The Ramsey Show - App - Attack Your Debt Instead of Letting It Attack You

Episode Date: February 20, 2025

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Number one bestselling author, Ramsey personality, George Camel is my co-host today. Open phones here again. And here's what we do with you folks. We take your calls and we have no idea what you're going to ask except

what you told Christian, our phone screener. We don't set up these calls. We don't make them up. The truth is, George, we don't have to make them up because some of you and some of the people in your life are so freaking crazy that it makes entertainment in and of itself just real life. We couldn't even make up some of this stuff. No. Much like news and politics, the reality is actually more entertaining than anything you could write or dream up.

There you go. So that's what this show is. I mean, fiction's harder to write. Exactly. So we just take it as we see it. So we're here to help you, all kidding aside, regardless of if you've done something dumb. Because if you've done something dumb, that makes you human. I've done a lot dumb.

As a matter of fact, I've got a PhD in DUMB. I'm not proud of it, but it is the degree I have. And so we're here to help you not live in the land of broke due to decisions that you made when you weren't thinking straight. Again, 888-825-5225. Thank you for being with us, America. We're glad you're here. Mark is in Columbus, Ohio. If I push the right button, there's Mark.

Hey, Mark, how are you? I'm doing well, sir. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world? Hey, sir. I've been listening to you guys every morning on my way to work on the satellite radio, my car.

And I got into a mess here. I make about $125,000 a year. And last year, I made $125,000. And then I got a bonus of like 70 000 last year too and um and then right now i don't have anything in my savings i don't have anything in my checkings i'm broke i'm paying my very minimums on my credit card i got about 27 credit cards i pay the minimum and it's like every day I'm paying the minimum on one of those cards, and it's like I miss a card one month, and I forgot I had one, so I'm writing them in my calendar.

So every day my calendar is filled with a minimum payment that I've got to pay to a credit card company. How much do you owe in credit card debt? How much is the credit card debt total? About $12,000. Okay, you made $200,000 with your bonus. What'd you do with it? I don't know.

I really don't know. I don't know. I'm trying to figure out. That's what I'm trying to figure out what I did. If we looked at your bank statement and saw where all this money went, where are the top few things we would see? Food, eating out. Grocery store.

Yeah, eating out, grocery store. No one spends 10 grand a month at the grocery store, though. What are your vices? Buying things, buying too many things, I guess. What did you buy? What's the most expensive thing you bought last year? A Ryan Lawnmower. Okay.

What did it cost? Four grand. Okay. That's a lot of four grand. I used it twice. Yeah. All right. Are you sports betting?

No sports betting. Just, no, no sports betting. I don't do any sports betting. You're doing drugs? Marijuana, if that's considered, you know, just self-medicating, just trying to get out of debt, you know, maybe that, you know. Okay. I'm just trying to find the money.

I'm not throwing grenades. I'm just trying to find the money. I'm not throwing grenades. I'm just trying to find the money. Because a $4,000 lawnmower, I still got $196,000 left. So it wasn't like you bought a $50,000 something that you can put your fingers on. So I'm still trying to find, like George said, where the money went. All right. So, all right. First, let's establish that you're not having fun.

You said that. And we need to get back to being on top of this mess instead of this mess being on top of you. Is that a good goal? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Okay. Have you got the credit cards near you right now?

No, I don't. I just don't know. Where are they? Where are they? Where are they? They're at home. Okay. When you get home tonight, I want you to get scissors and light a candle and have a plasectomy party and chop them all up, every one of them.

Okay. Yes, sir. Why wouldn't you do that so i mean i hear you say it all the time cut them up i mean so what you mean like literally cut them yeah literally get scissors out light a candle and chop every one of the stinking things up they've stolen your life from you shoot them in the face yeah how old are you mark i 52 how long you've been living like this um the last two years yeah i think there's nothing here fun so the first thing we're going to do is stop the bleeding no more use of credit cards and no more credit cards that's step one step two is we're going to do a written detailed budget and make 120 000 plus bonuses behave and we're going to write it down what we're going to do with it before the month begins and if it's not on the

budget you don't do it so you're not eating out you're not traveling you're not doing drugs you're not doing anything you don't have any money you're a broke guy and so broke people buy food lights and water and they pay their rent and they throw everything else at the debt okay and that's what you're going to do you're going to get real focused like your life depended on it because it does my man yeah you won't need pot because you don't need to medicate when you're in control again yeah when you're attacking this instead of it attacking you is what i'm talking about you feel that emotion what was that sir I said when you're attacking this mess instead of this mess attacking you, there's a growl in that. Do you feel that emotion?

Yes, sir. All right. This is time. Throw the shoulders back and knock the crap out of some stuff. Hit it. Okay. Hit it hard like it's threatening your family, like it's threatening someone you love because it is.

I love you, and it's threatening you. You need to put a stop to this crap and hit it hard, and that involves stopping everything that money is going out to and start throwing it all at the credit cards. The great news is you could be out of credit card debt in just a couple of months. You'd be 100% free of credit cards cards but the credit cards really aren't your problem because you only owe 12 grand the correct what's the problem is is you have no idea where a lot of money is going it's almost like you're in congress yeah yes yeah do you have other debt mark

you don't make huh do you have other debts other than the credit cards? I have a vehicle, $18,000. I bought one of those car vending machines online. Have you got a girlfriend you've been helping? No, just helping my wife I'm separated from, helping her and the kids. Okay, how much money do you throwing in that direction? I probably threw maybe like $15,000 in that direction. Yeah, I think you're throwing more than that and you don't realize it because you're wanting to be a good guy because you are a good guy.

I want you to help your kids, okay? I don't care about your ex. She's your ex. That's how that works, okay? If she's not your ex, you take care of her. But until she, when she's your ex, you take care of your babies. And you're very careful and very wise about that. Hang on, we're going to get you set up with every dollar and get you going on a budget, brother. Hey, you guys, health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer,

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It is the baby steps for small business, and you don't want to miss this. You can pre-order it right now. It comes out April the 15th, but pre-order it now for $29.99. You get over $350 in free bonus items, including instant access to the Entree Leadership Hiring Playbook, where we have coached over 10,000 small businesses on hiring and firing, early access to the e-book, and the enhanced audio book as well. So thanks for hanging out with us. And you can go to ramseysolutions.com slash store, get all of those deals or YouTube or podcast, just click the link in the description and you're ready to rock and roll. David is with us in Lexington, Kentucky. Hi, David, how are you?

I'm doing good. And how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world well i just uh lost my job and i feel like i pay way too much in rent i don't know really what to do wow what why did you lose your job uh being stupid i slept in a lot. So you couldn't seem to get to work on time? Yeah, and I worked five feet away from where I slept. So you worked from home? Yes. Okay, all right.

What were you doing? I worked in an automotive BDC call center. Okay. How'd you get that job? Just applying around. Got found on LinkedIn. They messaged me. I was applying to everything, and I found a job that was a mile up the road from my house. So the office is here, but I didn't have a car for the longest time, so they let me work from home. What were you making? $12 an hour, so about $24,000 a year.

Well, the bad news is you lost your job. The good news is you didn't lose much. Pretty much sucked as a job, agreed? Oh, yeah. I was being berated for $24,000 a year. Yeah, I mean, you can make $20 an hour at Target. Right? Do you have a car now?

Yes. It's kind of a junker, but it can get me from a to b get you from a to target or dick sporting goods or name it i don't care almost any retailers paying over 12 making it up right now and they're all short of help what's your rent uh 8.95 a month okay you live in a lot of utilities and everything included yes all right how old are you 20 how old am i 24 okay all right so you were doing uh auto loan collections is that what you were doing no uh service scheduling so whenever you needed an oil change or had a check engine light on i was the person you talked to so why were you getting berated

oh people when it comes to their car if it's not done now it's it's a problem okay and these were places in new york and all that i got you it doesn't matter people are jerks everywhere i understand that it's not just new york but all right so um um all right you you lost a crummy job that doesn't pay much can we agree on that yes okay but there's some shame on why you lost it, because it was due to a lack of personal energy and diligence, and so you're a little bit ashamed of that. Is that fair?

Absolutely. Okay, all right. Because your voice has absolutely no energy in it, and that's what I'm trying to figure out. It can't be because you lost this crummy job. The job sucked, but it could be because you feel bad. Oh, I definitely feel bad. I mean, I just can't be because you lost this crummy job. The job sucked. But it could be because you feel bad. Oh, I definitely feel bad. I mean, I just can't.

I'm not trying to pick on you. I'm just trying to feed back to you what George and I are hearing on the other end because we want to love you well and help you get moving. Because I don't want you going in for a job interview sounding like Eeyore. Do you know who Eeyore is? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I want a level of enthusiasm. I want you

to get caffeinated before you go in, okay? Has it been like this your whole adult life, David? Just kind of lack of purpose, no real spark, just kind of going through the motions, or was there a time where you were lit up, fired up? I was definitely fired up when I worked. I was in a pretty nice job. I made just barely more than I made at the call center. But I was working for a giant manufacturing company. I don't know if you've heard of them, Linkbelt Grains. But what do you want to be doing, David? Have you ever taken a moment to think, here's where I want to be 5, 10 years from now?

Here's the kind of career field I want to be in? I mean, I'd love automotive repair, but I don't know where to start. I can't save money to save my life. I'm down to basically $0. Yeah. Well, you haven't made any money. That's part of the problem. When you're making $2,000, your take-home pays $1,500 pays 1500 and your rent's 895 you're not got any margin in this budget so i don't think you're

horrible at money i just don't think you made any money so we're that's why george is poking around on the income side of your equation okay so i another issue is i've been applying for i mean i knew it was a terrible job i've been applying for, I mean, I knew it was a terrible job. I've been applying for about six months, and nobody seems to want to take me. Okay. That's probably because of the way you are applying, not because it's a personal thing like David is not worthy, okay? Because honestly, if you get up and brush your teeth and comb your hair and take a bath and

you go down to target, uh, or, or whoever down the street at the mall and start walking from store to store to store you and to ask to speak to the manager and have a little bit of sparkle in your eye, a little spring in your step, uh, and a firm handshake and a smile, uh, you'll get hired by the end of the day david at twenty dollars an hour there's that stuff is out there it is everywhere okay and that might be you have to leave the house you can't sit and apply by computer on linkedin that's that's just not going to work you let me let me give you an example of why okay at ramsey wesey, we have about 1,100 folks at our company here. All right?

