The Ramsey Show - App - Don’t Wait for Someone Else To Fix Your Life

Episode Date: February 17, 2025

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. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today, number one best-selling author, and we are here to help you. The phone number is easy. It's 888-825-5225. The call is free, and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. Allison starts us off today in Washington, D.C.

Hey, Allison, how are you? Hi, thanks for taking my call. I appreciate all the education that you guys provide. My question today is about how to help my mother recover from a romance scam. She recently found out that there's about $1.2 million missing from hers and my grandmother's estate. And it's gone. And I know I'm not responsible for my mother's spending, but there's just very few resources out there to help someone as they recover from this kind of scam. Wow. So he has disappeared. Yeah, I don't even think she met him in person. So this got flagged from her bank after she transferred $300,000, and they flagged that.

But that was only the biggest transfer. There were a lot of other smaller transactions totaling that I'm aware of, about $1.2 million. How old is your mom? She is 71. What a horrible thing. I'm so sorry. Simultaneously makes me angry and sad. Wow. Okay, so I guess there's a couple of areas.

Is your mom just lonely, or is she diminished mentally? That's a great question. Definitely the first one. We thought that she might be diminishing mentally. I still hold that opinion. There are other family members that think she's just the way she's always been. Is there anything left? She told me there's about $5,000 of my grandmother's money left.

My grandmother does have income, and that's going to cover her nursing home expenses. She's actually in hospice now, and I do feel like my grandmother is going to be okay. We've been working with the nursing home to make sure that they're going to continue her care. And, you know, it's not going to be too much longer. Who's in hospice, your grandmother or your mother? My grandmother. my grandmother. Because my mother is a power of attorney for my grandmother, which is how this came out because I'm like the second in line for a power of attorney.

I forget that term right now. So how is your mom's successor? How is your mom reacting to all of this? Is she prideful towards you all? I can do what I want to do? Or is she scared prideful towards you all i i can do what i want to do or is she scared and humbled take over this i'm not capable no she's really in denial at the moment um i've tried to send her budgets i've tried you know stuff from from y'all's website and unless she unless she is mentally diminished you can't make her do anything correct so all you can do is help her with her guilt once she discovers she's been scammed

and then she's probably going to sit down and see a good therapist a good counselor yeah it's almost like an addict behavior like i'm kind of waiting for her to hit bottom and then i'm going to try to scoot her some resources which is no i'm not scooting her any resources she's not responsible enough to handle them um you've just got to you've got to decide how she can manage you can help her manage the resources she gets her hands on um and manage those and if you give her some food money instead just give her some food because we got to get a long way away from this competency issue. I can't tell why she's incompetent, whether it's just sheer loneliness and she's not a very smart person or whether she's mentally diminished.

I can't tell. And you can't either is what it amounts to. So, you know, you've just got to treat her like that and go, oh, man, it's so sad. Such evil people out there. Yeah. And have you turned this over to the FBI yet? Well, you can't if she's in denial. Yeah.

She's got a wallet. Right. I think they're aware because of the conversation I understand with the bank. I do think she's on. I've researched all this. I think she's on. There's like a list. So I think it has been reported to the FBI.

Okay. All right. And if there's anything you can do to try. Sometimes, once in a blue moon, they actually recoup some of this stuff. But wow, I'm so sorry. What a horrible thing. So yeah, you're there for her emotionally as she deals with the guilt of this level of screw-up, and you're there for her basic necessities, but we're not scooting her resources.

She doesn't need any scooting. She needs care. You're going to treat her like she does not have competency, because she obviously doesn't. Yeah, the thing that I would add, Allison, is you mentioned you're going to have to let her hit rock bottom. And unfortunately, you're going to have to do this. This is where role reversal takes place. You become the parent, she's the child. And it's very, very difficult. But short of, Dave, the children being able to pay for a private investigator, the only way, I hate to be so negative, but I've read into some of these things because we've taken this call several times over the last six months, as I recall. And I did some research. Very, very hard to recover this. These people,

this may not even be a real dude. This could be a woman in some foreign country. They are very creative and they cover their tracks. And you almost have to have a private investigator who's got some experience in this stuff, number one, and who you can afford, number two, who can hopefully entrap them and catch them. That's the only way. Many times, the law enforcement, Dave, just doesn't step up here because there's so many of these cases. So, I hate to be so negative, but that's the reality. It's on the computer on the other end of something in Russia or wherever. You don't know where it's going. There's no telling. It's really tough, man. Yeah, we've taken this call a bunch over the last 30 years for sure in different forms. The Internet has made it more prevalent, I guess, but it's not that unusual.

So I guess, yeah, be there for her emotionally. Be there for her necessities. We're not ever going to put her in charge in the near future of any kind of assets because she's not responsible or capable or competent or whatever the phrase is we want to use that's not those are aren't insulting words they're just observations of where she is obviously but um yeah you you don't um wow so it, and there's a part, if I'm Alice, and I think it's normal for the family members, there's a part of them that are aggravated with mom. Oh, sure.

