The Ramsey Show - App - Choose Peace Over Payments (Hour 1)

Episode Date: January 26, 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 amazing relationships I'm George Campbell your host this segment and this is your show America so give me a call at 888-825-5225. We'll talk about your life and your money and whatever's on your mind, whatever ails you. We got some fun news last night. My new book, Breaking Free from Broke, is officially a number one national bestseller. So thank you so much to everyone who pre-ordered, who purchased, who has read the book, who's listened to the audiobook. It's because of you guys. You know, we can write books in a cave, but it's way more fun when it impacts people out there. So shout out to the team to publish a

number one bestseller. We do that a lot around here, and we can take it for granted if we don't just take a pause and celebrate. And that's all thanks to our amazing fans out there and people who have been sharing this, telling their friends about it, saying, you got to check out this book. It's going to help you win with money in 2024. So I'm a turtle on a fence post here at Ramsey. We have an amazing team that makes this all happen. And I just did my part. So it's an honor and I'm humbled and grateful this hour. And Joey's going to kick us off here in Greenville, South Carolina. Joey, how can I help today? Hey, I had a question about paying off my debt in cash. And I want you guys to try to convince me to pay it off in cash when

I make more money in interest with that cash being in a high yield savings account than I do on the interest rate on the loan. Ooh, so that you want a spirited debate here is what you're looking for. Kind of a prove me, prove me wrong. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'll see how far I can get. You sound like you've found a wealth hack. A little bit, I guess you could say. How much debt do you have? So I have $14,000 left on, it was an initial $25,000 personal loan at 2.99% back in 2020. And the terms were five years with 18 months of deferred payments. Okay. And it's at 14K now, still at 299? Yes. And how much money do you have in savings? I have about $34,000 in cash, $50,000 in stocks and mutual funds, and then about $5,000 in a 401k.

All right. So what are your goals? My goal is in about a year from now, 12 to 18 months to purchase the home. Okay. And so is that what the cash is for and the stocks? Would you cash the stocks out to use as a down payment? Probably not. I would just keep saving. I'm saving a lot of money every month now. On the cash side? On the cash side. So I would continue to do that until I had a big down payment to put down. And what's your income? I make about $120,000. Awesome. How old are you? 24. Dude, you're crushing it. What are you doing for work? I do engineering. Way to go.

Great field. And that's the top in our millionaire study. That was the top career was engineers. And it sounds like you're on the way. So you want to buy a home. You've got this personal loan debt. What was the personal loan debt for? It was just a career starter loan through USAA that I got from being in the Air Force a while ago. Cool. All right. So what's the payment on this personal loan right now? It's $468 a month. Oof. Now, if you freed that up, let's say you paid off, you have the $34,000 in cash, you pay off the $14,000, that leaves you with $20,000 in cash, and you free up $468. Yes. So I've crunched the numbers a little bit. And if you don't mind, I'll go through them.

Sure. Stop me if I get too in-depth or if you have any questions. But between now and there's 33 months left on the note. So between now and 33 months from now, the total interest that I would pay on the $14,000 is just over $600. And then the interest that I would earn on the $14,000 sitting in that account in my high high-yield savings account, would be about $2,000 over 33 months. And then the third calculation I did was if I drained the $14,000 out of the high-yield savings account and then increased my saving amount per month by $468, then ironically, after 33 months, I would have $16,000 total in that account, which equates to be the initial $14,000 plus the $2,000 in interest. So you're saying either way, you get to the same result?

Exactly. So why not pay off the debt? You've burned more brain calories figuring this out. You make too much money to be spending this much time nerding out. Yeah, that is true. This is living in your head rent-free, regardless of the interest rate. You're too smart and successful to even be playing around with this at this point. Because if this really worked, right, Joey,

you would just go take out as much debt as possible at $299 and put it in high-yield savings, wouldn't you? Absolutely. So why don't you go get some more debt? I'm not sure if that's an option. I don't know if interest rates for personal loans can be got at 3% now. But the theory is if you could get a loan at $4.50 and you can can make five in your savings account, you're going to go chase the spread. Correct.