We took 15,000 job applications last year. We hired about, I don't know, 700 people, 600 people. No, no, we didn't hire that many, 400 people. Anyway, nothing out of 15,000, right? So how did those 400 get out of that stack of 15,000? It wasn't by email, and it wasn't through LinkedIn. They did something that got them in the door. And one of the things they did is what Ken Coleman calls the proximity principle.

So you have to stand up and leave the apartment every day at 8 a.m. dressed and ready for work, smiling, teeth brushed and hair combed until you get a job in the next three days. And in the next three days, if you do that, leaving at 8 a.m., go talk to people in the auto repair business. Go talk to people in these big box stores go talk to anyone that will talk to you about hiring you and be nice and kind and show up on time and never be late the rest of your life learn that lesson the bad news is you had to learn it the good news is you got the rest of your life to not relearn it so yeah get out there and get it done man now once you get that going then we need to step up and do what George is talking about

and start dreaming about what we want to be. I don't want you to be an auto repair. I want you to own 17 auto repair centers and be worth $8 million 20 years from today. But you got to decide, I'm going to aim at that, and I'm going to go do what it takes and scrap and claw to get that done and that requires energy and enthusiasm and believing you can do it hang on i'm going to send you a copy of ken's book the proximity principle and another one find the work you're wired to do that has an assessment in it that'll help you start dreaming big but in the meantime go get

some eating money today. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, George Camel here with a not-so-fun fact. Every American social security number, including our children's, has been hacked and is now on the dark web. And this is not a scare tactic. This isn't fear-mongering. It's a reality that could turn into a nightmare for a lot of people. And believe me, I've been a victim of identity theft and I would prefer it never happen again. Because once the bad guys have your social, it's the lifeblood for all of their activity. Think of all the places you use your social. Your banking, your employer, government offices, utilities, cell phone companies, everywhere. And once they've got it, thieves can open new accounts, drain existing ones,

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In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, which you're more than welcome to drop by anytime and watch the show. We do it live from 1 to 4, and we do the show on the glass, so you can watch it happen every weekday. So come by and hang out with us. In the lobby is the debt-free stage, and Lex and Sarah are standing on it, which can mean only good news for Lex and Sarah that they're debt-free. Welcome, guys. Hello. Where do you guys live?

From Cleveland, Ohio area. Awesome. Well, welcome to Nashville. Thank you. We had a snow just in time to make you feel at home. Yeah, you guys have a little bit of a different definition of a snowstorm than we do. You don't think one inch is a blizzard? What?

It's all good yeah yeah yeah there's no milk in the grocery store i'll just tell you because everybody thinks they're going to be inside for the next eight weeks because we have one inch so how much debt did you guys pay off about 260 000 i love it how long did that take about five and a half years wow good for you and your range of income during that time which is we we went from probably 80 000 to about 150 cool what do y'all do for a living uh i'm a physical therapist i uh work in customer service at a chemical company okay excellent cool five and a half years did you pay off your house no no no what was the physical therapy

there you go hello 260 000 you got 150 in student loan debt right you are pretty much uh right there okay all right wow yep all student loans okay most of it most of the 260 was student loans uh all of it all of it between the two of you yes whoa yeah Whoa! Yeah, we paid down about four grand. She had four grand in credit card debt when I met her. We got that taken care of before we got married and then did Financial Peace University. Yep. Wow.

So you've been married about six years? Seven. Yeah. And the first thing you had to do was climb a mountain of 260,000? Yeah, we called it our first mortgage. That'll do it. Now the mortgage is going to seem like a piece of cake yeah it's

not so scary you mean that house only costs that oh my gosh not so bad yep we can do that we've done that before wow good for y'all man that's amazing so uh how did you end up in financial peace university as newlyweds so my my mom actually got up for us for Christmas. Oh, joyful from the mother-in-law. 2018, yeah. I taught financial literacy down in Cincinnati for a couple years, so I was familiar with your books because one of the local banks supplied us with a bunch of supplies for the financial piece stuff that I was teaching to eighth graders.

So I was familiar with it. Okay, very cool. And then you said, maybe I should do it. Yeah. That would be cool. Yeah, so Sarah, when he comes in, you go, okay, this is how we're going to do this. What'd you say?

Well, I mean, he had mentioned it multiple times before, but I feel like, you know, I hear a lot of people say, like kind of, I was a little Dave-ish. Like I wanted to, oh, I went to school for so long. I deserve to live my life and all that kind of stuff. And then, you know, I had that moment where I sat down and added up all the loans and I'm doing income-based repayment. And the interest is just making the total number go up and up. You're going to be 84 when you get out.

Yeah, I'm like this absolutely ridiculous. So, you know, I got mad at it. We got the course and just kind of game on took it from anger plus information that's what you needed yeah you know what that's a good that's a good combo it really is that's legit and we came back uh after the first class and she cut up the credit cards and that was it she ran business game on okay that's a great way to start a marriage to be on the same page and have a villain to fight. I mean, the dragon must be slayed, and we're going to do it together.

Absolutely. Yeah. We're going on a quest here, a journey. Well done, y'all. Man, that's amazing. That's a long time. Yes. Yeah.

Five and a half years. Yeah. How did you stay with it for five and a half years? You know, I always say that like that anger and I put, I feel like I put a lot of the blame, I guess, on myself and the responsibility of it, of not wanting to run from it and just owning it that like I made this decision to like take this money out and i wanted it gone from my life um you know we faced a lot of life along the way too sure um you know you start this process and then a year later there's a global pandemic you know oh yeah so you know um we faced job loss we faced um wheels literally falling off our cars.

Yeah, we replaced three vehicles. That's why I was saying we should have added up how much we cash flowed during this time, too. Like, the amount of money between three cars. We were blessed with, you know, we grew a family. We had two kids. Wow. So, just all of these things, like, you know, we were so fortunate to be able to keep like our four walls during this whole time um but there was a lot of stuff that slowed it down um and

did kind of feel like a mountain that was really hard to climb but i i leaned a lot on our faith you know i'd been absent from the church quite a bit um and you know like before we got married and then so we leaned into to that and that support group and um knowing that um you know sometimes your your problems lead to the goodness at the end i guess so that's beautiful so what was the hardest sacrifice lifestyle wise you guys had to make for that period of time uh i so i i grew up my dad has the same rake that he had before i was born so for me the the money part of problem wasn't an issue i think there was just a lot of pressure from friends and family not even intentionally in a bad way but just like oh she does home health like you need a nicer car like

just take out a loan so just fighting that kind of stuff was difficult I think just resisting like the normal um of what people find to be normal you know like where um like the the vehicles is a good example I think and just like how you want to make upgrades to the home or buy newer and nicer things or like with the kids like they need this or that those those kids don't need anything besides like to be loved right you know um they don't care that they're sleeping in a crib that i got a facebook marketplace like i don't know the difference so i think like just like those things like really like knowing that we had everything um we needed and most of what we wanted i think you redefine the word need in your household. Yes, yeah.

I think, you know. It's huge. Yeah, yeah. A lot of just giving up the wants, I think. Yeah, we've often taught that contentment is the most powerful financial principle. And you were functioning in that. That's what you're saying.

Yeah, yeah. We just don't have a very big, I'm sorry. We just don't have a very big material chase. Material things are not, I mean, they're important, but they're not what drives us. That was an advantage through this, and it helped you get through it. It's a superpower to not care what other people think. It's tough. No, it's not easy.

Especially when it's the people you care about. Well, way to go, y'all. That's amazing. Because really what happened is you get married, you have a couple kids, you go through several cars, you climb this mountain, you reengage your spiritual life, you dive in deep. There's a whole lot of personal growth that's happening here in the six years. I mean, you're not even the same people you were when you started talking about this.

It's pretty incredible. Y'all are impressive. Very cool couple. Thank you. Very power couple. You guys helped a lot along the way though i was just sitting here yeah but yeah george george maybe i was instrumental thank you way to go y'all very very proud of you who was bragging on you on the way um well i mean i think everybody was really supportive you know our family our friends um co-workers um so you know

there's a lot of people i hopefully kind of watch it and cheers on today back at home i want to say hi to our our kids finley and max um they're uh with grandma and grandpa and we get to that's where they should be that's right be away from them for more for the first time really uh since they were born i see why you want to travel to nashville yeah i like it good good hey what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is now that you've paid off 260 000 in five and a half years um just to know the difference between your needs and your wants yeah yeah i think that's the biggest thing is just finding that contentment and knowing that like you know we're just so blessed with the things that we have you did it i'm proud of you right well done lex and sarah cleveland ohio 260 000 paid off in five and a half years, making 80 to 150.

They did it. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free. Yeah. Wow. 260,000, the same number of times Biden said he was going to forgive it.

That's right. And then they paid it off. Yeah, let's not wait around for that to happen because it didn't. Yeah, didn't, didn't. Oh, man. Oh, there's that. It didn't. This is The Ramsey Show.

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I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. George Campbell Ramsey, personality, is my co-host. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Well, as predicted by the Ramsey team and me and George, the real estate market is beginning to thaw as the snow thaws. And I mean, we told you in November after the election that probably what would happen would not be instantaneous and that gradually the market would begin to heal as springtime came around. So we are seeing in the real estate market an uptick in activity.