For not having her crap together any better than this, you know. But, so those of you out there, this happens almost exclusively to elderly that are, and let me back it off, okay, not even elderly, 50 years old and beyond. If you want to call that elderly. If you're 20, that's ancient, okay? But if you're 60, it's not ancient. And disconnected and not involved where, like, if Allison is the successor trustee in the situation, then, you know, she leans in and is very involved in mom to where she knows this is happening. Correct. Where, you know, if they're disconnected even the least amount from the rest of the family and from friends,

where no one is raising a flag going, you're doing what? You know, but you've got to be in a conversation to be able to say that. And that's not on Allison. It's not her fault. But this is who it happens to, the lonely. That's who it happens to. Wow, how sad. 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. 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? How am I going to eat next week? Yeah, in the middle of all that grief. Like, it's just, it is, it's terrible. So life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm like

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.

Ken Coleman, bestselling author is my co-host today. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. This is The Ramsey Show. We talk to you about your life and your money. Some of you are aware that we coach and train and do events for small businesses. We've got around 10,000 of them right now that we're coaching all across America, and I love small business people. 54% of the gross domestic product, the economy, is created by businesses with fewer than 500 team

members. Small business is literally mathematically the backbone of the U.S. economy. And so people starting up new stuff and excited entrepreneurs are my people. I started this business of Ramsey on a card table in my living room 30-something years ago. And today, you know, we've got over 1,000 folks working here. We've got, you know, several hundred million dollars in revenue and helping people is our goal and our product. It's what we do. And I had a best-selling book teaching people about how we run this business

several years ago, about a decade ago, called Entree Leadership. It still sells very, very well. Thank you guys for reading that, The Combination of Entrepreneurism and Leadership. So today we are launching pre-sale on a book of mine. I don't do many books anymore. It's been, I think, four or five years since I've done one. And so this one is the system that we have used to grow ramsey and that we teach the small businesses to grow around america it's called build a business you love mastering the five stages of business we have identified that there are six things that drive businesses forward and as they go forward they go through five stages two different two different elements

here but much like you walk the baby steps in the personal finance this entree leadership system with the six drivers and the five stages that you go through in business and it takes decades in most cases to go through all of it as you grow a business from an idea all the way into a multi-million dollar thing, this is the baby steps for small business in a sense. And this is what this book does. It's the total money makeover for small business in a sense, because it's going to show you exactly what those five stages are, exactly what the six drivers are, and exactly how to do them. And you're going to like your business better. One of the dichotomies is most of us start a business because we think it's going to be more fun than working for someone else. And then you find out you've got the meanest dadgum boss on the planet, which is you looking at

yourself in the mirror. You will work yourself to death and you will crack the whip and do stuff. It's crazy. So you can end up hating the business that you started if you're not careful. It happens all the time. And but you've got to get a thing where you're building something that you love and you're enjoying it. Like you did the first day you had the idea. And so build a business you love. It's on presale starting today. The book actually ships on April 15th, oddly enough tax day for small business people, right. And everybody else. And if you pre-order now for $29.99, you're going to get over $350 worth of bonus items, instant access to the Entrez Leadership Hiring Playbook,

which is one of the lessons we teach here. And hiring and firing is the biggest challenge small businesses face. It's a complete pain in the butt. And it's wonderful, both, because you get to meet some of the best people on the planet and some of the craziest people on the planet early access to the ebook is part of the package and you get the enhanced audiobook i read the audiobook but we've also put a bunch of other stuff in there it's almost like a production of a podcast and so the audiobook's super entertaining

and super cool rather than just me reading the book it's not that okay so pre-order today at ramsay solutions.com slash store. If you're watching on YouTube or podcast, you can click the link in the description. I've been doing this for 30 years. It was 30-plus years ago I started on a card table in my living room, and I don't write about stuff that I have not done. Nothing we do at Ramsey is theory.

It's all we're practitioners. We give you actionable things you can do. And, Ken, you've spoken at Entree Leadership Summit, which we're doing in May in Denver. It's a huge event at Entree Leadership Master Series, which is a smaller event for the owners of small businesses. And these small businesses really, if you're thinking about or you are operating or running or even working for a small business, this stuff's important. Yeah, I was going to say very quickly that the timing for this is right because our audience is exploding in the podcast and YouTube space. And more and more we're seeing Gen Z call this show. So if you're in Gen Z or you're a millennial and you've just had an idea at some point in your life, I think this is a must buy.

You may not be ready to launch the business, but to understand what it takes to go from a card table, as Dave has said now just a moment ago, to a massive company with over a thousand employees, hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, it is a proven system. And I love the stages. They're very easy to understand, but will help you see what it's going to take. And Dave, we're seeing data now that Gen Z is the most entrepreneurial generation that we've ever had in history because they're seeing that their entryway into working for themselves is easier than ever. They see it obviously through video, through digital tools, and thus it's created this great desire to work for yourself. So this book, I think, is a must gift.

