The Ramsey Show - App - Debt Is Not a Tool! (Hour 1)

Episode Date: January 21, 2021

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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. Dr. John Deloney is my co-host today. Ramsey, personality, best-selling author of the book, Redefining Anxiety. And we're inviting your calls here toll-free and nationwide at 888-825-5225 as we talk about your life and talk about your money. 888-825-5225. 225. So, John posted on Instagram, dared to do this, that people should be nice to each other.

And you did that on the day of the inauguration. People should be nice to each other. And apparently, it's not okay to say you should be nice to each other. So, just for everyone listening, I... It's the most hate mail he's ever gotten. This is awesome. And so I've really been messing with him all day. So all the conservatives said you're a liberal, and all the liberals said, well, where have

you been to protect our rights all along? That's right. So... You just screwed up. You screwed everybody. I used... You're asking them to be nice. The U-word.

Oh, I know. Don't use the U-word. And so I don't watch the news just as a general principle, because I care about my mental and social and physical and spiritual health. So I stay away from that. And I communicate with friends. Which makes you naive as crud. It evidently does.

So I'm walking through the office and I see the end of the inauguration. I stick my head in and say, oh, yeah, that was today. Like a terrible citizen. I get that. And then I see Karl Rove come out out and say i'm just gonna say it that was a good speech and i thought well america's over right and then i thought yeah carl rove says it's a good speech biden has a good speech the second coming of jesus is about on a show either it's freezing over or yeah hey we're all coming together we're gonna come together and dave you

know me i always think everyone's gonna come together at the end oh boy so i'll have I'm leaving the office after my show yesterday, and I posted, hey, it's time for everybody to come together. We're going to be unified. We're going to say I'm sorry. We're going to ask one more question. Like, I don't know what you mean by that. Can you help me? Dave? You were asking people to be nice, and that's just illegal.

Just be kind. I'm surprised that Facebook hasn't completely thrown you off because you asked people to be nice. Asking people to be nice is hate speech, John. I have an unread message from Zuckerberg. He emailed me last night. I'll open it when I get the courage. Can we just stop? Can we just stop?

People would rather have a terrible day than say, hey, man, tell me what you mean by that. People would rather have a bad marriage for a decade. The hilarious thing is is that you're so politically naive that you have no idea that you just walk

down the alley asking to get hit by both sides. Oh, I told somebody because it's like a gauntlet you walk into. People are emailing. You're so funny.

I just walked through my girlfriend's front yard and stepped in dog poo and tracked it all over her parents' house without even realizing. That's what I did. I had no idea. Hey, get this, Dave.

The first person who wrote me said something along the lines of, oh, I see what's going on in China and conspiracy. And I wrote back and I quote. No, you didn't. You answered it. Hey, I thought it was in China. Oh, God, you've got to stop. Dave, I wrote, I wrote, ha, ha, ha, awesome. I thought they were messing with me.

Here's the thing. They were super not messing with me. No, they're really mentally ill. They were not messing with me. The Unabomber just sent you a message on Instagram. Man, listen, listen. Hey, the good news is, is that mental illness is everywhere and so you got a big job i tell you what you got almost as big a job as i do getting people out of debt and jenny craig does when the three of us are going to be employed are eternally employable forever

and if i'll just shut my mouth the checks will just deposit themselves. Be nice. Be nice. Let's be willing to listen to other people's ideas. Oh, God, you're a liberal. I didn't know. I had to go on Instagram to find out John was a liberal. I had no idea. Oh, man. Oh, man. Can you imagine, Dave?

I just think we need to stir in a little Anthonyy o'neill see if we can make it even more messed up no when anthony when anthony texts you and goes he just wrote bro that's it that's what i knew i'm probably in trouble i don't know what i did jeez louise well uh if y'all don't know john has been a Ramsey personality for a little under a year now. And so he's gotten a few baptisms by fire. And learning that the trolls and the singular words misused in the wrong timing on social media will get you hate mail by the bushel. Well, here's the thing, Dave. I bail mine, man.

