The Ramsey Show - App - Don’t Let Toxic Relationships Keep You From Building Wealth

Episode Date: August 5, 2024

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Jade Warshaw, number one best-selling author and Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money. Jade, producer James has requested that we address current events, which we seldom do on this podcast because we never know when you people are going to listen to it because by the time some of you listen to this, it won't be current anymore. But current events are that the stock market has dropped dramatically in the last couple of days. And cue the whining, screaming, and gnashing of teeth that everyone's going to die and we're all going to retire

and have to eat Alpo routine. Not good for Democrats if the stock market goes down and fears of a recession are looming. Not good. Economics unseats more administrations than anything else in history. So those of you worried about other things. Anyway, the reason, number one, most of the time we just talk about stuff here that you can listen to it three years from now and it would still be the same answer and it helps

you all the time. It's called modular or evergreen content and uh but anyway stock market's down and uh so far kind of a yawn except it hadn't been down in a long time it's been a couple years since you all have experienced a downturn like 20 was pretty dramatic took a big old dive there's something going on in march if i remember of 20 and the old market took a dive and the world was coming to an end and we were all going to die and you know then too you remember I mean what was it in March 2020 I don't remember but the um it affected my memory but I've got PTS um Fauci and so um uh Fauci PTSD but but the, um, anyway,

here's the deal. If the thing levels out sometime this week, uh, it's not even going to make the top hundred worst days. It's pretty much a yawner as downturns go. This one's not really exciting. Now, if it continued to dive your day over day, over day,

over a thousand points a day for four or five days, we'd have something to actually discuss. But right now, it's more of your emotions that we want to address. Because why is the stock market going down, Dave? Why is it going down? Well, because the jobs report came out and said jobs suck. Worst hiring quarter in a long, long time. More people unemployed. Nothing like the 80s nothing like other times when there was real unemployment but it's actually a downturn

there there's some other indications the fed is screwing around again yeah which is a good way to get a president or a vice president unseated as well if you want to throw them out just screw with the interest rates boys that'll do it and um so they're gonna they're gonna screw around with that apparently and uh you know everyone has declared there's a recession you one more time people you don't get to declare there's a recession there's a definition of a recession well have you heard people say vibe session have you heard that no it's the feeling it's the vibe that we're in a recession i'll go with that there is a malaise out there there is a cloud a fog whatever out there a vibe session i'll go with that but because you can define that as a feeling it's a feeling but a recession is not a feeling

you got to go through economic fact gross domestic product gdp is the measure of all goods and services in the u.s has to contract be less than two quarters in a row what it was before that is the definite until it does that it's not a recession that's right i don't care why it feels i don't care you feel if you want to call it a vibe session or what it would a vibe that's right a vibe session sounds like a session we had vibes but yeah um like a music sounds like an album but the album cover an old vinyl from the 70s when drugs were good to your parents and so that kind of stuff anyway but yeah so all right investors are running for the hills they're selling off crypto and especially tech stocks so bureau of labor stats report the u.s economy added uh poor added poor jobs report uh ai is still a scare

um this article from cnn says and it says uh recession fears are mounting overall and so the fed and they're worried about the fed so the Fed, the jobs report all pour into this idea that things are horrible. And so the stock market is overreacting. And you might add that Iran and Israel might be getting about to dance. So not going to be good for Iran. I've been to Israel several times. Not a group of people you want to mess with. There's a lot going on. There's a lot going going on it's got everything screwed up and turned up and so and let me tell

you about this short term the stock market going up or down is a bunch of drama queens they run on a motion on a daily basis overall over an annual period or you know four or five months it runs on numbers but on a day-to-day basis you can you know you can just shout uh the sky is falling the sky is falling there yeah chicken little will run so what do you do out there when you see the stock market drop i don't do anything i'm tempted to buy because i think it's on sale but i don't do anything because i don't day trade yeah i don't i don't buy and i don't sell based on this crap yeah i just keep buying all the time every every month i just keep buying dollar cost average gonna load my 401k up gonna load my roth ira up gonna load up my automatic draft on my checking account that goes into the mutual funds

and uh when it goes down i'm gonna smile because i just bought it on sale because 10 years from now you won't even remember this crap 10 years from now you won't even know who was president you'll have to think about it who was quick who was president 10 years from now you won't even know who was president you'll have to think about it who was quick who was president 10 years ago see i got you all right so anyway but that that's see what i mean it's just like you you you get all torqued out about this stuff you you know you mean there was a oh yeah i remember yeah do you even log in and check i i do not if i see this headline i came in and james said we need to talk about the stock market. And I said, what? And he goes, don't you watch the news?

And I said, no. I don't watch the news. I saw somebody post something about it on Instagram. And I was like, okay. But I think that the people who watch their accounts like that, that's where the temptation lies. Well, that's like a Dr. John Deloney anxiety producing event. Don't do it. if you check your if you check your accounts every morning you're a spaz okay yeah you're gonna spaz out you're you

know you are asked if it's not a hobby that's just weird don't i don't even look at i look at mine once uh twice a year yeah and if i'm doing some kind of year-end final i'll say okay how did it do compared to the other indexes this year do I need to move anything but I'm just you know for 35 or 40 years I have put money in put money in put money in taking almost no money out and there's a lot of money in there well let's talk about that for a second Dave because we we both said I'm the type of person you know I set my 401k contributions. I set, you know, all my contributions, they're set.

They happen automatically. I'm not thinking about it. But for somebody who might say, well, Dave, is now a good time for me to throw in some extra money? I'm at 15%. Can I go in with a lump sum and buy more? No. Just because you don't want to build up

the muscle of day trading and timing. You don't want to try to time the market. All the data, all the research tells us people who try to time the market make less money than people who steadily invest. There's like 15 or 20 serious research projects that reveal, mathematically, if you steadily invest over a 10-year period of time versus trying to jump in, trying to jump out, trying to catch it, trying to make it happen, you screw yourself by dancing with the devil.

Don't do it. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Jade Warshaw. Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Javier is with us in Salt Lake City. Hi, Javier. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

So overarching question is that my mom took out a bunch of loans in my name. She's making minimum payments, but I'm trying to kind of get this whole thing sorted out and out of my name. How would you suggest that I approach her, the situation as a whole? How old are you? I'm 27. When did all this happen, hon? It started back in 22, I want to say 21, 22. It was after my divorce.

So I was kind of just starting caution to the wind and just saying yes to everything. Oh, so you agreed to her doing this? Yes. It all started because the landlord wanted to sell the house that I grew up in, but she's currently living in, and she offered us a pretty good deal. And my brother and I, we bought the house together for my mom. And now she's struggling to make the payments, and I'm just waiting for the day that I get a call. Hey, your payment's due, and my wife and I, we can't afford the payment ourselves, so I just don't know what to do.

Wow. You bought the house together for your mom. And then she took out credit card loans in your name, all with your permission. Yes, sir. So whose name is on the mortgage? Yours? Mm-hmm.

Yes, sir. But she's living in the house? Mm-hmm. Yes. Rent-free. And the property is titled to you as well, correct? Correct. She's paying the mortgage.

It's just that her credit was too poor to actually take the loan out herself. So going back to the other debt, the other loan, how much money are we talking about on the credit cards? Shy of $20,000. And what does your mom make a year? She's self-employed. She won't really give me a straight answer. If you had to guess, what would you say?

Not much. She doesn't work much. She sucks blood off of her sons. Okay. She's a parasite. It's a horrible thing to say about your mother. I'm so sorry. Just an observation.

What's your living situation? I am currently living in an apartment in Utah and the house is in another state. Yeah. And your wife is not happy with this situation, I would assume. She is not and I'm not either. Okay. Okay. And how old is mom? 55?

Ballpark. Yeah. Okay. So, and what is the house worth that she's living in? I would say $350,000 to $400,000. And what do you owe on it? I want to say $220,000, $250,000. I don't honestly know.

Yeah. Is your brother also on the mortgage? Yes, my brother's on the mortgage as well. And on the deed as well. Yeah. Okay. So if you guys... What's your brother saying about all this? My brother wants to keep the house and he's just happy to go along because he wants to keep it for sentimental value. I personally agree with your team, but it's just a house. We can get another one. Yeah. So what would I do if I woke up in your shoes? This is going to be what is called a difficult conversation, my friend. Your mom has gotten away with this misbehavior, underproducing producing, and unbelievable asks of her grown sons rather than taking care of herself.

A 55-year-old woman ought to be able to build a sustainable life without sucking the blood off of her children, okay? Or man, for that matter, okay? So this is not positive. Your mom is not in a good situation mentally and spiritually, because otherwise she wouldn't have done this to her own kids. And of course, you all aren't, because you allowed it to happen. Oh no, you straight up endorsed it. So what I would do if I woke up in your shoes is I would go, how long ago did you get married? My wife and I, we got married a month ago. Okay.

This is going to come down on your wife if you're not real careful from your mother. Your mother's going to blame her because she's the new thing on the scene, and about that time you evict your mom. So she's going to end up blaming your wife if you're not real careful. So your wife does not need to be anywhere near this conversation, nor do you quote her, nor do you even bring her up. She's not physically in the room. She's nowhere around because it's not her fault. Okay?

So you need to travel with your brother and sit down with your mom and say, guys, I can't do this anymore. I'm looking at the future 10 years into the future. And all I see is pain and trouble. There's a problem here. You're not, you're ruining my credit. Uh, you're gonna, I'm waiting for the phone call when you don't pay the mortgage. And, uh, so what we're going to do is we're going to sell the house. We're going to pay all the debt off and, um, and we're gonna pay the taxes associated with selling the house if there are any there shouldn't no there will be because it's not a personal residence you may

have some capital gains on this so you pay your taxes and then you say as for my half of what is left over equity mom i'm going to give that to you as a parting gift and you can go set yourself up a life with that and I'm not going to do anything anymore in the future that's it brother you can do with your half whatever you choose to do if you want to help mom get a house with that that's fine I'm done we're selling the house we're paying off the credit cards and I'll give you my half of what's left over after that after taxes do you anticipate your brother holding up that process or do you think that he'll go along with it i think he would hold it up because he's not big on ramsey i found you guys because i found your book uh breaking free from broke well i mean forget about the ramsey part

just the idea of you cleaning this up because it's very messy. It has nothing to do with Ramsey. It's got to do with your mother screwing her own kids over. Yeah. I honestly think he would not go along with it because he's seeing it as an investment on his... Then he can buy you out. He can buy you out.