If you've got that young entrepreneur in your life, parents or grandparents, or if you are somebody who thinks you might want to work for yourself one day, I think this is a must read so that you can see what the climb is going to have to look like. That's why I like this book. I think the timing of this, this thing's going to go absolutely bananas because of the day and age in which we live well and if you're 52 and you have eight employees in your own heat and air company hello i know exactly what you're facing that's right uh other than the heat and air part but i mean the rest of it i i know it inside now and uh we you know we've got you as

a customer all over america and i can show you exactly what the next steps are. It's not too late. This is not just what Ramsey has gone through. This is what we've coached these 10,000 businesses through. Build a business you love on pre-sales starting today. And, Ken, I think that's a beautiful thing. If you've got an idea what you don't know yet, if you've not started a business, is the three rules of business. And rule number one is it's going to take twice as long as you thought. Rule number two, it's going to cost twice as much as you thought.

And rule number three is you're not the exception. This is going to be hard. Yes. It's going to be hard. It's going to be harder than you thought. And you're going to make some mistakes, and your best ideas are going to turn out looking stupid. And some of your dumb ideas are going to turn out looking like you're a genius. And it's amazing

to me how much of my personal stupidity this company has survived over 30 years the number of dumb things that we have tried that did not work and the reason they survived was the financial underpinning we don't borrow money and following these exact steps and these six drivers are staying true to our lane, this is what we do, this is what we do, this is what we do, and we can show you how to do all that. But I'm not going to tell you it's going to be easy. It's not easy.

It's easier to start a business today than at any time in human history. Any time in human history because your marketing is instantaneous. You've got this wonderful thing, like the old country boy said, you've got that internet. I mean, you know, you've got this wonderful thing out like the old country boy said, you got that internet? I mean, you know, you got this wonderful thing out there that you can do anything with. And there's a ton of, you know, standalone plug-and-play products to help you, you know, run your business, help you do all kinds of things to get something off the ground. So, you know, the first time I ever saw that was i i was just amazed that the first time i met

the guy that he made a million dollars in one year this was god 20 years ago i met him i made a million dollars in one year uh selling used golf clubs on ebay wow he was buying you go to garage sales and buy golf clubs for a dollar clean them up buy the whole box the whole bag because people just want them out of the way. That's right. They collect. They grow like rabbits in their garage. Use golf clubs or anything. Get those out of the corner. Yeah, and nobody wants the old technology, right?

No. Yeah, everybody does when it's cheap enough. So he would take it, clean it, put it on eBay, and all of a sudden he had a business. Wow. You know, so you can decide to do something like that, but then, like a friend of mine I was talking to the other day that's in his 30s who suddenly has millions of dollars of revenue, he's now overwhelmed. He's like, I now have a business.

I thought I was just a dot, dot, dot. And he goes, no, I got people working for me. Now I got all this other stuff. And he's kind of an accidental entrepreneur, if you will. And so, yeah, there's processes, though, that can get this back for you, that can help you get your life back together. Build a business you love on pre-sale today. As I said, I don't do many books anymore. Most of our book production and writing is done by the Ramsey personalities around here, and they do a great job. And we've got number ones with bestsellers, with multiple number one bestsellsellers with all of them and um there's no

need for the old man to get in the way of that but this is my material so i had to put it into a book we couldn't let it couldn't let it just wander off into the ethos so uh this way you can get your hands on it for only $29.99 and you can get a system to run and grow your business and i gotta tell you if you're running a small business, you deserve to win. You are the right kind of people. You're the kind of people people should work for versus corporate America who will piss on you. So, I mean, you know, you need to go to work for good people, family-run businesses. They're the best on the planet. This is The Ramsey Show.

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CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. It's free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, bestselling author, is my co-host today. Seattle is on the line. Jeremy is calling. Hi, Jeremy, how are you? Good, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Good. Hey, I just started your book this last month with my wife. We are on baby step number two. And to long story short, we, used the money for that. We're paying them back pretty quickly, it feels like. Made a dumb decision again before I started your book and went out and bought a toy. And it's kind of putting some stress on our relationship with them. They're thinking we shouldn't be spending money when we owe them money. And I just wanted your advice on that. What'd you buy? A four-wheeler.

Okay. What'd you spend on the four-wheeler? $6,000, and we financed it, but it's almost paid off now. Okay, and what do you owe them? About $80,000. Oof. So they loaned you the money to buy a trailer? Yeah, yes, sir.

On their property? Yes, sir. So you have an $80,000 trailer and you don't own the dirt? Correct. Oh, God. Okay. on the dirt correct oh god okay um wow um well what are the terms i mean did you have a payment system with them a certain amount you're supposed to pay them every month yes yeah and we've been paying that on time every time, obviously. You were not, well, not obviously.

