The Ramsey Show - App - A Teachable Moment About Insurance Agents (Hour 1)

Episode Date: December 10, 2019

Debt, Insurance Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR 

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us, America. It's a free call at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money. Karen starts off this hour with us in North Carolina.

Hi, Karen. Welcome to the show. Hi, Dave. How are you today? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world? Hey, so my husband and I have a car fleece that we're trying to get out of. I want to pay it off in our debt snowball, and he wants to trade it into a dealership, have them pay it off, and then move down in car and pay off that loan. So my question is, why is his idea not a good one? Well, the question is, are you going to move far enough down in car when you do that?

I mean, so what's the car that you're driving? What's the sticker price on it, or what's it worth or something? So it's, well, to get out of the lease, it's $25,000 to buy it outright. And what would you move down to? Well, I don't know exactly, but something way under that for sure. What's way under? Way under, in my mind, five thousand dollars oh okay um well again this is this is his idea i just want to pay it off in the debt snowball but he thinks his way would get us uh out of debt sooner so probably something just a couple of thousand dollars, I would think. Yeah. Well, if you move, you know, the further you move down, the more his idea would be accurate.

I mean, you know, the faster you're going to get out of debt because you're getting rid of more and more debt, right? Right. That makes sense? So, yeah, I think that's a good idea, possibly. So, $25,000, and what is that car worth, do you think? Well, trade-in value is $21,000 to $23,000, and private party is more, of course, about $24,000 to $26,000. Okay.

So you could probably sell it for about what it takes to get the, you know, to pay it off roughly, right? Right. Okay. So what is your household income? $150,000. Okay. And what's the other car worth? The other car is worth $19,000.

And how much other debt other than your home do you guys have? $25,000 on this lease car, and what else? It's just paying off the other car at $19,000, which is a loan, and then this lease. That's your only debt? No student loan, no credit card, no nothing else? No, we're in baby step two, and we've paid off two credit cards and no student loans. Okay. All right.

And so basically what we're saying is $44,000 makes you debt-free and you make $150,000. Correct. Okay. Our rule of thumb is this. Don't own cars or anything with wheels and motors added together that equals more than half your annual income because things with wheels and motors all

go down in value. And if you've got too much tied up in boats and tractors and sea dues and motorcycles and cars that all go down in value, then you are obviously going to have trouble building wealth, right? You have not violated that. You're not over half your annual income with these two cars, okay? The second rule of thumb that we use is, can you be 100% debt-free, accept your home inside of two years? And the answer is yes, you could. You could pay off $44,000 in your sleep in two years, making $150,000. As a matter of fact, you ought to do it in one year. So do you like the car that has the fleece on it?

No, not really. We don't. Oh, okay. So you're probably trading it anyway. Yes. Okay. Well, what I would do is pay off the $19,000 car as soon as possible in just a few months, and then I would get about the business of trading that car for whatever it is you want to drive

that is around that same price range and just do it on a loan and then turn around and pay that off. I don't have a problem with you guys driving cars that are worth $45,000 when you make $150,000 if they're paid for, okay? And so if you want to be in that price range, I see no reason for you to move to a $5,000 car. I would rather you cut your lifestyle, get on a tight budget, watch what's going on, you know, punch this thing in the face and get it done and keep some reasonable cars for a family that makes $150,000. Exactly. Yeah, because if you move down to a $5,000 car, as soon as you get out of debt, the first

thing you're going to do is start saving to move into a better car because you make $150,000 and driving a $5,000 car is unreasonable. So you're going to turn around and move back up, right, with cash. So why not just pay this one off quickly and keep it, or pay something like it off that you like and keep it. So if you want to trade, fine. Don't trade up. You don't have to trade down much, but trade into a loan out of a fleece

and then turn around and pay both of these things off inside of one year. That's what I would do if I were in your shoes shoes took me a minute to get all the pieces gathered up but that finally got there my fault thanks for calling amanda's with us in california hey amanda welcome to the dave ramsey show hi mr ramsey i'm so blessed to be talking to you right now you too what's up? So my question, I need help. So right now I'm in baby step number two. I'm in the snowball effect. I only have two remaining loans left. My school loan, which I have only $6,000 left, and my car loan, which I only have $17,000. And I'm hoping, planning to have that paid off within the next 12 months. But my question for you is, I have $13,000 in my savings. Should I throw $12,000 of that into this debt and do the whole one only have $1,000 in my savings?

