The Ramsey Show - App - Do You Have a Scarcity or Abundance Mindset With Money? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: December 15, 2021

Home Buying, Home Selling, Relationships, Saving, Debt, Education As heard on this episode: Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey+ TODAY: https://bit.ly/3rZTUAx Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: https://bit.ly/2Q64HME Insurance Coverage Checkup: https://bit.ly/3sXwUn5 Complete Guide to Budgeting: https://bit.ly/3utmVXi Check out more Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3fHhbVE

We'll be right back. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Dr. John Bologna. I almost said it. of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Dr. John Baloney.

I almost said it. Daloney. I did say it. It came out of my mouth. Well, America, this is my last day on the show. Well, it's why you're that sensitive you're going to quit? No, we've been worried that you're senile, and it's happening. It's happening. Hey, who says you can't be a leader if you're senile and it's happening it's happening hey who says you can't be the

leader if you're senile that's true i see what you did there too well done well done hey listen my name rhymes with the process lunch meat is a rough childhood thanks for bringing that up dave i don't know well it's what drove you to be a counselor our weaknesses are what what it's what made you a man my son rave damsey and john baloney here to take your calls there you go it's going downhill and we haven't even gotten to the phone number triple eight eight two five five two two five merry christmas america we're glad you're here apparently we're not but we're going to answer your questions anyway. Lucas is here in Tri-Cities, Washington. Hi, Lucas. How are you?

How are you doing, Dave? John? Hey, I got a question for you. I need your advice. My family's grown, and my wife, she's looking for a bigger house. And we currently own three. One's paid off. We owe about $200, 000 between the other two and so i'm just looking for some

advice and direction on whether keeping property selling one or i don't know that's what i'm calling so you you want to do you want to sell one why well i don't want to sell one i need a bigger one my family's uh outgrown the one that we're in oh i see and you said your wife wants one do you want one too yeah happy wife happy life so uh well okay yeah we're ready all right so we're moving up in house your current residence will sell for how much uh right now around 300 and the house you're going to buy sell for how much? Right now, around $300. And the house you're going to buy would cost how much?

Well, if she gets her way, probably $650. You know, somewhere in that price range. At some point, we have to make a wise decision together rather than just making a princess happy. So what are we going to do here? Let's be a grown man and a grown woman. What price range of home are we actually going to buy? Let's go on the high side, $650,000.

All right. So you need $350,000 more than your house. Yes. Where are we going to get that? That's kind of what I'm looking for advice on. Do you have $350,000 in an investment that is not retirement? Almost, yes. We own a house, and it's paid off, and it's worth about $325,000.

Okay. So would you rather sell it and your personal residence or sell your investments and your personal residence to pay cash for $650? Those are your two choices. Well, I guess selling the paid-off one, that's what the wife wants to do. And the market where we're at as far as renting you know we our initial idea was to have a house for each one of our kids for school and then you know when they get old enough that's going to pay for the school but

uh right now i don't know if that's possible with wanting a bigger house. So I guess selling the one that's paid off. How many square feet do you live in? About 1,750. How many kids do you have? I have three. What ages? One, three, and seven. Okay. You have a zoo. Yeah, you're you're in it now yeah you are in it to win

okay so yeah yeah a little more space would make a little more sanity i agree with that um yeah and see i have uh what do you make a year um i'm around a hundred thousand does she work outside the home she does okay all right so i want to i want you to reframe this conversation i don't like the way the conversation is being answered every time i ask a question okay i don't either for the sake of your for the sake of your relationship and your sanity okay proverb says who can find a virtuous wife a virtuous wife for her worth is far above rubies the heart of her husband safely trusts her and he will have no lack of gain so there is tremendous wisdom in your wife as a grown woman, not as a princess with a red face stamping her foot that she wants something,

but your wife as a grown woman and you connecting and saying, we decided that with a $100,000 income and three littles, we want to move to a $575,000 house. That is our budget. We are not going to a $575,000 house. That is our budget. We are not going to go over that. We are going to liquidate our home and the investments to pay cash for that. That leaves us with one rental home, which means our next goal will be to buy two more rental homes because we had a goal of one rental home per kid to pay for their college,