I mean, you've never been late, and yet they expected that you would prepay them rather than do anything else. Why did they expect that? You know, that's a good question. Okay. And, you know, our thing is we have a pretty good relationship with them and things just kind of got awkward so do i sell the toy take a loss and move on do i you're you're the expert i guess that's my question yeah i'm curious to know if there was any pressure that you felt at any time or your wife felt at any time to, A, borrow 80 grand from them to then get a pre-mod trailer and put it on their property. Was there pressure

there or was it just they threw it out? You guys love the idea. So basically we sold our house and had some money set aside to do this project. And it was just an idea that got thrown out there, and nobody thought it would really work. We were able to make it work, and we were pretty excited about that. There wasn't too much pressure there. It will most likely be our property at some point. So there wasn't too much for us on worrying with that. Okay, there's two layers to this situation.

The first layer is the simple four-wheeler question, okay? Yes, sir. On the simple four-wheeler question, I think you and your wife need to go over, ask them if you can come over and talk and have a cup of coffee and bring a pie. And you just sit down and say, we thought that we had a monthly payment arrangement with you. And as long as we were doing that, we thought we were doing the right thing. Somehow there must have been more to the agreement than we understood. Because if we go on vacation, you're going to be mad. If we buy a four-whe-wheeler you're going to be mad but we didn't know that was part of the deal and so we need to get on the same page about what our deal is because i thought our deal was i pay you monthly payments

and you're happy but now it's i pay you monthly payments and i have to check with you before i buy anything and that's not a deal I'm okay with. Now, agreed, you shouldn't have bought a stupid four-wheeler in this situation, okay? That's a side. And you can say that. I made a mistake. I shouldn't have bought the toy. But I'm trying to figure out what our boundaries are here

so that I don't upset you again into the future. And basically call them out because they're out of line you did a stupid thing but they don't have a right to be upset about it because you're kept your part of the deal yep i'm telling you sell this four-wheeler and get yourself out of debt with that money yeah definitely do that but that not paying towards them okay that's layer number one that's the the easiest layer do you want me to get harder jeremy or do you want me to leave you alone nope i want to hear it okay you guys have made a colossal mess you violated about six things here and you're gonna get it's gonna it's not gonna

turn out well i'm afraid colossal rule number one is you never build a property you never put $80,000 worth of collateral on someone else's dirt I don't care whose dirt it is period because you do not have control the situation if they are in a car wreck in the middle of the night fall asleep at the wheel and these sweet little people had somebody head-on and they get sued for 200 million dollars the dirt under your trailer is gone in that lawsuit. And they have no control over that and you have no control over that. So you have set yourself up, and I've seen this a thousand times in 30 years of doing what I do, not owning the dirt under your trailer is a massive mistake. Number one, borrowing 80,000 from your in-laws for anything, for any

reason is a massive mistake, number two. The borrower is slave to the lender, and as you have figured out, masters change the rules sometimes. You're the slave. Rule number, problem number three, you spent $80,000 on something that's going down in value, not up in value. Trailers go down in value. They don't go up in value not up in value trailers go down in value they don't go up in value so in 15 years what's this $80,000 trailer worth nothing you're burning $80,000 on your kitchen table every night a little bit at a time so you got all you got a massive entanglement of mess here and I don't know exactly how to get you out of that one

as easy as i did the other one this is not a cup of coffee and a pie uh so uh but if i'm in your shoes i'm going to start trying to unravel this thing if i can figure out a way to honorably do that uh i'm guessing the trailer won't bring 80 grand now right no okay what would it bring now um it might get close you know there's there's not a lot of them around to get a good idea but okay if you can if you can get out of it i would sell it and start fresh renting somewhere and give them their money back and keep you from owning an asset that's going down in value sitting on dirt that you don't own. Man, this is just, you're playing Russian roulette, and there's three bullets in the gun, not one. Yeah, Dave, he's been sufficiently burned.

I'll offer some salve. I got permission. No, you're right. No, you couldn't be more right. I just can't add anything to it other than to say this. Walk away from this to realize it could have been way worse, and this thing can get nastier if you don't fix it now. And I could not say that enough.

You can dig out of this, but I would start digging quickly and make all these changes. And you'll look back on this and go, I'm glad I did it. It's going to get worse. The relationship's going to get worse. The finances are going to get worse. Everything's going to get worse. There's nothing in this story that turns out good yeah it's it's it's it's and and the problem is to stop and say that out loud is like walking up in the middle of the town square and saying the emperor has no clothes everybody's going to

look at you and go but wait your your wife's going to look at you their precious little daughter and go my daddy wouldn't oh yes he did he already bitched about the four-wheeler of course he's going to do it it's coming you know Of course he's going to do it. It's coming. You know what your daddy's going to do. Right. Okay, I already know what your daddy's going to do. I read his mail.

