The Ramsey Show - App - Define Your Relationship With Money
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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. Thank you for joining us, America.
We're glad you're here.
Open phones at 888-825-5225.
That's 888-825-5225.
Elizabeth joins us in Austin, Texas.
Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, Elizabeth.
Hi, Dave. How are you?
Better than I deserve. What's up?
So I have a question more in regards to my parents.
I'm 25 years old. I have six siblings total.
And our parents are going through a lot of financial hardship.
They lost their house two years ago, and they've been technically homeless since then.
Currently, my mom is staying on my sister's couch and my dad is staying on my couch
with my other sister. And it really is overwhelming for all of us. And personally, my dad just keeps
on making poor decisions, financial decisions. Actually, yesterday, he bought a used car that's like $30,000 with an APR of like 22%,
and he's homeless living on our couch.
And we're about to, I mean, we're personally making the decision to kind of cut ties,
but it's really hard because they're our parents.
So we really just want your advice on what to do.
Like we're trying to get ahead in our own lives to be financially successful and just feel like our parents are kind of holding us back and we're
trying to go the right way about it i'm sorry that's so hard um you're 25
i don't i can't get my head around i can't get my head around. I can't get my head around.
I mean, I've got a 27-year-old son.
I can't get my head around.
I lost my house two years ago, you said?
Yes.
And I've lived on my daughter's couch for two years,
and the only thing I can come up with to do is go buy a $30,000 car at 22% interest.
I can't get my head around that.
Does he work?
Yes, he does.
He works at Home Depot.
How many hours?
He works 40 hours a week, but, I mean, it's minimum pay.
He was his own actual own business owner in the oil field, and that went to shambles.
Once he lost that, we lost everything.
So they went from staying on our grandmother's couch to coming up to us kids.
And the hard thing is, it's like we're trying to help, but, you know, the mentality that they have,
or not my mom, but more so my father is, you know, like I paid for you guys growing up,
so now it's y'all starting to take care of me,
and we're not really in the position.
Like we're all, like I said, trying to get ahead of ourselves,
and we're not in the position to do that, and it's very, like, really hard.
Yeah.
Okay.
Wow.
This is not going to end well. You know that, right?
Yeah.
I'm so sorry.
Because here's the thing.
Someone who does not respect boundaries, like your dad, when you put up boundaries, which is what you're getting ready to do, he's not going to react well to that.
He feels like he is entitled to anything you own.
And that's not accurate.
He shouldn't feel that way.
And so when you tell him he's not entitled to anything you own just because he sired you,
he's not going to react well to that.
Are you prepared for that?
I mean, I think as a group of us six siblings i
think we're all right trying to make that move because we're realizing that we're
i'm not saying you should cut ties with him but i think you should quit supporting him
and because he's not making good decisions and i don't know if he, is he mentally ill? I wouldn't, I think so.
He might.
I think that ever since everything's kind of gone downhill, he's, you know, keeping things a lot worse.
And our mother is mentally ill, too, so.
Okay.
Well, I think, are you by chance associated with a good church, you personally?
I am, yeah.
Good.
I think you need to go see some pastoral counsel on this.
And that is strong and that is not weak, but also is kind.
Okay?
And so it probably is going to end up sounding something like this.
I don't want you to cut ties with him.
I just want you to kick him out.
Okay.
That's different.
Now, he may choose to cut ties with you because he may be angry when you don't go along with his plan for taking your money.
Okay.
He may choose that, but you don't have to choose that.
That's up to him to do.
So it would sound something like this dad the decisions you're making with the money that you have coming in
with where you're choosing to work and how you're choosing to earn a living and the purchase of this
car they don't make sense to me i brought you in here and gave you a place to stay um not for the
rest of your life but because you were on hard times and helped you turn it around.
Instead, you've made things worse while you were here.
And so what you've got to do is we're going to set a timeline by which you can stay here for another month,
but it is that you are going to be on a budget you're going to sell that car um and you're going to start
making plans and working all the hours you can work to get a deposit together to go rinse your
own place a grown man like you should have the dignity of standing on his own and that's how
you taught us and that's how you're going to have to do dad and i love you and i'll support you and
i'll be your biggest cheerleader but you can can't sleep on my couch after one month from today.
