The Ramsey Show - App - Discipline Matters Most in the Hard Times

Episode Date: August 28, 2025

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From the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love and create actual amazing relationships. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author, co-house. host of the Ramsey Network hit smart money happy on and my daughter she's my co-host today open phones at triple eight eight two five two two five stella is in arizona hi stella um hello how can we help today um well um a big question that i have what recommendations do you have to increase your income uh will be a home school parent. How do you increase your income while being a homeschool parent?

Oh, well, let me elaborate a little bit. Well, my situation with my husband is not that good, and I plan to eventually follow divorce once this homeschool year finishes. So for now, since I'm a full-time home school parent, I don't have any work right now. So I was wondering what kind of kids. So you're talking about in May, that's the end of the homeschool year? Yes, correct. And how many children do you have, hon?

I have two children. What age? They're very young. four and one what are you homeschooling a four-year-old I'm sorry how is a four-year-old in homeschool

well pre-k so foundation for reading language arts and math so yeah I still full-time and especially when I since I have my My younger son, he's one, so he still definitely depends on me.

He's very attached to me as he should be. Okay, so if you file divorce, you understand that you're going to be working full-time. Oh, yes, I understand that too. And the kids are not, you're not going to be homeschooling ever again. Yes, I understand. Who's going to take care of the children? Well, I was already thinking on, yeah, enrolling them on daycare, also a local preschool. How long has it been since you've been in the workplace?

Well, it's just being about a year. Okay. What were you doing before? Oh, wow. Well, I was working for a gas company. For what company? For a gas company. A gas company.

What were you making, Stella, at that position? Oh, at that position, I was making around, I was making around 54,000 a year. However, well, I recently got an offer letter that I could be making probably $40 an hour due to the experience that I have. So hopefully at least. Are you in, like, any immediate, like, can you stay in this marriage till May? Oh, yeah, definitely. Okay, so there's not like a... My husband provides...

Yes, ma'am. What's wrong with your marriage, huh? Well, I think during a marriage, you should be able to negotiate the terms of the initial plan. For instance, my husband and I agreed that we will be homeschooling. our children at the very beginning of our marriage and everything was going fine since I was working also from home and my kids were little so that was manageable but for instance it came to a point that I was able to change jobs working outside of the house and my husband didn't really like that and also it was a little hard for me to be away from my daughter

um so that does not sound like the reason to end a marriage uh we'll also we uh well for instance i i wanted to work and now that my son is one year old however uh my husband so there's a there's a values difference so have you guys done counseling have you guys work have you sought a professional well I have suggested that of course to my husband since we have been gotten into any arguments about finances and our homeschooling but yeah for instance I have suggested that and my husband does not think it's appropriate have you have you seen someone Stella I'm sorry have you seen someone professionally yourself we have done

individually. Okay. It was two years ago, but honestly, we gave up. Okay. Well, everything in my mind, I would exhaust every level of energy and effort and time and money to make this marriage work. And the reasons that you're giving me, and I'm sure there are symptoms of bigger things going on underneath, you know, from a depth level perspective.

with your marriage but I would push you to go back before you make this decision I would implore you to go and sit down and be in therapy for months

and see what else can change in your marriage that this doesn't have to be the outcome and if you still get to this if you still get to this place that you are going to you know that this is

the route and you're going to file for divorce then I mean then I would start working. I wouldn't be homeschooling right now. I would, I would be back in the workforce

and not let the first time to be in the workforce is in the middle of a divorce. But again, I would want that to be, I would want you guys to do a lot of work. Especially the school year. I mean, there's not a school year for a four year. It's a four year old.

There's not a school year for a four year. I would not, I would not put that pressure on yourself. I mean, even kindergarten, right? Like if you got to repeat kindergarten, I mean, it's, that's pretty light, yeah, that's light lifting. Some kids don't even do preschool and go straight to kindergarten. So I would not hedge so much weight on this year for, quote, unquote, homeschool for your kids. I would be waiting my marriage, the work around that, and or getting back into the workforce.

Or both. Yeah. Yeah, or both. I guess that's true, too. Okay, I'm announcing the kids are going at a daycare and I'm taking this new job. And I'm going to see a marriage counselor. Will you come with me? Because if you don't, if you don't, we're probably going to end this, but I'm going to go work on it.

And I want to work on it together. And if you want to give it a try, this is how it's going to go. And I'm going to make an announcement. This is what's happening. And it's not a question. It's not asking permission. It sounds like he wants you to be doing this. Stating that's what I'm going to do.

You take that offer letter, $40 an hour, you're going to work to get in a daycare. Let's do it. and because that's what's coming anyway. Might as well just decide and do it and then make the, make the moves. But I'm with Rachel. I'm having trouble connecting with you enough that I can understand why this is going on. So I think you do need to follow Rachel's suggestion.

Bob is in New Hampshire. Hampshire. Hey, Bob. How are you? I'm doing okay, I guess, Dave. Cool. How can we help? Well, we've for quite a while now, we've had financial problems with bills. We owe a lot of debt, and one of the problems is my wife has a habit of spending constantly, and she pretty much goes through all of the income that we have in a month. We've had discussions over it and everything, and, you know, it doesn't set in, but it is a little bit. I mean, she's a little better,

but she just has this habit of when she walks in the store, she's got to buy. Okay, how can we help? Well, my question is, as to what direction should I be using to, I guess, get her to stop completely from wasting the money and then being able to catch up on things. I mean, Bob, when you say that, I mean, you're saying that she's spending the whole paycheck, so would you, I mean, would you think it's a level of addiction?

Would you say it? Would you go that far? Oh, yes, yes, yes. And has she gotten help for it? besides you just telling her not to okay why not yeah yeah we've had numerous discussions yeah because you're not going to change her she has to do the work to understand what is happening for her because it's a real thing i mean we see that more often than i mean it's becoming more and more common i feel like um so what why has she not taken steps to find healing in this

um well the the strange thing is she know that she's, you know, the problem to our problem, and, you know, she's always feeling sorry for it, but, you know, when the income comes in, she goes out and she spends and she doesn't look at what she's spending. In other words, she'll go off the old are you guys. Pardon me? How old are you, too? she's 78 and I'm going to be 73 in the next couple of weeks

but why don't you just take her like she can't have access to the money like if it's an addiction like this this is what we would tell couples is to say the one that is struggling does not get access to money because she has a spending addiction and you would say all right we're going to have X amount for groceries and when you go to the grocery store this is you know if that's if that's what she does then here's the amount you have. And she doesn't get access to the checking account. Yeah.

And the income. What is your income monthly? Believe it or not, it's over $7,000. Okay. I believe it. And how much debt have you guys run up? Well, the house still has $167,000. I mean, 267,000, we probably have about $40,000 in debt.

On what? Well, we have one vehicle, you know, we have numerous credit cards. So what do you owe on your car? I believe it's about 25,000. Okay. And what do you owe on the credit cards? Credit cards total about $10,000. Okay.

And that's 35, and what's the other five? the other five would probably be well actually we just had a roof put on a house so that's five grand yeah really you got a roof put on your house for $5,000 well I mean I paid some of it so there's some money left over on it okay like a lot more okay so so you guys can live on $7,000 if you have your if you're in agreement and in alignment and you stick to a budget and you could reduce the debt. Agreed? Yes, yes.

Okay, is there, you own two cars? One, the other one's paid for? One vehicle. I'm sorry? One vehicle. The only car you have is $25,000 in debt. Right. Okay.

All right. But I think you could probably, with that kind of an income, clear the $40,000 in debt if we were reasonably spending on $7,000. Agreed? That's what your problem is. Okay. Yeah. And so, you know, the way.

it's going to sound at my house and you can do what you want to do, but you called us is, hon, I think we have a problem. And it's you. You're out of control and you can't seem to control it and it's really sad. Consequently, we don't have any money and we're in debt and we have plenty of income. And so here's what's going to happen. We're going to try this first. We're going to agree on a budget this month. You and I both have a vote. We're going to spend $7,000. on the every dollar app and we're going to have a plan and we're going to stick to that plan and you're not going to go into a store and go out of control again if you do next month you will have zero access to the money i will shut everything down and put it in my name

to protect me and our family from you right that's how it's going to sound so we're going to try this together like two grownups that can function and so if you're being immature you can merely adjust the immaturity if you are an addict we're going to discover that in one more month and we're going to treat you like an addict at that point I don't know I can't diagnose if someone has an OCD well there's a level of medicating that's for sure going on well at a minimum there's immaturity and princess syndrome or something yeah right but but at a minimum at a maximum 2% of the public has been diagnosed literally with a spending addiction, a shopping addiction, 2%. And it's an OCD behavior, and, you know, it's a psychological label and done by professionals.

And we deal with them, but most of the time when we deal with it, we're just dealing with somebody who's being selfish, immature, and a princess, or I deserve it, and you don't, kind of thing. So I don't know which one she is, but I would, if it was my wife, I'm going to have a real clear conversation that says for one more month, we're going to try this. And if we fail this experiment that you and I cannot act like two adults at 78 freaking years old, we can't act like grownups and live within our means, then I'm going to shut down your access to everything. And it sounds like that's what's going to happen. I think it is. Yeah, 100%.