I answer all letters that come today, Ramsey. They go to Patty's desk. bushel well here's the thing dave i bail mine man i will oh yeah we don't we don't answer i answer all letters that come today ramsey they come they go to patty's desk we answer every one of them except hate mail yeah and um send them to me i'm gonna respond to them no no no i use them for kindling there you go i have to have something to light my fires in the winter and there's a lot of kindling at my house so man yeah it's it's'm not going to stop talking about this one thing. Okay. If somebody has hurt you in the past, if somebody disagrees with you, all going to ward accomplishes all find, if you, if it's finding somebody new to hate, Dave will not solve any of your problems.

And if you want to have a conversation, great. It doesn't mean kindness. Doesn't mean you're going to great. Kindness doesn't mean you're going to agree. Kindness doesn't mean we're not going to fight hard. Kindness means I'm going to be respectful, I'm going to listen to you. So I'm going to keep encouraging people in your homes, with your kids, in your workplace, in your community, wherever. Just listen first. Just listen.

And if you don't understand, ask this next question. I don't understand what you mean by that. Keep coming on that. But fill me in. And, man, we often will find we are way, way closer together on so many things, man. So many things. See, you're making the assumption there that you're dealing with someone who's not mentally ill. I know.

I know. I just have such a high view of people. You're so kind and sweet. Hey, Christy Wright texted me last night and she said, if you're stupid and off track, me listening to you ain't going to keep you from being stupid and off track. So I'm not going to bother. Email me.

I'll listen to you. Yeah, John, he's sweet still. Check back with him in one more year. Oh, man. Man. After you've had a few more emails from the Unabomber, and then we'll see. You're going to blow up the building.

Please don't. Don't. I want to tell my kids bye. Yeah. Well, usually people that are going to blow up the building don't tell you they're going to so that's a good news okay who knows man man are you listening do not use the word unity i read that don't don't say we want to be unified don't say kindness don't say nice just say don't say sorry don't say say you're sorry. Don't ever, ever apologize. Never be sorry.

Never be sorry. I can't. Hey, you know what? Those people are going to cut and paste this. And they're going to say, see? And it's going to be me and Dave going, don't say sorry. Don't say sorry. You know what?

It ain't the first time it's happened, okay? Jeez Louise. There's so much video of me on YouTube that has been cut and pasted. Is it awesome? It's just, yeah, I've said a lot of stuff I never said. Hey, James did that to me the other day, and it's fantastic, man. Yeah, the guys in our booth, they can put together stuff on us, and they do it frequently just to mess with us.

Well, the problem with James is what I said I actually said. So I can't really have that. Context is overrated. If you actually say it, it's another thing yeah oh well there we go oh be kind america be kind be unified slow down dave slow down too far now slow down i didn't say that i just said be kind we got some crap we got to figure out oh this is the d Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Ryan is in Columbus, Ohio.

Hi, Ryan. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, David, John. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So my wife and I just paid off our house last October, so we're in Baby Step 7. Woo! And we're trying to figure out what to do with the extra money we're having from not having a mortgage payment. Way to go, man. Such problems. Yeah. So my wife's a dentist, and she's currently buying into the practice that she works at.

We're actually able to do this without taking out a loan by her paying her partner each month for equity in the practice. And then their plan was to do this for four years, and then at the end of the fourth year, she would purchase the rest of the practice from him. So we're currently in the last year of that plan, and we're planning on getting a business loan to pay off the rest of the practice after this year. So my question is, with that business loan coming up in the next year, and we have all this extra money from not having a house payment anymore, should we save up that money and take out a smaller loan yep or should we use here to save for retirement or no loan yeah can you how much is the loan how much is the uh buyout at the end of the end of the year it's about 480 000 that you're going to need more than she's already paid in yes Yes. Ooh. So it's a serious practice, or you're seriously overpaying.

Okay. Anyway, I want you to go relook those numbers and just make sure that you're not overpaying for this. Dentists have a reputation for overpaying. Yeah, we have an accountant that works in, uh, buying out dental practices. He looked at the numbers and he said for our area, for the size of the practice, this was a good price. He actually said we were getting a deal. So, okay. All right. It must be mammoth. Okay. Um, okay. So what's your household income? Combined right now with her paying her partner is about $200,000.