And I'm playing a different game. That's checkers. I'm over here playing chess. When you don't have any debt, you don't have any payments, it changes the decisions you make. It changes how many brain calories are used to make these calculations. And so I remember, because I feel you, Joey, like I was 23, 24, I was doing the exact same thing. I was like a pretty, I was like, well, it doesn't make sense on paper to pay off the highest, you know, the highest, lowest balance first, I should pay off

the highest interest debt. And yet there I was, a broke chucklehead of a 23 year old trying to argue about the best way to build wealth. And so I'm not saying that's you. I was way more of a knucklehead. You are far more successful than I was at 24. Goodness gracious, you're impressive. And you're so impressive that I'm just going, why are we even, you have the money. It's not even a, it's literally with a one click, this situation's over and you're back to $468 back in your life, putting in the high yield, investing it, building up your down payment. And so I don't know why you'd continue this if you just found out the result's the same either way. I would just get rid of the payment. The only thing, and that is the obvious answer,

but the only thing is that I really plan to buy the house in 12 to 18 months. So I would, you know, in 12 months have more of a need for the cash than I would just saving up more money for the next 33 months, which is the... So you wouldn't actually make that spread in the end? I would be right. I would only make that spread if I, you know, kept investing $468 a month for the next 33 months into that high-yield savings account. Well, here's the other thing to think about, Joey. That high-yield savings account rate can change at any time. Your interest rate is fixed. And so I think interest rates will start going down as things start to cool.

And so truthfully, you're going to be fine either way. It was a fun debate, but goodness gracious, the amount of time we spent here, we could have just went and made 600 bucks and called it a day. And so I encourage you to pay it off. And if you miss debt for some reason, the bank will always be happy to give you more. And I don't worry about interest rates. I'm more worried about peace over payments, my friend. Wishing you the best. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Camel. I'll be your host this segment. We're taking your calls at 888-825-5225. You call up and we'll talk about your money problems, your wins, and whatever else is going on in your life. Morgan is up next in Raleigh, North Carolina. Morgan, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hey, thank you for having me. Sure. How can I help today? So my question is, I have about

$45,000 in credit card debt split between two different cards. And oddly enough, the amounts are even. So I kind of been having trouble with the plan to really pay it off. So I'm not really sure which method would be best to use, like either the Snowball or Avalanche. I'm not sure. And the interest rate's pretty high for me. It's at 26.29%. Are these like a retail card? Really high. One of them's a Citibank um, like a cash back card. And then my other ones with Wells Fargo. Ouch. And are they both at 26 to nine or what's, what are the two interest rates? Um, the Wells Fargo ones at about 20%. Okay. I mean, because the balances are, if the

balances are exactly the same, you can just attack the one with the higher interest since there's really no difference here. You're going to, um, um you're going to make you're going to feel the progress knocking them down either way are the payments the same the minimum payment um no the payments are not the same they're a little bit different what's the difference in payments um the city cards around higher end of 900 a month and then the um well yeah and then the wells one's like 550. Okay I wonder if you plug this into like our debt snowball calculator it may tell you um which one would get knocked down faster if you were throwing extra money at it and that might help you make this decision and get you out of this paralysis mode. Okay. Because the key here is you want to knock

down that principal as fast as possible and the interest is just making it harder to do that. Yeah, exactly. Because I've been trying to double the payment each month. Actually, my goal is to try to put at least $2,000 to $3,000 towards it. But it's barely making a dent, I feel like. That's the problem with these high interest rates. The higher the rate, the slower it's going to go. Because that interest is just killing you.

So what other debt do you have? Really no other debt. That's it. I own my car. I have no student loans. I own my house. I have $288,000 on that that I still owe. Do you have any savings? I put, I have, so that's the problem. I've been trying to put all my money, thousands, into just paying off these cards. I have about $2,500 in the mini, like a mini emergency fund, but I don't have a huge savings because I'm just throwing everything at these debts. Good. Baby step one is a $1,000 starter emergency fund. If you have that set aside and then you have enough to cover your bills for the month,

everything else needs to get thrown at that one credit card while making minimum payments on the other. Right, okay. What did you spend the $45,000 on in these cards? So last year I had a bunch of some medical issues that unfortunately wasn't really covered by insurance. And then I own an older home, so I had to replace the windows and doors in the home. They were like starting to leak water. I had some moisture damage.

