The Ramsey Show - App - Building Wealth Is About Building Good Habits and Sticking to Them

Episode Date: October 2, 2024

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. Rachel Cruz, number one best-selling author, co-host of the Smart Money Happy Hour on the Ramsey Networks, and my daughter is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Daniel is in Reno, Nevada. Hi, Daniel, how are you? Doing all right, Dave. Cool. How can we help? Yeah, I've got some questions. So I know a little bit about your story and about how you were pushed kind of to the point of bankruptcy.

And my question is, is it ever financially wise and spiritually wise as a Christian to defile bankruptcy? My wife and I are $35,000 in debt, 18 of which is a car payment. We've got two kids. We're living on single income, my income of $80,000 in debt, 18 of which is a car payment. We've got two kids. We're living on single income, my income of $80,000 a year. And we've been trying to get out of debt since the day we got married three years ago. Okay. I don't hear anything in that math. Nothing in that math says bankrupt.

You have $35,000 in debt. You make $80,000 a year. Nothing in that math says bankrupt you have thirty five thousand dollars in debt you make eighty thousand dollars a year nothing in that math says bankrupt and eighteen of it being you know an asset that you can sell with the car our car was valued at eight thousand dollars by who it would be negative ten dollar equity at a local Toyota dealership. Yeah, that would be a wholesale. It would be a dealership trying to buy it at a price that they can resell it and make money on it. So you would not wholesale

a car you're trying to get rid of. So that car is probably worth $14 or $15, and you owe $18, and so you're $4 or $5, $6 in the hole, something like that. You're not $10 in the hole. Okay. So or five six in the hole something like that you're not ten in the hole okay um so let's go back uh to your question um

obviously it is not a salvation issue you said spiritually uh jesus loves us in spite of uh all the stupid but ridiculous things we human beings do, right? And bankruptcy is on the list of things that I have done that I'm not necessarily proud of. It's not something I'd line anybody up to do. And, you know, so it's in the 10. You ever heard that list of 10 things that puts people in the hospital? Like if you have four of these 10 things in a 12-month period of time, you're probably going to end up hospitalized. It's like divorce, bankruptcy, death of a close loved one, these kinds of things. These trauma-inducing major negative life event things, it's on that list. So it's not something we want to sign up

for. So all of that to say, I never condemn someone who files or has filed obviously i'm on that list but i also don't encourage it and nor will i personally tell you to do it i will tell you not to do it not because not because of spiritual or moral ethics or something but simply you're just mathematically not bankrupt you can work your way through this and we'll help you okay so? Mm-hmm. So should we, you know, what would be our next step? How much is your house payment? Try getting out of debt. We rent an apartment, a single bedroom, and it's $1,125. Okay.

And that'll be changing in about three months. How long has it been since you've eaten out? When did you eat out last? We ate out last Friday. Okay. And so you eat out three times a week? About once a week. We go out every Friday. Okay. And so you eat out three times a week? About once a week. We go out every Friday.

Yeah, about three times a week. Okay. And when did you go on vacation last? Two years ago. Okay. And you're working 40 hours? Working 40 hours a week. Okay.

And you said you got three kids or how many? Two kids. And they're babies, right? Two and three months. Yeah, little babies. So mommy's got her hands full. All right. So here's what I would tell you.

I mean, what we would tell you is long before you're bankrupt, you never see the inside of a restaurant again unless you're working there as your side gig. And certainly we're not planning any vacations, and we're picking up extra jobs. And we're selling so much stuff the kids think they're next, including this car. Yes, sir. Okay. I mean, you're going to get in gear and go to scorched earth

and be on a detailed budget. What do you do for a living? Heating and air manager. Okay. All right. So you know how to run a project? Yes, sir. This is your new project?

Yeah, and Daniel, I think honestly for you guys and your state, because you're not a lavish people. I mean, you're not. You're not out of control. You're not spending like nutty stuff. But this is where the nickel and dime you know metaphor comes so true with so many people as i'm like you know asking your wife and again not in like a point blank but like okay what is the last target run look like okay when you're you know

when you're uh exhausted is it okay we're just gonna go to a play place real quick and you know you spend like life when you make these little decisions 35 40 dollars here or there it just starts to add up and the lifestyle creep that is so small and again it's not extravagant for you guys but you turn that notch like three four hundred dollars a month easily can just kind of be floating and not realizing it because when you guys get on a budget daniel i guarantee you because it's not true for everyone a budget works for everyone but for some, it is a revolutionizing moment where they say, oh, my gosh, that really is. When you go back, Daniel, you and your wife to your bank account last month, the month before, the month before,

and average out some of these lifestyle categories, I think you're going to see where some of that, where that money goes. And again, you're on 80 grand before taxes. So, I mean, it's not like, you know, you're an average household income. Very much so. Yep. taxes so i mean it's not like you know you know you're you're an average household income very much so yep and so i think it is tightening those knobs even more and then you guys saying debt is not going to be an option so the credit card goes not even making an option selling the car freeing up which is probably you know a 500 car payment four to five hundred dollars at 18 000 so it's it's these these little these little tweaks in this family is going to make a big impact because $400 or $500 a month changes the game in this.

The hopelessness that you're conveying, a feeling stuck, the only way to break that clogged up pipe loose is an explosion and so we're asking you to take a major explosion in your behaviors for a short period of time to get this thing broken loose and get it flowing because you feel like there's no way you can do this. And when I hear 80,000 with two babies in a one-bedroom apartment, I hear a guy who can do it. Okay? That's doable. And you've made absolutely no progress. And it's taken your hope from you.

Proverbs says, hope deferred makes the heart sick. But when desire comes, it is the tree of life. And so what we're trying to show you is that you will feel like you got a raise when the two of you sit down and do a detailed budget, and when you sign up for the trip, and the trip is, we're going to have to sacrifice deeply for a short period of time to get this unclogged. Which also means, Daniel, if I were you guys, and again,

and I'm saying this with your wife in mine as a mom with three little ones and I I know this this feeling but I would pick two three three nights two or three nights that you're going to work extra oh definitely and and bringing in that extra income and so again it's this whole shift of a change if you keep doing what you've been doing you're going to keep getting what you've been getting and I'm afraid that's what's been happening the last three years feeling the pain but not making these big shifts like we're talking about. So I would encourage you to do it and hang on the line. Daniel Christian will pick up and I want to give you guys every dollar premium. So you guys together can be sitting down, having a budget that helps you. It's the great thing about every dollar it's on your phone. You and your wife can have the same account, be communicating about it and

start making those changes because you'll, you'll feel that margin. We'll add financial peace university to that as well. So you guys go through that and start using that every because you'll feel that margin. We'll add Financial Peace University to that as well. So you guys go through that and start using that every dollar. You'll see it move, dude. It does work. You can do it. You're not bankrupt. You just lost your hope because you got stuck.

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Our President Trump, we were able to do an interview with him last week that dropped today on our YouTube channel and on our podcast. If you haven't watched it, pick it up and give it a look. It's very interesting. It's a different version of him than you get in the stump speech or in the media. It's just me and give it a look. It's very interesting. It's a different version of him than you get in the stump speech or in the media. It's just me and him sitting and talking. And something about my country fried self calms people like that down sometimes. So it was interesting. It was a fun interview, fun thing to get to do last week. We also had reached out, have reached out to vice president

harris's camp for the same opportunity um and apparently we're uh in quotes under review so um well i mean who knows what that means i don't know what that means in that world i'm just like a guy on the radio i mean i don't know what i'm doing so podcast and youtube podcast and youtube i'm yeah i'm compared yeah we were number one before yesterday we were number one in the world the apple podcast ranked number one before the trump stuff came out yeah i mean we've been we usually bump around the top 10 but usually it's rogan or one of the murder things or npr or whatever that's number one and we love the murders we usually bump around down there about five and six well rachel keeps looking at the murder things and running their ratings up so but the uh we're

still number one today we're number one today all right there we go cool all right so thank you guys that means a whole bunch of yeah and can i say this just to interject the number one it's not a pat on the backs of like oh we're so great it is that when you search like i do podcasts i'm like what's the new murder podcast you see a podcast maybe you had never is that when you search like i do podcasts i'm like what's the new murder podcast you see a podcast maybe you had never heard before and you're like oh that's interesting what's this number one the ramsey show what is that and you get people that start to click on it and start to learn oh my gosh the way i've been handling my money is stressing me out and here's a different way so like that's why we want these high ratings is we don't want them for us i

know but it made it sound like we're number one in the world look at us okay we're amazing i'm sorry i wasn't bragging i just it's just amazing it's mind-blowing to me i was in trump tower interviewing donald trump that's mind-blowing to me actually my little brain i'm from antioch freaking tennessee okay so just telling the people when they share it helps us yeah it helps us a lot it spreads the word of handling your money well. Yeah. So if you want to watch the interview, it's on our YouTube channel, and it's on the podcast. It's on the Ramsey Network. And I just got an email a minute ago that the Trump social media team did a collab. Is that what you call it?

With our Instagram guys. So that means they posted it on his, and we posted his on us, and back and forth. I've got like five and a half million, and he's probably got 500 million or whatever. I don't know. But so yeah, kind of weird, but okay. Strange day, strange day. But if you want to, if you want to, um, see it, we would love to have you watch it. A whole bunch of folk have watched it since it landed this morning.

So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for that. And, um, it's good to have knowledge about where people stand on ideas. That's a good thing. It's why I would like to actually sit down with Vice President Harris. I know. That's what I was going to say.

And I do think it would be important, you know, and we have. I would enjoy it. Or anybody, right? Like, I'm like, there is something to learn, I always feel like, even though you probably naturally fall on one side or the other. But understanding, okay. Most people have already decided. The country is literally 50-50. I mean, it is. learn i always feel like even though you probably naturally fall on one side or the other but but understanding okay most people have already literally 50 50 i mean it is so it's like okay and and this show we are not it's not a politically driven show anybody regardless of

who you vote for we believe needs to be out of debt free up your income so you can build wealth what religion and nothing no no no no. We don't rule anybody out. We love people. Because of an election year, it's naturally going to be a topic of conversation. It's important to talk about ideas instead of yelling at each other. And I do think the vice president debate was on too. So I'm like, man, maybe we can get Tim on. I don't know.