We are seeing interest rates down very slightly, just a little bit. And nothing, no big dramatic anything in the real estate world. There's no sudden supply. There's still a shortage. There's no huge drop in interest rates instantaneous, which I didn't expect to have happen. I didn't anyway. And so the real estate market is starting to move again uh and so the you know the thing we've told you for 30 years is still true that when it comes to buying a house a home for your family real

estate's a great investment when bought uh when bought properly and at the right time in your plan and what happens at your house in other words what happens in your house is more important than what happens in the white house and so donald trump's not gonna buy you a house joe biden didn't buy you a house it's not their job either one of them and it's your job to buy a house after you get out of debt have an emergency fund and when you can afford the payment on a fourth of your take-home pay on a 15-year fixed rate. And that's very doable once you get your crap together. But, you know, there's people worried about tariffs driving construction costs up. There's people thinking that the government's going to get in the housing business

and drive supply up, which will bring prices down. Not going to happen. Tariffs aren't going to drive construction costs up, not appreciably, even if there are tariffs, and there aren't any yet. Hello. Basically, the White House has a lot less effect on the housing market than you think they do. Well, no, but the effect they do have is,

and they are starting to have that effect, is to make people believe again so the economy starts moving. And when people are hopeful, they purchase things, they invest. They get off the side. When they are hopeful. And if you believe, whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, if you believe the economy is going to get better, you will make moves that make the economy better. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. And housing is one of the elements of that and i do think that's going to happen and i'm not going to uh give president trump the uh the credit for having grown the economy i'm going to say the american public grew the economy but it is if he gave them

hope and caused them to do that with you know cutting spending and uh which they're obviously doing to uh pretty rapidly and pretty wildly it's kind of fun to watch uh for a guy who likes to cut spending i mean i'm i'm in hog heaven right so um you know that's a good thing and uh and i know it's your grandmother's program or whatever they cut and some of you're are pissed, but I really don't care. Cut spending. And you've been spending more than you make like some kind of drunken congressman. So that's wonderful. And if that kind of thing gives people hope, and if he puts pressure on the Fed and causes interest rates to go down,

that gives you hope and causes you to go into the marketplace, the real estate market is going to take off. So I am predicting a healthy, good, functioning real estate market again by fall. I don't think it's going to be a boom or bust thing like it was after COVID. It was crazy. But I think it's going to get moving again, and it's been very stagnant. What do you think? Yeah, it's definitely been crawling, and I think it's going to take longer than we all want it to. And so for those folks who've been sitting on the sidelines waiting for something drastic to happen, quit waiting. If you're ready to buy a house, like you said, don't time the market. Time your own financial life and go, now is the right time for us to buy.

This is the time to buy. I'm looking at several pieces of real estate right now, and I'm not doing that because Trump's in office. I was doing it before he was in office, and I will keep looking. But I'm only going to do the deal when the deal is right. And it fits in our, you know, our parameters on how we do real estate. And you're paying cash. And for those folks that are, you know, they're taking on the mortgage, Dave, and they're going, well, Dave, the rates are so high. What do you say to them about the rates? You marry the house and you date the rate. So when it does dip down, you just refinance. You know, it's not that hard. Just don't, you know, don't buy too much house and don't be crazy.

But your interest rate, if interest rates go back down to three, and I don't know if they will or not. I never thought they'd be there to start with. So what do I know? But anyway, if they do go down, it's not that big a problem. Just refinance. And you'll have a little bit of cost. And within, you know, 18, 24 months, you'll get your money back. And you'll have a little bit of cost, and within 18, 24 months, you'll get your money back, and you'll be rocking along, making the better rate then after that. So

don't let that keep you out of the market. If you're waiting on rates to come down, that's dumb, because as soon as they go down, you're going to see some stimulation in house prices that are going to offset them going up. So go ahead and get in when you're time. But you need to be out of debt. You need to have an emergency fund in place of three to six months of expenses, debt-free, and, you know, with a good, strong down payment. We'd like to see, if you're not a first-time homebuyer, it should be at least 20% down because you can avoid PMI, which is private mortgage insurance, which is about $75 a month per 100,000 borrowed.

That adds up. So, I mean, if you borrow like 400,000 bucks, that's 300 bucks a month that you're paying for insurance for the mortgage company to insure them in case they foreclose on you. That's what PMI is. It's a risky buyer fee. It's a risky buyer fee because you didn't put down 20%. That's a good line, George. Thank you.

I worked hard on that. Yeah, because, I mean, I've been doing this 30 years. I never came up with that. That's pretty good. Yes, that's a win. But there we go. But if you don't put down 20% and you still buy, we're okay. We're not mad at you.

We're just saying you could save a lot of money if you did put down. So a good down payment or your house payment on a 15-year fixed is no more than a fourth of your take-home pay. And your take-home pay is not after insurance and 401K. Your take-home pay is after taxes. What are you taking home after taxes? That's the number we're talking about. So I'm not talking about your check. I'm talking about what you're – that's called take-home pay.

It's not – your check is different than take-home pay. So – You got health insurance premiums and the 401K. That's not – Don't include. That's not in your check is different than take-home pay so you got health insurance premiums and the 401k that's not that's not in the mix okay so um but anyway yeah because you need to be able to cash flow this thing and get it paid off and move along to the next step of wealth building but real estate is good it's it's not horrible right now it's not booming but it's definitely not horrible it is way better than it was four months ago way better i mean i've got a couple properties on the market that zero people were looking at and now people are in there every week and every day looking at them and so i mean we're actually

seeing activity happen you know on those properties and uh And they're not rentals. I mean, those are sales. So it's happening. Real estate is moving again. It's very, very quiet about it because there's all this other stuff in the news. And nobody's talking about real estate much. But we are here because you talk about it at home. And you're thinking about, should I buy a house? Should I buy a house? What happened? Is Trump going to end the world? No, he's not going to end the world. And no, he's not going to make your life better by sending you money. It's not going to happen. And I told you that was going to happen. I told you that about Biden. So you guys got to be grownups and go for your own destiny.

Yeah. Quit waiting around. Regardless of what's happening in the economy, you can affect it a lot more than anyone else. So we've got a lot of resources too, Dave. Our team built a real estate hub with tons of resources, tools, calculators, articles, even a video course, ramsaysolutions.com slash real estate. And we'll be talking about real estate investing here soon. Yeah, we're going to do a, the second time we're doing the Investing Essentials virtual event, March 4th and 5th. George and I are doing that. Tickets are, that's a virtual event. Tickets are 199 bucks. You can get your tickets at RamseySolutions.com. It's two nights. The first night is two hours on investing and investing philosophies.

The second night is two hours, and most of it is on details on how to do investment analysis real estate, real estate investment analysis. Using real examples from your portfolio. I'm going to go through. I'm going to open my playbook. It's only the second time I've ever done that. And I did it this time last year, and it was a big hit. So they talked me into it again. Well, stuff you've never talked about on the show because you're like, this is too nerdy. I got to tell you, the whole stink of the night, these two nights are both nerdy. So if you're having trouble sleeping, we can help you with

that. But if you're a super nerd, you're going to love this stuff. If you're really into investing, oh, we're going to give you the meat and potatoes, baby. George. George, some meat on the bones. Because George is a super nerd. I'm just saying. He can do it. I love it. Can't wait.

March 4th and 5th at RamseySolutions.com slash events. The Investing Essentials Virtual Event. This is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual, amazing relationships.

I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. George Campbell, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Thanks for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Charlotte is in Richmond, Virginia. Hey, Charlotte, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, thank you so much for speaking with me. Sure, what's up? Well, my husband and I have a home that his parents are about to move into in a few months,

and we want some advice as to whether it's better for them to just be deeded the house, or if we do have them just pay us the mortgage amount, what should we put in a contract just to keep our family relationship healthy, but keep everything legal and just secure? Wow. just to keep our family relationship healthy but keep everything legal and just secure wow um well the reason you're calling is because you know you're skating on thin ice asking for trouble yes and you're asking how to avoid falling through the ice and the the best way is don't skate on thin ice don't do the deal this way why aren't they getting a mortgage and buying it from you we all um we're kind of doing a house shift his sister's coming from a very expensive part of washington dc and she will move into the parents home and

be deeded their house and the parents will move into our smaller home and downsize and all of the mortgages are so cheap because the homes are purchased years ago compared to refinancing and adding about a hundred to a thousand dollars well hundreds or thousands of dollars more the the sister gets a free house your the parents get your house free what What are you getting? My husband and I have two homes. When we got married, we both bought a house into the marriage. So this would be the house that we've just had renters in.

I know. You missed my point. You're giving the parents a free house. They're giving their other daughter a free house. What are you getting? That's why i'm calling nothing okay so um i'm confused why we're doing this this is going to cause resentment this is not a house swap this is uh sister got a house they got a house and you didn't uh that's different um so all right uh so you want them to move into the house and pay you for the house.

Is that right? Yes. And they're fine with that. Okay. Why don't they get a mortgage and just take the house, pay you with the mortgage, like a normal buyer of a house would do, and just pay you and you sell them the house? Okay. I'm writing everything down. i mean i'm asking is

there a reason you all hadn't done that because that's kind of the obvious way to do it what's the price you would sell it to them for that's the issue where we are the home would go for 380 and we only owe 190 um but i am aware that if they purchased it at the market value right now, we have a, I think it's an $1,100 mortgage on that house, and it probably knocked them all the way up to $1,800, if not more. Yeah. And you're saying that's too much? So if they're going to buy a $380,000 house,

they're going to have a mortgage amount that they pay. What's wrong with that? They can't afford it? Oh, they can. I guess we just want to be a blessing to family and not make anybody have to pay $800,000 plus more a month if we already have the homes in our name. Well, you can't transfer the deed with that mortgage in place. That mortgage that you have is not going to survive this deal.

Okay. There's a due on sale clause in the deed. Would it be better then just to have the contract for a renter? No, it would be better if they went and got a mortgage and bought the house from you. If you want to discount the house to be a blessing, instead of selling it for $380, sell it for $300. I'm fine if you want to discount the house to be a blessing instead of selling it for 380 sell it for 300 i'm fine if you choose to do that i'm still confused why you need to do that but if you want to do that and that's what you want to do just sell them the house a little cheaper and let them go get a mortgage and hand you a check okay if they buy it for 300 and you owe 190 they're going to hand you a 110 000 check right

right right and that's a deal i'm making up the number i don't know what the number is but i don't care what you sell it to them for um and they're giving a deal to your husband's sister, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. And so really, and then you give them a deal. So really the truth of the matter is when all the smoke clears, you actually gave your husband's sister a deal. Mm-hmm. Yeah. If you trace it back.