That's another option. But, honey, we're selling the house if he doesn't want to sell the house then it's going to be a civil court action and the judge is going to demand that the partnership be dissolved by the selling of the house we're selling the house in the way i'm not asking we're telling you this is what we're doing and if you want to buy me out that's okay the way you need to think of this is this is saving your marriage by the way yeah because your wife is not going to sit around and let your mom be the reason that she's not in her new house you guys are in an apartment you've been married for a month if this messes around and

causes you guys the future the future that she's envisioned you're going to have a much bigger problem on your hands yeah mom i love you and i've done more for you than I should have. And I put myself and my future family in jeopardy because of you. And you continue to misbehave with this. My bills are not being paid. You're destroying my credit in my future. We're selling the house. Little brother, if you don't want to sell it, you can buy me out. You got 10 minutes. Ready, set, go. You're on're on the clock okay because your little brother's codependent like you were until something woke you up and again this has got nothing to do with Ramsey don't you blame it on your ex don't you blame it on your new wife and don't you blame it on Ramsey it's not Ramsey this is you stood up I'm a 27 year old freaking man with a backbone

and this is madness and the madness ends it's not a sign of love to continue in codependency this is not an act of love there's no love in this discussion you can be kind gentle you don't have to be yelling and screaming but we are selling the house you can either do it voluntarily or i'll have a judge make you sell the house. We are selling the house. So y'all get your heads around that, whatever flopping in the floor and foaming at the mouth you need to do, but get your heads around that. We are selling the house. It's not an option.

The only other option is, brother, you buy me out or mom, y'all buy me out. Get me off the mortgage and pay off all the credit cards. And you got to do that in 90 days and you got to ready, set, go. And if you're not going to do that in 90 days, and you got to ready, set, go. And if you're not going to do that, we are selling the house. The best thing for mom, by the way, is to sell the house. Put some money in her pocket, tell her to get a freaking job. Self-employed for her is code for, I don't work much. That's what that is. That's code. This is The Ramsey Show.

There's a time in your life and at the baby steps for renting, but you don't want to do it This is The Ramsey trusted to help you make the move from renting to home ownership wisely. Churchill understands that when you buy a home the Ramsey way, your mortgage payment will be a consistent, manageable part of your monthly budget. Plus, when your home is paid off, that was your largest expense. Now it's extra money in your pocket and an asset towards turning you into a baby steps millionaire. So get started on the American dream of home ownership today at churchillmortgage.com. That's churchillmAccess.org. Equal housing lender.

1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100. Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. The $12 sale is here through August 31st at RamseySolutions.com in the store. $12 books help you raise money smart kids. That's right. The Smart Money Smart Kids number one bestseller by Rachel Cruz and me on sale for $12.

$12 books help you get out of debt, build wealth. That's right. Baby steps millionaires. That's right. And, of course, you can get the total money makeover, $12. $12 books help you build a peaceful and joyful life. Dr. John Deloney walks you through the six daily choices you need to make and build a more peaceful life, building a non-anxious life.

$12 resources help you find work that really matters, like Ken Coleman's book, Paycheck to Purpose. All of these amazing deals, RamseySolutions.com. Mac is in Seattle. Hey, Mac, welcome to the Ramsey Show. How are you doing, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up?

So I am currently a business analyst. I work remote, and I'm 28 years old. I have a fear of sooner or later becoming unmarketable, make a decent wage, but I'm basically working off a bachelor's degree. And so I'm trying to decide if it's worth taking a student loan out to also cut time from my current job to either go back in an MBA or an MBA adjacent or completely do a career shift into something that is a little bit more desirable, a little bit more fulfilling, but might even be a dip in terms of my compensation or who knows what a career would bring with that. It's kind of a question of, do I continue to do something

I'm good at, but not necessarily something I I'm stoked about, Or do I kind of mix between doing that with an MBA or completely shift, you know, take the time now to shift into, you know, something completely different for the rest of my life, but also taking a financial risk with that? Well, I'm definitely not interested in you going into debt to further the education. And I'm certainly not interested in you going into debt for a job that you're not even really stoked about, right? So that's the first thought. My second thought is, what would be the other thing that you would do that might bring less money, but you're happier doing it? What do you have in mind when you say that? So for the longest time, I've wanted to be an architect, but I know that that market is a bit

saturated. It takes a lot of credentialing to eventually get to a point where you can make a decent bit of a wage and have a, have a good, healthy income. Okay. You're, you're, stop, stop, stop. You're making, um, decisions based on a wrong, uh, assumption. Here's the wrong assumption you're making that degrees or credentialing cause people to be successful. wrong assumption. Here's the wrong assumption you're making. That degrees or credentialing cause people to be successful. Nope, they don't. Degrees put tools in the belts of people who are going to go leave the cave,

kill something, and drag it home. Credentialing puts tools in your belt. And so the reason some lawyers are successful and some aren't is not because of law school. It's not because of passing the bar. It's because they chose to get it. They chose to get out in the market and climb and grow and be ambitious and read and continue their own growth curve and approach it. And so the reason some architects, you know, anytime I hear the market's saturated, I just think of lawyers.

They're freaking everywhere. God, we can't get rid of them. They're like roaches. They're everywhere. And yet some of them make 500 bucks an hour you know it's killing me same thing's true with architects there's always somebody that gets better at their job you know continues there's other people can't seem to find a wet job making a living as a cad uh supervisor and they've got an architectural degree but that's

got to do with the person not the degree and not the space and not the credentialing you know i've been podcasting for god's sakes you know who's got a podcast every human on the planet has a podcast you know what's causing this to be one of the top five podcasts in the entire world nothing to do with credentialing buddy i'll tell you that nothing to do with my dadgum degree nobody even asked what my degree is i got a phd in dumb so what i want you to do is figure out what you want to do with your life and go be the very best at that if you need to put some tools in your belt fine but don't sit at home doing remote work worrying about the marketplace the marketplace is always going to kick you in the stomach if you suck. And the marketplace is always going to fill your wallet if you're awesome.

I think that we need to make sure you leave here. Ken Coleman has a really great book, Find the Work You're Wired to Do. And inside of it, there's an assessment that you can take. And I think it's really going to help you figure out what it is that you want to do. And then the book is going to help you walk through the results of your assessment so you can really narrow in and hone into what it is that you want to do because here's the thing I don't want you going off spending a bunch of money yeah when you have a bunch of question marks exactly so I do want you to go get an MBA if it's part of the tools for your belt it's an excellent degree field but it's a horrible degree field for somebody that doesn't want to be in business that wants to be an architect so it would be a bad idea you know

don't do that but hey and business analyst with an undergrad man i got a friend of mine's a 42 year old guy he's a great 43 year old guy he made 250 last year he's got an undergrad that's great he's got an undergrad in finance he's a business analyst and he's you know what but he's really good at it you know and he works really hard and he's good with people and he sees has common sense insights when he's doing his analysis not just crunching numbers like some broke finance professor so you know that's the trick man don't believe this lie that because i got a degree i'm guaranteed something or because i go get another one that's going to be what opens the door to a fully saturated market you gotta add the secret sauce to it no no you boy parents teach your children that their cause of their success is them that's right teach them to stand up straight bathe regularly shake a hand and smile and brush your teeth you gotta bathe and don't send your mother on your job interview

teach your children to have some moxie some confidence teach them to do hard things and scary things and teach them to persevere when they get a little bit scared not collapse in the floor teach them teach them to have some skeletal structure to their character and to believe in god who loves them and is bigger than them and will carry them through when they don't think they can get through teach them these things and then let them get a degree but quit worshiping it not not picking on you mac but it's just it's it's uh everybody out there quit worshiping at the altar of where somebody went to school nobody gives a crap where you went to school nobody ever asked their oncologist right after they got a cancer diagnosis now where'd you go to school nobody

ever said that ever how many of you even ask your divorce attorney where he went to school you didn't care you just want to get me out of this all you care is didn't they do their job do they know what they're doing and all you care is did you put the tools in your belt while you were studying nobody has asked my gpa ever once since i left school 40 freaking years i've been waiting for somebody asked for no one has ever asked me for my degree i don't even know where it's at you know how some people have you mean the little the little diploma the little paper that people put in a frame and like put behind their their zoom man i got mine i got mine like framed did you yeah i was so proud because i just barely got out

i got out okay but no one no one cared no one ever asked me about it you know they they had that little thing that's what you call the graduation ceremony uh-huh did you walk you didn't walk i walked to work i was working that day because i was hungry the idea of spending money and taking a day off from work when i had a buck 67 in my checking account that's what i walked that's the truth now oh man i you know oddly enough though my son graduated from business college. I got a degree, Daniel, several years, what, 15 years ago, 10 years ago, 12 years ago, whatever it was, at the University of Tennessee. Same business school I did. And they let me do the commencement exercise.

That is a full circle moment. So I got to walk. That is very, very full circle. And I went up there like an academic type person or something with all the little hats and stuff. It was pretty cool. I had a full circle moment like that when I graduated with a music degree. The first cruise line I auditioned for to be a vocalist, I didn't get through the audition. But when we became talent agents, they were the first agency that we signed as working.

So I was like, wow, this is a full circle moment. I don't know if you realize this but when I auditioned you said no good enough to sing for you but I'll hire all your singers there we go they'll remain nameless for now it sounds like something cruises yeah cruise line inc yeah that's right this is the Ramsey show what does the future hold for business ask nine experts and you'll get 10 different answers This is The Ramsey Show. thing is a crystal ball. That's why more than 40,000 businesses have future-proofed themselves with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud enterprise resource planning system. Ramsey Solutions uses NetSuite, and you should too. Whether your company's earning millions or

even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities. With one unified business management suite, there's only one source of truth for the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions. NetSuite's real-time insights and forecasting help you see into the future with actionable data. And when you're closing the books in days, not weeks, you can spend less time looking backward and more time focusing on what's next. And speaking of what's next, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. It's free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. It's free at NetSuite.com slash Ramsey. Jade Walsh, our Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. Sarah is in Atlanta. Hi, Sarah. How can we help?