Okay. But then after she owns the entire practice, she says will probably be $350,000, conservatively. Okay. So, yeah, what I would like you to do is to save as much as you can possibly save, almost like you were on Baby Step 2 again. Okay. Real intensity, because I really don't want you to have this loan, but it sounds like you're going to. But let's make it as small as you can possibly make it, and then let's pay it off as fast as you possibly can. Okay. can um okay we've done a lot of work over the years with a lot of dentists in entree leadership and also just in financial coaching and um the uh the amount of debt around being a dentist is

it's it's mind-blowing in general and in that in the community that your wife works walks in every day uh a million dollars or a half million dollars in debt for the rest of your life is not unusual it's standard and you can get sucked into that paradigm and i'm going to challenge you not to i'm going to challenge you to get this paid off like it was a credit card like you were ashamed of this debt you follow me yeah don't normalize it and keep it like it's a dadgum pet so limit the size of it this year by saving everything you get your hands on and then get into um attack mode and finish and take out as small loan as you can and take that loan out and it sounds to me like you can take that loan out in 12 to 18 months from the time you take it.

It's going to be a very short period of time if you guys won't go back and act like now I'm a rich dentist or something. I did some research back in grad school on the mental health of doctors and physicians and nurses, and one of the worst subgroups was dentists, and I have to wonder. High rate of suicide. High. We'll have to wonder if it's this crushing debt that you just carry around and carry around that's normed in that community more so than some of these other communities. Yeah. The Borrowed Future podcast that we did, we interviewed a dentist that had over a million dollars in debt.

In student loans, yeah. Yeah. And the guy was just crying. Yeah. He was just crying. Because you can't clean your teeth. You can't clean your way out of that, right? Yeah, well, you can, but it's just, I mean.

But it takes one pandemic. You've got to have a certain level of, you've got to have some specialization in the thing or you've got to have some volume or something to get the income up. But it sounds like she's going to be making, out of the $350,000, I don't know, but it sounds like she's going to be making A chunk the $350,000, I don't know, but it sounds like she's going to be making a quarter of a million dollars a year, her part. So, yeah, let's use everything we can to limit this.

And then when you don't have any payments in the world and you're making $350,000, now you've got the ability to do all kinds of things. And it does change the way you operate a business. It changes the way you view going to work. It changes when you own a practice or you own a business. When you get the debt off of you, the borrower is slave to the lender. It changes the way you stand, the way you walk, the way you carry yourself. Dustin is in Naples, Florida.

Hi, Dustin. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. How are you? Great, man. How can we help? My wife and I are on baby step number two with baby number two on the way. We currently have an hour commute, and we're wondering if we should sell our house to move closer to work.

We both work at the same company. Yes, but you may be renting. Yes yes that's what we plan to do we plan to rent until we get out of baby step two three and save up our down payment yeah so how much closer can you move to work oh we can move maybe two minutes away yeah and so you're going to get two hours of your life times two parents for uh four hours of parenting returned to you rather than be in the car every day absolutely i'm doing this i do it today yes yeah i have an 11 minute commute um and if there's no traffic unless traffic um less but that would be illegal but um but uh yeah so i i you know i don't want to spend my life doing that a lot of people do and it's normalized and some people redeem the time with audiobooks and other things and there's all kinds of ways you can do it if you have a commute commutes normal in a lot of large metro areas but But it is a decision that you're making, and you ought to make it intentionally.

And if you can change it and get more sections of your life back, I highly recommend you do. Not to mention you cut your debt load back. I mean, you're going to find yourself with less stress and four hours of your life back. Man, that's a big turnaround for your whole home. Yeah, the level of simply the amount of sleep you're getting will change. Oh, man. Sleep, the ability to just have conversations with your spouse, the ability to be present with your kids, all that's going to change.

Well, they're in the car an hour a day. They've got the opportunity for conversation. They're trapped. But, yeah, if you're in an area, and Naples is an area where you don't have to do a one-hour commute in order to just have a job and be able to have a place to live. And, yeah, I always encourage that. Now, for those of you listening out there, that is not to say you move up in-house into a more expensive house. Well, the homes in that neighborhood are more expensive.

Well, then you maybe can't make that move. Right. Or save your money. You need to move a lateral move down and or become a renter for a period of time to get your finances under control. Don't use this as an excuse to go do an increase in debt, an increase in house price purchase. You know, John, with personal finance being 80% behavior, 20% head knowledge, the behavior aspects, having you around to talk about this stuff has been helpful, very helpful. But the power of the human mind to rationalize and to do something stupid and figure out a way and twist it in our brain to where it sounds smart. Yeah.

