The Ramsey Show - App - Don't Let Pride Get in the Way of Your Progress (Hour 1)

Episode Date: February 25, 2020

Chris Hogan, Retirement, Home Selling, Taxes 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 Studio, this is the Dave Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about its life and its money. And we're excited to be here with you. Sitting in for Dave, I'm Chris Hogan, and excited to be with you this hour. If you're out there and you've had money questions on your mind, and you say, you know what, today's the day that I'm going to reach out and I'm going to get some guidance and I'm going to begin to tackle this thing so I can move forward and chase down progress, this is the show for you. All you have to do is pick up the phone and give us a call. The number to call is 888-825-5225. Again, that's 888-825-5225.

We would love to hear from you. You can also find us on social media, at Ramsey Show, on all the platforms out there available. Those of you that are watching on YouTube, we always love to hear from you. You can also find me on social media, at ChrisHogan360. And feel free to send in your question in that way. Either way, we're here for you. So we're going to get to the phones because that's what we do around here to find out who we can help. First up, I've got Ed on the line.

Ed, how are you? Hi, Mr. Hogan. How are you, sir? Oh, I'm focused and not finished, Ed. What's on your mind today, buddy? Okay. Forgive me. I'm a little nervous, so I'll try not to stumble here.

Oh, it's okay. Take your time. Take your time. Take your time. All right. Thank you so much. I am finished with Baby Step 2. I'm 60 years old, single household. I got about $16,000 in my 401K, which is very little,

and I started putting my emergency fund together. I've got one month towards the emergency fund, and the question I have for you is that since I'm old enough to withdraw from my 401k, if an emergency comes up, would it be possible for me to start contributing 15% to my 401k now, or should I wait until I finish, get my three to six months in place? Okay. All right, Ed. I appreciate that question. Tell me this. How much debt did you pay off so far? About $22,000. What kind of debt was that, Ed? Mostly a car. Okay. You got the car paid off. How much was that car payment?

It was $255 a month. Okay, $255 a month. So I love that you made a decision to attack debt to get that out of your life, and now you're building up your emergency fund. Here's the deal, Ed. You are 60 years young, my friend. You've still got a lot of time and a lot of life and a lot of things to do. So investing is still going to be important. But, however, I think you've got to have that fully funded emergency fund in place.

So I don't like the idea of pulling out any money or anything like that. However, I would pause the investing so you can beef that emergency fund up. Okay? You got yourself out of debt. And so now you should be directing all that extra money. The $255 needs to go toward your emergency fund and anything extra. So you would just cut back on your budget, take a look at it, and anything extra, you want to get that out of the way because why? You've got to grow money. Ed,

you've lived long enough to see gas prices increase, and you and I know in the next five years, gas prices are only going to do what? Go up. You better believe it, buddy. Go down. That's right. It's going to go up. So that means inflation is happening. So we've got to be growing our money. And so you're looking at it.

What is your household income right now? Approximately $60,000. Okay. So you're making about $60,000. You paid off the car. So you don't have anything else, any kind of debt, right? No, sir. Okay.

No at all. All right. And so, Ed, listen, I think you buckle down, you get intentional about getting that emergency fund beefed up because the goal of the emergency fund is to be a cushion between you and life happening. We all know a car can break down, something can happen at the home or your apartment or wherever you're renting. Life can happen. And when you have apartment or wherever you're renting, life can happen. And when you have money, here's what I found. When you have an emergency fund, an emergency has simply turned into a simple inconvenience.

It's just an issue. You've got the money. But when you don't have the money and you have an emergency, now what happens is you start to have stress creep in. Blood pressure starts to spike. And you try to figure out, what am I going to do and how am I going to go about it? So the goal is to be intentional i want people out there to follow the baby steps get intentional stay focused and don't let up you have to remain extremely focused on the goal all right let's get to another line i've got line four here i've got jeff

in kentucky jeff how are you hey doing well Chris. Thank you for taking my call today, sir. Oh, you're welcome, my friend. How can I help you? I'm married. I'm 51. My wife's 50. We've been married for about three and a half years, and we have quite a bit of debt. We're $122,000 in debt. She and I are not on the same page when it comes to our finances. We have separate accounts of the debt, about $36,000 is car loans,

$36,000 is credit card debt, $50,000 is a home equity line of credit. And last year, our household income was about $103,000. Okay. And I guess my question is, I don't have any money myself, say, for retirement. She's got about $8,000 of 401k through her employer. And I do have a beneficiary IRA and an annuity that is valued at like about $496,000 at this time. And the house that I inherited from my parents when they passed away, I was paid for it until the time that they took the home equity line of credit out. And I was calling to see if I should use any of the inherited IRA to start paying off this debt over the course of the next two to three years.