Hey, y'all. How are you doing? Great. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you so much for taking my call. My husband and I, we have three small children. We have a four-year-old, a two-year-old, and a one-year-old. And in January of this year, our four-year-old got diagnosed with leukemia. And so I'm, yeah, he's actually doing super well. So, you know, it's not been quite as bad as we thought. But I'm calling because my husband and I are wondering if we should pause our baby steps and just save money,

or if we should go ahead and continue with the baby steps. Definitely pause and save money. What baby step are you on? Two? Yeah, we're on baby step number two. We only have $7,000 left on a car and we could actually pay it off today. It would just be kind of a big hit to our savings account. How much is in your savings? We have about $11,000, thanks to our community, raising money for us when he got diagnosed. What's the prognosis? Is it a situation where you're going to go through this line of treatment and then everything should be good on the other side? Do you have a timeline in mind?

It sounds like you do. Yeah,, for most leukemias, it's three years of treatment, but the first eight months are like extremely hard. We're actually right at the end of that eight months. He went back to school today, which is super exciting. I know. It was great. And we're super blessed. We got something called Katie Beckett Medicaid. If you're familiar with that, it's a type of Medicaid for families that make more than the Medicaid limit, and it'll come behind like a child and will cover the 20% that your insurance won't cover. So we're actually not looking at massive medical bills.

The scary part is that like at any point you could get an infection and we could be in the hospital for 10 plus days and I just may have to take FMLA. Okay. So that's kind of what we're dealing with. What do you make? My husband and I net about $100,000. How much of that is you? I make about $60,000 of that.

Okay. With the gross, like I obviously bring home less. All right. Number one, Jade's right, the very first, and you've already done this, and if I'm in your situation, we got grandbabies that age. There's job one, beat leukemia. Yeah, mm-hmm. No other job. Total focus, okay?

Job one. If there's any crumbs left in our lives, emotionally, spiritually, financially, after we do job one, we can talk about doing other stuff, but it's only if there's crumbs left. Okay. So I would never, uh, personally, nor would I ever recommend you do anything except beat cancer. That's it.

Yeah. Okay. Period. you do anything except beat cancer that's it yeah okay period now uh it sounds like you're entering the second season which is lighter by your explanation i don't know anything about that but i'm going off of your explanation okay yeah that's correct and and this this is more of a uh you've gone from very intense to a maintenance, if you will. I'm using layman's terms. I have no idea what I'm talking about. That's what I think I'm hearing.

Is that right? Yes, it's actually called maintenance. Oh, wow. Stumbled into it. Who knew? Okay. And so, you know, in other words, we've kind of gotten past, A, the panic, that when you say that C word over my child, and then we've also now gotten the other side of the tough medical,

eight months of hell, and now we're going to put the finishing touches on the death of cancer, right? But that's going to be a little more gradual. We've gone from a sprint to a marathon. Are these, am I, are these metaphors working at all? Oh my gosh, absolutely. Okay. All right. I'm just trying to understand. I want to make sure I understand. So what I want to say is what we always say is when you're facing a storm, stop your debt, your baby steps, stop your total money makeover and address the storm and so what you and your husband have got to decide is mathematically financially

um a month from now two months from now with the eight month period in the rear view mirror do we feel like we're out of the storm it's still raining but the wind quit blowing and the lightning quit crashing or do we feel like we're in a predictable, sustainable environment where we feel safe to go ahead and pay off the car safe to resume our financial plan without putting the cancer treatment process in jeopardy at all? That's the way I'd look at it. Okay. When you feel safe.

Yeah. When you feel safe, then you go safe then you go again so like if you lose your job which is nothing in compared to what you're doing but it's still a thing um you know once you get the new job and you get a paycheck you push play again and you go you're the other side of the unemployment storm right once you uh have a child a pregnancy uh it's not it's not in the same bucket emotionally but it is still a situation where stop we pile up money mommy and baby come home we push play again so when we get the event the the uh situation no matter how scary or negative or positive it is in our rear view mirror then we

push play and we go uh but we don't try to do uh we don't take it down to a thousand dollars and try to beat cancer in a four-year-old no no that's just stressful that that feels stressful yeah i think yeah it's just we've had some stints where he's gotten an infection and we've been in the hospital for a long time and i've've actually, we've both worked through it, like working from the hospital. And it's very hard emotionally. Well, you're probably going to do that anyway because you want to just keep careers. You want to keep life moving. But that's not got to do with hitting the total money makeover baby step goal.

That's just got to do with we just got to keep this thing rolling. We got to keep the wheels on the bus, you know. Well, yeah, that's a different posture when you're working because you need some you know you need to keep working versus there's no money in the account if i don't work you know we won't be able to pay the bill you know that's a whole different level how many how many of those trips has he had um the when we first got diagnosed no the infection trip. Only one so far. All right. Yeah, so hopefully no more. So it's the only cloud. It's the worst cloud still hanging over this situation,

other than we know we've got some discomfort, but nothing like we've had before going forward, right? Yes. No, he's like 99% prognosis. That's awesome. That's great. It's honestly, when you live in the hospital as much as we do you realize how lucky you are when this is all you're facing so we've got a

lady here named shauna that um came into my office um uh 17 years ago or no 14 15 years ago and said my three-year-old has leukemia and she worked in accounting and you can't do accounting your brain doesn't work when you're doing it so anyway we paid her and paid her through all of it and the ladies took care of meals and the guys took care of keeping the grass cut and then pretty soon we had a little ball-headed three-year-old running around the office and we're celebrating with her and the other day we gave away ramsey scholarships and um she walked across the stage and i gave me a hug graduated from high school and i got to take a picture with her the other day so there is a good ending to these stories yeah we have so much hope and we have such a good

community too so that makes all the difference we can hear it in your voice. Yeah. You really can. You're very joyful. Attitude's everything here. It really is. It's a lot of it. So, hey, we're with you. If you need any more help, you call us back. But, you know, just use good common sense.

Take care of baby first. And then once we're clear of the storm, don't let the worries of the world keep you from going and winning what might be but use good wisdom okay thank you all so much i appreciate it thank you god bless you sarah wow that's a good differential dave because in in her case yeah this this has the ability to be a three year stint but it's not it had two two seasons that's right. So thinking through, okay, do I need to truly be paused for three years or is there a point where I can say? I'm okay if you are. If you are, yes.

But in her case, it seems like there might be a point before that where they can put a foot on the gas again. Making $100,000, they got some money in the bank. They're only $7,000 away. They're not $107,000 away. It'd be nice to have that car payment gone while they're doing this. I'm sure. And it'd be nice to have that stability. And guys, just

remember, if you have an emergency come up and you have zero debt and $25,000 in the bank for an emergency fund, sometimes, not that kind of emergency, but some emergencies are a mere inconvenience. The drama starts to leave your life

when you get your crap together. I know, that's right. Hello. So, that's what these calls remind me of. She's a hero. What a great mom. Wonderful. Wow.

This is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Walsh, our Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. Tyler's in Orlando. Hi, Tyler. How are you? Hey, I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Hey, I have a question about a real estate deal that I did with one of my friends.

Okay. All right. So I gave him $9,000 back in September. And then as of he was supposed to sell the house, it was part of a down payment for a house that he bought. And he was supposed to pay me back by January, or I gave him eight grand in September. He was supposed to give me $14,000 back in January. And then he showed me a picture of the bank account with all of the money. Then I gave him a thousand dollars more and he bought another house. He did a 1035 exchange to another house.

And, um, and then he was supposed to pay me back. I think 25 K plus some extra for the taxes. And that was supposed to be due in April. Um, he's given me $2,500 back out of the right now, as of now, he owes me 29,500. Um, I have it all in contract and in writing and today's the date. I actually made a new contract last month and said that he owes me the full amount,

29,500 by August 5th, which is today. And if he doesn't pay me back that, then he has to pay for all the court fees, attorney fees, and $1,000 extra per month in interest. Okay. Why has he not paid you? I don't know. Did the house sell? No. He always says that it's going to sell.

Oh, the house hasn't sold. So he doesn't have any money. Do you think contracts magically make him have money? No so he doesn't have any money. He doesn't have any money, yeah. Do you think contracts magically make him have money? No. He doesn't have any money. That's why he's borrowing from someone like you. Yeah. Have you seen the properties?

Yes, I have. Okay. And right now... So the first one sold, right? He said it did, but it didn't. Okay. Was the first one ever rented? Did he ever rent it out?

Yes. Did it ever have rental income? No. No. Then it is not involved in a 1031. Only income-producing property can be in a 1031. Flips do not qualify for a 1031. Only income producing property can be in a 1031. Flips do not qualify for a 1031. So he didn't. And besides that, if it didn't sell, he can't roll it into the other house. So that 1031 tax deferred exchange did not occur. Okay. Um, so basically he owns two houses right

now, neither one of which have sold. Yeah how old are you 23 and how old is he maybe 30 ish okay and why did you think this was going to work i mean i i was skeptical of it i I mean, I had the contract, so I wasn't too worried about losing the money. Well, you're learning a very harsh lesson that I learned early in business, and that is that contracts don't make bad deals good. Contracts are simply pieces of paper that say what happens when everything blows up and melts down. They don't make bad people good, and they don't make bad deals good, and they don't make money appear on the scene that's not there. But I have a contract is never

a defense for getting into a really stupid deal. So you might end up spending $30,000. So the other house, you could, you probably lost your money, but anyway, let's play it through the current property that we're, we're waiting on both of them to sell right yes sir do either one of them have twenty nine thousand dollars worth of equity yeah yeah okay um well i guess if i were in your shoes i would try this i think this will be much more successful than suing on a contract because that's a three-year process. It's going to cost you $15,000, $20,000 in legal fees. Right now, you've got $2,500 of your $9,000 back. So right now, you're only bit to the tune of $6,500, right? Yeah. okay that that might be the most expensive tuition that a

