The Ramsey Show - App - Changing Your Comparison Mindset Will Help You Win (Hour 1)

Episode Date: October 21, 2019

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Starting off this hour is Manny in Maryland. Hey, Manny, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.
Starting point is 00:00:56 Hey, Dave, how's it going? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay, so I'm 20 years old, originally from California. I met my girlfriend there. She lived in Maryland, and I moved in with her about a year ago. We recently got an apartment together, and, well, things didn't work out. We broke up, and we're going to be living together until our lease is up in June.
Starting point is 00:01:23 I'm on baby step two. I have about $3,000 left. My question is whether I... So I'm planning on moving back to California in June when our lease is up. My question is whether I continue paying debt or start piling up cash for the move. What's it cost to move? I'm not quite sure. The plane ticket is probably not going to be that much, but I mean, I don't have much stuff here. The only thing I have is like a guitar.
Starting point is 00:02:01 Sounds like this is a plane. Do what? Yeah. I have a sofa, but. You what? Yeah. I have a sofa, but I'm probably not going to end up moving that. Yeah, probably not. Yeah. It'll cost more to move it to California than it's worth. Right.
Starting point is 00:02:14 Okay, so you need a plane ticket. Mm-hmm. So what do you make? About $25,000. Mm-hmm. And what did you make in California? Same thing. Why don't you go on and go to California now?
Starting point is 00:02:28 I wouldn't live in an apartment with somebody I broke up with. That's a crazy world, man. That's just weird. Isn't it? It is. Okay, I mean, God, man, my hair's crawling up the back of my neck, and it's not even me. I don't even want to stay in the same house with Sharon when we have a good fight, much less live there after we broke up.
Starting point is 00:02:52 Yeah. The reason I was thinking about that was because wouldn't it, like, hurt? I've heard it hurts, like, your, like, credit, I guess, to break a lease. Well, I'm not breaking the the lease you still got to pay it where are you going to live in california um i'm probably going to find an apartment with one of my friends okay uh are your parents there they are but they're living um in an rv oh well that's not convenient either yeah well i i gotta tell you man I'll be trying to figure out a way to get out of there. I'm not talking about the math.
Starting point is 00:03:28 I'm just talking about the weird. If I'm you, you got to have thought of that. I mean, this is painful, isn't it? It is, yeah. Okay. So what does she make? She makes probably a little bit more than me because she has two jobs and what would your apartment what would your part what's it cost there i didn't ask that uh to live here yeah what's your apartment cost uh 1200 a month so you're
Starting point is 00:04:01 paying 600 yeah how much of that would she pick up if she could get rid of you? If you picked up $300 and she picked up another $300, would she do that to get rid of you? What do you mean? Would she go to $900 and you pay $300 if you agreed to leave now and leave her the couch? Maybe. Maybe. Yeah, and then you take that $300 and pay it from California and take the other $300 and use that to split with a roommate in a cheap way and get on over there.
Starting point is 00:04:35 You just put your entire life on hold for six months in a weird way. And if I'm you, I'm trying to figure out some way that's legal, moral, finishes the lease, doesn't leave her hanging. We're not trying to be in lack of nobility with her. Leave her the couch. You know, what could I pay you to let me go away? You know, that kind of a thing. And, you know, then I'm out of there.
Starting point is 00:05:03 Yeah. You guys are just nicer than hillbillies. Hillbillies, we wouldn't be able to do this. I couldn't. The way I grew up, my brain doesn't even work this way. I'm not this nice. So you're a nice person. But, wow.
Starting point is 00:05:17 Yeah, just do what you want to do. But I'm trying to figure a way to get on out of there now, and it only costs you a plane ticket. You can scratch that together. Go take an extra job delivering pizzas and clean up this for a little while work work more than 40 hours go ahead and work 60 hours and um that's an extra 1500 a month and you can pull this together come up with a plane ticket give her maybe give her a handful of dollars and just walk off in a lump sum i don't know but whatever whatever deal you can work with
Starting point is 00:05:43 her the only thing is you have to make sure the lease does get completed by her because if she doesn't complete the lease properly and leave the property uh in good condition they could come after you for either the lack of rent payment or tearing up the property so you want to be sure she's not going to do that but yeah i assume i'm assuming that that's all. If you're able to live together, surely you can pull that part off. So, wow. Okay. All right, Ron is in Indiana. Hey, Ron, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.