How did you know how to ask that? From your Baby Steps, because I know Baby Step 1 is to have at least $1,000 in your CV. Right. So, you know, what we suggest is to use all non-retirement savings and investments to clear up debt. Gotcha. But my second predicament with that is I'm paying my mom's house mortgage. Why? $2,400 a month. Why? Because she's, my father passed away at the same time that I got my first new

grad job, and it kind of just fell on me because my mom's unemployed right now. She's not working, has no income. Why? So the house mortgage kind of just fell on my lap. Why is she unemployed? She's been unemployed for the past five years taking care of my dad while he was sick. Yeah. So how long ago did he pass? He passed away five years ago. Okay. It's time for her to get on with her life. You can't pay her house payment in perpetuation. How old are you?

Even if she's 65. How so? I'm 29. Is she disabled? No. Well, she can get to work or get rid of this $2,400 a month house payment that she can't afford. So, no, you need to be down to $1,000. And you need a better plan on your mom's housing than you paying for it until she dies.

It's completely unreasonable. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. In a season of giving, what better gift can you give someone in the coming year than a new job? Business leaders, if you're looking to add to your team in 2020, get started now with LinkedIn Jobs. At Ramsey Solutions, we post on LinkedIn Jobs because we know the right person will have an impact on our company for years to come. And LinkedIn Jobs matches the right person with the right job. It's no wonder a hire is made every eight seconds on LinkedIn, and over 600 million members visit LinkedIn to make connections, learn and grow as professionals, and discover new job opportunities. So find the right person for your team and give the gift of a rewarding new career. Get started today and get $50 off your first job post. Visit linkedin.com

slash Ramsey. That's linkedin.com slash Ramsey. Terms and conditions apply. Well, it's this time of year, the giving time of year. This is the time of year we celebrate God's generosity to us, sending His only begotten Son. And in the name of that, it inspires generosity by all of us. And we appreciate you being generous. We appreciate you living like no one else so later you can live and give like no one else. We'll be doing a giving edition of the Dave Ramsey Show on the 20th. We always do, heading into the final days of Christmas, and the giving edition is three hours of stories from you about a time that you gave or a time that you received.

You want to be part of that. We want to hear your story and let you tell it here on the air. Email us and put giving in the subject line, and Kelly Daniel and the production team will get back with you and get you set up to be here on the show with us, and we'd love to have your story be part of it. Giving in the subject line. Email me at daveonair at daveramsey.com. daveonair at daveramsey.com.

Dan is with us in Illinois. Hey, Dan, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave, thanks for taking my call. Sure, what's up? I went to Zander, and I'm looking at auto insurance, and it looks like I can save a good amount of money. I'm good with the deductible and the premium and everything, but I'm looking into the bodily injury, property damage,

like uninsured motorist injury and that sort of thing. And I didn't know, like, what levels you recommend for that kind of stuff. Well, the typical – typically in the auto insurance world, the cheapest part of the policy is the liability part of the policy. So I always recommend carrying high liability, like $500, $300, or something like that, because the difference in that and going cheaper on that is very low. And if you get into the hundreds of thousands of dollars of liability, it seldom stops at $100, or 200 um so you want to get a you want to get the 500 300 or 500 250 high-risk structure with that particular company something

like that so in general in the insurance world liability is one of the best buys. It's the least you pay for, and it's a good spend. As you get wealthier and you start to, say, you have a net worth of more than a half million dollars and or you have a large income, you're probably even going to want to pick up a liability umbrella policy to attach to the top of your homeowners and the top of your car insurance. You can buy an extra million dollars in liability for those two things in an umbrella policy for a couple of hundred bucks a year in most cases. And so once again, that kind of makes my case that the liability insurance is just not that expensive.