So I had a lot of house things that I ended up spending money on. Probably should have waited on them. They weren't like dire, but. When you have the card, you're like, why not? Have you cut up these cards already? not? Have you cut up these cards already? Have you cut up the cards? No, I haven't yet. I think it's time.

I think it's time we cut up the cards, close the account, and then we start paying off these balances. You need a line in the sand where you go no more. Morgan works too hard to be this broke, and these card companies have not been a blessing to me thus far, and they're only going to encourage me to make bad decisions with the guise of cash back. Right. So I think it's time. Yeah, and I even tried to call them to ask if they could lower the APR, and they said no.

I just wanted to ask. You never know. Yeah, I mean, we've heard stories where people just call and say, hey, I'm struggling to make this payment. Can you lower the interest rate? And they'll just do it. So you can fight them and keep doing that and see if that's going to help. But truly your best bet is just working your tail off and knocking this thing out as much as you can. So what is your income? I earn $113,000 a year. Good news. So I'm, yeah, so biweekly I'm getting

about $3,000 biweekly. And I also work a part-time job that I get about an extra thousand dollars a month at. Great. So we're talking about 7K coming in take home? Yep. Yeah. Great. So the question now is, as you create your every dollar budget, the goal is how much margin can we create by cutting expenses, by making more, by deeply sacrificing, by selling stuff on Facebook marketplace, finding the change in the couch cushions. You have to go so scorched earth that people think you're crazy. Yeah.

That's what's necessary here. You've been comfortable for a while, but this comfort has now turned into discomfort. It's catching up with you. Right. Yeah, and I'm setting aside about $2,500 a month towards my mortgage and my bills. So I subtract that. That's a lot. And then whatever I, yeah, exactly. And then whatever I have left over, I'm trying to just throw it at the debt. Are you investing at all right now? No, I was. I did have stock, but I sold it um i actually have a about 187 000 and a 401k roth ira

good well leave that alone but make sure you've paused all investing all contributions until this debt is paid off and that's going to light another fire under you to get out of debt faster because you want to get back to investing you're good at that you're good at saving money yeah right now we got to pay off some debt and clean up this mess. Are you using a budgeting app right now? No, I'm not. Well, it starts today. I'm going to gift you one year of every dollar premium. And once you go in there, there's a paycheck planning tool with the premium version. There's a financial roadmap that

will show you when you're going to hit these milestones. And of course, the budgeting app itself, which is going to help you lay out a game plan for every single dollar coming in. I'm also going to send you a copy of my new bestselling book, Breaking Free from Broke, specifically read the credit cards chapter. I've been hearing so many people, they've been sending me videos, cutting up their cards, saying you finally pushed me over the edge to cut up the cards. I needed a shower after I read that chapter. It gave me the ick and I am done with that system. So Lauren, I hope those two resources help you. Skylar will pick up and we'll make sure you get every dollar premium and a copy of Breaking Free from Broke. Lauren is up next in New York. Lauren,

what's going on? Hey, thanks for taking my call. Sure. How can I help today? So basically I'm in a situation now where the last two years I started to make more money than what I've made ever previously. I'm 32. I'm renting right now. I gross about $120,000 a year, and I net about $75,000 after my nickel and 401k expenses. And I guess my situation right now is I have about $5,000 in credit card debt spread across three cards. The interest rates on them are like 29%. And then I have $8,300 in student loans and I have an IRS debt. So I'm past due the last couple of years. That's probably about $4,500 right now.

And it's probably going to go up this year. So on top of all that, I'm also kind of on the horizon of looking to try to save for a house, but I just don't really know what I should do first. My method that I thought was to pay off these credit cards and then put the IRS debt on a credit card that I can get. a good deal. Oh, no. We're trying to fill the hole by digging the hole deeper. Yeah. Okay. Well, Lauren, you're doing a lot of good things. You're just doing them all at once,

and you're not going to make progress that way. And so you told me you're investing into your 401k. That's a good thing, but now's not the time because we have a pile of debt to clean up. You told me you want to buy a house. That's a good thing, but right now pile of debt to clean up. You told me you want to buy a house. That's a good thing. But right now we still have to clean up this debt. And the IRS debt needs to go to the very tippity top of your list. You should be losing sleep over this to the point where you're like,

I'm getting rid of this $4,500 this month. I'm going to work my tail off. You make $120K. Do you have anything in savings? No, honestly, I have about $ in a high yield savings account right now. Um, and that's really it. What are you contributing? I made this type of money.

