The Ramsey Show - App - Don't Despise Humble Beginnings (Hour 3)

Episode Date: June 11, 2020

Debt, Education, Relationships Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR 

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. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, my co-host on the air today. We are answering your questions about your life and your money. The phone number is a free call, and some say the advice is worth what you pay for it. 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225.

Debbie's in Arizona. Hi, Debbie. How are you? Hi, Dave. Hi, John. I happen to be looking for free advice so I've come to the right place good we're gonna give you twice the value Debbie grateful my question today is about really learning to trust myself my journey to baby

step six only started at age 50 when I found myself divorced and without a backup plan. So I committed myself to your process completely. It felt imperative. It was fear fueled. I had blinders on head down, no monkey business and plowed through it. And I'm proud of the fact that I've made it to baby step six and I have a healthy emergency fund, and I'm really finding it difficult to lighten up. And when I try to spend money on myself or relax, this sense of fear gets triggered again, that I'm going to slip backwards or begin spending unconsciously or, you know, whatever I did for the first 50 years of my life that had no particular goal in mind or understanding of what I was doing, I'm afraid I'll flip back into that

if I just even spend the monthly mad money I put in my wallet. I hold on to that as if it's the last 50 bucks I have on my life. It's hard for a warrior to rest after the war is over. Well put. Did you grieve your divorce oh yeah i sunk deep okay because and dave just said it much more succinctly than than i will but often when we have an identity that gets pulled out from under us we immediately dump that identity into something else and if your identity as you described it is um you got gazelle intense your identity became a runner and a fighter then once you win you didn't start looking around for other things to fight

and for other things to run from or instead of running towards things your whole identity is running away from and so the reason i asked you if you grieve this yet, because what I hear you saying is you don't trust yourself still. And sometimes against a long-term marriage that you found yourself with nothing, you trusted a lot. And you trusted yourself. And I want you to hear me say you've got value and you've proven to yourself that you're strong. You're proven to yourself that you're a stud. And now you have to give yourself permission to look in the mirror and say,

I have value and I can trust myself now. And then go buy yourself something nice. And. Oh, that definitely resonates. Yeah. and then go buy yourself something nice. And? Oh, that definitely resonates. Yeah. And as you're doing that, I mean, I think if you look at the facts, the facts as you laid them out to us are the facts are that you are trustworthy. You're worthy of trusting yourself because you've done a good job.

And on top of that, you're so self-aware that one of the reasons you did a good job was you were scared out of your dadgum mind, and you were running at breakneck speed away from danger, you know? And you're saying, hey, and now that I don't have danger, I don't have the lion. There's no lion on my heels. I don't know what to do now. There's nothing to run from and um and i'm a little bit afraid without that fear that i'll relapse or that i'll do something stupid and the fact that you say that out loud means that that one thing gives you pretty good uh you know pretty good insurance you're not gonna do that because you're just self-aware

enough to do that so i i think i think you're in a really, really good place. And then the last thing is, the truth is, we're 30 years the other side of our crash, and we still walk with a limp. Okay. I mean, if I start a certain series of behaviors or sentence structure that reminds my wife of the way I did business when we were building a house of cards that caused us to lose everything. It activates a scar in her psyche. Can you possibly imagine that?

I mean, if she senses that something, and occasionally she just gets these heebie-jeebies, and she's like, oh, God, oh, God, oh, God. Trauma has no calendar and no clock yeah but it does it you know the scar does heal and it becomes thicker scar tissue and it's not it's not as tender 20 years later as it was 20 days later it's not as tender 30 years later it does get better but it's always there and so you know i have we have to sit down and take extra care of communication in our marriage because of what we went through to say that there's a scar here.