We will find what we are looking for. And if I find a way the math works in my favor, I will champion that. If I find the way I can make this my wife's fault and not mine, I will champion it. If I can find a way to hear what Dave Ramsey just told me. He told me to sell the house and move and buy double the price in town. I heard champion it. If I can find a way to hear what Dave Ramsey just told me. He told me to sell the house and move and buy double the price in town. I heard him. We'll find a way to lie to ourselves to make that happen.

We have a hard time telling ourselves the truth, Dave. A guy drove two miles to work. Two miles. Bought a $30,000 pickup because his old pickup that was paid for in the driveway didn't get good gas mileage. Get a bike. Didn't get good gas mileage. Get a bike. Didn't get good gas mileage. Get a bike.

Right. You can't drive that new truck to the moon and back to get enough gas mileage to pay for it. That's somebody who lied to himself so he could get a new truck. That's exactly right. That's what I'm talking about. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Caleb is with us. Hey, Caleb, how are you, man? I'm excellent. How are you?

Better than I deserve. Welcome. Where do you live? Fort Worth, Texas. Oh, good for you. John always connects up with the Texans. Hey, one soon. You know it, boy. There we go. So how much debt have you paid off, brother? $110,000. Well, I guess $110,695.02 to be exact.

How long did this take? 46 months. Wow. And your range of income? $60,000 to $72,000. Cool. What do you do for a living? High school band director.

All right. Good for you. What kind of debt was the $111,000? A little bit of everything. Undergrad, graduate, interest on those student loans, credit cards, car, French horn, and then a loan from the bank of mom and dad. Ooh. Everybody's in line.

Yeah. Everybody. You had a long line, too. It was a long line. The French horn debtors are fierce, right? Dude. You don't want to mess with them. No, I do not.

Don't break your knees, man. Don't want to mess with them. You do not. Don't break your knees, man. Don't want to mess with the French whore and mafia. So what happened 46 months ago that lit you up, man? I was in grad school, already deep in more debt, and one of my friends put on her Facebook that she read this book called Total Money Makeover, and it sparked my interest. I reached out to her, and then I got the book actually in January of 2016. And it was really stressful because I didn't have an income. So I wanted to do all these things, but I had to wait until I had a full income.

So for about six to seven months, I was living off of my student loans, like agonizing, waiting for a real job to finish school and get an income to get going on it. So as soon as you hit the ground after school, you took off. Yeah, over $2,000 a month. I did everything in the book to pay pay it off quickly man amazing congratulations thank you that was a big mountain to climb yeah a lot of uh vacations that i didn't go on or things that i didn't buy uh old truck that i kept way too long yeah almost four years yeah and and so you're what in your late 20s how old are you oh yeah we, we'll go with that. No, I'm 31. Okay. 31.

Well, close enough. Yeah. And so, yeah, like everybody that's your friends are out doing all kinds of stuff, and you're working to get out of debt. Yeah. A lot of my friends were going on vacations, or even if I could go on like a wedding trip, I wouldn't do the extra things that they were all out doing. I was just happy to be at the wedding and pay for the rental tax, but it's like, wait, we're going rafting.

I was like, I got to say no at some point, guys. I got to pay off my debt eventually. Way to go, man. So band directors are similar to football coaches, right? Especially in Texas. Yeah, you're inspiring young people. You're getting them to think, to understand they have bigger dreams. They can accomplish more than they thought they had,

they go past limitations. How has this journey impacted how you impact high school kids? This is a metaphor. A lot of my students will kind of laughingly roll their eyes, but this has become a metaphor. And one of my students when I was teaching in Houston suggested that I start a YouTube channel. So I would just make little YouTube videos about how to budget,

how to think about money, the future millionaire band director. It's got 800 subscribers, Dave. Watch it. All right. Good for you, man. I like it. I like the title, too.

Yes. I like the title a lot. And so that kind of – now I'm doing like a little mini-series about like getting students ready for college and what kind of questions to ask, how to go to college for free. There are still music scholarships out there, things like that. We're going to double your subscription today. Let's hope so. So tell everybody again, what's the YouTube channel?