Like this idea. I'm not doing the vice president. I don't want to get in the political business that's not what i want to do i'm sorry you just had an interview with a i know with the president not the vice president just the president so yeah anyway we'll we appreciate y'all we'll help all of you if you want to be pissed off and go away because i did it then just be pissed off that's part of your life. That's your problem, not mine. So anyway, open phones at 888-825-5225. Jill is with us in Pittsburgh. Hi, Jill, how are you? I'm fine. How are you?

Better than I deserve. How can I help? My husband and I are completely debt-free. We built a house about 11 years ago. We had a little bit of a windfall, paid off all of our debt, built a new house, paid that off completely, purchased a rental property, which we rent, and we have fairly new cars they're completely paid for, and have a little bit of money in the bank. And I'm trying to figure out what is the best choice for that money. The only debt you have is the rental? No it's a completely paid for like we are debt for you. You don't have any debt anywhere? No nothing. How much is the money you have saved Jill? Probably about $300,000

not counting like six months worth of... Well done, Jeff. If we had to carry utilities, if we had to carry, you know... Yeah, we'll pull six months out, and that's your emergency fund. But not counting that, you got a couple hundred grand. Way to go. Wow, you're killing it. How old are you?

I'm 52. Okay. What's your household income? How much are you working? Are you married? Yeah, we're married. We have one child still at home, one in college, though. And my life has always been about my kids. That is my purpose. I went to college and all that kind of stuff and i do have a job but it's fine i want to be able to what do you want to do with this money yeah that's what i'm asking i i'm asking

my dad i lost my dad a while back and he was my guy very practical so do we invest in something we know as in like another rental and pay it off in full or do we just put it into like a mutual fund or something like that but I am so conservative like because we were lucky blessed worked hard put ourselves in the right position but I'm really not a risk taker I kind of depend on me and my husband more than I do anything else. So I kind of like that control that our fate is in our hands. But I just don't, I guess I just wanted your opinion on, do we do a rental? I invest in two things.

I invest in real estate that I pay cash for that creates an income, and I put money in mutual funds. Those are the two things I do. And I'm not a risk taker. I've been broke. I don't like it. Well, what would you suggest? Doing another rightful?

I invest in two things, mutual funds and paid for real estate. I'm comfortable with both. I'm listening to you, and you love real estate. I'm comfortable with both. I'm listening to you, and you love real estate because it gives you a sense of control that you don't feel like you have in a mutual fund. Yeah. Right? Yeah, probably.

So buy a $250,000 rental. And you think that's okay, even if that puts our nest nest egg our easy access nest egg you don't need more than three to six months of expenses and liquidity sitting around how much are you guys making a year did you did you about 90 okay okay you have y'all have done a great yeah and is there anything you guys want to do? I mean, with the $300,000, you could put in another rental, but you guys have, I mean, do you have any money saved for retirement? Is there any other savings, or is this all in real estate? We do have probably, I have like $100,000 in a Roth,

another $100,000 in traditional, and then my husband has about $300,000 in 401K. That's great. You're millionaires, and you're going to be multi-multi-millionaires when this story is over, no matter what you do with this $300K. But I don't want it just sitting there in a high-yield savings account. I don't think that's wise. I think you need to put it in something and put it to work, some of it.

Some of it needs to be your emergency fund. If you want to set aside $50,000 to $100,000 and call that your emergency fund, fine. But you don't need more than that. And go buy you a $250,000 rental house and pay cash for it. Yeah, and enjoy some of it too, Jill. You know what I mean?

I'm listening to you and there is a part of me that I'm, you know, I don't know, if there's like a dream trip you guys want to take, you guys are doing great and you're making good money. You have a lot saved, a lot in all this real estate.

You have no debt. So, I don't know. I mean, enjoy. We always say give, save, and spend all three buckets. And take some of this and do a little bit of all three. Yeah. Give, save, spend. It's all you can do with money.

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calling 800-356-4282 or just visit Zander.com. That's Z-A-N-D-E-R.com. Thank you for joining us, America. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality, number one bestselling author. My daughter is my co-host today. Caitlin's in Washington, D.C. Hi, Caitlin. How are you? Hi, Dave. Hi, Rachel.

How are you guys doing? Better than we deserve. What's up in your world? So my husband is active duty Air Force. He's been in 17 years, and we're in the last hall here before he retires. And we were a bit late to the game with investing and all of that and he has about 50 000 in his 401 or his Roth um and we are in baby step three now we paused that and got through our our baby steps and we're going to be done with baby

step three in February my question is how old are you thank you um I'm 37, he's 44. Thanks for your service, by the way. And your question is what? The question is, should we stay, in order, we're trying to come up with, can we hit 100K in his Roth before he retires? Hit that magic number. And in order to do that, you know, I'm not sure if I heard it off of your guys' show or just the financial conversations, is that you can get $100,000 into a retirement fund because it'll just have to run. You won't be able to give any more into it. That that'll set as a best for it to grow the fastest for the next, you know,

20 years or so before retirement. Is that wrong? Do you work outside the home? Not anymore. We have two kids. Right now I'm a stay-at-home mom with a two-year-old and a six-year-old. So when he retires with his 20-year chip, he's going to get the 20-year wonderful military retirement, and he will have some 50 to 100K, somewhere in there,

and a TSP Roth, the Thrift Savings Plan that the military offers. He can roll that to an individual Roth to be managed by you guys with your SmartVestor Pro at that time. But that's not the end of the story. He's not going to be but 30-something years old. I mean, so what's he going to do, and what's the next chapter of's not going to be but 30-something years old. I mean, so what's he going to do? And what's the next chapter of his life going to be?

Well, he's 44 right now. So he'll be 47 when he leaves. Yeah, so he's just a pup. He's just a child. So what else is he going to do after that? We're going to use the GI Bill. He wants to go back to school to be a physical therapist. Okay, so he's going to go be a PT, and I'm going to pay for it as a taxpayer and i'm honored to get to do that it's one of the few things my tax dollars go to that make me proud so um thank

you again and yeah go be the world's best pt and make a hundred a year and load your 401k doing that and by the way as long as you have an earned income while he's in school if he goes and does something and that's not military retirement you have to have an earned income you can do two roth iras every year yours and his individual roth you're saying we should roll his his military roth over into an individual i didn't even think about that. Yeah, that helps you to manage it better because the TSP has decent plans. The C plan is okay. The S and the I are sort of okay, and that's what we tell people to put in most of it in the C because it's basically an S and P index is what it is. So it's going to do pretty well, but you can do better with a SmartVestor Pro picking mutual funds that outperform that once he's out. You can't do it until he's out.

But then you guys just continue to do individual Roths, and in his next chapter, you're going to continue to save. You're going to be fine. If you don't make it to $100K, is my point, you haven't missed the boat on being millionaires. Yeah, yeah. I think that's my big thing is the money that we would have to put in in order to hit the $100K would literally keep us gazelle intense for the next four years.

No, no. When you get to Baby Step 4, you need to be intentional, not intense. Intentional can include a level of intensity, but it doesn't mean we don't go on vacation, we don't go out to eat, and we don't have a new couch with a spring sticking through. And we don't save for the second car that we desperately need. There we go. So you need to start having a life.

That $100K is not that magical. Yeah, and it's interesting, Caitlin, and actually, Dave, I would be interested in your thoughts on this because there is a lot in the social media realm with people giving financial advice or even podcast, YouTube, all that, where they're like, oh, hit millionaire status by this age. Oh, hit 100K in your Roth. I mean, there's these actual- So it's a TikTok thing. Well, not necessarily,

but that is a piece of, that's a way people talk about being intentional is have a number out there, a dollar amount. And what's interesting, Caitlin, or at least for me, that's why I want to get your thoughts on this Dave, but there's a point where that number can become almost this idol thinking, if we just hit this, my life, everything's going to be okay. And if we don't hit it, we're not going to make it. Yeah. And it's a little bit arbitrary.

That's why I love the phrase financial peace, right? We talk about financial peace because peace can mean all different things, all different numbers for different people, right? Just because you hit a million dollars doesn't mean you necessarily have peace depending on who you are as a person, right? And if anything, you're like scratching to get more. Oh, I don't feel fulfilled now. So now that finish line moves and moves and moves. So there's something more holistic that I want you guys to talk about as a family and not just a number because those numbers, they feel empty to me. Like I get like be goal oriented and like shoot for a goal, but have a

goal that has like you guys in it like the character and who you are what you want for your family I think there's something there that's more fulfilling and again peace maybe to make sure that we can retire and enjoy life but there's just something people do that a lot and I don't know I don't know not that it's wrong it just feels empty to me to the point that it drives you your point that takes drives you, your point, that takes away the couch and the second car. Yeah. Because you're still going to get there.

We don't want you to retire broke, okay? No, no. We're not teaching that either. Here's the point. If you save 15% of his income, what's he make? 80K. Okay. So, you know, let's call it 100K for round numbers,

15K a year for three years. That's 45. That's with no growth. Yeah. So you're there. We're about there. You've got 50 now plus 40-something. Yeah.

I mean, you're not that far, and you're going to get some growth. That C plan probably went up 20% in the last 12 months. That's fair, yeah. Yeah, the numbers have been, it has been looking nice. Yeah, it's done good. I mean, the S&P, the stock market's done good. And I see what you mean about the peace thing versus numbers because I will say getting on that budget

and staying on the every dollar budget, that thing. Here's the thing, if you run 15% out right now, if you run 15% out now and it does get you to $100K and you still get the budget of life in there, then everybody's winning in this. And by the way, go ahead and extrapolate out with a couple years off for PT school and then kick back in at $80K to $90K to $100K for the remaining working years of his life, the next, what, 20-some-odd years or so as a PT, and put 15% of that income away into retirement,

meanwhile paying off your house, and you're going to be worth about $8 or $10 million when you get to 67. Sweet. I'll hold you to that. I'll give you a call back. Yeah. Well, if you do what I tell you to do, it'll work. I mean, I got millionaires all over America. They're called Baby Steps Millionaires. They're all Baby Steps Millionaires. They're all over the place because they follow this stuff. And it's not because I'm magic. It's because compound interest is magic. And it's because just steadily investing is the key, and it's not 100.