So we have this emergency fund, and here's how much money we have here. And you feel like if we're spending this that we're out of control, honey, because she's afraid we're going to relapse or something. Okay, if we buy this, look, here's what this is as a percentage of this, and there's all this other money. So we're okay. Okay, okay, I can calm down now but i have to kind of go back and revisit that place and and uh and and occasionally i cause it too so uh it's not just her but i mean part of this is you're all what you you know once you were a single mom for instance uh and then you get married later uh you you always have this thing of,

I've got to be able to survive because I was on my own once and had to survive. And so you have that in your psyche. It's just there. It's part of your experience. It's part of who you are. It's part of the beauty of who you are, but it's also part of the downside of who Sharon and I are because we still have that scar.

And, you know, anytime you go through trauma, it's there. And it's just as time goes on but i think you are are very bright and you're very self-aware and i think you're just fine i think you're worthy of trusting yourself it sounds like she went from trust in a marriage yeah in a person but then she transferred that trust to the baby steps And the next move to make is she needs to transfer that trust to herself. And she needs to draw a picture of what tomorrow's going to look like and what the next 10 years are going to look like and stop running from and start running to. Yeah. And that sounds trite and it sounds cheesy.

But now she gets to trust herself and to write out the new plan. And, man, given her resilience and her strength it's going to be awesome to watch her all night adventure and you know there's a lot of people right now they're coming out of covet yeah and and they got the they got the they got smacked on the nose financially lost a job they didn't have an emergency fund they had they had a moment and they're you know they're right this second listening to us and they're going oh god it's an oh crap moment. And we've had 100,000 people do this 14-day free trial on Financial Peace University in 60 days.

That's an oh, crap moment. I don't ever want to be here again. And that's what we had when I went broke. I had an oh, crap moment. I don't ever want to be here again. You have a never again moment. Never again. And what the baby steps do,

the nerd word is scaffolding. It gently picks you up. It gives you a plan to follow while you get your sea legs underneath you and you start walking taller and more firm and taller until you rebuild the trust in yourself. And baby step seven is so detailed. It says build wealth and be generous. Right.

And by then... By then you don't need the scaffolding. You realize you were standing tall. Yeah. But by the way, if you want to do that 14-day free trial, you should. DaveRamsey.com slash FPU. It's still available right now. I don't know how long we're going to do this, but it's 14 days you can get Financial Peace University. Every dollar plus.

The Baby Steps Tracker. The full Financial peace membership experience DaveRamsey.com slash FPU most people's money problems come from not paying attention that's why before I spend a dime of my money on something I do the research and make sure it's going to live up to what it claims. Recently, I got a great pair of sunglasses from a company called Shady Rays. When you're looking for sunglasses, it feels like your options are limited. Name brand sunglasses cost too much and the cheap knockoffs are ugly and really don't protect your eyes.

Discovering Shady Rays is a game changer. With Shady Rays, you can count on premium sunglasses that protect your eyes and are affordable. They give people the best overall value in sunglasses. They also replace your shades with a brand new pair if you lose or break them from day one of your purchase. And they guarantee your sunglasses for life. Plus, they offer an exclusive for Ramsey Show listeners. Go to ShadyRays.com and use the code RAMSEY for 50% off two

or more pairs. That's ShadyRays.com, code RAMSEY. Our question of the day comes from blinds.com find out for yourself why blinds.com is the number one online retailer of custom window coverings you get free samples free shipping and with the new promos they run all the time you'll save even more there's a magic word you use to get the free money it's's called a promo code. Ramsey. Use the promo code Ramsey. John, our question of the day. Today's question comes from Heidi in Michigan. She visits DaveRamsey.com to ask, I am 26 and realizing that I need to get my life together. I have been very reckless with money in my past, and I'm trying to get myself out of debt

so I can achieve these huge goals. Goals such as owning real estate and running a property management company as well as living a life that no one else can. What is your advice on just getting started? There's so much information out there and I don't know where to begin. I'm surviving but not living. My parents are offering me to move back home for a period of time but I don't want to feel as I've failed. I just need guidance.

