The Ramsey Show - App - Do Debit Cards Protect Me Against Fraud? (Hour 2)

Episode Date: February 16, 2024

Девочка-пай Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm George Campbell, Ramsey personality, joined by my good friend, Dr. John Deloney. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You call in and we will tell you the truth and we'll give you our opinion and it's free. So take that all with a grain of salt. Ashley kicks us off in Salt Lake City. Ashley, welcome to the show. Perfect. Thank you. I'm glad to be talking to you guys today. You as well. What's going on?

So one of the reasons my ex-husband left me was because I made more money than him. He struggled with the idea of me being the main financial provider in our family. Hey, Ashley. So, yes. Can I cut you off really quick? Absolutely. My team always gets mad when I do this, but I can't let you walk around with this thought in your head one more minute. Your husband left you because he's really struggling with some things in his own life. It has nothing to do with you.

Thank you. Thank you. Do you believe me? I do. I do. There's not a thing you could have done to stay connected to a man that has wrapped his ego with such a, with such a shallow ribbon. Okay. Cool. Thank you. Yeah. All right. We're done carrying that brick. We're going to set that one down. All right.

Back to, back to, back to the original programming. Go. Yeah. Fast forward. I'm actually getting married in about two weeks. My, my, yeah, my fiance is going to school right now he works 40 hours a week so he can go to school debt free on top of his school work and so once we get married I have the ability to help pay for most of his school but I don't want him to feel like I don't need him

or he's not a contributor in our family so I just was wondering if you have any advice on conversations I can have with him to make sure he feels safe and secure with us paying for his school together and to help him know that he is still a contributor in our family, even though he has to go to school right now. Are you carrying this around or is he leaning the way your ex did? He's not. So he's definitely different. Um, when I talked to him about this, his concern is more of like, he feels like I'm going backwards

by helping him pay for his school because I've already paid for school. I've got out of it. I've moved forward with my life. Uh, you know, I, I'm at a place where I'm financially good to go. And so I think he feels like we're backtracking by me helping pay for his school. So get one of your hair ties, you know, that you wear around your wrist. Yeah. And put it between your thumb and your forefinger and then bend a piece of paper around it. And then I want you to pull it back and show him this. Say, look, we're going backwards. And then let go. And watch how far that thing flies.

Perfect. When I quit my job in higher ed and I became, as my 13-year-old so eloquently puts, Dad, you're just a YouTuber. I had to step back. I had to learn a new industry. We took a pay cut. Everything changed. And now we've been launched into a whole new world that we didn't even know existed okay but it took it took a minute

took a minute um and i i do love the idea of you saying the words over and over ours we mine i mean i mean ours not mine right this is this is ours where we're going and i can't wait to pull this rubber band back with you and then we're going to be launched into the stratosphere that's awesome if the tables were turned and he was helping you pay for school would you be okay with it uh yeah and i hope to because i want to go back and get a master's after he's done and so the tables will turn oh even better just tell him hey we're just taking turns you go first and then it's going to be my turn, sucker. Yeah.

And the beautiful thing is when you actually combine finances once you're married, it's not really like you're paying for my schooling. It's we are paying for your schooling and it doesn't matter where the money's coming from. My wife and I, when we see money in our bank account, it's not like, well, this portion was yours. So technically you should do 30.

We just go, cool, what do we need to cover? Great'll cover it but i will say this george um and actually like we've talked about this in our house my wife and i used to be very similar in our incomes right when she was at the university and i was at the university um and now it's not because she spends most time at home and doing her her side businesses um and so she does say like man when it comes in it's so cool to see it because it's ours and she feels free to spend it trust me and it's like man you know what i mean like uh i'm not contributing as much as fill in the blank and that's just simply something that she works through on a weekly, monthly basis. And one day, Ashley, you might stay home with the kids and you won't be providing that income anymore. And you might be on the other side of this thing.

And so I don't like the idea of putting any stock into, well, who's contributing financially and who's not. I just love the teamwork of we're going to build wealth together and it's going to go faster and be more than we could have ever achieved on our own. Perfect. And that's something that you have to learn and practice in marriage. But I think this guy sounds like he's got a good head on his shoulders, and I wish you guys the best. I'm going to give you a little gift because the wedding's coming up, John, two weeks. And we weren't invited, but we're going to give you a gift anyway.

