The Ramsey Show - App - Change Your Game By Parenting Smarter (Hour 1)

Episode Date: September 6, 2018

The show about you

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Dave Ramsey Show. For debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Open phones this hour. The phone number is 888-825-5225. And we're going to hold open a couple of lines and let you guys go ahead and get started calling in Dr. Mechmeeker, author of Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters, and regular speaker around Ramsey events like the SMART Conference. One of my favorite authors of all time, certainly in the parenting space, my favorite, is going to be with us on our own. Anthony O'Neill, Ramsey personality, and speaks to teens and high schools and colleges all across America and churches all across America.

And so they're going to be on talking about some fun new stuff in the parenting area. And so if you've got questions about parenting, about kids and money, about teenagers, we've got the experts with you beginning in the next segment. They're going to be with us two segments from 15 after until the 45 mark. So go ahead and call in now if you want to talk to Meg and Anthony about kid questions. And the phone number is 888-825-5225. Starting this segment off is Laura in Dallas. Hey, Laura, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Well, thank you, Dave, and what a privilege, honor to speak with you.

You too. You're not old enough to be my uncle, but I wish you were my cousin so that I could just have you as a reference. You have so much information that I could use your guidance. Thanks. I have been offered a job in real estate. And it started out because this individual guy, he buys and sells real estate. He does that as a hobby, but he doesn't have enough time. He needs somebody.

And because I'm in sales and because I'm bilingual, he wanted my services. Once he realized that I am actually a pro salesperson and that I have worked for a startup and that I did really well, he's offered to make me, I guess, like a partner. He said he will teach me everything about it. And then he started out telling me that he would pay me like a 25% commission of each sale that he makes. But then once he realized that I'm good at sales, he said, well, then you could be my partner and give you 50%. But I've never done this kind of work before. He's going to teach me everything. I don't know whether that's really fair to him. Can you tell me, guide me as to what I should be asking for?

Well, it makes me a little worried about the deal because it's not a very smart offer on his part. So it makes me worried how bright he is. Because he should not give up half of his profits just to have someone do marketing for him. Well, no, he wants me to call. And he said basically I'd be talking to homeowners and setting up appointments for him, basically pretty much warming them up and getting them ready to basically sign the contract.

Yeah, I know, doing marketing. And, you know, he's either not making much money or, I don't know, there's no way. I mean, I've done what he's doing for a living. I did that years ago. I made a lot of money in real estate. But I don't know why you would give up 50% of your profits unless you don't have many profits. Well, he said he doesn't like doing the cold calling, and he doesn't like making all those calls. I know, but he can hire you a lot cheaper than that and just pay you and not give up half his profits is my point.

I'm not saying he doesn't hire you, but I'm just saying what he's willing to pay you sounds weird. Too much? Well, maybe. I don't know. 50% of a dollar is 50 cents. Right. So I don't know what his profits are.

That's what I felt like. He's being too generous. No, no. He might only make a dollar. You might only make 50 cents. That's not generous at all. That's a bad idea for both of you. He said he just doesn't have time because he's got a regular job.

Honey, you're missing the point. If he's making a million dollars a year, 50% of his profits is a half million dollars. To pay you that is absurd. But he might not be making any money. Maybe he made $10,000, and he's going to give you half of that. You don't want that job. No, he said right now he's selling about one or two houses a week, and I would have to spend 20 to 25 hours a week doing it.

But I don't care if he's selling the houses at a loss. There's no profits. I don't know what his profit is. He's not selling at a loss. He's making money on this. Maybe. How much? He says he is.

How much? Okay, it's potentially $200,000. Okay, so he's going to pay you $100,000 to do cold calling. No, no, no. What he'll do, he'll buy it for $100, and then he'll flip it. He'll sell it to someone else, and he'll get $10,000 on it. Then he'll give me $2,500. Okay, you're still missing my point, okay?