Starting point is 00:06:13 Thank you for taking my call. Sure, what's up? Here is my situation, and I wish I was doing better than I deserve, but I'm trying to fix some things. I am trying to buy a house right now. I have a good job. I make around $60,000 a year. I have $25,000 in my 401k.
Starting point is 00:06:34 I do just like you told me. I put 15% in every week without fail. I'm single. I don't have a wife. I don't have no kids. I've been married. Okay, here's the deal. I have a debt collections on my credit report.
Starting point is 00:06:50 Now, I just called them here not too long ago, and what I said to them was, is there any way that I can pay that off, and then as soon as I pay that off, you take that off, you know, as if it never happened. And they make it sound like it is a crazy idea. And I'm like you. I think they're rather slimy. But how long will that actually hurt me if it's on there even though that it's paid off?
Starting point is 00:07:26 Do you have other credit that's good? Yes. Okay. Probably hurt you for a year from the time you actually pay it off. It'll just show a bad debt that has been settled on there, and it'll be on there for seven years, but it'll probably only hurt you if you've got other good credit for about a year. If you don't have any credit at all other than this, it might be three years. Okay.
Starting point is 00:07:48 Now, I mean, fine. Right. Well, and that's what I did. I paid hardball with them. I just basically threw it out there. They cannot legally promise to take it off the credit bureau because that's lying. They told the credit bureau that you were a bad guy that didn't pay his bills. Then once you do pay his bills, you say, well, he's a deadbeat, but he came back, made the bill good.
Starting point is 00:08:15 And that's the accurate picture of what has happened. Taking it off is participating in misleading a future creditor. Because they wouldn't know then that you had this actual credit history. It's supposed to be the real credit history, hypothetically. Now, they do all kinds of stuff, but they're not supposed to. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Business leaders, if you're not using LinkedIn jobs, you are missing out. Our Ramsey Solutions Company page on LinkedIn has over 100,000 followers. That's over 100,000 potential like-minded people our team communicates our current openings to.
Starting point is 00:09:12 We also post on LinkedIn Jobs because we know the right person will have an impact on our company for years to come. And LinkedIn Jobs matches the right person with the right job. It's no wonder a hire is made every eight seconds on LinkedIn and over 600 million members visit LinkedIn to make connections, learn and grow as professionals, and discover new job opportunities. In fact, LinkedIn members add 15 new skills to their profiles and apply to 35 job posts every two seconds. Get started today with linkedin jobs and get 50 off your first job post visit linkedin.com slash ramsey terms and conditions apply Chelsea is with us in Texas.
Starting point is 00:10:16 Hi, Chelsea. Welcome to Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Uncle Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world? Well, we have some exciting things coming up on the horizon that I need your advice on. My family never really has owned anything of any value or anything like that,
Starting point is 00:10:34 so this is all completely new to us. My husband, my brother-in-law, and my mother-in-law, so now my family, own about 250 acres, and we are my family, own about 250 acres. And we are looking to sell the land by owner. We're in baby step two right now. But the land was purchased under my mother-in-law's name. But my brother-in-law and my husband have been making all of the payments on it. So if we want to sell this, she'll be taking the tax hit on it. How do we get the money
Starting point is 00:11:07 from her? What's the best way to not pay the most money? I know that hopefully that was understandable. Sure. Well, the amount of taxes are not going to change. The taxes are the taxes. How long has she owned the property? About 10 years. Okay. What did she pay for it? I wish I knew. Probably about $3,000 an acre. We're looking to sell it for $15,000 an acre. Oh, nice! Yeah. So it's going to be a good chunk of change. Yeah. Okay. Does she make more
Starting point is 00:11:43 than $400,000 a year? No. Okay. Does she make more than $400,000 a year? No. Okay. Then her capital gains will be on the difference of what she paid for it and what it is worth, what it sells for now. What it sells for now, minus the expenses of selling it, minus what she paid for it, is her gain. Okay. Which is basically going to be real close to the difference between $3,000 and $15,000, right? So $12,000 an acre.
Starting point is 00:12:06 Yes. So about $3 million, give or take. And that's going to be taxed at 20% capital gains. No. 15% capital gains. What am I thinking? 15. Using the old math. 15%.