Now, the fun thing, Rachel, about – I didn't know this social media trend because, as you know, I don't do social media. But, I mean, I think I've heard some of our personnel, you know, even be like, yeah, try hit, try to, you know, or not try to hit a million, but like. What I like about that is, is that math is easy. So here's the thing. I don't like the artificial pressure it puts on you that's weird, which is what she was struggling with.

But what I do like is this. If you are investing and you're averaging stock market rates of return, you're going to average more than 12%. So let's dumb that down to 10%. If you're going to average more than 12%. So let's dumb that down to 10%. If you're making 10% on your money, here's some easy math for you. A lump sum will double every seven years. So if you're 35 and you have a hundred thousand, no, no, he's getting ready to be 40 something. Okay. So he's 45 and he gets a hundred thousand bucks or

whatever the number is. Okay. Then you can say. Then you could say, okay, then seven years later, that's going to be $200,000. At 52, yeah. And at 52 and at 59, that's going to be $400,000. And at 66, that's going to be $800,000. Without adding anything. And that's with adding nothing to it. Yeah, yeah. And so we're going to have $1.6 million in our 70s with adding nothing to it so i kind of

like that goal that's a good reason to reach for 100 because i wanted to turn into that yeah but i think our 15 rule will get you there faster yes yes and not break the bank yeah and there's a 15 rule that i like that it's a habit and that's so much about winning with money it's it's just how you view it and how you use it and that that 15% is a habit versus like, I'm going for the specific number. Because I think we can get so infatuated with like, oh, if I just hit this number by 35, you know, everything. It's all great. It's all great.

And then you're like, well, you get there. And like, have you really created a life that you love? Like, just life is more holistic than a number, than a dollar amount. If I don't hit my weight loss goal by a certain date, my fitness plan is a failure. No, it's not. Right. You still lost weight and you still changed your habits. Yes.

Which is more important than hitting that weight loss goal by a certain date. That's your point. Amen, Brother Dave. There we go. Sister Rachel, this is The Ramsey Show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right, so I was born and raised in Texas, and I love the myth of the lone cowboy.

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Might not be in all states. All right, today's question comes from Dennis in New Hampshire. My adult son was laid off from his tech job and now works retail while job hunting. We invited him to live with us rent-free until he gets back on his feet My wife and I enjoy his company But how do we get him to realize the value of what we're providing? I've asked him asked him to do a couple of simple tasks to help us out and his response is that he's too tired I can do I can do tasks

I can do tasks myself with a lot less aggravation but the real value is in learning to help out and the responsibility of home ownership how can he not see the value of doing simple tasks in exchange for what he is receiving oh no it's too late because he doesn't have he's grown you don't get to be his daddy anymore all you can do is let him get out in the wild and he'll figure it out it's too late you can't retrain a 33 year old honey okay the key there is that you can't retrain him but he can learn i know but how can you you know he's treating this sounds like the guy thinks he's 16 years old well and i don't know

how do i teach my child a work ethic he's not a child i don't know yeah i don't know if it's a lazy adult son is 23 or 33 i don't know how old he is but well he says he's an adult so i don't know yeah yeah what i'm going with but yeah yeah so they're my philosophy always with with going back and living with parents is if we're a season you can't for us your philosophy wouldn't let you oh y'all no y'all let denise move back for six months after college graduation yeah just for a minute that's what i'm saying is that there are seasons gosh so argumentative today there are seasons that i think you know know, like if something happens, right? A job.

I don't know. There's times that I'm like, yeah, if you need help or I don't know, I'm okay with it for a period of time, like a period of time, right? Four months, three months. I don't know if you need something for a period of time. I'm sorry. I didn't think that was the question. It's not, but I'm just saying when it is okay to move back home.

If someone is hurting and they're grateful and they're going through a horrible divorce or they lost a job temporarily to move back home as a safety net, not a freaking hammock, I'm good with that. But an eagle that does not leave the nest is eventually known as a turkey. So fly, baby, fly. so if you want to move back home part of that means gratitude and you freaking get off your little butt and do something because your dad asked you to do it because you're living there rent free it's kind of an obvious thing that's dennis's point and but my problem is dennis is the language and the sentence structure that

you're using to address this you're acting like you're dealing with a child, and yet you started the email with that you're dealing with an adult. So I negotiate with adults differently than I negotiate with children. Children that are under my supervision do what I say because it's for their best interest for a lot of reasons, because I love them and I want them to win, and I'm going to teach them how to be great adults they do what I say the inmates are not in charge of the asylum we're

not confused we don't have anarchy we're dinosaurs we're old-fashioned people now but this is not I don't get to do that with Rachel anymore as you guys can see on the air here she's 34 she does what she's her own independent thoughts and does whatever she wants. And so I don't get to tell her what to do anymore. At best, I can try to influence her at best. And that's all you can do with him. And so what I would do is sit down and say, honey, you're living here free. And the way I understand that is, is that you're going to do some things around here

to say thank you for that. And if you're unable to do those things because of your fatigue, then you're going to have to make plans to live somewhere else. Because I'm not buying your fatigue. I think you're a lazy little, yeah. That and having a move-out date.

Yes, anyway. Regardless of how great he is. There needs to be, because he needs to go out. We enjoy his company. Yeah. Okay. That's nice. I mean, we enjoyed Denise's company.

She was easy when she moved back in for that 20 minutes after college there between trying to get an apartment, trying to get a roommate set up and all that stuff. Denise is easy. We didn't have her move out because we didn't get along with Denise. That wasn't it at all. No, no. But we had her move out because it's good for Denise to, like, be a grown-up and stuff.

When you buy your own milk and you look in the refrigerator to see if your own milk that you paid for has hit the expire date, that's a different whole process emotionally and developmentally than drinking your mama's milk. I mean, come on. Seriously. So it changes everything. It stunts your growth.

So I don't care if you enjoy his company. I'm glad you enjoy his company. That means you all can have a great conversation about when he's going to move out and the fact that he's going to do some work in the meantime while he's there. So end date, and we're going to respect the values under which I live. I have been known to have a glass of wine. I have a relative that is really upset about anyone drinking wine i would never take a bottle of wine to his home if i was staying there overnight as i was traveling that would be rude

it's his home not mine i don't get to bring my values and impose them under his roof i abide by his because that's his house. And as his house, that's the way they set the rule. I'm good with that. That does not offend me in the least. So perfectly fine not waltzing into that guy's house and doing something that is, and that's what this young man's doing.

And because it happens to be his parents, it seems like it's okay in his little head but it's not that's the same thing when you're in someone else's home that's their place they set the rules they say it's their values that run the thing even if they're not aligned with yours exactly and um so there we go and um yeah you'll be okay if you do some work while you're tired. You won't die from working. Right before you die from hard work, you pass out. So it's okay.

You're not going to die. You'll be okay. It's going to work out. Ash is with us in Chicago. Hi, Ash. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Good afternoon, sir. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up? I'm 31, single, and I'm currently on Ramsey's Baby Step number three. Cool. Hello? Did we lose you? I think we lost him. It looks like it. Press five. Try again. Something happened. Ash?

Hello, Ash. Are you there? Something happened something happened well he's check doing so good so far there he is ash wait a minute hello you there oh we got you sorry about that okay you're on baby step three we are so excited for you well done yeah thank you and zero debt and i've got 45 000 saved in my savings account just sitting in there. And I was thinking to buy an apartment, you know, invest in real estate. I'm so new. I just wanted to know where do I start, how do I start, and so on. If you're going to live in it, sure.

Okay. What about buying and renting it out to college students and stuff? Not until you have a place to live. I don't want you being a landlord while you're a tenant okay okay your your number one purchase in real estate is primary residence first get that paid off and then start being an investor okay i understood sir yeah you're doing a really good job though i mean you're moving along you're thinking right get get your home paid for and then start investing in real estate with paid for cat with paying cash mean, you're moving along, you're thinking right. Get your home paid for and then start investing in real estate with paying cash for it. You're going to be in great shape. Yeah. The investing in real estate's come up a couple of times already in this hour,

and it still continues to be a place that people are interested in. Yeah, I'm very interested. But the philosophy for Ramsey is the paid for cash model, which means you will start smaller. Yeah. You'll smart. You'll start cheaper. All of that. But for those of you that are thinking about it,

the data tells us that people that build wealth slowly keep it. The people that borrow into and create wealth with a pile of debt, lose it. And I actually have lived that too. So I'm actually have lived that too. So I'm actually walking proof that that crap doesn't work. 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. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, co-host of the Smart Money Happy Hour show on the Ramsey Networks, and my daughter is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. The call is free, and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. Denise is with us in Cleveland, Ohio.

Hi, Denise. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hello. Hi. I just have a question for you. I'm about $850,000 in debt. And my question is, should I file for a Chapter 13 or should I just pay what I can with the income that I have? I'm using like a snowball effect.

I'm not sure. I won't have enough pretty soon here to cover all the loans and credit card bills, but I can pay what I can. But I'm just trying to get your opinion on Chapter 13... Sounds pretty dead-gum scary, kiddo. Yes. How much of the $800,000 is a mortgage? I have a mortgage and a second mortgage, so it's about $490,000 between those two.

And what's that house worth? It's worth about $5 550 okay and so uh 490 out of 800 so you got about 300 and some change in non-mortgage debt correct on what cars okay what give me car number one what do you owe on it? Card number one is $61,000. $61,000. Card number two is what? $46,000. Okay. And so that's $100,000 and some change of the $300,000 and change.

What's the rest of it? The rest of it is I have about five credit cards at $40,000. Each or total? And a half total. Okay. Total for the five credit cards. Credit cards at $40,000 and what else? And the rest is unsecured loans and line of credit.

No student loans? No student loans. Okay, so you have $200,000 in unsecured loans and line of credit? Correct. Okay, and what is your income? I suppose about $13,000 a month. Doing what? Well, I have, I'm a, I'm trying to stay anonymous, but I'm a tester. I'm a tester, a software tester, and I'm retired military, so I have that income as well.

I see. Okay. Are you married, Denise? Yes. Okay. Does your husband work? The income, he works, but it's trucking, so sometimes the income is down when there's, like, kickups with the vehicle, so it's not consistent.

Okay, on average, what would he bring home a month? Like, just the, it's just this past couple of months, I would, the truck's been down to, I'd say, maybe $2,000. Okay. He owns a truck? He doesn't own it. There's a loan on it. No, I'm saying, is that one of those 61 or 46, the truck he drives?