Okay. Awesome. Well, this is going to really help you get out of that fast. Cause the good news is you make 120 K and you have what? 16, 17,000 in debt. Yeah. You're not this out so fast. What percentage are you contributing to retirement right now?

Um, and I, I just upped it. I was 8% last year, and I did 15% this year to try to help myself for the tax purpose of it, to lower my tax bracket. Well, guess what? You're going to pause investing, and it's going to free up $18,000 for you to attack this debt in one year. And you're going to be done probably in a few months if you do that. So I would highly recommend pause all investing, go scorched earth, take $1,000 and start knocking away at the IRS debt, then hit the credit cards, smallest to largest balance after the IRS debt, and you will be on your way. You'll be debt-free in no time, but you've got to do one thing at a time, focused intensity.

This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Camel, joined by Jade Warshaw. We're taking your calls at 888-825-5225. Jade, we've got something exciting coming up that we've never done before. Tell the people, George. On The Ramsey Show YouTube channel, we are going live after The Ramsey Show, just for YouTube, and live after The Ramsey Show just for YouTube. And we're going to be hosting a live Q&A all about money and budgeting. We're going to have a special laptop that's visual. It's going to be pulling up every dollar. We're going to show you exactly how to get ahead with money, answering all of your questions.

And it's going to be Jade Warshaw and myself. Here's what's cool. You can either call into the show like tradition. Yes. Or you can ask your questions in the chat in real time yeah so anything could happen it's the first time we've ever done this but you have to join us don't miss it january 30th it's a tuesday 5 p.m central time 6 p.m eastern time go to our youtube channel and hit the notify me button on that bonus q a live so that you don't miss it love it it's gonna be fun all. Let's go to Landon in Greenville,

South Carolina. What's going on, Landon? Hey, how you doing? Great. How are you? Yeah, I'm all right. Hey, so my quick question is, how do you get out of a poverty mindset, man? Are you in poverty? No, but the mindset, you know, I was raised by a single mother, two kids, dad in prison my whole life, Section 8. You know, I'm 32 now. Pulled myself through school, worked three jobs while I was in school. Married now for nine years. I actually just opened up my own business on the side,

so I still work full-time and run my business. You're impressive, dude. But, man, I struggle, dude. So you're doing great now. The struggle's real. But you still have that, it's always gnawing at you, like this could all come crumbling down. What's the fear behind this?

Well, I mean, I've always, what's the word, man? I've been taught how to survive and not thrive so what's what's your you're motivated out of fear or like scarcity you're not motivated out of confidence yeah exactly it's not coming from a place of confidence yeah my wife is very concerned about it um you know because we want to have a family and I want to better, you know, put confidence in our kids and put them on the right path and everything else. But it's hard to do that, parent that when you don't believe it in yourself. So it's right.

You know, I'm a Harley Davidson technician. I've been a technician for 10 years now, 11 years. Started at 11 bucks an hour. You know, now I'm in the 60s a year. Working flat rate. If I don't work, I don't get paid. Right. So give an example. I hear what you're saying, but it also sounds like you're moving forward. Give me an example of how you feel it holding you back today and in this moment. Because I do think that when you grow up that way or when you grow up with a set of beliefs and you're working very hard to shed out those beliefs it's not just a light that flips on and flips off right it's more like it's more like that old you

know lawnmower that you have to keep pulling the cord and pulling the cord before it gets started right you always have to kind of like remind yourself, like, what do I believe? Like, what's true? And then you get going. So what's that look like every day for you? How is it holding you back today? Just seeing debt every day. How much debt do you have?

You know, I have 13 in tuition, 3 in a credit card, 7 in a personal loan. We purchased a new car last year, you know, trying to raise a family. How much is that? We have 17 on it. Okay. What else? We bought it brand new. Our mortgage, we're at 200. Okay, not bad. Anything else? We bought it brand new. Our mortgage, we're at $200.

Okay, not bad. Anything else? No, my tool bill, but there's no interest on it, but it's still a debt. How much? And I'm at $700 on it, paying it. And how much are you bringing home every single month? You and your wife combined, what are y'all bringing home? Mine varies, just because I'm a flat rate technician.