or something like that, that we together develop a plan that gives our family a better standard of living square footage wise but is not you responding to well my wife wants to sell this my wife wants to do this and my wife wants to do that i'm getting tired of hearing what your wife wants exactly take ownership sure i understand yeah she she just started working as a as a teacher as well so sure she she's got a an income pretty close to mine as well that's awesome so you got a $200,000 your income you can accomplish some of these goals but my point is not that her opinion doesn't matter it's that it does matter and so does yours and you don't have the you don't get the privilege of blaming her for these decisions you don't agree with and you go along with.

Or worse, you do want to do these things. It just sounds cool to be with a couple of dudes at the water cooler talking about the old ladies. No, man, we want to get a bigger house. Well, so she wants to sell. I don't. I want to look at where, because there's an age gap between between us I want to be able to retire when I can retire but the cost is you live in a 1700 square feet

with three littles and it's driving her by nuts I know that's the cost you got to change your picture brother you had an awesome goal and then life threw something at you and now it's time to change goals $200,000 household income paying cash for a $575,000 house is not a bad place to be it's better than most yeah and still owning another and still owning another rental that's

paid for and you have no payments in the freaking world at that point and you guys can pile up some cash and buy some other rentals and do some other stuff uh so yeah it's just a different picture so you're you're you're that nothing's ever going to work out exactly like we always thought it was buy some other rentals and do some other stuff. So, yeah, it's just a different picture. So nothing's ever going to work out exactly like we always thought it was going to when we were 20. Yeah. Because we didn't understand stuff when we were 20. Oh, when we were 30. Oh, when we were 40.

Oh, when you're 60. Right. Nothing ever comes exactly like you think it's going to, but you have to learn to navigate this together and use the wisdom. Opposites attract, and Larry Burkett used to say, if opposite, a good thing opposites attract, because if you weren't opposite, one of you be unnecessary.

So you need each other to complete the picture of wisdom and lean in on that. When we talk about giving like no one else, I'm always impressed with Zander Insurance and their commitment to helping others during the holidays. Zander has donated over $350,000 by pledging 25% of all sales of their ID Theft Protection Plan to a worthy organization. Once again, this year, it's Team Rubicon, which is an amazing veteran-led disaster relief organization helping affected communities all across the country. Listen, ID theft is out of control, and the best way to protect yourself is with Zander's plan.

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going on out there everybody's talking about building wealth and guess what we know how so we're going to teach you how some of you have done this some of your baby steps millionaires some of you are on your way some of you are confused some of you are in financial peace university some of you have a crazy brother oh that's all of you and some of you are on your way. Some of you are confused. Some of you are in Financial Peace University. Some of you have a crazy brother. Oh, that's all of you. And some of you need to get started, and you're going to miss out. Go January the 13th here in Nashville. Join us for a one-night special event.

Rachel Cruz, George Camel, Dave Ramsey, Building Wealth in 2022. Whole $15 for tickets. There's just a handful left. Probably my last announcement before i announce a sellout right now ramsey solutions.com slash events to get your tickets it's game on january 13th let's kick this 2022 thing out let's get it going our question of the day is from blinds.com find out for yourself why blinds.com is the number one online retailer of custom window coverings, free samples, free shipping, and new promos all the time.

Always use the magic word, the promo code RAMSY, to get the best possible deal. Today's question comes from Kirk in Virginia. Kirk says, my wife says we can – that's not really a complete sentence. My wife says we feel we can enjoy things in life such as taking our son to Disney World because she knows...

My wife says we can't enjoy things in life such as taking our son to Disney World because she knows I'll be grumpy about it later or bring up how much money it costs. We're on baby step three and have no debt except for mortgage and about 6060,000 in savings. How do I try and not be so anxious about spending the money we have? I hate seeing the number disappear from our accounts,

but don't want my life to feel like we can't enjoy milestones. Dave, can I tell you something? I struggle with this too. I wrestle with this. Man, I had a hard conversation with my son recently about this same thing. You've been working with couples for 30 years, man. What have you seen when it comes to this? Well, I mean.