Kind of bummed out about that, but that's fine. We'll still send a gift anyway. We're going to send you guys Financial Peace University because I think it's some of the best, whether it's premarital, during the wedding, after the wedding, it's such a great way

to get common vision, goals, language around this we talk when it comes to your money goals and I hope it alleviates some of this tension that you're walking into. And a quick note to men out there.

If you're married to a great woman who also works and she makes more money than you, take your ego and wad it up and use it as two-ply and flush it and be done with it. And think the lucky heavens that y'all have a combined income that allows y'all to have some flexibility and some mobility and some margin in your lives if you can't sleep because my wife's making more money than me go talk to a counselor asap because you're going to blow up a pretty amazing situation both in your marriage and in your kids lives it's just what is behind it john is it partially just ego

because if you make more you feel like you have more control it's insecurity and ego it's just i mean it just comes to i should be shut up but at some point someone told you hey the more you make the more you are as a person i think our culture has done an evil um has has cast an evil spell on us that we have distilled down you know you and i've talked about this what are you worth that answer is a number in our culture and that's a credit score your bank account ridiculous what are we what are you worth i'm worth this much that's insane it's absurd the answer to the question what are you worth is always who loves you and who do you love period not how much money you make, right?

But that's what we've done. And especially to a generation of young men that we've taken away every single thing that made them who they were and said, you're bad and you're wrong. Now all they have is, well, I make this much money. And that's a very hollow, shallow metric. And so instead of being really excited that you married to a partner who's doing really well and y'all together are able to do some cool things, it becomes competitive and it becomes a, well, I should be in, I'm the, shut up, shut up. Be really eternally grateful for this situation.

A, it might change over time, it might not. And B, my God, get rid of your ego. And if you are dating that person, this should be a giant red flag. If they talk that way or think that way, I'd have some heavy pause before taking another step in that relationship. Absolutely. A hundred percent. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Georgeorge camel joined by dr john deloney open phones at 888-825-5225 it's time for our question of the day brought to you by neighborly your hub for

home services you can trust neighborly's local service providers to repair maintain and improve your home just go to neighborly.com slash ramsey to find experts in your area and to schedule services today. What do we got today, John? All right. Today's question comes from Olivia, not Newton John, in the Ramsey Baby Steps community on Facebook. Olivia writes, at a recent visit to my bank, I mentioned that my employer pays my mileage. She said, I hope you're putting that on a credit card and getting cash back. I replied, I'm doing Dave Ramsey's plan and don't use credit. She was aghast and told me how hard

it was to rent an apartment, get a car, or buy a house. And I just heard George's voice in the back of my head with this new book. That's a scary voice to be in the back of your head, Olivia. She then told me how dangerous it is to use my debit card because fraud is so prevalent. This is the one that worries me. I work in some rough areas where cards get skimmed often. What are some ways to protect myself using a debit card so I don't need the fancy credit card protection? Good times. This is my Super Bowl, John.

First of all, I'm sorry that you have to deal with bankers spewing mythology and telling you how hard life is without our debt products. I know. My mom is a mythology professor, and I think she communicates less mythology than this person did in his banking transaction. Yes. And I do debunk a lot of this in my book. I have a whole chapter on credit scores, debunking why they're a scam and how to live with that one. And I've got a whole chapter on credit cards and why debit cards are just as safe. And here's a few things to look into. One is the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, which protects your debit card against fraud. The other is Visa and MasterCard. If you have

that logo on your debit card, you are covered by their zero liability policy. So there's two things right there. Now, cards get skimmed all the time, whether it's credit or debit. No one knows when they're skimming a card. They're just finding card numbers, skimming them. So a few things you can do. Number one, when you use Apple Pay, it actually changes your card number to protect it. So that's one way to do it. You know, when you double tap on your phone, you can pay that way. Sometimes at the gas pump, you can do this. I've never done that, but I trust that you do that. John trusts that I do it. So you can have your card loaded up on Apple Pay and your number's protected. And you can pay that way at the gas pump, at the grocery store. I do this all the

time if they have the tap to pay option. The other thing you can do for online purchases that I love is use a service called privacy.com. They're not an advertiser, but it's a really cool tool where you can create virtual debit cards with spending limits, time limits, all kinds of things. And so that's what I do when I'm on a site. I just pop in a virtual debit card number tied to mine that's a completely different number. So if it gets skimmed, it's no skin off my back. It's going to sound like a privacy.com commercial but I use the same thing. Here's what it does. You put your debit card in

and let's say you're going to make an Amazon purchase. You type it in and you hit create and it creates an Amazon card and gives you a number and an expiration date and that three digit code on the back and you put that in the Amazon account. That way Amazon never has your actual debit card and you can limit the amount of money spent on it. And then you go to the next one.