And other than that, most of the standard coverages are fine on the other stuff. And what you're looking for is just an apples-to-apples comparison of what you had so that you can see if you're really saving money. And you typically will be saving money when you use someone like a Zander that is an independent insurance agent. Hey, thanks for the call. Appreciate you joining us. Guys, we talk about this in the ads all the time,

but it's good to just stop as a teaching tool and let you understand there's two types of insurance agents out there. There's captive agents and independent agents. Captive agents work for one company, like a state farm or a nationwide or something like that. They can only sell that company. They're captive. They're owned by that company in that sense.

An independent insurance agent can sell many policies for many different companies. Now, they can't sell for the captive companies, but what you'll find is the independent insurance agent that shops among several different companies will almost always beat your state farms and your nationwides and that kind of thing. For one thing, there's no expensive football players on their commercials. It costs a lot of money to get an NFL quarterback on your commercial costs a lot more money to get two of them on your commercial. And just keep this in mind that's built into your premiums. Okay. And state farm is the largest insurance company in America on property and casualty, but they are definitely not the best uh i personally had trouble with them getting to pay them client getting them to pay claims people hit my car with and they had state

farm insurance i always go oh crap this is going to be a fight i'm going to have to fight these people to get my money out of them and um so that that's what you run into. And so, you know, you want to know it's not big does not mean better, and more expensive does not mean better, and just because you went to high school with the person doesn't mean it's better. Okay? You're looking for an independent insurance agent, and they will shop among. See, an independent insurance agent works for you. They get paid when they do a good job and you

buy the other people work for the insurance company and so that's why they call it a state farm agent or a nationwide agent or an all-state agent those are captive companies and when you shop you'll almost always get a better deal when you shop against those and many times much better coverage even. All right, up next is going to be Tim in California. Hey, Tim, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure.

What's up? My question is I max out a Roth IRA each year and my grandfather wants to give me $10,000 to invest, is there any other options available to me for tax advantage treatment of that investment? Do you have any self-employed income? Very small, usually about $1,000 a year. Okay. That's about the only thing you could do is you could probably do a SEP on that amount,

but it's probably not worth doing as small as that is. No, that's about the only thing you could do is you could probably do a SEP on that amount, but it's probably not worth doing as small as that is. No, that's pretty well it. Self-employed income, you can do a simplified employee pension plan or a simple 401K, simple IRA, those kinds of things, solo 401K. There's all kinds of things you can do along those lines with the self-employed income, but the IRA is your only other place, and really you don't even want to shelter it there. In your case, you're going to want to do a Roth IRA, not a traditional. That's what I do.

Yeah, good. Okay, you're on track there. So do you have any debt? I do not, no, sir. Good for you. Well done. Yeah, you're on your way. So you're down to just how you want to

invest that then how long you're planning on leaving it alone in my case when i run out of things that i can shelter it under uh what i will do is uh i will buy an s&p 500 index fund that's no commission no load, and they typically have what's called a low turnover ratio, which means they do not sell the stocks inside the mutual fund hardly ever, and so there's no capital gains activated until you sell out of the mutual fund. So when you buy $10,000 in, it goes up to $15,000. You don't pay taxes on that $5,000 increase hardly at all until you sell out of that mutual fund. So what I do is I load money into one of those things and let it sit there until I have enough to buy a piece of real estate, because I

like to buy real estate for cash with no debt, of course. And that's the way I build that up. So good question. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Benjamin is going to come up after the break, and so are others. Not after this break, but he'll be up soon before you know it. I'm looking around here trying to figure out how to do radio after 30 years. It's something I have to learn to do. Mark's on Facebook. I'm sorry I don't understand how term life insurance works. For example, what if I get a 15-year policy and I live for 20 years? Do I lose all benefit of that 15-year policy? The benefit of a term life insurance policy is if you die while you have it, they pay.