Yeah, because they're getting a deal on your house, and that enabled them to give the deal over there. So it's much like you did it for the sister instead of for them so i i don't know i don't know what you want to do i would not have them pay you a monthly rent and i would not have them pay you a mortgage and i wouldn't do it for free because now you're actively losing money every month because you still have to make your mortgage payment right we wouldn't do it for free they would cover what we would owe monthly yeah we just want to make sure there's no legal repercussions and we definitely don't want to do a handshake deal we want to have a contract i would not have a contract because all right let's let's talk about it i'll go one more step okay there's

two or three principles going on one there's a legal principle if you do what's called a contract for deed and um they move into the house and start acting like the owner of the house you've had what's called equity of title has transferred and the due on sale clause in your mortgage can activate and your mortgage company could foreclose on you so don't do that don't do that okay and if they move in and just start renting from you then they don't own the house and they're at risk and you got to figure out some kind of a deal someday when the house goes way up in value who gets that money them or you i wouldn't get into all that i would simply sell them the house at a price and let them go get a mortgage pay off the mortgage that you have put the difference in your

pocket and they still got a deal okay and then they have a mortgage payment and it's their problem just like it is today today they own a house you're not involved in that house right right that's the way it should be that's that's the legal side of this now then the other side of it is the emotional and relational side uh the borrower is slave to the lender when you eat dinner with someone you owe money to it tastes different because it messes up relationships and no contract in the world makes that go away that's a spiritual principle a philosophical principle so please don't do the deals you're talking about doing your family is going to end up harmed you is going to end up harmed. You're going to end up harmed. People are going to end up not liking each other. It's not a good idea. So just pick a price. If it's

worth $380, we're going to sell it to you at a discount of X. Let them go get a mortgage for X. And if they don't want to pay off your current mortgage, and if they don't want to do that, then you really don't need to do this deal for sure. You don't need to do it for sure anyway. This is the Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys. I'm not a fan of the big banks, and you probably already know which ones I mean. But I do like credit unions because they're nonprofit organizations that focus on their members. And I'm proud to endorse Fairwinds Credit Union

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bank in person wherever you live. But if you prefer the online experience, you can log on to Fairwinds and do anything you could do at a physical location. So go to fairwinds.org slash Ramsey to learn more. And while you're there, look at the combined checking and savings account bundle they created just for Ramsey fans to help you take control of your finances. That's Fairwinds, F-A-I-R-W-I-N-D-S dot org slash Ramsey. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host. Our question of the day is brought to you by Y Refi. If you're struggling with defaulted private student loans,

Y Refi offers a great solution to get you back on track. For a low fixed rate and more flexibility, go to Y Refi.com slash Ramsey today. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. Might not be in all states. Today's question comes from Chase in Florida. My aunt recently reached out to me for advice since I'm considered the financially responsible one in the family. She's 37 and we come from a low-income family. She worked at Tesla for six years and recently discovered that her old Tesla stock holdings are now worth $650,000. I love it. That's great.

She currently works as a project engineer, earning $70,000 a year. Her monthly rent is only $1,000, and she has $20,000 in debt, which will be paid off this year. She has retirement investments, but no cash savings. She's hesitant to sell the stock because her goal is to let it reach a million dollars before selling she's also concerned about the tax implications if she sells i've explained that this mindset borders on gambling emphasizing the danger of investing in a single stock if you were in her shoes what would you do with 650 000 in,000 in Tesla stock? Wow. That's so fun. Yeah.

What a great relationship that she comes to him with this big win and asks him what to do, and he's saying, you've got too much risk here. And he's spot on. He's so cool. I love this, and I do agree. This does border on gambling, waiting for your single stock to go up, you know another 30 something percent so that you can cash out at the right time yeah that scares me yeah you're

gonna have taxes welcome to making money um sorry but that goes to the territory capital gains but the good news is you know if you if you hold that asset for over a year that would hit the long-term capital gains tax exactly and she's had it over a year. She's been there six years. Yeah. So her old Tesla stock. So we know it's over a year old, so it's going to have long-term capital gains. So it'll be at a 15% rate. So it's not going to be that bad. You're going to pay probably $100,000 out of this, something like that.

And that's if you cashed it all out at once today. And you are. And you are. So she could be debt-free today and be in a different place financially. $20,000 and go buy a house. Yeah. Thatfree today i would be in a different 20 000 bucks and go buy a house yeah that's what i would do she's 37 years old she's a renter she has 20 000 in debt this would change her life to cash this out go buy a house that actually goes up in value instead of potentially who knows what's going to happen with tesla they may continue to go up well

i'm not i'm not dissing tesla but i don't i'm not buying it if you got 600 if you're 37 years old you have 650 000 in cash stacked in the middle of the kitchen table what do you do with it would you invest in tesla go buy tesla stock no go buy any single stock no go buy a house yes now we're talking gonna go up in value and you have no payments and you make 70 grand a year and now you're gonna have another million dollars in just a few minutes if you do this because now you can load your 401ks your roth iras you can stack cash you're gonna have zero debt and you know and no house payment of any kind no rent going out and so that's a couple thousand bucks a month minimum and we're talking about putting maybe five thousand dollars a month away now uh and that's going to be a million dollar another

million dollars very quickly in a good mutual series of mutual funds in your roth ira's and 401k so a hundred percent that's what i'm doing not even a hesitation if you had and the way you can sometimes see the thing is when you own something sometimes it's hard to pry the fingers off of it but if you just reset it in your mind and say there's a stack of cash in the middle of my kitchen table what would i would i go buy tesla stock with it no would i go buy apple stock with it no both great companies both probably going to go up still wouldn't buy have all of my eggs in one basket and i still would go buy a house you're 37 year old single lady you own a home cash paid for guess what they're going to do they're going to go up in value all the time pretty cool george pay the taxes oh yeah people are so scared of

paying taxes well i don't want to do anything it's like a boogeyman we don't know what it is so just add it up and you go oh that's what it is oh it's not that big a deal yeah get with your tax probably probably 85 000 bucks or less and they'll go here's what it is. All right, I'll pay that out of the proceeds. And now you got, you know, it's almost like it's found money anyway. I recently discovered that my old. Quite the thing to forget about. Kind of found money, you know. I mean, so it's like, and now I'm worried about giving up a little.

No, don't. Because, again, I am not predicting Tesla's success or failure, or I'm not betting for or against Elon Musk as a business person. None of that. That's not the issue. The issue is it's a single stock. If you had it all in Microsoft or Dell or Apple or McDonald's or Coca-Cola, I don't care what you name some big stable company that's not brand new on the

scene and not cutting edge technology that's a little weird you know i mean name one of those and i'm still going to tell you not to do it so i don't do it i don't have i don't have six hundred fifty thousand dollars in a single stock and i got a lot more than six hundred fifty thousand dollars so i what if i thought it worked i'd be doing it you know so no that's it i hope that was clear chase i don't think dave can be any more clear dave has a trouble with clarity he sometimes has trouble telling people what he really thinks roberta is in boston hey roberta what's up hi um thank you for taking my call i um so my question, I am a stay-at-home mom, and I haven't worked in a long time. My husband and I, we are in debt.

And since I've been starting watching your content, I am just done with it. It's working. It is. So this year, I am being very intentional. We have about $18,000 in credit card debt and his truck is his credit better, maybe refinance the truck, get better interest, you know, and and see the money because he makes. OK, like he makes about twelve thousand dollars a month and we are just getting by. The money comes in, the money goes out. Next month, start from zero again. So since December, I haven't worked since 2013, and I don't intend to work.

He likes this. I do too. It works for our family. But I got a side gig just helping a friend for a couple of months, you know, I'm making about $230 a week. And then I said, well, this is going to go towards credit cards. Cause we just going to bang these credit cards. I don't want to see these payments anymore.

And the money is just going into the account and disappearing with our normal bills, you know, and I'm getting very frustrated because I'm like, I'm, you know, I'm doing this. It's a little extra and it was supposed to get the credit card. So anyway, being in that, um, also one of my huge goals was to go back to homeland to see my family. I haven't seen my family in about 16 years so um and then we keep putting it on home roberta it's brazil i'm from brazil okay i was born and raised in brazil so and then i moved here in 2008 um and i haven't been back i want you to take that trip and i want you to sell his truck and i want you to pay off your credit cards before you do it.

And I want you guys to get on a budget and make your money behave. Because all you're doing is throwing all the money in a pile and then wondering why it burns. You're not making this money behave. He makes really good money for you guys to be this broke.

Doesn't he? She didn't like my answer. Just gone in a poof. A little puff of smoke there. But that's the truth. If you really want to go on this trip, what are you willing to do? What are you willing to give up? And that might mean the truck gets sold yesterday.

Because that's a lot of truck. That'd get you out of debt real quick. Use your savings plus sell the truck. You're out of debt this year. Ta-da. Almost like we've done this before. Book the trip by Christmas if you do it that way. But I think we found the problem.

Don't know that he's going to want to get rid of that truck. That's the next job. Oh, this growing up thing. It's hard. This is The Ramsey Show. Rachel, do you ever get these sketchy text messages that are like, hey, you need to update your address and verify so we can get you the package you didn't order? Yes, I have. George, sketchy and never trust them. And that's why we recommend Delete.me. They help with that. Yeah, they do. Delete.me actually goes in and removes your information from data broker websites.

And it is an incredible service that everyone needs. And there's a lot of shady companies out there that solely exist to sell your personal data to bad guys. And that means your info, like your email address, your home address, your kids' names, your name, everything is just out there for scammers and spammers to find. That's right. And then once they remove your information, then they're going to send you a detailed report telling you where they found your information, when they removed it,

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lobby of ramsey solutions on the debt-free stage matt and k Kate are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Hey, good. Hi, we're doing great. Welcome. Good to have you. Where do you live? Oh, sorry. North Indianapolis. Okay, fun.

Welcome to Nashville. Good to have you. And how much debt have you two paid off? $112,500. All right. Way to go. And how long did this take? About 10 and a half months.

10 and a half months. Wow. Wow. And your range of income during that time? $144,000 to $177,000. Nice jump in one year. Oh, yeah. What do you guys do for a living?

I work for the United States Postal Service. And I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. Awesome. Way to go, guys. What kind of debt was the 113? Two auto loans and student debt loans. Ah, most of it student. Yes.

Yeah, yeah. The majority student. Yeah. Okay. Wow. So how long have you guys been married? 12 years. Yes.

So after 11 years, you look up and say something's got to change. That's about right. And you run into us. Tell us the story. How did this all happen? Yeah. Well, in the summer of of 2023 we just bought a new home and we were in the process of remodeling um and thankfully he's really good at that so

things were going very smoothly um but he enjoys remodeling a lot more than i do so i needed something to distract me as we were tearing up floors um and we talked a little bit about our finances and feeling like we needed to get things on track a little better and so i started listening to the ramsey show as we were doing processing, like work in the house. The old podcast shneekle room. Yes, it worked for us. So you just low-key brainwashed him into going, you don't need to do this debt thing. We make good money. Why are we paying these payments? That's right. Yeah. I was like, you should listen to this. And he had a little hesitation at first. He was working. He was working. Exactly. He had a lot on his mind.

