The Ramsey Show - App - Don't Carry More Weight Than Your Bank Account Allows You To (Hour 3)

Episode Date: November 23, 2020

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Music Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Ken Coleman Ramsey, personality, is my co-host today as we talk about your career, your money, and your life. We're here to answer your questions.

That's what we do here. 888-825-5225. Sylvia is in San Diego. Hi, Sylvia. How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm okay. Good.

What's up? How are you? Well, I'm 67 years old. My husband died about going on three years right now. And I have a house in San Diego, and the value is like $753 or $ years right now. And I have a house in San Diego and the value is like some 53 or 52 right now. I only owe 235,000 on it, which is not much, but not for me, it's a lot.

But the payments are too high and I think I have about four and a half years left to go to pay that off because it was a 15-year mortgage. And, gosh, what else do I tell you? And so in the house, what I've been doing for the last three years, because I don't work, we had a family business that we had to close because my husband died, and so everything was just demolished, right? So then I started renting out my rooms, like one or two rooms that I was doing okay. And then my son built a little studio, so I've been renting that out.

And so then my son, who's got disabled, is living with me with my daughter-in-law and my grandson, and she does not work. Why? And, and, and, and. Why does she not work? Well, I don't know. She doesn't feel good, or now it's because of COVID, or whatever the deal is. Wait a minute. Stop me just a second, because I think I'm beginning to see how this is unfolding.

I'm getting electricity, water, the mortgage, Internet, everything. How are you paying for all this? Did you have a nest egg? Well, I have I get about fourteen eighty seven from Social Security for my husband's Social Security because I want to get half because I had to make that choice between no income and security. So I took that because I had it was three years ago and I was too young to get a Social Security. So then I had his was more so and so and then the other income i i got 250 000 from a term life policy which i know wasn't a lot we always had high term policies but because we got older it started getting super expensive to pay for term yeah and so that was issues so you've been using some of that money with your $1,400 just to keep the house. Yeah, so now I only have, because I had to pay my husband's bills and taxes, and I still owe taxes, but I did all that and paid whatever business bills we had, and so now I only have $120,000 left.

But I'm panicking because I don't know what to do because i'm emotionally attached to the house i still have all my husband's stuff in the room in the closet you know it's a big house it's about 3 500 square feet what is the uh what's the nature of your son's disability um he has like cancer type nature that's ongoing stuff. He has cancer? I'm sorry. Stop, stop, stop. Stop, stop, Sylvia. Stop.

Sylvia, stop. Okay, sorry. That's okay. What did you say? Your son has cancer? Yeah, like a stomach, like a blood cancer type of thing. Okay. And so he has been declared disabled with cancer?

Well, yeah, because he works and then he gets really sick. Then the job keeps him and then he goes back to work and then he gets off again. And so it's back and forth. So in between that, there's nothing coming in. So for a year paid i didn't charge him anything year and a half and then he started getting better and going back to work so i would charge him a thousand dollars or 1200 a month even now but now it's back into that waiting mode and so i'm always short and and um and they said that oh maybe here's the problem here's the problem here's the problem your bank account is not as big as your heart your heart wants to keep the house stop stop sylvia stop your heart your heart wants to keep

the house because it's got your husband's stuff and memories. Your heart wants to help your son and your bank account's not as big as your heart. No, I'm scared. You're going to run out of money. That's why you're scared. Yes. A hundred percent. I, you know, and I have excellent credit. I try to pay what I can.

So here's what we're going to do. Okay. We're going to do. Okay. We're going to cry. Because this is sad. And we're going to... And Sylvia, we're going to move. What?

Because your husband's memory and your husband's legacy is not a house. It's the man himself. And you're going to pack up some of the things that you want to keep to remember him by, and they're going to be in the next house because that's what he would do. Yeah, he would. You know, he wouldn't be dumb like me. You're not dumb.