Or two months.
I don't care.
You don't have to kick him out this Friday.
But the problem is this seems to be going on until he's 90 and you're 40.
Exactly.
And that's got to stop.
There has to be an end to it.
So if it's one month or two months, I don't care.
Give him a little room to give him an up ramp to get back off the ground.
He's got to have enough runway to get off the ground, right?
It's an entrance ramp onto his new interstate of life.
And so we'll give him a ramp, but that's what I mean.
I don't think it's Friday, but it's very gentle and very calm.
And if he reacts poorly and starts having a fit and is raging, does he do that?
He does do that?
Yes.
Yeah, he will definitely play a good big field trip and get upset.
Yeah.
So here's the thing, Dad.
If you're going to mistreat me, you can't stay here at all.
You can only stay here if you can have manners.
And you can only stay here long enough to get back up on your own feet.
And I'm designating that to be X amount of time.
And this is not because I don't love you.
It's because I do love you.
And you seem to be stuck.
And I want to see you go be the man that I used to know.
The dad that I grew up with who was a provider.
And no, dad, I do not owe you the rest of your life staying on my couch.
I don't.
I'm not in debt to you, dad.
I love you.
I'm not in debt to you.
That was your job as dad to raise us.
You didn't raise us so that we
could turn around and take, you know, somehow
we're required to take care of
you and your misbehavior. This is
going to be painful. You need your brothers
and sisters around you. You need a good pastor
around you to walk you through this.
It'll be very difficult to do at 25 years old.
You can do it though.
This is the Dave Ramsey Show.
This is big news, guys.
You need to stop and listen.
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Jen gives us our question.
She says, I'm 27.
I'm 100% debt-free with a good chunk in retirement and outside savings.
My fiancé is 23.
He has a bit of a mess to clean up before our wedding in October.
Personally, I think he should be working more and being more intentional to knock it out.
But I don't know how to tell him that without sounding like a nag or hurting his feelings.
How can I be supportive but also get him to be more serious?
Well, Jen, there's two possible things going on here.
One of them is that you are engaged to a guy who doesn't
like to work if that's the case you're gonna have a long life and that's something to be considered
um i hope it's not that extreme i hope it's just he's a little more laid back, and you're a little bit more nerdy and focused and intense.
And that's okay.
So I think, though, you guys need to have some serious discussions, and you need to meet him where he is, and he needs to meet you where you are.
Because the number one cause of divorce, the number one thing couples fight about is money and money problems.
And already you have a level of dissatisfaction with his ability to be intentional and handle his grown-up issues and so you guys need to sit down and talk
about that you may want to go through like financial peace university together as part
of your pre-marriage counseling a lot of people do that and something where maybe just get the
total money makeover book from the library for free
and sit and go through it.
I don't care.
I'm not trying to sell you something.
The point, though, is that you need to have the money talk while you're engaged,
because otherwise you're going to have the money talk for the next 40 years of your freaking life,
and it just gets old.
You don't want to do that.
You don't want to be on the same page.
And Sharon and I didn't do it.
We weren't smart enough to do it.
And we about killed each other.
You don't want to go that route.
You want to get on the same page and you go, hey, I'm debt free.
You got a mess to clean up.
I kind of.
I'm not comfortable with how intense you're being about that.
Why is it you're not wired up?
Well, you're always going to have debt.
And I'm not worried about it at all.
I'm just always going to. Next time I need a car, I'm going to go get a car payment.
Now you've got a problem.
Now you've got a problem.
Or, okay, I'm on it.
I'll turn it up a little bit, but you quit worrying about it a little bit.
That's a good answer.
That's a solid answer.
I'll go with that one.
So you need to have the money talk what was it the kids used to call it when they were teenagers that define
the relationship or something when they call it dr what is it dtr yeah that was it i remember
hearing that when my kids were teenagers this is this is it does. The money does that. It's the DTR, the define the relationship talk, the money talk.
Brandy is with us in Detroit, Michigan.
Hi, Brandy.
How are you?
Hi, good.