Starting point is 00:12:21 I like that one better. Okay. 15% capital gains. So let's just use round numbers. That's $150,000 per million. There's a $3 million gain, so it's $450,000 in taxes. The only way to avoid this would be for her to buy other real estate that is of like kind, another piece of dirt, and roll that, and it's called a 1031 tax deferred exchange.
Starting point is 00:12:52 It's much like trading one piece of property for another is where it comes from, but you actually don't have to trade it. You can just sell it into a special escrow account and buy the other property out of the escrow account within a certain number of days. I believe it's 60 days right now. And so you've got to have identified the other piece of property. And so is there any thought of maybe having other property instead of this, or does everybody just want their money? My brother-in-law and my husband, they have a farm, and so they're wanting to purchase more land further south where land is cheaper.
Starting point is 00:13:27 It's not theirs, though. Yeah, but we're not wanting to put all of the money into it. We'd like to be able to cash out. And you're not going to do it together again, right? No. Okay. Well, I don't know. I think my brother-in-law and my husband would like to do it together.
Starting point is 00:13:43 I wouldn't. Because of the complications you've got right now, and you'll have those complications forever, every time you do something in a partnership, you increase your complications. If you don't have to, in a family situation like this, sometimes it's okay, but it's not. Where you don't have to, I wouldn't.
Starting point is 00:14:04 Anyway. Anyway. Okay. So, the formula I would use if I were trying to split this three ways is, you've got the pile of money in the middle of the table from the sale. Did she pay for the original purchase out of her pocket? She paid, so it's technically 250 acres. She paid for the first 50 acres and owns that outright. So she only wants the money from that first 50 acres. The 200 acres will be split between my brother-in-law and my husband. So she doesn't want any equity in the other 200 acres. Why?
Starting point is 00:14:50 I guess she just doesn't. I mean, they've been very wise with their finances, good investment. Okay, but she paid something for that, right? No, she paid for the 50 acres outright. Who bought the 200? It's under my mother-in-law's name, but my husband and my brother-in-law have made every payment, including down payment on it.
Starting point is 00:15:16 Okay. So that's why she wants nothing out of that. Right. So she wants all the money from the 50. She didn't put any money into the 200, although it's got her name on it. Correct. Okay, then I would pay her taxes on the $200,000 and split the rest between your husband and his brother on the $200,000.
Starting point is 00:15:40 On the $50,000, she gets it all, and she has all the taxes. Right, Okay. So if $12,000 is your gain times 50 is all hers times 200 is all theirs minus her tax bill because she has to pay the capital gains because she's the owner. Right. Although, I don't know, their names were never on it at all in any way never at all in any way never do that crap again we won't we won't uncle dave i promise it's made it very complicated well it's also very dangerous if somebody just decide
Starting point is 00:16:20 that we're gonna walk off you know and mom's just standing there holding the bill on this thing. Or, you know, your brother-in-law works off. I mean, this is, yeah, you're functioning here with no partnership agreements at all, and everything's titled improperly. The good news is you're liquidating and getting out of the mess. So that's good. All right, Brett is with us. Brett's in Washington.
Starting point is 00:16:44 Hi, Brett. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? So, new listener, I found you on YouTube, started watching some of your videos that made sense to me,
Starting point is 00:16:56 and then I realized I'm not where I need to be in life. Cool. So I started taking a look at what I need to do to get to baby step one and two. I know that a big part is get the, get the savings in and then get, get working on your debt. Exactly. Right now I have 27,000 in debt. Uh, and then I was, my question to you is, uh, I've been saving since around 20 or so, uh, through this savings plan, should I move that money to take and blast my debt out so I can start fresh, or should I leave that to continue to build up? I would leave it, and I would stop adding to it while you're in baby step two,
Starting point is 00:17:37 but I would not cash it out, and here's why. Follow the math with me. If you cash it out, you will be charged your tax rate plus a 10% penalty. What do you make a year? I make roughly $50,000. Okay. So you're probably in a 15% tax bracket, I think. We'll use that as an example.
Starting point is 00:18:00 So you'd get charged 15% on whatever you take out plus 10%, which would be a penalty, which would be a total of 25%. So it's kind of like borrowing money at 25% interest to pay off your debt. No, I wouldn't do that. That make sense to you? Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does actually make a little more sense.