And Bob, for her sake, too, encouraging her, we just said this in the last call, but for real, she needs to go get help for it. because she's not a whole person. Like there, there is a level there that is eroding her quality of life, who she is as a person, and who she's going to be as a wife. I'm like, you're getting someone who's not functioning. None of us are fully. But there is a very obvious issue there that she's just not addressing head on. And I don't think you're getting the quality wife that you could have, too,

if she doesn't go through a level of healing to this. Because that's probably what, I mean, like, yeah, it could be immaturity in all of but at 78 and him having this conversation, her knowing intellectually where they are, but her compulsion, it's still happening. There's stuff happening in there. So I would, for her sake, like the financial side is one thing, Bob.

But if that's my spouse, I'm like, I want her to get healing. I want her to understand what's going on and to find, I don't know, peace in this, because there's just chaos happening inside of her, I would imagine. And it's coming out, medicating in spending. And so you're not getting a great wife either, a great partner.

She's not getting a great self. I don't know. There's a lot there. There's a thing mixed up between in the psychology and the spirituality of godliness with contentment is great gain. And if I can't find contentment, and so I'm chasing it somewhere else, that is a spiritual disease. And it also can be an addictive compulsive. and it can be just immature yeah exactly yeah that's right that's right that's right and no one ever told me no that's right and including you bob you've never told her no and um you know and

her daddy in a pretty like yeah like consequential way we're not doing this yeah yeah it's not an option and so um so i can't tell exactly and i i i'm really not going to diagnose something as severe as a spending addiction in this, but it could be. So I'm going to treat it that way and move down that process, and it's going to stop one way or the other. Well, I've got to tell you, we have a wonderful product that we do a low volume, very expensive print run on. we turn the creatives loose and just let them play in their little sandbox and they do a beautiful job making this product lights out. It is the Ramsey Gold Planner and I think this is our 10th year maybe of doing this and it is drop dead gorgeous. It's very expensive to produce because

it's so pretty and all this stuff is in it and but we've got it on sale as the pre-sale for 2026 if you want your Ramsey Gold Planner. It's only 3597 and And that's good through Labor Day. So next week, that deal will be gone, in other words. And so if you want one, you need to get in there. What it is is you open up the month. And as you open up the month at the beginning of the month is a couple of page, I will call it almost a devotional from Jade or Rachel or John Deloney.

And then when you open the next page, it's the entire month spread out on the two pages. When you open the next page, it's the first week of the month spread out on two pages. And then the next week, and then the next week, and then next week, then you go the next month. So if you're old school, my wife still keeps one of these old school and done calendars all the time, carries it around with her. If you like that stuff and you know, you want the inspiration from Rachel, Jade, and John, and it's really good.

And the stickers there to do the whole thing, the whole bit, there's a whole thing around these gold planners. It's not just a calendar. It's got its own little world around it. So anyway, it's better than ever, new monthly content from, everybody and again till Labor Day it's only 3597 and we will take the price on up because we only do about 10 or 20,000 of these things. We don't do a huge volume. It's not like we sell two million of them or something. So time sensitive. Once the new year hits, you're done. If we don't sell them,

we got to put in the dumpster. So we got to make sure that we sell out. And so Ramsey Solutions dot com slash store or if you're, you know, listening online, you can click the link in the description. Nick's in California. Hi, Nick. How are you? Good. How's it going, Dave? Better than I deserve. How can I help? I love it. My wife and I, we went through FDU right after we got married. We followed your plan ever since.

How long have you been married? In 17 years. Well, good for you. Wow. Are you a millionaire? Yeah. Yeah, well, pretty much. Good. Work. Yeah. Yeah, it's really good. So we make, we gross about $3.50 a year. We have over 400,000 saved, combining, you know, all the Roths and the kids savings and whatnot.

Good. Yeah, so we've been very disciplined, and, you know, you've helped us get there. It's been really, really great, but I feel like, okay, we've done this for so long. It's kind of become who we are, and we're saving and we're building wealth, and, you know, we pay off one thing. We got debt free. We didn't do the call, but we ended up buying another farm, and then now we got more debt. But now, you know, but that's producing income too. And, you know, now our kids are grown up and they're kind of out of fun age.

And I don't want to miss out on memories, but we're so caught up into just paying down debt and saving and building wealth that we're not, you know, I want to go buy jet skis and I want to get quads and I want to go do fun things that I did as a kid and make those memories with them now, you know, while they still like me. Okay. Well, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, you have zero debt except real estate, correct? I would say real estate's 90% of it. I mean, we've got a tractor.

Oh, you flunk to FPU. Oh, I thought you were a star pupil and became a millionaire. And then you went and financed a tractor. Well, that is actually an interesting... No, there's nothing interesting at all about it. It's pitiful. Nick, but he's got $400,000 in savings, which I know part of it. That's in his Roth IRAs.

He can't pay the tractor off with that. What do you owe on your trucker, Nick? Do you have other, do you have liquid savings, Nick? What do you owe on your tractor, Nick? I actually got it for free. I'll just say that. I thought you said you had dead on it. I do.

It's $25,000, but it was 0%. So I took the money. I got back from buying it from a government grant and put it on debt. Then I wrote the tractor off and saved myself $16,000. in taxes. So I was just like, oh, with the government grant and the tax refund, it actually paid for the whole tractor. I put it on the line of credit. But now Nick can't buy jet skis. Oh, my gosh. Anyway, so it's $25,000. It'll be paid off in seven months. Okay. Is that your only debt other than the land? Yeah. Okay. And do you have your emergency fund in place? Yep. How much is in it?

$31,000. Okay. Pay the tractor off today, honey. today today rebuild your emergency fund okay remember we're going back to FPU I'm taking you back to class this is the remedial version and uh oh boy for a while

we're doing the baby steps again here okay we got to clear the tractor got to rebuild the emergency fund then when you're to answer your overall question once you clean up this little mess you made that you rationalized out of your butt um now once you do all that once you clean up the mess

then what I'm going to do if I'm in your years, you're in baby steps four, five, and six, putting 15% away for retirement, you're putting money for kids' college, and you're reducing the real estate debt. When you're in one through three getting out of debt other than real estate, and you are, and building your emergency fund, you are intense and not allowed to do anything except get out of debt and build the emergency fund. When you're in four, five, and six, you are in the phase of intentional, not intense. that is the phase that when a guy makes 350 grand he should be able to put 15% aside should be able to uh in his 401ks and Roth IRAs growing those and still have plenty of

margin to buy a quad and a jet ski I mean that's a quad it's a four wheeler oh and so um like those like you know anyway um like a side by side yeah and so uh yeah so you know uh I just bought several of those for the farm for the grandkids that was that was fun because i wanted to but i didn't finance it at zero i mean i just bought it okay but and it was a small percentage of our world and you can do that too so you make enough money to do some of the enjoyment things you're talking about in cash only no rationalization no government kickbacks no zero percent we're just going to pay for it like your grandmother did and that's the only way we're going to do it and then you can enjoy those things because there don't have all this associated intellectual

guilt that goes with the stupid way I did the thing okay and you move from intense to intentional and I think you can systematically inside your budget find the money to enjoy life while reducing your mortgages somewhat and while putting 15% away you can do that in California making 350,000 but you've got to still enjoy your life yeah you You've got to go back to the basics, blocking and tackling, that you learned in the class 17 years ago, that actually got you where you are, and then you fell off the wagon, fell off the tractor. And, oh, that's so fun. But, yeah, that's it. So, you know, what this does illustrate, though, folks, is this is a guy makes a lot of money.

He's obviously a bright guy. You know, dumb people generally don't make $350,000 a year. And the message of debt, 0% debt, the message of debt, the message of debt is necessary, debt is wise, debt is sophisticated if you're going to get a, you know, a tax credit from the government, and so the whole thing was sophisticated, that message is so prevalent that if you let your guard, down, you'll buy a tractor. Or get one for free and then go through the hoops to get back into it. It wasn't really free.

He paid for the tractor, but he got a tax credit with it. And that he didn't use to pay off the debt. Right, right. So he still has the debt. So he talked himself into it. Yes. By the way, if you paid cash for the tractor, you would have also gotten the tax credit. There's not a debt requirement to get the tax credit.

So, but you made you rationalize and justify. So what happened is, is you got financial advice from the tractor salesman. That's what happened. That's kind of a bad place to get it. Just make note. Sarah's in Phoenix. Hi, Sarah. How are you?

Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Well, me and my husband started. a business back in 2020 and addition to the debt I have now we wrapped up about 34,000 in credit card debt to sustain. The last couple of years the business has been doing great and a steady and I was able to pay that down just my credit card debt to 19,000 but out of the blue

I inherited a hundred and eight thousand dollars and I'm just like what do I do with this with all of my debt? Wow who died? I just knew the advice. Nobody died my um it was just like a Like an early inheritance while they were still alive. Oh, who advanced you the money? My uncle. Okay. Wow. Got the rich uncle.

It's very nice. I wondered where he was. Okay. It's the uncle everyone wants. So your business went through hell in 2020, and you subsidized it with credit cards, up to $34,000. Yeah. And then you told me it's doing really well.

but it only has paid down a few thousand dollars. What does doing really well mean? How much profit are you making? About $7,000 a month. Well, why have you only paid down a few thousand dollars then? Are you profiting $7,000 a month or you're grossing $7,000 a month? I'm grossing, but also I was paying for just, you know, living expenses and food and stuff, but...

No, I'm talking about your business. It was, my credit cards were $34,000, so they're... I know, and they're down to $17,000, and in five whole years, you paid it off about $3,000 a year, which pretty much sucks if your business is making $7,000 a month profit. Really hardcore in, like, the last year, and we kind of did things a little bit backwards where we saved for a home, down payment, and all that stuff. Okay, let me go back.