23 year old's paid lately but if you pay tuition to the school of life and that's all you pay is that a 65,000 it's not too bad but let's see if we can salvage this it doesn't sound like he's a liar except about the part on the house the first house selling in the 1031 it sounds like he's a neophyte doesn't know what the crap he's doing he took some tiktok thing on how to buy real estate and i kind of know that because he got a 23 year old as his financier who came up with a whole 10 grand okay this is not like a high roller here that's got a ultimate real estate experience so i think he's just dumb is what i'm saying okay yeah i don't think he's evil yeah i bet if the house is sold you would have had your money yeah yeah i think he hoped the house would

sell and you'd have your money and you're you were naive that's being kind to think that a contract was suddenly going to make sure that money appeared contracts don't do that he has no money dude until the house sells so why don't you go to him and say instead of suing you my financial advisor suggested that i take a second mortgage lien on your property and that you sign a lien for thirty thousand dollars on both properties so now you have a sixty thousand dollar position if he doesn't and put terms to that that that has to be paid uh on sale or within six months whichever is first and he can go refinance and buy you out okay okay now if he does not then you don't have to you don't have to sue you merely have to foreclose okay and foreclosure is a lot

cheaper and more efficient than a lawsuit okay so go to him and say instead of suing you and instead of you and me going to court and all this you're i'm waiting on the house to sell you're waiting on the house to sell i if i'm either going to sue you this week or you're going to give me a second mortgage lien for 30 000 on both properties and then you don't screw him whenever you get your money you release the other property but whichever one sells first you get your money okay does that make sense yeah that makes sense and don't do this again did you learn your lesson yeah okay if you get out by the skin of your teeth don't act like you're a pro you just you just lucked freaking out if you get out of this deal this is a deal where you deserved to lose nine thousand dollars if you get out and don't

get what you deserve you can buy the t-shirt better than i deserve and learn your lesson and move on wow he'll be lucky if he gets his money back i have done so many stupid things that i deserved yeah to lose money so i can say that to you, son. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, you just you walked up on the thin ice and said, please crack. I want to be wet. But he had a contract. I know.

I'm just joking. Ice promised me it wouldn't crack. Oh, boy. Yeah. When you're doing business with broke people, please expect them to do broke people things. And we know the guy is broke because he borrowed $9,000 from a 23-year-old. Who knows if these properties are going to sell for what they hoped. I have no idea.

And if there's even going to be any profit. No idea. But it'd be fun to foreclose on it and see if you really wanted to know. Yeah, true. That might be interesting. This is The Ramsey Show. I've been doing this show for over 30 years, and some of the saddest calls I've taken are from situations that are completely preventable. Yeah, and what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible, are people that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly, and they don't have life insurance. When you have to think through, how am I going to pay my bills in the middle of all that grief? It's terrible. So life insurance is the one thing,

especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive. Zander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance. And it doesn't cost much because Zander shops among a gazillion different companies. It doesn't cost much. You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here. You got to say it out loud and you got to say, I'm going to say I love you to my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place.

The cost of stinking pizza. To get a free quote, call 800-356-4282. That's 800-356-4282 or go to zander.com. So I've learned so many silly little sayings from other generations because I'm on the air with the cool people around here. And so I learned that like when Biden forgave the student loans that that was sus oh yeah suspect yes I didn't know what I had learned what sus was so there you go and I learned about FOMO FOMO yes fear of missing out that's a real thing apparently motivates people to do really stupid things with money facts sometimes and uh other things too uh I'm going

to give you a fear of missing out and it's not a stupid thing to do with money and you should not be doing it if it is a stupid thing i'll help you with this the live like no one else cruise is almost sold out we have the entire ship on holland america march 22nd through the 29th the jade warshaw will be with us um all of the ramsey personalities will be with us sharon my wife and i will be on there for the entire seven day cruise uh plus stephen curtis chapman who uh not only is um emmy award winning 67 doves or something like that but last week stephen got inducted into the uh uh grand old opry that's great yeah he was telling me about it he was at the house monday night with a bunch of guys and

um he was uh last week and just tears in his eyes it was a huge huge honor for him because he he grew up of course singing country music and he's one of the world's best renowned christian artists as you know and so anyway we're going to turks Caicos, St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas. We'll be doing events and things and performances and talks and whatever else you want to call it on the ship the entire week. It's going to be a blast. It's almost gone. You can still get a room, a state room, but you need to get your deposit of six hundred dollars down before the cabins are gone you don't have to pay for the whole thing up front but you don't need to go on the live like

no one else cruise unless you are baby step four and beyond yeah for sure we don't tell people to go on vacations when they're in one through three and that includes vacationing with us i heard george was going to be bouncing at the doorways bouncing what you know the bouncer he can't bounce anything george was going to be uh security checking get bounced but he's not what's he was he at the at the daycare checking the baby steps cards where's he gonna be a bouncer where's george gonna be that's not even funny y'all that's just that's just insulting oh man so uh hey we're gonna this is a chance for you to celebrate your process through the baby steps a milestone of getting to baby step four or beyond maybe seven maybe you do your debt-free scream with us maybe could be the world's largest debt-free scream at sea.

Because if it's the only debt-free scream at sea, it by definition is the largest debt-free scream at sea. So we're going to do that for sure. Maybe we need to get the Guinness book and give people and give them a room or something on there. So RamseySolutions.com slash Cruz. Get signed up. We'd love to have you go with us. Matt is in New York.

Hi, Matt. How are you? Hey, Dave. Doing great. How are you? Hey, Dave. Doing great. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So just a quick question.

I'm getting married next year. I have a full-time career in the military as well as two part-time jobs. Just opened up a Roth IRA and put in an initial $2,500. I'm looking to see how much you suggest I put into it either on a monthly basis or an annual basis, being that I'm also trying to save up for a home as well. Good for you. Are you debt-free? Thank you. Yes, I am. Good for you. How old are you? Thank you. I'm 24. Thanks for serving your country, sir. Thank you for Thank you. I'm 24. Thanks for serving your country, sir. Thank you for your support. I appreciate it. Yeah. So if I'm you, you've already paid off your debt. Do you have three to six months of expenses saved up? Yes, I do. I have about maybe

$8,500 to $9,500 saved up. Okay, good. So yeah, officially you're in 3B or 4, whichever one you choose. And what I would do, so you're investing 15% of your income. So yeah, officially you're in 3B or 4, whichever one you choose. And what I would do, so you're investing 15% of your income. So if that allows you to max out that Roth, I would max out that Roth. Now, most people would say 15% of your income every single month until that's gone, until you've maxed it out, right? And then you could move on to another investment vehicle. So do you think you can max it out uh yes absolutely okay then yeah because i'm also i'm also looking for i mean i'm definitely uh money hungry uh to put it to put it in the easiest way uh so i'm trying to find you know all sorts of multiple side hustles and everything that I can. Everything you can. Yeah, I heard you say you have two other part-time jobs. So you max out this Roth.

What other things do you have available to you through the military that you can put money into? TSP. TSP, Thrift Savings Plan. Okay. So what we want you to do at Baby Step 3B, 3B is saving for a house and or investing for retirement. Obviously, the more you put into retirement, the less you'll have to save towards a house. Agreed? Correct.

So the most you would put in at your stage would be 15% of your household income, your total income, until you're married. Once you're married, the total income of the household needs to go into retirement, a maximum of 15%. Some people back the 15% down a little until they get their down payments saved. Some of them do the whole 15%. We suggest not doing more than 15% at this stage. Instead, put it all toward the rest of everything else towards the house. But if you want to do 10% or you want to do the Roth, and that represents 8%, I don't know what your income is and all that, but whatever you guys want to do and then start saving towards that house, that's great.

Who's paying for the wedding? My fiancé and I had actually, our parents offered to help us immensely, but my fiancé and I both felt like uh you know we would feel personally more more accomplished if it was paid off ourselves uh so we are we're paying for the wedding ourselves wow what's the budget uh we're looking at we're looking at about 27 000 right now is that money already saved yes it is we We have about 46 in a joint account as of now. Okay. No more joint accounts until you're married except the wedding fund, okay?

Yes, that's exactly. And no buy house with somebody you're not married to. Yes. Okay. Absolutely. I appreciate it. Thank you. I'm curious why you felt like you should not have mom and dad pay for the wedding.

That's a traditional thing. It doesn't mean you're like a deadbeat if your not have mom and dad pay for the wedding. That's a traditional thing. It doesn't mean you're like a deadbeat if your father-in-law pays for the wedding. No, absolutely. I mean, and like I mentioned, they did offer to pay for it. I don't know. I guess it's something personal, you know, personally that I feel. Just being able to say that, you know, I paid for something myself, I saved up and I paid for something myself. Uh, how'd they take it when

you told them, were they a little disappointed? Uh, they were, they were taken back that, that we didn't want help. Um, but they're, you know, they're going to wind up giving us a, uh, a huge gift and, you know, an exchange. Okay. All right right i guess we can use that towards the house yeah yeah absolutely and and with the military um with the military benefits we don't we don't have to put a a down payment on the house um but i'm not sure i haven't looked into it that much um but being that we don't have to put a down payment i'm not sure how exactly that works um oh you do you do need to put down a down payment. Don't use a VA loan.

VA loans are more expensive than conventional. Okay. So you need to do a Fannie Mae with a traditional down payment and above your emergency fund and above your wedding. So there you go. Very cool. Very cool. That's interesting.

I have not, you know, that's from a generation, not him, but that's from a generation that doesn't want to pay their student loan. Well, everybody's not like that. I know. Everybody's not like anything. But the, and I paid for both my daughter's weddings and I did not think poorly of my son's-in-law in the least. No.

I had no expectation they would do that. That was kind of like, I'm an would yeah do that that's what's kind of like i'm an old southern dad and that's what you do what i did you know like here's the budget and y'all do it within that and don't ask for any more that's it but if they had said you know what dave we got it would you have been like oh man or would you have been like i would have been a little bit taken aback like he was and And I was like, huh? Yeah. I mean, it wasn't like I'm going to give him. Yeah.

Oh, well. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with it. It's just different. Yeah. It's not an expectation of character or lack of character, folks, if you're in law's way for your wedding. I'll say that out loud.