Fine, thank you.
Thank you so much for taking my call today.
Sure.
My question was, my husband just accepted a job position out of state, and he got a really great relocation package, which includes a home sale assistance through a third-party organization.
And we're trying to determine whether or not we should go through this organization or if we should do it ourselves.
The company will pay up to 6% real estate commission and closing costs.
However, you have to work with one of their provided real estate brokers for the listing,
and they also assist in marketing the home.
So I kind of just through Internet research saw some mixed reviews and just wanted to get your opinion.
I would work with one of their people, but I would put them through the ringer when I vet them on due diligence.
They might be kind of used to walking in and just telling everybody what to do,
in which case you run them off and go, I need a different one because you're an idiot.
Okay.
Because, you know, if they can come in and you can get one of the good review people that behaves
and is actually going to be
of assistance they can be very very helpful in this process they know a lot of stuff you don't
know they can see things coming you don't see coming uh but they have to care and they have
to have a good track record of having done a good job for other people and i'm going to check the
references and you know six percent of a property is a lot of money.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Even if you're not paying it. Yeah, it is.
Even if you're not paying it, you've got control of it.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay.
Yeah, so you're interviewing someone for a job that you're hiring.
Okay.
Okay.
And another thing, and we don't have any experience, you know, in dealing with the relocation company,
but things that we had seen was that they can be, you know, not flexible with the price
or, you know, difficult in the home inspection process.
I don't know if that's true or not.
Well, they can be.
It doesn't necessarily mean that they are.
I mean, what they're trying to do from their side of the equation is not get stuck with a bad property that they overpaid for.
Because they get stuck with a property if you don't sell it next number of days, right?
Right.
And so they're trying to not overvalue the thing or see phenomenal problems crop crop up so they're going to want to know what
what right with the house what's wrong with the house and they're going to put a a lower than
retail value on it typically and then you're going to try to sell it for that retail value quicker
before you have to turn it over to them that's the normal equation and and that's the process
where people become very disillusioned with these things
or if the relocation company or the assigned real estate agent don't give a rip and they're just
kind of jack you around or if the seller has you has unrealistic expectations of price or process
and you think you think they're supposed to bow down kiss your feet they're not it's just a benefit
that your husband took a job and they're trying to help you and kiss your feet. They're not. It's just a benefit that your husband took a job,
and they're trying to help you not get stuck with a house.
That's all it is.
So don't expect too much from the process, but hold on to it.
You know, make it work.
You know, treat it like you're interviewing them,
and expect them to, you know, you've got to kind of look at it through their eyes for the process to make sense.
Now, if they lowball you on some kind of way crazy thing that's tens of thousands of dollars off,
well, then you've got another issue.
And you've got to stop and think about do we want to just not use this process at all,
or do we, and you can back out of it at that point.
If you get bad offers and bad process um you back out of the whole job and just stay that's another option uh that you
can consider i mean there's nothing done until it's done here so that that's the kind of thing
you're looking at just manage the process and manage the people as if they worked for you
because they do they're interviewing for a job
this is the dave ramsey show Thank you. I'm going to go. Noah and Megan from Montana are on the line.
My screen says you're debt-free.
Congratulations, guys.
Thank you.
Thanks, Dave.
Well done.
How much have you paid off we've paid off 237 000 in six
years in one month love it and making what range of income during that six years in one month
it was between 60 and about 100 000 over that Cool. What do you guys do for a living?
So I am an eighth grade PE and health teacher,
and I also run an outdoor adventure lifestyle photography business.
Very cool.
And then for part of that time, I was a high school science teacher,
and now I'm currently a stay-at-home mom.
Love it.
Very good.
So I'm guessing from the length of time and the amount of money
you might have paid off your house.
We paid off our house.
You did.
I'm talking to weird people.
You are.
No debt of any kind.
Awesome.
How old are you two?
We're both 34.
And you have a paid-for house.
You are totally weird.
I love it.
I'm so proud of you.
What's the house worth?
We think it's worth around $550,000 or $600,000 right now.
I love it.
That is so awesome.
Wow.
I mean, did you ever think you'd be 34 years old and have a paid for $600,000 house?