You need to find out what he's really actually making in a profit, not how many houses he's selling, how much actual dollars in profit, therefore what would be your cut. And if your cut sounds really, really high, then this is weird. If your cut sounds really, really low, it's a bad deal for you. You need to find 50% of what? 50% sounds like a lot, but if it's 50% of almost nothing, it's half of almost nothing. So that's what you've got to get to and you don't have that

number or you would have already told me so you got to do a little more research here and uh this guy sounds like a high roller um and i got a feeling he's going to hit the wall uh this does not sound stable to me the way y'all are approaching it doesn't sound good but if you dig into it and you continue to get a good feeling but you really need to know what your 50%, if that's what he's willing to pay you, is worth. How much money is that, and how did we arrive at that number? So am I going to make $100 next year? I'm going to make $500 next year. I'm going to make $5.

What am I going to make next year on my 50%? That's what you need to get into. Otherwise, it's just smoke and mirrors. Thanks for the call. Robbie's in Tampa. Hey, Robbie, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call.

Sure. What's up? So I'll give you the question first, and hopefully we can unfold as we go from there. You better just get to the – yeah, go ahead. Sorry. unfold as we go from there. I want to know what to do with the remaining rental sale profit that my wife and I have. We want to know if we should throw it at our home mortgage or save it in a money market while my wife gets an accelerated degree over the next 16 months. And you're paying for the degree in cash? sir so uh the profits are about fifty four thousand

dollars we're currently on baby steps four five and six um her degree program costs about sixteen thousand dollars uh which we would earmark for that and the remaining you know 30 or so uh we we would either save or put it toward the home uh The small caveat here is that the home was quitclaimed to my wife, and so the mortgage was not assumed or refinanced. And so I want to know if that's something to consider in that decision. It's just not at the mortgage you don't have any liability for. But obviously, if you don't pay the mortgage, they take the house. So we're not going to do that. But yeah, I probably would just set the money aside for right now.

And let's see how this all fleshes out. And then once you know, then you continue with your baby steps. Thanks for the call. I get asked all the time about what people need to do to improve their family's money situation. Two of the most overlooked things are term life insurance and disability insurance. Both plans make sure that you have income to pay bills and take care of yourself and your family if something were to happen. For term life, you need to carry 10 to 12 times your income, and I recommend 15 or 20-year plans for most families. Stay away from cash value or return of premium plans.

They're just a rip-off. Disability insurance is just as critical. How are you going to pay your bills if you're unable to work? Disability is the leading cause of bankruptcies and foreclosures. That's why I send you to Zander Insurance. They've been helping my listeners find the right plans at the lowest cost for almost 20 years. Call 800-356-1780 or visit zander.com and compare online. That's 800-356-1780 or zander.com. Two of my favorites in the studio, Dr. Meg Meeker and our own Lamsley personality, Anthony O'Neill, talking about parenting all the way from the high chair until you get them out of the house.

And maybe even after that. So you got questions about that, you can jump in. The phone number is 888-825-5225. And, of course, these are two of our speakers. Anthony will be talking about teens and Meg about parenting in general, and especially the importance of fatherhood. And that's one of her favorite topics in mind, too. At the coming Smart Conferences, the Smart Conferences are October 13th in Kansas City.

I was looking at our sales reports this morning. We're 87% sold out, which means you people in Kansas City are about to not have tickets available. So you need to get some tickets while you still can. Dallas is running about 50%. It is January 12th. It is ahead of schedule for a sellout, but you can still get a ticket. And you need to. And come out and be part of Smart Conference. Smart Conference is fun, isn't it, guys?

Oh, it's so much fun. Yeah. I love it, Dave. I get excited about it every time. Oh, I do, too, because what people don't know is all of the speakers are really good friends, and we have so much fun backstage that speaking is just sort of a you know a nice side thing that we do but it's world-class thought leaders and writers and speakers and communicators in every space from parenting where you guys are speaking uh and marriage where less our friend less will be there dr henry cloud on boundaries rachel cruz on money chris hogan on millionaires

i'll close it up talking about just success principles in general. Ken Coleman this year joining us on career. And it is a day-long event. And when you – it's the – you would go out and spend a half day to hear any one of these, but you get a day-long event where you come out smarter. That's right. Yeah. And, you know, we all do enjoy each other, but we've also, the reason we do is we've got such respect for each other.