So... Is your business making... a profit or a gross revenue of $7,000, which is it? And I'm and then and then which is it making a prop it's making a profit of 7,000 and then I also work um full time at a job and I make about 7,000. Okay, so you're bringing home okay okay so you have a $14,000 a month income and you're married yes and he makes what? Well, he was with the business with me, so that's included one of the $7,000 a month.

Okay, so your total household income is $14,000 a month. Yes. I'm still not positive. You know what profit means. This is a real profit after all business income minus business expenses equals profit. Taxable income is $7,000 a month. Is that what you're telling me? yes and are you putting any of that money back into the business or are you guys just bringing

home exactly what you profit we're just not budgeters i don't know we like spend like a couple thousand a month going out to eat okay so but here grasp with me here here there's a reason i'm asking all this regarding your inheritance okay because i don't want this 104000 to enable you to continue stupid but behaviors that are going to destroy you? I don't either. Okay? And that's why I'm trying to get to because I want to love you well here. I want to help you.

And so. Yeah. And what we found, Sarah, is that money magnifies what you're already doing. So you're like, we're not great budgeters. We spend a couple of thousand just eating out, like all that. And that's just going.

And this allows you to continue in that misbehavior. In a bigger way, which we don't want, right? And so. I don't want to do now. That's right. Okay. I'm so glad.

And how's your husband? Is he on board with this, of changing completely how you guys have been doing money? He lets me do everything. He just says, you handle it. I trust you. Okay, well, that's not good. That's not good. That's got it into.

Apparently, that's not working. Okay. Because y'all suck at this. Yeah. So, I mean, we've got to adult up here because we're pissing away $14,000 a month. So what I'm going to do in your shoes is I'm going to take the $104,000, act like I don't own it and put it in a high-yield savings account. And then I'm going to go home, and the two of us are going to sit down on $14,000 a month. And in three months, we're going to pay off this credit card.

Okay. $6,000 a month on the credit card until it's gone. And you're going to not go out to eat at all until you do that. And that money will be going straight to the credit card. And you're going to really learn what real profit is on the business. Are you keeping a separate set of books on the business? No. Yes.

You are. Have you kept your taxes paid? I owe like $10,000 this year. Have you been doing quarterly estimates? Do you know what that is? No. I know what it is, but we haven't been doing it. Okay, but $7,000 a month, $70,000, $84,000 a year.

And so taxes on that are not $10,000. Taxes on that are $25,000. Have you filed tax returns? uh yes my numbers are probably just wrong sorry i think that's probably the accurate statement because i i just there's i'm fishing around in some in murky water here i can't tell what's going on okay so no you do not you need to use the hundred thousand the hundred thousand dollar gift is a double gift one it's a hundred thousand the second thing is it's gonna make you all wake up and behave. If you don't, a hundred thousand won't save you. Two million won't save you. And so

number one, the business ought to be in, have a separate set of books. You and your husband tonight. Y'all, y'all have a long week ahead. You need to sit down and listen to this. Figuring all of this out. So in business, you set a separate checking account and a separate set of books for the business. Only thing goes into that checking account is rent is income from the business. Only thing comes out of that checking account. Expenses. from the business. What's left, by definition, is called profit. Only then can you take it home. When you take it home, you should set aside 25% of whatever you take home in yet another savings account for your quarterly estimates that are supposed to be filed. If you are not filing

them after five years, you are being penalized every single day for not filing your quarterlies. You're violating every IRS regulation. It's costing you out the butt. Yeah, they need to it down with an accountant probably. Hello. Yeah. And start, yeah, and get the dadgum business running like a business. You're under the illusion you can out earn your disorganization and chaos and you can't. I tried it.

It doesn't work. It caught up and hit me in the back of the head, knocked the air off my head. Don't do this. Okay. It's not fun. You're going to bring pain to your life. It's not cute and it's not okay. You're not a teenager.

So you guys need to sit down, run the business like grownups. Then when you bring money home after you've set aside a fourth for your tax, and filed your quarterly estimates properly, then we can talk about how much is really coming into the house. And what to do with it? And immediately need to clean up this debt. Because if you're making $10,000 a month, it's ridiculous that you have not reduced the debt any further than you have.

So no more. No more. No more. You just take care of it because, Sarah, you've been on an island. I mean, he's left you there on an island and you've signed up for that trip. And so that has to end. And there's no food on the island. Survival.

Survivor. We don't want that. We want boogey Sarah. We don't want... We don't want... We don't want... But sitting down and you guys together

do a budget. And if you hold in line, Sarah... Whatever you want to do, honey. Kelly's going to pick up. We're going to give you total money makeover. We're going to give you every dollar. And entree leadership. Throw that book into.

And so... But to sit down and to plan out your income that you guys have, that has hit your account as a household and say, here's exactly where our money's going. Rent or the mortgage. I think you have a mortgage. You said, you got a house.

So mortgage, lights, electricity, subscription. I mean, you list out everything you guys spend money on. And then you're going to take a, you're going to sit there and start deleting categories because you're not going out to eat. You're cutting subscriptions. You're cutting your lifestyle to nothing until this credit card debt is paid off. And I mean, honestly, I don't know what I'm. Start running this like you work for someone and you're going to get fired if you continue to

suck at your job. Because the problem. is, is if you take some of this 108,000 inheritance and just pay off the credit card debt, nothing has changed in you guys. So I would push you not to use the inheritance to pay off the credit card debt. I would force you guys to do it. You need to learn and actually participate and have the action towards this change. You have to feel it and go through it in your life. And if the numbers are anywhere near close, you're going to do it in about three months. Once you get your head screwed up. Yeah, you all have to sit down together, Sarah.

Tonight. And he has started carrying the emotional weight of this with you together. This is the only way you win. There's really not another option. This is it. Welcome back to the Ramsey show. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality. My daughter is my co-host today. The phone number is AAA-825-5-225. Michelle's in Indiana. Hi, Michelle. How are you? I'm doing okay. Thank you. How are you guys doing? Better than we deserve. What's up? So recently I found out this past weekend how much we actually have in debt with credit cards and the personal loan um recently

you started watching your stuff and i we had not been doing finances together he paid some i pay some but after learning a little bit we joined finances and that's when i discovered all this debt wow i'm so honored i'm happy for you guys that you're doing this i'm sorry you found that you're in a hole but you can get out this is awesome how much debt did you find um 50 000 in credit cards and 12,000 in the personal loan. Okay, very cool. So, 62,000. What was the credit card debt yours and his and just combined it's 50, or was it all his, all yours?

99.9% his. Okay. Okay. But he used the cards for utilities and groceries for household items. Yeah, I got you. Okay. And what's your household income? He makes $101,000 a year.

I make $21,000. Okay, so $122. That's good. Very good. No car debt? Two cars. Debt? And they're upside down, so that's not a good situation either.

Oh, so this isn't your only debt. So how much do you owe on the cars? No. One car is $45,000. Mm-hmm. The other car is $65,000. Whoa! Okay.

I know. And is there any other debt? Is there any other debt? Besides mortgage, no. Okay. And what do you owe on your mortgage? $315,000. Okay.

All right. You have $110,000 in cars. Let me tell you what I can tell you for sure happened mathematically after doing this for 35 years. Okay. Okay. Your cars stole. your food money yeah

and your food was put on a credit card your husband has not been irresponsible except for the time that he went to the car lot yeah you had to handle what's your car you guys are broke

your car broke and he was trying to prop it up because there's not enough money to pay for these stupid cars and live and he propped it up with credit cards that's 100% what happened here your husband's not a bad guy he was just trying to cover and make things happen yes and he wasn't trying to hide it for me he didn't want me to worry he said he was trying to work on it yeah and you're separate in it right he was just taking care of

it so that was the agreement we're not blaming him i'm just saying that this credit card debt is not due to irresponsible spending it is due to the irresponsible purchase of vehicles that you can't afford i agree with you I just don't know what steps to take. Okay, so on the $65,000 car, who's driving that one? He is. Okay, so it's a truck. No.

No. It's an electric car. Oh, okay. Oh, crap. Which one? Honda. Honda Prolog. Okay.

And you owe 65, do you have any idea what the actual market value of this log is? I looked up Kelly's blue book, and it said $30,000. Oh, gosh. Yeah. It's $30,000 for trade-in or private sale or? Actually, I think it was traded. Okay. That's better.

So it's probably worth $35. Okay. Which still sucks. So basically what we're saying is Honda electric cars have tanked in value. They're like jumping. off a clip with no parachute in value. Okay, wow. I didn't know they sucked that bad. Okay, that's really bad. Yeah. How about the $45,000 car? Do you know, Michelle? Do I know what it's that's worth? Yeah. 27,000. And that was trade-in, so that's probably 32. Okay. All right. Okay.

So. 30,000 dollar loss. When did you buy the Honda? I'm sorry, I'm a little nervous. I can't think straight. It's okay. In the, he's had it less than a year. Did you have negative equity in another car that you traded on it? I think he did. I think there was a negative equity.

I mean, I know these electric cars suck on holding their value. It's just they're pitiful. but I did not think you could lose $30,000 in one year. I think that's probably not right. So it's not, they're not that bad. So, I hope. Either way, you're there. Okay, here's the problem.

If you keep it, it's going to keep tanking. And you're going to look up and it's going to be worth $10,000, and you're going to owe $55. Right? Right. And so, you know, it's almost like to save the patient, we're going to have to amputate the leg, you know. It's like we've got to stop the bleeding here. There are too many, too many amputations, too much blood in this metaphor. I got mixed metaphors going. But anyway, so we got to, uh, anyway, you've got to stop the loss and value by getting rid of the car because it's going to get worse and worse and worse at an increasing rate. Okay. So, wow, so sorry. Do you guys have any money? I haven't asked that.