Okay. All right. So looking at this, you guys got a variety of debt. You said you got a $50,000 home equity line, $36,000 in credit cards, $36,000 in cars. But, Jeff, before we dig into that, what is the divide between you and your wife with money? Well, I think part of it's the way that we grew up, and I think some of it has to do with the environment that she grew up in. She had one older brother, a couple younger brothers, but her parents, everything was separate. Right. And, you know, I think, you know, the other thing is, too, I think being her dad kind of had a controlling nature to him.

Okay. I think she's kind of thinks that that's the way it's going to be with, you know be with finances if we try to do stuff together. Okay. Is your nature controlling? Are you a controlling person? In some ways, yes. I mean, I've told her when it comes to this, like my biggest things would be the saving, getting out of debt. Right. And, you know, once we're past that, I'm kind of okay with stuff, but we've, you know, we've

not, you know, we've not tried. Okay. To do, you know, to get to do the joint account or to go through this together. But does she see debt as a threat or does she see it as a tool? She sees it as just a part of life. Okay. And how do you view it? And I've been up to this point as well, and I'm wanting to stop and try to get out of this mess.

Well, I mean, because I can hear it in your voice. It's stressful, isn't it? Yes, sir. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it does. And I think you and her sitting down and talking about this and talking about, do you all have kids? We've got one. Okay. How old is your kid? Ten. Ten years old.

I guarantee both of you want better for your kid than what you had growing up. Both of you do. Without a shadow of a doubt. And here's the deal. If you guys will get on the same page and you go through Financial Peace University together, yes, you can use some of that inheritance to clean up the mess. But here's the deal. If you don't become allergic to debt, if you don't start to see it as a threat to your future and your dreams,

all you're going to do is run it back up. So get real and look at this thing and let's get it fixed. You've got life on the line and you've got an opportunity to fix it. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. I love talking about companies that know how to do business right. You've heard of Grip6 belts, right? Well, if you haven't, it's the only belt you can get online with no holes, no flap, and no bulk. I'm talking weightless, and the buckles come in really cool designs and are interchangeable. I personally own a number of these belts, and they're so

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I'm Chris Hogan, filling in for Dave this hour. And excited to be here with you. But I want to hear from you. I know you've got topics or questions on your mind. I want you to pick up the phone and give us a call. The number to call is 888-825-5225. Again, that's 888-825 two, five, five, two, two, five.

Call us. We'd love to hear from you. Uh, you can also find us on social media at Ramsey show. Uh, that's on all the platforms, Twitter, Instagram,

all the things. Feel free to hunt us down. Uh, do the same for me at Chris Hogan, three 60. If you have a question and speaking of social, I wanted to dive in and take a social question. This one is from Sid from my Instagram at Chris Hogan 360. And he says, I'm debt free and my mortgage is about 53%

of my take home pay. Should I sell it? Now I need to tell you, I read this and I went, okay, this had to be a typo. So I slowed down and reread it again. I'm debt-free and my mortgage is about 53% of my take-home pay. Should I sell it? Said, absolutely. Listen to me. We tell people you want your mortgage payment to be around 25% of your take-home pay, 25%. So you're double that.

Right now, you are just house. That's really all you have going on. And walking through the baby steps, you know once you get debt-free and you build up that fully-funded emergency fund, the goal is to then start to invest 15%, start to save for college, and then attack and pay off the house. So looking at this, the reality is you've got too much house. Something happened. Either someone stopped working or something transpired.

You've got to fix this. So I want to encourage you to go over to my website, ChrisHogan360.com. Click on the Dream Team button. You need to get connected with a real estate ELP or go to DaveRamsey.com and do it. You need to look and start to talk about selling this home. It's too much. And so, you know, I don't want you to let pride stand in the way of your progress. Hear me with that.

Don't let pride get in the way of your progress, meaning thinking you have to hold on to this and just make it work. No. You've got other things to do and other dreams to live. So let's look at getting this thing sold and then start to do it the right way. And I appreciate you reaching out. I don't know how long you've been doing it this way, but I mean, when you have that much mortgage payment, you don't have much money left for life.