Yeah. But then once he started listening, he really got like motivated gazelle intent so fast. Oh yeah. I listened to the book on the way to work and then just got hooked and. Yeah. There was. Within a couple of days we were on a car lot and he was trading in his Jeep Gladiator for a Chevy Sonic.

Whoa. Yeah. That's a big guy in a Sonic. Yes. Origami. I a big guy in a Sonic. Yes. Origami. I fit myself into it most days. Makes a couple of folds. Yeah, it does.

Yeah, just a little bit. That's sacrifice right there. Oh, yeah. Way to go, guys. You went from like no urgency to a thousand percent urgency. Yeah, way off the charts. Way off the charts.

It's over. In a blink of an eye, you're debt free. Absolutely. A little bit of sacrifice for a little bit of time for such long-term gain. Oh, yeah. Was it worth it? 100%.

Yes. I mean, you gave up the gladiator. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Absolutely, it was. Okay. Yeah. You did it fast. Yeah. You poured on the coals. That's pretty cool. Yeah.

So, as a marriage family therapist therapist you just wish your clients would embrace the principles that quickly and with that intensity yeah i mean that shared vision that we had right like i've seen how important that is in marriages and us being able to unite on this was so strengthening for us too so i would love for people to be able to experience that in their marriage i mean if you told them to go do something and they did it with that kind of intensity is what I'm talking about. Oh, yeah. That's 100% true. And you're healed. And do it. And I assume

now you have some great stories to share from being in the trenches and how this has helped your marriage and got you guys on the same page and you probably

feel invincible now. You're like, what area of our life can't we affect? Yeah, and that's exactly what it is. It's just like, you know,

we can't do anything now. It's a very come at me bro mentality. Yeah, very much so, yeah. Wow. Good for you guys.

Well done. Thank you. How's it feel to be free? Amazing. Just, yeah, just amazing. It just felt so like,

you don't feel like how bogged down you are by the debt until it's gone. It's gone. What was the biggest sacrifice, the hardest thing? Getting rid of the gladiator? Yeah, that was the biggest sacrifice, the hardest thing? Getting rid of the gladiator?

Yeah, that was probably it, yeah. Yeah, we had to lower our lifestyle, right? We hadn't even noticed how much it had creeped up in some ways. And going from school pickup line in a Jeep Gladiator to a Chevy Sonic has a little bit of a different feel to it. Yeah, a little bit of a different feel. But none of those people in that line are paying your bills. Exactly, exactly. I's to remind myself that i'm like hey you know what i don't

need that payment yeah you know this car gets me an a to b well and you're sitting in that line looking and you're going and you got a payment yeah you got a payment absolutely and you got a payment absolutely you quit looking at cars the same that's very true i'm no longer impressed with you people like i feel sorry for you. Yes. Yeah. It's very cool. So you still have the Sonic? What's the game plan here?

I just run it till the wheels fall off. I travel for work a little bit. So I'm like, it gets great gas mileage. So I'm just going to keep it. And I'm like, hey, it's paid for. So. And once it breaks down, you'll have the cash. Yeah.

Great. That's great. What a peaceful way to live. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? Just shared vision and goals.

Yeah. You got to have the same goals to get through it. Yeah, I would say like the EveryDollar app, like having that conversation every month about what we wanted our money to do and just being really united on that. And just like the vision of wanting this to be something that ripples beyond us to like our children like us wanting to involve them us wanting them to see the process so hopefully they avoid the decisions we made um that made it really easy for us to feel that momentum yeah so they weren't like damaged by the no no i think they're okay they're not they don't need counseling themselves i don't think so.

We need a little shirt to say, I survived baby step two. Because there are actual Facebook groups of angry teenagers, I'm just saying. The I hate Dave group or whatever, yeah. My parents went on this Dave Ramsey thing, I don't have a life. Thankfully, we got them when they were younger, so we avoid that. Well, mom's a therapist, so you can handle any trauma that comes your way. You can bring it in house. I like it. Good for y'all.

Well done. Proud of you. Thank you. Who was cheering you on as you went? Just friends and family. Yeah. We had a small circle, but they were very vocal,

and that was amazing. We kept it pretty small because we wanted the voices to be people who were encouraging us, and the friends who were there alongside us made it just so helpful yeah yeah you know if you get the circle too big you get a loud mouth in there yeah that's good way to go guys proud of you all right bring the kiddos up let's introduce them names and ages so this is livy she is nine and this is jane she's seven all right beautiful hey they look like they're okay

i believe they're gonna make it i think so i think they're good matter of fact their mom and dad changed their family tree i'm pretty sure they're gonna make it you guys are heroes we're proud of you well thanks it's an honor to meet you thank you for coming down to nashville and sharing your story thank you we got a couple of gifts for you we got two every dollar subscriptions good for a year so you can use them pass them along to someone else to give them some hope to do this journey, too. When someone asks how you did this, you can show them. Here you go. Here's the tool to do it.

Matt and Kate, Livvy and Jane, Indianapolis, Indiana, $113,000 paid off in 10 and a half months, making $144,000 to $177,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Ready? Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah! Yeah!

That's awesomeness right there. I guess there is hope, Dave. I've been reading the headlines. Everything's so tough, inflation, and yet here's this couple who goes, nah, we're going to do our own thing. Mic drop. It's just wild how that works. You've been doing this 30-something years,

and there's been debt-free screams every year, regardless of what's happening in the economy. Every week. Every week for a long, long time. And, you know, they did it in 10 and a half months. The other couple had $260,000 in a different hour, five and a half years. The other couple had 260,000 in a different hour, five and a half years. So sometimes it's fast. Sometimes it's slow. Sometimes they're make a lot of money. Sometimes they don't make a lot of money. Uh, but in every case, they just looked up and said, uh, I'm in control of my destiny and I'm not going to let these financial companies, student loans and cars and credit

card companies and SoFi and whoever else control my life anymore. I'm not going to be in control of some stupid bank. I'm going to get, I worked too hard to be this broke. And it's fabulous. It's fabulous. And they're remodeling a house, scraping up some tile, and turn on a podcast and go, okay, let's do it. And other people, we beat on them for 10 years and can't get them to do it. Takes a long time to get to that point.

Yeah. They just flip the switch and went, yeah, this is what we do. That makes sense. Let's do it. Let's do it. That's simple. Let's do it. And the faster you get to that inflection point, the better off the rest of your life is going to be oh absolutely do what it takes to get angry good yeah that's how that works wow good work guys good work we're proud of you

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Learning at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. It's free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today thanks for hanging out with us hey you don't want to miss our two-night virtual event that George and I are doing it's called investing essentials investing can be overwhelming it can be confusing and uh it's not something you get in a 60 second social media post or worse or worse, a 30-second TikTok post. But at this virtual event, we're going to walk you through details. We're going to nerd out how to maximize your 401k, your mutual funds, all investment types we're going to talk through.

We're going to give you some principles for selecting good investments and avoiding bad ones. And then it's a two-night event, two hours each night. We're going to take emails from you. George and I will bounce back and forth between emails, between some teaching we're going to do, some discussions we're going to have. It's going to be really interactive and a lot of fun. The second night will be largely real estate. I'm going to open my real estate portfolio and my, at least some of the portfolio and my playbook. How do I do real estate?

And I bought and sold real estate for years. I own several hundred million dollars worth of real estate. So if you're interested in real estate investing, we're going to go into it at a different level than most people can and at a different level than you've ever seen me do. So I've only done this one other time. So check it out. Get your tickets today at ramseysolutions.com slash events. Click the link in the show notes if you're on podcast or YouTube. The Investing

Essentials event. It is coming up March 4th and 5th. And George, you've got some stuff you're adding to it that we didn't do last year. Yeah, we're going to really get into the weeds with choosing mutual funds, different investment traps. And on top of that, Dave, we think about 199 bucks. If Dave Ramsey said, hey, I'll coach you up for essentially 50 bucks an hour, there would be a line out the door. So this is a great value to just really pick your brain when it comes to real estate. And I'll be the proxy for the audience. Anytime I go, hey, Dave, you nerded out a little too hard, unpack that for us. So I'll be there to help translate a lot of the lingo for the people out there to go, this is the right way to do it from a guy who's actually done it.

There we go. And a guy who's on his way. You know, I'm not hundreds of millions in real estate, but I do own a single home. That's a win. That's a win. Free and clear. That's right. So there you go.

Shane is with us in Richmond, Virginia. Hi, Shane. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, good afternoon, guys. I had a quick question, and hopefully you guys can be like the deciding factor in my family. I was wondering, I'm rolling pretty fast here. We're trying to kick down my debt, and I was wondering, should I sell my car, use the proceeds, maybe get like a beater, and then, you know, use the rest of the money,

kind of pay off the last little bit of student debt that we have. How much left do you have? We got about 5,600 left for this student debt. My car, I owe like 14 on it. And I'm thinking I probably make between five and eight grand like private sale of my vehicle. Do you like the car? I mean, it's a Tesla, so I know George might be a little biased on this, but, yeah, I enjoy the vehicle. You're selling it for $5,000? That's all you could get for it? Well, that's what I would get off.

Above the $14,000. That's the profit you'd make. You'd get $19,000. Yeah. Oh, heck yeah. Okay. What's your household income? We make about $185,000.

If you like the car, I would not sell it. You do not need to sell it to get out of debt. You're making money to get out of debt. If you want to sell the car anyway, that's fine. But this is not a fire situation where you have too much car for your income or net worth. You call me up making 70 grand, you owe 56K on your F-150. I'm selling your stupid truck. Okay?

Okay. Because that's out of control. But you owe $14,000 and you make 185. Stroke it, man. Pay it off. If you like the car if you want to sell the car anyway and knock this stuff out that's fine and but but but do you need to sell the car to get out of debt no you do not you need to tighten your budget right yeah i mean my wife doesn't want me to and i me and my uh my little cute frenchie over here is like, sell it. Oh, you got a French Bulldog too?

Are we twins, Shane? You have a French Bulldog that talks? Keep that. Maybe sell that one. You get a pretty penny for a talking French Bulldog. Keep that. That's valuable. Sell the dog.