No. Okay, it's not surprising. What do you make? Michelle, you make $22,000. What do you do for a living? I was a nurse. I got injured, and I'm on disability now. Okay.

A permanent disability? Permanent disability. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Or I'd be out there working at it. Yeah. Because, man, you can make with some bucks.

a nurse. That's a very good career. Oh, man. All right. So anyway, back to the whole thing. We got the great news is you know, I don't know where you are. The great news is you're now working together. And the great news is we have identified the problem. And it's called a Honda Prolog. And it's caused all of this. It's all the result of buying a car. And the $45,000. I mean, like, I think all of it. Two cars. So a part of me would just take, if you can get a loan from credit union, take the difference. You each go get $5,000 cars. I'd rather be $55,000 in debt than $110. Yep. Yep. I would, if you can get the credit union to loan you enough money to get out of both of these, sell them both, and get two $5,000 cars. That's a huge change in direction.

Yeah. It's going to, it's going to, otherwise, you're going to struggle with this for a decade. And so we've got to stop this thing going off a cliff mathematically. Because it, you, you, I mean, you can tell from 65 down to 30, right, in a heartbeat. Right. And we don't want to do that another year. Yeah. I don't want that for you. I want you to be free.

And then you guys, yeah. You think you could get a loan at the credit union to cover the deficits on these cars? I'm not sure now because his score of the credit has gone down. Yeah, I'm going to go sit down and talk to them. If you've got either one of these loans with the credit union, it's a real reason to talk to them. Mm-hmm. Because this is going to go sideways. It's bad.

And then once you get that straightened up, you can address the other stuff pretty quick because you make good money and now you're working together. The sun will come out, but we got to get rid of... You guys have two to three years. You got to get rid of intense. Of intense, intense plan, Michelle.

What a horrible car. And I'm a Honda fan in general. But not an electric fan. Not an electric fan. Adds to it. John is in North Carolina. Hey, John. How are you?

I'm good. Actually, I'm a little less than I deserve. A little not good. How are you? John. John, I'm sorry. How can we help today? Well, my wife and I, we got ourselves in a little bit of a mess.

We're looking at about a million dollars in debt at the moment. On what? Um, well, I just closed down my business, uh, in June. And, um, so we, we had taken out some SBA loans, um, to keep the, um, to keep the business afloat. And, um, then we also have our house, uh, credit cards. Uh, we have IRS, uh, taxes due. Um, and, you know, a couple other things. How much is the, um, how much is the, um, how much is the SBA? Um, right now, I think there's about 250,000 left on them. How much is on the IRS? Uh, it's 350,000. Okay.

And, um, how much on credit cards? Uh, we actually just entered a consolidation loan and that we weren't sure if that was the right thing to do or not, but it, it dropped our monthly payment significantly. So right now we're at about a hundred. hundred. I think the total payoff was about 96. Okay. And so six, seven, what's the other 300 is your mortgage? Uh, 250,000 on the mortgage. Um, we have 8,000 left on a car. And then, um, just, um, repaying, um, uh, our accountants and attorneys. Mm-hmm. Which amounts to what? Um, 15,000 for an accountant, eight,

$8,000 for an attorney. And the attorney was for what? I'm sorry? The attorney was for what? They actually assisted me through my IRS. They got me an installment plan for $500 a month, which was great until too much after the installment agreement went through. Now they're saying that we have to review everything again and that we will be at least

liable for $175,000 to pay in the trust fund. I'm sorry, you're liable for $350,000. So where's $175 come in? I'm not sure. That's what the officer said when I was on the phone with him. An additional, 175? Not an additional. That includes in the $3.50.

Okay. So you didn't hold your 941s back? no we never held anything back um we we just weren't yeah they're not going to put that on payments that's right i don't i don't disagree with that okay um so what is your home worth um about 550 okay and what else do you own nothing um right before all this happened um we had um a rental property we had land we sold all those to um we actually did a flip and we lost everything on top of that um and then everything kind of just trickled down from that um and then we paid all some credit cards back then as well which was about four years ago um are you now working doing something else yes what do you

make uh just recently i was making um two 60 but now i'm making 140 i got let go from one one job because uh um they just couldn't afford me anymore so now it's 140 okay and your is your wife work outside the home sir um she makes about 20 grand how old are you 33 how long you've been married Eight years? Okay. Do you guys have kids? Three.

Three. Okay. I remember being right where you are. I was 28 with two. And I didn't make it. I ended up bankrupt. But I can share with you a couple things, okay? One is, this stuff will destroy your marriage.

if you if you don't fight for your marriage and so the two of you have to sit down and say regardless of what happens we're it we're doing it together we're in it to win it and we have to lock arms and it's you two against everybody else right okay um and she's scared she's scared in a way you don't even understand and you if you're normal um this has taken a lot of your confidence and your swagger away absolutely it did me it took it all the way okay and uh because it just grinds you under a boot and so once you say those things out loud that means you she gets extra hugs because she's terrified and we're going to do this we're going to make it we're not going to jail and we're not going to go

hungry. I don't know what else bad is going to happen, but those two things we do know. Okay. Now, so you protect your marriage and you understand that business failure is a part of running a business. Sometimes it happens. And it doesn't define the rest of your life unless you allow it to. But it does suck, and it does make you think that you're not worthy and you are worthy. you're better you're a lot better than you feel about you right now okay hear me brother you're a lot better than you feel about you i've been there i know and uh out of the ashes of mine this whole thing grew so there's something the other side of this there's something else to do but right now sucks beyond belief so food on the table trumps anybody else's request

lights and water kept on trumps anybody else's request paying the first mortgage on the residence so we have a place to eat we have food and water and utilities trumps anybody else's request no one gets

in line in front of your family do you hear me sir you take care of them and then you'll her terror will start to subside and your confidence will start to grow and that's where you're going to grow to fight through this is by taking care of those things first okay absolutely are you guys in a good church

you need to be you're not you need to be okay you need to get some people around you that love you and and walk into the presence of god on sunday morning while you're fighting the devil because this is wicked stuff you're going through dude okay it's warfare and there's no other way around it you've got to fight it okay now i don't know if you're going to make it or not mathematically as a secondary concern i'm concerned that you make it and that your wife makes it and your marriage makes it and your kids make it and the rest of these people can jump off a cliff they're irrelevant to me the sba is going to get what they deserve probably which is nothing because they're bankruptible the irs is not bankruptible and those 941s are not going away

so that thing right there is a real mess you may end up selling a house to clear the stinking IRS right I was thinking about going bankrupt but the SBA you know it's it's personally guaranteed so there I don't know you can't bankrupt the business you're bankrupt because you personally guaranteed it and that probably means you're selling house to pay the IRS so you need to get the advice of a bankruptcy attorney I'm not telling you to file but you need to learn what your options are because Number one is not credit cards. They can jump in a creek.

I'm not paying them nothing. Forget whatever you're paying them. Screw them. They get nothing. And the SBA screw them. They get nothing right now. They can all just sit over there and look at this mess because they created it too. And we're going to work on the IRS.

Oh, you've got to keep the car payment pay because you have a car to get to work. And you need to sit down with the bankruptcy attorney and learn. But I think if there's a way to manipulate through this, you're probably going to end up selling the house to clear the IRS. The rest of it is bankrupt. and you can start over. But I don't know how you're going to clear all this making 140. There may be a way, though. There may be a way.

But take care of you, John. Take care of your wife. Okay. Promise me? I promise. All right. And we're here if you need us. You call me any time.

I'm here to help you. I've been right where you are. Hang on. Kelly's going to pick up. I'm going to put you with Ramsey coach as my gift. We're going to be with you and walk with you. Thank you, Dave. Hey, we love debt-free screams on the debt-free stage in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions.

We love them even more when they're one of our own Ramsey team members. Yeah, here we go. Grant and Jordan Trailer are with us. Grant is a director of data and analytics with us at Ramsey Global. How long have you been with us? About seven and a half years. Seven and a half years. Wow.

Okay, cool. And how much debt have you? you guys paid, Grant? We paid off just over $130,000. All right. Very cool. And what kind of debt was that? That was all the mortgage. Hey! Payed off your house. Oh my gosh. Hey, how old are you two weirdos? I'm 37 and she's a little younger than me. I like it. It's a good answer. Like really legit 36. A very little. Why to go guys? What's the house worth? We think it's worth around $350,000 or so. I love it. Amazing. Way to go, guys.

So how long did it take you to knock the house out? Just over four and a half years. Okay. So you've been doing that while you were working here. Yes, sir. Now, how weird is it to be working on your get out of debt plan while working at Ramsey? Awkward, weird. It makes it pretty easy to be honest. It's been a great support system around me helping encourage us along the way. It's been really cool. Yeah, you're not really given an option.

We do give you an option. We're not looking at your stuff. But, I mean, everybody around just encouraging rather than discouraging. Yeah. So cheering you on, sharing you on, sharing you on, sharing you on. And since it's team members, for those of you out there and listening on the other side of this on a speaker, we do not ask their – we've got about 150 of their teammates standing around here. So we don't ask their income, okay? So that's not part of it. But you did it in seven?