That's the only benefit. Your car insurance does not have benefits to it unless you wreck your car. Your homeowner's insurance does not have benefits to it unless your home burns. Insurance does not create benefits. Insurance is protection. Anytime someone has insurance that creates benefits, it's known as saving money inside of an insurance policy, which 100% of the time you do that, you get screwed. 100% of the time you do that,

you'll wish you didn't. It's a horrible idea. So no, the only benefit you get is your family's taken care of if you die while the policy is enacted. How often can you get the best of both worlds? Not very often, right? Well, with the Rate Secured program at Churchill Mortgage, it's possible. You can secure a low rate now to nail down your budget, and if rates drop while you're shopping for a home, they'll give you the lower rate. That's right. They take on the risk of fluctuating interest rates, not you. Who does that? Well, you should fall in love with the numbers before you fall

in love with the house. This program lets you do just that. So if you're buying a home this year, you'd be crazy not to call Churchill and get your rate secured now. Call Churchill Mortgage today and have the best of both worlds. Go to churchillmortgage.com or call 888-LOAN-200. That's churchillmortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLSconsumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 761 Old Hickory Boulevard, Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. Isabella is in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage to do a debt-free scream. Where are you from, Isabella? I'm from Boston, Massachusetts. All the way to Nashville. Welcome.

How much debt have you paid off? I paid off $66,000. Very cool. And how long did that take off? I paid off $66,000. Very cool. And how long did that take you? 20 months. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? Started at $42,000, went all the way up to $52,000 with some side jobs.

Cool. What do you do for a living? I work in marketing. Awesome. What was the best side job you had? Honestly, it was babysitting. Yeah? Yeah.

$20, $30 an hour? $20 an hour usually for a couple hours and just did as much of that as I could. Absolutely. Very cool. What kind of debt was the $66,000? It was student loans and a car. Okay. And how old are you?

I'm 23. So you came out of school, and you're looking at Sally Mae, and you said, oh, woman, you're going down. Oh, yeah. She wasn't living in my bedroom. Love it. So how did, you're going down. Oh, yeah. She wasn't living in my bedroom. Love it. So tell me your story. How did you get connected with us and what did you do?

So a couple of years ago when I was in college, I had actually seen the envelope system and I saw that you had created it and everything. And I was going to start it and then never got started. So then back in February, I saw a friend post on Facebook, posted a quote from you and then posted about her book. She had a couple of books that she was giving out to friends for Christmas before that and everything. And I was like, all right, so Dave does a little bit more than just the envelope system. So I Googled you and found out that you had a book and that you do podcasts. And I listened to your podcast for a couple hours and I was hooked and I had some money in savings. So the next day I dropped $14,000 on my student

loans. Wow. Just like that. Yeah. I left a thousand dollars for my starter emergency fund and then just started kicking debt. So you believed it when you read it and just did it. I did. My boyfriend thought I was crazy and so did my parents. And they were like, are you listening to this guy? Like, do you even know anything about him i'm like oh well he tells me to pay off my debt so that's what i'm gonna do yeah you didn't send the money to me you paid it on your debt no yeah worst case is you're getting out of debt good for you so you tore into this i did yeah yeah so beforehand i was actually kind of doing the um doing baby steps, and I didn't really know it. I was putting about $1,000 a month out of my paycheck towards my student loans.

And then I found your program, and I was like, all right, well, I'm kind of doing it a little bit out of order because I was doing my 401K and everything, and then that's when I kind of got everything organized and just ramped it up. So we're going to do it in order and just, boom, start punching it. Yep. Good for you. Well done. So how hard was this 20 months? It was really hard.