It's living in scarcity. It's a. But it's a saver mentality, not a spender mentality. Yeah. He enjoys saving money more than he enjoys spending it. Yeah. And the spender enjoys the experience, enjoys spending it more than they enjoy saving it. Yeah.

And a balanced, mature approach is that we have the ability to do both and get joy from them, but we just know our default, our natural tendency is to move towards one of the other i'm a spender yeah so by nature it's not hard for me to move even today to enjoy money but the only way i enjoy money now is knowing that i've got i've done my work over here it's like i had to um you know i i i had to get my homework done before i could go out to play you know kind of thing and uh but in the old days i just went out to play and the homework didn't get done that's called immaturity and so you spend money you don't and you don't know anything saved so then the opposite of that is this person who's a little bit more scarcity savers generally are

more scarcity versus abundance spenders have a tennis would be more abundance versus scarcity it's not always true but it's pretty much rachel's book know yourself know your money she goes into a lot of this stuff yeah but um the uh uh i mean for me i think you just saying it out loud right there is a big thing it's huge that that kind of starts to set you free and you go okay why is it i'm saving money there you go is it only for security no your intellect will tell you that's not the only reason and your emotions might tell you that's the only reason but i'm saving money so that yeah it comes down to the so that's for what yeah yeah and so and and we all know in our intellect

some of us are more emotional about it than others but we all know in our intellect, some of us are more emotional about it than others, but we all know in our intellect that four-year-old, when you blink, they'll be 14. So you better do Disney while you can. You don't get a second go-round on that puppy because you can. Now, you don't get to go use that same line as an excuse to go into credit card debt to go to Disney because you're broke and you're out of control. No, you owe that kid stability at home, so you've got to do your homework before you go out to play. But now you've got your homework done.

Don't sit there and read a book. Go out and play. And so you've got to force yourself to do that. And part of it is if you look at the money and you say the money that's left after we do this is more than enough it's we're fine yeah and that's kind of the facts are your friends you know almost your trauma stuff where you guys deal with trauma and you say you know i'm afraid the emotions are making the decision, and facts are my friends. I got plenty of money.

I got money, yeah. So I can do both, and I'm okay. Notify yourself that you're okay. James Clear writes about changing habits, and I love the way he framed it. I've never heard it framed this way, which is if you want to change your habits, the best way to do that long-term is to change your identity first. And this is an identity call- that his wife makes here, that it's almost not worth doing things as a family because of who you're going to be later. And as a dad, this rings true.

My wife calls it Sunday afternoon dad. She's like, it just kind of becomes everybody just back up a little bit because dad's starting to he's tired from getting up at church and he's ready for work tomorrow i don't want to be that i don't i want to be like i would rather my kids when they're 18 remember man remember sunday afternoons were such chaos and fun and we never knew what was going to happen because dad was bonkers versus you don't get around dad so this to, to me, starts with I don't want to be known as the grumpy dad every time we did something joyful. With money.

With money. Because that says to my kids I value the money more than I do time with them. That's right. If I'm pouting about it. If I'm pouting about it, if I'm being ugly about it, if I am rolling my eyes that my wife and kids want to have joy in their life. And so I think I want to say joy in their life and so i think i want to say okay i'm going to be the dad who loves spending time with my family and let's reverse

engineer that what's the money going to be that it's going to take for us to go on these vacations and feel safe i love that here's the thing you do for people you love your kids your spouse sometimes you do stuff they want to do a lot of times you do yes and you're not a twerp about it yes you find joy in them having joy yeah i mean i there's stuff there's a lot of stuff i mean i like people but i don't like social settings at all right at all but my wife completely eats that stuff with a spoon but this idea of standing around with a drink in your hand and you go, what do you do? Shoot me. Oh, God.