That rocks.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What got you guys started on this six years ago?
Tell me your story.
Well, I guess I would say it kind of started 12 years ago when we got married.
We got married while we were still in college and worked really hard to get through college debt-free.
And between working and scholarships, and we also got grants from the government after we were married
because they were like, you guys are super poor.
So that was awesome.
And so from there, we just started saving like crazy to have a good down payment for our home.
And then about two years ago.
Yeah, we got asked by our church to lead Financial Peace University,
which I honestly had never even heard of to that point.
We had done a lot of principles that were similar, but that was the jet fuel.
I mean, we were thrust into this leadership role,
and we were leading young couples and old couples
and even some of our family members
and actually some of our students and ex-students through your amazing program.
And it just really inspired us to, you know, be the example and to walk that out,
and it focused us like never before.
And, yeah, you know, you talk about that gazelle-like intensity and we just went for it.
And even in the last two years, you know, we paid off $100,000 in the last two years.
Wow.
Just because we could see the light at the end of the tunnel.
And, you know, I hustled a little harder in business and, you know,
pursued a few more clients. And we were able to really just throw a huge chunk of our income,
even after Megan stopped working at the house, because that was, you know, that was our last
step and we wanted it. So that's perfect. Well done, you guys you guys awesome so leading a class made you get even more serious
go figure that yeah there's no way you can teach something and not go do it it just is incongruent
isn't it absolutely well and i think as teachers just in in regular life too we we knew the power
of example and it was just so amazing.
I think that was one of the greatest gifts.
I mean, obviously being debt-free is a huge gift,
but leading people, leading my parents through the class,
even some of our students, like we said,
and just being able to show what that looks like
and to be able to pull out our wallet
and show the lack of credit cards and the envelopes of cash like it
it really i think what made it more applicable um for the folks who were in our course and it just
was um really inspiring for us to you know go for it you guys are super coordinators man this is
awesome i love it very cool okay now you've you've done the example. You know that you know.
You can hold up and say this is how it works.
So what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is?
I think for us the biggest key, like we always were frugal
and we always were making pretty wise decisions with our money.
But once we really got on that budget and took it very, very seriously,
we made progress so quickly.
Yeah. And I think to couple onto that too, just the art and the gift of giving, I think,
you know, we can't stand here and say that, you know, we did this. I mean, we really
saw God move in a huge way in our relationship, but then also just, you know, like you said,
just loosening our grip on money, it just started pouring through.
Like, we couldn't stop it.
Like, Megan quit her job, and we started making more money than we ever had before
because we were giving hilariously and generously, you know, as you describe in the class,
and we were literally walking out the last installment of Financial Peace,
and we just saw God move.
And I think that's the secret sauce right there.
That was the ticket to our success was giving and giving often.
Very cool.
You guys are impressive.
Very well done.
So I imagine in the class you had some cheerleaders.
Who were some of your cheerleaders out there?
I think our parents were some cheerleaders. Who were some of your cheerleaders out there? I think our parents were all cheerleaders.
My parents actually just started coordinating a class two weeks ago,
so they're very excited.
And Noah's parents as well, they really supported us.
They watched our son and just helped us, you know,
in a lot of those little ways to help us make big progress.
And I think, too, like our students,
we had a handful of students that we had taught in school
that we kind of mentored through youth ministry that ended up,
we talked them into going through the class,
and even though a lot of the stuff with insurance and other things
didn't really apply to them at the time,
I mean, we were able to see some of them set up Roth IRAs at age 18 and 19
and things that we wish we would have done,
but it was cool to have them in our corner,
and they were really cheering us on as we were attacking that debt.
Love it.
Way to go, you guys.
Very proud of you.
Excellent job.
We got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you,
Everyday Millionaires, How Ordinary People Built Extraordinary Wealth, How You Can Too.
That's the next chapter in your story.
Lots of good things coming.
You guys have lived like no one else.
Now you're 34 years old with a paid-for house.
Woo!
Love this.
Yeah, buddy.
Yeah, baby.
$237,000 paid off in six years and one month, making $60,000 to $100,000.