No, four. You've been here seven years. You did it in four years. Yeah. Was it faster than you guys were – like when you originally kind of mapped it out? Did it go faster or slower? it went a little slower honestly when we kind of started out we set a B-Hag that we knew the math didn't work on but we just wanted to be aggressive because we knew we didn't really have a math

problem we had a behavior problem and we needed to set a goal so big that it seemed hard and we had to change our behaviors around okay yes so the goal itself was probably like a little impossible but you wanted that yeah three and a half years was the goal so we were about a year behind that. Okay. Okay. So great. You're a failure. Yeah, complete. A good counselor. So, uh, Jordan, I mean, he comes to work here. And he comes home and we're going to pay off the house in three and a half years. And you're going, what? Well, the conversations like that always come at like 11 at night when the kids are, you know, going down and it's quiet. And you're exhausted. And I'm exhausted. And so I definitely did not agree at first. It was not only impossible,

but like why. And I don't have this culture around me every day. And so he comes home with these really big ideas. And then I kind of look at him like he's crazy. And then he talks me through it. But honestly, the thing that helped the most was he gave me a visual in his data life. And it showed me this is where, you know,

like we're wasting money at this point. And I was like, well, that's a lot of money. Yeah. It does, like it really doesn't actually make sense to keep doing this. So let's do it, you know? Let's do it. Data guy got you with data. I know.

Graphs and all. Data analytics comes home from work. Oh, wow. Literally every day. Yes. I love it. Very cool. Very cool.

And you have three kids during the time. So were you guys, because how intense do you feel like you guys were in the four and a half? Like was it really like, okay, we're going to do as much as we can as fast as we can. Or did you all live a little through baby steps four through six? It felt a bit like a run ahead. Hold on. Slow down. Run ahead.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like you. It's like, let's celebrate. Let's be present. Let's enjoy what we have right now. And so he went into some moments that were like, whoa, we're not getting where we're supposed

to be going. This is frustrating. I think that was where he felt like, are we actually going to keep doing this? So for me, I needed that cup of coffee, you know what I mean? Yeah. That's a good one. I like that. Yeah.

And so we had an anniversary celebration in the middle of that. That was big and just a ton of fun. and we acted like kids, and I'm kind of still living on that. That was like over two years ago, you know, but when you're not used to having coffee, you know what I'm saying? It's like, that stuff helps go a long time. So, and our kids are, like, they don't know that we're weird because they're too young. Like, this is just weird, you know, and that's just their normal.

And so they talk about it like it's normal, you know? So, I mean, yeah, they get sad. Well, it's not. It's not. Those kids' parents are heroes. You guys are amazing. I mean, look at what you did. This is, you've changed your whole.

family tree, because now you have your entire income, no debt of any kind, and you're only 37 years old. Yeah. How does that feel? It feels, honestly, incredible. We knew when we went into the bank, I kind of expected, like, that moment where we pay it off to be this emotional high, and then we'd go back to normal life, and it wouldn't feel that different in the day-to-day, and it was honestly completely flipped. In the bank, it felt like we were just in the dingy banks surrounded by people who were pretending to be excited for us, and it was kind of anticlimactic. And then we went back to everyday life and there was this tangible weight that I didn't know I was walking under the whole time that I could just feel not there. Like there was this freedom that I didn't expect and Jordan and I both made a comment along the way of noticing that and calling out how it was a lot more of a relief than we honestly expected it to be in the day to day.

What's the big thing you're going to do for yourselves to celebrate? The big thing to celebrate, we haven't decided where we're going to go yet, but we have always kind of dangled as a carrot out at the other end of this, that we want to go on a big trip with our family. And like our kids have gotten older, so what that was going to look like has changed over the four and a half years. So we're figuring that out. But we want to do a really big celebration, just get away for, you know, a week and a half,

two weeks, either go international or even stay domestic and just really live it up. Go big. I love it. I like it. How many paychecks have you guys had without the house payment? I think only two. This was the first month's budget that we had without them. Is that crazy?

That was a tricky conversation. Yeah. Why? Because you want to spend it? No. No, because we realized immediately, like, you go into your muscle, you know, movement of like, okay, budget, talk. And then all of a sudden it was like, well, now that money is sitting there. And so he starts allocating. And then I come along because I'm the one that comes up behind, you know, because I'm not the nerd.

And then it was like, no, that's not what I was thinking we'd do with that money. And he's like, yeah, no. And so then I like, I like. Our kids were gone with our amazing parents who have been our biggest cheerleaders this whole time. Shout out to all three sets of parents. And they were gone and we did a weekend of vision casting. And that was where it was like, whoa, debt is a freaking wait. And it's gone.

And now we get to just. So great. And that was like such an amazing moment, not only for the financial part of our home, but like us, our marriage. Who we are as souls. Like we are image bears, you know? of the kingdom and we're imaging him in his yeah I'm not going to do that in his generosity you know and so that was the moment for me where it was just like that's fun we've never had this before we never talked like this before that is so cool that's fun yeah yeah it's really cool we kind of in

that moment realized we've been going for four and a half years and we had this shared goal and now we don't have that shared goal and we have different expectations and so it's really cool to have that conversation and actually align to where do we want to be 30 years for now this is a problem people need to have. It's a fun problem, for sure. So good. All right, bring the kiddos up. Let's hear their names and ages.

Come on up, guys. And so this is Cal, he's 10. Kate is eight, and Finley is six. All right. You guys, your mom and dad have changed your whole lives and your kids' lives. You don't even know it yet. It's pretty impressive. Very, very cool stuff.

Very well done. Did you get to miss school today? Did you all get to miss school to be here? No, they're homeschooled. We did it all morning. Okay. I was like, that's pretty good. That's a good day. That's a good day. All right. Very fun. Very fun. All right, guys, $130,000 paid off. House and everything at 37 years old. They did it in four and a half years. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Three, two, one, we're dead free. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Wow. Amazing. Oh, my gosh. Man, that's a power couple right there. And we have the privilege of working with one of them every day. Pretty cool stuff.

Well, and it just shows when you're intentional and you have the plan, even though it's a big lofty goal, like they did the three and a half years, you know, you have something you're aiming for. Even something like paying off a house, which feels impossible for so many people. Boom. Boom. Don't tell me it can't be done. Grant and Jordan will tell you otherwise.

Boom! we've done in-depth research 100% of you are going to die you need a will you're going to die you need a will it's national will make a will month and 43% of adults say they don't have a will because they procrastinated i just haven't gotten around to it and so i'm going to leave my family behind completely vulnerable because i won't do adult stuff like getting a will done or I don't know how to make all these big decisions well make them it's a good thing to otherwise the state's going to make them for you and so well everything goes to family anyway no it goes goes to the lawyer the lawyers get all of it if you don't do a will so this is crazy you guys you've got to get your wills done it's nuts the number of people that die without a will is it's like seven out of ten people this is not good it's a good way to destroy what little bit of wealth you've built

instead of letting your family benefit from it. And so go to ramsysolutions.com slash wills quiz for a simple and free online will quiz. And we'll help tell you what the right kind of will is. Do you need to go to a lawyer and do an in-depth thing? Or can you go to Mama Bear Legal Forms and do an online will in about 30 minutes? I don't care. But you need to get one done. Don't be walking around without a will.

If you've moved states, you need a new will. If your marital status has changed, you need a new will. if your marital status has changed you need a new will if major life stuff has blown up you probably need a new will or update change amendment whatever i don't care but you need to get this day on top of this stuff guys it's too emotionally expensive for those people you leave behind trenton is in washington hi trenton how are you i'm doing fine how are you better than i deserve. What's up? Oh, not a whole lot. Had a friend recommend me to you, and I've been hooked on your shows. I was sort of watching. Um, just, uh, I had a question, uh, you know, I kind of got

myself in a bit of a hole here. I, uh, recently got let go from my job. I unemployed. I gotten an accident with a work truck on while I was on shift, uh, and out to a job site. So every time someone wrecks a truck, they fire them? apparently so you weren't like drunk or something no not at all okay what were you making uh roughly 80,000 a year you got CDL 85,000 no light duty tow truck driver and uh roadside mechanic for heavy duty trucks such as semize okay so you're a diesel mechanic correct okay that's good news All right. Because you probably weren't making enough.

I mean, a lot of diesel mechanics make over 100. Yeah. Yeah. I originally got put on to the job for the light duty tolling. I just wanted to branch out and try something a little different, I guess. Do you have certifications in diesel? I do. You do.

Okay. How long ago did you get fired? Roughly about two months ago, I want to say. Why are you not working? and turn in a wrench somewhere? That's the thing. I'm unsure. I enjoyed towing a lot.

I love to tell and I want to get back into towing. But now with that on my record, it's kind of hard. Yeah, so don't. I'm sorry, you need a job. You've been sitting on your butt for two and a half months. You don't starve the death. You need to go get a job turning a wrench, man. You make $100K as a diesel mechanic.

Go be a mechanic tomorrow. Yeah. And you work your way. back into towing in the future years or open your own towing thing later, but let's not get hungry first. What are you been doing during the two and a half months? Watching Oprah? Oprah's on the air.

In your shows. Networking with friends. He's watching your rerun. Watching me, not Oprah. That's great. Oh, my gosh. Okay. So, honey, you got to get you.

A friend making a little bit of money here and there. Yeah, you're not. Yeah, you're sitting on your butt. Dude, you got to go. Oh, you have a wonderful skill. For real, though, Triton. You have a wonderful skill. How are you surviving?

How are you paying for food and keeping your rent or mortgage paid, you know, bills? I'm just running to the end of my savings, and my wife is currently working. Oh, you're married. What does she make? Correct. I think probably 40 or 50,000 a year. And how old are you, sir? I'm 25.