Starting point is 00:18:20 Okay. And so, yeah, but I would stop adding to it. I would get on that every dollar budget and uh you know tear into this thing with great intensity and great focus and i'm i'm you know sounds like you've had your wake-up call and you're ready to do that so i'm proud of you good job hey thanks for calling in open phones at 888-825-5225 the thing we're trying to do here every time someone calls is to give you a new tool in your belt to make decisions for yourself. You don't ever do something because I said do it. That's why I always say, do you understand why I said that? Do you understand why I said that? Do you understand why I said that?
Starting point is 00:19:06 Do you understand why I said that? Because the next time you're facing this, you don't have to say, Dave Ramsey. It doesn't matter what Dave Ramsey thinks. Just use critical thinking skills. Use a logical approach to becoming wealthy that models and lines up with the data points of people who have become wealthy. In other words, do wealthy people stuff and you have a high probability of becoming wealthy. That's what this thing's all about. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Folks, let's cut through the bull. Interest rates are exceptionally low, so you're missing out if you have not called Churchill Mortgage to see if you can save money on your home loan.
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Starting point is 00:20:40 This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLSconsumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 761 Old Hickory Boulevard, Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Remington and Deandra are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Hey, good. Welcome. Where do you guys live? Birmingham, Alabama.
Starting point is 00:21:20 Cool. Welcome to Nashville. And up here to do a debt-free scream. Yes, sir. How much have you paid off? $53,940. Love it. How long did this take? 18 months.
Starting point is 00:21:31 Good for you. And your range of income during that time? Started off at $69,000 and ended at $85,000. Okay. Very cool. Good for you. What do you guys do for a living? I'm a maintenance manager at a private school. And I work for an insurance Okay. Very cool. Good for you. What do you guys do for a living? I'm a maintenance manager at a private school.
Starting point is 00:21:46 And I work for an insurance company. Very good. What kind of debt was the $54,000? It was a small little truck loan, two cell phones, but mainly my student loans. Ah, okay. What's your degree in? Just business administration. Good.
Starting point is 00:22:02 Okay. Not just, it is. It's a solid degree. You say just if it's something that's not usable. Good. Okay. Not just, it is. So, solid degree. You say just if it's something that's not usable. That's usable. Well done. Good for you. So, how long have you two been married?
Starting point is 00:22:12 About six years now. Okay. So, what happened 18 months ago? Well, we started, when we first got married, my parents gave us your FPU DVDs and book, but it wasn't until the end of 2017 when we decided to jump in and get serious. I was actually started following you on Instagram and I saw you reposted a couple who was young and had paid off their student loans.
Starting point is 00:22:37 And before I just, it was more of an idea. It wasn't really heart knowledge and just seeing other people follow the plan, like there were people actually doing this. There's real humans doing this. Out in the wild. Yeah. We just didn't believe it. And it was just incredible. As soon as we started, Remington got a promotion.
Starting point is 00:22:57 As soon as we were obedient to the Lord. And it was hard. It was a lot of sacrifice. But I felt like this journey, it was run so much more deeper than finances. I mean, it changed our marriage. It changed our relationship with the Lord. So we're just very grateful. So you just got the DVDs off the shelf because of Instagram and dove in homeschool style.
Starting point is 00:23:20 Yes. All right. Game on. And then got real focused and real intense. So who's the nerd and who's the free spirit? Who's the detail person? It was me. I love budgeting.
Starting point is 00:23:32 Yeah, that's something free spirits never say. I love budgeting. I love spreadsheets. These are things we nerds say. Yes, I like it. Yeah, very good. Okay. What was the hardest part of this for y'all in the 18 months?
Starting point is 00:23:46 You leaned into this. I mean, these numbers say it. Yeah, very good. Okay. What was the hardest part of this for y'all in the 18 months? You leaned into this. I mean, these numbers say sacrifice. Yeah, that's pretty much it was a sacrifice. I mean, we were in the middle of a home renovation and stopped everything we were doing just to, you know, go and start paying off. So what was undone that sat there for 18 months you looking at it? It's still undone, but baseboards, I mean, or bathtub doesn't work. I mean, we have a shower, so we do bathe. Right.
Starting point is 00:24:13 That's good. I'm glad. I feel better already. But I think also the hardest part, too, is just a lot of comparison. So I did, you know, fast a lot of social media and read a lot of books. Rachel Cruz's book and even before the Everyday Millionaires, The Millionaire Next Door. It's a great book. It just changed our mindset.