That's all over the place we've talked about this 10 times on the show today this is a question that's bigger than money yeah how do you eat an elephant a bite at a time one bite at a time you listed 16 things in here you're wanting to do you need to line them up in order. What is the most important thing? The most important thing is for you to create a personally sustainable situation. You need to sustain Heidi first before you worry about buying real estate, before you worry about owning a property management company, before you worry about anything. Get stable in your career, stable in your finances,

have a nice, neat little apartment, and everything is under control. You've been in chaos for a long time. It's all between these words. All of these words say, you've been partying your butt off, girl. All of these words say, you are disorganized and you haven't had a plan

and you just had something gave you a wake-up call. that's cool and we're here to help you and we love you and we'll walk with you but your first step is very not flashy no one of the things i'm getting grumpy about my old age dave is our obsession with pathologizing everything she She says this in this line, I don't want to feel as I have failed. We are so terrified of feeling uncomfortable, of feeling hurt, of feeling sad. And we are robbing ourselves of transformative moments when we do that.

And we hide and you compress those things and you numb out from those feelings. I think the most important thing she needs to do if she's 26 and realizing, I don't have any, I'm nowhere near my goals. Well, yeah, I mean, I just now have some. Feel it. Feel it. You're not where you want to be.

Yeah. And let that be the catalyst for what tomorrow's going to look like. I mean, it can be. I can speak from personal experience on this from, you know, when we went broke. The thing I had to first go through was feeling stupid because I was. Right? Yes. I had to feel like an idiot for talking to my wife in a certain way.

Because I was an idiot. Yes. And you just kind of got to live in that a moment and then that helps you not do it again yeah you know it's not it's conviction it's not condemnation that's right and it's and it's when the guilt is appropriate versus i'm going to put that in my backpack and turn that guilt into shame and i'm just going to carry that around with me forever so what we're saying is um heidi you don't just go from disorganized having no plan misbehaving chaotic life party life whatever it is is going on here

or whatever combination those things are going on and you flip the switch and now you own real estate a successful business and your personal finances are all lined up perfectly right there's no microwave there's no pill there's no uh oh i'm gonna get a life pill uh no you're gonna build a life brick by brick board by board and you start with the foundation which is just you get stable and there's no soundtrack that swells there's no big moments there's no firework show for you no symbol hit you wake up and say today i'm gonna put on my running shoes and i'm gonna get as far as i can yeah I'm going to walk back home and start again tomorrow. Yeah.

One more day. One more day. And then if you've done that a little while, then you're going to feel really comfortable and kind of calm and peaceful about taking the next step. Because you're going to have little wins. Yeah. Next step. And then the next step. And then the next step. Quit trying to do everything at once. And it

is the beauty of a wake-up call. And I am not disputing that you've had a wake-up call. It looks very thorough. Whatever it is, it woke you up. But the other thing is, I want to high-five Heidi. Good for you. You had it. You had it.

Don't waste this moment. Yeah, this is the thing. But also, don't despise. We have a thing on the wall over here, a replica of my old car that I used to carry books around and sell books out of the trunk of my car when we first started this thing. Now we're in this 250,000 square foot, $70 million building. But over the top of that old trunk over there in our bookstore, right across the lobby, you can see it from sitting here.

You can see it. It's behind a wall from me. It says, don't despise small beginnings. Humble beginnings. Yeah. Don't despise small beginnings. Humble beginnings. Yeah. Don't despise humble beginnings. So don't do that. Just because a humble beginning doesn't mean it's not going to end up.

You get every one of the things on this list, you're just going to get them in order. That's how you eat an elephant a bite at a time. James is with us. James is in Texas. Hi, James. How are you? Hi, Mr. Ramsey. Thank you so much for taking my call. Sure. What's up in your world?

So I've been a fan for almost a year now. I know that you always, you never say debt is smart. I just want to get your opinion on what I'm about to say is going into just a little bit of debt. I have a full tuition scholarship to law school. Good for you. Thank you. Where? I also have a university at Richmond, Virginia. Awesome.

Very cool. So the tuition is all covered. You need room and board. Yes, sir. Good. Way to go, man. And you start in the fall? Thank you.