I sit out and take notes when Meg's speaking, when everybody's speaking. I want to know what's going on. I've heard some of their talks before. Some of them they tweaked and different things, but I always learn something. And if you've never seen them, you're going to be overwhelmed. Yeah, it's a great day. It is a great day. And I'm excited about the one coming up there in Kansas City Day because Dr. Meg and I will be sitting down with parents and kids for lunch.

That's already sold out Kansas City. I'm sorry about that. But we'll be just really answering questions and really talking to parents and kids on how to understand each other better. Yep. Well, it's really fun because for many, many years I've listened to parents and coached parents. And for many years you've listened to kids and coached kids. So we're going to bring that all together so we can really increase the connection parents have with their kids. And then the exciting announcement that no one's heard about until right now, outside of this building anyway,

is that the two of you are coming together to do a new event next year called Smart Parent. That's right. It's Anthony and Meg, and in one exciting night, they're going to offer scientific, psychological, and spiritual time-tested truth to simplify your parenting journey. And, again, Anthony, just like Meg just said, coming from the perspective of having met with and talked to thousands, tens of thousands of teens in the last decade, and Meg being one of the top thought leaders in the whole idea of parenting.

And so we're going to give you dates and cities next month. Stay tuned. But that is going to be an exciting smart parent. Here we go. It is going to be fun. I mean, it's really, really going to be fun because I think, you know, Anthony and I are a great team, you know, because we bring something different. You know, I'm old. He's young.

He's fit. I'm not. He's a guy. I'm a girl. That's so funny. You're wiser than he is. He's young. He's fit. I'm not. He's a guy. I'm a girl. You're wiser than he is. Yeah. But it's a great, it's a great combination because our goal really is to cement the parent child relationship and we can do that.

Yeah. Coming together. Yeah. Yeah. And another thing that I've noticed is that with me talking to kids i'm actually hearing what they really need from their parents and then with dr meg she's hearing from parents am i close am i doing enough and so that one night we just really want them to walk away knowing hey this is what my kids actually need and i'm actually closer than i

thought i was we really want them to feel hope and get encouragement and leave saying, you know what, I'm going to be a better parent, but I'm already doing a good job. Right, right. Most people are doing better than they think they are. There's a lot of guilt over this subject. Oh, so much guilt. And we really want to diffuse that. And we really want to teach parents, you know, don't worry about the little stuff. They're harder to break than people think they are.

Oh, much harder. They're not as fragile as you think they are. Yeah, that's absolutely right. But we really want... Ramsey kids not being in counseling right now is proof of that. That's right. You know, every parent sort of in the back of their mind from the time their child's five says, I better start getting that fund ready for when my kids need counseling or psychiatrists and stuff, you know.

And, you know, really what great parenting and great relationships are about is just getting the big stuff right. And so that's really what we're going to focus on. And just let the other stuff that you're all worried about go, because it doesn't matter. That's a big deal. But I think this is going to be a great perspective, because, I mean, Anthony being there will make you a little cooler.

Well, I'm not cool. I know. I just hang out with him because a little bit of it rubs off, right? Yeah. And then you being there will make him a little smarter. Well, I'm not cool. I know. I just hang out with him because a little bit of it rubs off, right? Yeah. And then you being there will make him a little smarter. That's right. Wiser.

Wiser. Wisdom. I'll take smarter, Dave. This is a smart parenting event. I'll take getting smarter. But, you know, I'm excited. I really am. When the team and I put this together

and with your guidance, Dave, I'm excited to really get out there and to help parents connect even better with their their young people their kids and really let them know hey they really do want you involved and here's how you can do that yeah and you know there's the the first time i saw you delivered that set of information i was watching parents of teens in the audience and their body language and they were leaning in they're elbowing each other they're going that's what we can do and it's like i was doing that but i think i'll do it a little better you know

it's kind of like when i read smart uh fathers strong fathers strong daughters for the first time i was like i'm obviously a strong dad and i've raised some strong daughters. There's no weak Ramsey women, I'll just tell you that. Oh, my Lord, help us. But just hearing it from Meg went, okay, I need to do that a little bit more and I need to be a little more intentional and a little more polished. It verified your gut instinct kind of thing, you know. And the two of you doing that in a very special way in this one night on the Smart Parent event is going to be absolutely incredible. I'm so excited about it.