No. So he has a rig that, in addition to what you're the debt you're giving me has debt on the rig correct okay and how much debt does he have on this rig uh fifty thousand all right and what did he make last year net profit taxable? About 50. He can make more than that driving for somebody else without carrying debt on a broken rig. A lot more. Yeah, that's a good job.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So here's the thing. Your voice sounds like someone who's had the crud beat out of them. And looking at these numbers, I see why. You feel beat down. Am I wrong? You're right.

Okay. And it's scary, isn't it? Yes. Okay. That's the bad news the good news is is that um we can get you completely out of this mess pretty quick but you're not gonna like it you ready i'm listening yes are you ready yes buckle in sell his rig sell both your cars sell your house wow i just got rid of almost all the debt you know how much money i just freed up a month to throw at the remaining debt and you'll be done in 24 months you'll start again and this time you're not going to buy a bunch of crap

with money you don't have to impress people 13 bankruptcy no you sell the stupid freaking car set yourself free you you you put your you walked up and put yourself in shackles and i am handing you the key. Step back out of them. Sell everything in sight. Tell your husband to go get a job driving over the road, making $120 with his CDL. He gets to come home on Fridays because he gets to work his butt off to help you clean up this mess.

You guys are going to live on beans and rice, rice and beans. You're not going to see the inside of a restaurant unless you're working there. You're not going on vacation. And in two years, you'll be 100% debt-free, and you'll be making $250,000 a year and can rebuild your life. That's got to smell good. Yeah. Because you've got stink in your nose right now.

Yeah. yeah because you got stink in your nose right now yeah the only question is are you willing to turn loose all that crap for the freedom you ever seen that thing they use in the jungle to catch a monkey you ever seen that trick yeah where they put jelly beans in a bottle, and the monkey sticks his hand in the bottle, a big, huge bottle that's weighted, and he won't let go of the jelly beans in order to get his hand back out of the bottle, and because he refuses to let go, he stays in the trap. Hello? You getting this? I'm getting it.

Let go of the jelly beans. Get out of the trap. I've been where you are. It ain't no fun. That's how I can hear it in your voice. I remember being so scared I couldn't breathe. I remember my wife looking at me with terror in her eyes. It is not fun.

And none of that crap you own is worth it. We'll help you if you want to do this. But I think the bad news is you got to miss. The great news is you got a way out. If you let go of the jelly beans, you can be free, hon. I mean,

yeah, even the quick math, you sell everything. You'll gain about 60 grand, pay off all the credit cards. And about three, about $3,000. Pay off all the credit cards. And about $3,000, $4,000 a month in payments that you don't have anymore. And then you'll have $170,000 and all that unsecured debt. And you guys just pay it off in two years by working like crazy.

Easy. It's worth the piece, Denise. It's worth the piece. I'm going to put you on hold. If you'll do it, we'll furnish you a personal coach at our expense. If you'll do it. If you won't, I won't furnish them. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today.

Thank you for joining us, America. If you want to win at something, winning is a series of intentional acts. If you want to be married successfully, it's a series of intentional acts, habits, and behaviors. If you want to be fit, it's a series of acts and behaviors and attitudes. Building wealth is the same way. You don't accidentally become wealthy. Oops! No, never, no, it said no millionaire ever, right? So the best way to make the most of your money is by creating and sticking to a monthly budget. Every dollar makes it simple to plan spending and track expenses and save what matters most to you. Keep a pulse on your spending and make progress on your money goals with every dollar.

It's updated and iterated all the time. It is the world's best budgeting app. Tens of millions of people use it every day. That's not an exaggeration. That's an actual statistical fact. And you can, too. Go to EveryDollar in the App Store or Google Play, download it, and start today with using it with your spouse for those of you that are married.

And, Rachel, you do a lot of stuff on the every dollar side of the equation, helping people, doing the webinars, and teaching them to do that stuff. What we have found all the way back in 30 years of us doing this at Ramsey, teaching people how to handle money, win with money, and so forth, is the common denominator among people that win with money is they budget, especially married couples who budget together. Yeah, I mean, it is the, I think it's one of the top reasons it's hard to win with money is when a spouse is not on board, because you're trying to do the plan, and if they're not on board doing it with you, it can it can be nearly impossible I mean it's really really tough and so getting yourself yeah in a position and your

spouse on the same page seeing yourself as a team and every dollar from a from a tactical standpoint is so helpful Winston and I you know we do it and we both have the same account you just share the account login info and he has app the app on his phone I have the app on mine and I mean we're text about stuff and it's like oh yeah we had to do something to the minivan it was like okay put a line item in the every dollar of it you know the every dollar app and change it here we'll go i mean you just end up talking about life too right i mean money and life are just so overlapped and when you and your spouse are together doing that life just runs a little bit more smoothly mel Melissa's in Pittsburgh. Hey, Melissa, welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi, Mr. Ramsey. It's an absolute honor to speak with you guys today. You too. How can we help? So my husband and I, I mean, I've heard of Ramsey and everything, but we really delved in back in January, and it took us about nine months to get to baby, get through baby step one, which sounds ridiculous, but I've done everything on the Dave's do not do list in my entire life. And the biggest thing that set us back was a home renovation that we were living in and definitely was, you know,

over budget and over the time frame. Not that we ever thought that we were the exception, but just naive about it. But my question is, we're Dinkwads, and I have three dogs and a cat and I have been a veterinary technician for 13 years and mainly in emergency medicine. And I always, um, focus, not focus. I always, um, explain my mentality with them as like a new mama, as an RN in a children's emergency center and every little thing about them, I panic. So when I became a dog mom and a cat mom, I thought I was doing the responsible thing by getting pet insurance. And I know I've read, I've read things about like pet insurance and I know you love dogs

and everything, but I can't get myself to cancel the policy, and I don't know why. It's like my head knows the numbers. I know, right? But my heart is fearful. Melissa, I don't think pet insurance is your problem. In nine months, you couldn't get $1,000? What in the flip else is going on? Because of the home renovation stuff.

Is that over? Well, we're still living in it. It's still going, but it's not. What is your household income? Our household income is, our gross is like $125,000. I just did the number the other day. Okay. Net, we're about $105,000.

Pet insurance is not your problem. Well, it's... How much are you paying a month? Like $5,000. Pet insurance is not your problem. Well, it's... How much are you paying a month? Like $350,000. Okay. So it's not that it's my problem. I know that it's not like the problem, I guess. But it's an expense you're wanting to cut to free up money.

Right, right. It's part of the budget that I'm seeing that's going out. Okay, let's just pretend that I talk you into canceling the pet insurance, which you should do. Okay. You make $120,000 a year. If your pet needs some help, you can take care of your pet. I guess, I don't know, because you can't seem to find $1,000,

making $125,000 a year. So I don't know if you can take care of your pet or not. This is my problem. You should be able to with no question at all. Right. pet or not this is my problem you should be able to with no question at all right if we repurpose some of this money to save the life of your dog you can find the money to save the life of your dog right if something happened agreed you make a hundred you make ten thousand dollars a month before taxes right i think we could figure out a way to save a dog yeah but but you can't find a way to get a thousand bucks so that's bothersome do you follow me yeah and we start like we've side

hustled and stuff but it was like every time we the no you gotta spend like you're in congress well not anymore yeah you do we did well not since i got the every dollar out yeah they're trying when did you get the everyDollar app? Nine months ago? No, no, no, no, no. About a month ago. Oh, okay. I was on a webinar with Rachel. Okay.

Maybe a month ago. Now it's all going to be okay. Yeah. Giving hope. Yeah, and I'm changing lives. And I know it's going to be, and I've been actually writing everything out. Good. Yes, yes.

On paper. So like the every dollar has definitely been life changing and having it digital and linked to the bank account. Is your husband working with you on this? He, so, but no, he is. I promise he is. So you guys had mentioned about being on the same page. I always say my husband being on the same page. I always say my husband's in the same book. He acknowledges there's a problem, but he's not, he's not like

very proactive in helping you figure it out. He's not looking at the numbers is the only thing he's not doing. He's not sitting down and looking at the numbers. That's the only thing he's not doing. Have not sitting down and looking at the numbers that's the only thing he's have you asked him to i have and what's he say um he just kind of makes okay so work to not do it okay so here's what i would do melissa that is 98 of what's going on here two percent is pet insurance yeah okay i guess like i guess the reason why my question with the pet insurance was is i i know where i can put that money right you're seeing an expense that could be freed up and you're like why okay yeah i hear you it's a no-brainer self-insure through your pets i'm with you you're not killing your dog when you cancel the insurance you're making a decision to write the check to keep from losing your dog.

And it's a good, it's a, you know. You're self-insuring through pets, which everyone should do, by the way. Right. No, and I, after, you know, after. Especially people that make $125,000 a year. Yeah. Especially listening to you, like, I know the life that I'm going to have because of you. So, like, and we're working on that and so i think but i i just don't want you to do this thing that in an area of your life these these animals are precious to you

they're particularly precious to you because of what you've chosen to do with your life as a vet tech and so you're beyond animal lover i'm an animal lover but you're beyond animal lover so this is like the center core of who you are and we're reaching over there and hitting cancel yeah i don't want you to do that and not do all this other stuff that is really the problem yeah right no and i i just right yeah i don't want to ask you to do something that means that much to you when it doesn't fix everything yeah i guess it just was a baby step towards what we're working it's something you can do that you can control without having to get him on board right yeah and that's right so the big the bigger picture, you're doing some tactical things that are really good, but high level,

Melissa, I would, I would say tonight and just tell him this would mean a lot to me. I'm feeling overwhelmed. I'm, you know, you list out what is going on within you. Tell him that. And if he doesn't listen and say, okay, I'll show up for 30 minutes and look at numbers. He's kind of a crappy husband. And then you have a marriage problem at that point, right? So, like, there could be some stuff that a string is being pulled.