What's it called? The Future Millionaire Band Director. All right, everybody go sign up and watch it. It's got everything. It's got high school band. It's got college advice and financial advice. Very cool. I mean, what more could you want?

Nothing. That's awesome, man. Way to go. Very cool. that's awesome man way to go very cool so now that i mean the the impressive part about your number is not only the height and the amount which is huge that you knocked out but the fact you stick with something 46 freaking months most people in america can't stick with something 46 seconds they can't be married 46 months how'd you do this man well um my twin sister always says that i'm like super obsessive when i do something i just jump like all in and

this is one of those things that i became obsessive about when i was living in houston my family's from dfw so i would drive to see them listen into the podcast obsessing over my every dollar budget like where can i where can i like shrink the budget where can i fix it and uh what habit do i need to change can Can I carpool to work? Do I need to move out into a bigger rent house so I can pick up another roommate to lower the rent? It was like every part of the budget got a good look at least once or twice a week to figure out how to scrape some off. You went truly gazelle intense, that obsessive idea. This thing, I'm going to do this, and really I'm going to put the blinders on.

And you really don't hear the negative voices much when you get that fired up yeah i was fortunate enough that my family was like you're crazy but go for it but you're ours yeah you are crazy and uh my uh my students were also super supportive like anytime i would bring my lunch be like ah look at you mr shoe like you're taking care of your your finances It was really cool. Yeah. Way to go, man. So someone coming out of grad school with a pile of debt right now, like you did 46 months ago, is listening. What do you tell them the secret to getting out of debt is? I remember reading one of the chapters of your book, and it was, for me, I had to first understand that debt wasn't a tool. I used to tell my students, like, way back in the day that you had to take out student loans if you wanted to use that as an investment in your future

because I thought debt was a tool to get you somewhere. And I think that if anybody is going to have to pay off their debt, they're going to have to understand that, first and foremost, debt is not a tool. And if they don't understand that concept, they will never get out of the gate even. And I've got a lot of friends who said that they're going to pay off their car or their credit card,

but I'm going to keep my student loans for forever. I have friends who have told me that they're just going to be in debt for the rest of their life. So they have to understand, first and foremost, that debt is not a tool. It's an anchor. Yeah. Yeah, that's a big one. That's a big one. And then you said, you know, you were obsessive, and that's what enabled you to persevere and stick with something almost four years.

That's so impressive. So impressive. Very cool. I'm so proud of you, man. Well done. Very, very well done. Who were your biggest cheerleaders? Oh, for sure.

My dad was always super supportive. My family was really, really supportive, even if they were making fun of me. My coworkers who I went to work with every day, you know, we would go out to lunch once a week. And sometimes I would not have budget anymore to go out to lunch. And so I would just bring my lunch to wherever we went out to eat, and they were always super supportive. My students gave me lots of positive vibes. My boyfriend was super supportive of the whole thing. And so now anytime I offer to buy dinner, he's always super – he's like, oh, we're going to loosen the budget a little bit for that.

Well, well done, sir. Very, very proud of you. I'm proud of you, man. Great job. Thank you. Well, we've got a copy of you. I'm proud of you, man. Great job. Thank you. We got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you, Everyday Millionaires, and that definitely is the next chapter in your story. So we're excited for you.

Well done. Well done. Caleb from Fort Worth, Texas, $111,000 paid off in 46 months, making $60,000 to $72,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-60,000 to $72,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. I'm debt-free! Well done, well done, well done.

Great job, man. That's a lot of money over a long period of time. 46 months. And I got to tell you, man, he's right. You do have to become obsessive. That was a really good analysis on his part. 46 months, Dave. People can't.

We're at the end of January. 99% of Americans quit their New Year's resolutions already, right? Yep. I just made that stat up, by the way, because it supported what I was trying to say here. But you just keep going. 88% of the statistics are made up on the spot. That's right. But you just keep going and going and going.

What a way to persevere. You know, I remember the first time I ever actually went in a gym and got a personal trainer many, many years ago. I would have loved to have been there for that. Yeah, you wouldn't have either. It was ugly. It was really ugly. But we couldn't get on the treadmill and stuff because there's too many people, right? The machines were busy.