Good stuff. Thank you. Good times. Yeah. Looking forward to it. All right, let's take some calls. The phone number here is 888-825-5225. Rhoda is in Illinois.

Hey, Rhoda, your question for Anthony and Meg. Hey, thanks for taking my call. I am a new parent. I have a two-month-old daughter. And I have a quick question about my mother-in-law. Soon after we had her, she kind of overstepped boundaries as far as being pushy and wanting to come over more often than we're comfortable with. You mean she wanted to see her grandbaby?

Yeah. I don't believe it. Yeah, she does have some mental illness as well. So it's hard for us to say no without pushing her over the edge kind of thing. So my husband is kind of on board. He's also feeling that maybe I'm having some postpartum problems instead of it being his mom's, you know, deal. I just wanted to know if it's something that... Are you? I don't feel like I do, but I like being a mom and everything. Okay. Meg? I think that was a great question, Dave,

because if you are suffering from some postpartum depression, it clouds everything. You know, it clouds your view of yourself, your baby, your husband. So that's the first thing I would do. And then I'll ask your husband, you know, what do you think about my moods lately and that kind of thing. As far as boundaries with your mother-in-law, your husband really should be the one to set

those. And I would start with some very simple ones. You know, Mom, life is pretty crazy here. Would you mind just giving us a call before you come over? And then you start there and then you build over the next months. Yeah. With our kids, we got grandbabies all around us. We don't go over without an invitation or an appointment.

I mean, we're going to dinner tonight. We're all coming over. That's fine. But we don't just show up at the doorstep. No, you really can't do that. I mean, and believe me, I would. But no, I don't. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. We'll see you next time. Dr. Meg Meeker, Anthony O'Neill, two of our speakers at the SMART conference coming up, Kansas City, October the 13th.

87% of the tickets are sold. If you want one, you still can get one, but you need to get with it. It is a day-long event. No more than we charge for these tickets. You would pay that to see any one of the single speakers that are there. And you're going to get, really, this is an all-star lineup. If you went through every space of your life, from parenting to marriage to money to boundaries to, you know, career, anything like that. And you start looking, OK, who's the smartest person?

Who's the thought leader? Who's a world class presenter? They can give me ideas that can ramp my life up and you put them all together. Well, we were able to do that because I've become friends with those people over the years with the show and with just a mutual respect, a mutual admiration society we have with each other. And so years ago when I called and said, hey, let's do this thing, everybody went, yeah. And then they went, that was so fun. Let's do it again. And so we continue to do the Smart Conference a couple times a year all over the nation.

And it's one of our most popular events, and it should be. So looking forward to that. October 13th in Kansas City and January the 12th in Dallas. All right, Kim is with us in Cape Coral, Florida. Kim, your question for Anthony and Dr. Meg. Anthony, Dr. Meg, and Dave, hi, how are you? I am on the topic of making sure you do the next big thing right is my son's college. He is about to graduate in December from a college in Florida University,

and he is a bit stressed about he was going to go to graduate school after he graduated, but now he's going to have that $31,000 in the FAFSA debt and then graduate school being a lot more money. Well, I have a settlement, and I'm wondering as a parent if I should go ahead and pay his basketball loans off, or is that something you guys think a child should do to be responsible? Is it my responsibility, his responsibility, does it matter? It's not anybody's responsibility technically as to who, except who promised they were going to do it.

And you hadn't promised you were going to do this. This is just a possibility now. And what's he studying? He's studying psychology, so graduate school is important to go into the clinical aspect, or he even thought about doing a bachelor's in something else if that was more feasible money-wise. Yeah. Well, I think he needs to decide what he wants to do instead of just going and collecting degrees. He's not a thermometer.

Yeah. Right. He needs to get on a track here, and then I want to finance that track if I can. I don't want you to feel like there's a moral obligation. It wasn't a moral obligation for me to pay for my kid's college, but I did. Yeah. And it was something I could do. You can do it, but then the question is

are you are you ruining your son no unless you're financing his misbehavior is he behaving yes very much so okay anthony ideas yeah yeah kim what i would say is i'm gonna echo what dave says make sure that he has a plan and make sure that he's leading this conversation as well as far as a mom this is what i would like to do this is is my goals. This is how I'm going to use my degree. Or, hey, mom, I do not want to finish my degree. I want to have this conversation. Make sure that you're not leading it.