Yeah. What make and model in yours is the Tesla? It's a 20 Model 3, the long-range dual-motor all-wheel drive. Yeah, that's a great vehicle. And unless you have a severe change in income, I would just keep it and aggressively pay it off. You didn't say you hate the car, okay? And the numbers you're giving us are not dictating selling the car. This is worth celebrating.

Number one, Dave Ramsey didn't tell you to sell the car. Number two, he let you keep a Tesla. This will go down in history. I just said do what you want to do that's all i said i didn't it wasn't a recommendation life wasn't a tesla endorsement don't get all hoppy here i got excited i gotta take a win when i get one i know i saw it plugged in next to my truck outside so i'm just saying sorry about that i like to push your buttons i know why do you park next to me if you're the one who shows to put your parking space next to the electric charging that's on you well that's actually on the person who designed the building which will be rachel's husband okay ken is in spokane

washington hey ken what's up well hi dave first caller. Thanks for taking my call. Our pleasure. How can we help? So my mom has a reverse mortgage. She is 91 years old, has been in the reverse mortgage for a long time. And so we are concerned as kids what our liability may be in the event when it comes. None. Basically, we have to deal with it. Zero. Zero.

The only liability is that it's a lien against the house. You get ready to sell the house, the loan has to be paid off, but so does a regular mortgage. Okay. So, I mean, if she passes away and the kids sell the house, you're going to pay off the loan as if you had a regular mortgage, but there's a lien against the house. you personally don't have a debt and i'm hoping that the house is worth way more than the balance on the reverse it's not supposed to go over 65 ltv

um there's there's probably about uh 40 to 50 000 in equity in it right now okay the the loan is at about 250 wow so the house has gone down in value it's not done well okay well it's there's 17 years into the reverse mortgage yeah but it's still not supposed to be it still shouldn't be over 65 percent loan to value if it's structured right but anyway it is obviously but yeah so you would sell the house and put 40 000 bucks in the heirs pocket and pay off the reverse if the house doesn't get sold and it gets foreclosed on none of you are liable but you would lose the house right that the air the estate would lose the house just less and less to inherit as time goes on. So that's really what you're looking at here. But you're not liable unless your name's on that mortgage.

Did any of you sign for it? No, none of us did. Okay, then what we told you is correct. You're not liable for someone else's debt, even if they're kin to you, period. The only exception would be a husband or a wife, and in some cases there's some common law in some states but but in you know if if your parents out there if you folks listening your parents pass away and they've got two million dollars worth of debt unless you signed

for it you're not liable those people are just not going to get paid unless the burden falls onto the estate of that person yeah when the when you die your estate is what you own minus what you owe and if there's not enough to pay what you owe with what you own the bank shouldn't have made that loan and they're going to lose their money because that's a risk they do the uh the heirs the children the grandchildren are not liable in america period that's simple now in the 60 seconds that we have reverse mortgages suck if a financial product is being sold between snuggies and walk-in bathtubs you're watching a tv show that is catering to elderly people and they're selling you crap like gold and like

stupid reverse mortgages with washed up actors that are ancient they're older than your person they're trying to sell it to and uh so sorry um sorry for the insult to my um i i have great admiration for magnum pi but um but no don't don't do it don't do it don't don't buy a reverse mortgage it is one of the worst financial products on the market today period under no circumstances do a reverse mortgage huge fees bad interest rates foreclosure rate is eight times the national average on traditional mortgages. Do not do reverse mortgages. Hope I wasn't unclear. This is The Ramsey Show.

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, George Camel, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host. The phone number here is 888-825-5225. Thank you for joining us. Christine is in Denver. Hi, Christine, how are you? Hi, hi there, how are you? Hi. Hi there. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, first of all, what an honor to talk to you. You too.

It's exciting. Well, thank you for calling. I just got a question. My husband is concerned that we've paused our investments for too long. He's nearing the end of being able to, you know, wanting to retire. And we paused investing in like beginning of December to jump on the baby steps. We've since 2023 paid off about

$42,000. All we have left is our house and our emergency fund put together in three to six months. How long is too long to pause investing? Three or four years, and you haven't gone over that. You said three or four years? Yeah. You've only done it for, what, a few months? Correct. Did you say you've paid off all of your consumer debt already?

Since, yeah, 2023 is when we took out the first stupid loan and uh when'd you start when did you pause the investing december like three months ago to start yeah i really wanted to we were like paying on it but then as soon as we paused the investing we were able to start really chonking stuff away yeah and he invests probably about fifteen hundred dollars a paycheck uh between the 457 and the Roth. Yeah, good, good. So you've got some money in there, right? How old are you guys?

53 and 55. Oh, you're fine. How much money is in your nest egg? About 420 total in the 457 and the Roth, and then about another 170 in the fire and police pension fund. Not counting the pension fund, is the other stuff invested in good mutual funds? It is. Okay.

Yep, very diversified. Let me help you with this, okay? Let's walk through some math for a second. Oh, my God, I'm so honored to talk to you. That's okay. Go ahead. If you've got a pencil handy, you may want to write this down, or you can go back and watch it later, okay?

So here's a rule of thumb. If an investment is earning 10%, the lump sum will double every seven years. So your mutual funds are earning in excess of that. So your 420, if you're 53, when you're're 60 will be 840 when you're if you don't add anything to it okay if you stop investing and never start it again okay when you're 67 the'll be 3.4 million dollars this is if you never add anything to it and never take anything out of it okay that's wild i'm saying those numbers because that gives your husband peace he's okay but on top all that, we're going to have even more because we're going to restart investing in about September, aren't we?

After we get our emergency funds. Exactly. And I figure with the way we've been chonking away, we've been taking about $5,000 at the bill. Yeah. We can have everything probably by July at the latest. Okay, July, August, September, anywhere in there. And then you're going to start putting good money into your investing again,

and you're going to retire at 65 years old with close to $10 million. And do you say when we start investing again, I know that you always preach 15%. Until your house is paid off. Is that so many always preach 15%. Until your house is paid off. Until your house is paid off. Okay. That your house isn't paid off, right? No, no, I wish.

What's left? On a mortgage. How much do you owe on it? About $340,000. Okay. Yeah, you need to clear that up. Because when you get to 65, you want a paid-for house and a pile of money in your retirement. And that sets you up to be multimillionaires

and to retire with dignity and do anything you want. You've worked really hard, and you've done a really good job. Thank you. Yeah, very good. And here's the cool thing. You get that mortgage paid off, you don't need as much in retirement. You just got rid of your biggest fixed expense. Yeah, no doubt. Yes, absolutely. Here's what's going to happen in your reality if you continue on the path that you're on if you start putting 15 percent away until you

pay off your house and you pay off your house in about six seven years which is what's going to happen here okay so you're going to be in your early 60s and you're going to have several million dollars and a paid for house that's worth a lot of money too okay and so you probably will never even touch the nest egg you probably won't even use all of the growth off of the nest egg because you're used to living fairly frugal and even if you went quote unquote hog wild by your standards you're still not even going to spend all the money that your money is making. That's how wonderful this is going to be. Because, see, here's the deal.

If you're 65 and you've got three – We never have 30 years. Yeah, if you're 65 – what do you all make a year? Our taxes last year were about $196. Okay, so $200 a year. Okay, so if you're 65 and you have $3.5 million, it will generate more than $350,000 a year in income without touching the nest egg.

Okay. And if you lived off $200,000, it's still growing by more than you're putting in now. You guys are going to have to really struggle to screw this up. You've done such a good job. It's good to know. Okay, so tell husband to take a chill pill and if he want if he's got anxiety let that anxiety turn into action and get this emergency fund funded so

fast because he wants to get back to investing yeah that's the second part of this principle nothing wrong with using that as a driver but sometimes it helps if you just look at the numbers and say okay we're talking about 840 we're talking about a million seven uh you know we're talking about 3.4 out there 21 28 years out okay and so that just goes oh i'm gonna be okay oh this is all gonna work and you can kind of breathe again because we if you if you run the math sometimes it gives you peace or sometimes it lights you up but in their case it gives them peace you or sometimes it lights you up. But in their case, it gives them peace. You already have hundreds of thousands in that nest egg, and so compound growth finally has something to work with here. If you just let it ride for the next 10 years of your career, you're going to be in good

shape. Yeah, and if you add to it, it's going to go zing, zing, zing, zing, zing, zing, zing, zing, zing. It's going to go crazy. It'll be amazing. Well done. You've changed your family tree. I'm proud of you.

This is the kind of stuff we're covering at Investing Essentials coming up, Dave. A lot of people are scared. Am I going to be okay in retirement? What is the prerequisites I need to get done? What about beyond the baby steps? Okay, beyond the 15%. What about when I pay off my house? What else can I do?

And so we're going to cover all of the nooks and crannies and all of the different accounts and investment types and fund types. We're going to walk through choosing funds in your 401k, the right way to do that, on top of kind of investing 201 and 301. Well, the beauty of compound interest is it is the, Albert Einstein called it the eighth wonder of the world. And he's right because it's, once you see that, you know, another, you start seeing the examples of how compounding works.

And the oldest one I started using when I first started teaching this stuff almost 40 years ago was $100 a month in a good mutual fund at average rates of return from age 25 to age 65 is $1,176,000. Wow. $100 a month. And you didn't put a million bucks in there. Most of that is compound growth. Now, if you're 55, you don't like that example. But if you're 19, I just made you rich.

You are fired up. That's a deal. Yeah, 80 to 90% of that portfolio in retirement was compound growth. Now, the older you get, the smaller that percentage gets. Exactly. So get started. This is The Ramsey Show. Thanks for joining us, America.

George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host. Connor is in Atlanta. Hi, Connor. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. How you doing, man? Better than I deserve. How can I help?

First off, I just want to give a shout out to John Deloney. I think he was a great hire. He's helped me and my family, helped me become a better dad, better husband, more than anything. So I just wanted to let his boss know he's doing a great job. Well, thanks. We're proud of John. He does do good work. Anyway, I'm a general contractor here in Atlanta and residential.

So we do like basements, kitchens, bathrooms, that kind of thing. And I'm looking to get into real estate. Um, kind of what happened is my neighbor's house went up for sale, looked a little low and, you know, I need some work and stuff like that, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, man, this is something I could do. And like flip, you know, you see all the TikTok, uh, people flipping houses and stuff. Obviously me being a general contractor, I know a little bit more than what goes into it.