You just have a big, beautiful heart. There's a difference. If you don't act on this this we might call you dumb later because you now know what to do you need to put a sign in the yard you need to have a big thanksgiving dinner and you need to tell your son and your daughter-in-law they're going to have to work it out and they'll work it out because daughter-in-law, they're going to have to work it out. And they'll work it out because daughter-in-law will get a job. I know, no matter what. She'll get a job.

When hunger hits her doorstep, she'll start working. But right now, you're carrying more than your bank account gives you the power to carry. And you can see the train coming down the tracks at you, and that's why you're terrified. So here's what's weird. When you step off the track, even though it's going to be painful to tell your son he has to move, even though it's going to be painful to box up your memories, when you step off the track, you're going to have a sense of relief that's going to be unbelievable. Because you're a smart woman.

You see the train coming. Yeah, and I thought I was holding on to it like right now. I've got to rent it downstairs. You can't. You can't. It's killing you. It's all in your voice. It's all in your voice.

This deal's over. Your voice sounds frazzled. Well, only because I'm struggling. I know. You're struggling. Why struggle? You have a half a million dollars in equity and $120,000 in the bank. Sell it. Move to a cheaper area to live and take your memories with you.

It's just a house, darling. It's just a house. It ain't worth it. That's what I would do if you were my older sister. I would have told you exactly the same thing I just told you right now, but we'll cry with you. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. you've worked hard to make your business successful blood sweat tears and prayers because as a business owner you are the secret, and your company is only as strong as you are. So what happens if a key ingredient is missing? And what if that ingredient is your health, resulting in expensive medical bills? Christian Healthcare Ministries, or CHM, presents health cost sharing.

It's different from insurance in that Christians help other Christians to meet their medical expenses. Various programs are available depending on your needs and budget. As a Better Business Bureau accredited charity, CHM has helped its members successfully share over $5 billion in each other's medical bills for nearly 40 years. Various programs are available depending on your needs and budget. Learn how CHM has served small business owners just like you by visiting chministries.org slash budget. chministries.org slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budget. Ken Coleman Ramsey personality is my co-host today here on the air this is the Dave Ramsey show Brandon is with us in Fort Bragg North Carolina hi Brandon what's up uh hey Dave hey Ken thank

you guys so much for taking my call so I'm going to jump right into it um my wife and I started our debt-free journey about 21 months ago we had $332,000 in debt and we are down to our last $19,807.46. It's on a 2019 Honda Odyssey. So private sale Blue Book is about $29,000 and we've been trying to sell it for about six months now. We've had it listed all the way down to $26,000 and we still haven't been able to get rid of it. So we took it to CarMax and they offered us twenty three thousand cash. So at this point, do you think I should just cut my losses and get out from under it or should we keep trying to private sale it? Or it'll take us about eight months if we continue in baby step two to pay it off. And I'm at a loss for what to do now. What's your household income? Sixty five thousand dollars a year.

What's the other car worth? It's worth about $8,500, but I paid cash for it. Okay. And so you'd have $31,000 tied up in cars, and you make $65,000. That's about 50%. That's the most we would tell you to have tied up in cars if they're paid for. Do you like the Odyssey? I do like it i don't like the 19 807 dollars and 46 seven or i'm sorry 46 cents but i don't want it yeah okay so if you sell it for 23 000 what are you going to do

uh we talked about going down my wife doesn't work she stays home with the kids so we're going to go down to one car for about three months three or four months get through baby step three and then save up cash and buy an older model Odyssey cash. Okay, like what price range? Probably about $10,000 to $12,000. $10,000. Actually, that fits your situation better than the current Odyssey does. Okay.

And so that plan gets you out of debt, and you're in a – because the other – if you keep this current car, you're at 50% of your income tied up in cars, which is the max we tell people. And I'd rather – just because it's the max doesn't mean you want to go to it. Yes, sir. You know, so if I was going to prescribe for me if you didn't own any cars, and you said, I'm going to own $20,000 worth of cars or I'm going to own $32,000 worth of cars and I make $60,000, I would tell you, you know, $20,000 is a good number. Paying cash, of course, along the way.