And if you want to buy some shoes from nike.com, you create a Nike card. And you can even do a one-time use for some of these if you're just going to make one purchase. I think I've got 60 or 70 different cards open for various purchases over the last four or five years. But it's really remarkable. And that way nobody has your actual debit card. And I'll tell you something else I did. I did this when I traveled overseas. I actually went to my local bank and opened a second account underneath my current account and got a new debit card. And in that debit card, I put just X amount of dollars so that if somebody took it and skimmed the whole thing,

it didn't wipe me out. And so I actually carry two debit cards from the same checking account in my wallet. And when I'm in places where I feel like I pull out the other one because it's only got a little bit of money in that account, and that way it just lowers my risk. That's smart. Yeah. And for international travel, another one we get, John, as well, the credit card, I can avoid these transaction fees when I'm traveling internationally. Well, Charles Schwab actually makes a debit card tied to their investor checking account. It's completely free and it has no fees. So no transaction fees, no foreign transaction fees. And so there's really just, I'm running into the, I'm at the point where there's less and

less reasons to ever use a credit card because of how many new tools are out there. New technologies are out there and debit cards are now just as safe as your credit card, except the only thing I can't do is go into debt, which is something that you do to yourself when you're putting yourself in credit card debt. And so there's also another thing you can do, which is get ID theft protection. Our friends at Zander provide that. It's like, you know, six bucks a month, 12 bucks a month to cover your whole family. And that will help cover you in case of fraud. They'll do all the restorative services to get you back and whole. So a lot of things you can do out there. And the only thing I wouldn't do is keep your credit card around and listen to what that

banker has to say. By the way, that banker sells debit cards. So I don't know. It's like going to Burger King and having them be like, you can't eat food here. That's what this banker did. It's so strange. What a weird. What a time to be alive. Thanks for the question, Olivia. America. Melanie is in Canada. Melanie, what's going on over there? Hey, thanks so much for taking my call. We're worried about you guys. Right? Yeah. That's exactly why I'm calling, actually.

So I'm pretty new. Well, me and my husband are pretty new to the Ramsey Baby Step method, so I wish I knew about this much sooner, but here we are. How old are you? Not sure if you're... I am 41. Okay. My husband is 44. Yeah.

We have five children. Not sure if you're familiar with what's going on in the Canadian housing market right now. I know it's all astronomical and impossible. Yeah, as the great Gwen Stefani once said, it's B-A-N-A-N-A-S. That's exactly it. So my husband and I, we built a house in 2021 in Alberta. And our plan was to pay for it in cash. We made some prior mistakes in the market and the stock market didn't happen that way. So now we have a mortgage

in our home, which we don't like at all. But here's the question. Can you want us to sell and just save our money, save our money, save our money, and then just pay cash for a house when we're ready. I think that's a mistake right now being in the housing market the way it is in Canada right now. I think we should just keep chugging along. And if we're on the same page as we are, we should have this done in about 10 years' time. And I've already spoken to the builder that built our house. Our house is already worth $400,000 more now than it was in 2021. Wow. What's it worth now? Just over a million dollars. And what do you owe?

Well, because the mortgage rates are quite high in Canada right now. We're paying about $30,000 a year just in mortgage rates, which is not even going towards the principal. So we probably own just around $550, I would say. Okay. And is this payment unmanageable as far as your take-home pay goes? What percentage of your after-tax income is getting eaten up by this? Oh no, we're fine with that. So my husband, he works in the oil industry and he brings home just roughly with overtime and everything like before taxes, about $200,000. I bring home about $35,000 before taxes. Other than the house, that is pretty much our only debt. We do have a car payment, 0% interest with $18,000 left on it. And in our savings, we have about $150,000. Whoa, that's a lot of savings. Why not pay off the car today?