And that's just, that's not, that's not how you want to live. So I want you to have the courage to get this thing fixed. Also, I want to let you all know, I have a Chris Hogan show where I'm a caller driven show. I take calls and love talking to people. I do some special segments with Did You Know? And I also break down some articles. You can find my show anywhere that you can find podcasts.

It's also on YouTube, Google Podcasts. I'm also on SiriusXM. You can find out more by going to my website, ChrisHogan360.com. We love taking callers and love helping people. This is all about helping everyone move forward. And when we get the right information, that's exactly what can happen. Okay, I'm going to get back to the phones. We're going to line three here, and I've got Scott on the line in North Carolina. Scott, how are you? I'm doing well, sir. Mr. Hogan, it is a pleasure to speak with you. Well, thank you, sir. It's good to hear from you, too.

What's on your mind today? Well, and I'll tell you what, I'm going to redo your phrase. For me, it's trying to regain focus so I can finish. Is that fair enough? That is fair enough. Can we go with that one? Yeah, I like it. Okay.

Scott, I like it. Okay. Well, here's what I've got going on. I'm 36. My wife is 33. We have a $70,000 to $80,000 a year income. I am self-employed. We have a $60,000 mortgage.

Great little place, ranch, totally remodeled, cash flowed, all that. We did the baby steps. We were doing really well. And then I decided probably prematurely to start my own business. Okay. Ever heard of that one before? Oh, yes, sir. Okay.

Okay. So then we end up with a $60,000 mortgage, and now we have a total of $124,000 in debt. We have $60,000 in 401ks, and I am just really nervous that I'm behind the bar. And cleaning up some of this debt seems to be really difficult. Being 7.0, I might make $10,000 one week. Right. I might make $10,000 a month. Right.

But you know how it goes. Big money in, big money out. Yeah. Well, listen to me. Let me ask you, of the $124,000 in debt, is that including the $60,000 mortgage? Yes, sir. Okay. So what's the other $60,000 in debt you have?

The other $60,000, I would say $50,000 of it is equipment, which is an asset, which can be sold. And then another $10,000 is just credit cards. Just keeping the business, not keeping it going, getting it going. Okay. So you used debt to start this business? Yeah, and that was stupid. Yeah, it was. Well, you know what? Recognizing it's the first step, Scott. You look at this and you go, okay, here's the deal. Because you can glance back, but you've got to focus forward, right?

Yes, sir. And so tell me this. What line of work are you in? I am in the tree service industry. All right, tree service. So here's the deal. There's a whole lot of trees out there you need to start servicing. Absolutely. I mean, how many people are in this business with you?

There's quite a few, but I will say we're doing pretty good against the competition. Okay. And revving it up is going to be the best way for you to continue to work yourself out of this situation. Because you can clean it up, but it's not going to be easy. The only question I have, Mr. Hogan, if I can ask you something. Sure. Is should I maybe, I could dump some of this equipment and still perform the work, not as much work. Okay.

But I could probably get rid of 30 grand of that debt by dumping some equipment and i could still probably do 60 000 50 to 60 000 a year on my own okay and if you weren't and keeping the equipment how much do you think you can do i did first year working part-time on the weekends with one piece of equipment that was paid for. I did $60,000 gross, made $40,000. Second year, I did $150,000 doing it full-time, and I kept $50,000. The math isn't adding up for me. Yeah, that's bad math, Scott.

So I like the idea of selling that equipment. I like the idea of you buckling down and hustling and getting on the same page with your wife. You were talking about this and going, Hey, we got some stuff to clean up and you can do this. The good thing is, is being self-employed. You don't have a cap on your income. You can get out and make as much as you want. You just have to make a decision. We've got a game plan. And so what I'm going to tell you is this, we've got entree leadership. It talks about business owners and, and owners and helping businesses rethink the way they look at their business. And so you've got to start marketing differently.

You've got to start reaching out to people and letting them know you're out there. You're ready to help them with their tree situation, whatever that might be. And so getting outside the box like that, I'm telling you, you dedicating the money toward this debt, the $10,000 in credit cards first step, because you're going to follow the baby steps. So if you sell that equipment and you get $30,000 for it, you're going to wipe out the credit card debt, smallest first, debt first, and then from there, you would start attacking the other equipment. So that's the mindset around this, of you getting really focused. And you're not borrowing anymore.