I just would rather be in the basement, you know, reorganizing the dirt. I mean, something. God almighty. But I had to make a conscious decision to not be in constant eye roll mode and just go this is something gives her life yeah and so i'm gonna go and not steal her joy every time we go to a party and then in return i found out i don't have to go to all the parties right i get i get i get i get payback for it but i didn't even know that was coming but yeah i had to make that decision relationally yeah and i still kind of as you can tell frequently have to remake that decision but

but when you get a new corvette i bet you say sure you'll go for a ride and she goes sure dave i'd love to you know what i mean and she grits her teeth through the ride you know i mean i think that's part i think that's part of being a great husband a spouse, a great parent is leaning in, and part of the joy being, no, Hank and I went hunting this weekend. I would have had a better outcome had I been not with a 10-year-old in the woods, or an 11-year-old. Because they're known for how quiet they are. How quiet they are. But I wouldn't have traded that weekend for anything, right?

We'll talk about this weekend. It was pretty chaotic. We'll talk about that for the rest of our lives. And so it's making those types of trades. And in this situation, Kirk, you got the money, brother? The good news about Kirk is he's so self-aware. Oh, yeah. He asked the question.

His wife didn't write this. He wrote it. Yes. Great, great man. Start with identity. I want to be a dad who loves being with my kids and my wife, and I love having fun with them. Now what do I have to do to make that identity happen?

And I'm going to allocate a portion of the money that I know is going to make me a little bit uncomfortable, and I'm going to overcome that discomfort to still have joy. We love you. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage. Erica is with us. Hi, Erica. How are you? Hi, Dave. Good. How are you? Welcome. I'm better than I deserve. Where do you live? I live in Fowler, California.

What's that near? Fresno. Oh, yeah. Good. Okay. Beautiful area. Welcome to Nashville. And all the way over here to do a debt-free scream.

That's right. That's my purpose for being here. I love it. How much have you paid off? I paid off $290,000 total, including my house. Wow. Look at you. I love it.

You're so weird. $290,000? $290,000. How long did this take? Ten and a half years. wow look at you i love it you're so weird in ninety thousand dollars two hundred ninety how long did this take ten and a half years whoa long time fan and your range of income during that time i started at seventy thousand dollars went up to ninety and sometimes a hundred wow what do you do for a living i'm a dental hygienist i started fresh out of my career wow and just got after it. How much of the $290,000 was the house? Well, I was a few years into my career.

$200,000 was the house, and $90,000 was college debt, car debt, credit cards, and personal loans that I borrowed for my divorce. Girl, you're a superhero. Thanks. This is pretty amazing. Thank you. Ten and a half years. I'm looking as you're saying these things out loud it like your body is you haven't taken a breath in 10 years. No I haven't. My family hasn't seen me like rest and I haven't taken a breath and I've been this go person for

that long. I can feel your body being like and we're done right here on the death-free stage. This is like a nice end of that chapter, that long journey I've been on. Wow. Wow. Yeah. So what happened 10 years ago? There was a local church offering Dave Ramsey classes. It was 12 weeks at that time, I believe. And my friend asked me to join.

He was leading the group, and I said I didn't need it. And he said, well, you have debt, didn't need it and he said well you have debt don't you and I said yeah but I can pay all my monthly bills and he said I think you join the class and I refused a couple times and then I finally decided to do it to be a friend and curious to see what it was about completely transformed my life from that point oh my gosh and his name is Joel Rivera hi Joel way to go Joel to go joel way to go joel i love it very cool that's amazing so you went through financial peace university and you went game on but you begin the process how were you able to stick with it for 10 and a half years

i you know what i followed exactly like you said i went through each step the baby step one emergency fund paying off everything smallest to largest debts. I know people, like you say, want to do interest, higher interest first. No, smallest to largest. Those little rewards along the way just kept me going. And I just, I had timelines and I had goals and I could just like envision like, what would it be like? Like, could I really do this? It was almost unreal. And I just kept the closer