Noah and Megan in Montana, count it down.
Let's hear a debt-free scream.
All right.
Okay, here we go.
Three, two, one.
We're debt-free!
We're debt-free!
Oh, man.
Man, oh, man. What, oh, man.
What a rock star couple.
That's incredible.
Very well done, you guys.
Very, very, very well done.
Wow.
They're pretty put together.
You can hear it.
I mean, they really got their stuff lined up.
That's pretty amazing.
Congratulations, you guys.
Very well done open phones at 888-825-5225 you jump in uh zach is on instagram there's about a million
400 000 of you now instagram surpassed twitter i think it's kind of dying uh nobody left on
there but trolls apparently but um still haven't figured out how
to use instagram but anyway a little bit i can use it a little bit but i can't i used to abuse
people on twitter but anyway we got a million four of you hanging out on instagram and zach
says my employer offers a few health insurance plans since we have our emergency fund in place
does it make more sense just to choose the least expensive plan possible not necessarily depends on your situation the hsa typically a high deductible hsa is if your family is healthy
or if you have or if you perpetually are breaking through the deductible because you have some
chronic illnesses then the hsa is usually going to make more sense. It's a lower premium, and your out-of-pocket is going to be less, typically.
But it isn't always just the cheapest is the best.
No, not necessarily.
You need to crunch some numbers and go, okay, this is a HMO, PPO.
We're doing 2020, 80-20 rather.
What's the deductible?
You know, most HSAs are a high deductible and then 100% after that.
Not all of them are, though.
So look at it.
Learn what you got.
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Angela's with us in Provo, Utah. Hi,
Angela. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.
Hi, Dave. How are you?
Better than I deserve. What's up?
Great. So,
I am pretty new to the
Dave Ramsey Show,
but my,
my husband and I,
we just got married about six months ago and we both owned homes prior to
getting married.
And we now,
we decided to buy a new home and went,
well,
sorry.
So when we got married,
I moved into his,
his home and now we are selling my house.
I was renting it for a while, and now we're selling it,
and we're going to use the equity for the down payment on the new house.
Okay, good.
We were thinking of selling his place, too.
I would.
He owns a duplex.
Yeah, I would.
Okay.
Well, yeah, I guess we want to have investment property.
Yeah, I would someday, but I want you to get your house paid off first. You know why?
Yeah.
Two reasons. One is, three reasons. One is the unbelievable stability you have when you have your personal residence paid for and you're 100% debt free.
It changes the way you walk around the living room i mean it's it's weird what that does
for you the second thing is is it increases your ability to invest like crazy because when you
don't have a house payment you can invest and build up money to buy your first rental and pay
cash for it if you'll avoid debt that is the shortest path to wealth. Yep. Correct.
And so if you owned the new house that you're getting ready to buy and you had some equity in it,
would you go take out a new mortgage in order to put a down payment on a duplex?
The answer is no.
No.
Effectively, what you're proposing to do is the same thing.
By keeping the duplex and reducing the down payment, it is mathematically the same thing as if you borrowed extra,
because you are borrowing extra because you're not putting all that money down on that house.
And so the average millionaire we found in our millionaire studies,
when we did the millionaire study for Chris Hogan's book, the Everyday Millionaire book,
we found that the typical
millionaire pays off their home in 10.2 years once your home is paid off the ability to save
rapidly invest rapidly to pay cash for your first rental is amazing and then once you've got a rental
and has no payments on it talk about cash flow wow and then that one goes quickly into the second
one that's how i did that's how i grew my real estate portfolio and i own a bunch of investment Talk about cash flow. Wow. And then that one goes quickly into the second one.
That's how I grew my real estate portfolio, and I own a bunch of investment real estate.
So that's what I would do.
I would avoid that.
I'd get out of debt as fast as I can by pointing all my guns at one thing.
So sell everything.
Put as much of it down on your house, new house as you can.
Put it on a 15-year fixed rate or less and pay it off as soon as you can
because again the typical millionaire pays off their home in 10.2 years so that needs to be your
target and then once you're there whether you pay it off in five years six years seven years eight
years nine years 10 years 12 years i don't care once you're there then you're in a position to
save aggressively invest aggressively to pay cash for your first rental.