I don't think that's true. So if they don't there might be something else going on there though sometimes he didn't say that but um if there's if there's a lot of strings attached you don't want to activate now that's the truth all that you don't want them to come out of their cave and all that you know there's all kinds of stuff that you might want to do that for. But oh, well, OK, cool. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys, health insurance costs are only moving one way and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy. So if you feel like the system is working against you, try a biblically-based

alternative to health insurance, Christian Healthcare Ministries. CHM is a health cost-sharing ministry that's helped hundreds of thousands of families like yours take care of over $11 billion in medical bills since 1981. And CHM has also helped them stay true to their values and avoid miles of red tape. And CHM support goes far beyond meeting financial needs. They'll also help meet spiritual needs. Members become part of a family who will pray with them and for them when they experience a medical event.

So listen, y'all, there's no better way to take care of health care costs. CHM programs start as low as $98 a month. So learn more today and join at chministries.org slash budget at chministries.org slash budget. Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality, Number one, bestselling author is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. Katrina is with us in Salt Lake City. Hi, Katrina. How are you? I am fantastic. Thank you so much for asking. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? All right. So I am going through a divorce and it's really hurting me financially. So I'm wondering if I should take money out of my business account that I'm actually trying to sell because of the divorce and use some of that money to buy things for my

primary job. What is your primary job? I am a school teacher, and tomorrow I go back to school, and the kids come back next Tuesday, but I need to buy some supplies for the students to come back to school. I'm sorry, they don't furnish you supplies for the classroom like they should? Well, they give me five dollars. Which would make you every school teacher in America? Well, yeah, thank you. They give me $5 as a student, but I've already spent that. I bought glue sticks and colored pencils and pencil pouches for the students. So what are you talking about spending?

I need paper, hand sanitizers, folders, and journals. What are you talking about spending? I'm thinking I need about $200. What type of business do you have? What's the nature of it? So in the evenings, I run an escape room, but I have to sell it according to the divorce decree. I have to sell it so I could pay back some of the equity that I owe to my soon-to-be ex-husband. Do you take a payroll from the business? I don't.

It doesn't make enough money. So I just, I run it and then like it pays for it. Okay, if $200 changes your life, you have other problems. Well, right now, I just, I'm barely finished baby step number one. I've been using your EveryDollar app. If you have to choose between you eating and buying your children hand sanitizer, you eat. Okay, I get that. Okay.

And so if you're down to nothing, if you have no money and $200 is a huge amount to you, where you get it from doesn't matter. It's where you spend it that matters. You don't have the option to be this generous to these students, contact a local church and ask them to help you with, they've got some journals laying around and maybe they've got some hand sanitizer they can give you from the children's ministry and help you fund this and help you get the thing set up without you spending the $200 at Target. And, you know, let's go that route because it sounds like this $200 is a lot of money to you. Yeah. And you've got you need to work on the other side of that.

And that's the overall income. I think I'm tutoring instead of running a game room. Escape room. Yeah. Today's question of the day is brought to you by why refi if private student loan debt is taking away your peace of mind and you don't see any way out you need why refi that's why the letter r-e-f-y they refinance defaulted private student loans if you have one they'll refinance it for you. Nobody else will touch it. And they

give you a low fixed rate that is built for you on a term that makes it work for you. So you can get your loan paid off and get it current. So it's not trashing you every month. Go to yrefi.com slash Ramsey today. That's the letter Y R E F Y dot com slash ramsey might not be in all states all right today's question comes from nora in pennsylvania she says i've been married for almost 30 years and my husband and i have adult children my husband runs his mother's family business he will inherit the business when she passes but he says that the business is not going to be mine if anything happens to him. He says his will is going to state that our children will get the business and that he will not be providing for me. I've explained to him how upsetting this is and that I shouldn't have

to go to my children for help when it is his responsibility to care for me? I live on a fixed income. My adult life as a stay-at-home mom, what can I do to protect myself legally? Wow. You can't. So you have a marriage problem. My goodness. You don't have a legal problem.

You're married to a jerk. And that's a problem. Yeah, I thought this question was going in one direction. And then it turned left and went off into the ditch. It sure did. So, honey, you need to go see a marriage counselor, and he's not going to go with you because he's right about everything. He doesn't need any help if you ask him.

And, of course, everybody else listening to this knows he's the one that needs the help. But you need to go to the marriage counselor, and the marriage counselor is going to explain to you that your marriage is over if you don't get some serious work done on it. That rattling you're hearing under the hood means the engine's about to blow, kiddo. And this does not describe a loving home where the husband is gentle, kind, and serves his wife. I didn't hear anything like that in here. No, no. So sad. Nora, I'm sorry.

But yeah, you need to go see a marriage counselor today. Tell him that he ought to go with you, but he won't. And then the marriage counselor will give you words to speak to him that lead to either him coming to the table or the end of your marriage. You can't go forward with this. And after 30 years, he still chooses his mommy. Wow. After 30 years, he's still a mama's boy. Old men that are mama's boy are kind of pitiful.

That's the worst. Mama's boys are pitiful period after four years old but old men mama's boys seriously pitiful whoo and he's gonna be one even after 30 years that means this guy's in his 50s yeah he's an old man mama's boy you can title the thumbnail on youtube old man mama's boy there you. I thought she was going to say something. You know, as I was reading it, I thought, okay, this is his mom's family business. It's going to pass to the children. Maybe she didn't want to run the business.

You know what I mean? Because there's part of that where it's like, I don't want this responsibility. But that took a hard left turn. Ooh, gracious. Yeah. Yeah, mamas, don't let your boys become. Leave and cleave. Choose carefully, my darling.

Choose carefully. Choose a man who loves his mother from a distance. I know that's right. Mom, I love you. Over there. Listen, I say that, but when the day comes when my son gets old enough where he has to go over there, I'm going to be sad. I think it's one of the hardest child developmental things I've ever witnessed.

As we raised kids, girls separate from their mom, but boys stay right there until they separate. When they separate, it's brutal. And it usually comes somewhere around 16 or 17 years old for people that become men oh man but boys who are mama's boy at 50 they never did cut the cord and so they're still tugging on her apron strings mommy mommy mommy i want the business mommy mommy mommy mommy would you take care of mommy mommy i want to make sure you love me, Mommy. Oh, brother, I think I'm going to puke. Oh, gosh. No, I want my son.

We do have a manhood crisis in this country for sure. Wow. I mean, this is not masculinity. It's not toxic masculinity. It's just a child. Yeah, and a controlling child. A very controlling jerk of a child. Yeah.

Goodness gracious. And here's the thing nora's husband if you happen to end up listening to this if you're not who she says she you are you need to understand how screwed up your marriage is that your wife wrote this letter to a nationally syndicated show that has hundreds of millions of people downloaded every month so if you're not this and she sent this in you got stuff going on dude so you still deserve bus tracks over your butt so we threw you right in front of the bus still that's what happened maybe he'll write in a letter next i hope so i wish he would just come on the air and let us talk to him how fun would that be that would be compelling podcast material oh man uh wow ouch yeah that's this is here's what's interesting the number one thing that will keep you from building wealth is screwed up relationships.

Bingo. That's so true. When you can't handle screwed up relationships and put reasonable, gentle, kind, strong boundaries in place and keep the screwed up people at a distance and the right people up close and you can't function with other humans, you're going to struggle building wealth, period. This is The Ramsey Show. Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Nathan's in Philadelphia.

Hi, Nathan. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. I've been listening to your show for a while. I never thought I'd have to call in, but life kind of threw me a curveball. Okay, cool. How can we help? So I have started dating a girl and I have found out recently that she is close to $150,000 in student debt for a doctorate degree that she does have.

And she's been working for a year with that. A doctorate degree on what? Physical therapy. that she does have and she's been working for a year with that a doctorate degree on what physical therapy okay she got a PhD and she's a PT okay correct yeah so I don't have any debt I've been proud of that and I've been finding that as I'm going through this relationship that that's been a big deal for me I think so I'm just trying to figure out how much do I factor that into the way I, I guess, pursue this relationship. And then two, how do I talk to her about it? Have you asked her, have you asked her what her philosophy on debt is going forward?

Does she plan to utilize more debt? That sort of thing? I think that I've made my position somewhat clear as far as like i don't like that so i haven't straight up asked her how she feels about it uh going forward if i were you if i were you this is just what i would do i'd want to do a little bit of undercover detective work so i'd probably ask her a little bit more about her views before i reviewed all of my views because I would not want her to say something to to appease me okay yeah I'd want her to I'd want to know the full business and then I'd say well here's the way I feel you know and then see where the conversation goes from there okay how long have you been dating? About four months.

What do you think? She might be the one? It's a little early. No, I like her. I feel like our relationship outside of this has been really good, and I appreciate getting to know her. But it's one thing I feel like it's really taking a lot of my – it's been adding stress to my life just thinking about it, even though I'm not in my debt yet.

So, like, I'm trying to figure out if I'm overreacting, because I think, I mean, with our combined income, thinking about even though I'm in my debt yet. So like I'm trying to figure out if I'm overreacting. Cause I think, I mean with our combined income, assuming, you know, I'm lying, obviously a lot of things have happened, but I wouldn't not continue a relationship with somebody because they had

debt, but I would not continue with the relationship with someone if they had an opposing view from that point going forward. Okay. Yeah. Like if she said, oh, I hate this. If we ever got together and were married, we would throw everything at it and get it done like that guy does on the radio.

I'd want to do it that way. If she said something like that, she's a keeper, dude. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But if she says, oh, no, I plan to keep this debt and pass it to my grandchildren. Mm-hmm. I think debt is wonderful is wonderful, then she ain't for you. I think that her expectations of how much, how quickly she can pay this off is different than reality, just based off of what her expectations for life are.

That's different. The expectations are just information. And that's a big point of this. You know, what Dave said is so true. A lot of this is information. And that's a big point of this. You know, what Dave said is so true. A lot of this is information. You got information at some point that informed you that debt's a bad idea. Living in debt, you know, continuing to go into debt is a bad idea. That's information she may not have come across yet in the way our culture is. It's just telling you car loan, student loan. That's where. So if she comes in contact with the same information that you've got

that led to your life change let her you know have that moment as well and that that has that has to do with all of it not just so instead of making i think what jade's saying and i think jade i thought that was really wise ask a lot of questions don't make a lot of statements and just fish around a little bit and then then you know you can kind of open it up because honestly what you're trying to ascertain i think we think is not whether she has 150 000 in debt is that a deal killer that is not a deal killer we think but what is a deal killer is someone who's going to mishandle money and be chaotic and stay in debt the rest of their life that makes for especially for someone

like you you've told me like six times how you hate debt and this has got you stressed out can you imagine a whole life of being that stressed the rest of your life no you're not marrying that woman that's a hell on earth that'd be awful especially for you now if someone loves debt and they think just like her then they can get married and they'd be just fine in their chaos. But, you know, so being in agreement and being aligned on money is the number one cause of divorce. And so the inverse of that is true. It's the number one area of happiness for couples that stay together. Because when you agree on money, you are agreeing on your value system. Jesus said your treasure is where your heart is. You're agreeing on your dreams. You're agreeing on your fears.