Um, but I was just seeing kind of how to get started to get my realtor license and see if like starting Flippant Homes would be a good start or just jump right into investment properties or what your thoughts are on it. Okay. Well, I flipped properties for a living in my 20s before there was an Internet or even cable TV to tell you how. Chip and Joanna hadn't been born yet. And so I've probably done 2,000 of those transactions. I quit flipping them after I went broke doing it.

And the reason I went broke was too much debt debt and it was all short-term debt and i had about three million dollars worth of debt about four million dollars worth of real estate i had a million dollar net worth when i was 26 years old doing that and i was making really good money but the bank called our notes um one of the banks got sold and we had a lot of short-term notes because we were flipping and so uh that established this idea that dave doesn't borrow money anymore and i started teaching other people how not to borrow money and here we are now 30 something years later still doing that sorry well that was that's what i was hoping was uh not to go broke yeah so my advice to you would be um that if you pay cash for the

property to flip then i would talk about doing it and if your house is your personal residence is paid off and if you're out of debt so you don't have any debt anywhere in your life and you've got you know 40 50 000 bucks and you find a little tiny house of some kind and that needs a lot of work and you can go in there and fix it up and flip it. Now, until you're able to do it with cash, I would not do it. And even when you're doing that, as a general contractor, beware because what you could only be doing is just buying yourself a job. Let me give you an example.

If you buy a property and the only thing that you, the only profit above the purchase price that you make is the cost of the rehab then all you did was buy yourself a job you could have worked for somebody else and done that and sometimes contractors don't count their own labor in the in the work and you need to at least pay yourself plus a profit. When I was doing flips, I know how to swing a hammer and a paintbrush, but I didn't. I had someone else do it, and so when I made a profit,

it was above my costs, including rehab costs. So pay yourself a full rehab ticket plus what you paid for it, and if those two numbers subtracted from the sale price give you a profit now you've done a good deal you follow me i follow so the formula that i use when i'm doing flips i used and i still try to use it when we're buying property i don't buy much residential anymore but the uh we went when we were buying houses we would buy a property at 70 75 percent of value minus repairs and then we would make a profit so to use round numbers it'd be hard to find a hundred thousand

dollar house today but that means a hundred thousand dollar house i buy it if it needs twenty thousand dollars worth of work i'm not paying over 55 for it. Now, I've got 75 in it with repairs, and when I pay commissions and negotiate down and pick up some closing costs, I'm going to net somewhere around 88% off the sale price after all that flies, minus 75 means I had a 13% 13 margin which means i made 13 gram per 100 000 not much and that sound then those numbers sound ridiculous to purchase a hundred thousand dollar house it needs twenty thousand dollars worth of work for 55 but it's the only way you're actually going to make a profit because i just ran you the pnl just then you saw it so you're going to buy it because you're going to you're walking away money net of of uh retail value is going to be somewhere around

88 percent over time again i've done 2 000 of these transactions i didn't just make this up because you're going to you're going to pay six percent commission typically somewhere in there you're going to have another three or four percent in uh miscellaneous closing costs and appraisals and so forth you're going to negotiate some on the price and all of that adds up to around 12 which puts you at about 88 take home minus your costs your cost of goods sold so it's an accounting function and most people that do flips don't do that they oh i bought a hundred thousand dollar house for 80 000 Well, you just lost money. When you flip that after you put $10,000 into it, you just wrote a check for the privilege of flipping the house.

Net, net, net. But if you can't do accounting, then you don't even know you lost money. And then you do that a lot, and then you figure out you're going broke flipping houses. So that is not what happened to me. Most of the TikToks that he's seen out there are people doing this burr method and leveraging a bunch of debt and making it look so easy and fun and you're just a bank rolling machine the debt doesn't do anything except make the numbers tighter yeah and you talk about the the beta and the risk that comes in with doing leveraged real estate in

our investing essentials event and that's a big part of it you actually go through and say here's what it looks like when you do cash instead of leveraging debt and it makes it look like your return is smaller but actually when you include the risk you end up winning exactly but let's just go back to it for a second okay let's say that we use that hundred thousand dollar example because the math's easy we had a seventy five thousand dollar purchase and rehab cost okay so you got a seventy five thousand dollar loan so so you got 500 bucks a month in interest now you gotta take that out of the numbers i gave you two uh 10 months that's another five grand out of your 13 grand now you're just about you know pretty soon you're working for the bank

oh wait here we go again yeah what everybody in america does work for the freaking bank because they can't do math and so you you know be careful connor pay cash and buy cheap or don't do flips just because somebody's got a house on the market less than market value does not mean it's cheap enough to do a flip on it definitely not so now if you got a wholesaler standing there ready to write you a check you can buy it for 65 or 70 and they'll write you a check for 80 because they're because they're going to buy and hold strategy which is different um then you can make them you can make a margin that way but if you're flipping for retail and you're doing the rehab on

it those are the numbers that i just gave you that's how it really works out here in the real world but yeah the tick tockers have never done that they live in their mother's basement and they've got an opinion but a man with an experience is not at the mercy of a man with an opinion. So that's how this stuff works, dude. Hope that helps you. I want you to go do it, and you don't need a real estate license to do any of that. If you want to go get a real estate license, it'll help you with some of the commissions that I'm talking about, possibly. But you certainly want to be willing to pay a commission to get the house sold.

If you've got a real estate agent bringing you a buyer, they're to want to get paid that's typically how that works hello so it doesn't absolve you of all fees no no so um and get a real estate license if you want one it doesn't it doesn't hurt the transaction and just full you have to do full disclosure in every state but that's not that big a deal you're just telling the truth is i got a real estate license whoopty doopty uh but doesn't it's not like oh i know something you don't know it's is i got a real estate license whoopty doopty uh but doesn't it's not like oh i know something you don't know it's like i passed a test once but um were there more deals back in the day it feels like these days everyone wants to be a real estate investor so there's less deals to go around everybody wanted to be a real estate investor in those

days i would go down to the courthouse steps to buy a foreclosure there'd be 10 15 20 people standing around oh wow you know that had that were researching and following that foreclosure there'd be 10 15 20 people standing around oh wow you know that had that were researching and following that foreclosure and you follow it for a month and a half two months before it actually gets to the steps and then most of them don't make it to the steps they either go into bankruptcy or get redeemed prior to the foreclosure so it's not as easy as they made it tracking 200 of them and you know 15 of them make it to the steps and of the 15 of them that make it the steps you got 25 people standing around bidding on it you're making this sound like work well it's a needle in a haystack yeah i mean but you can make money doing i made good money doing it but it was i worked it was a full-time job it wasn't like i

mean i would look at a couple hundred properties to get one deal done that doesn't that's not as enticing as tiktok made it sound when you put it that way oh yeah oh you would be the worst there's no easy button oh yeah i yeah, I forgot about that part. This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Zach is on the line in Detroit. Hi, Zach.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. Thanks for having me. Sure. What's up? Looking for some advice. My father passed away in June, and I inherited you, large amount of money. And I just, I really, you know, I kind of want to do what's right by him, but, I mean, it's life-changing,

and I'd like to kind of get some advice hopefully from you on how to proceed. I'm a little lost with it. I got you. How old was he? He was 77. What happened to him? Brain cancer. Oh, I'm sorry. Were you all close? Very. I'm so sorry. How old are you? 30. Cool. What do you make a year? About 140 this year. Good for you. Are you married? Engaged. Okay, good, fun. When are you getting married? June. Okay, all right, one year later, wow. Yeah.4, um, a little over 200 cash and a couple of properties.

What's the, uh, 3.4 invested in? Um, mostly funds. Mutual funds? Yes. Okay. All right. Are you putting money in your 401k now? Yes. Okay. All right. Are you putting money in your 401k now? Yes.

Are you putting in mutual funds? Some, yes. How'd you pick the mutual fund? Well, originally, I, do you mean for my contribution to my own? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So I kind of manage it a little bit myself, and right now it's kind of split between index funds. It's just with a fidelity.

You know, I just put it in mostly an index fund last year, which did pretty well. So my point of asking that is that you have already begun, before your dad's passing, to analyze and select investments. So doing that is not rocket science. You figured that out. It's a couple of three numbers you can look at, and you can start to understand.

And you made some decisions based on some things you read, and you went index route, and you looked at track records. And, you know, you've already had your – it's not your absolute first time doing this. Agreed? Agreed. Okay. So, but we do have 3.6 million reasons to get better at it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So here's a couple of rules, and if you'll follow these rules, you'll be okay. Number one rule, never put money in something you don't understand. I don't care if George Campbell said to do it. I don't care if Dave Ramsey said to do it. I don't care if a guy in a $1,500 suit said to do it. I don't care if a genius on TikTok said to do it. Actually, I care. Don't do that.

But whatever he said, don't do that. But you see what I'm saying? I mean, don't put money in stuff until you understand. Now, if you got that one, say yes. Yes. Okay. That gives you great confidence then to go slow that's number two you don't have to make any big moves to prove that you know something that you don't know yet take your time till you understand so go slow is number two right

all right unless you understand it don't do it number two go slow number number two, right? All right. Unless you understand it, don't do it. Number two, go slow. Number three, put people in your life in the financial world that have the heart of a teacher that can help you understand and go slow. But we're not hiring someone to do our job. Your job is to understand and manage the money that your father blessed you with so go slow understand it get people to help you understand more because you have a uh a level one understanding of mutual funds and really you probably need to get that

up to about a level five or level six out of. Okay. It's probably not that big a deal, not that big a jump, but you do need to do a little bit of learning. George and I are going to be doing an investment, a virtual event, investing essentials. The tickets are $199. I'm going to give you a ticket. I want you to watch it. It's on March 3rd and 4th, okay?

Okay. We're going to go into a bunch of details, so we can be one of your teachers, but then you take that information and it'll help you make decisions about this portfolio. Then I want you to go to remsysolutions.com. I want you to click on SmartVestor and find a SmartVestor Pro, a mutual fund broker advisor in your area that we endorse that has the heart of a teacher. And I want you to interview a couple of them and pick out one you like that you feel good about, your fiance feels good about.

Take her with you. They have to pass the smell test, okay? And you have to walk out of there feeling like this person's not greedy. This person's not looking at me like a dollar bill this person is looking at me like a young person who's a little scared who needs to be taught and they're you're hiring a financial mentor you follow me yes their job is to teach you Their job is not to do it for you. Do not turn this money over to someone else. God made it your responsibility, not someone else's. Okay.