I brought that up with him when I started listening to you guys. And he said it's 0%. Hold on, but he doesn't get to be mad about, stressed about a mortgage debt, but not about a car debt. I like it. It makes me feel comfortable. It's because of the interest. He loves math. Yeah, he does actually. He's very good at math. I bet. I bet. Yeah. Well, I'm with you. This is not a fire situation where you need to sell the house because the payment isn't what's killing you guys. And so if you said, hey, the payment is 50% of our take-home pay, I would say, yeah, you probably want to sell. But I'm in your boat. If you go sell, you're going to have to go buy a place that's $1.5 million three years from now. Exactly.

And then get a mortgage again or just wait 10 years to save up and pay cash for it. So I think just stay the road you're on and attack that mortgage with a vengeance once the car is paid off. I'd put $100,000 of that $150,000 on your mortgage and knock it down to $450,000 by the end of this weekend and have a paid off car. And you still have that emergency fund there with that $50,000. So that's what I would do, Melanie. I don't know that you can talk him into it. He can listen back to this call, but we're just a bunch of American chuckleheads over here. So best wishes to all of you in Canada. Goodness gracious, it sounds crazy over there, John. This is The Ramsey Show.

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something for social. Social team comes to us with these ideas for things, and they're like, hey, we need y'all to do this. And sometimes it's like, that's great. And sometimes we're like, oh, geez. But I don't know what's cool and trending on TikTok. They keep up so that you don't have to. Exactly.

But they had us face each other across the table and do a dad joke competition. That was some of the most fun you can have at work bro you did a joke and i don't know why it hit me so funny but i laughed all day at the i clearly broke at the table but i broke about every three jokes i know i stayed strong like good jokes you just stay strong i don't think you have a soul well for you it was the direct eye contact that i made the whole time i I think that's what broke you. But I need you to tell America the joke that got me the worst. The sponge joke?

Yeah, it was a great joke, man. Okay, this one took you, it took some people a few seconds. So really think about it. I was washing the car with my son this weekend, and he said, Dad, can't you just use a sponge? I think that's such a great the audience in the lobby they're still ruminating they got nothing they don't think it's funny at all it's great that's why it's a dad joke it's meant for dads that guy that looks like you got cloned out there just thumbs down to you your alt version of yourself i didn't come up with this

they found it on the internet you know It comes from the dad joke repository. I think it's a great joke. I feel like there's a Where's Waldo, but it's a Where's George Campbell, and you're right next to me and in the lobby. It's so strange. To be fair, I look like a few more of every guy that's ever worked at an Apple store and put them into one body. So, you know, familiar face.

That is very true. Very helpful. Very excited to tell you about the latest iPhone 15 Pro. And it does look like you shave with an electric razor with your eyes closed. All right, let's go to... There we are. Mike is in Richmond, Virginia. Mike, save us from ourselves.

How can we help you? Hi, guys. Thanks for having me on. Sure. I'm a pretty new listener to the Ramsey program. I'm really enjoying it so far. Welcome to our cult, Mike. At a moment about four or five months ago about my finances

and something just hit me and I just want to change how things are going. I've been listening to about a month and I don't think I've heard anybody say they've had higher debt than I do. So it's kind of embarrassing to tell you. You might win the competition in the worst way. Bring it. What is it? Exactly. But I'm in $460,000

of debt. That's not even close. Child's play. That is a lot of debt. That's an insane amount of debt, Mike. Let's be very clear. What kind of debt is this? It's all student loans. Every penny? I listen to, yeah.

Are you a physician? What's that? What do you do for a living? Are you a physician? I'm a dentist, yeah. There you go. Okay. So, yeah, I was listening to your book, Breaking Free from Broke, yesterday.

And I was like, the chapter on student loans. And I was like, yeah this is like written about me and you know when i was in high school getting ready to go to college my you know my family didn't didn't have a ton of money so i was pretty much responsible paying my own way but i was 18 i didn't really know what i was doing i went to the bank signed all these papers and you know they next thing you know, go through undergrad, go through dental school and hit with this huge, um, this huge tab. Um, I did have a car note, but over the past month, I was just like, I got really aggressive with it. I paid 20 K of that off, um, and about, and about a month. So I guess my question is like, how do I, and I think I may know the answer,

but how do I grasp this number? It's just so daunting. What do you take home every year, man? Last year, I made $275,000. Do you have your own practice or are you a part of a group? I'm an associate. My brother actually owns the practice and I guess long term I would like