It's not what we're doing. Because now your business has got to sustain you. But I believe in you and I know you can do this and it's not going to be easy, but you're going to have to rethink how you're looking at your business and how you treat it. And Scott, I'm telling you at your age, 36 and 33, you've got time, but you learned a valuable lesson here that you can't borrow your way out of debt. You got to be intentional and stay focused. I want to take another question. That was one that was from my Instagram, but someone else said,

Alyssa from Instagram asked me this, what is the first step to getting financially healthy? Ah, Alyssa, that's a great question. I think the first step is really acknowledging that better is available, Alyssa, to be honest. I think it's about deciding where you look at where you are and you make a decision that you want better for your future. I actually call it Hogan's AAA process. It's three A's. You want to assess, acknowledge, and then activate.

The assess is assessing kind of where you are and really looking at it and going, man, I've got this debt. This is how much it's leaving me each and every month. And you want to acknowledge that better is available, that I could do more with that money if this wasn't going out toward debt. I could invest more. I could do more for the people that I love the most. The final A is activating a plan of action. And for most people, that's plugging into Financial Peace University, our online membership that equips people with real skills on how to deal with money. We've helped almost 6 million people. 6 million.

Get out of debt, learn to save, and build wealth. So it's possible. So Alyssa, you can do it. I know you can. But what you have to do is make a decision that you want better for yourself than where you are right now. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. No matter what time of year it is, focusing on your family's financial plan is always a smart move. I get questions all the time about where to start and what to do first. One of the most crucial and affordable first steps to take is to protect

your family and get term life insurance. I know it's not glamorous, but all the other steps mean a lot less if something happens to you and your family has no financial protection. Getting term life insurance needs to be a top priority. I recommend 10 to 12 times your income and lock in rates for 15 to 20 years. This gives you plenty of time to get out of debt and build wealth. I recommend 10 to 12 times your income and lock in rates for 15 to 20 years. This gives you plenty of time to get out of debt and build wealth. I've been recommending Zander Insurance for over 20 years and they understand and live this strategy and will take the time to help you find the most affordable term life rates. Go to zander.com or call 800-356-4282. It's not that expensive, it's not complicated, and you need to do it now.

Hello, everyone. You are listening to The Dave Ramsey Show. I'm Chris Hogan, filling in for Dave this hour. And we are taking your calls and digging in to the situations you want to talk about. And so if you're out there and you've got a question, I want to hear from you. The number to call is 888-825-5225. Again, that's 888-825-5225. Call us.

You can talk to Amanda. She's standing by ready to help you. And feel free to hunt us down on social media at Ramsey Show or at ChrisHogan360. You can find us. I promise we're all over the place. So I'm going to get back to the phones. I've got John on line two down in Texas. John, what's on your mind?

Or Josh, I'm sorry. Yeah, hey, Chris. How's it going? I'm good, buddy. What's on your mind? Well, I've got a mortgage refinance question for you. Hopefully you can help me lean more together. Okay.

So my wife and I are fortunate enough to have all of our debt paid off besides the house. Great. We have three months of our six-month emergency fund already done. Okay. But we have an opportunity that we're looking at to refinance our home. We had bought on a 30-year fixed mortgage before we had found Dave Ramsey and Chris Hogan. And the interest rate there was 4.375. Okay.

We can refinance to a potentially 3.125 rate. And our current balance is $133,000. So we're trying to weigh whether or not that's a good idea for us. We are currently paying about $153 in PMI each month because we had bought before we were totally ready for it. Right. And so we're trying to weigh the benefits because, you know, the closing costs and, you know, escrow payments and all that kind of stuff. That's right. It can start to add up.

So how long, Josh, have you all been in this house? Six years. Okay, so you've been in it six years. And this refinance, are you talking about going from a 30 to a 15 or from a 30 to another 30? To a 15. There you go. So you just made me happy right there. Look at me smiling.

Those watching on YouTube, you see me grinning So you just made me happy right there. Look at me smiling. Those watching on YouTube, you see me grinning because you're going, I like that. I like the math you're doing just because going from a 30 to a 15, Josh, help me out here with the math. How many years are we cutting off? Nine years. That's right. And then I like the interest rate move because you're going to be saving over a percentage point from your 4.375 to 3.125.

So I like this mindset. I like the area that you're going down. And what do you think it might appraise for? We've been told around 200. Okay. And what's the balance on the existing mortgage? 133. 13000. Okay. And what's the balance on the existing mortgage? $133,000. $133,000.