And I would continue on because I think you can have a healthier, more beautiful life if you do. So push on, Melissa. We're cheering for you. Yep. This is The Ramsey Show. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personalities, my co-host today in the lobby of ramsey solutions on the debt free stage tyler and alissa are with us hey guys how are you good we are doing fantastic how are you dave good to have you guys we're better than we deserve where do y'all live so we are from

demont indiana which is about an hour south of Chicago. Fun. Well, welcome to Nashville. And how much debt have you two paid off? We have paid off $96,000. Wow. How long did that take? About three and a half years. Good for you. And your range of income? So when we started, we were making around $97,000 a year, and that bumped down to $80,000. Okay cool what do y'all do for a living? So I am currently the youth pastor student ministry director at my church. And I am mostly a stay-at-home mom but I do work part-time as a social work program manager. Okay so that's the step down you step down to stay at home and be part part-time yes okay very cool good for you guys what kind of debt was the 96 so a little bit of everything most of it was student loans but we had

car payments phones medical bills you kind of normal kind of normal yeah how long y'all been married we've been married for nine years eight eight almost nine years almost nine years okay all right and so somewhere around five years into the marriage you somebody looked up and said something's wrong how did that tell me your story and how'd you get plugged in with the Ramsey stuff so I had we had heard some of your principles and stuff at our church from our senior pastor um specifically the debt snowball um but I didn't really understand it all and then uh I was invited into a small group right around that time a few years ago where we had to read a book every month and then discuss it. And one of the books on our list was Your Complete Guide to Money. Oh, wow.

And so, which we actually didn't end up reading the book, but I had already bought it because I was really intrigued, especially since I had already heard about some of your principles. So, I read the book and was like we got to do something like a lot of our any of our marriage struggles had to deal with finances and lack of communication around it and we just we really wanted to be more generous people and to be able to grow our family without having to worry about financial stress so So I took the information I learned. I tried to share it with Alyssa.

She was really, really skeptical. I was a little hesitant at first. So it took some convincing, but I just kept listening to your radio show over and over again. And one day we went out on a date, and we had a really long wait. So we decided, since it was cold, that we would just go sit in the car with the heat on,

and I'm like, well, let me just put another one of your shows on. And so we listened to it, and something during that show, something started to change within her, and she started to, I think, understand that this was possible. And then right after that, we were approached by a beggar who had knocked on her window and had asked for money I think for a hotel room or food or something and I opened my wallet and we didn't have anything to give and then I was just we were dreaming about what

it would be like to have been able to just give him something in that moment or I run with Team World Vision and we just changing lives across the world by providing clean water. And I'm like, what would it be like for me to be able to give a little bit more to this or just all those kinds of things? And so we really want to be more generous. We wanted to be able to grow our family and we were sold. That's awesome. OK, so I'm curious. So what was the hesitation at first? Was he like, you can't spend any money? And you're like, who are you? You're crazy. Or what was the hesitation?

And what was the thing that kind of turned it for you? Because there's probably people listening that have a spouse or maybe themselves are like, I don't know about this. Yeah. I think I just don't really like change. And even though it wasn't going well, we had been doing this for five years of our marriage a certain way. And just the fact of doing so many

changes, like we had separate bank accounts and everything. So we would have to combine our bank accounts. And I just, I was, I was just nervous. I was like, what if it doesn't work out? You know, and I'm kind of a skeptical person, but I think the biggest thing for me was really, we wanted to grow our family and have more kids and we didn't want to have to worry about the finance aspect of that and I think I started to think about that more and more and obviously we've had three kids and one on the way at this point but I think that was really like my turning point for me which is really big for a lot of people it's the why right like it is this bigger life oh my gosh what do i want my life to be like right and how can i get myself in a position to do that and that was it the motivating factor family for you

guys which is huge that's so great and the generosity part too definitely yeah most of us will do things for our kids or even for other people that we wouldn't do for ourselves and that's weird but that's got that call to nobility called you to face that change, the uncomfortable change. Okay, I'm going to try it for the kids. I'm going to try it so I can be generous. I'm going to try it instead of like, I'm going to try it for me. People don't do that.

That's weird. But good for you. Good for you. Proud of you guys. Very cool. Congratulations. Thank you. And in the midst of having all the babies, so you guys started this of you guys. Very cool. Congratulations. Thank you. And in the midst of having all the babies.

So you guys started this three and a half years ago. You still paid off. How old's the oldest? The oldest is seven. And then we have a three and a half year old, a one and a half year old, and then one on So you were nine months pregnant when you decided to start this. Yes. Really close.

Yes. Oh, look how beautiful. So sweet. Oh my gosh. Okay. What was the hardest part doing this? Because you guys are a new family, doing a lot. For me, it was giving up fast food runs, eating out when I'm tired,

and taking care of toddlers, and I just want to go through the drive-thru line, and saying no to family and friends going on vacations, even play dates at different like Chuck E. Cheese type places, you know, it was those were the hardest things for me. And then for me, spending money, I don't like doing it anyway. So it was really most of that was really easy. But paying all of this money to debt was really hard. And so we knocked out most of our debts in that first year.

And then we were just left with the big student loans after that. So like we had all this quick wins and it was really awesome. And then we were just left with the big student loans after that. So we had all this quick wins and it was really awesome. And then it's like we hit a wall and it's like, what do we do from here? So then I was like, well, I need to motivate myself somehow. I looked through our budget.

I'm like, haircuts. I don't need haircuts anymore. So I took that out and I'm like, if I just save the money there and grow my hair out to a point where it'll annoy me, maybe it'll motivate me to keep my foot on the gas. You know, that's what I did. So I did, I grew my hair out for two and a half years. And then a couple months ago I was able to cut off 20 inches. Yeah, that's awesome.

Okay. So how does it feel now? Cause you were saying before it was not working, we knew it doesn't work. You know, there was some fights in there about money, all of it. And now you're on the other side. Was it worth it? It was so worth it. It's been life changing for us, honestly. How does it feel now? Free.

Yes. Yes. We don't have to worry about the money aspect, even though we don't have a huge income. We have what we need and that's what's important and I'll say that um that we we never had to touch our emergency fund but the the day after we make that last payment like something happened with our car our freezer went out and like it was somewhat stressful but I'm like but we now have we had the money to just be able to pay for these instead of having to go in debt for those kinds of things too and it was that was really cool so good you guys incredible incredible are the kids here yeah

bring them up what are their names and ages so we have indy or indiana um she's seven we have zyla she's three and then shepherd he is one and a half oh my goodness oh here they go okay so sweet and look at the cowboy boots oh man oh cute cute cute beautiful family and what's number four that's a great why right december 23rd all right christmas baby all right here we go fun stuff proud of you guys congratulations thank you what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is i think um the key is really just to it's to set an intentional budget and then to remember why you're doing what you're doing so the mission behind why we were doing what we were doing to grow our family to become generous like that's what really pushed us through and then what made it easy was being really intentional so that every dollar app it was it's been amazing for us where

we can both see it and understand our finances better and combined and it's just and then being on the same page making sure that that we understand how how we both work with money and to uh and to just be able to communicate and so it's so great yep indy zyla yep shepherdepard, Tyler, and Alyssa, the Chicago area. $96,000 paid off in three and a half years, making $97,000 now down to $80,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. All right. Three, two, one.

We're debt-free. So sweet. Oh Oh my gosh Beautiful family How fun is that? Beautiful family This is The Ramsey Show 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, and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy. So if you feel like the system is working against you, try a biblically-based alternative to health insurance, Christian Healthcare Ministries. CHM is a health cost-sharing ministry that's helped hundreds of thousands of families like yours take care of over $11 billion in medical bills since 1981. And CHM has also helped them stay true to their values and avoid miles of red tape. And CHM support goes far beyond meeting financial needs. They'll also help meet spiritual needs. Members become part of

a family who will pray with them and for them when they experience a medical event. So listen, y'all, there's no better way to take care of health care costs. CHM programs start as low as $98 a month. So learn more today and join at chministries.org slash budgets at chministries.org slash budgets. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. If you haven't downloaded the Ramsey Network app, you need to do so. It is free, and it has 100% of the shows on the Ramsey Network, meaning that, like, for instance, this show on podcast and on YouTube is getting ready to conclude, and yet there's another segment that we'll be doing and will be on the Ramsey Network app and that some of you in talk radio will get.

So you need to download the Ramsey Network app, and we put other things on there, like we put the Donald Trump interview on there the day before we put it out to the public on YouTube and podcasts. So you got a day early, that kind of thing. And spoiler alert, there's another one coming next week. It's not the vice president. We have reached out to her, but it's not that one. But I just did a long-form interview yesterday that you will want to hear.

We'll put it on YouTube, but we'll put it out a day early on the Ramsey Network app. And the app search feature is great, too. It really is. So if you're looking for content and you need quick answers with that, it's great. And it's free. And you can ask a question on the app. And that's what Katie did.

Does contributing to your HSA count towards your 15% investing? I have built up quite a bit in my HSA, and I'm thinking about investing within it. And how do you know what funds to pick? I would not use my HSA towards the 15% because your HSA can only be used for medical. If you use it for anything else, it's taxable and penalized until you're 65, and after you're 65, you can do a withdrawal on it like you can on anything else. So an HSA is a health savings account that is tax deductible and can be used for medical. Okay?

And meaning that the government's paying part of your medical if you do that. It's tied to a low-cost health insurance plan because it's a high-deductible health insurance plan, and you cover the deductible with the HSA. It is not an investment vehicle by choice. You should use investing vehicles in your 15%, meaning mutual funds in your 401K, Roth IRAs, and those kinds of things. Having said that, I'll answer the rest of your question. Once you get to baby step seven and your house is paid off

and you're maxing out things left and right, then you can use your HSA as an investing vehicle, and I have. George W. put the first HSAs in place, and the day they were put in place, I bought the first one because I love the concept. Is that how new they are? Hmm? I didn't realize they were that new.