So, I mean, I can work 80 and bill 120. Or like this winter, you work 90 and get paid for 70. Okay. My lowest has been a month is right at two. Two what? And then my wife, two grand. Okay. And then that's the lowest uh what's the highest like what what what's the norm what if you're busting your butt what do you make yeah

uh if i'm busting my butt you know my wife always busts her tail um i mean we can easily do probably six or seven a month okay six or seven thousand so i think that you know we can easily do probably six or seven a month. Okay, six or 7,000. So I think that, you know, we can kind of have a therapy session and dig into your past and figure out what's going on. Or we can just look at the math and give you a little bit of peace through the math, which is if you guys are making $7,000 a month, are you guys on a budget? Because when I look at that number, I go, that's a lot of money there. There should be some margin to really make some headway on this debt. But if you're not on a good budget, that's not happening.

So are you budgeting? Yeah, we're budgeting. My wife's better at it than I am. She actually paid off all her student loans last year after getting her master's degree. Okay. Are you guys doing this money stuff together? Yeah, we are. You have one combined account?

Because in our checking we do, and then we have a separate savings. And then with the business, I got a high interest yield on the business account. So, because I'm real, like, you know, when you get married, everybody says that you join everything together that's right and my yeah my eyes though it's like you know that was my dad I know she married into it type of deal um we went through a lot like we lost everything a couple years ago uh we moved into an apartment place wasn't clean had bed bugs ruined everything we had literally I start over on an air mattress um listen and i just when you get married i i get it i hear what you're saying when we got married my husband brought 230 000 of student loans into the

mix right and i only had 34 000 so i the the idea of feeling guilt and shame and feeling like listen this should only just be on me that's a a very real feeling. But just because you feel it doesn't necessarily mean it's right, right? And your wife married you. And my guess is if you guys have an open conversation, you've got to take all of each other, the good and the bad, just like John Legend said, right? We've got, that's just the reality of it as much as I dislike that song.

But that's what you've got to let go because at the end of the day, you're not going to, both of you won't be able to go as far, as fast as you need to go if you don't really link arms and say, this is what we're doing. We're putting all of our money

to pay off our debt and this is how we are going to approach that. Before you get off the phone, I want to make sure they get Financial Peace University and I want to make sure that you guys walk through it together because I think right now

it's all floating around up here up in up in your head and you've got to get a pay a plan on paper that you're following because I don't know how much your wife's student loans were but you guys paid those off first for whatever reason and I want to make sure that there's some method to this madness and that we're walking through and we're going okay first we're getting a thousand dollars saved next we're listing our debt from smallest to largest by balance not interest rate and we're walking through and we're going, okay, first, we're getting $1,000 saved. Next, we're listing our debt from smallest to largest by balance, not interest rate. And we're going to get some quick wins. So we start to build that confidence that you mentioned earlier that you feel like is lacking.

When you start building that confidence, you're going to realize, okay, I can do this. And that's what builds that mindset. You've got to get those wins so that you can start to build that motivation so that you can start building that belief and then you'll see okay like I can complete this I can do it and once you pay off that debt listen can't nobody tell you nothing it's going to build some confidence in you that no one can take away and that's coming from someone who knows I guess I know you know to add to it I uh you know the guilt side of it is just like you know i grew up on spam baloney and stuff like that and my wife's parents you know they did

really well for themselves they were able to put two kids through college pay for it i mean they did really well uh still are and i just don't want to put my wife back on a poverty table. You know, she's never really experienced that at all. You choosing to pay off your debt is loving your family well. It's the exact opposite. This is the hand that you guys have dealt yourselves. You're in debt. It's not about what you did. It's about what you did next.

And what you're going to do next is you and your wife are going to come together and go, okay, how do we get to that dream? It's by us paying off debt. It's by us saving up, getting the right insurances. That's how we're going to do this. And the baby you're going to be busting your butt for the next year or two to clean this mess up. You got to stop letting life just happen to you and go, well, we had to. It's time to start happening to your life, man. That's right. That's going to give you some hope. Get connected with better help too. You might need to talk to somebody that'll help you. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell camel joined by jade warshaw we're taking your calls at 888-825-5225 don't be scared because y'all be sending me dms every day with nine paragraphs i'm like y'all call the ramsey show i cannot sit here in the dms all day long it's way easier

talking to people jade it is but have you noticed that more and more people are going to social media for their- That's true. For their information. Especially TikTok. Yes, TikTok is big. Although I have to say, I don't spend a whole lot of time on TikTok.