And that's what you're going to end up with, with a $12,000 Odyssey and an $8,000 what you're driving, right? Yes, sir. Yeah, I, you know, that's a lot of trouble to go through that but that's a very doable move and um it gets you under control instantly okay so um yeah you it isn't like you haven't tried to sell this and um you know i might push back on carmax see if they'll bump you another thousand just for the fun of it and i might shop it i might shop it to a couple other dealers and see if somebody else will bump it another $1,000. Say, I got a 23 from them.

You want to go more? Let's mess with a couple of dealers on a wholesale basis. Yes, sir. I think we kind of knew the answer before I called. I just needed that knowledge because when we sat down and looked at the number and how much of a hit we're taking and how much we're losing on it, it was kind of like, do we do this, do we not? But I think looking at it logically and following the baby steps of, you know,

progression and getting out of bed, I think we were kind of ready to do it then. Yeah. You've been working on this hard for a while, I can tell, because you're thinking really clearly. Yes, sir. You guys have been busting it. You've sacrificed to get here, haven't you? We have.

We sold our house. I sold my truck. We financed. We had $16,000 worth of furniture finance that we sold pretty much everything except for a coffee table and a couch. And then we've just been digging at it. And it just seems like we're just ready to be done with it. I'm waking up at 3 o'clock in the morning to look at my spreadsheet to see if we're going to save a dollar here and there so we can just get this thing done with. I can tell you're ready to be done with it.

How's your wife doing? I think she's on the same page. She's not psyched about going down to a single car for the three to four months, but, you know, I think she's kind of on board with whatever I want to do. It was just really explaining to her that we're going to take the hit now. We're never going to go in debt again. We're never going to make this mistake again, and it's just going to be a lesson that we've learned yeah that's painful but i i think i like your plan

as long as the two of you are on the same page to do it um and not her just going along with you um her enthusiastic about it matters because she's the one you're selling her car that's true yeah and you got to work through that the emotions of that but um there's tremendous momentum though i i just i think i want i want the audience to hear it in his voice he's waking up at three in the morning and he's really really dialed in on this thing this is gazelle intensity it's gazelle and he and i think you have to honor that gazelle intensity you got to finish it now i know it's going to be difficult there's no question about it. The next three, four months. That's a good word to honor the honor, the momentum step into the step into the flow. Yeah. Keep, keep it going because now what happens, there's no waking up at three in the

morning and he can transfer that intensity to now I'm on the other side of this deal. Now we're now we're saving money for the emergency fund. They were saving money for the replacement odyssey. Yeah. Don't lose momentum is what I would do everything in my power to not lose momentum. Yeah. And everything in my power to not lose momentum. Yeah, and you've got momentum caught by the tail. Oh, he's rolling downhill. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good observation.

Jesse's in Huntsville, Alabama. Hi, Jesse. How can we help? Hey, it's so good to talk to you guys. I'm so happy to be communicating with you. You too. I'm very confused about what to do financially, and happy to be communicating with you. I'm very confused about what to do financially. And just to be honest with you, I've never once had an adult figure in my life. You know,

my parents were not good with money. I grew up like on food stamps a lot of the time, just never really have known how to handle it. And so I'm constantly trying to teach myself how to. About a year and a half ago, I moved out of the house that I bought with my ex-boyfriend. No longer am I in it. Since then, I've been living with a friend. I feel very disempowered living with her because I just feel cramped in this one small room, like a child almost. I am at a job where I thought I was going to be able to get full time, but they just sold the company and now I'm not able to.

I don't get paid hardly anything at all. I mean, it's decent, but it's not enough for me to sustain myself. So I guess nothing at all. I'm trying to be generous to them, but I don't have health insurance. I don't really have any debt. I have a thousand dollars left on my car i have 14 000 in savings um which i feel like i should invest into a little bit into an ira no no no i just don't know what to do with it i don't know what next step to take

and i don't have a college education but i I want to go back and finish. Why? Because I want to feel actually confident in a skill set, which I've learned so much. I'm 27, and I've learned so much while my friends were in college. I was managing a nonprofit, did a lot of marketing for local businesses. So I feel intelligent, but I want to be very skilled at certain applications, which I think will give me a higher capability to earn more money. Jesse, let me ask you a question. If you knew you couldn't fail and you didn't have to commit the next 15 years of your life to a job, what would you try tomorrow knowing there was no risk?