You can invest through someone, but they do what you say to do after they taught you, and you understand, and you go slow slow and you felt good about it. Okay. That's true of your tax advisor that you need to get in your corner. That's true of a real estate person. If you've got some properties that you need to get in your corner, they have to have the heart of a teacher. Oh, and by the way, you're getting married.

You need an estate plan because you're a multimillionaire. So you need an attorney in your corner that does estate planning with the heart of a teacher. So you understand, you learn from these people. I have a tax attorney. I have an estate planning attorney. I have SmartVestor Pros. I am a real estate expert. I've been doing real estate my whole life, so I don't have one of those. But I've got people in my life, and I'm freaking Dave Ramsey,

that teach me. Okay? And George and Whitney do too, right, George? Absolutely. Yeah, people who live and breathe this stuff every day, and that'll help you create some confidence that you're doing the right things, to have people looking over your shoulder and helping you understand it. And so I love this plan. And really what this does is leapfrog you through the baby steps because you never have to touch a cent of debt for the rest of your life. What a blessing. And so I love that you're taking this seriously going, hey, I don't want to screw this up.

This is a weight to carry, but it's a blessing as well. It's going to help kickstart your marriage. That might mean buying a reasonable home and cash one day. That doesn't mean you're going to have lifestyle creep and go buy a bunch of nice toys, but it does allow you to have a very different life. That's an amazing legacy your dad left. Yeah, it's very, very cool. And you honor his legacy by being responsible.

Yeah, exactly. That's why I'm making this call. I was going to say, that's why you're a good guy. i knew that when you made this call you've already honored his legacy you already honored his memory he's proud of you right now for just because you're saying i don't know what to do somebody help me that's the spirit you approach this but you don't go somebody take this because i can't handle it it's a hot potato i'm going to pitch it to somebody else that's what a lot of the pro athletes do and then they retire broke after making 10 million a year right yeah because somebody screwed them over or or some you know and let me tell you this let me tell you from my experience who screws you more

than con artists is enthusiastic ignoramuses that have got some great idea for your money your brother-in-law who wants to open a pizza place that's an enthusiastic ignoramus run okay there's an enthusiastic ignoramus on every corner and they'll screw you a lot more there's a lot more of them than there are con artists so that's why if you understand it you're're not going to get screwed. If you take your time, you feel peace and wisdom, not erratic slashing and flashing about. Instead, you've got good people in your corner. In the multitude of counsel, there's safety, the Bible says. And that's what I did. I just built you a board of directors if you listen to me.

So you're a good man, Zach. You're going to do a great job. Your dad's already proud of you. I'm proud of you. This is the Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, 2 Corinthians 9.6. The point is, whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully opportunities come in frequently warren buffett said when it rains gold pull put out the bucket not the thimble i like that hey money and relationships are two of the most important parts of your life and they work inextricably together. You can also want to be the biggest sources of stress.

If you've committed to learning how to navigate these conversations and grow in your relationships, you don't want to miss me, Dave Ramsey, and Dr. John Deloney in the Money and Relationships Tour. We are going to do something we've never done before. We're going to have a whole series of topics on money and on relationships. And in the pre-show, you're going to have a whole series of topics on money and on relationships and in the pre-show you're going to have a chance to design our talk you're going to say i want though and the ones that vote on which different subjects that's the ones we're going to do so it's almost like in high school where you drew a card and then you had to speak on that subject improv improv there we go choose your own adventure how about that contemporaneous

speaking yes there we go so raising money smart kids how to fight fair in a marriage, how to get out of debt, how to be a millionaire, finding contentment. What is the subject you want to talk about? We're going to be in Louisville, Kentucky together, John and I, on April 21st. Durham, North Carolina, April 23rd, Atlanta, Georgia, April 25th. A couple weeks later, we're going to run over out west and head to Phoenix on May 5th, Fort Worth on May 7th, Kansas City on May 9th. RamseySolutions.com slash tour.

If you're tuning in on your YouTube or the podcast, you can click a link in the show notes. We'd love to have you come out and be part of it. If you didn't know, the Ramsey Network app is out there, and you probably know because that's how you're hearing this particular segment of the show. So you can also send us emails on there. Today's Ramsey Network app question is from Kathy. This comes from Kathy.

Is it still necessary to budget in your 60s and 70s? I feel like this is the old dentist quote, only brush the teeth you want to keep. Feels the same with money. Only budget the teeth you want to keep. Oh! It feels the same with money. Only budget the money you want to keep. Oh. Is that fair? That's good.

If you don't want to keep it, don't budget it. Here's the thing. Rachel talks about this better than anybody, because I never talked about this before she came along and started talking about it on the air. She made it cool. Well, she's a spender, so she's had to figure out that the budget is actually a spending plan when you have agreement on where your money's going to go it lowers your stress level because it gives you permission to spend guilt-free on x or y or z so if you're in your 60s and 70s you have a good nest, and you say, I want to go on a trip, but I feel guilty,

or I want to buy a car, but I feel guilty. You can look down at your budget and go, wait a minute, I've got the money. It's not impulsive. We planned for it. We built this nest egg to be able to do these things and to retire with dignity, and the budget is permission to spend because it says, hey, look, we've got our food. We've got our lights and water. The nest egg is not being bothered. We can do this. We can afford to go out and eat.

We can afford to buy that clothing item, whatever it is you're doing. I don't care what it is. But it gives you permission to do this stuff without guilt because you know you're not messing up. And so it's an anxiety reliever. So I would recommend it. Yeah. And as you get older, I hope, Kathy,

that you guys are debt free with a great nest egg to where budgeting is. It's a quick monthly budget meeting. It's not, you know, pain inducing. It's and you're going to have so much margin that the budget just becomes a fun spending plan versus a we got to be real tight. We can't spend any of this. Yeah. And every dollar is a great way to do that. You know, this week, George, on the air, I've taken with Jade and John and Ken and so forth, I've taken some calls that were really sad, that were like a 71-year-old lady that called and had absolutely nothing. A 73-year-old guy that called and said, you know, I'm working, I'm 73, but I don't have a single dime to my name. I've got social security. My wife has social security. So I got $3,700 a month coming in from that. And I'm tired, but I'm not, I don't have a single dollar. I mean,

like $4,000 saved. And, um, those are sad calls in those situations. And I probably didn't stop during those particular episodes and do a good job of yelling at 20-somethings to take a lesson from that call. You know, if you're listening and you're in your, you know, you're 26 or you're 24 or you're 38 or whatever, and you hear a 75-year-old, 74-year-old call in tears, Dave, I'm tired. My body's breaking down. I cannot work anymore, and I have to because I don't have any. You should take that as God's signal to you to get your crap together. That's a wake-up call. That's your wake-up call.

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. That's the cold shower right there that says, you know, I don't't want to do that i was talking to this guy the one time that was multi-millionaire and he was kind of gruff he probably probably shouldn't even tell this story because he's kind of a kind of a grouchy old guy but he it was kind of funny too in a way kind of sad he said dave you know what an old man is that has money i said no what he gets a grandpa he said you know what an old you know what an old man is it's broke i said no what he gets grandpa said you know what an old you know what an old man is it's broke i said no what he goes in the way that's sad that's pretty cold too but in that you know you know and so i don't want to be working at mcdonald's when i'm 70 unless it's

the one i own in saint thomas right uh you know i don't want i don't be a walmart greeter and and say i'm doing it for fun unless i own the walmart and i probably don't own it since walmart owns it so there so i mean you know a very different story when you work because you want to versus because you have to you know give yourself some options by you know being able to say yes later by saying no now. Quit consuming every stinking thing you make. I mean, some of you out there make so much money, and you work really hard, and you're really smart, but you're dumb. You spend everything.

And when you hear one of these 70-somethings call in, you should take that as God's direct slap. And God is saying, don't do this. In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil. But a foolish man devours all he has. You know, learn something from the, don't just be entertained by this show is what I'm trying to say. There's a lot of wonderful or sad life lessons in this show.

There's lessons in here about my family's all screwed up. I've had three of these calls this week. My family's all screwed up because the will got messed up. And my aunt stole my 90-year-old sister's money. What all this garbage. Family drama. Aunt stole my 90-year-old sister's money. What all this garbage. Family drama. And all that is, is if you're listening to that, that's your – the reason you got tuned in right then, it was not an accident.

It was not a coincidence. It's telling you to get a will. Get your will done. Get it done. Get over – Mama Bear Legal Forms or get with a lawyer and get your stinking will done. And make sure you don't die with a bunch of little your stinking will done and get make sure you got don't die with a bunch of little kids in the house and no life insurance get on the phone with xander get

your life insurance you ought to be listening to the stuff on this show and then going and doing it because it'll change your life and the destiny of your whole family and man when that stuff comes in i don't stop and rail on it enough because it also because it kind of shames the person that i just talked to and i don't want to do that i mean i'll pick on them and pick at them to get them to go help themselves but you know but man it's so sad to take these calls from these folks that have worked their whole lives and they got nothing and they're saying i hope the government which is well known for its ability to handle money will take care of me it's a bad plan so if you're 32 you're 22 you're 42 and

you're listening to this straighten your butt up i mean come on grow up save some dadgum money get quit buying 784 car payments and wondering why your butt's broke that's just stupid of course you're broke because you're stupid stop it you know really i mean god almighty because this is where you're going to end up this sad person who doesn't have any you know they don't have any money to eat it's awful it's awful it's so sad so don't just listen to the show for entertainment there are life lessons in every one of these dadgum calls that are sending out signals to you 30 million people that are out there on YouTube, podcast, and talk radio. So for God's sakes, go do this stuff. Yeah, if all you do is consume this show, you are missing out.

You've got to live it out. Don't say, all right, Dave, I've been listening to you for 20 years, never did this stuff, but it's entertaining. That's not the point. Now you're part of the entertainment because you're stupid. You know? Oh, my gosh. For goodness sakes. Don't be that caller.

Don't be that one. Be the one that calls up on the Baby Steps Millionaire's theme hour and says, you know, I started this stuff 17 years ago, and I got $8 million now. I've been living on less than I make for 40 years. It's not fancy. It's not sexy. But my family's taken care of and nobody's, I'm not having to call people for food. I want my kid calling saying, hey, my dad left $10 million.

What do I do with it? There we go. 3.4 million. That's the one I want. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.