All of my friends always wanted to go out and they wanted to go on vacations and it was just really hard to say no. My boyfriend was telling me that I was ruining my life by not going out and having some fun and by working all the time and all the extra babysitting and everything, but up being really worth it in the end yeah did you keep him i did i did mr encouragement huh yeah eight years so i'm kidding not really i love it very cool very cool wow so did you ruin your life no i just made it a lot better you know 20 months of sacrifice and now you're free at 23 years old i am free you're not gonna be 33 years old whining about your student loan debt nope at 33 i want to have a house paid off so that's my

that's my next goal get after it i like it that's awesome rock star so did you have anybody that was a cheerleader I mean your friends Your parents Your boyfriend Are all telling you You've lost your mind One of my best friends

Carla at work Really cheered me on She's not on the program But she knew That I just wanted To go and get it And she supported me Every bit of the way

My boyfriend did support me He thought I was crazy But he has supported me And he's actually On baby step two right now Oh oh Now he comes around He doesn't want to believe it He says it's not Dave's plan But it supported me, and he's actually on baby step two right now. Oh, now he comes around. He doesn't want to believe it.

He says it's not Dave's plan, but it's his plan, and he's doing it, but he's on your plan. My parents still think I'm crazy. But now you're free. I am free. Wow. Okay. Very cool.

Well, you never know. You pay for your house by the time you're 33. Maybe you'll get their attention then. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm proud of you. Very well done. We're your cheerleaders then.

We'll just be your encouragement from down here in Tennessee. Thank you. Very well done. Very impressive, Isabel. I mean, $66,000, 23 years old in 20 months. Very impressive. Very impressive. So now that you're free, other than buying a house, what's your first big thing?

You're actually going to spend some money now that you can live a little bit. So actually, so now that I have almost all of my baby step three full, my boyfriend and his family, we lost our house on Thursday to a fire. So we're going to be using some of the emergency fund to help them get through that and make sure that they have clothes and that our animals are all okay. Sure. But yeah, then after that, I'm going to start baby step three, start saving for a house, get a little car fund going just in case, just to have it and continue my 401k. All right.

Very cool. Way to go. Boom, boom. Look at you. We a copy of chris hogan's book for you everyday millionaires you're going to be one before you know it at this rate i mean look you paid off 66 000 bucks i mean you are on your way this is pretty amazing so don't stop oh i'm not stay on it stay on it and that's what this book's about it's the next chapter for you you got chapter one done i did get out of debt part now let's go to the bill wealth part which is why we got out of debt yes so well done isabella very very very well done excellent excellent job

all right isabella from boston 66 000 paid off in 20 months 23 years old making 42 up to 52 with the side hustles count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one i'm debt free that's how it's done i love it i love it i love I love it. Very well done. Very well done. Man, absolutely amazing. Very cool. All right, Benjamin is next. Benjamin's in Kansas. How are you, Benjamin?

I'm pretty good. Thanks for taking my call, Dave. Sure. What's up? So I've got a little issue with my mother. She had, about 10 years ago, co-signed on a student loan, a private student loan, for my brother. It was about $50,000 back then. And shortly after that semester, he passed away. Oh, my gosh.

The student loan company, it does have a clause that they will discharge the loan if the student dies. So we went through the steps on that and submitted the death certificate and so on and so forth. Well, they came back and said that since she co-signed on it, she has to pay the loan. And it has since with the interest in the low principal payments, I believe it's out of the $500 payments every month, $30 goes towards the principal. And with that and the deferment for going through that, I guess, research of whether or not they discharge it, the total amount is now, 10 years later, $63,000. And I was just wondering if there's anything we can do

or if there's anything you recommend or if we're just stuck with it and need to pay that whole thing. If it is not a federally insured student loan, unless it depends on how that clause reads, I've never seen a private student loan that says that the loan is forgiven if it's co-signed, that she wouldn't be liable. I think she's probably going to be liable. But if you've got a clause like that in that contract and you're looking at it, I would take that to an attorney and have them look at it and see if they think it's enforceable or if your mom is going to be on the hook.