You're agreeing on what stresses you out and what doesn't. And these things matter, even if you're a spender versus a saver. You can still be aligned on the values of the subject. And I think that's what you've got to fish out. But you need to run like your hair is on fire if this lady intends to stay in debt the rest of her life and she thinks this is wonderful because it will destroy you nathan especially you because the way you outline this whole thing on the air yeah that's a big deal that's a good differential between uh the philosophy

of how you view money in debt versus just personality characteristics. Exactly. I tend to be a saver. I tend to be a spender. But if the philosophy at the core is the same, but we still avoid debt and we still don't go into debt, then you're okay. Yeah.

So Nathan, if you said, we would say that someone who said along those lines, okay, I'm not going to date anybody who has debt. So if you want to keep dating me, you've got to get out of debt. I would call you a Pharisee. That's not the right thing. And you made this mess, you figure it out. Well, then I wouldn't want my daughter to marry you. Right. I agree. Uh, but we did teach our kids that they weren't going to marry anybody who was perfect and that they aren't by the way, because they learned early

on in the Ramsey house that the access of the world does not run through the top of their little head. And so the inmates don't run the asylum. That's not how it works at our place. So, um, even when the grands come to visit papa dave we still have a certain level of um reasonableness in the house so and um yeah yeah and so that's not there's nothing wrong with that that's a good so you want to be aligned on where we're going and and why we're going there absolutely that's That's the big thing, the going forward. You're looking into the future. And, you know, in a sense, there's a lot of things that we do in our lives that are that way,

like a job interview. Are you a cultural fit? Right. Do you align with the values of that organization and what they're trying to accomplish? If they run perpendicular to who you are then in 20 minutes after you get there you're going to be going oh this is a toxic workplace well yeah it does it's not toxic you just joined a group that don't think like you joined it does you no favors to change your answer in order to get the things exactly it's like then you're just going to be

faking like you said set somebody up to change their answer to get you. That's right. That's a bad thing. Hey, guys, big announcement right now. Everybody tune in. Hold your breath. Listen, listen, listen, listen, listen. Turn up your radio.

Turn up your podcast. Listen. We're changing things at the Ramsey Show. Oh, my gosh. They're changing. Yes. So this show is a three-hour talk radio show. When you guys get it on a podcast without the

commercials it's about 38 minutes or 39 minutes or whatever and on uh and same thing on youtube right and there's tens of millions of you on all these different formats literally so the third hour the third segment of the talk radio show that is on podcast and on YouTube and all that kind of stuff the third hour after starting today is now going to be on the Ramsey Network app for free you could consider it like the after show or something so the only thing it costs you is your email okay so jump on and download the Ramsey network app in the app store or google play and you can get the third hour of the youtube or the third segment of the youtube whatever we want to call it i still think in hours because the whole thing started on talk radio right and the third

it's three hours i'm sitting here jade and i are sitting here doing this with commercials and everything okay so anyway third segment on YouTube and all podcasts is now on the Ramsey network app. As of today, it's completely free, but the podcast folks are, the podcast world is wanting our show to be shorter. So it is just now started right now. Okay. And those of you in talk radio, you're going to get what you've always gotten. Okay. We're not changing a thing. So if your station carries all three hours of the Ramsey show, then you get all three hours. We're not turning nothing off there. Okay?

But the apps, you're going to the Ramsey Network app in the App Store. It's completely free. It's going to be great because there's a bunch of other stuff that's in the app that we built, like searchable. Very good. So you can search a whole subject and get all the calls around leasing a car or all the calls around the debt snowball. It's a the app that we built, like searchable. Very good. So you can search a whole subject and get all the calls around leasing a car or all the calls around the debt snowball. It's a cool app, so it's completely free. Ramsey Network app.

You're going to still get everything you've always gotten. Check it out. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey personality number one, best-selling author, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. The phone number is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. David starts this hour off in Oklahoma City. Hi, David, how are you?

I am doing great. Thank you so much for taking my call. It's a pleasure to speak with you. You too. Well, the smartest financial decision my wife and I made was going through financial peace back in 2010, and it is paid dividends. Thank you. You're welcome. It's not a hard question. It's just I have a little bit of anxiety on putting all of my eggs in one basket.

But I retired in April of this year. I had established back in 2018 with a financial advisor in another state. That account's got a little over $800,000 in it. A couple of years ago, when we settled my mother's estate and some funds, we've got here in Oklahoma a different financial advisor, Ramsey, though, with about $400,000, and probably going to start drawing on this next year, 2025, should I roll everything into under one financial advisor? Does that make more sense or keep it separate? Or do you have any advice along those lines? Well, I don't think it's horrible.

Here's the trick. The core of this is you. You and your wife make the decisions. You and your wife understand that you've got $1.2 million. Way to go. Okay? You were millionaires before the inheritance, and now you've even accentuated that even more. Because I assume you've got equity in your house, so you're probably at a million-dollar net worth, not counting the inheritance.

We're debt-free completely so so um so you know all of that to say the person we're counting on for your future is not a financial advisor it's you okay the advisor is there to teach you present options to you about things that you don't know about and uh inform you and say hey have you thought about doing this david okay and david goes yeah i thought about it and no doesn't fit with what i like to do i'm not going to go that way um or teach me a little bit more about it and then sometimes you learn something new and you do something new but most of the time you're going to keep doing the general things that got you here and um so you are the secret sauce in this formula okay okay so maybe the one that i feel more confident with being a teacher is the right decision i think it is if that that would be the right decision i i would put it together i don't

have two different people do my taxes well okay because that's that's the other piece in this is, you know, there's different IRAs, to keep from getting into required minimum distributions at 72.5, which ones do I need to attack first? You want to deplete the traditionals first. I'll give you a hint. And if you've got an inherited, you've only got 10 years to deplete it by the new IRS regs under Biden yeah so you can't keep it under there because the irs wants their freaking money they're democrats so um it's what they do so okay that's the thing you're doing so so um i kind of would want it under one simply because

then there's one guy who has a full picture of everything or girl yeah full picture of everything and i definitely wouldn't keep somebody around because I don't want to hurt their feelings I don't think that's what he was doing I think he just ended up with you know people where he is people where he used to be and uh but I don't think it's a diversification I think it's more of a confusion I would go with one but but having said that that's 10 percent of the equation 90% of the equation is David, you are the one with $1.2 million. You are incredible. Well done.

We salute you, millionaire. Another Baby Steps millionaire we're talking to right there. Started in 2010. Yes. And so what are we now? 15, 14 years later. And there you sit. That's pretty typical.

That's textbook. Yep. Perfect. I like it. I like it. I like it a lot. All right. Allison is in Jacksonville, Perfect. I like it. I like it. I like it a lot. All right. Allison is in Jacksonville, Florida.

Hey, Allison, what's up? Hi, man. I'm so excited to talk to you guys. Dave, I love you and everything that you contribute to the world of finance, but Jade, I absolutely love you. You're my favorite. Thank you. Oh, she's a favorite.

I was content to let it end at Dave. So thank you. Oh, you're very good. Both of you are just amazing. The Mutual Admiration Society. How can we help? Okay. So I'm new to the baby steps.

My husband's not totally on board, although he's really responsible financially. And we've made a lot of changes in the last year. One thing that I've become aware of is the term life insurance that we have in place through our employers. It's pretty good, but we set it up last open enrollment to make sure that our house would be paid off if either one of us passed away. And that does leave us short of the 10 times our income rule that you guys have. So I'm kind of wondering what should I do because the coverage that we have is pretty generous through our employers. So I don't know if I should be supplementing the policy that Vander has.

You should. Here's why. Because if you left your employer and you were ill before you left your employer, you're uninsurable in the open market. Okay. And sometimes you don't choose to lose your employer. I'm sorry? Yeah, do I go ahead and get the full 10 times a month? No, no, no, no, no, no. But I wouldn't count what you have at the office as my only play.

Just because it has to stay at the office if you leave. How many times your income is at the office as my only play just because it has to stay at the office if you leave how many times your income is it the office one so my employer provides um basic life two times my annual salary and they also provide basic accidental death and dismemberment two and a half times my annual salary that's irrelevant and i've been and I spend $10 a month to double those. So I effectively have four times my annual salary through my employer. If you want to pick up another six or something, that'd be fine. Six times and supplement it. That way you're not out on a limb if you're not there anymore.

And how long should I have this policy for? We're both 43. We have an 8-year-old at home. How many years should we have this term life policy? Sounds like 15. Okay. What would happen in 15 years to an 8-year-old? They'd be 23 and out of college, off the freaking payroll.

The whole purpose of life insurance is for people who are dependent on your income. It's to replace your income if something were to happen to you. And take care of the house and that kind of stuff. But 15 years from today, you'd have a paid-for house and a 23-year-old that's off the payroll. And 15 years from now, your 401k is going to look really sweet. Yeah. So 15 years from now, if you had $800,000 in a 401k, no debt and no kids at home and had no life insurance, whoopee.

That'd be awesome. Yeah, we have about $600,000 in 401ks now. But we're both high earners. But, Dave, we're not really doing the steps in order because my husband is so conservative. So we are still paying my student loan off. We've paid off. Okay. Well, you need to get after that. I'll send you a copy of the total money makeover for him to read. He'll do it right once he understands because he's that guy. So get with Xander, though, and get you some insurance, kiddo. This is The Ramsey Show. Thanks for hanging out with us, America.

Jade Warshaw, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. We appreciate you being here. Hey, how would you like to be married and never fight about money again? Me, me, me, me, me, me, me. That'd be pretty cool. I don't know. Never might be a bit of a promise, but seldom. I'm going with seldom.