Instagram is my jam, but- Well, can we be real? Because those on TikTok know. Everyone dogging TikTok because they're on Instagram reels. You're seeing the same videos just three weeks later. Listen, you a baptist church you'll get there but it's going to take you a little longer you know what does that mean george you know it just takes them a little longer to get get with the times jade you know what i'm saying like they got a drum set but it was about

three years too late you know okay they got the contemporary service but all the young people have left already you know what i mean that's how i grew up arabic baptist so i can say that with pride it's the one all right so here's jay here's this article i want to get your take on okay and it involves tiktok all right loud budgeting is going viral on tiktok and for good reason yeah okay yeah so define loud budgeting for those that don't know. Okay, so loud budgeting, this is me in my own words. It's basically people coming on Instagram and sharing openly. They'll either openly share their actual budget or they'll share all the tips that they're using to spend less. They're just being open.

For once, people, for once, I think social media has taken a turn for the good because we're being real. And I think that this loud budgeting thing is great because it's really relatable. No one wants to see you standing in front of somebody else's personal jet, right? Like nobody else wants to see you. Oh my gosh, look at this new Louis bag I bought. And like you're like influencing, right?

People want to see, here's the thing in 2024, I'm getting my money right. Guys, look at my budget. You know, I'm spending $500 on groceries. You know, I'm not doing any Uber Eats. I've decided I'm not, you know, I'm doing a no spend month. People want to see that because that's real. And that's really what loud budgeting is about. I've seen a lot of different types. It's the social accountability, it seems. And it's flying in the face. It's the opposite of quiet luxury. That's how it started. I think this guy, Lucas Battle, started this TikTok trend of loud budgeting, but it's pushing against this influencer consumerism pressure. And it's people owning saying, I can't spend money on that. Right. Normalizing real money talk. What's frustrating is that we're out here, we're talking

about budgeting every day and people dog us for it. But then Gen Z makes a viral TikTok trend and now budgeting is cool again. Dave's like,ave's like get the envelope system like he's an out of touch boomer and then it's like cash stuffing is in the new viral trend among gen z i'm like they're just budgeting i know the cash envelope this is confusing i know this is one trend i'm not mad about jade unlike stanley tumblers and crocs facts this is a trend i can get behind because this is really just sharing your money aspirations and as our friend dr john deloney Deloney would say, choosing reality. Yeah. Going, I am broke and I'm going to be open and honest with that and drop the shame and the guilt and go, I need accountability. Listen, I say all the time, the most powerful thing that you can do

for yourself and for others is start utilizing the word no and start saying out loud, literally out loud in a confident voice, I'm not going to buy that because it's not on the budget. Like when I started doing that, that's when stuff started changing. And not only is it good for you because it's just, it's an exercise in choice because you're saying, I'm not going to spend that. I can't afford it and I'm not going to be able to get well. A lot of times people use it and there's shame, there's justification.

And I'm telling my friends, it's not on the budget. And they go, oh, what a cheapskate. Instead, do it with a smile and say, hey guys, it's not on the budget for me to go out. Would you guys be okay coming over and we do a movie night? Right. That's what this is. Or you put on the other side of it, you put what your goal is. Like you say, you know what, guys, I'm not going to-

I'm trying to pay off debt. Yeah, I've decided I'm not going to brunch this weekend because i'm really trying to get my savings up not only does that reinforce your goal but like even psychology says you get that hit of dopamine when you share your goals it's like oh and you feel it and that makes you more motivated to then check in again with those same people because they're gonna follow up with you and be like hey i thought I thought you said you weren't spending. I thought you said you were on a budget. And that's actually a good thing.

You need to call your friends out. For too long, we're just letting our friends make stupid decisions. That's no friend. That's not a good friend. I'm totally with that, George. I like what this says in this article. Suggests you should speak up about your financial situation

and make spending decisions that support your goals and match your current budget and needs. That's right. That is a trend I can get behind. That's right. Ask yourself, are these spending decisions that support your goals and match your current budget and needs. That's right. That is a trend I can get behind. That's right. Ask yourself, are these spending decisions supporting my financial goals? That's an adult decision right there. I like that.