That's what I would do.
It's what I did.
Jacob is with us in Houston, Texas.
Hi, Jacob.
How are you?
I'm doing well, Mr. Ramsey.
How are you?
Better than I deserve.
What's up?
I got a real quick question for you.
I recently just finished off paying my student loan debt and just set up my emergency fund,
so I got a return for a year on retirement.
Good.
I think that's the baby step, right?
Yeah.
Great.
You're 100% debt free.
Yes, sir.
Good.
Good.
Way to go.
So I just started work in July, so I haven't been putting anything into retirement yet,
but I'm going to be doing 15%.
And my work has a Roth 401k option.
Good.
And I know that that's better than the traditional so i'm going to do that good but the only difference that i know between that and ira is the required minimum
distributions at the end of the term right and the limitations of what you can put in and your ira
you can pick from any of the roughly 8 000 mutual funds that are out there with your 401k you're
limited on options but if you have good options at work, I would just load up that work one.
Does it have a match, too?
It's a 7% match on 6% if you put it in.
Yay.
We're certainly taking advantage of that no matter what.
But if your options are weak, you don't have good mutual funds in there that have performed as good as the market has performed,
then I might go.
Historically, it's like 9%. I'm go. Historically, it's like 9%.
I'm sorry?
Historically, it's like 9%.
What is?
The mutual fund for the 401k.
There's more than one mutual fund.
Well, the one that I was looking at, there's a couple.
There should be 10 or 12.
Yeah, like the best option, I think, was 9% over the past 10 years.
Okay.
Well, you need to look and see if it has outperformed the S&P 500.
Okay.
And if it has, then you're going to be okay.
If it's underperformed the S&P 500, then you can get better mutual funds in the open market,
and I would take the match and I would do a Roth IRA by going to a SmartVestor Pro
and opening your own account and selecting mutual funds that outperform the ones your 401k offers.
But I'm guessing that your 401k probably, once you dig into it,
has reasonably good options.
And if it does, I'm just going to load that puppy up
because you've got Roth 401k and you've got the match.
It makes it real easy, kind of a no-brainer to knock it out.
And that's what I would do.
Hey, thanks for the call.
Open phones at triple
eight eight two five five two two five caleb is in huntington west virginia hi caleb welcome to
the dave ramsey show hi dave how you doing today better than i deserve what's up well i just
finished your total money makeover book and um i'm getting into gear like my wife tried to tell me to do six, seven
years ago. So, you know, like you said about life and tuition. So we've got baby step one done and
we're working on baby step two. We're going to have all of our car credit card debts taken care
of in the next 12 months. But I'm a chiropractor and I have $244,000 of student loan debt hanging over my head and I fell for the IDR
trick and I now also have $13,000 in accrued interest hanging over my head that I have to
dig out of first before I can even touch my principal. So my question is, do I let that
capitalize onto my principal and then attack it hard on, or do I try to dig
out of that interest first?
Because my daily interest is $39 right now, $1,200 a month.
It's not going to matter much.
I mean, you're just going to have to get in big, hairy payments going that direction.
You've kind of tried the ignore it method, and that didn't work.
Right.
It got worse.
And so now you've got to do quite the opposite.
You've got to give it so much attention that it's whining and crying all the time
because you're constantly poking at it.
So what is your household income today?
I have a commission job on the side,
so I'm making about $80,000, $85,000 gross.
My take-home comes down to about $55,000.
So the chiropractor thing didn't pan out to be worth $244,000, did it?
Well, I'm an associate at the moment.
And yeah, when it comes to being a small business owner,
because that's what the vast majority of chiropractors are, it's very much on a slow start.
It's a long haul game.
Yeah, it is.
And not many make enough to justify a $244,000 spend.
But you're there now, so you're going to have to kick it into gear.
And let's just dig and scratch and claw through it. If you want to turn it all into principle and just set it up on weekly payments or monthly payments,
that would be fine while you get through the other stuff.
And then you've just got to attack it with a vengeance like you read about.
You can do this.
Hey, thanks for calling.
That puts this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books.
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