Yes, sir. I also get a, you can pursue a dual degree with this scholarship, and it covers about 75% of it. So I'll also be getting my MBA as well. Okay. So I just wanted to know – so I plan to room and board, books, all that good stuff, living expenses. It will be about $60,000 to $80,000 by the time this is all said and done,

because I do have to pay 25% of the MBA as well. And I'm planning, like you say, I'm a broke student. And when I graduate, I'll be a broke lawyer. Beans and rice, don't go to a restaurant unless I'm clocking in for an extra shift to pay off my debt. And I'm fully on board with that. So what I wanted to know is, with all of that being said is this a stupid decision i would just go find the 80 grand or the 60 grand you don't need it all today anyway what do you got a two-year program or a three-year program three it'll be about it'll be three years and a summer okay so you need 20 grand a year that's pizza delivery money and james what is this um What's the MBA? You don't know this about me. I was a dean of students at a law school for five years. What's an MBA on the back end of

a JD going to get you? Well, first, I want to know how to manage my money for starters. I want to go into corporate litigation. And I know that getting a hold on how corporations work, I can better represent a corporation or multiple depending on what that litigation brings me to. Okay, so A, you're way smarter than me. Way to go. And B, what I want you to do is to sit down and talk to folks who went through the JD MBA program and find out the ROI against that MBA. Because I want to know if it's worth that gap money. Um, and I know that every law student I've ever worked with and they are brilliant and smart and kind and ready to go attack the world.

And they are looking for every single advantage on planet earth to get them to the top of whatever applicant pile they want to be a part of. And I have never sat down on the back end and said, are these extra things? Is that extra $80,000, $60,000? Well, that's mainly room and board. Right, or $30,000. How much of this is MBA cost? I bet it's a chunk.

I talked to the advisor. They said it'd be about $20,000. That's like a high-end estimate. It depends on how quickly I can take care of it. Okay, so let's say we've got $60,000, and $20,000 of it's that, and $40,000 of it's room and board. So going back to John's idea, let's double-check and make sure there's an ROI on that extra $20,000 for the MBA. As far as covering the other stuff, in 30 years, I've never told someone to take out a loan of any kind especially a student loan they almost got you dave no it's like they're still trying to get close and so uh didn't even get close i love that they keep just yawned i love they keep

trying yeah so the uh no you're gonna get a job son and you're gonna work 80 hours a week between now and the time you go to college and you're gonna do it again next summer and you're gonna be the craziest kid in law school. Because you're not allowed to work. But you're going to be working. And it doesn't cost. You can make it. You're not that far off.

You're almost there. So close. Don't cave in and be broke when you come out with $80,000 in debt. Because you didn't have a better plan. Go get you some money. Families all over the country are discovering a faith-based and budget-friendly way of meeting health care costs, whether they're anticipated or completely unexpected. For example, take the Olcheski family from LaGrange, Texas. Jeff and Carice had just celebrated the birth of a new baby boy. Shortly after,

they had another expensive medical issue come up. They could have faced a huge financial setback, but thanks to Christian Healthcare Ministries, the Olcheskis were spared from a ton of medical bills. As members of CHM, they're part of a group of believers who financially and spiritually support each other. CHM is the longest-serving health cost-sharing ministry and is a Better Business Bureau-accredited charity. It's Christians helping other Christians, and it shared nearly $97,000 to help the Olcheskis. To be a part of Christian Healthcare Ministries,

visit chministries.org. That's chministries.org. CHM is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Solutions. Thank you, Jesus. It's a good thing. Humans are out and about. Life is good. Speaking of which, right here on the debt-free stage, Joshua and Sidney join us from Cleveland, Ohio, for a debt-free scream.

Welcome, guys. How are you, Dave debt-free scream. Welcome, guys. How are you, Dave? Hi, Dave. Welcome, welcome. How much have you paid off? We paid $110,473 in 36 months. Good for you. And your range of income during that time?

2017, when we started, it was $112,000. And then last year, we went down a little bit to $103,000 for Sid Sydney to go back to school and cut a little bit of hours to go back full-time. Okay. Very good. Very good. So what kind of debt was the $110,000? So it was mostly student loans, and then we had a car loan. We had a small personal loan and then some credit cards.