Well, it's not that new. That's 20 years ago but four presidents ago yeah five presidents ago anyway but the uh so anyway yeah for a long time I've been doing all they would allow me to do in the HSA and knock on wood the uh Ramsey's have been pretty healthy and I haven't had to use it uh and so it has turned into an investment vehicle and then when you get to baby step seven like i have and i max out 401ks and i max out uh backdoor roth iras and i max out every single thing i can do to keep the government stinking hands off my money then i'm also going to max out an hsa as an investment i'll never use it for medical. I mean, highly unlikely I'll use it for medical. I'm already 64. I can start withdrawing it next year for any reason,

medical or otherwise at 65 if I want to. So I'm using it as an, and now I've got like, I don't know, there's four or $500,000 in a stupid thing just because I've chunked money in it for all these years and we moved it into mutual funds and you can use a company like health equity is what we use and we move the money into mutual funds inside the HSA but you should not be doing that until you get to baby step seven and you've maxed out regular retirement plans first and you got your house paid off first then you would do stuff like this this is like when you've when you've done everything you can do what's the last thing you can do

this but you at your stage no you need to be doing 15 15 into good retirement is all like regular 401ks and roth IRAs yeah and I think the HSA question is I think it's a it's a great question Katie I'm glad that she submitted it because I feel like we are hearing yeah I don't know more questions around it because I think I don't think some people realize that it can even be an investment vehicle eventually that that's even an option. Yeah and here's the thing everybody's always looking for these little nuanced hacks this life hack this investing hack that's going to make the big difference the big difference is do the main stuff steady and do the nuanced stuff as icing on the cake okay here's another example of that all right nuanced things that people talk about like it's

some kind of big breakthrough thing and i see it sometimes with overhyped and some weirdo on TikTok or something, but here's what happens, okay? Rachel, 12-year-old Rachel, is working the back book table at a live event selling kids' books and helping us load the truck and worked hard and got paid. Didn't have the option, but I'm glad we got paid. We send them to the shop we send them to the salt mines so uh poor little child abused children so anyway that's that's what set her up for her success anyway so she gets paid and then she's babysitting some 12 13 14 years old baby and i i added up the amount of money that she actually made and filed a tax return. One year, I think it was a

whole $1,700 or something. Teenage income. Filed a tax return. I paid what little tax there was due, if any, on $1,700. But that enables her to have an earned income at 12 or 13 years old and we did a Roth IRA and you can put up to your earned income so that year I dumped 1,700 bucks into Rachel's Roth IRA we did that again at 14 15 16 17 18 she didn't put any of the money she earned in that I took 1,700 dollars of my money and did a little Roth IRA for her. But you do that four, five, six times, and then they're 21 or 22 years old, and they come out of school, and they'll look down, and they'll be $100,000 in a 401K. And if you're 22 and you have $100,000, you know what that is when you're 42?

Hello. But that doesn't make you rich if you do everything else stupid. So that's a little nuanced trick, like. So that's a little nuanced trick. Like the HSA is a little nuanced trick. It's icing on the cake. It is not the cake. And you don't need icing if you got no cake. So, I mean, you need to do the middle stuff, the big stuff, right?

And not try to replace the big stuff with all these little tic-tac hot hacks that are out there i have a life hack oh you're killing me all right just do the life the newest or not the newest one the one i just saw recently is using life insurance while you're alive oh god explain that one that's a good one that's a thing that it's like oh my gosh i could i don't have to work which one is that is that the stupid whole life thing thing? It ends up being a whole life insurance policy. Honestly, I didn't really understand. I was watching. I'm trying to figure out where he was going with it.

Is that what it was? I think it ended up being a whole life whole thing because he had a product he was selling. Well, there's another product that, of course, you can. If you're terminally ill, you can sell your death benefit. No, no, no, no, no, no. This is like actually pulling out. Oh, that's a cash value bull crap. Yeah.

That's more ticked up. I mean, these bad financial products that we, it's like a disease. We in the financial world thought we had it and not, had vaccinated everyone against the disease. And then Tic Tac comes back and spreads the disease again. We almost had it done. It was almost dead and then some little fart revives the thing on tic-tac who and all of a sudden whole life is now a big not everyone in the financial world those whole life sucks and and then this little guy god almighty okay so let's

go positive because we only have like two minutes left so i don't know if we'll get okay but i mean it's the thing so no no no, no. So that's okay. So that's a good question. Kids, let's go in that direction because you went there with the Roth IRA kids. A lot of people ask, okay, what can I do besides saving for my kids' college? What can I do to set them up?

Is it UTMAs? Is it mutual funds? Is it, you know, what's the- That's not besides kids' college. That's in addition to kids' college. That's an example. Kids' college is a cake. Icing Roth IRA with the babysitting money okay don't do that and say well i'm not doing kids college because i'm doing the icing no do the cake do the do you know have money so your kid can

gain knowledge here's another one i'll make you mad real quick don't don't pay for your kids college but but pay for the get a house have them pay you rent so that way when they graduate they may have student loans but they'll have a house with more equity see everybody's trying to double backflips instead of actually just doing their work yeah you're right that does make me mad it's just it's just dumb pay for stuff hello quit trying to figure out a way to there's no shortcut to any place that's worth going. Do the cake, then do the icing. 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. My co-host today, Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, co-host of the Smart Money Happy Hour,

host of the Rachel Cruz Show, number one best-selling author, and my daughter. She is my host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Sam is in Pittsburgh. Hi, Sam. How are you? How are you?

Better than I deserve. Good. How can we help? I had a question. So I'm at a point right now where I have around $5,000, $10,000 to invest. So I'm basically familiar with what you do and your baby steps. And so I was looking on the website at the smart investors and, um, cell phone reached out to me. And then, so then I, they quickly started asking more questions

and I knew that word existed. So I guess my question is, how do I know which vest in a smart investor to go with? And, uh, what questions do I ask these guys? Okay. Good for you. So you're out of debt. Yes. And you have your emergency fund. Yes. And you have $10,000 above that. Not $10,000 above that. I just have my emergency fund and debt-free.

Okay. So you're ready to start investing, but you don't have the $10,000 to do that with. You're just ready to get your investing going, like a Roth IRA or something like that. I'm sorry. No, I do have the $10,000 to do that with. You're just ready to get your investing going, like a Roth IRA or something like that. I'm sorry. No, I do have the $10,000 available right now. Above the emergency fund? Above the emergency fund. Oh, I misunderstood.

I actually have more than the $10,000, but that's what I want to invest right now. That's what I want to start with. Okay, good. I don't want you to invest more than the emergency. I mean, I only want you to invest. I want to leave the emergency fund intact. Okay. So having done, been in the financial world most of my life and I'm old, my biggest thing that I've observed that causes people to have,

to lose money and to have a bad experience is that they turn their money over to someone else to manage. And I don't want you to do that. I want you to manage your money, which changes the SmartVestor Pro, your financial advisor's job. Their job is not to do it for you. Their job is to teach you and then say okay here's a couple things you could do sam and here's why i would do those things and then sam says okay i like b option let's do b and then they can say

okay and you understand that this is different than A, and they make sure you know what you are doing with your money. Then you won't lose your money. People lose their money when they turn it over, turn their back, and walk away and go, I have a guy, like I was speaking to the NFL rookies one time, and they had me come in occasionally and speak to their teams because the NFL knows NFL stands for not for long. And they're trying to tell these young dudes that got a little money that, you know, and one of them is going, it's okay, Dave, I got a guy.

And I'm like, you're going to be broke. Because what you just told me is you're going to turn it over to someone else and you're going to walk away from the responsibility. The responsibility, Sam, is yours. So that changes the job description of the advisor to one of teacher and advisor, not one of babysitter. Does that make sense? Yes. So once you know all of that, then you know what questions to ask them.

Teach me something when you sit down with them. They should have the heart of a teacher and then if you have both of them that are good teachers but you just don't like one of them then don't go with that one right if you're married and your wife has a bad feeling about one of them run away from that one okay yeah so yeah i talked to two of them in particular and those so the first thing came up was one guy's recommending going off of a commission um based account i guess the other guys recommending an advisor type setup that would be one of the biggest questions i had for you both are fine okay you don't you don't recommend one over the other i use the commission the a

shares almost everyone else rachel included rachel and winston are on a managed account both with the same guy by the way but i i don't i i buy and hold and don't i hardly ever move anything around and um you know i just park it and so if you do that then it comes out slightly better to do commission-based but neither either one are fine neither one are going to keep you from becoming wealthy and it's just a methodology of how the guy gets paid it doesn't change the fact that he or she is good at what they do yeah yeah and i biggest thing, Sam, is that this enters into a world of money that can be really confusing. I mean, I remember sitting down for the first time, I think I was like 22 and went and sat down with the advisor. And even I was like, oh,

okay, this is like more than just mutual funds here. Like it starts to get a little bit complicated. And so having somebody that teacher aspect, that heart of a teacher is really, really important when you start to get into these avenues of money that can be a little bit more confusing. And again, and a good financial advisor, too, we were actually just talking. They came and spoke to some of our team last week, actually. And they were saying they were like, you know, most of our job, a good financial planner is looking at the whole picture of the person. They looking at taxes they're looking at your goals where do

you want to be i mean they're going to talk to you sam they should this is what i would look for a holistic picture of your financial situation you know they they don't talk a ton is what they said which i was like that's so interesting about every little nuanced mutual fund of the growth you know like they don't get into it, into the nitty gritty as much with people. Most people come in and sit down and they're like, oh my gosh, am I going to have enough for retirement? You know, they want to look at the whole picture.

So finding somebody that you feel comfortable with in that manner too, not just the tactical specific investing, but the overall picture I think is really important too. Sounds like you're single why would you guess that that doesn't matter i'm sorry what'd you say he said why do you say that he said just the language you're using you haven't once said we oh yeah no yeah i'm single okay all right that's all i'm just checking your, you know, different version of pronouns. But yeah, anyway, the, so the, and maybe what, 24? Yes, 24.

Almost like I've done this before. Okay. And so. My conspiracy theories are going higher and higher on you, sir. He's not who he is. It's just been doing it a long time. Anyway, so here's what I would look for if I was 24. I want someone that I want zero hint, if I'm you, of them talking down to me because I'm young.

Yeah. If I catch him dropping the glasses down on the end of the nose and starting to lecture, I'm out of there if I'm you. Yeah. Now, I don't run into that because I'm old. Okay? down on the end of the nose and starting to lecture i'm out of there if i'm you yeah now i don't run into that because i'm old okay but but if i'm you when i was 24 the last thing i had a tolerance for was somebody that's you know that's talking down to me there that's not their now son you get get out of there okay get out of there you're not their son. That's demeaning language coming from a financial advisor. And some of them get a little bit arrogant and their little nerdy life. And they'll, I doubt our smart Mr.

