend, mutual friend, Don Madsen, talks about the imaginary conversation your stuff's having with you every day. So she was explaining this to me in Minnesota, and I was like, whatever, Don. And I got home, and I just got quiet to see if what she was saying was true. It's bizarre. And all these books, you know, I'm a nerd, my wife's a nerd, all these books were suddenly like, are you just never going to read us? Are you just going to be stupid for the rest of your life?

And I was like, no, no, no, I'll get to you. And they were like, oh, really? Really? Because you look like you're just being dumb. And then I've got some guitars on the wall that I played down in my basement. And they were like, remember when you were going to be a rock star? And look what happened to you. What a loser?

And I was like, no, no, no, I'm coming. Like, I'm ready. And then my clothes, like, hey, remember when you were actually fit and in shape and weren't like, you know, an overweight? And I realized all this stuff. won't shut up, right? So that's one. Just our stuff is always on us. Our calendars. And we often think about calendars is we just got to get more organized. We just got to get more organized. And our mutual friend, Joshua Field, Mildberg, he said, organization is just well-planned hoarding, right? Whether it's with your stuff or with your time. Most of us race out to get another

day planner or another this or another app. It's not that. It's what Winston said, right? It is, who's telling me what I have to do with my life? Yes, yes. Is it my kid's soccer coach telling our family what we're doing for the next nine years of Saturdays? Really? Maybe when I was just looking at it, but we started this segment. My nine-year-old soccer coach doesn't get a vote in my life. Right, right? Or is it your youth minister saying you have to do this and this and this or otherwise you're not? Yes. No. Right. So who's telling us what we have to do with our lives? And that gets dangerous. And what's hard, though, about that is we're put in these positions and in these, you know, like it feels like the matrix. I don't know. Like you're put into these systems.

Your boss tells you, you have to try, you know what I mean? Like, oh my gosh, in order for my job, this, this or this. Or if we signed their kid up and paid X amount for them to play the sport. And they're like, no, you have to be at this tournament an hour away three times this weekend. And you're like, okay. Like, it's so easy. Oh. It's so easy to get sucked in.

Just bit by bit by bit. Yes, yes, yes. So I can see. Oh. And boundaries. How many of us are still doing Thanksgiving because our mother-in-law, so that's how we're going to do it? Or how many of us are, like you just mentioned, are showing up on Saturdays and Sundays. Sundays are unpaid because we have no boundaries with our bosses.

Or how many of us are letting friends say, no, no, we're meeting on Mondays. And you're like, okay, I'll meet on Mondays because that's when our friend groups, we live these boundaryless lives. And then we talk a lot about money on this show. So those four areas, it's just madness. And like you said, nobody gets there on purpose. No, right. And almost all this is good stuff, right? Yes.

Most of the time, it's waiting through a lot of the good stuff to say, what kind of life do we want to live? Here's been a magic question. I started asking myself, and my wife and I ask this question at home, and then I ask other people, how do I want my home to feel when I walk in the door? And let's start with this feel like, I want it to be warm. I want it to be, I want my daughter to come charging at me with a pillow

and like some stick that she made into a sword. And I want my son to be laughing and throw something. I want it to be warm. So what does our schedule have to live? look like so that we have the capacity for warmth. Yes, we've got stress and running around all the time. Yes. Or what conversations do I need to have with my parents about the holidays to allow

warmth in our home, right? So every house is different, but reverse engineering, what do I want this place to feel like? And then we can get there. Well, and I think giving people the permission that you're not being mean. You're not being irresponsible. You know what I mean? Because those things can start to play.

Those can be some of the lies. Let's have that conversation. Like, well, if your kid's not in travel soccer at six, he's. not going to get in travel team on age nine. And as a parent, you're like, here's my car, just charge everything. What do we need to do? Totally. Totally. And if you look at my friends who are at the universities at, and they are athletic trainers, and you talk to them, and they bury their face in their hands, because they're saying, John, I'm seeing 19-year-olds with geriatric overuse shoulder and knee and hip injuries. I guess it's like one sport. And these kids

don't love playing anymore because it's been a job since they were four. And if I was like, what should I tell my kid, play everything and have a blast? Your body will let us know when you're a senior or junior in high school. We'll know, right? And so, but as a parent of a young kid, we are all, whatever you tell us, coach, and I'm talking to these guys down the line, and they're like, just let your kids be kids. Yes, absolutely. I get it.