You were kind of like normal people. Yeah. Just a little bit of everything. Just hanging out. Just bopping along. How old are you guys? I'm 28. I'm 26 normal people. Yeah. Just a little bit of everything. Just hanging out. Just bopping along. How old are you guys? I'm 28. I'm 26.

Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Right in there. That's exactly it. It sounds like a five-year out of school situation. Yeah. And so what happened?

What was the big 36-month-ago wake-up call? What lit the fuse? Yeah. So we had just gotten married and finally put our finances together. So we didn't really talk about it prior. So we didn't realize how much we had together. Uh-oh. Yeah.

Sounds like there was a big reveal night. Yeah. So there was some arguing and discussing. And we ultimately came to the conclusion if we wanted to have a child that it would have been extremely tight living paycheck to paycheck. And that's not where we wanted to be. So we knew that if we wanted to do that, we needed to start paying off debts. So we started MyPlan because we hadn't heard of you yet. And I was doing my thing, and then he was over there doing his thing with credit cards.

So that wasn't really working. And then I took his credit card, and that was kind of the start. Yeah, Dave, stick it away and start freaking out, trying to figure out a plan uh-oh i mean this guy this guy this got real oh it did it did and then how did you find us well uh actually i was trying to talk to co-workers talk to people relatives yeah like she took my credit card yeah what am i doing what am i gonna do now a co-worker gave me an fbu audio cd ah so i went. I drove home. It's an hour drive. So I got to hear the whole first video or the audio CD. And when I came home, I said, Sidney, I have a plan.

We're getting out of debt. We're selling your car. Yeah. You take my credit card, I'll sell your car. You were a curse word, Dave. I'm sorry. Oh, man. That's awful.

You are a horrible husband. That is great. Oh, I'm so sorry. Oh, you did not get the whole picture, huh? Well, the next day, right after, I popped the second CD in, and Dave said, first thing, right on the radio, now, I know you're excited. Go ahead and tell your wife you're going to sell her

car. A little late. A little late. 24 hours would have been helpful. Yeah. So I was like, how could you know yesterday? Listen to this. Please, please. This is the plan.

This is the plan. Come here. Let's listen. So then we did FPU. Oh, okay. In April. Now we get aligned. Yeah. Then we get aligned and then it's game on.

Okay. Very cool. Well, good for you guys. Good for you guys. Good for you guys. So I appreciate you being real and telling the whole story because sometimes people act like this is all like, well, this is too easy. It doesn't really happen. No, it's a pain in the butt doing this stuff. And the arguments to start this whole process were real, weren't they?

Yeah. Yeah. Disagreements and yeah. Yeah. They weren't disagreements. They were arguments. You were fighting. Sharon and I fight.

I mean, we get after it when that's going on. And you guys, you got to get through it. And you got to get all the stuff out. And the more stuff that comes out, the more oh, crap moments you have while you're doing that. And then you go, this is starting to overwhelm me. Now I'm getting afraid. And then I'm getting angry. And then I'm getting really afraid.

And then, yeah, it goes crazy if you're not. You get in a crazy cycle if you're not careful. So thank you for telling the truth about that. Well you guys so what do you tell people 36 months you pay off 110 000 that's impressive what's the secret to getting out of debt well i definitely say get on the same page with your spouse and uh communication that's big every month communication i think for though, it was also getting mad. So I'm a money person. I'm the nerd. And after about the first six months to a year, I was looking at how much we had paid.