Okay. And how much debt deal? you have? Around 60,000. On what? I think it's like 40, 45 on personal loans, like 15 on two vehicles. Okay. Okay. All right. Are you guys working together? You and your wife with money? Or is it? Correct. Yes. No, everything's shared. It is. Okay. Okay. Share payments, everything. Great. Great. Everything's together. Well, let's, what's she, what's she doing? Is she, what's she saying to you. She's like, hey, Trenton. Like, what is she, is she urging you to get

out there? She is, yeah. And I guess a big reason that I am not actively looking today is I'm getting ready to go to Ohio for my dad's wedding, not next week with the week after. And you know, jobs are probably not going to hire me with taking vacation two weeks from today. So get the job and it starts the day

you get back. yeah I don't know I guess yeah I've definitely been lazy no listen here's what happened okay you 25 years old you were doing something you loved with people you liked and an accident happened that wasn't your fault or if it was your fault it was still an accident you didn't do it on purpose and the jerks fired you and it knocked the wind out of you and you've been laying around two months trying to get your breath back because it knocked the snot out of you. It took some of your confidence and your swagger away. Yeah.

Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. I can agree with that for you. I'm trying to tell you in the last few minutes that you, sir, have a wonderful skill that is very marketable and you can make a lot of money. And stacking some cash right now would feel really good to a bruised ego. yeah it'd be good really good

it would return some of your dignity to you that they stole from you it's kind of ridiculous that they fired you but they did I don't know where I was at with it but you just got to accept it and roll with what's certainly in life you know yeah well that's true but you got a roll now okay so what I'm telling you is it's normal to get the breath knocked out of you and it's normal for something like this

to hurt but you cannot let that be a reason to be sidelined. They don't have the power to sideline you. Only you have the power to sideline you. And you have sidelined yourself for the last two and a half months while you hurt from this experience. And so I'm mean old Uncle Dave who's telling you you got chops, you got tools, you know how to fix stuff that nobody else on the planet hardly knows how to do. You can make 80 to 120 grand a year, turn the wrench on a decent. buddy and then you go stack you some cash clear up this debt pile up some money buy you a truck

start your own towing company in four years yeah i'll show them yeah that sounds like a damn good plan yeah but it's not going to be it's not going to happen uh working three hours a week right screwing around right it's time you throw your shoulders back and go i'm better than the way i was treated. You are better than the way you were treated. You are better than the way you were treated. You have an actual skill in a world that doesn't know how to do things. You know how to do things.

And so you have a tremendous advantage. I mean, if you were just doing dumb work and got fired and then you got to go look for more dumb work, this conversation wouldn't sound like this. But dude, I'm serious. I mean, Mike Rowe that does dirty jobs and I, he was showing me the data the other day on the trades. And one of the things that keeps popping up in one of the hottest things out there. And the biggest shortage is freaking diesel mechanics.

Literally what, yeah. And I talked to one the other day that's making 120. And so I'm serious. It's not a bad. You are in a really good shape. And the best, let me tell you, the best. Revenge for stuff like this is success. Success is a wonderful revenge.

And you don't even have to mention their name ever again. You can just move on. And then you can build a company bigger than them. By the time you're 46, it could happen. It could happen. I know guys that do it. Have at it, brother. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show.

Cruze, number one bestselling author, Ramsey Personality, and my daughter, is my co-host today. The number is AAA 825-5-2-2-25, and is in Kentucky. Hi, Ann, how are you? I'm doing well, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So, I'm calling today with a little bit of a different dilemma. My husband and I have been married for a little over 10 years.

We graduated right before we got married, and he found you. we, well, he had to get me on board, kind of, but we decided to follow the baby steps. We paid off over $300,000 of student loan debt in about four years. Good. And then we decided we would start saving four-down payment for our first home. Good. So we did that. We started investing in our 401Ks, doing all the right things.

But it's been kind of a struggle to find the right home, trying to find something that we both agree on. So that was about five years ago now, and we still haven't taken the plunge, mostly on my husband's end. And in the meantime, you know, we've just been piling up all this cash that we have. Okay. So, wait a minute, stop, stop. I'm confused. The goal that we both agreed to was to save up a big down payment and then get a house. And now you can't agree on the house for five years? That's correct. What is it? What is it he wants that you don't one or vice versa. Well, I think at this point, the biggest issue is that we have over $600,000

saved and seeing that money go. Okay. You said you couldn't agree on the house. Well, I am like to think he doesn't want to buy a house. Well, he won't admit to that, but I do think that's a big part of it, yes. Okay, so let me go back to the other part because if he found a house he liked, I think you could get him to do it. Well, has he ever found a house he liked, Dan?

Or do you kept showing him over five years different houses, and he just didn't like any of them? Well, a little caveat. We live in, like, Appalachia. There's not a lot of real estate. So it is kind of hard where we live to find a house that meets all of, you know, what we want. Like, he wants a garage so we can have a boat one day, and he wants all this stuff that is kind of hard to find. We got $600,000. Are you in rural eastern Kentucky?

Correct. okay so typically you're not looking in a subdivision correct um that's correct there are a couple of subdivisions here but homes there or anywhere from 600,000 to over a million dollars depending on what you get okay so what are you looking at that's another thing is it's been hard for us to agree you know when we started out we said maybe max of 600 and then he's like well I don't think I want to spend that much a couple years later and then now it's back to it's just been really a struggle to come to an agreement. Okay.

Meanwhile, the houses in that subdivision have gone up 300 grand. Correct, yes. That's stupid. I agree. Yeah, we're not parking the money. Instead, the money sitting here making 3%, and if it was invested in a good piece of real estate called your home, it would have gone up 10 or 15% during that period of time.

Right. and I'm just struggling with at what point How long do I stick this out? It's called it costs you $100,000. Yeah, I mean, I think that you guys are going to have to sit down and go, look, I'm not okay. I'm not okay. We agreed that we were going to buy a house. Now, we need, and we're not going to, there's no such thing as a perfect house.

And there's no such thing as a perfect husband either. So, I'm going to settle on both of them. We're going to get a house. I'm going to get an imperfect house with my imperfect husband. Ready, set, go. Here we go. We're going to do this. We agreed to this is what we're going to do, and sitting on this money costing us,

and I'm getting increasingly pissed. Right. Yes, for sure. Now, this is what you're describing, and I think you just need to say it out loud. I don't think you've said it out loud. Yes, you said that you have. I have. I actually, yeah, like there's been some things just a few months ago,

things came to a head, and I was like, I think we just need some time apart. So he did leave for a few days. and kind of had a change of heart and came back and we looked at some homes, but it's just like dragging the feet, it seems like. Yeah, so your marriage counselor that you need to be seeing should be walking you guys through the idea that he is not respecting your opinion and you. Okay. Okay, because

That's kind of how I feel It doesn't mean he has to go along with you But when he agrees to something and then slow walks it That means he's patting you on the little head Right, and I feel like I haven't been like, you know, when we agreed to purchase a home five years ago Like I just feel at this point like I've lost trust also If that makes sense

With his word, because he said he was going to do one thing And he won't follow through with what you guys again So you're losing, you're losing respect, and he's losing, he's not respecting your thing. So this is a marriage breakdown. It's come really deep here. This is sad. I mean, when I started the call, it was just like we need to buy a house, and now it's like, this is tearing our marriage apart. Basically, yes.

Wow. All right. So I'm not sure he has gotten the memo yet. Okay. how serious this is. I mean, I understand he left and came back and... It's not about the house anymore. This is no longer about the house.

Yeah, that's the conversation you have, right? This is now about us agreeing on something. We both have a vote and then executing on what we agree on. And the statement, which I think is big in a marriage that I'm starting to not to trust you. Like, that's a bit, like that, the one person in life that you should trust is the spouse. Like, that's the, that is the, you know, that's the person. Have you said that to him, that sentence? I have.

Okay. And how does he respond? I mean, it's hard for me because he's very, he's a person who can't make a decision. He overanalyzes everything. So he acts like he understands why I would feel that way. Sure. But he just can't seem to move past the point of actually putting it into action. Yeah.

I guess if I'm explaining that correctly. Yeah. yeah if i'm his if i were sitting there in the office with the marriage counselor and you two were sitting there i would challenge him that he now has grown to love the six hundred thousand dollars cash more than a house and more than his wife's wishes okay and that's a that's a dangerous that's a dangerous place that's what you've described yeah it's a great it's a great way of saying it's what you've described and i think you guys have got to work through that But this guy sounds like he is emotionally stunted.

And so, you guys have got some work to do. And then the house purchase will be a result of you having found some healing and trust and respect and those other words in your marriage again back in your relationship and the house purchase. So I think the house purchase is not happening, is revealing other things that are going on. It's not the, it's the simple. him. And it's a deep scarcity mindset on his end, too. I mean, he just, he didn't want to let go of anything. There's a level of like that control. And he said he's a detail guy. He's got paralysis of the analysis. He's sitting around thinking about it. And he wants to just keep it all runs over in his

here. And that's too much. This is, I mean, it's just, 27,000. He's hedging. One time instead of just going and doing something. Ready, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim. There's some control he has. Fire! He, oh, dear. Come on. Jeez. Today's question of the day on the Ramsey show is brought to you by Why Refi if you've been turned down for refinancing your defaulted private student loans, you're not a loan and you're not out of luck. Why refi exists to give people like you another shot. Go to yrefi.com slash Ramsey.