Pro would do that. But in that business that can happen. So you're looking for someone you feel, feel right about is aligned on your values. And that has a heart of a teacher and then you'll be just fine and you're not marrying them you can change if it doesn't work out in five years you know this is the ramsey show cue the ship horn live like no one else cruise is setting sail March 22nd through the 29th this coming March and more than 90 percent of our cabins are full we are almost sold out this is a premium Caribbean

cruise everyone on this Holland America fabulous ship will be Ramsey people so it's going to be including these two people sitting right here they They're going with us. All right. Fun. Yeah, they are. So we got Ramsey personalities will be on there all week long. All of us. And also we've got a bunch of our friends coming. Emmy award winning Dove award winning and now brand new member of the Grand Ole Opry

Stephen Curtis Chapman will be with us. Comedian Trey Kennedy, famous for making fun of me, will be there. He's made a real career out of it. It's gone well for him. I'm happy for him, I think. World-class chef Manit Chauhan will be with us, a good friend from here in Nashville that you see on the Food Channel all the time, winning all of those things.

Dina Carter, famous country music star. Remember the song Strawberry Wine? She'll be with us. So going to be a great bunch of folks to hang out with and a lot of others as well. Got a lot of other friends stopping in while we're cruising at Turks and Caicos and we're at Puerto Rico and St. Thomas and the Bahamas. If you've not done this, you need to do this if you're a baby step forward and beyond.

There's just a couple of seats left, a couple of cabins left. Don't miss out. RamseySolutions.com slash cruise. We'd love to have you. Kathy's in Chicago. Hi, Kathy. How are you? I'm great.

Thank you, Dave, and thank you, Rachel. How are you? Better than we deserve. What's up? Well, I'm 60 years old. I retired a couple of months ago. And my question is this, I'm doing well on all of the funds. My mortgage is paid off. I have enough money to sustain myself, but I do have an $8,200 car note. And the reason I haven't paid it off is because it's a 2.1 interest rate and I pay $229 on it a month and I could make

more in a savings account than I can paying off my car. So I'm trying to determine what the best thing to do is. Should I go ahead and take money out of my retirement account, pay off the car, and be done with it? Don't you have money in savings that's not in a retirement account? Well, I have my, I have about $20,000 as my emergency fund. And what is your income these days? About $3,400 a month. And you're living on that? $3,400 and I'm living on that, yep. That's without touching your nest egg. And how much is in your retirement, you said? About $800,000. And paid for house too,

Kathy, right? Sorry? Do you have a paid for house? Is your house paid off? I do, yes. My house is paid off. I have never in 30 years of doing this had someone be mad at me when they paid off a debt? Ever.

Okay. I'll walk you through the math, which is interesting. If you have a high-yield savings account paying 5% and you have a, would you say a 2% car loan? Yeah. So you're making 3% on $8,000. That's $240 a year. It's $20 a month. You can buy a biscuit with this money. It's not making you rich it's 20 dollars a month you're really not

like this is not like some kind of big sophisticated financial move here it's 20 dollars yeah that's true i guess you know i'm just looking at it it just i know you were trying to do math and i'm pointing out that math has numbers on the other end of it, and when you run the numbers out, it doesn't matter. If it was $200,000 a month, we'll talk about it. It's $20. Pay off your stupid car. Okay.

You will not be mad at me later when you do that. Yeah, and her savings, she's got $20,000. Just pull it out of there. Yeah, but her savings, she's got $20,000. Just pull it out of there. Yeah, just don't take it out of your retirement. Just take it out of your, and then replenish your savings gradually out of your budget. If you have an emergency, you're a millionaire, you have $800,000 in your account, I think you'll be okay. So, and I, you know, and you have a paid for house, and so you have a net worth well in excess of a million dollars, by the way, congratulations. You did it.

You're a millionaire. There's only about 24 million of us in America. There's not that many compared to the rest of the goobs out there that are normal. You're amazing. Way to go. Congratulations, Kathy. You did it. Very proud of you excellent work but you didn't do it by borrowing eight thousand dollars and making an arbitraging three percent on eight grand it didn't that's not where you got it you got it

because you're a saver because you live on less than you make and you did that steadily over a lot of years that's what makes millionaires trentson charlotte hey trent how are you good how are you better than i deserve how can i help so i'm engaged to be married next year um and i i've seen some of your videos about suggesting not combining finances before marriage. And you're already at that point. I'm just curious to get your opinion on why you think that. You're already at that point, meaning you guys have already combined them? Yeah, we both, I've managed it all. We're very open about it and talk to each other about it.

Just, you know, same bank accounts and everything. Yeah, I mean, I think there's like two sides of this that I always look at. Number one is the logistical side that when you start combining finances, you know, there's a good point that, you know, you may be using your income to pay off her debt, and you start paying on each other's stuff when you're not legally married. And the amount of calls we've gotten on the show of people who co-signed a fiance's car or took out a mortgage together and they did all this stuff. And then magically, Trent, they don't end up actually getting married. And then untangling that is a disaster. And it's just it's exhausting.

And if you end up not, which I don't want this to happen, but if you end up not together, then the question is, OK, then how much of your income could have gone to Trent for Trent, but it went to her of paying off her debt or her expenses, whatever that is. So, and vice versa to her income going to you, right? When you're not legally married, because you have no legal ground to stand on. And then there's a little bit of just kind of the old school moral factor that you're playing married and you're not married so there is a point that there are things in my opinion to be held off on before you actually make that decision that actually allows i think clearer thinking and decision making and then when you guys actually do get married and you are husband and wife then you get to be husband and wife and you get to you get to merge you know the the finances together so um that's always what we've seen i've just taken so many calls in that same and seeing them that's a good those are great

points in that same bucket trent i i will tell you that there's a truth that transcends your feelings and your critical thinking skills and the truth is that 100 of the time you feel different about your girlfriend spending money than you do your wife. It's almost impossible to beat that one. You're going to lose that battle in your mind. It's just, or my fiance spending money that's not my wife because there is not the permanence to that. Trent, do you guys have a wedding date?

He said a year. I know, but that's just out there do you guys have a wedding date? He said a year. I know. Yeah, I know. But that's just out there. Do you have a specific date? It's what? It's in June. And we've got everything, you know, set up.

Okay, great. Good. That was going to be my next thing is some people stay in this limbo of either like just living together and not getting married or engaged. And they say, you know, well, we'll get married next year. We'll get married. And they end up putting it off and then we get that call of someone that's like yeah me and my boyfriend for five years like why haven't you got why haven't you guys gotten married we've been engaged for eight years i get that one paint or

get off the ladder yeah so i am glad trent that there is a specific day because i was the other yeah that can that can just loom and you just end up living in this limbo relationally for so long that it's like, oh my gosh. I do think it's a portion of what you could do that approaches the discussion is healthy. And that would be, like you said, everything's on the table. We know everything. Love that. Yes. I think that's very healthy, and you have some of the emotions that you would have if your budget was combined when you're both sitting there looking at trying to achieve the same goals independently, but both of you see all the numbers. Yes, that's great.

And that's a good, healthy thing. And even get a third checking account maybe while you're engaged that all the wedding stuff goes in, and you guys use that if you're going to be you know doing wedding expenses and that's a good trial run too of nothing but wedding in there but i wouldn't be paying off each other's debt and all this stuff that's that's not good who paid for the mustard oh god this is the ramsey show rachel cruz ramsey personality is my co-host today gleason is with us in nashville hi gleason welcome to the ramsey show hey thanks for having me on my pleasure how can we help so uh for the past few years i've felt like i've really fallen off financially and i've gotten into uh some credit card debt just trying to keep afloat which

in turn has made it even worse and so I guess my real question is how do I get back on track without feeling like I'm just stuck in the mud. How much credit card debt do you have? About 30. And was this for just living expenses just this is just living life? Screwing off. Yeah, I mean, it was living expenses. But, of course, there are some there where I, you know, had some good days and good sales. And so I went deeper into it. So, I mean, it's not all just, oh, trying to live. It's, you know, I messed up. Yeah.

How much do you make a year? It depends. This year I'll be making probably $30,000, which is the exact amount. But I'm a real estate agent, and I've done mortgages also in the coffee shop. So it's always fluctuated for the past three, four years. Okay. How old are you? 27. Okay.

What's the best year you had selling real estate? So far this year, moved to Tennessee, and I've done a little over $1.7 million in sales, but that's netted to maybe $17,000 to $18,000. Mm-hmm. Yeah. After expenses is what you're saying. Right. Yeah, good. Okay. All right. yeah after expenses is what you're saying right yeah good okay all right um and you've done that

in nine months yeah yes sir i started uh actually being able to sell in march oh and that's when i six months okay yes sir okay and do you have other supplement income uh i don't at the moment and that's what i've been trying to find other things that can i can start attaching to it um yeah i mean and certain ones haven't really uh worked out or the scheduling or some of it's just been me just more so in my head too much about it and so I've I've haven't had anything that's been super positive with it okay I mean a little bit to your credit in this situation I mean it's not like you're making 90 grand and you have 30 and credit card debt I mean you're not making a ton Gleason I mean like I don't know I mean how are you paying rent? My wife, she's also... What does your wife make?

Oh, what does your wife make? She makes probably $50,000 to $60,000. Gotcha. Okay. All right. And do you guys have any debt other than the $30,000 credit card? The only other one that we have is her car. It's about $20,000.

Okay, so you have $50,000 in debt. You have an $85,000 or $90,000 household income. And that's how you need to address this, is as a couple address the two debts that you as a couple have. So here's the thing. There's two sides of the equation the income side and the outgo side so we've got to get your income up that's why rachel's asking you about supplemental income and you can get that by morning making twenty dollars an hour throwing boxes for target or walmart they'll hire you in about 20 seconds to start doing that. But the ego aside, Gleason.

Amazon. Ego aside. Amazon's paying $20, $25 an hour right now in their distribution center right around the corner from you. And believe me, they'll hire because they lose everybody every three days. So they get to do it. You get to do it again. So, yeah, you can get in there.