And we paid $110, but that's just where we had started. It does include all the interest that we paid. And I realized we had paid over $10,000 just in interest. And that made me really mad. I'm paying these people for nothing. So then it was like, yeah, we're not doing this again. Yeah. I don't like burning money. Yeah. I hear you. That's good. If you could talk to a couple about to get married right now, what one conversation do they need to have before they walk down the aisle? I think just being open with each other and what their finances are, but also being willing to know that they may have debt

and that you can work through it together. I think he was really afraid to tell me how much student loan he had, and that's why we didn't have those conversations originally. Yeah, he had you on the hook, and he didn't want you off. That's exactly what it was. How much student loan debt was it well i think total was no i mean the one that you had that you didn't want to tell her about 60 or 73 yeah okay 70 of this deal yeah all right wow that is substantial but you know what

you can work through anything together to your to your point sydney if you just go ahead and clear the deck lay everything out face up, go, this is what we've got to do. We're going to do this together. Yeah, there's a mess, but we can do it together. And we can do this together. We can do anything, which you can. You guys are heroes.

I'm so proud of you. Thank you. Yeah, and I think a big message, too, is because we got out of the debt and had cleared a lot up, one, it was much easier having our daughter financially. It was never like, how are we going to pay for anything? It's there. we just budget it and then also now that i'm going back to nursing school it's been paid in cash i've cut my hours way down and we're still fine financially and i would have we would have never been able to do that before this journey yeah and i was able to cash flow as well uh my graduate school. And his graduate school. Cool. So your graduate school is in what?

Chemical engineering. Okay. And you're going to get your RN or what? Yeah. So I currently have an MPH, a master's in public health, and then I went back to get the RN to supplement. Yeah. Good for you. Well done.

But I heard you describe, I can do whatever I want. I can be the mom I want. I can be a student. I can be the employee that I want. I can be the wife that I want. I can do whatever I want because I'm not beholden to anybody. Yep. You have that freedom to do what you want.

Yeah. You understand the borrower is slave to the lender in a unique way when you're no longer a slave once you're free. That's very good. And your kids will never know the stress of parents who are trying to duct tape the end of the month together. What a gift you've given your children, man. That's awesome.

You guys are amazing. Good for you. Who are your biggest cheerleaders besides each other? Probably my mom and his parents. Yeah, definitely parents. So they knew what you were doing, and they knew what you were facing, and they were like, you can do it. That's cool.

Yeah, and I think everybody else thought we were crazy. A lot of people thought we were crazy. Well, you were normal, and now you're weird, and that's a good thing. You don't want to be normal. Normal sucks. Normal's not good. All right, and you brought the baby with you to be in the Debt-Free Scream? Yes, sir.

And what's the baby's name and age? Harper, and she's 21 months. All right. Oh, she's cute. Look at that. Pebbles. I love it. Very cool.

Good for you guys. All right, Harper, your mom and dad, Joshua and Sydney from Cleveland, Ohio, paid off $110,000. They changed your life, baby girl. 36 months it took them to do it, making $112,000 to $103,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. Praise God.

We're debt-free! Yay! Yay! Woo! Three, two, one. Praise God. We're debt free. Yay. Woo. Woo. Woo. Oh, man. Someday Harper will tell her grandbabies, oh, yeah, back in, back in all 20, my parents did their debt free scream, and that's when everything

changed. The world was melting down around us, but I've got a photo of me smiling in Nashville, Tennessee. Yeah. Because my parents were free. That's cool. That is truly the visualization of a family tree completely changed. So awesome.

If you're in there, and you're struggling, and you're fighting, and you're hurting, and you're worried, and you're tired from and you're struggling and you're fighting and you're hurting and you're worried and you're tired from working two jobs and you're sold stuff that was precious to you, it's worth it. All you got to do is look at that little baby right there. And her life has changed. It's worth it. It's worth paying a price to win. No discipline

seems pleasant at the time, the Bible says, but it yields a harvest of righteousness. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Please hear me loud and clear. The government is not going to bail you out of your student loans, at least not completely and not without a catch. What they're talking about only impacts federal, not private loans, and you need to take responsibility for what you owe and pay your debt down quicker.

Right now, Splash Financial is offering their lowest rates ever. With lower rates and extra payments, you could just find yourself debt-free in the next five years. Visit splashfinancial.com slash Ramsey to see if you qualify. Our scripture of the day, Psalm 139.13, I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works. My soul knows it very well. Herman Melville said, It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation. Scott is with us in California.