Well, Dave, this makes me think of the classic line in the wedding vows, leave and cleave. There is a psychological reason for doing that. There's wisdom in that phrase. Not living on their land. Well, mom and dad have got some money, and they've got some land, and they were trying to do something nice, and they did a good thing in a dumb way.

Yeah, that's a great way of putting it. How could you do this differently? All right, I'll tell you how you could do it differently. You carve up your property, you put a property line on it, and you give a parcel of it to your daughter. And if you want her to have an $80,000 property, have her build something on there that will go up in value and give her $80,000 of your money. Don't loan it to her and make her your slave and change the quality of your relationship.

Thanksgiving dinner tastes different when you eat with your master. It changes the relationship, and you're not the exception. No one, none of you out there. So mom and dads, quit doing a nice thing, a good thing, a bad way, and causing more problems than you were blessings. Yeah, that's right. That's, poor Jeremy. I'm sorry, Jeremy, but you called and you asked.

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slash budgets. Open phones this hour. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality is my co-host. Our question of the day is brought to you by Y-Refi. If you're struggling with defaulted private student loans, Y-Refi offers a great solution to get you back on track. For a low fixed rate and more flexibility, go to Y-Refi.com slash Ramsey today. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey. Might not be in all states. Today's question comes from Brianna in Washington, D.C. Can you explain how President Trump's new executive order on tariffs will affect me at a personal level? Well, my answer will be based on if the tariffs stand. Right now, there's been an extension.

If you're paying attention to the news, President Trump mentioned the tariffs would take place, Canada, Mexico specifically, and then they responded, their governments responded, and so now there is a, we'll call it a waiting period to see how this plays out. But if the tariffs were to go into place, and I'm just going to be honest, so if this offends you folks, honesty is what I'm going to go with, tariffs will affect us. There's no question, even President Trump has said, and I quote, that prices will go up. There's no question that that's how tariffs work. Even though a tariff is placed on a foreign country, that is on the goods and stuff that they would, of course, export to American companies. And so American companies will have to pay the tariff.

The idea is to drive American goods, which I'm all for. But there's no question that tariffs are passed on from American companies to American consumers. So it's a long-held economic strategy. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. We'll see how this plays out. It's too soon to tell because, again, we've got a bit of a moratorium. But if they go into place on certain goods and services, you will see an increase in cost. The question is how much of an increase in cost, and that comes down to the American company that is, again, getting goods from Mexico or Canada. So that's how that works, and I've never seen companies not pass on increased

costs to customers across the board. I've got a friend building a house in Cabo in Mexico. Yeah. And he just had some of his appliances and his plumbing fixtures shipped in from the States. Mexico adds a 33%. That's correct. 33% on top of that. So a $1,000 item becomes a $1,500 item. That's right. That's today. That's happening, yeah, that's right. And has been that way for years. Which is why the president came out and said. Which has been that way for years. That's right.

Okay. So that does not happen when Mexico sends stuff here. Correct. So we need to keep in mind that's what's really going on. If you are an American company wanting to sell things to keep in mind that's what's really going on. If you are an American company wanting to sell things to customers in Mexico, you face a 33% upcharge today. That's been in place for years. Did it crash either economy? No, no. Did it slow down the number of people that do business in mexico yes hello yeah i mean and that that's that's the net net net effect of these things is but this idea

that somehow americans are going to come up on the short end of the stick not really canadians are really worried about this they're very worried worried about it. I talked to three Canadian business people in the last week that were very, very afraid. Oh, absolutely. Of what it's going to do to them. And it's much more damaging to them. No question. But I do want to answer it honestly. Honestly, too, you will pay more.

There's no question. If you buy something from Canada or you buy something from Mexico and that goes into effect, you will pay more. That's right. No question about it. It's 100%. The companies do not eat taxes. We're going to raise corporate taxes. No, you're not.

You raise corporate taxes, corporate taxes are built into the price of the item you buy from Walmart. Walmart does not pay taxes. You pay taxes when you buy potato chips at Walmart. You pay all their taxes for them. It's built into the price. They don't work for nothing. You can't raise corporate raise corporate taxes it's impossible all you do is raise prices to the consumer same exact thing that's right exactly here's the flip side of this uh because i was on fox business talking about they asked me what i thought about this if the

president also uh extends his tax cuts uh which will expire later this year. That would help the American consumer in lowering your cost. Of course, you keep more of your paycheck. The second thing the president, I think, will do, and we're going to see this soon, is he's going to cut regulation on American businesses. And if you were to lower taxes on American businesses, that also offsets tariffs. So it is is for people who are just hearing the media talk tariffs, you got to look at the whole picture and go, okay, if he does what you're talking about, and he's now going after two countries that we do a lot of trading with, he's going, it's got to be fair. You've heard him use these words, his words, not mine. But if he also lowers taxes on American

businesses and lowers regulation, then you might see very little, and that would be my hope and i fully expect him to do that i see nothing out of his administration that wouldn't do that in that case you're not going to feel tariffs in and of themselves you know by themselves i think that's what's going to happen the economics is not as simple as one variable it's not more to it than that here's the other thing and this is what i told my canadian buddy. Okay, he was in meltdown mode. I'll bet. I said, let me just say, I'll give you an opinion, and it's worth exactly what you pay for it. There's not going to be any tariffs in Canada.