Make sure that your son is leading the conversation. So that way, when you do go in to help, you're helping him with his dreams, not with your dreams for himself. And so that's what I would do. But I want to commend you

for being a thoughtful mother of saying, hey, I'm getting some money. How can I help my son? But make sure that you're helping your son also and you're helping yourself. Think about your future. Think about your retirement. There's a guarantee down the road that you're going to need some help. There's a guarantee that your son,

there's not a guarantee that your son will not, he will not finish school or he will finish school. Yeah, I would encourage you to have your son at least pay part of the loan back because I think that, you know, it makes reality hit. He's an adult. He can do that. The other thing that I would encourage him to consider is not go to graduate school right away and to try to get some work in the psychology area so that he really knows, is this viable or is it not? Because the last thing you want him to do is go on to graduate school and graduate with a PhD and go, hmm, you know, I still can't get a job.

So before he goes or you go and invest more money in graduate school, he needs to be 150% sure that this is what he wants. He can make a living doing it. So you need to help him be really invested financially and educationally here. That's what I would encourage you to do. In most states, if he wants to do counseling, he'll have to have the master's. And so if that's his goal, to be a one-on-one counselor then the masters will be a necessity in terms of getting licensed so you know that's just what he'll follow through but to make

point let's make sure that's what i want to do right you don't want to you know climb the ladder and then realize he's leaning on the wrong house so um you got you got to know where you're going and uh it sounds like there's a little bit of vacillation in the way you described it and that that's a little bit scary all right doug is way you described it, and that's a little bit scary. All right, Doug is with us in Illinois. Hey, Doug, your question for Anthony and Dr. Meg. Dave and Anthony and Dr. Meg Meeker, it's so nice to talk with you. My wife and I have two children, a son who's 12 and a daughter who's 13, so I have a lot of extra time on my hands, I guess. We have had our kids on commission for about two years.

They've got great values. They come home from school. They do their homework. They do their chores to get ready for tomorrow without a lot of guidance. Wow. Great parents. Well, great kids, but, you know, it does take some direction. Yeah, they don't accidentally do that. They don't, right, yeah.

My question is, and it ties back to my past with my father, but one of my greatest memories with my dad was working side-by-side with him, whether it be finishing a basement or building a shed or, you know, just working side by side. And my son and I had been talking about starting up a little entrepreneurial business with woodworking, making giant yard dice to play Yahtzee outside or sparkle. Anyway, I know safety is a big concern working with power tools, but business aspect, I want to teach him the importance of running a business, doing it correctly so that he can take those throughout his life. So I guess my general

question is, after figuring out the cost, what should we do with the revenue? How much should he get? How much should he put into the business? So on and so forth. You are doing so many good things when you did all that. There's so many good dad stuff things. There's so many good money stuff and entrepreneurial things. There's about five or

six things happening at once in this that's really good and all of that is what's important how much revenue he gets is not important at all because it's almost irrelevant in the scope of his life the lessons are what we're after here yeah just like the chores they do they're not economically viable right those kids aren't i mean you would never pay somebody that to feed the dog, you know? So the only reason you're doing that is to create teachable moments, and not because the money changes the kid's life, and not because it changed your life, and not because the dog was helped, but other than that. But, I mean, the same thing here.

You're not going to make enough here. This is a way that the two of you can spend time together. You can teach him about business. You can teach him about spend time together you can teach him about business you can teach him about money and you can teach him about power tools and safety you can teach him about hard work and sweat this is awesome and i wouldn't worry about the money i mean figure out something put some of it back in the business that's part of business take some of it home and enjoy it that's part of it let's give some of it that's part of it i don't know anthony let's get let's get the uh teen entrepreneur tool guide and let's send him out one of those.