I like that. Listen, I love that it has a new term. It's kind of like when TikTok came out with cash stuffing. Yeah. And they acted like they were the first ones to do that. To invent the envelope system. Right. Your boy, Dave, he's been out here 30 years preaching it. Listen, I feel like we've been preaching this same loud

budgeting thing here at Ramsey for the last, I know for Dave, 30 years. And for us, the length of time we've been here and you just really have to be, what I would say is I think that social media can be a great place to get advice, but you do need to be careful. So I feel like I'm kind of shifting the conversation a little bit, but I think you have to be careful because there is a lot on social media when it comes to money and advice and tips. That's like, I don't know about that. Like there's, there's gotta be method involved. So like with loud budgeting, I, I can support any channel, George, that kind of teaches those like five pillars, like get out of debt, budget, get the right insurance, make sure you're saving, you know, for emergencies and retirement and make

sure you're prioritizing giving, right? That's kind of like the five pillars that you want to be looking for when you're on social media. However, comma, and there is a right order to do those things. And I feel like that's where Ramsey shines is that we're teaching you the right order to do all of these things in the right way in which to go about those five pillars and that's the baby steps and you really don't get any better than that it works every time instead of telling people well you need to be investing but also you need to be paying off your debt but also you need to it's like people can't make progress you can't do all that yeah and even worse a lot of these financial creators out there are sponsored by the credit card companies, which is why they're telling you here's how to maximize and here's the best card to get and use my affiliate link.

And I'm like, are you guys really falling for this? You think they have their best interests at heart when you're pitching these different credit cards? So it's exhausting. So be careful. Follow the Ramsey crew. There's a lot of good eggs out there in the financial creator world, but there's a lot of bad ones too. But a lot of budgeting is good. Tread with caution. Yeah, I'm a fan of this. I'm just sad we didn't get there first. Jade, how do we create the next viral financial trend on social media?

We were there first. Listen, I saw too old. No, I saw Rachel Cruz sharing real people's budgets. I know I've been on there sharing real budgets and sharing our own numbers. Like, listen, we're not late to the party. We started the party. And we're here to stay. That's right. All right, Zachary, you're up next in Tampa, Florida. What's going on? Hey, guys.

Just to piggyback on what you just said, I've been debt-free before I found Dave Ramsey. And when I found your show, it was finally someone who gets it, a group who gets it. They really get it. I love it. I just wish I had found you sooner. A lot of shortcuts. How old are you?

I'm 36. Oh, you're plenty young, man. People usually say that at like 65, so you've got plenty of time. What's going on? Well, my girlfriend and I are in love. We're getting engaged soon, and we're planning to get married. Thank you. And we have some really exciting plans to both sell our homes.

Well, she wants to keep her home and that's why I'm calling. She wants to rent it out, her home. And mine is paid off and hers still has a mortgage. How much is the mortgage? Her mortgage, she owes almost 200 on it. Okay. And she bought it about three years ago in 21. Okay. And you don't have a mortgage and she's saying, Hey, why don't we rent this out? I'll come live at your place. Well, she wants to sell my house and get a home in between Orlando and Tampa because she's an attorney that services both of those. And it's just easier for her to do that.

And she wants to take out a mortgage to get it? Or you're going to just pay cash again? I can't fathom being in debt again, you know, after not being, you know, in debt for so long. I just, I can't fathom being in debt again. After not being in debt for so long, I can't fathom doing it. I'm guessing your girlfriend is really good at arguing. This was her first house, and so she works really hard, and it's her baby. Oh, poo-poo. Everybody, listen. It's a wooden box, man. She works hard for it.

She's about to rent it out to strangers. She doesn't care that much about it. Strangers about to demolish that thing over time. If you're going to do this move, you've got to pay cash for the next one. We are not carrying two mortgages around. That's the line of the sand you get to draw. Honestly, if you're moving far enough

away from that other rental, you need to consider selling that because you don't want to do that long-distance landlord deal. Listen, keep your blankie for emotional support, not a house. That's a different decision. I wish you guys the best in your journey. Marrying a lawyer, like I wouldn't even dare argue with my wife at that point. There's no debate there. Oh my goodness. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. She's Jade Warshaw. I'm George Camel. We'll be back before you next time.