What would you want to do? That is such a great question that I've never been able to answer. I mean, to be completely honest with you, I know this is vague, and vagueness will not get me anywhere. I know that. Take a step. Here's what I want you to do. I want you risk-free.

We're just talking. You, me, and Dave. I think you know an answer, and I don't care if it's kind of fuzzy. Let us dig into it. Tell me, what would you do? Top of your heart, say it. I've really been thinking that I want to get into real estate. Okay. Take us 10 years, 15 years down the line.

Success in real estate for you is what? Describe it. Success in life in general for me would be having a job that I'm genuinely passionate about and I feel like I can work harder to earn more money not a nine to five where I'm stuck making an hourly or salary salary wage because that feels so limiting to me so you're rocking so you're rocking you're selling homes you got a lot of freedom in your life um I'm going to pass it today but I'm going to tell you something you got $14,000 in savings and you owe $1,000 on your car

you need to pay the car off today and Dave I mean I think she's now she's got $13,000 and I think she needs to get real serious about stepping into real estate real fast let's give her a copy of my book

The Proximity Principle I want you to read this and I want you to go talk to three real estate brokers beginning next Monday about what it takes to get started with them. And you're going to be working some part-time stuff, maybe like six part-time things instead of one bad one, until you get your real estate career up and running. But six months from now, you should be full-time in real estate, having worked part-time doing anything you can get your hands on to eat in the interim.

And you probably do need to get you an apartment as soon as you get your income up just a little bit. Hang on. Kelly will pick up. We'll give you a copy of the Proximity Principle. You need to get into real estate business, Jesse. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Steve and Margaret are with us in Houston, Texas. It says on my screen, you guys are debt-free. Congratulations. Thank you. Well done.

How much have you paid off? $97,290. I love it. How long did this take? About 30 months. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? Well, we started off about $85,000 combined, and now we're sitting at about $150,000 combined.

Wow, nice jump. Yep. What do you all do for a living? I'm a contract attorney. And I'm in sales. Okay. So you just did more of each? Yes.

I was working kind of, I had less contracting time when we first started this, and now I've been contracting full-time at this point. So you jacked it up to get out of debt? Yes. Cool. What kind of debt was the $97,000? All of the above. We were normal.

We were normal. We were normal. IRS, credit card, student loan, auto loan, family loan, you name it, we had it. If we had a loan after it, we did it. Oh, my gosh. How old are you two? 52. Okay. So what happened two and a half years ago that completely changed the direction of what you were doing?

We got married. Oh, that'll do it. Well, three years ago, but it was discussing, okay, yeah, we just got married. What are we going to be doing with the rest of our lives? And, you know, what are we going to do when we're a little bit too old to, you know, go hit the grind and try and pay off all these darn bills at once and had a sit down. And we went to FPU and went through it and we started working it. He wasn't too thrilled about it the first time, but he was the guy in there who was really glad that you were

funny. And after the first day, he was hooked. Whatever it takes, right, Dave? Humor helps the medicine go down, right? Yes. Spoonful of sugar, right? So, wow, very cool. So you get married, you get into Financial Peace University, and you dive into this headlong, and you just bust it. Yep.

What was the hardest part for you? The hardest part for me starting out was just trying to do a budget. I run a checkbook register, and it balances to the penny. And I could not get past that every single thing had to balance down to the penny. And I'm the nerd, and I was overthinking it. And so my wonderful free spirit helped me out that this is a plan. It's not carved in stone that comes down from off of Mount Sinai. You know, this is a living, breathing thing, and we can do this.