I got, I kept thinking, I think I can do this. And my son was a big supporter. My parents were my big cheerleaders. They're my rock. My son is 23 now. So he grew up with a budget and $3.99 pizza nights, take and bake. And we did a lot of pack your own lunch and bring your own lawn chair go to the farmer's market and that was our free Friday night we just were very creative and we had a lot of fun went on hikes and we just we did it was a good life even though we were on a budget it was tough but it was very rewarding why'd it go thanks it's incredible and i picked up extra jobs i was working saturdays i was working six days a week for over 10 years and occasionally i was working on sundays there was a surprisingly an office that had scheduled some sunday patients

and i just did whatever i could do to just keep making more money they needed me to work an extra hour or two of overtime sure i did it and you just push through what's this house worth it's worth um 270 000 phenomenal yeah it's a town home and it's i love it yeah and it's all yours it's all mine no matter what happens no one can take my house away no one can take my car away if something happens to me those those are there to stay it's it a secure feeling. I can't even, like, grasp it. That's so good. That's so good. How much have you built up in your retirement accounts?

So my retirement account is $200,000. And then I have a Roth IRA that I need to start putting into, aside from that. And then the house. And then I got my fully funded emergency fund yeah you're gonna be a millionaire in 20 minutes girl yay you are on your way yeah absolutely amazing wow you are special this is so cool so there's lots of parents that i talk to that lament the fact that they don't have enough money for all these fancy shiny gadgets and toys whatever you raised kids by going on hikes and going to play and spending time together what's your relationship like to your kid with your kids i have one son and we have a very close relationship

we've had a very close relationship throughout the years um probably when we're growing up and usually close and more distant now that he's older and has his own life. But he was my vacation buddy. We did take some, you know, some vacations, some cash vacations, of course, bring our own lunches, budgeted out. I mean, it was budgeted. His famous question growing up was, Mom, is it in the budget? Is this in the budget?

And so he's grown up to be like my my buddy and so you can so you can live and you can raise kids and they'll still like you yeah you can and and to be able to like say like if we need something we need tires for the car or an emergency happens i had a water leak a couple years ago and to be able to just like take care of that it's just like i can't believe it like i'm still in shock like oh i can just pay for that and and take care of those emergencies without stressing without putting it on a card and like and if he needs something i can provide you know with

within reasonable requests, of course. Wow. Thanks. Very important. Very important. Yeah. I mean, you, you, you have reaped all the benefits of all the hard work and you have worked really hard at this. Yeah. So proud of you. Thank you. Very well done. Thank you. I listened to your show all the time. I have people in my life that were going through it too and motivating me and I motivated them in return. Sylvia and Joe are listening. I mentored them. They're listening. There's just friends. My friend Kim has been my cheerleader.

My boyfriend Shannon is listening. He's supporting me through this, and it's just been unreal. Great job. Great job. All right, what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? Cash envelopes for sure. I have to remember my notes. I'm so nervous.

Cash envelopes. Just saying, finding ways to reduce your monthly outgoing income. I went through everything. I reduced my cable bill. I reduced my phone bill. I eliminated a bunch of things that I didn't need, and I kept it real simple. And just finding creative ways to have fun without buying stuff. And take care of your stuff.

So, they'll last a long time. You don't have to buy a bunch of stuff every few years. Maintenance is a good idea. Occasionally, I get that email that says, remind people to do maintenance on their cars. It's a good thing. I like that. Good for you. remind people to do maintenance on their cars. It's a good thing. I like that. Good for you. Well done, Erica.

Thank you. We got a copy of the Baby Steps Millionaire's book. It comes out January the 11th, but we're going to give you an early edition copy just to congratulate you because we think you're going to be a Baby Steps Millionaire in no time. It's the next chapter for your story after your debt-free scream. And a copy of the Total Money Makeover for you to give away. Somebody get them started on their journey. Yes.

You never know that 10 1⁄2 years later, they may have their house and everything paid off. Yes. You're a superhero, girl. Thank you so much for your support. Absolutely amazing. Thank you for what you do. Thank you.

Powerful. Very, very well done. Erica, Fresno, California area, $290,000 paid off. House and everything. Did it in 10 and a half years. Did it making 70 to 90 to 100. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Three, two, one. I'm a single mom. If I can do it, you can too. I'm debt-free. I'm debt-free. I like the cheer. So in grad school, Dave, there's always one student in every class, the curve buster. Everyone's like, this test was so hard and we should be able to.