What do you think? Yeah, I love it, Dave, because you guys are hitting it on. This is here's the thing. It's all about life skills and business skills are life skills, especially to young younger people. So I wouldn't focus on the money. I would just sit down with him and put it on paper. Ask him, hey, what are your ideas what are your suggestions what would you like to see out of this what are some of your goals that you want to work for and so get him excited about that process which sounds like he's already excited about it and then y'all just go after it but make sure that you are being that father that you already are and man i plan to to be a father like him dave like that is just awesome yeah Yeah, the Teen Entrepreneur Toolbox is a thing that Anthony and our team put together featuring

Anthony showing teens how to build and run a business. A little different than what you guys are doing because you're going to be very involved in it, Dad. Yes, sir. But we're going to send you one anyway, which will help you do that. So looking forward to the launch of Smart Parent, an event next year with Dr. Meg and Anthony, and they'll be participating with us at the Smart Conference. Guys, thanks for dropping by.

Thank you, Dave. Good times. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Thanks for joining us, America. We're glad you are here. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Christine's in Phoenix. Hey, Christine, welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show. Hi.

My question is, my fiance and I are college graduates, but my daughter's dad and stepmom are not. My daughter has expressed interest in going to college, and I want to know how I can start a healthy conversation of paying for college because our parenting relationship tends to be more difficult. Okay. So you're not going to get help from them? I don't know. Okay. Well, I mean, you pretty much know that everything you bring up is going to be, you know, it runs into an adversarial situation.

So, really, the only variables you can control are you and a portion of your daughter's decision-making. Mm-hmm. Okay. And so, you know, number one, you don't want to trash the other household. You probably have already discovered that doesn't work. And so to your daughter, in other words, your dad's an idiot. That doesn't work. Oh, no, no, no.

You know, that kind of thing. And so but you can I think the conversation would not be trying or having any hope that they do anything smart or go along with anything you want them to do because they never have. And so to have that expectation would be, you know, unrealistic. But I would have a conversation with them just informational. And that is, guys, you guys obviously run your house and you're going to do what you want to do. We just want to let you know what we're going to do regarding college.

Okay, here's what we're going to do. And you guys, then you guys can talk about it. You decide what you're going to do regarding college. Okay? Here's what we're going to do. And you guys, then you guys can talk about it. You decide what you're going to do. But we just want you to know where we're coming from and the message that we're giving our daughter. Okay? And the message is that we're going to pay cash and we're going to go to a school we can afford.

And do you have the money to send her that you can just write a check? No, I'm in Baby Step 2 right now. Okay, so you're broke. And she's 12, so we've got a few years. Okay, you're broke right now. So, yeah, I would work on through then and get to, you know, get your baby step up into Baby Step 3, and then 4, 5, 6, which you start your retirement, you start your kid's college. So you've got, you know, five, six years to pile some money up.

That's great. What's your household income? Mine right now is about $67,000. But my fiancé and I, once we do get married, it'll be probably close to $140,000. Great. And your fiancé is on board with assisting your daughter going to school? Yes, and he's got two kids himself around the same age, so we've got to think through that as well.

Okay, so we're going to take our household income, and we've got to take these kids slash stepkids, whatever you call them, between this blended household and get these three kids through school, with or without participation from the other sets of spouses, right, former spouses and parents. And so, yeah, I think you just lay that out and just pretend like you have three kids, which you do. And we're going to start saving for their college. We're going to do the best we can.

I doubt you're going to have three hundred thousand dollars saved in five years per kid. You know, you might. So, you know, it's very possible that we're going to have some limiting factors on this kid going to school, meaning that they're not going to get to go to school anywhere they want to go. They're going to have to pick an inexpensive in-state school, maybe do community college for the first two years. They're going to need to be working towards scholarships. They're going to need to plan on working while they're in school. And then they can get through debt-free with some help from you and some help from themselves and a lot of help from their proper choices.

And the only way they get my money if I'm you is if they do not take out any loans and they go to a school that I approve of, which is within our budget. So if Daddy says, no, baby, you go get student loans, baby, you get student loans, you don't get any money from me. I am not going to finance your stupidity. Okay? So that's how you can only control what you can control, and that's what you are willing to do and under what circumstances.

And so my kids went to school. I was able to save the money and pay for them to go to school. And when they went to school, I'm in total control because it's my money. So you're going to behave. You're going to be, you know, we're Christians, so you're going to be walking a Christian life. You're not going to be out sleeping around all over the place and, you know, hell raising and all this stuff. You're going to behave and you're going to go to school, you're going to go to class and you're going to pass the classes or I'm not paying for it.