And once I did that, okay, we can do this. And moving to cash. And that was a big deal, too, because we'd always lived on plastic. Wow. That's definitely my big breakthrough would have been because i i was the guy who i'd go in and and get us you know get a soda in a donut in the morning and put it on my debit card and you know do that regularly various through the day and everything and i'd get home and miss check register there was well so what

did you spend today oh my god well why don't you do it? This is just nuts. Why do you keep using that thing instead of, you know, and, you know, moving to cash, it's like, okay, well, I've got, I've got here, I've got my money clip here and this is what I need and I pay for it with the cash and I save the change and that gets thrown into a little, little bin in my, my car. And then the next time I go through and I need a soda maybe, hey, I've got the change right here, and here's your exact change. Boom, let's go. Did you give up the sodas and donuts for a season, or did you just figure out how to do it in the envelope? Donuts, yes, and that's a separate story completely, but the sodas, no.

I mean, that's one i will get a soda and i'll get it heading home drink half of that and then use the the rest of it to come in to work the next morning and you know but you gotta have your caffeine and you know i don't drink coffee so hey give it give it to me the other way there you go i love it well done you guys very well done, you guys. Very well done. So the first order of business in a new marriage in your 50s is get out of debt. Was it worth it? Heck yes. Absolutely. What has it done for your marriage?

I think it opened up even more possibilities. We can live out our dreams instead of living through our past and still paying for our past and paying for it with interest. And there's no knee-jerk reactions. I mean, we're operating in the now but looking towards the future. I love it. You're both 52 and you're dreaming. What would you say to people in their 40-somethings and early 50-somethings if they think they can't get where you are? Get off the pot.

Well, I don't know what you mean. Could you be more specific? I don't know. You can do it. If we can do it, you can do it. That's great. I love that. It is not just possible.

It's probable if you work at it. If you want it and if you work at it, you can have it. I thought that my student loan was going to be something I was going to be paying on like a mortgage for, you know, for 30 years until I really looked at the math and I'm paying $6 a day for this thing. This thing has got to go. And when you really take a look at what you're actually paying, not just the payments and you know the interest and stuff, but you start doing the math on it and seeing how much you're losing every single month and you decide that I'm not going to do this anymore. I want out. And I want in on a future, on a life that we can breathe.

We have peace. And we don't fight. Way to go very cool you guys very very well done love it love it we've got a copy of chris hogan's book for you everyday millionaires that's the next chapter in your story for sure well done very well done you guys you're heroes you took control of your life and you took control of your future by doing that. It's inspiring. All right. It's Steve and Margaret, Houston, Texas.

$97,000 paid off in 30 months, making $85,000 to $150,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free. Yeah. Three, two, one, we're debt-free! Yeah! I love it! Steve is debt-free but not caffeine-free, we should point out.

Well, me too. That's right. I'll join him in that. Yeah, that's my problem. Coffee every morning. Very good. Good stuff good what a great couple i mean she was preaching there at the end i hope folks you're listening i think that's incredibly inspiring when people think i'm in my 50s my ship has sailed that's not true they are living

in the now and plan in the future is what they said dreaming and yet i meet people on this show, and you meet them on your show, where they talk about an event that shaped their lives. And it sounds like, with the language they're using, like this divorce, this job layoff, this death in the family. And they're legitimately harmful tragedies, horrible things to go through. But they discuss it, and I'm listening to them, and it feels like it was two months ago, and then I find out it was a decade ago, and they're still living back there instead of today and going forward. Those guys had a back there. We didn't even hear their back there story.

It's true. They had a life before this started, and they'd made some mistakes before this started, but they weren't living back there. Never even came up. Didn't come up. That's a good point. It's a vision thing. It's where your eyes are looking is where you're going to go.

Are you spending all your time looking longingly and mournfully in the rearview mirror, or are you looking out the windshield? There's a reason the windshield is bigger than the rearview mirror. It's called grace. Every morning you get a chance to start again with a whiteboard, and that's what they were cashing that chip in. Yeah, beautiful, beautiful. I love, I mean, we don't know second, third chances,

but I love the multiple chances. What a great story. They sit down early on in their marriage and got real intense about it. And what a fun couple. What a great couple. I love that story. I love all the debt-free screens because it reminds us all that we can see a better future and we can achieve a better future.