Yeah. And they're less heated. They're more like talks. Well, there's two things that solve that. One is having more money. If there's a big old pile of money, people aren't as stressed about it. And so if she wants to buy a purse, it's not the end of the world, right? He wants to buy, maybe he wanted to buy a gun, we could say.

That might happen. There's no big deal about it because it's not like putting the children's college at danger or something, right? So having a pile of money is part of it but the bigger thing over 43 years of marriage that sharon and i have done to get on the same page is learning to spend together on purpose on paper before the month begins yes every dollar has an assignment and we are in agreement on that see if you agree before the money leaves, you don't have these conversations like, what?

You did what? You don't have that conversation. That might have happened at our house in the early days of the Ramsey marriage. What? You're kidding me. You know, that could have come up just about like that. So, and it might've not been me saying it. I was going to say, because you're the spender, rightender right yeah it might have been she did you bought what you did

what with money yeah instead it's all on the front end we're all in agreement and then we stick to what we said we were going to do that's an amazing idea so the easiest way to do that is every dollar the budgeting app it's the world's best budgeting. And tens of millions of people are doing this. They're working their budgets together with their spouse. You don't have to be married to use EveryDollar. But if you want to be married and have seldom disagreements, it takes about three months of doing the budget for the disagreements, kinks, to get worked out. I agree with that, yeah.

And then the EveryDollar app, well, the budgeting idea starts to work. And the EveryDollar app is the most efficient way to do it because you both got it on your phone. You both got it on the desktop. You can pull it up and look at what the other one is doing. It's all on there. It's complete communication. It keeps you from doing the math in your head.

That's what I like. That one will get you. That one will destroy your budget. EveryDollar. It's free. Download it in the App Store or the Google Play Store or everydollar.com. Dalton is in Colorado Springs. Hi, Dalton.

How are you? I'm good, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I'm a 27-year-old teacher, and I've taught for about five years now. And I've had about enough of it where I'm trying to get out of this profession and, um, looking for something different. Um, I have a Roth IRA that I've started. Um,

I have gotten myself out of, uh, $24,000 in student loan debt, $9,000 of a car loan. So, um, and that's based off of a $51,000 salary. So I'm trying to see where to go from here now that I'm leaving teaching and trying to find a different profession, what the best way to invest, and if leaving that pension is going to cost me. Nah. Staying there will cost you your soul. Oh, believe me. Your soul already left the building.

You should take your body with it yeah i mean that earlier caller that was talking about having to buy school supplies for a class i mean that's just a small picture of what goes on can i've heard ken coleman say not to keep a job for the benefits ever ever under any circumstances you can get benefits with money go get you some money yeah so you're doing the right thing. So it depends on what you land in. I don't know what you're going to be doing, but if you landed in a federal government position, you'd have the TSP. If you land in corporate America, most of the time you'd have a 401k. If you land in self-employed, you could have a simple IRA, which is a 401k for small

business and or a SEP and or individual Roths, which you can have wherever you are. So you've got lots of ways to save and invest. Just go get you some money. Go have you a wonderful life and use some of your money for retirement. Yeah, that's great because I don't plan on having kids. I'm pretty good with my money. Obviously, I think teachers are one of the best professions with their money based off of just how little we get paid. Don't give up on children just because of their parents in the classroom well when you have 30 of them in each

class every day it's birth control for you i i the kids i the kids don't bother me it's their stupid parents what grade are you well yeah what grade do you teach i'm a high school teacher oh my gosh i substituted for about a year. Yes. I didn't know this. The first year that I graduated college. And let me tell you something. No, any class. Oh, anything. It would be anything, whatever I was assigned to.

And so Dalton. Wow. Wow. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Okay, fun. I mean, some of my best memories are my high school teachers. But it takes a bird to do it.

Yeah, way to go, man. Go do what you're supposed to do. What are you going to do, do you think? Do you know? You know, I think there's a lot of skills that teachers have that are reciprocal to other professions. Agreed. I have some connections in news media, so I'm trying to get into potential producing and try to go that route to where I can use those skills. Wait a minute.

I thought you didn't like working with teenagers. Oh, my God. I get where you're coming from. You can tell I've been on some shows. Okay. Yeah. Find the Work You're Wired to Do by Ken Coleman. Have you taken the Get Clear assessment yet?

I have not. I'm going to give it to you. Oh, awesome. Okay. The book is called Find the Work You're Wired to Do. In the book is the Get Clear assessment. It takes about 20 or 30 minutes to take it. It will give you insights into where you're going and why you're going there, including the thing that you were already doing the proper kind of analysis. The reciprocal talents is very wise. Very wise and very true. Yeah. Yeah.

If you can teach in a classroom, you can do a whole lot of different things. Wow. That pay very well. Yeah. Wow. High school. I have stories. I can't tell them on the air.

Some of the students might come up to you. They're grown now. I love it. All right. Justin's in uh toronto hi justin how are you not bad yourself better than i deserve what's up i am calling a big fan of the show been following you for quite some time now and i'm at that fun point in life where i need to figure out where I'm going to put my money. Kind of main question is, what is too much to put into my retirement at my age? I'll be 32 in December. Just got married two years ago.

I have a six-year-old with another woman we're co-parenting on the best case scenario. Very good situation to have. And a one-year-old. But I'm kind of trying to plan for my retirement and don't want to put too much in versus putting money into the house and just kind of wanted to get thoughts on that. So when we talk about investing, we're filtering it through our baby steps. So just to make sure you're at the right point to invest, do you have any debt? No, besides the house. Nothing besides the house. Do you have three to six months of expenses saved? That'd be baby step three.

Correct. That's in savings. Good deal. You've been listening a while. What is baby step four, Justin? Baby step four is... What percentage into retirement? Starts with a one, ends with a five.

15%. 15%. That's right. 15% every month. Every year. Or every year. Yeah. Yeah.

So I have my own, I work for Lenovo, so pretty good PC company. I have 8 to 12% of my income going into a DCPP, Deferred Contribution Profit Plan, and an RSP. The company matches, and my wife has something similar at her company. So we have 15% to 20% of our... 15% of your income going in, or they are putting that in there? Are you putting that in, or are they? I'm putting six. They match four.

Okay. So that gets me to 10 and my wife has a four percent no it doesn't get you to 10 we said you put in 15 so you have six you need to put in another nine somewhere your wife has how much is she putting in she's put without the matching exactly the match is just gravy it's just. No, so she's putting in 4%. So then that's 10% because I'm at 6%. Well, it's not exactly how that works unless you have exactly the same income. So what I do is total up your household income and say,

what percent are we currently putting in, not the match, of the total? And in the dollar amounts, not her four and your six, but what are the dollar amounts, and then add enough dollars to get to 15% of household income going into retirement. This is The Ramsey Show. Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality personality is my co-host today lauren is on the debt free stage in the ramsey lobby hey lauren how are you i'm so good how are you better than i deserve where do you live i am from new gloucester maine it's near portland oh love portland yes had some great

lobster it's been a while since i've been up there. It's a great town. Well, welcome to Nashville and here to do a debt-free scream. How much have you paid off? I paid off $50,000. Yeah. How long did that take? Eight months. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? I started at $30,000 and I ended at $75,000. Okay. You didn't make 50 during the eight months. How'd do that no so I changed jobs I was a wedding planner and then I wasn't making enough money to pay off my loans and support my daughter too so I started bartending okay yeah but I mean you didn't make 50 grand during eight months even at 75 where'd the money come from oh from bartending in addition to the 75 that's what

I made at the end of bartending. I'm sorry. Oh, wow. So you lived on $25,000? No, sorry. So when I was bartending, I ended at $75,000. So I was making between $5,000 and then up to $9,000 a month. Oh, wow. Bartending. Yeah, sorry. That's pretty sweet. I'm sorry. I didn't understand. Good. Good for you. What kind of debt was the 50K? All student loans. Wow. And your degrees in what? Event planning, hospitality. Okay.

Yes. All right. And so now you're back to more of a normal schedule. Yes. Much more of a normal schedule. And so I got pregnant when I was a senior in college and I was just waitressing at the time and I was just not making enough money to really pay off my debt. And so that's when I decided to change jobs. And I found a bar in the airport in Portland where I was able to make up to $9,000 a month. So I was able to start crushing that debt. And there's two specific weeks. I remember

specifically when I was working 12 hour days, five, six days in a row. And I just literally didn't get to see my daughter at all. And it was so hard because she started calling my mom and her babysitter mom because I just wasn't around I wasn't there but I wouldn't change it for the world she won't remember that only you know only me and it'll never happen again yeah amen you live like no one else now you can live like no one else yes way to go way to go so your career now is event planner um no actually i'm leaving the hospitality industry and i'm studying for my real estate exam so complete self-affields okay yes now you can afford to do whatever you want to do i can i don't have to worry about a thing wow what was your moment what happened that caused you to get this radical to go 12 hours a day and

and drop your kid at uh grandma's who becomes mom how i mean you went crazy why i mean that's awesome in a good way for a short period of time it's pretty intense what caused you to get that motivated what was the thing well having my daughter i was walking at graduation i had a holy crap i had fifty thousand dollars of debt a baby on the way and literally no money wow so that was a really big motivator and then i never made as much money as i was at the bar and watching all of that money. I didn't get to keep any of it between budgeting and then my debt. And I was tired of literally having none of that money making 75,000 and I had none of it. Yeah.

Oh yeah. Survival. Yes. Barely. Yes. Yeah. So, uh, and you just looked up and said, something's got to change and we're going to go crazy here. It's got to change. And how'd you get connected to us? My family. My parents have listened to you guys for forever. So all throughout college, I'd be cooking and listening to the Ramsey Show knowing I needed to put these practices in place. Okay. Wow. Yes. And it all came down to how much you want to work.

Yes. Yeah. And I also live with my parents during this time, which I was super grateful for because they helped watch my daughter, and it saved me so much money. But it was also hard because all my friends were getting apartments and I obviously wanted to be out on my own, but I knew that I couldn't afford it. And now you can do whatever you need to do. And now I can do whatever I need.