Okay. So in looking at that, yeah, I think this is definitely something to pursue. And then walking through, I'm just curious, Josh, how much debt did you all pay off? We had $50,000 between the two of us in student loans. Okay. We had 50 between two of us in student loans, and then we had gotten into a car loan. That was about 17 a few years back, but we got out from underneath all of that. You attacked it. And do you guys have any children?

We do. We have one toddler son right now. Very good. Well, I like this idea. Anytime you're able to shift it and get that home down outside of that 30 and shave off time, but also improve your interest rate, that's a good, wise move. And then over 10,000 all across the country. And we found, Josh, that the average millionaire is paying off their home in just under 11 years. So you guys being debt-free with the opportunity to be intentional, you have an opportunity to do that as well. Because the goal is not to just buy a home. The goal is to own that bad boy. That means you attack it and you pay it off in full.

Okay. Well, I want to talk to you about something. You all undoubtedly, unless you have been asleep for the last couple months, you have heard about this. And, you know, my heart goes out to the people that are suffering from this. It is impacting not just all across the world. We're hearing about this, and it's the coronavirus. And I ran across this article in the USA Today, and it says, I titled, Coronavirus Fears Shouldn't Stop You from Investing in Stocks and Adding to Your 401k. As we all are aware, on Monday, the Dow Jones dropped 1,000 points.

And it was one of the biggest drops since February 2018. And so when investing, the inflation rates got everybody all riled up and flustered. And I look at this, and again, my heart goes out to the people that are afflicted with this. It's primarily China, and you have Italy, and you have some other places that are being impacted. But from an investing standpoint, I'm looking at this and I understand that fear can be a real thing, but fear can't dominate us. And I want to encourage us to just take a glance back. By glance back, what I mean is to go back just a couple decades. There was another virus that was going on. It was called SARS. And SARS was a big deal. It was impacting China and some other places. And around the time that that came on, it was right around November 2002. And so from November 2002 to March 2003, there was a drop of the S&P 500 of 12%. It was a massive drop. But here's the deal. From that March of 2003 to the end of the year, not only did it rally, but it grew. It ended 19% higher than where it started.

My point is, is we've seen this movie before where there is going to be fluctuation based on what's going on in the world. The market is going to go up and down. That is a roller coaster ride. But I want to encourage you to not allow fear to command your investing strategy. Remember, we invest for long term. That's five years or more. So what you have to do is stay the course. Making a decision or a knee-jerk reaction based on what's going on on the news or in the world could cause you hundreds of thousands of dollars in the long term. So instead of that, and I really have sat on this and was thinking about it because

we see this happen a lot and people can get nervous. I think it's important for you to reach out to your investment professional. Have a conversation based on how you're invested. Are you diversified? If you are heavily in healthcare or you're in tech stocks or hospitality or things of that nature, yet you're going to feel the fluctuation. That's why we talk about growth stock mutual funds. But looking at this, I wanted to give some tips on how as an investor, you can stay calm and be able to breathe. The first tip is go back and understand your goal,

really looking and understanding what it was you were trying to accomplish by investing, where you were trying to strive to reach your dreams and to do more for the people that you love the most. So that's really important, and so you have to go back to that. Tip two is remember the process. And what I mean by that is your money needs time to grow. Time and compound interest are money's two best friends. So whenever you start making decisions or knee-jerk reactions or pulling money out and not really thinking it through, you're missing out on opportunities. So we have to remain clear of that.

The final step is to revisit the plan. What was the structure you set up with your investment professional? What was the amount of time that you allotted to be able to reach that goal? What were the things that you invested in? And so I think it's really important for you to reach out to your investment professional, sit down and have that conversation. Talk about your concerns. Let them explain to you kind of what's going on and how things are impacted so you can start to kind of feel better about what it is you're doing, but more importantly, why you're doing it. And so the news on TV is, it is real and some of it can be unsettling. However,

your investment strategy needs to be rooted in concrete, firm things that not only you know, but you also understand. And so I just wanted to address that again. How do you stay calm, understand your goal, remember your process and revisit the plan and looking at this. And I want you to have conversations. Our SmartVestor Pros will walk you through and talk you through the things so you can have an understanding and start to feel better about not only what it is you're doing, but to stay committed to that goal. Again, knee-jerk reactions will not help. It will not. All it does is add more confusion to the situation. All right, I want to take another question from my Instagram.