That's my opinion. It already appears as though none of this is going to happen. And there's not going to be any with Mexico. That's my opinion. But it may require that Mexico and Canada start treating American goods the way we treat their goods. Fair. That's right.

Nobody wants to get in a trade war, including President Trump. Nobody wants to pay 33% upgrade. Right. And we do today. Yeah. And so, and they want the, he wants the borders closed. So, but I think that this is a negotiating ploy on those two countries. Now, I will tell you some of the other countries where there's a massive trade deficit and

there is a tariff offset, like I'm talking where, let's say, Vietnam, okay, where we pay – if you want to bring American goods into Vietnam, you pay big money to do that. And if you want to ship Vietnamese goods to America, you pay nothing. And the trade deficit is huge, meaning that we import a lot more from Vietnam than we export to them. That's the trade deficit. So they are taking jobs from America in that sense, and then they're charging, overcharging for American goods coming in. So where he doesn't want a border closed with them, where he doesn't want something else in this negotiation, that one's probably in trouble. You're probably going to see one there.

That's right. And then you're going to see, if you're buying goods from Vietnam, you're probably going to see a huge increase in what the cost of that is, like I'm outlining with Mexico as an example. And so, but I don't think Mexico or personally, I don't think Mexico or Canada, I don't think Mexico or Canada, either one will ever see it. I think he was trying to get some other stuff

and that was, he threw a grenade in the middle of it. He's a New York street fighter and that's how he negotiates. That's exactly right. We'll see. He hasn't changed at all. Now let's bring this back to everybody else. Not just Brianna who asked this question. It's a good question, by the way.

I can tell you this, if you're debt-free and you're working your way through the baby steps, even though it's never fun to have your cost of your household goods or the things that you do go up, you can weather that storm. And people who stand on that debt-free stage over there, they're never stressed about inflation. And so it's really important. Well, and they're not picking up goods in their house going, made in Mexico, wait a minute, or made in Canada, wait a minute. That's right. There's probably not that much in your house that says that, truthfully. Yeah.

So, you know. I think it's going to shake out. I think you're going to see the tax cuts extended, Dave. I think you're going to see deregulation and tax cuts for businesses. I don't think America wants a trade war with either one of their border neighbors. I just really don't. We'll see. We'll see. Let me tell you one other principle, and we can leave this alone,

get all the prognostication and bull crap out of the air. Don't act on worries that haven't happened. Yeah, that's right. When it happens, you can think about it. Until it happens, it hadn't happened well we might have a we might have this or we might have that it might snow we might not we might have a outbreak of the bird flu we might not we might have a and we might not and and if you spend your life doing that you're going to eat up all your calories and have no fun. So I'm serious. It's just don't do that on anything. Tariffs, politics, Trump being elected, Trump not being elected, whatever.

Whatever it is you want to, you know, until it actually occurs and you actually see it in your hand messing with your wallet, then I would start making some adjustments to offset and say, well, I'm going to have to change the way I do that. But until then, it's all a bunch of malarkey on the news. And believe me, most of what's on the news is malarkey. 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. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author, and host of the brand new super popular podcast that we just launched called Front Row Seat.

Be sure you check it out on Ramsey Networks. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. Joe is with us in Salt Lake City. Hi, Joe. How are you? Doing good. How are you doing? Better than I deserve.

What's up? Hi. So I'm calling. I'm curious. So me and my girlfriend are going to be moving in together, and I'm curious whether I should be covering the bills or not. No. All right. Are you ready for some context? I was waiting on Dave on that one. That's why I got out in front. What's the context?

So I'm from Salt Lake City. She's from Salt Lake City. I work out of state. So I'm moving out of state to Cleveland, Ohio. She's going to be moving with me. And her work is very clientele-based, so she won't be having – she will have practically zero business out there. And I make more than enough to provide for both of us.

And so it's not necessary that I need to. Sorry, say that again? How old is she? We are both 19 years old. What does she do for a living? Cosmetology. Does hair. Okay.