It's so easy, especially with well-meaning pastors and ministers. Yeah. If you don't do this, like, I don't want my kid to, you know what I mean? Yeah, 100%. And it becomes stressed. is dictated by fear. And I think even with the money piece, too, where you're like, oh my gosh,

I'm going to let the expectations of society and when everyone else is doing be the expectation of my life and my lifestyle. Or our in-laws or our friends. It's all about fear. Yeah, and there's a level of like, I'm not going to belong. And it's not even always like,

oh, they're going to judge me, but it's just, I think there's a level of, no, no, no. They're going to do it without me. Yeah, yeah. Or I just want to be part of a thing, right? And so that tribe mentality is very real. So so much of all of that,

especially in that your chapter of choosing freedom, right? Would you say a level of our motivation can be so fear-based? I think it's all about getting left out. It's all about I'm going to get left behind. The world's going to move on without me. If I don't have this car, if I don't have this house, if I don't live in this neighborhood,

if we don't go to these schools. And so I think it's a matter of, and that's why I say that's putting yourself in the backseat and letting all these other people, all these other influences drive your life. Yeah. And I just want people to go back into the driver's seat of their own life. Okay, so what would you say to someone that they feel like

they're too far gone in the process? Whether I'm so far in debt, John. We're in three sports with three coaches telling us what to do. My kid's about to get a scholarship in theology because of how much time they serve. I don't even know. Like, right? Like, we're so deep in and we got to keep holding on for a few more years or, oh my gosh, I have so much debt.

There's no way I'm too far behind. Like, what would you say to that in the property? Here's what happens. And again, I worked at colleges for almost two decades. What happens in those homes often is your kid goes to college and they exhale for the first time in 18 years, and they don't want to come home. Or they will come home when you say they have to come home, but they find peace and laughter with their friends.

They find their bodies, like we talked about earlier, just crave it, right? And so one of the things Sheila and I, my wife and I talked about when our first kid was really young is we want to have a home that they can't wait to come home to. And she looked at me and said, that means you can't give advice every second of every day because it's so annoying, John. And I said my piece too, but we'll keep that quiet. But so if you feel like I'm too far gone, maybe that season of your life has to come to an abrupt end. And where I see that most effective is when a wife will take their husband out for breakfast or their husband will take their wife out for lunch and say, our life and our marriage, as we have known it, is over.

Will you build something new with me? And it's that radical of a choice, a life where we had to have the newest this, we had to go to all of the concerts, we had to make sure our kids were not. everything, this is no longer sustainable for me, and I hope you'll join me in building something new. Yeah. And it's a scary, abrupt moment like that. Sure. But when I say that, I'll often watch couples and their shoulders just go, right? They just are like, that would be so awesome. We don't know how to get there, but the thought of that sounds so great. Yeah. So you're never too far gone. Never too far gone. Any of the stuff of taking control of your life and having that freedom. Yeah. So good, John. So you guys, building a non-anxious life comes out October 3rd. And if you're watching this before

that, then you can actually pre-order today. And if not, make sure to get your copy because it'll be in the mail, ASAP. And they can find you a lot of other places, right? Where? At John Deloney, at Ramsey Solutions.com. And the John Deloney Show. Make sure to check that out on a podcast and YouTube. And if you're feeling anxious about the future of student loans and all this debt that you feel like is just reoccurring, then you can access our resources and a recent live stream that we did on this topic at ramsysolutions.com slash student loans. So again, you guys, those are some great habits to master in your 40s or even before, even before.

If you love this podcast, one of the best things you can do is leave a review. It helps out so, so much, not just knowing what you guys love, but also with the algorithm when it comes to podcasts to get this podcast in front of more people. Please rate it, review it, subscribe to it, all the things, because we want to continue to help people when it comes to their money. So I want to thank John Deloney so much for being a guest on today's show, and thank you guys so much for listening. And remember to take control of your money and create a life you love.