Very good. So you're standing there, college graduation, pregnant belly, you're like, oh crap. Then you go through this season where you're working like an animal to get this paid off. Yes. Paint us a picture of what life is like now. What does it feel like to be free? It's beautiful. I can't even put words to it. I don't have to work those crazy hours anymore. And if I want to buy my

daughter a little toy now or clothes, I can. It's in the budget. And if an emergency comes up, it's totally okay. If my car breaks down, breaks down it's not holy crap where is this money coming from it's I already have it set aside it's a beautiful thing yes and I also wanted to say that um I got sober during this year too oh so yeah so I actually um just celebrated one year of sobriety so wow yeah wow that was total clarity so yeah you did this while working in a bar yes yeah thankfully that part was easier for me thankfully but uh the money was a huge motivator you saw enough things in that bar to make you never want to drink again no no thank you oh my gosh yeah yes plot twist that's good very good well congratulations thank congratulations. Thank you. Well done. You have changed your whole life. Yes.

My whole family tree. Yeah, you have. And the gang is with you to cheer you on because they're proud of you. But also, we want to salute them. They were your support mechanism. Yes. There's no way you could have pulled this off without all the emotional, spiritual, and literal support that they gave you.

That's pretty incredible. Yes. So it's good news. You're a hero, girl. Thank girl wow you're a warrior princess you took on everything and and whipped it all back yes i mean this is good good for you that's um you know the sobriety is a bigger deal than the debt free and uh but but working together it's amazing how these things tie together it's all about behavior and so way way to go. You're amazing. Yeah. I think you're going to be a good real estate agent. I think you're going to be

good at whatever you choose to do. You've got determination. Yes. Like that is a built into who you are now. So what do you tell people? You got a young lady out there listening who's really struggling. I mean, single moms, it's tough. She's really struggling and she's listening right now. We know she is because there's millions of people out there. Talk to her. What does she need to do to get out of debt? I mean, what is the secret? You did it. Yes. Obviously the budget is what everyone says first, but I think almost more important that in a way is having discipline. So I had no discipline in college, you know, just doing whatever I want, when I want spending money,

I don't have on whatever. And then during the first half of my payoff journey, I completed the 75 hard mental discipline challenge. And that really taught me how to say no to others and more importantly to myself, because we always have that voice running in our head saying, buy this, do this, do this. And you have to say, no, I can't. I can't afford it. I cannot do that today. And I just, when I was waitressing, I kept a picture of my daughter in my waitressing notebook and a piece of paper I could tear off where I wrote how much debt I had left so I had a concert reminder however many times a night you're opening your waitressing notebook and there that is right there there's my why and there's how much I had left to pay did you get any um wild unusually large tips um yes actually I ended up talking with a couple

and it was a pastor and we started talking about God and I was like Dave Ramsey I'm paying off my debt and they're like we love the Ramsey show and it was their anniversary um that day on 714 they tip me 714 dollars um that day and they walked out before I could even look at it and I ran out after and I was just sobbing so they were inspired and they wanted to help me so I got a lot of really special moments like that with people that I don't even know that's pretty cool yeah awesome way to go pastor well played well played you know if you are a Christian and you're listening you should be generous it's a thing you know wow very neat yeah very cool good for you so proud of you thank you obviously your family is they traveled all the way from maine with you to celebrate yes and uh they should be proud of

you you're a hero i'm so so proud of you very very very well done good stuff kiddo. All right, Lauren from Portland, Maine. $50,000 paid off in eight months, making $30,000 to $75,000, including one $714 tip. Salute. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Ready? Three, two, one.

We're debt-free! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Wow. Yeah! Wow. That's something.

Yeah, you're going to pay a price. You're going to pay a price of walking through your whole life being average and mediocre, or you're going to pay a price that hurts like her price hurt for eight months that was hard that was a hard eight months she's carrying a big old tray of drinks and she's a little bitty girl i mean that the back is hurting you're tired that's hard you think it's worth it oh i think it's worth it? Oh, I think it's worth it. Never have to do it again, by God. This is the Ramsey Shad. Our scripture of the day, Proverbs 24, 16.

Though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again. But the wicked stumble when calamity strikes. Bonnie Pruden says, You can't turn back the clock, but you can wind it up again. All right. A buddy of mine told me when I went through bankruptcy, he said, You know, you're doing a lot of whining. I said, Well, I just went through bankruptcy.

I lost everything. He said, You're doing a lot of whining. He said, You're blaming everybody else. It's your fault. You signed up for this. Now, isn't it nice to have good friends? Yeah. He said, you got enough lemons.

You ought to try making a little lemonade. You ought to do something with this. And here we sit. Wow. Good friend. Yeah. That's a good buddy. Pretty pissed at him, though, at the time.

Yeah, that's all right. Sarah's in Detroit. Hey, Sarah, at the time. Yeah, that's all right. Sarah's in Detroit. Hey, Sarah, what's up? Hi, Dave. I'm an international student in the U.S., and I'm wondering about how to overcome financial anxiety and how to graduate debt-free given the limited work opportunities and limited scholarships available for international students.

Okay. The first thing I would address is how I overcome financial anxiety is I get more money, and then I'm not anxious about it anymore. So yeah, we need to get you some more money. Then that brings us to scholarships and um work opportunities i think your work opportunities are probably uh the best paying ones will be self-employed ones which are not concerned about your status okay like i know a lot of international folks for instance nanny okay and they make a lot of money taking care of rich people's kids yeah the first year in the u.s you are only eligible to work on campus um and my my school

defunded work study just due to the um market. I'm sorry, your visa does not allow you to work anywhere except on campus? For the first year, that's correct. When are you finished with the first year? I'm heading into my first year now. I'm doing my master's. I graduated my undergrad debt-free. I'm from Canada, and I have about $28,000 in my bank account right now, $28,000 American dollars that is. So I should be able to get through most

of the year debt-free, but I think it's going to be a little bit tight. Are you in Detroit? Yes. Drive across the line and get a job okay you're in canada just cross over the line that there's nothing illegal about that you can you you're not you're not uh prohibited from going back to canada with your visa back and forth right? I have a disability that prevents me from driving so that would be the major constraint but I... Okay how do you your home is in Canada how do you get home? I'm residing in the States, sir. Your home is not in Canada. You don't have family in Canada? I do, sir, but I live full-time in the U.S. for school. In Detroit, which is right at Canada.

I mean, you understand it's, what, 30 minutes? You can be in Canada, right? I'm not exactly in Detroit, sir. I'm in a small town near Detroit, but I can be in Canada in like an hour and a half. Oh, okay. Okay. So I don't know what the nature of your disability is, and I can't address that. I didn't know that early in the call.

But what I'm trying to figure out is a way to not be, I'm not asking you to do something illegal, but I'm also not going to just sit there and be a victim of these constraints. I'm going to do a workaround for whatever your limitations are due to your disability. I'm going to do a workaround based on these visa because we got to get you through this year of, or you're not going to be able to do it, right? Absolutely, sir. I've been applying to scholarships like crazy. I probably write one or two scholarship essays a day. That's good. And I think that's also, it's a good thing, but I think also I need to remember to trust God with the process, too. And I just have a lot of anxiety over it. Yeah, go ahead. How much money do you need for the coming semester?

You said you've got enough for this year. What more do you need for the next year? For the next year? So my tuition's about $14,000 a year. So it's very reasonable. I picked a good school, like it says in-depth pre-degree. And my town doesn't have a lot of two-bedroom apartments, but I am hoping to get a roommate next year. So I'll see about that. So I am working. How are you living? Like what are you living off of? Are you just living off of your savings? How are you eating? I'm living off of my savings. Currently at the time of this call, I have $28,000 in my bank account. $28,000.

Okay. So tuition is paid for for this year, correct sir okay and you you can live on 28 000 for one year can you not um the 28 000 includes my tuition money okay so you got out of the 28 000 i need 14 for my tuition and then i need um like to pay for living expenses so you'd be living on 14 won't do that okay or barely it might but I mean it'd be really tight okay can I ask you uh obviously you've made this decision and you've gone forward what was the plan was the plan to do student loans and then you heard us and you said oh I can't do that so initially when I um so the plan was never student loans um i read debt-free degree probably second year university um so i um had a job lined up but they can't you can't sign on a job until you are like officially in the u.s and you have all your immigration paperwork sorted out.

Okay. So you didn't know that going in? And no. Well, so the job I had lined up because I hadn't officially signed on it, then the school was able to take it away just due to labor market constraints that led to a lack of funding at the school for student jobs, if that makes sense. So essentially, between the time that the school initially said this job will be available and the time that I was eligible to sign for the job, there was no longer any funding for the job. Okay. Do you have parents in Canada? That's correct, sir. How far away are they? About three hours, sir.

Okay. And how are you getting back and forth if you were to go see them for the weekend? By bus. Okay. All right. So you have a uh is your limitation sight is my limitation your disability that keeps you from driving um my limitation is neurological okay okay all right i'm not trying to pry i'm just trying to

figure out a workaround i'm just trying to to help you because I know lots of folks that have different kinds of disabilities that are very inspiring. What you've done so far is very inspiring. I'm just trying to help you do the rest of the last step. And so what I had in mind, and I can't get there, I can't figure out how to get you there is to go across the line into Canada and nanny every weekend. And you probably can make $15,000 a year doing that if you went and worked every weekend across the line um and um and that'll do it but I don't know how to get

you there well I'm also wondering hour and a half uber is probably going to negate the idea because probably going to use up all your money so yeah I don't know how to do that if you found a nannying job in the edge of Canada where it was legal for you to work and you ran over there for the weekend every weekend and you worked and then you came back, if you could do that with if you could do nannying, I'm making up something here. I don't know. But I just talked to this young woman who, you know, had a child in her senior year in college and then went and tended bar 12 hours a day and paid off $50,000 in one year.

So I know if I can talk to one hero, I can talk to another. And I'm just trying to figure out how we get you to hero status. That's what I think you've got the stuff inside of you to do it. I just don't know the technical answer with the limitations you're putting on this. It might take time. It's just time. It's an issue. Yeah.

Talk to your school counselors too for sure that puts us out of the ramsey show in the books we'll be back with you before you know it in the meantime remember there's ultimately only one way to financial peace and that's to walk daily with the prince of peace christ jesus Thank you.