Everything's busy, busy, busy. And it was like right now, it was like second, third week of January, and he goes, don't worry about it. Valentine's Day, they'll all be gone. They'll be gone. It's the Valentine's Day curse. Forty-five days, the gym is empty again. People can't stick with it 45 days.

46 months. Wow. You know, Caleb stuck with this. And I liked what he said about it's all of it. It was the personal decision to listen to things and then to practice and then to have accountability and have friends and have students who are watching him to make sure it was all of that all together right it's everything it's not just one thing or this thing or one big great new rotten speech and then you're like i'm retarded it's all of it over and over and over again the the it is a marathon it is not a sprint and uh the good news about someone that's done it like he like caleb did is he he will never go back

no man it's over he is you to stick go back. Oh, man. It's over. To stick with it 46 months, you have to be changed inside. Love it. Not just have a cursory drive-by with the ideas. And he gave a picture to who knows how many young people. That's what sacrifice looks like. That's what bringing your lunch looks like. That's what that old truck looks like.

Amen. And they got a new picture of what debt-free living can look like. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Fred is with us. Fred is in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Hey, Fred, what's up?

Hey, what's your recommendation for long-term care insurance? You usually recommend it at 60. Statistics or history, you probably wouldn't use it for 20-plus years should you invest that premium money into a good growth account and insure your self-insure. Well, let me pull up my cheat sheet here on your statistics because they're wrong, but I don't have them memorized, so I'm going to flip up my cheat sheet here on your statistics because they're wrong. But I don't have them memorized, so I'm going to flip through my cheat sheet here. 70% of the people over 65 will require some type of long-term care before their death. Seven out of ten Americans will spend some time in a nursing home at some point.

So the numbers that I have seen, and I don't have them on this cheat sheet but um let's see here maybe see if i can find anything here uh the average age of a claimant is 79 to your point um so uh 71 of claimants are women um 51 are due to cognitive issues that was a new one i hadn't seen before okay so uh the numbers that i've seen and they're not on this sheet and so i'm doing this from memory fred are that uh it's less than one half of one percent of the people prior to 60 use nursing homes and so never buy a long-term care insurance and policy until you're 60 but when i looked at the stats the reason i came up with that number was or the reason i came up with that as my guideline for folks because i do believe in long-term care insurance unless you have five million dollars or more in net worth because you can self-insure then uh but i uh that the

percentage increased likelihood of use of a nursing home after age 60, the percentage increase, the graph was such a steep curve. Like every minute you're over 60, your chances of going increase dramatically. And so if you have a substantial net worth over 60, like $5 million plus, you'd self-insure. But otherwise, I'm going to tell you to get a policy. But you would be right. The older you get, the higher the likelihood is you're going to use it. And my cheat sheet says the average age of someone using it is 79.

The other thing that can happen in your 60s, even if you're not using it until your 70s, is you have a higher probability of losing your health just due to getting old and thereby not qualifying to get a policy that's what i was wondering is it cheaper to buy in if you buy into the younger age that's why people want people to do it 40 you know yeah it's much cheaper to buy at 40 or 50 but your likelihood of using it is so low that it doesn that the premiums don't offset. So it doesn't work out.

So insurance companies are pretty good at math. They do a good job about figuring out that premium. If you have an insurance premium that's cheap, there's a reason. It's a very low probability of the event happening, whatever the event is, right? And so it doesn't cost much. Well, that's because it ain't going to happen. Right. That's what you're looking at.

So statistically. it doesn't cost much well there's because it ain't gonna happen right i mean that's what you're looking at so uh statistically i remember clearly the conversation my parents and i had when they told us i think it was for christmas that's what we got for christmas they gave you a long-term care policy they got themselves i know and that was giving you a gift and it was we all it was just this right because because me and my brother and sister had talked about it hey what's gonna happen if and we had talked to my dad and my mom about it and they circ sister had talked about it hey what's going to happen if and we had talked to my dad and my mom about it and they circled up and said it's it's it's going to lean on us a little bit budget wise but it's the right thing to do and it was a gift yeah yeah it is and 70 of the uh ladies outlive their husbands and uh so if you're listening out there