Leo from Instagram asked this. Why no car loans? What if they're at 0% interest? Oh, Leo, you throw me softballs. Here's the deal, my friend. Debt is debt. I don't want risk around my neck. Cars are a depreciating asset.

I want you to save up, pay cash, own the car, and I want you to have a payment. I want you to be focused and not finished. So don't fall for that fuzzy math. I want you to remain clear and pay cash. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. Hello, everyone. You are listening to The Dave Ramsey Show. I'm Chris Hogan filling in for Dave this hour, and we've had a blast. But I want to remind you, if you are ever in Nashville, to come by the office, you need to see the new location where we are all housed for the first time under the same roof.

For years, we were all spread out all over the place, so we're excited to be here. You've got a great opportunity to come visit Baker Street Cafe and get hopped up on all kinds of sugar over there. There's coffee. There's cookies. There's soft drinks. There's drinks and all kinds of stuff. So we'd love to have you come visit and see the show live. It would be a great opportunity.

So we're going to get back to the phones. If you're out there and you've got a question I want to hear from you, the number to call is 888-825-5225. Again, that's 888-825-5225. We'd love to hear from you. All right, getting to the phone lines here. I've got Jason on the line in Arizona. Jason, how are you? Hey, Chris, I'm well.

Thanks for taking my call, sir. Oh, you're welcome, my friend. How are you? How can I help? Well, Chris, to be honest, I'm a little stressed out. My wife is as well, and also my younger brother. We're stressed about my parents' financial future, and it kind of seems like impending doom, as it were. My dad is 62. My mom's a couple years younger than that.

They have nothing saved and no plan for retirement. My folks are renting their home right now. They lost their home several years ago and they're renting, uh, about 13, 1400 a month right now. Dad and mom's combined makes about 70 a year. Um, they have a lot of medical issues and bills and things like that that, uh, um, keep their costs high. Um, but my dad, uh, called me a couple days ago, and he says, well, I haven't done any work to plan for my retirement or, you know, end-of-life type of stuff, but I'm opening a Roth IRA,

and I think that's going to solve all of my problems at 62. Wow. And just kind of looking at that and running the numbers, you know, my wife and I were following the Ramsey plan. We listened to your household name. Um, we're excited about our futures and our kids' futures. Everything's well funded and, uh, we're excited. But when my dad calls me and tells me this, um, we have some stress of it.

Their financial problems might be our financial problems in the near future. No. of it, their financial problems might be our financial problems in the near future. I'm looking for some wisdom on how to go about that and breaching that subject with him. No, and Jason, I'm going to tell you this. Have you ever talked with your dad about money before? Just this other day I did, and I told him it would probably behoove him to purchase a small home and try to pay it off between now and when he wants to retire and have that security and comfort.

And he kind of wants to do this IRA thing and he doesn't really want to listen to me at the moment. Right. Well, and here's the thing, Jason. I'm going to tell you something. You said you – how old are you? I'm 30. You're 30. Did you ever dream said you, how old are you? I'm 30. You're 30.

Did you ever dream that you would be parenting your parents? No. Okay. No, sir. Not at all. Guess what, my friend? You're here. You're at this juncture where the tide is turning.

And you're about, I know your dad gave you points of wisdom for many years. Okay. I'm sure he did. He sat you down and talked about driving. He probably talked about dating. and you're about, I know your dad gave you points of wisdom for many years, okay? I'm sure he did. He sat you down and talked about driving. He probably talked about dating. He gave you advice on all kinds of stuff. It's your turn. Tag, you're it.

And this conversation has got to be one of those coming from love. And I don't mean that you can tell him and make him do anything, but it's one of those where you say, Dad, I want to take you to coffee or breakfast. And you sit down and you say, you know how much I love you. And you've given me great wisdom over the years. You've helped me to do X, Y, and Z. And I would point to some of those things.

And I would say, you know, I love you so much. I know you told me information that I didn't want to hear at times. And he'll nod in agreement because he remembers. And you say, you know what? I love i love you too and it's my turn we've been plugged in and been listening to dave and and and and others uh learning about money and we've applied it and it's worked and dad it's time for you and mom and dad you two you and mom to do the same and i think you do it out of love not out of trying to chastise or making him but But it's got to be clear, so clear, Jason, that he looks at this totally different. And you can let him know doing a Roth is a good thing.