And I'm going to see the grades. You don't have the right to see the grades. Yeah, it's my dadgum money. So you sign the little form that gives me permission to see your grades, even though that you have to give me a form now for it to be legal. But, you know, I'm in control of this. You're a control freak. You're dadgum right.

I love you. It's called a benevolent dictatorship. And that's how this works. And that's where parents actually have the backbone and the character to parent. The only disadvantage you've got in this one situation is, you know, the possible negative influence of an outside former spouse that is her parent. And same thing with your husband's ex as well. So but you've just got to tell the kids, this is how it works. We're going to save a bunch of money. You can have that money, but we're going to have input on what you study, where you study it and how you behave in order to get this money input.

One of the behaviors is no student loans. You don't need student loans. You can work if you make the proper college choice. And that's how I would lay it out. And then inform the other spouse that that's the stance you're taking. So you're letting them know that if they try to influence your daughter to go get student loans or go to a school she can't afford, oh, just go anywhere you want to go, honey. Everybody does it.

You know, if you're going to play that routine, she's going to get zero. You're cutting her out of 50 or 100,000 bucks that I got saved over here. She's getting zip. You're letting them know that. Now, you don't have to be that abusive or abrasive in your language and the way you transfer the information, but just let them know this is what we've told her. In order to qualify for the money we've saved for you to go to school, you have to do these things.

And if you influence her to do one of those other things is the unwritten statement, then you're influencing her to walk away from 50 or 100,000 bucks. And they may just throw up their hands and go, we don't even believe in college. We don't care. Do whatever you want to do. We're not doing nothing. And that's okay, too. That's believe in college. We don't care. Do whatever you want to do. We're not doing nothing. And that's okay, too. That's okay, too.

You can't control them. And I would have low expectations based on what you said of them doing anything. Gabriel is in Philadelphia. Hi, Gabriel. Welcome to Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. It's a pleasure to talk to you today. You, too.

What's up? Well, I have two quick things. First, I want to thank you, because finding you, you led me to go from making $39,000 after taxes to making about $93,000 after taxes. What did you do? I worked my tail off and finally decided to leave my job that I've been working on for six years as an IT consultant to an actual system admin at another location. Wow. So you were being underpaid. Massively.

It was a great company. Taught me a lot. Great mentor. But the pay wasn't there. Yeah, like severely. Well, I'm proud of you, man. Good job. How can I help today?

Well, I have a big concern. At this point, I am in baby step two. I am scheduled to be done with, my debt is about $83,000 in about 18 to 20 months. I'm nothing changing. As far as I'm concerned, I'm making a certain amount of money. Everything should go into this debt. But my biggest concern is my parents. My parents have been working in the United States now for about 20, 25 years. I just spoke with my parents about their retirement, and I found out that my dad only has about $83,000 or 1K. How old is he?

He's 55. 55. Yeah. Oh, so he's got 10 years to save. Yeah, but, I mean, where's that going to put him, though? I've run the Chris Rogan RRQ, and it's looking like maybe if he does 10,000 a month, he could be looking at a million point six. Yeah.

But I don't even know how that's possible. I guess I have to talk to him about that. Well, i don't know if he can do 10 000 a month he didn't necessarily have to be a millionaire at 65 years old but the point is he can take 85 and with uh 10 12 15 working years left can throw money at the retirement nest egg and get the nest egg big enough to survive yeah you got a good hey you got a really good head start i'm going to to give you a copy of Chris Hogan's book, Retire Inspired, which is exactly the answer to this question. And you can send it to him

as a gift from you. So hold on, and I'll have Zach pick up and we'll get that book out to you. It's a number one bestseller. It completely outlines how to retire inspired, whether you're 26 or whether you're 56. And so you can do this. The numbers are okay.

He's okay as long as he decides to do it. Now, if he lopes around for another decade, he's going to have a problem. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, guys, this is James Childs, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. I'm excited to announce that we're now carried on 600 radio stations across the country. To find one near you, head to DaveRamsey.com slash show.