All we've got to get serious about. I love it. Get off the pot. There's your phrase of the day. What do you tell them, Steve? Get off the pot. And get off the pot. There's your phrase of the day. What do you tell them, Steve? Get off the pot. And get off the ladder. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. Our scripture of the day, Ecclesiastes 4, 9, and 10.

Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up. Henry Ford said, coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success. If you need some extra cash this Christmas, we are giving away cash all season long. You can enter our Ramsey Christmas giveaway daily to increase your chances of winning one of our weekly $500 prizes or our $5,000 grand prize.

Enter at DaveRamsey.com slash giveaway. Plus, if you're looking for life-changing gifts for family and friends, our famous week-long Black Friday sale is here, and that means you can shop our best-selling books, bundles, and kids products for up to 83% off. Our number one bundle, the Starter Special, is on sale, and it gives you everything you need to get out of debt, budget, and build wealth. And of course, we're including top books like Ken Coleman's number one national bestseller, The Proximity Principle. All the books are $10 each. Enter to win some cash, save some money on your Christmas, all at DaveRamsey.com.

And, of course, for the giveaway, there is no purchase necessary. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Josh is with us in Youngstown, Ohio. Hi, Josh. How are you? Hi, Dave. Doing great. Thank you for doing the service. Well Hi, Josh. How are you? Hi, Dave. Doing great. Thank you for doing

the service. Well, thank you. How can I help? So my girlfriend turned me on to you a couple weeks ago, and this thought has been in my head ever since. I understand your love of credit cards in our lives, right? My question is, if a person has the discipline to live within their means, not overspend and stay within their budget, would it be permissible, so to speak, in your system to use a credit card if it can accumulate you money? Like I have one credit card that I've ever had that gives me 5% cash back on certain things at certain times. And not only can I use that money to accumulate for future purposes, so to speak, as credit that I don't have to pay towards, but I can also put that money straight into my account and tax-free if I choose. Again, I think the main word is discipline, but me personally, I have no debt, and I've used this to my advantage many times, but I was wondering how you felt about it.

Yeah. How old are you? 31. 31. Yeah. How old are you? Uh, 30, 31. 31. Okay. When we did Chris Hogan's book, The Everyday Millionaire, we studied the, did the largest study of millionaires in North America ever done. Over 10,000 of them. And so we have really good data on what makes someone wealthy out of the 10 167 millionaires that we interviewed not a single one said dave i made all my money with my credit card points

i took advantage of a multi-billiondollar corporation who has more invested in studying me and my behavior patterns, and I whipped their butt. None of them said that. None of them said, I'm going to join up for their game and play it and think I'm going to win. None of them said that. And so I consequently, when I started talking to wealthy people, when I went broke, I was 28 years old when I went broke. I'm 60 now. I lost everything because of debt. It wasn't credit card debt, but it was because of debt.

And I started studying this stuff. And when I started studying wealthy people, I have never found anyone that thought that was under illusion, that they're actually winning at the credit card game. So I got out of the credit card business. I carry a debit card. And by the way, the debit card will do everything the credit card will do except accumulate these points, which we have established in the last few moments are not a wealth-building method. Yes. Technically, I do have a debit card with my bank, but I rarely use it.

That's what I have, and that's all I have. And I just decided not to play their game. Okay. Because they – let me tell you how complicated and sophisticated these guys are. When you call Citibank, your zip code shows up. Your NSX on your phone number shows up, and it dials in a zip code, meaning the first three digits of your seven-digit zip code shows up, your NSX on your phone number shows up, and it dials in a zip code, meaning the first three digits of your seven-digit zip code. And it pre-selects a script based on the area of the country that you're in, and it pre-selects

the person who's going to be speaking to you and what accent they're going to have. And so if you're calling from the south, you're very likely, if you're calling customer service, to get someone from the south. If you're calling into collections, you're going to get someone from Brooklyn because that's like fingernails down a chalkboard for someone from the south.