It's a way to put money aside. It's nowhere near enough. And to find out for him to get focused and understand how much debt he has and about budgeting. I mean, it's time for you to have kind of that pressing conversation where he at least comes away feeling the weight of it. And I don't mean to try to upset him, but he's got to feel this. And I think you telling him what you just said, how many kids do you have? My wife and I have two.

We've got a four-year-old and a two-year-old. Okay. Does he love those grandbabies? Yeah, I like to think that he does. Okay. What do they call him? What's his grandparent name? He's Grandpa. He's Grandpa. I think you talk to him a little bit and you help him understand. Grandpa, for the sake of your grandbabies, you and Mom got to buckle down and you got to get serious. And Jason, here's what I'm going to do.

If he's serious, I want you to talk with him. Amanda's going to get your information. I will get him and your mom connected with a financial coach in the area where they can sit down and work on their budgeting. We have Ramsey Preferred Coaches. These are people that sit down with people all across the country or on the phone and will help them. Because I think it's not a thing that necessarily you need to try to do it because you're always going to be sun, but to get an objective third party to sit with them and work with them to give them that wake up call. And I know as a financial coach, when I first started here, I was working with pro athletes

and entertainers, but later I started coaching all types of people and sitting down as that third party, they would hear it a little bit different. So you give your information to Amanda. She's going to get it. If they're willing and serious about it, I will get their first meeting with the financial coach or Ramsey preferred coach. I'll take care of that first one, but I want them to get intentional. And Jason, I appreciate you reaching out because a lot of people out there are feeling that stress and they're wondering, are mom and dad okay? Are they in a position?

And you don't know how to broach the topic. I can tell you this. Ask out of love. Just say, you know what? I listen to this bald man on the radio. I'm talking about me because I'm bald by choice. And I listen to another one that's not bald by choice. He didn't have a choice.

But listen to two of them, and they care about people, and they shoot them straight, and they give them information. And mom and dad, they brought up up some topics i just want to know are you all okay are you set up for retirement and if not maybe you hand them a total money makeover the book that changed the game for me and millions of others out there but i think we have to have the courage to ask have that courage talk with them and what's amazing is is once you get over the awkwardness because you're not asking to find out what you're going to get. No, that's the spirit of greed. No, you're asking out of the spirit of love that you care enough. And this isn't just go with your parents. This goes with your siblings, your cousins, your uncles, your aunts. I've talked

about it with family members. And yeah, it can be weird, but it's got to be weird for them because it's coming out of love for me. And I want you to care enough to ask them and just bring it up and talk about it. Forward some articles to them. Send them the RIQ, right? The Retire Inspired Quotient. That's a free tool at my website to help people kind of rethink this thing on retirement. But I think if we do this, it's a wake-up call. And Jason, I'm proud of you for reaching out because this is a message a lot of people need to hear. And if you're a millennial or a baby boomer, Gen Xer, it doesn't matter. I want you to care enough to check on the people you love. See if they're financially prepared for what's coming next. All right, let's take

another call real quick if we can. I've got Marissa on the line. Marissa, how can I help you quickly? Hi, Chris. I was calling because on the Dave Ramsey show, my husband and I heard that someone was getting a free tax refund of $2,000, and that meant they were taking $2,000 too much out of their check. Well, this year, we're getting back a $10,000 tax refund, and we're like, whoa, okay, so what's going on? Wow. Well, I would tell you this real quick. You need to sit down with a CPA.

There's something going on with the withholdings, and that's something you can adjust. You can get fixed. But I don't want you guessing. So I want you to sit down, go to DaveRamsey.com, click on Tax ELP, get connected with a tax ELP that can walk you through it and look at your situation. That's too much money. The government's holding on to it for a full year before they return it to you.

So it's not a bonus. People hear me with this. A tax refund is not a bonus. It's your money. Uncle Sam was holding on to it, gaining interest, smiling, and happy. I want you to get your money so you can live on it right now. All right, listen, I want to thank all the callers for calling in. Had an absolute blast.

I want to thank James Childs, producer, Amanda Rogers, call screener, Bobby Robertson, audio engineer, and thank all of you for tuning in. This has been The Dave Ramsey Show. Did you know you can now listen to The Dave Ramsey Show on Pandora and Spotify? For all the ways to watch and listen, check out our show page at DaveRamsey.com slash show.