Starting point is 00:24:34 It's really what it was about. Yeah, it's like Everyday Millionaires, Millionaire Next Door, Love Your Life, Not Theirs. These are like the opposite of Instagram. Yep, it's very true and we love instagram but yeah not really yeah we use it in a different way around here but yeah it's um it is all about instagram facebook are all about watching someone else's highlight reel yeah because their life isn't that good they just only show you the good parts so i mean rachel posted baby pictures and everything else we didn't post the bad pictures. We posted the cute baby pictures, you know.
Starting point is 00:25:06 So that's what everybody does, right? I'm not going to post a picture of the ugly kid. That's not going to work. Or the kid when his face is all wrinkled up and it looks all, you know, you don't do that. You put the good one. It's the same thing. That's just human nature. But if that's what you compare yourself to, you go, wait a minute, our life isn't perfect.
Starting point is 00:25:21 And so that fasting social media you said that's a great line i like that who are your biggest cheerleaders um i would say our close like family members but we did have like a lot of people think we're really weird like really on don't have credit cards i mean just it's you are yeah but it's good. It's good. How old are you? I turned 30 in April. And I'm 28. Okay. And you have no debt.
Starting point is 00:25:50 You're weird. You're weird. You paid off your student loans. You're millennials that are debt free. You're incredible. You're awesome. I love it. I'm so proud of y'all.
Starting point is 00:25:57 Thank you. Very, very well done. Thank you. So I guess mom and dad were cheering y'all now that you got the DVDs off the shelf and used them. Yeah. Four years later. Exactly. Yep. Yeah. I told a group I was speaking to the others off the shelf and used them four years later. Exactly. I told a group I was speaking to the other day,
Starting point is 00:26:07 the Total Money Makeover book has sat on more people's coffee table for four years until suddenly they need it. It's like the world's largest coaster, and it's everywhere. It's on everybody's coffee table with coffee stains and tea stains on it, and then suddenly they pick it up. Same thing with these DVDs. They come off the shelf at just the right time. So of the dvds and out of your actual experience because you are professionals you have actually done this it's not a theory anymore uh what are the keys to getting
Starting point is 00:26:35 out of debt i mean i would say really i mean just studying and changing your mindset i mean we decided to go all in. What did you do? If you was going to tell somebody, they said, what did you do to get out of debt? What did you do? What do you think the key things you did were? I mean, we cut out a lot of stuff. I mean, stopped going out to eat.
Starting point is 00:26:56 We cut cable. Just budgeted it crazy. But also, I think one of the most important things was we still gave our 10% to the Lord first. So you kept tithing. You got on a budget. And you said, we're aiming at this target. And we're going to go through some temporary pain to hit the target. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:27:18 And even when emergencies and stuff would come up and I'd freak out because I'm like, this is not part of the plan. Vet bills. But Remington was so gracious and just led me on the way. We still, you know, stuck the course, stayed on the path. And that's where having a budget is really important, too. Exactly. Having a plan. You have to plan. Well, it gives you the warning track, like when your tires go off, you know, whoa, whoa, get back over here.
Starting point is 00:27:37 Yeah. Because you're about to go off your plan. And it's your plan. You get to decide. Yeah. So what was the biggest freak out? You said emergency came up. I think it was just, like, vet bills know yeah and we have three little dogs okay but just how big
Starting point is 00:27:52 was the vet bill i think it was like 500 whoa so yeah okay yeah that one will get you that'll better kick your teeth on our budget for a month so you're like oh we had this money set aside especially to tackle the student loans, because that was the last portion. So, you know, I would freak out when, you know, something didn't accumulate to go towards the. Exactly. So I just delayed it a little bit. Just delayed it just a little bit.
Starting point is 00:28:15 And then you still got back on track and Fluffy gets to live. Yeah. Yeah. Things are good. Yeah. Very good. Way to go, you guys. Very cool.
Starting point is 00:28:22 We're proud of you. We got a copy of Chris Hogan's Everyday Millionaire book that we were just talking about. That is the next chapter in your story. I mean, you're not even 30 years old or just barely 30 years old, and you've got 100% debt freedom except your home, and you're ready to go now. And the next chapter is to become millionaires. Well done. Very, very well done.
Starting point is 00:28:41 All right. Remington and Deandra, Birmingham, Alabama, $54,000 paid off in 18 months, making $69,000 to $85,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah! Woo-hoo!