to become a partner do you have to buy in for that or is that going to be just a draw rate yeah I do have to buy in that's down the road I like to clean this mess up first so if you got really aggressive how much can you throw at this dad every year

so I'm planning I map everything mess up first. So if you got really aggressive, how much can you throw at this debt every year? So I'm planning, I've mapped everything out. I'm planning about 10K a month, just, you know, throw at the debt. That's not enough. You can do more. Are you married? Do you have kids? I'm engaged. My fiance is also a physician, but she's in a residency program. So she's only taken in about, I don't know, 50 to 60 K. So that'll change in a couple of years, but we don't share any finances yet. We will, but. If you're making 275, I would love you to figure out a way to live in a one-bedroom apartment and on about $50,000 a year, $40,000 a year, and get so insanely aggressive that people around you think you're bananas and ask your brother if you can come in on Sundays and do a Sunday practice for guys like me who's on the road a lot

and it's hard for me to get into the dentist. Just get out of your mind aggressive and tell your wife that or your future wife i want you to come into this marriage without almost half a million dollars saddled around our our brand new love and we haven't seen anybody um be successful without just getting radical about it and i did it too i didn't have this many my i only had i had six figures but i didn't have 460 but it was something about just burning all the ships and just being like dude we are scorched earth and coming up for air 18 months later and our whole life was different but we sold our house we sold everything man based on your lifestyle nobody should know that

you're a dentist that makes 275 yeah you should look like a broke guy who's in undergrad just trying to make it. For the next three years, if you do that, you're going to be so wealthy for the next 30 after that. Yeah, I do live in one bedroom apartment already, and I refuse to buy a house right now. Good, man. When are you getting married? I think I just need to— In April of 2025. So about a year from now.

About a year. Is she working? Yeah, she's in a residency program. Okay. So your income will drastically increase a year from now, not just your own, but also with the dual income. All right. So that's going to speed this up.

What's her debt load going to be? Her debt load is a lot less than mine. It's about 200 K of medical school, but she, you know, she will make projected about 300,000 a year and my income hopefully will continue to go up. It's gone up every year.

But if you guys are making 600 grand and you've knocked yours down by 120 K a year from now, even a little more when by the time the wedding happens then you're looking at what 340 and she's got 200 so you you know you'll have a huge chunk of debt but you'll also have an amazing income you'll you'll be both of you will be debt free two years into your marriage if you do this the right way yeah and so this is not a life sentence i feel like right now you're just looking at the mountain going, oh my gosh, this is 10 years of my life.

And we're saying, dude, this is two or three if you do it our way. Yeah. Are these broken out into a bunch of little loans? It's a private loan. That's just one big sum. And then my federal loans, yeah, they have like little subcategories. Good. You know, some are 30K,

40K, and others are like 3K, 4K. The debt snowball is your best friend. I want you to list them each out in an every dollar budget. I'm going to gift you every dollar premium so that this makes it even easier. It'll connect to your bank account, all that good stuff,

and it'll create the debt snowball for you. You already bought it? That's awesome. Yeah. We'll give you an extra one so that when it renews, you'll have a year to go because this is a journey, man. Yeah. Is your take-home check about $17 a month?

Yeah, it's biweekly. Okay. And it ranges anywhere from seven to eight to nine. It just depends on how busy I am and kind of what I'm doing. So if you don't have a car payment and you live in a one-bedroom apartment, what are you spending $7,000 a month on? Well, that was kind of one. I paid up my car, like, again, 20-something K in a couple months.

But I just haven't been smart with my money because I didn't have this mindset. I don't lie or BS it. Oh, you're like me, dude. Like, we're the same team, same team. I was just kind of free flow, and I, you know, bought an engagement ring. We went to Cabo for a wedding. We stayed for a week. It was just kind of a mess.

Well, hey, it was, and now it's all going to be different now. And in 24 months, 36 months, you're going to look up and you're going to be a free man with a household income of 600 grand. Y'all are going to be so wealthy. And your brother's going to say, all right, it's time to sell the practice, buy the practice. And you're going to say, well, I'm going to need four more years because I'm paying cash for this thing. I'm not going to take a huge loan out for it. That's amazing, man. You're on your way. You're on your way. Hang on the line. We're going to get you another year of every dollar premium on us, Mike. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Camel, joined by Dr. John Deloney. The phone

number is 888-825-5225. You call in. We'll talk about your life and your money. Lindsay is up next in Phoenix. Lindsay, welcome to the show. Thank you for taking my call. Absolutely. How can we help today? So I actually just have a question about my 18-year-old son who is currently a senior in high school and will be graduating in May.