All right. So she's going to give up her life and follow you and you're not even going to marry her I will go ahead if you were her dad you'd tell her not to do this yeah I mean or maybe not i think i'm a good guy i didn't think you're a bad guy i just said marry the girl put a ring on it buddy that's all i said um because i'm telling you she's she's

in danger not physically not emotionally you're not a bad guy but she is very vulnerable economically because she's become dependent on a 19 yearyear-old that she's not married to in another city where she has no connections and no family, and she has no income. She's vulnerable, and that's not wise for her. And that vulnerability, that anxiety that goes with that is going to affect your relationship, and you guys don't see that. You're just young and in love, and you think this is all going to work

as long as the sex is good. Uh-oh. Yeah, I mean. Why a year from now? Hold on. Let's play out your thing. You told Day, well, we're going to a year from now. So what's going to change between now and then for you to marry her

instead of now a year from now? What changes? So I work, like I just work in the summer months, and so I'm, like, waiting to get back from working for the year and being able to, like, actually have open time where then I could devote, like, majority of my energy and majority of, like, what I need to emotionally to a relationship. This is a disaster.

Hey, listen, if you're going to do that, you know, that's when you get married. And moving in together is, you would have to pay the bills because she has no money, is the answer to your original question, isn't it? Well, yeah. I mean, and she could get like a basic job but yeah but i mean she can't she can't exist she can't subsist if she follows this along without you so she's trapped that's what i'm telling you and um economically and your brain knows the math and your body stores the stress from your brain. And she can't keep that from happening.

It's going to affect your relationship negatively. So if you're going to go do this, just, you know, call the preacher and say, hey, we want to get married before we move over there. It will change the environment because then she knows you're legally bound to care for her. She's legally bound to care for you because you're legally don't own anything separately anymore because you're now what we call married. And so that's going to be healthier for her emotionally for your relationship long term, and it will change everything. And if you're not able to commit to that emotionally, you should not put her in this state of vulnerability because you're a good guy and you wouldn't do that.

I'm going to take another tack here real quick. I think that you need to tell her it's a really bad idea and you've seen the light and you guys need to figure out if you really do want to spend the rest of your life together, not play house. I would actually go and she stays back home. You guys figure out if you can do a long-distance relationship before you do this nonsense. If I was this girl's father, I'd be in your grill, man. That may not be popular, but I really don't care. I think this is crazy. I'd want you to prove to me as this girl's father that you're willing

to be mature and put you two in front of your desire. I think that's what I would do and see if she's willing to do it. See if you're willing to do the long distance relationship. And while I'm ranting, when it's time, if you guys prove that you can do this, she can come visit for a little bit and get a job. I'm pretty sure they have plenty of hairdressers that need somebody to cut hair in Cleveland.

So this is not this all in scenario, Dave. I don't like it. I think it's foolish. Joe, that, I mean, you called and asked and we're being pretty brutal with you and messing up your plan, not this all-in scenario dave i don't like it i think it's foolish yeah you did joe that i mean you called and asked and we're being pretty brutal with you and messing up your plan but um but that's you know what we're thinking like here is like her old ugly uncle because i pretty much qualify for all of that um i think i'm handsome but and i said we me me, but I'm saying, you know, what would you do?

And you said, I wouldn't. When I asked you, would you want your daughter to do this? You said, no, I wouldn't. So you need to think about how you answer that because you answered that honestly. And I do think you're a good guy. I'm not questioning your integrity or your intent or anything. And I'm not saying you're a substandard person in any way, but there's implications to what you're doing that you don't know about or haven't thought through. And then I'll just stop a second and say that for the rest of you out there,

because today in America, more couples live together not married than married, statistically. Now, for those of you that grew up with leave it to beaver in a alternative universe that's shocking to you more people live together not married than married the downside is is that the data is now in we see the data and we track the data it's our world and the data. It's our world. And the data says that married couples far exceed unmarried couples living together in their financial goals and wealth building. Far exceed. The researchers call it the marriage advantage. And it's probably deeper than just combining of the two incomes and that kind of a thing. Our theory is, and we've not been able to research this and prove it, but you can

just listen with me and think about it guys, but our theory is simply this, that when both of you are permanently promised to each other's future with a contract called marriage, it causes a differentiation in your behaviors versus I've got to always have an out. I always have an exit. I've got to always have a what happens if he moves out? What happens if he leaves me with these two kids? What happens if, you know, all those kinds of things.

That can happen in marriage. It's called divorce, but you get this thing called child support, alimony, and half the assets. You don't get that when you're cohabitating even with a cohabitation contract they don't stand up in most states to the level that marriage does so we can discuss how it gets there but the data is undeniable married couples far exceed in wealth building to unmarried couples living together. Far exceed. And you can just look at it through the wealth building lens, or you can look at it through other lenses, but that's

the one that I've got data on. This is The Ramsey Show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right, so I was born and raised in Texas, and I love the myth of the lone cowboy. You know, the guy who doesn't need anyone or anything. It's a fun story and it's a lie. In our self-obsessed society, we're obsessed about our own diets, our own workout routines, our own jobs, our own social media feeds, everything. It's easy to forget that no one can do life alone. And I don't care if you're an introvert, an extrovert, or whatever you want to call yourself. We all have to have a community and a support system to do life with. It's time to shift the focus from doing it all by ourselves to knowing that we can only be well and whole when we ask for help. Therapy can be a great source of help and support for any area of your life. And if you're thinking about starting therapy, try BetterHelp.