Now, this is not a federally insured student loan, correct? That is correct. Because a federally insured student loan is 100% of the time forgiven upon death, even if there's a cosigner. They do say that it would be discharged if the student dies, but it doesn't say anything about a cosigner. Yeah, I figured it would be the case of she's going to be stuck with it, but I just wanted to...

Well, I would ask an attorney, because if it's vague, I'd probably go for the juggler. I mean, it's a $60,000 discussion. Right, absolutely. Yeah, it's worth spending $4,000 or $5,000 on an attorney to punch at them a little bit and see what happens. It might be that they think they just got you on the run because you hadn't fought back. So I don't know.

I don't know. I've never seen that clause in a private student loan. There are no co-signers on federal student loans. It's either a Parent Plus loan or it's a student loan. The federally insured loans are forgiven upon death or disability. But this one, I don't know. It depends on the clause of the contract. I'd see an attorney if I were you.

This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thanks for joining us, America. Matt is with us in Minnesota. Hi, Matt. How are you? Hi, Dave. How are you doing today? Better than I deserve. What's up? Just want to say that I'm very blessed to talk to you and for all you do for everybody. Well, thank you. How can I help?

Yeah. So I help? Yeah. So I have a question. Me and my wife, I'm trying not to get emotional here. We've been going through a rough patch for the last year and a half, or excuse me, half a year to a year regarding finances, and it just seems like we can't ever really agree or come to or meet in the middle, I should say. Just looking at hopefully getting some hope from you today. What is it you're having trouble agreeing about? Just like with everything, just with budget, what we want to do, just things like that.

Just looking at pretty much just agreeing like where money is going. I'm more of a budgeter. She's not. She's free spirit and I'm the nerd. And I'm just trying to, like I said, just get some hope because I'm. How long have y you all been married? We just celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary on November 28th. So how old are you, like in your late 20s?

I'm 30. I just turned 33 the other day, and she is 31. Okay. All right. So do you have other areas of your marriage that you just don't agree on things um no just pretty much just mostly the financial aspect of it like um her mom passed away at uh 48 from breast cancer and um like my mom and dad never really taught me really about money my mom and dad used credit cards and my wife's mom was a single mom.

Her dad's an alcoholic. So I think it's just our normal way of living. Or I should say I am trying to change that. So when you guys sit down and talk about this and you say the best way to live our dreams and accomplish our goals is for us to be in agreement on the spending and for the spending not to exceed our income she's unwilling to do that yeah she just feels that it's too uh drastic she feels like she's being controlled um i just feel like i love my wife with all my heart but you know what i think she is being controlled i think you're a super nerd and her vote doesn't count

like like i've said like i've i've even told her does it sound okay to you and she says yeah and then and then a couple days, she just changes her mind. Yeah, she wasn't really agreeing. She was just trying to get rid of you. So you didn't really have agreement from her. So there's a couple things going on. It sounds like from the outside looking in for one minute, so I don't know how good my insight is. But my guess is

after having done this for a long time that um you're a little bit like me and that you're a super nerd except you're also a tightwad so you don't like to spend money on anything and you like to tighten everything down really super tight and she sees the budget as a way that you are using this to control her instead of somehow having a conversation where the two of you understand that her vote is equal to yours her vote is equal to yours and not just like oh yeah whatever you want to do honey which means i'm gonna blow this thing up that's what that means she's not gonna do anything you said that she said she was gonna she didn't really mean it yeah you just do whatever you want to do that crazy butt stuff you're working

on that's what she's saying and just waving you off so instead you've got to get some emotional involvement to where the two of you can get on the same page because when you as you have found when you cannot agree on your spending you've not really agreed on your life when you agree on your spending jesus said your treasure is where your life. When you agree on your spending, Jesus said your treasure is where your heart is. And when you put your treasure together and the together, we decide how we are going to live our life. It creates a unity and a oneness and a level of communication in your marriage. But in order for that to occur, she's got to believe her vote counts, that her voice counts. And you have been the loudest voice in the room on this subject.