And there's always that one student that just got 100 or 95 and just took all of our excuses away. Yeah, she just took all your excuses away. Everybody. No excuses after that. I'm in California. I could never pay off a house. Wrong. I'm a single mom.

I could never. Wrong. I've got kids. I could never. I'm looking at it right here. I'm afraid my children will be damaged if I work. Wrong. I can't do six days a week.

I can't do seven days a week. Yes, you can. I'm looking at it right there. Congratulations. Incredible. Well done and well adjusted. This is the Ramsey Show. Thank you. Our scripture of the day, Romans 8.31, What then shall we say in response to these things?

If God is for us, who can be against us? Winston Churchill said, Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. I have been doing that a long time. that makes me feel good about my life thanks winston randy's with us in louisiana hi randy how are you hey baby hi dr john how y'all doing great man what's up so i have a question pertaining to baby step 4. That's where I'm currently on. I am putting money into my newly opened Roth IRA, and I'm wondering, should I be doing that in particular,

or should I be putting money aside to put down a down payment for a home? I'm currently in college. I'm on my last year and i'm wondering which route should i go i would just pile up cash i wouldn't be doing retirement until you graduate okay gotcha and then you can use that cash for whatever you need to after you after you transition into your uh you know your your career-based job in whatever city you end up when and all that kind of stuff okay you got plenty of time you got plenty of time to investing in to buy a house you know i wouldn't do either of those today but if you have a big pile of cash and you get out and you get

moved and you get settled into an apartment and you get your new job and the checks start coming in then you go okay i kind of want to think about buying a house and then you start saying i'm going to move some of that cash over into the house fund or i want to get my roth ira started so i'm going to move some of it over into the roth ira fund either one of those is fine are you dating someone serious uh yes i am we're not that far into a relationship we're doing extremely well but i'm just trying to reach my own goals pursue my own financial dream i'll just tell you advice from an old man that hasn't got anything to do with money if you buy a house and then a year later get married you will discover you bought the wrong house

okay because she wasn't in on the selection of it so So my point being, it's okay to rent if you're in a serious relationship. And coming out of school, you know, if you rent an apartment for a year, you're dating, you get engaged, you get married, then we buy. And all during that time you're piling up cash to make the buy, you haven't lost any ground. You're going to be just fine. There's no law that says you're going to hell if you don't buy a house by the time you're 23 Or something like that

So give yourself a little wiggle room Jay is in Battle Creek, Michigan Hi Jay, how are you? Hey, how are you guys doing? Better than I deserve, how can we help? Hey Dave Real quick, I just want to say that my wife and I found you When our parish priest was giving us wedding counseling

He set us up with a total money makeover And since then we have paid off 30 000 in debt built up a fully funded emergency fund and we bought a house with 20 down 8 000 under asking using an elp i want to start off by saying that so thank you wow thank you go brother you game on how can we help today now my question is with the new house, my mother-in-law wants to buy us a lot of gifts for Christmas. My wife and I know that she has no control over her finances. She has multiple credit cards, a car loan, and she doesn't even have her own place.

We love her. We love her so much. But we just don't know how we can tell her no to the gifts that she's expecting to buy us. I've even offered to give her. I told my wife I offered I could give her this little money makeover, set her up with Ramsey Plus, with Financial Peace. But I just don't.

How do we tell her no to the gifts? I just feel bad doing that to her since we just got out of debt. How long have you been married? We've been married now for just over a year is your mother-in-law single yes she is living with her mom so my wife's grandma okay all right here's the a i want to applaud your spirit. I want to applaud. You've had a string of some pretty remarkable success financially. And, man, like anybody whose life has been changed by something positive, you want to run out on the street and tell everybody,

and especially those that you love. The hard reality that you're picking up now is you can't control what she does. And there's few things in life harder than watching people you love make decisions that are going to hurt them. If you wanted to, you could set up a boundary and say, hey, this year we don't want gifts. We want to do this. But, Dave, I mean, you're a grandparent. I'm not. That may be more harmful.