Starting point is 00:29:06 I love it. I love it, I love it, I love it. I love it, I love it, I love it. I don't know what to do about it, but I've heard a disturbing number of people in the past several weeks doing their debt-free screams that had a delayed effect. They got the total money makeover book. They got the complete guide to money. They got the Financial Peace University like these guys. And it's two years later, three years later, four years later that they actually pick it up. Now, that ought to be an encouragement to you friends and family who are giving that as a gift.
Starting point is 00:29:31 Eventually, they will get it, okay? Maybe they don't do it right when you want them to, but eventually they will get it. But somehow we've got to activate them a little quicker. We're going to have to get them moving. But I'm proud of those guys. They're heroes. They took control of their lives, 28 and 30 years old, $54,000, primarily student loan debt. Hey, the student loan thing, guess what the answer to the crisis is?
Starting point is 00:29:55 Very bright and passionate and goal-focused millennials who clean up their own mess. Wow. Wow. That's radical. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com. They have a 100% satisfaction guarantee, and their satisfaction guarantee is weird. It's not that you're satisfied with their service. It means even if you mess up, if you screw up, if you mismeasure the blinds or you order the wrong color or something like that,
Starting point is 00:31:19 they'll remake the window blinds for free if you screw up. Wow. That's pretty amazing. You get free samples, free free shipping the new promos they run on every month you save even more use the promo code the magic word ramsey today's question comes from james in north carolina and he says uh at what point do you need to involve an estate planner when planning your will or can you just go online and complete a will well we uh recommend mama bear legal forms um for your will it's about a hundred dollars to get a full set of documents to do a properly done estate basic estate plan now at what point do you need to do more than something like that is his question.
Starting point is 00:32:10 Probably just due to the complication of your estate. If you get up over about $2 million, I probably would go ahead and spend the money to have an attorney, a professional estate planner, do your will. The truth is you do not have any federal estate tax problem until your estate is over $20 million currently. And so if you don't have a huge, huge estate, you know, it's actually $22,800,000 right now. No federal estate tax on estates smaller than $22,800,000. And a very simple A-B ab marital trust if you are married can double that and so instead of you know basically 22 and a half you'd be at 44 45 million before you'd have any taxes with an ab trust so the way this works is simply this spouses can receive an unlimited amount from their spouse with no federal estate tax.
Starting point is 00:33:07 It's when the second spouse dies that you get tagged if you're up over that $22 million. Okay? It used to be $2 million years ago. Okay? But right now, the current law is $22.8 million. Now, so if you leave the first $22.8 million into a trust when you die and your spouse has full use of that trust, they can leave another $22.8 million plus that trust without any taxes. That's a simple marital trust, an A-B trust.
Starting point is 00:33:42 And so that's a way to double the amount for a married couple that you can shelter from estate tax. And believe me, you do want to shelter from estate tax because the estate tax is 55% right now. And so if you have a $100 million estate, you've already paid taxes on all of that, by the way. You pay taxes on every bit of that when you got it okay so if you're sitting on a hundred million dollar estate into you uh shelter roughly 50 million of it you're going to pay 55 on 50 million dollars that you've already paid taxes on and uh let me just help you with that that doesn't i don't think if i was that bad that much money i wouldn't care well you're supposed to care or you wouldn't have that much money.
Starting point is 00:34:27 Well, all those people inherited their money. Oh, my God, when are you people going to stop believing this mythology? The 400 wealthiest people in America today are the Forbes 400. 70% of them are first generation. 93% of millionaires are first generation rich. And all the Forbes 400 are billionaires. That's 1,000 million. And 7 out of 10 of them started with nothing
Starting point is 00:34:54 and therefore have paid taxes on every bit of that money. It's all earned money one way or another. And by the way, it's their money. It's not yours. They did it. You didn't do it. They didn't do anything wrong. Oprah didn't steal from anybody.
Starting point is 00:35:13 She's one of them. And she's going to be taxed on basically $950 million at 55%. And that's money she's already earned and already paid taxes on. This is how this soak the rich crap gets translated into stupid socialism. And so taxes on, you know, death tax is really what it is. It's not an estate tax. It's really a death tax. We're going to get you again now that you're not here.