You're not a loud person volume-wise, but you're taking up all the air on this subject. And so probably you go back and start with, okay, what would you like to do if we were wealthy? And shut up and listen. And just get her dreaming about what it would be like to have a couple of million dollars. Okay, now, I think if we work together, we can have a good life while we pursue that great life. And there's some things we've got to do to get that going and we you know but we've got to be on the same page because um no one wants to be controlled no one wants to be in a situation where their vote doesn't count no one unless they've got psychological issues no one wants to um live on beans and rice for no reason, just because it's fun.

No one wants to live on a scorched earth and never spend money ever for anything. Even a saver enjoys spending money on some things. That's their purpose of saving. So I think that you are such a detailed person that you've got these screws tightened down so tight that she does not feel the room to actually have a vote. And it sounds like if you can't get through this in the next week or two, start talking about what would it be like to have $2 million. Okay, well, how do you think we can get there? Well, you can't get there. Well, I think we can.

I think we've got to work together. And let's talk about how we can work together, and, you can't get there. Well, I think we can. I think we've got to work together. And let's talk about how we can work together, and let's put this down on paper. But you have to really come to the table, honey. You've got to really sit down with me, and you've got to really talk about this, and you've got to really put your wisdom and insight into this too. It's not just me carrying you along. I didn't really sign up to be your daddy. I signed up to be your husband, which means we work together. I don't need a kid

that has to be taken care of. And if you can't get past that, you probably need to see a marriage counselor and you probably need to see a marriage counselor. Anyway, I'm not sure you guys have got the relational skill set to work through this. It doesn't sound like it sounds like you've given it a really good run, but try a couple more of those things. But that's how she's feeling. It sounds to me like it sounds like she's feels controlled and like her vote does not count. And so she just waves you off and says, well, whatever you want to do, walks away and goes and does whatever the flip she wants to do. That's not agreement on a budget. And so if you can get agreement on the budget, the only way you're going to get that is there's agreement on the reason we're doing a budget. And so if you can get agreement on the budget, the only way you're

going to get that is there's agreement on the reason we're doing a budget is because it's going to take us somewhere towards wealth. So we can be more generous, so we can travel, so we can have a nicer car, so we can be more generous, whatever it is you're going to do, right? I mean, whatever it is, it turns you on that when you get some money someday, you're going to do, right? I mean, whatever it is that turns you on, that when you get some money someday you're going to do that, that's what you're looking for. So, hey, thanks for the call. Joseph is up next, and Joseph is in Maryland.

Hey, Joseph, how are you? I'm doing well. Good. How can I help? Yes, so I'm 25. I'm married. I have a four going on five kids in about three weeks. Um, so we're trying to get that. And, um, I make $60,000 a year. Um, but my wife and I were $130,000 in debt. Um, we just, uh, kind of got into, uh, your, your plan and budgeting, um, and the financial peace university kind of got into your plan and budgeting and the financial piece,

University kind of looked into it, started the free trial. And so we have a car out of that $130,000. We just bought a car in August that's roughly $55,000. And as a family truck, it's a GMC Yukon XL, and i'm ready to sell it now yes but when i talked to my wife about it uh really it was last week we were watching the first step video yeah um and she you know she got anxious and she's pregnant well she can get anxious if she wants to get anxious 55 000 car when you make 60 should make you anxious because that's in that's in the crazy column man that's got to go you're gonna have to amputate the truck baby that thing's gone there's no way you prosper

with that thing unless you're gonna live in it you know it's got to go it's completely over the top i'm sorry you you guys ought to be scared to death it ought to be freaking you out hope that helps you that's what you wanted was confirmation. Sometimes that's what we're here for. That puts this hour of The Dave Ramsey Show in the books. This is James Childs, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. Did you know you can now listen to The Dave Ramsey Show on Pandora and Spotify? For all the ways to watch and listen, check out our show page at DaveRamsey.com slash show.