That's the letter Y. e-f-y-com slash Ramsey not in all states today's question comes from Hunter in Texas my wife is a CPA and smarter than me better looking than me and better at everything except for choosing a spouse

good line she uses every dollar to make sure we don't overspend but treats it like a general guideline not something to actually stick to I always thought the budget was like a script for a play where you write the numbers and once the play starts you don't go off script

Who is rights? I mean, I yield to you, Hunter, and it's that when you set the budget, it is what it is. Now, I do know after doing budgeting for 10 plus years, 15 years of marriage, there's going to be a lot of circumstances. For us, it's almost monthly now, where things come up that you don't realize. And so you have to add an extra line item. You've got to shift some numbers around. So there is kind of this ever-moving part of the budget, which is going to be real.

Like, that's going to happen. So it's less of a guideline, but when you plan it, you stick to it. And when something comes up, you may have to kind of shift and figure out how to make it work, but it's still going to work within the numbers. So that's how Winston and I do it because, I mean, I had like a, yeah, like a $134 doctor visit. I literally paid today from two weeks ago. And I didn't know that was going to happen, right? And so you've got to, like, put that in the every dollar budget.

and then I'm shift to another thing. So things are going to come up that you don't expect. And so there is going to be a level of having to be somewhat flexible. But for the most part, I'd say 90% of it is planned out that you 100% should know from start to finish of the month. You need to agree on where every dollar is going to go and stick to it. And if you're going to make a change, and you will, as Rachel said, make some changes. but in the middle of the month the only way you make a change

two things have to occur we both agree to the change you don't make the change and they go look what I did and we both agree to the change and if you raise the amount of money

in a category or create a new category you've already spent all your money on paper so you also have to lower some other category by that same amount so if you If you create a line item for $134 for an unexpected doctor visit for a sick kid, and that was not in the budget,

then we have to lower some other amount somewhere in the budget by $134 because you're not in Congress. This has to balance. And so two things occur when changes are made. Number one, both agree to it before you do it. Number two, you lower another category by the amount you raised that category. That's exactly right. And so there's still balances. And that's another part of being debt-free.

When we tell people I work the way out of debt, you actually have margin. So you may be putting some money away in savings, and you may kind of have to take some of that lower, a little bit of the savings to pay some of this stuff. $134 less going into savings. Right, that's right. But that's like all of this works in unison, right? Like you're moving forward with your money throughout the baby steps to help even with some of these things, which is great.

Yeah, but a general guideline means she's doing whatever she wants to do in reporting to you later and that's not okay. Yeah, I'd be stricter on it. That's not, that's not, no, you're more right than she is. And one thing you guys could do is sign up for one of our every dollar trainings. We have free trainings. Weekly now, in the Ramsey personalities, we do it because every dollar within the budgeting app, it's going to help you not only with the budget, but we have a digital coach component, which is actually going to show you and help you work the baby steps to know, okay, what are things within my financial world that I can shift and change to be more proactive? And so all of that is in these every dollar training.

So if you guys want to check it out, you can sign out for free. Yep. At Ramsey Solutions.com slash webinar. We do a Q&A. We walk through a lot of these kind of questions, like what you just had, Hunter. So, yeah, make sure to check that out. Rob's in Indiana. Hey, Rob, what's up?

Hey, thanks for having me on. I have a very quick math nerd question for you guys. Dave is your man. Dave is ready for it. Wonderful. We owe $125,000 left on our house. And our monthly payment for our mortgage is $1,500 a month. Our take-home pay is about $8,500. We have a three-year-old son, and we're only going to be able to have one baby because of COVID-related stuff. And I already have about $25,000 to $30,000 saved for my son's college already. We have been putting $417. a month into a $5.29 for him. And I was thinking about stopping, putting any money in his college, basically to just have another $4,417 a month to put towards our mortgage

to try to get it paid off in the next three years. And with your guys' online mortgage payoff calculator, that I pay around $4,000 a month, I can actually get our budget completely paid off, or our mortgage completely paid off. Yeah, but you're talking about $1,500 plus $4,400,000. It would be 1900, not 4,000. Yeah, yeah.

And I've went through my budget, and I've already found another $1,500 that I can put towards it every month. Okay. And your wife's on board with all that? Yes, I think she's on board with all that. And you've got room to breathe. You're not doing rice and beans. That's not what we're trying to do. Oh, no, absolutely not.

We're doing just fine. Okay. All right. Yeah, you can circle back to the 529 later if you need to after the four years, because how old is your baby? Three? Yeah. So, I mean, three years from now, the house is paid for, four years from now, the house is paid for, there's seven. If you look up and they go, 25 is not going to be enough, or what the 25 is going to grow to is not going to be enough,

then I can add some money and catch back up. You won't have any trouble because you won't have a house payment anymore. Yeah, exactly. I figured if I put the money we put towards our mortgage back in for one year, that's $18,000, which would be more than I was going to miss out on before. Exactly. And way more. And it will continue to grow anyway.

It might be enough in there already, depending on the college choice and what you're planning to fund and all that kind of thing. So if it's invested in good mutual funds, it's 25, 50, 100, it's probably 200 grand when they get there if you don't add anything. So, you know, you need to sit with your smart vester pro and calculate out what the 25 is going to grow to. And that'll tell you if you need to add anything at all. And you can certainly do that after four and a half years after the house is cleared.

So I'm with you. Good plan. Rock and roll. Math nerd approved. Boom. There we go. He said I had a math nerd question. I was like, perfect.

Dave loves a. I love a good math riddle. Good math riddle. I was that nerd kid for sure. All right. Mike's in Nebraska. Hey, Mike. Hey, how's it going?

Better than I deserve. How can we help? Great. So I have a situation where. my parents, you know, growing up, I knew my parents weren't the best with their finances. It's something that I initially struggled with, but then feel like I've done a, me and my wife have done a good job, but come to find out after my dad's passing a couple of years ago, just how bad they were with money, and they had essentially racked up $200,000 worth of debt

living off of a line of credit. Now it's just my mom on her acreage. And I have, over the past two years, been working to, I started an LLC to do a storage business on her property in order to try and monetize her property a bit and get her more income to cover the mortgage that we had to get for her. Oh, we had to get for her. That I helped her get for herself. Okay, so you're not on the mortgage. We did co-sign on it because of my mom's, my mom's 74. So we put, because of our, our house was paid off, I co-signed for it. Okay.

How can I help? My question is, she doesn't have a lot of retirement. Little to none, she gets, like, essentially like $5,000 annuity a year. That usually goes towards her. some of the medicine that she has for the year um she has social security coming she has social security yes how much is that she gets about just a little over 2,000 all right tell you what hang on through the break we'll come back talk to you I don't have enough information to spit an answer at you so hang on all right we're talking with

Mike in Nebraska. Mike's mom is 74. She's got 3,000 coming in for Social Security, 5,000 a year from an annuity to help with her medical bills. She and her husband, Mike's dad, ran up a bunch of debt. We're not very good with money. Mike jumped in, took out a mortgage and put a storage building on their lot, and he co-signed the mortgage, and that's how far we'd gotten in the discussion.

Does that all sound accurate, Mike? Yeah. Okay. Now, so how much is the mortgage now? The mortgage right now is $1,300 a month. No, I mean the balance. I'm sorry. Oh, sorry, the balance.

We started at 203, and it's at $185 right now. Okay. And the property, with the storage building, everything added to it, the current value of the whole thing is what? Roughly, we've probably a guesstimate between $800 to $900. Okay. All right. So there's around $700K in equity right now.

Mm-hmm. Okay. And she's lived on this property for how long? Since I was little. We've had it. It's been in our fittest land's been in our family since my dad grew up on the land. Okay. So you're the third generation.

Mm-hmm. Okay. All right. So your grandparents were there. Mm-hmm. And you have a memory of all that, too. How much acreage is there? It's roughly about nine, just under nine acres.

How rural is the area? It's right next to a highway that connects to a decent-sized town. So it's not very... Because nine acres at 100 grand an acre doesn't sound like farmland. it has two houses on it how many storage units do you put on it right now we're like we have two sheds but that do like basically and we're doing RV and boat storage for the storage okay all right and you live nearby uh yeah in town okay so you're trying to help her run boat storage storage storage get enough cash flow to pay this mortgage yeah so

So so far we've been able to, between renting the sheds and the storage, I've been able to cover the mortgage for the year as well as like a little bit more. She gets $1,000 rent from the other house that's on the property. So is she living less than she makes now with your help? Sorry, say that again? I said, is she able to live on the money that these things are providing her with Social Security? I have her living off of just Social Security. She did get, like, my dad was the type that he didn't, he wanted my mom to be at home.

And so she never, she hasn't worked for a long time after her initial career. And then, but she does a part-time job now and all the money from that job goes towards principal on the loan. Okay. All right. So she's on board on all this. Sounds like she sounds like she realizes her situation. She got her head in the game. She's not going to get to keep this property if she doesn't get her act together

and she's getting her act together. That's good. Yeah, the property is what I feel like is the saving grace for her and what the only thing that we have like that keeps us from being. Okay, so how's her health? Financially made. She's, she's, her help is good, not great. are you the sole heir

I have a brother as well okay so what happens when she passes the the land is split between my brother and myself what are you going to do then my hope was to

build up a storage the storage business on there in order to offset any cost for her future home care. I'm talking about your brother. How are you going to split the land with your brother when she's gone? The land is large enough that we actually got an approval to property line-wise, split the property in half if we wanted to.