Starting point is 00:35:43 That's what it says. You've already paid us once on the income tax. You earned the money. You've grown the money. You built something. Now we're going to get you again. That's what all that is. So do I sound bitter? Yeah, I've probably spent $100,000 on estate plans trying to keep the government's hands off of everything in excess of $50 million. So it's just ridiculous. Now, all that to say, let's go back and answer his question again. If you've got about $2 million, you start to not have a federal estate tax problem, but you probably have a complicated enough estate that it's worth spending a few hundred dollars on an estate planning attorney on an estate having a professional detailed estate plan done.
Starting point is 00:36:26 If you've got $100,000 or $500,000 or whatever, I wouldn't fool with that. I'd just get a mama bear legal forms will. They need to be state-specific. You always do a will that's state-specific, and you need to update it any time there's a major life event. Like you move to another state. Now, your will's not good because it was specific to the other state. You get married or you get divorced.
Starting point is 00:36:48 Your kids grow up and become, they're no longer minors. Then that would change your will. Like we had a will set up for our children. If something happened to us, everything went into a trust to care for them in the event of our death when they were little. Well, once they're grown, I don't need that. I can just leave them the money. So the will would change.
Starting point is 00:37:08 So anytime there's major life changes or moves, you would need a huge jump in income. Probably won't affect your estate tax, but it makes you need to stop and think about, do I have the right insurance in place? Do I have the right will in place? Jump online at DaveRamsey.com. Use that coverage checkup tool that's free, and it'll help you figure everything out. It's very, very easy. Or you can text the word CHECKUP to 33-789.
Starting point is 00:37:36 Bottom line is all this stuff is aggravating, but it is part of so is just managing life. Keeping your car tags updated is aggravating. You know, making sure you have insurance on your house is aggravating. But it's called grown-up stuff. And so you go and you get your will done if you've got a complicated estate. If you have a fairly straightforward thing, though, you don't have to spend a bunch of money on it. But you do need to get a will. 78% of Americans die without a will.
Starting point is 00:38:08 That's just dumber than a rock. You need to get your will done. And if you haven't updated or looked at it in five years, you need to get it out and look at it. And you probably ought to do a reading of the will to your family while you're alive. If you're going to piss everybody off, you might as well do it while you have the joy of doing it while you're there if you're going to piss everybody off you might as well do it while you have the joy of doing it while you're there right don't do it from the grave and make them all fight with each other and they're really mad at you so junior you're doing
Starting point is 00:38:35 heroin you get nothing i'm not funding your dysfunction you know sally you're you're the star of a reality show and you have no character you get nothing um and so you know sally you're you're the star of a reality show and you have no character you get nothing um and so you know this is you can go ahead and do this while you're alive we've done it with our family our family understands exactly what we're doing and exactly why we're doing it and it's very very important it helps the family actually go through the grieving process um because they don't go from thinking they hit the lottery to sheer disappointment in one fell swoop right after your death. And so just go ahead and get it all laid out there.
Starting point is 00:39:11 It's good for everybody to know what's going on. Why create drama? Go ahead and get rid of the drama with good planning and good diligence. Very, very, very well done. Good stuff. Well, folks, the student loan thing has exploded. This whole idea that student loans need to be stopped you know a whole bunch of you have said heard me say this that it is um it's intellectually dishonest to for political candidates to suggest that we stop
Starting point is 00:39:39 that we forgive student loans while we're continuing to make them. That's a dishonest political discussion. You know what you're doing. You're continuing to make voters, and you're going to go bail them out later. And that's just wrong. So the first thing we need to do with the student loan plague, if they're so bad, is we need to stop making them. And I think they are so bad. Check out the new podcast, Borrowed Future, Anthony O'Neill's number one best-selling book,
Starting point is 00:40:09 Debt-Free Degree. If you want to send your kid to school without debt, we can show you how. This new podcast is eight episodes, number four drops today. Seth Godin, Anthony O'Neill, Dave Ramsey, industry ins, exposing the plague, the details. It's called Borrowed Future. Get it anywhere you listen to podcasts. Borrowed Future. It's in the top ten right now.
Starting point is 00:40:40 Hey, guys. This is Blake Thompson, senior executive producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. Did you know over 15 million people listen to The Dave Ramsey Show every week? And a lot of those people listen to one of over 600 radio stations across the country. To find a station near you, head to DaveRamsey.com slash show.

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