Fun. So he is working part-time at Target. He makes about $1,000 to $1,500 a month right now. He has $6,500 saved. He's wanting to buy a car. And so we're just trying to kind of help guide him. He's not wanting to go to college. He's looking at possibly doing an apprenticeship to be a heavy equipment operator

is what he's interested in. So we're just kind of trying to guide him in like what he should do, how much money he should be saving for his emergency fund, what he should be saving for next. Just anyway, any advice on how to guide him as he moves forward. Yeah, I think all this starts with you and your husband and y'all coming up with some boundaries or some terms as to how much you'll support him with. Like in my house, I've told my son, I'll pay half, you pay half. And that could be a guitar, that could be a car, right?

But not every family's in that situation, and that's great. I think it's y'all deciding, hey, we can put, I remember my dad told me he could put X number hundreds's great. I think it's y'all deciding, hey, we can put – I remember my dad told me he could put X number hundreds of dollars. I knew that really was painful for him, but he was always stretching for me. So I think every family is different, but y'all sit down and say, okay, here's what we can help you with. Okay.

I am all for if a kid comes to mom and dad and says, hey, I know y'all had dreams of me going to college. I want to try something else and not go to college. I support that. If my son came to me, both me and my wife are college nerds and we've been saving for college, talking about college with our kids. And if my son came to me and said, or my daughter came and said, hey, I don't want to do that. I actually want to go be a plumber. I actually want to go learn how to, I'm going to go be a lineman. I'd fully support that, but here's the condition. Okay. Where I've seen families get hung up is your son says, I'm not going to college. I want to do an apprenticeship. And everyone kind of goes,

okay. And mom and dad, and I don't mean this in a bad way. Mom and dad go grieve that picture because everyone like there's this picture of we're going to drop little Johnny off at college, and it's going to be a thing, and he's not going to do that. And y'all are going to have to tell your friends. And I would say he's gotten that a little bit from other friends and family. My husband and I are super supportive of him doing a trade. And we have said 100% this is for him, for his personality, this is a great move for him. I want an ironclad plan leaving school, leaving high school.

Who are you going to apprentice with? With what? Where? When do you start? And what's the length of this apprenticeship in this program? And that way everybody's on the same page, and it doesn't turn into August, and y'all are like, what are you doing? And he's like, well, you know, and then all of a sudden I want it mapped out before school is out this spring.

And so, so far we found out that it's like he has to have his diploma to apply. So he can't even apply until May. It's a three-year apprenticeship. It is paid, like, so he doesn't have to have a job. He just has to have transportation. And he has a car that we currently own right now that he's driving that we have offered. Once we

sell it, we said that we'd give him half of that money that we can get for our car to go towards him buying his own car. That's excellent. And y'all may decide. We're going to try for six months. You and your husband may decide, hey, we've talked, son, and we're going to start off. We're going to give you six months. You can stay at home. And then in month four on this date,

we're going to have a lunch meeting and we're going to reevaluate how things are going. And you're going to pay us a way below market rate, but you got to pay something. You got to have some skin in the game. And I want you to hear the two things I want you to hear me repeat over and over again is put everything on paper in writing.

He's an adult. And I have no problem with kids, with mom and dad letting kids stay at home where I have a problem is they're not clear on when you're leaving, what it's going to cost. And then over time time resentment builds. And it's not fair to any of y'all.

Okay. And then maybe after six months. So moving forward as far as how much he should be saving for an emergency fund, like right now he doesn't have any bills. Yeah. So right now I would put $1,000. Right now the most important thing is he gets through school debt free he gets through this apprenticeship without owing anybody any money and y'all have a bunch of balls up in the air which is

where's he going to live is he going to be able to do this locally is he going to have to leave town he's going to have to do something so it is local it's about a half hour away which is great so it is local he can stay here while he's doing it I think for him for his transition to adulthood

and for you and your husband's sanity, I think giving him a housing contract, kind of like you would get in an apartment complex. Here's what your lease looks like. Okay. You can't be rolling here at 3.30 in the morning with your apprentice buddies. If you're going to live here,

here's what this looks like. And it's free. And I also think it's good to put, here's how much money you're going to save over the long term. We're going to reevaluate this lease in month four. And we may all decide at month six, it's going to be time for you to go. And me and your mom get to do that. And by the way, you need to do that. Or at month six, we're going to renew it. But I like starting to transition that out. And it just keeps everybody safe because your husband's going to be wondering, when is this freaking 18 year old going to get out of my house?