Let me communicate a different message to her than you intend to um you can give her that gift uh the total money makeover something like that but the idea that a young guy who's marrying her daughter who's just come into her life a year ago is going to give her this is going to come be her savior man i want to relieve you of that brother that's not your job your job is to love her the best you man i want to relieve you of that brother that's not your job your job is to love her the best you can and by the way you're not gonna be very good at that job yeah or is they love her the best you can no i'm talking about the job of fixing her life yeah you can't do that yeah love her daughter well how about that yeah so the second thing is

this uh how's the relationship between your daughter and her mom? Your wife and her mom. It's very good. Okay. It's very good. Then you don't need to say boo. You don't need to say a single syllable. Not your mother. She needs to talk to her mom.

And at most, at most, nothing is okay. Saying nothing is okay. But saying at most, hey, hey mom we're really enjoying debt free and we've worked really hard to get out of that and i know you're struggling and and i appreciate your generous spirit so much you're such an amazing mom uh but i gotta tell you it makes us feel very very weird that you're borrowing money to give us gifts when we've worked so hard to get out of debt and and we wish you would dial it back and not borrow any money to bless us uh but you can do what you want to do and we're going to love you either way but it just makes us feel weird and

i just wanted you to know that because i yeah it's it's it takes a little of the joy off of it because we know it's not bringing because it's bringing harm to you and that's a that's a mother-daughter conversation that's not one year son-in-law coming in and being like well yeah lady you know you get what we're saying you're not even in the room when this happens and it's not by text and it's not by phone it's in person if at all possible absolutely and it's one time and then drop it and move on i love your heart but yeah you cannot fix her she's not within your control and it's again it's it's one of the things john and i say around here all the time one of the most painful parts of adulthood is watching people we love do stupid things yeah so we can't keep them from doing it yeah whether it's super destructive things like addictions or uh abuse

or whatever all the way to uh you know simply buying christmas gifts on a credit card that you wish you didn't do and i know the irony of this is that this is an advice show and that's what advice pays my bills but in the real world in relationships and people's you know we're going to go to christmas parties this year we're going to go to Christmas parties this year. We're going to hang out with our in-laws this year. Man, I've just, I've burned people over the course of my life trying to throw advice into situations

where it wasn't asked. And so I want to be invited in anymore. That's it. I have a rule. I do not give my opinion until you ask me. Yes, invite me in. And if you ask me, I'm obligated. Going full Dave.

You asked. That's really true on the show. I mean, you guys call and ask, so we're going to tell you. Yeah. You know, but I don't drive up beside some guy at the stoplight and go, Hey, looks like you got a lot of payments. Stupid car caller. What are you, a fool?

Idiot. You moron. Exactly. you got a lot of payments stupid car color idiot yeah exactly so i yeah i have thought that people and you say it you just have your windows up but the the number of times i've gone to someone said well hey you know uh wow yeah the only time i'm gonna intersect the only time i'm gonna intersect into someone's life uninvited is if I think they're in danger. That's exactly right. Or a child's in danger. Yep.

And then I'll put most of you in jail in that case. Yes. So, yeah, you don't want me around in that situation. That's exactly right. If someone's going to hurt themselves, I will call everybody. You start talking to me about suicide, 911. Yep. Yeah, I don't play with those.

I am not playing with this. But other than that, I'm going to wait to be invited in. And so here's a great thing, Jay, this last caller. If he lives his life of peace. She's going to want to know. She's going to want to know. Yeah, of no payments. Maybe, but I'll be honest.

Hardly any of our relatives do our stuff, okay? Let's just full disclosure. That's right. All right? A couple of them do, but most of them just think, wow, they did kind of good over there at the Ramsey Blue. That's like, what? Exactly.

Oh, well, that's the way it is, you know? So, yeah, well, we know you don't like credit cards, but, you know. You got this new co-host, John Bologna, with you. Merry Christmas. That puts this hour 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.

Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for The Ramsey Show. If you would like to do your debt-free scream live on the show, make sure you visit theramseyshow.com and register. We would love for you to come to Nashville and tell Dave your story.