Hey, Scott, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, guys, appreciate you taking the time to talk to me today. Sure, what's up uh so this is really for dr d um we started our journey on dave's plan about a year and a half ago a few months into the plan my son started getting real sick and he ended up getting diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and uh it really rocked our world um and it uh it was difficult to get through the summer um and it was a major adjustment for us but fast forward to today how old is he great yeah he was six at the time okay how old is he now seven okay good okay. And so it's on my wife and I to manage it, right?

I mean, he can't take care of it on his own. Sure. The technology is fantastic. We get five-minute readings on his blood sugars and all that. But today, now, the mental side of it, he's really struggling with. And I just want some advice on how to help them with it. His personality, he's a perfectionist and he's a warrior, which is a horrible conversation to have for that disease.

And these negative thoughts come in, you know, why did God give this to me or I feel like the devil's winning. And we just, he gets great grades. He's a great kid. He's got a good heart and we're just struggling with, with, you know, when the emotions get the best of him, how can we support him? How can we, you know, not, when you draw the line between disciplining a kid because he's a seven-year-old kid and it's these emotions due to, you know, his blood sugars or something that he can't control. It's a mistake that mom and dad made. So anyway, just curious, Dr. D and Dave, what you guys would advise us to do? Man, one, I want to just appreciate the call.

That's a lot. Tell me if I'm reading this wrong, but I hear in your voice something I'm going to ask you to do, which is to put down any sort of guilt or any sort of, I'm not doing the playbook right, any sort of baggage that you're carrying. I can tell in your voice that you love your son, and there's not a, you don't have a playbook for this? What happened? Okay, go ahead. I'm sorry.

Go ahead. Okay. That in your heart, you're doing the best you can. So, one, I want you to not feel guilty about this and not carry this around. So you mentioned a couple of things. Here's the big deal. When a kid goes through a medical scare as a young kid and their parents surround them, particularly with type one diabetes, which is about numbers and blood sugar and scale, and are you sleeping through the night? When is

it falling? When is it growing? All that stuff is it creates a culture of anxiety in a house and what you need to understand is your kids absorb you they absorb your stress they absorb your feelings they absorb your tension and what a kid will do absent explanation is they backfill that stress with i must be at fault this must be on me i must have done something i must be broken i must be what's causing mom and dad pain and hurt. And so a great gift you can give to your kid, Rachel Cruz says it best, share, don't scare. But to sit down and say, hey, mom, hey, dad, I'm nervous today.

I'm not feeling good today. I'm feeling frustrated today. And you as dad being able to say, hey, I'm scared too, kid. I woke up today and I was feeling nervous. I want to check your time. And so here are the things I did to manage my feelings. Here's the things I did to manage my emotions. And you're going to teach him by modeling it, how a grown up, how an adult, how a grown man manages their feelings and emotions here. But it's going to be messy and it's going to be hard. You just got to understand they're going to watch you. When it comes to discipline and things like that, again, there's seven. A phrase I often use with students, with young people who are working through,

whether it's physical disabilities or mental health disabilities, is it's a context, not an excuse. And so the gift you can give your kid right now is gently and lovingly teaching them boundaries for how to manage their feelings and emotions around whatever is going to come their way in life, whether that is type 1 diabetes, whether that is... Expand on that. It's a context.

It's not an excuse. So you're saying the struggle, the diabetes, or if it's some other issue, a disability or something like that, it's a context that does not excuse bad behavior. You've got more bricks in your backpack. Yeah. And that means your legs are going to be stronger. It means your back's going to have to be stronger. It means your heart and your spirit are going to have to be stronger.

But that doesn't give you liberty to be a jerk to somebody. It doesn't give you liberty to say, well, then I'm not, I'm just going to give up. I'm going to be mean to my mom. Absolutely not. Right. You can't be disrespectful to your mom, diabetes or not. Right. And so the context is, no, I understand when my kid's frustrated.