And their goal is to irritate you if you're in collections. It's very sophisticated. They know the type of bottled water you likely drink before they pick up the phone. They know your buying patterns. They know your income levels based on the zip code that you're in and your NSX. The data that they're operating with is highly sophisticated. The chances of these guys losing money on a transaction with you is almost zero. And so this is like playing with a very large old snake that knows his stuff.

He's going to bite your freaking head off. So I wouldn't do it. You do what you want to do, but I wouldn't do it. And I've got friends that do it. They pay off their credit card every month, and some of them are wealthy. But none of them are under the illusion that their points or their airline miles cause them to be wealthy. Nor are they under the illusion that they're actually winning at a game with freaking Citibank or a game with J.P. Morgan or a game with, I mean, can you imagine? Oh, no, no. So I wouldn't play with it, sir. You asked my opinion,, I mean, can you imagine? Oh, no, no.

So I wouldn't play with it, sir. You asked my opinion, and I think you already knew it before you asked, but that's what I wouldn't do. How long has it been since you had a credit card? When we first, when Stacy came to work for you, we only had one. That's 20 years ago. Yeah. Yeah.

You don't even know the difference. I mean, it's, again, like you say, the debit card can do everything. It's real purchasing versus this myth. And you can just fall into a trap. You just never know when some emergency happens if you don't have the baby steps in place and of a temptation to then say, oh, well, I've got it. I'm going to use it. Now you're behind the wheel. Well, and the other pieces of data we've got is that they – any kind of non-cash transaction, debit, credit, Apple Pay. Oh, yes, that's right. Any of these – they're what are called low-friction transactions. When you spend with cash, it activates the pain centers of your brain.

And it doesn't when you do a low-friction transaction with plastic. And actually, credit cards are lower friction because somewhere deep down in your psyche, you know you don't have to pay it. You don't have to have the money in the account today. I just got to get my paycheck by the end of the month, or I can pay one of those easy payments. And somewhere down in your psyche, your intellect tells you you that and so you have a tendency to spend more and all kinds

of different pieces of research showing that you spend more with credit cards than you do with debit cards and more with debit cards than you do with cash yeah that's again because you it's a psychology of behavior and it doesn't matter how disciplined you are i'm disciplined i teach this stuff for a living. And we're on a cruise ship, and, of course, there's no money on a cruise ship these days, back when we used to have cruises. Remember those? And your door key will buy anything on the boat.

And I find myself buying the kids, you know, $6 ice cream cones or whatever. Same thing at Disney property. Your door key will work. It's your own property and you can buy you can buy one of those 63 raincoats and not think anything about it because it rains every afternoon disney arranged that true and so um you know but you just don't you don't realize it emotionally that you're overspending and you're spending more than you would even if you're disciplined i'm pretty dadgum discipline i teach this for a living right but i get back to the room i'm like one dadgum and you I teach this for a living. Right. But I get back to the room and I'm like, dadgum.

And you can afford a lot of $63. We bought some stuff. I can afford it. But I'm just looking at the bill going, we bought some stuff. You know, it's like swipe, swipe, swipe. Right. And, you know. I heard you say this once.

We were talking about this one time. We have a mutual friend who posed that one time. We were hanging out at his house and he was was literally asking all this, and you said the same thing. And it's funny that really wealthy people don't need airplane miles. They don't. Like, real wealth. They have money. Yeah, they don't care.

They have their own plane. They don't care about the miles because they go, hey, I think I want to go here tomorrow. Oh, yeah, I'm really rich. I can do that. Well, there's that. There's's that that puts us out of the day ramsay showing the books ken coleman good show thank you sir james childs is our producer kelly daniel is our associate producer and phone screener i am dave ramsey your host 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. And a lot of those people listen on one of our 600-plus radio stations across the country. To find a station near you, head to DaveRamsey.com slash show.