married couple ladies the typical scenario this that's tragic is Papa goes in the nursing home. There's $200,000 in savings. He burns through it, cracks and scrambles the nest egg, and dies. And then Mama's left to live 10 more years with no money because it all went to the nursing home. And so that's why you get long-term care insurance policies. It's for you ladies, statistically speaking anyway and yet the highest number of claimants is female but that also would be after their husband predeceases them 75 percent of husbands predecease their wives that makes sense because when i used to visit my grandparents

in the nursing home there's always that guy so he's must be in the other percent right the one guy that just thinks he's he's casanova that's right he's 88 he's a rare bird yeah he's waving that cane around like he's attending a girl girls college and got in yeah he's got it made i'm gonna say brother you are not that handsome no he's just rare which is also an advantage if you don't have the other one. John's with us in Louisville, Kentucky. Hey, John, how are you? Hey, Dave. Thanks so much for taking my call. Sure. Okay.

I'll just get to the point here. Real quick, my son needs braces. If we pay the braces up front, we will save $500, okay, out of $4,600. So it'll be able to pay for $4,100. Now, we have $3,700 in savings. We have $4,500 in the bank so we can pay for that cash. Now, she wants to pay for it to save the $500. I don't want to, I want to pay the $1,000 and then we can make, I think it's $188 payments for 20 months,

because my furnace is 17 years old, and my car has almost 300,000 miles on it, and I drive 27 miles one way every day. And I just need some wisdom. Okay. Well, I've been doing this show 28 years. I've never told anybody to borrow money yet. And this is borrowing money. So this is borrowing money.

Yes, I've got to tell her she's right. Well, if you want me to blow the whistle and throw the flag, I can. But you're right, too. I mean, you've got some valid concerns there so how do we what are some ways we can look at how we get to these other issues the furnace in the car uh because we're taking you dangerously low on cash and so if we're going to do this uh for this child now and not wait six months which probably wouldn't be the end of the world if you did. I'm not an expert on dentistry, but I suspect they would probably still be able to straighten their teeth if you wait six months, which might be a plan.

And during that six months, pile up some more cash to where it gives all of you some more comfort. That's probably what the Ramseys would have done. But if you don't do that, then what we do have to do is we have to put the house on, the whole home on beans and rice, rice and beans, as if you had a bunch of credit card debt or something and you were being gazelle intense because you've got some known things coming at you. So your analysis of that is correct. I mean, that furnace is going to go out and that car is going to go.

There's not any question in your mind or my mind. I just don't know when. It's not a matter of if. It's just when. Is it six months or is it 18 months? But it's not eight years. I never even thought about waiting. I mean, it sounds silly.

I never thought about waiting six months. He's 11 1⁄2 and has got all those permanent teeth. I've never thought about waiting six months. I'm sure the doctor is going to tell you that I'm a quack, because when it comes to dentistry, I am. I have no qualifications whatsoever, except I'm a dad that bought a couple of sets of braces over the years. I did do the same exact analysis, and they make it almost sound like you're not borrowing money.

It's more like you're renting these braces, but they'll give you a discount for paying the rental up front, like they're going to re-rent them after you give them back. But anyway, I don't know. But to me, I looked at it with our two that had braces as debt, and I just prepaid it like your wife is suggesting. But I think that means that we have to look at, there's three valid things that need to occur here, furnace, car, braces, and we've got to treat all of them like they're very

important because they are and john i i need you didn't ask for this but i just got to speak it out there i know the tension i feel when i want to buy something when i have to buy something and then my wife says hey hank needs shoes and the temptation is to let him know i'm buying you these shoes at a cost of, right? So the temptation is going to take that boy. Buddy, you better appreciate those braces. I'm driving this truck, and what I'm going to ask you to do is don't put that in the heart and soul of your 11-year-old, that he's a burden to his family, that dad can't drive to work, or we can't have heat. And John didn't say that, and you said he didn't say that.

No, I know he didn't. We're just making sure he doesn't. If everybody out there, man, take care of your kids because that's the right thing to do, and don't make them feel more of a burden than they already do. Yeah. Amen. Good stuff. And be kind.

And unified. No, Dave. Stop with your propaganda. Just kind. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for The Dave Ramsey Show. If you would like to do your debt-free scream live on the show, make sure you visit DaveRamsey.com slash show and register. We would love for you to come to Nashville and tell Dave your story.