But I don't want my wife to get mad. And then you're going to be saying, God, he, that guy's just coddling him. It's all on paper. Everybody's on the same page. Okay. The other thing you can do, Lindsay, is have him make a mock budget in every dollar and have him actually lay out, hey, here's what car insurance is going to cost on this thing. Here's what gas is going to cost. Here's what the utility bills will cost. And have him put some skin in the game. Maybe that's money.

And you say, hey, we're going to take this money and put it away and you get it back when you leave the house as our gift to you. But we want to teach you how to have this give, save, spend mentality. I'm going to give a little. I'm going to spend a little. Let him enjoy life. He's 18. We don't need to like force him into this version of adulthood, but I think it's great to start going, okay, make 1500. How do I budget this wisely while I make it? And what does his apprenticeship pay? Do you know?

They said that it starts at $24.47 an hour and every six months it's eligible. He's eligible for advancement based on kind of like worries out what he's doing. That's just the basics of what I know right now. That is amazing. Well, you're doing a great job as a parent. And like John said, there's no right or wrong way. The key is to communicate that upfront. Clarity, clarity, clarity. That's important. And so what John's talking about is the 401 Dave plan, as he coined it, where he said, hey, we're going to save up half and whatever you save, we're going to match. And so that's what they ended up doing. So if he saves five grand for a car, you guys can put in the other five, or like you said, we're going to sell the car and he gets

half and that becomes his car budget. And if that means $8,000, we got to go find an $8,000 car. And guess what? He's going to be looking at some nicer cars than that going,000, we got to go find an $8,000 car. And guess what? He's going to be looking at some nicer cars than that going, man, I'm making some good money now, mom. I want to get a nicer car. And you go, not if you don't have the cash for it. And his buddies who are going to be in the apprentice program with him making 24 bucks an hour are all going to go out and get nice trucks. They're making like 50 grand at that point. They're going to be like, bro, what are you doing? You're 18. You're making this kind of money. And he's just going to have to keep walking it again. And here's an important thing. He can move out and he can go get his own place and do his own thing. And you're going to transition over the next six months from

mom and dad, we tell you what to do to mom and dad, the adults who are going to influence you relationally. That's why I love sitting down and having these conversations. George, that's some great wisdom to say, okay, here's how much life costs. Here's insurance, cell phone. So right out the gate, it costs $450 just to exist. Then you put food, and then you put this, and you put this, and his eyes are going to come out of his head.

It's like, man, I got $50,000? He's like, not really. If he made a mock budget, what it really costs to come out of his head. It's like, man, I got $50,000. It's like, not really. If he made a mock budget, what it really costs to go live on his own today, he's going to go, mom, thank you so much for letting me live here. Right. And then you're going to say, cool, here's the lease.

You're going to be home by 1 a.m. And you can't have your cherry vape in the house anymore. Whatever's going on there, right? I love it. Oh, that's fun. Lindsey, hang on the line. We're going to send you a copy of my book, Breaking Free from Broke. I think it's a great book for him to read. He can listen to the

audio book as well. We'll send you that. And that's going to be a great way to help him avoid some of the traps out there because the toxic money system comes at 18 year olds so hard. And it starts with the guy on the college campus who's trying to get you to sign up for the credit card with the pizza and the free t-shirt. And then you got to get your credit score up, man. So go get some debt. This is going to help them avoid debt. You guys have done a great job already. And I'm proud of you as parents.

You guys are a great picture of what it looks like to have raise healthy kids into healthy adults. So thank you for that. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. Thank you to Dr. John Deloney, my co-host, all the folks in the booth. We got Eboo, we got Ben, James, Andrew, the whole gang's in there. And Judas is back there too. That's right. Everyone and their mom is in there running the show. That's how many people it takes. Takes a village, y'all. We'll be back before you next time.