It's not glamorous, and it's not what you're going to do for long. But for anything we can do to get the, like you said, get unstuck for a period of time. Now, obviously when you get next year and the next 12 months and you sell $5 million, $8 million worth of real estate, now you're making a living and you got $120,000 household income combined with your wife. Now you don't need to do that anymore. But for right now, let's get unstuck. Second thing you need to do is get out those stupid credit cards right now and cut them up have you got them they've already been cut up good every one of them yes sir no spare no spares i don't even they they've tried to send me new ones if i haven't done them and i've made sure that they

don't send any more they're all cut up i don't good good move all right you're ahead of the game all right so because you can't get out of a hole while you're digging out the bottom right so we can't keep making a problem while we're solving the problem that's good good for you and uh now then the two of you you and your wife open up every dollar we're going to give it to you free the premium version when we get off the call here and y'all open up that app tonight and lay out your budget and start making every one of the dollars coming in from Amazon or Target and real estate and whatever your wife does and make them all behave and let them start attacking the smallest credit card debt as fast as possible. When it's gone, you attack the next one. And when

it's gone, you attack the next one and you quit going out to eat and you're not going on vacation. You're broke and in debt and stuck. You've got to do some stuff to get unstuck and it requires a level of righteous anger where you get pissed off about this situation and you do stuff to get out of it that's how you get unstuck you get mad at the ditch i have a commission coming in this week great i mean i was planning on putting uh 700 of it towards fully getting one of those credit cards off good is that good cool good that's part of your budget but that's not the whole thing i also want to talk about what your wife's income is going to do this week and what the other part of that commission is going to do

this week and we're going to buy food and we're going to buy lights and we're going to buy water and we're going to pay the rent and we're going to buy lights, and we're going to buy water, and we're going to pay the rent, and we're going to keep gas in the car, and that's it. Everything else, we're getting out of debt because we're stuck, and we need to get unstuck. We get rid of this stupid car payment, these stupid credit cards. You'd have a life again, right? Right.

Yeah. Les Brown, the great motivator, says people change their lives when they finally say, I've had it. When you say that with that kind of yell in the mirror that's when you'll change it's not when you have an intellectual discussion with yourself about some hack you got to get pissed and you'll get there we'll help you and and you can do this i i can tell from talking to you you can do. I think you're the right kind of guy. I appreciate you calling because you're the kind of people we can help,

people that know how to do stuff. You're not afraid of work. You just got kind of wallowing around with this move and this change, and income went down, and instead of dressing it, you just backfilled with the stupid credit cards. It was just sloppy. Yeah, and the lifestyle in the lifestyle increase i'm like you guys were living like you were making a certain income that you just weren't

right and you weren't and then it was like well we can backfill it i mean you're justifying it and have been and i mean i think my goal for you grace gleason it's you know what uh we're in october i mean i would want like i would want to say, okay, by the 1st of December, our life looks completely different. Like it has to be a 180. Yep. Because the way you guys have been spending and enjoying wanting instant gratification, this feels good.

We can do that. We'll go out to you with those people. I mean, you just have done what you've wanted to do. And this is the result that you guys have gotten. And so it's going to be painful. I mean, it's going to look a lot different to be a young married couple.

You guys were enjoying it until it caught up to you and realizing, holy crap, this is not fun anymore. And so your life has to look different. So by December 1, just promise us that you look up and you and your wife together. It's like, wow, remember when we used to, X, Y, and Z, and that's not happening anymore. So you make a really good point. Christian, pick up, make sure you get

him all signed up for all the stuff he needs to help him. Let's pretend that a couple, much like the guy sounds like his name sounds like Gleason, were living $30,000 over their income. And they used $30,000 worth of credit card debt to do that. Okay. In order to fix that, your lifestyle doesn't change $30,000. That's right. It changes $60,000. Not only do you have to quit overspending by the $30,000, now you have to underspend by the $30,000 to clear the credit card debt. Which I think is the, I think that's one of the biggest reasons people don't want to do this process is because when you start to live and feel comfortable at a certain level to go backwards or what feels like is going backwards but you're actually making progress when you're doing it but it feels like you're saying now there's a level of humility

there and at least i'll throw it out there not to keep picking on you but i i do think there's a gosh i do real estate and i don't do these other things, right? Like I could do this, but like I do real estate and it's like the ego has to step aside. And this is a humbling process where you're, you guys aren't the, oh, well we get to do whatever we want couple and we're looking great all the time. I mean, it's a, it's a, it's, it's,

there's a humility, a deep humility when you start to sacrifice. But I'm telling you, the people have done debt-free screams on the stage. the peace that that brings is way more than the look, the appearance of what is looking good. It's not worth it. The appearance isn't worth it. It's not. So put it aside. You guys look different this time in two months, and peace will start to come, I'm telling you, and that's way worth it. Our scripture of the day, Psalm 2714, wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart,

and wait for the Lord. Colonel Harlan Sanders said, just because you took longer than others doesn't mean you failed. Remember that. That would be the guy that never fried any chicken for money until he was 67 years old and then started a little company called Kentucky Fried Chicken there we go go figure so you can still do something with your life Dave it's not over it's still I think you got two more years left oh you're talking to me there's still time to be somebody, boy. You can do it. Don't give up on those dreams. Keep at it. Nicole is with us in Nashville.

Hi, Nicole. How are you? I am doing well. How about you? Great. How can we help well um as you say i became an adult and got a diploma in bumd um i had my head buried in the sand when my now husband and i started dating, he took care of a lot of the finances, but I still had my debt. He still had his.

We didn't really talk about it. You know, everything was great, or so I thought. And we got married, and we actually moved in with my mother-in-law and him and I sat down one night and he was like, hey, you know, we need to slow down on eating out and stuff, blah, blah, blah. You know, we just made this big move. It's a big deal. And I'm like, okay $130,000 in debt. On what? And there's medical credit cards, school, a personal loan, cars, and then a little bit in collections.

How much in student loan? $8,347. How much on the car? So, again, the D-U-M-B, we got a Nissan Altima, excuse me, Nissan Altima and just got a truck for $60,000 total. You have a truck for $60,000 or the two together are $60,000? Two together. Is it $30,000? How much is the truck?

About $37,000. Okay. And so the other one is $23 okay the ultima all right and um uh medical and how much is medical yeah um so there's some stuff from a procedure I had and then also my daughter for $12,500. Okay, $12,000 for medical. What else? Credit cards are at $14,000. A personal loan is at $14,000. And then we have a little over $800,000 in collections,

but I'm working on those. Gotcha. Okay. Working on all of it. What do you guys make a year combined? Last year when we did our taxes together for the first time ever, we were at $113,000. Okay.

And how old are you two dumb how old are you two it's okay i am 30 my husband is 45 okay well you know yes some of the things you have done are dumb but that doesn't mean you are dumb i have done a lot of stupid stuff in my life but that doesn't mean i'm stupid there's a difference okay um the the trick is i that i use is i try not to do the same dumb thing over again at least it's new okay and and so that that's the cycle i want break. And if you quit doing the same ones, then there's fewer and fewer dumb things left that you can do, and you become what people call wise. And so it's weird.

But that's where we're headed to. Okay, so how long have you all been married? Our anniversary will actually be the 26th of this month. Like a one year? Yeah. Okay, so right at a month. Like a one year? Yeah. Okay, so right at a year. Okay. All right.

Yeah. Well, the good news is you make decent money. The bad news is you've made normal American dumb-butt decisions, and all we've got to do is reverse the trend, and we start to dig out of this. Okay? Are you guys still living with your mother-in-law right now? Yes. Okay. And she doesn still living with your mother-in-law right now? Yes.

Okay. And she doesn't know the full situation. She knows we are in some financial issues. I'm not worried about her. I just want you out of there as soon as I can get you out of there so you have a real life. But that's going to mean, you know, the biggest things on the list are the two cars, right?

Yeah. Mathematically, your list, when I look at your list, those two cars scream at me. Do they scream at you? Yeah. I mean, like, your two cars are half your problem. Yeah. I've already had the discussion with my husband of selling my truck

that we just got. You need two $2,000 paid-for cars. Yes. With no payments. That frees up $1,200 a month. How much are the crew car payments? Probably $1,200 total? Yes, I would say just around there.

Yeah, that and you two sitting down and doing a budget, given that you have no rent and you make $113,000, I think you can plow through the rest of this pretty stinking quick. I don't want you to drive hoopties the rest of your life, but I do want you to drive hoopties until you quit being broke people. I did. you to drive hoopties until you quit being broke people i did are you there right yeah okay so i'm talking about go through two years worth of hell to have a wonderful life the rest of your life live like no one else so that later you can live and give like no one else and never again be in your mother-in-law's basement.

That's a big goal. Does your husband know how scared you are and overwhelmed? We talked a little bit about that, actually, the other day. Okay, good. Because I was going to say, that conversation, it needs to happen tonight of just exactly where you are because there is a truth that this weighs on you and making these big cuts and selling cars and doing all of that.

It's to get to a point of a life of peace that you are longing for. And I think there's probably a little bit of this, oh my gosh, I didn't realize how bad we had it. And it wasn't that he was being malicious. I'm not putting that on him of hiding anything. I'm not saying that. I think you guys were just not great at communicating and the reality of where you were.

You're not great at managing money. But there's a unity factor here, Nicole, that can be so good for your marriage. It can be so good. And you guys have been living separately, even though it's only been a year of marriage. You guys have not been talking. And I think you're going to start to see the communication pattern even of your whole marriage could be reflective even in this one issue. And so the outcome of this is, yes, I think you guys can

do this. It's going to be a lot of hard work. You're going to be debt free. But in the process to Nicole, be leaning in with each other and saying, gosh, let's look at our marriage differently. Let's actually create a team that's going to be a foundation for the rest of our lives. I mean, you're just one year into this. It's not like you're having to unbreak habits of marriage for 15, 20, 30 years. You're still new at this, which is great. So see that as hope that this is a big marriage point that you guys could actually see this as a blessing because I think marriages, they grow in the struggle. When you guys come together and you're at the bottom together, what that does in the unifying of your marriage, it's beautiful. And I hate that pain is such a teacher, right? You don't

want struggle and pain to be it, but it's the reality. It's a thorough teacher. It is, and it's the reality of it. But when you can do it together, Nicole, hear me say that. I think it can change so much for you guys. That's even more than just getting out of debt. I think the quality of your life and your marriage can look so different. And then money doesn't have to be a stress point because you guys are going to do the tactical side of it and get out of this. You hang on. We're going to help. We're going to put you into Financial Peace University and put you into the Every Dollar Premium. We'll walk with you and show you how to do it. You call back if you need some help.

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.