You can't, there's a mortgage on it. That's, well, one of the questions I had, like questions for calling that I had for that was, I have, I have, uh, stock from my company, and it's sort of just been plateauing for a while, and I was wondering if it would be wiser to take that money and roll it into her loan to pay it off and then have the property storage sort of pay back. How are you protected from your brother ending up with that money? My mom has basically said that anything that I put into the land, she would modify her will

to make sure that I'm, like the many money I put into the land as protected as like first out. So if we had ultimately decided to sell the land. Yeah, you would need to take a lien. You would need to take a lien on the land for the 185. How much is the value of your stock? Right now it's 120, but as it rolls off, like, it'll be 200. and then if the stock goes up, whatever growth from that.

As it rolls off, what do you mean? Like every quarter or so I get more released to me. Oh, so it's restricted. Okay. Yeah. Okay. All right. So you just got to.

All right. Stay with the company. Yeah. Is your brother, have you having good communications with him on all this so you don't get burned? Um, I mean, we're, we're on the same page. Um, when I, I think I'm more on the, on the hook financially. Yeah. You're the only one on the hook, obviously. But, um, but, um, but yeah, he's, he's supportive and helps with the property and the management of things and helps with my mom. So, like, he's, he's on board with everything. Okay. All right. Yeah, yes, I would pay off the mortgage with your stock. Yes. because the mortgage is in your name you have stock to pay off a mortgage that's in your name yes I would

but you need to take a lien against the property take a mortgage against the property at no interest and to be paid when you know to be taken as a as a that guarantees that her will functions because now you have a lien on the property and your brother cannot get anything out of the property until that mortgage is paid okay and And you've got the ability to split the property easily because you're the mortgage holder then. But you're not going to split a property with a commercial mortgage holder unless you refinance. Right. And if I guess the thing that I've gone back and forth with was between the money going from my stock into the property versus going into like retirement accounts and things for myself.

Yeah, well, this is your retirement because you're betting the farm. Listen, you went borrowed $185,000. Or you wouldn't borrow to $100,000. Now it's down to $185. You act like your mother did this. You did this. It's your, you're liable. You have a mortgage.

So, no, you don't put money in retirement while you have a mortgage on a side piece of farmland. No, absolutely not. So you left the, you left the position of separation a long time ago. This is no longer separated. This is not your mom. This is your deal because you signed up for it and you're heavily invested with time and effort and everything else. I like where it's taking you guys overall because your mom has taken responsibility. She's rained herself in.

She's, you know, taking a job. She's living on a budget. Your brother's involved. But her $200,000 take a lien on the property for that. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever he pays off. If he takes $185 pays off the mortgage and puts a lien against it for $185, that means $185 comes to him before.

he splits with his brother after she's gone yeah yeah what about her 200,000 dollar line of credit that's it they refinanced it took it out they already took it out they refinanced it so that that's the thing so we're getting rid of that and yeah no debt now the only debt is you and you're not collecting on it until she's gone and so that money's not working very hard for you but it you know you're dealing with third generation land you guys are planning to keep it you're not going to liquidate it so there's no out for you other than pay off the debt so that's the you stepped into it and you got it on your shoe that's the way it works our scripture of the day philippians 412 i know what it is to be in need and i know what it is to have plenty i've learned

the secret of being content in any and every situation whether well-fed or hungry whether living in plenty or in want. Maya Angelou said, forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn't know before you loaned it. That's good. That's good. I like it. All right, Don's in Grand Rapids.

Hey, Don, how are you? Good, how are you? Better than I deserve. I see on my screen that you are a baby step millionaire. Congratulations. Thank you. I appreciate that. Well done.

So what's your net worth? It is 1,770,000. $23,412. Way to go, man. Way to go. Give me a little breakdown on that by category. What's it invested in? Sure.

It's $652,000 in 401k, $161,000 in a Roth IRA, $35,000 in a $5.29,000. Our mortgage, our house is paid for, home value of $446,000. We have a cabin that's also paid for, validating. 385,000, and then we have 91,000 cash. All right. How old are you? 38. My wife's hired 38, and we became millionaires when we were 35.

Way to go. You did early. Congratulations. How much of this did you inherit? We inherited about 90,000 from my wife's grandma when she passed away. How long ago was that? 2018. Were you already millionaires by then?

Oh, 2022 is when we became millionaires. Okay, so you shot up, man. Way to go. Okay, so mathematically, though, you did not become a millionaire because of inheritance. No. No. This is all you saving and dipping. And what's been your range of income since you started working, best year or worst year?

Worst year, 45,000 household. The max is going to be this year. We're expecting it to be around $315,000. What you do for a living? So I work in supply chain, the analytics in the food manufacturing industry. My wife is a manager for the state of Michigan. We both had incremental progress throughout our careers.

Okay. Cool, cool. So you got a degree in supply chain, logistics? My degree is actually in general management, and I have an MBA in marketing. Okay. My wife has a degree in environmental science and biology, and she also has an MBA, but that's in consulting.

Okay. So how do you attribute, okay, the high of a 315, but that's just recently? So most of this time you've been making probably between 100 and 200, and you get to a net worth millionaire status at 35 years old. Somebody's 22 is listening to us right now. Tell them how you did that. so we graduated college in 2011 living on nearly nothing and once we got into our careers we just pretended like we had no money and just put all of our income towards getting our debt paid off so i graduated with sixty thousand dollars in debt and student loans we got that

paid off in two years um and we just really focused on putting our whole health behind getting out of debt that's what we did we bought our first house in May 2015 we paid that off in four years and then you know we paid off we we bought our cabin in 2023 we paid it off in one year so I think really the big secret for us was it extremely focused on getting out of debt putting our entire household behind it when you've been systematically dumping money in this 401k and off like crazy too because you got about 900 in that yeah we've been fortunate enough that we've been able to contribute to our retirements but also have a high enough income that we've

made you know get our debt paid off to you so um yeah lifestyle creep is not what I would say for you guys you guys have stayed very intentional yeah if if you look at us we have a pretty average house with pretty average vehicles and we wear pretty average clothes so you know, walking down the street, you wouldn't see us and think we're millionaires, but we are, so it's pretty awesome. Well, you weren't trying to impress anybody walking down the street. You're trying to impress the people in your house, you and your wife. That's all we care about impressing, and so that sets it up.

Wow. Very cool, man. So you think in today's world, the current economy, sitting right where we are, that if you came out of school, you could do this again in the same period of time or faster? I mean, if I graduated right now, we have to do it all over again. We could probably do it as fast. We're just, that's just the kind of people we are. You know, we both legitimately get angry at the debt that we had.

When we first started paying off our mortgage, we don't even know what the minimum payment was because we would pay four or five times that every month. So, and then every time we paid it down, we would get kind of excited about it. So we were spending thousands of dollars towards our mortgage, and it was awesome because our cost living was so low that we could do it, and it wouldn't hurt us. But now we're set up for life and hopefully continues this way. So great.

What are you guys doing now for fun? Now that there's, you guys make a great income, you're doing everything. You have no mortgages on both property, on either property. What does life look like now? well we've got two kids we have a seven-year-old and four-year-old to keep us busy we really enjoy going to our cabin it's a good way to unwind and relax we spent a lot of time with our families we just took our kids to a surprise vacation over in wisconsin and you know i think we're planning a possibly going on a cruise next year so fun that's great being in a position to where we're could do those things without really needing to worry about impacting our personal lives is very enjoyable and freeing.

Yeah. Wow. Very cool. Good for you guys. Well, we're getting ready to announce another Ramsey cruise, so be listening. Right. Join us on that one. We'd love to have you.

Way to go, guys. I'm so proud of y'all. I mean, in your 30s, that's incredible. What do you drive? My wife drives a 2014 Chevy Sonic. We bought that in 2014, and we bought it new, but it was a pretty inexpensive car, but we paid that off about three months after we bought it. And then I drive a 2020, Ford F-150 that we paid cash for.

Okay. Yeah, you need to upgrade your wife's car. That car sucks. Yeah, I know. You have $2 million. She's laughing at you right now or she can hear you. Yeah, your wife's car sucks. You need to go get her a car, dude.

I will try. She likes her car, though. I don't. Hey, Don, I'm proud of you guys. Way to go, y'all. We're so proud of you. Way to go. Baby Steps Millionaires at 35 years old.

We're talking to him here. He's 38. They are 38. They together. You did hear that very clearly. We talk up to couples about the correlation between the ability to build well, and working together. And the speed at what you do it, you're both all in?

Yeah, you're going. We both were mad at debt. We both agreed to put thousands of dollars on our mortgage. We both were excited when we've seen the numbers go down. It's like they, yeah, they. You heard the unity all the way through that. So when we're trying to get you couples to combine your finances, we're trying to get you couples to be an agreement on where you're going and how you're

going to get there, this is where it takes you. you're 38 years old with a million seven and I'm griping you out to buy your wife a better car that's where it gets you yep okay because you guys understand when they're 44 if they do nothing else this is 3 million 4 when they are 51 if they do nothing else this is 7 million dollars this is where this is going you'll me do it again 14 million dollars let me do it again $28 million in their 60s. That's where these numbers are going. That's how this works.

And so once you get this thing going in the right direction and you quit supporting life insurance companies and banks and car companies, and instead start supporting your own stinking family, you become this guy. This guy's a rock star, man. Power couple. And the values align. Don't tell me you can't do it.

Don't tell me the amount. American dream is dead. I talk to people like Don every week. I just think you've been listening to your communist college professor too much. This free enterprise system stuff works, boys and girls. Go do what Don did. That puts us out of the Ramsey show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it.

In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.