And as a dad, if I feel guilty that I should have managed this better, I shouldn't have let him eat that lasagna. Now he's spiking. Now he's acting like a jerk. I understand. And I got to pay attention to that. But also those are good moments to say, hey, young man, that's my wife. That's your mom. You don't talk to her like that.

And you manage the discipline. You manage the conversations in a way that I might do differently with my kid because it's a different context. But it's not an excuse to treat people with less than respect. It's not an excuse to say anything. The context might give you a few extra chances or a little bit more grace or a little bit more rope, so to speak. Or a different kind of discipline. Or a different kind of reaction. Right.

But it doesn't mean you don't deal with it. That's exactly right. Yeah. That's exactly right. Because at some point, the world doesn't deal with it. At some point, you run into a boss that says, I understand, but I've got to have this work done. Yeah.

You run into an English teacher that says, I get it, but you've got to turn that paper in. Right? And if you haven't laid the groundwork up until high school, up until middle school, up until their first job, they're going to pay a price for it. Yeah, it becomes an excuse. Right. And in context, children are so resilient. They're so strong if they are encouraged to build strength and build their own boundaries and to begin to advocate for themselves. Very, very good stuff. Tennille is with us. Tennille is in Canada. Hey, Tennille, how can we help?

Hi there. I don't necessarily have a question for you today, but I need some motivation. We have two vehicles that we owe about $35,000 on combined. We do have some money in savings. How much? We have about $47,000, $47,500. What's your household income? We do have some money in savings. How much? We have about $47,000, $47,500. What's your household income?

Take-home or, because we're both self-employed. Doesn't matter. What do you pay taxes on? About $160,000. Okay. And you have $47,000 and you have $35,000 on cars. How much other debt do you have, not counting your own? That's000. Okay. And you have $47,000 and you have $35,000 on cars. How much other debt do you have, not counting your own? That's it.

Okay. So why haven't you paid off the cars? I don't know. I'm just having a hard time letting go of that. There you go. That's exactly why. Because the feeling of the savings account exceeds the feeling of debt-free in your mind. Otherwise, you would have already done it, wouldn't you?

Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, I mean. We fought with this. We had another vehicle we paid off in September. Yeah, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. None of that matters. All that matters is 47 versus 35 and why haven't you?

And there's only one reason. It's because the feeling the savings account gives you is greater in your mind than you perceive the feeling is going to be when you pay off the cars. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, and that's okay. If you say it out loud, you just go, oh, well, okay. Now, then the question is, what, how old are you? I'm 42. Okay.

So what takes you to the best 52-year-old you wealth building wise? Hanging on to the savings and paying the cars off slow or paying them off today, rebuilding the savings and never having debt again? Yeah, no. Second, never having debt again. Yeah. Paying them off. That's the goal it's a passive aggressive question because i knew the answer but yeah we call that a dave burn

but but you know but yeah that that's and once you kind of get that in your head then you go okay then i can release this by the way releasing the 35 000 is not a permanent thing meaning that you're going to put it back because now you don't have freaking thousand dollars in car payments so you're going to put it right back you can do't have freaking $1,000 in car payments. So you're going to put it right back. You can do it. You can do it. But the two of you need to sit down together and decide together what the value is.

And it's just put the scales up in front of you. Which one do I want? Which one takes me where I want to go? And then your motivation will come instantly. John, thanks for hanging out. Thanks for letting me hang out with you, man. Dr. John Deloney, my co-host today here on the Dave Ramsey Show, Ramsey Personality. 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.

Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for The Dave Ramsey Show. If you would like to do your debt-free scream live on the show, make sure you visit DaveRamsey.com slash show and register. We would love for you to come to Nashville and tell Dave your story. You may feel like there's not a lot you can control these days, but I'm here to tell you, you can control your budget and you can control what you feed your family. My longtime friends at eMeals are here to help. They have simplified meal plans and created new recipe collections such as easy pantry meals

and freezer meals utilizing basic ingredients. It has never been easier to shop smarter and stay on a budget. Try it free for two full weeks at eMeals.com.