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to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Ramsey Radio. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. He is the host of the brand new show called Front Row Seat. Ken, Front Row Seat came out of the gate really fast, no pun intended. It's an interview program where you are the master interviewer, which you are, long form. One of the first ones you did was Nikki Haley. That's right.

And Nikki's been a friend for years and, of course, was governor and ambassador of the U.N., governor of South Carolina, ran for president. Last one standing against Trump running for president on the Republican ticket. And she was a great interview. Yeah, really, really great. You know, we did not talk politics. We talked leadership, something that she knows a lot about, having faced one of the biggest racial crises of our modern era. If you remember the tragic shooting in South Carolina, we talked about building a team. You know, she's been very successful in many walks

of life. So the idea behind the show is very simple. We want to have the audience feel as though And you have a live audience. Live audience. And so they represent the greater audience. When you see people sitting around or you hear them ask a question, if you're listening via podcast, they really symbolize you, the audience. And so we're very excited to bring this format, something I've always wanted to do. And it takes the level of I feel like I'm just an observer, and it makes it feel like you're engaged. The team has done a great job. It's beautiful.

If you want to watch it on YouTube, it's just a fabulous studio, very warm and inviting. And then, of course, the audio product on your favorite podcast app. It is a show that you're going to be challenged every time you're going to learn something, and we're going to challenge you to do something. So most of the time, you're doing about 80% of the question asking, and the audience are doing about 20%? Yeah, I would say it's a conversation. It's not even so much just the back and forth question, but a conversation with me and the audience are doing about 20%? Yeah, I would say it's a conversation. It's not even so much just the back-and-forth question, but a conversation with me and the guests for probably, you're right, 80% of it.

And then the audience themselves at any time can interrupt and raise their hand and ask a question. We want that studio audience to feel free. If you've heard something, you can jump right in and ask. And so once we get that finished product out, it's just a beautiful mix, and people are really enjoying it. Yeah, and the first several are in the can can and you can watch them now on YouTube. New episode comes out every Tuesday morning on YouTube and your favorite podcast app. Yeah. So you can get it as a podcast

or as a YouTube product and it's just really quality. We're real proud of it. Give you an idea coming up this Tuesday, Will Gadara, who's a good friend of yours, become a friend of mine. We're talking about the number one restaurateur in the world. That is an unbelievably difficult honor to achieve. And he's probably now one of the foremost experts on how to just treat people well with his runaway bestseller, Unreasonable Hospitality. So that deep dive is great for leaders. The sad thing about Will is he's unreasonably nice.

One of the nicest people I've ever met. It's just ridiculous how nice he is. That's true. And yet we're still friends. He's unreasonably nice. Yeah, he's great. He's a great guy. Hey, be sure you tune in.

You're going to love it. And that particular episode I'll be watching because I love Will and I love his material and I love the way he thinks. He drops some gold on us. Really, really good stuff. Yeah, I'm sure he had some mic drops in there. April's in Indianapolis. Hey, April, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, thanks for having me. Really, really good stuff. Yeah, I'm sure he had some mic drops in there. April's in Indianapolis. Hey, April, welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi, thanks for having me. Sure, what's up? So I'm wanting to know how I can help my 71-year-old mother who has no retirement. She has a home, and she's considering selling the home in order to be able to make it about 50 more years. But she's kind of in a rock and a hard place. And I didn't know if there's a way she can invest a little or find a way to maybe get a little extra money. So she has no money?

None at all. And what's the house worth? It's probably about $175,000. But then she has to decide whether to rent or to go purchase another smaller home. Where does she live? She's in Evansville. Evansville, Kentucky? Indiana.

Indiana. I'm sorry, Evansville, Indiana, on the border of Kentucky. Yeah, Kentucky? Indiana. Indiana. I'm sorry, Evansville, Indiana, on the border of Kentucky. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah. All right. Good news is it's not very expensive to live there. You're calling me from Indianapolis, and that's a little more. She has no income at all?

She has Social Security. Well, she has Social Security, but she's afraid to get a job because then she'll lose her insurance, her Medicare. Well, what is her Social Security? What's her income? She's only getting $900 a month about right now. Is she able to work? She is. She's actually pretty stubborn.

I love her to death, but she's very independent and a bit stubborn, but I love her. And I keep saying, well, maybe if you could do this or that, she's kind of very adamant about not being in a community or being somewhere. Because she's 71 in April, but she thinks she's 50. Yeah, I know that. I know that feeling. Yeah. Well, if you could just snap your fingers and give her a job today, 40 hours a week, and everything was just hunky-dory, what would she do?

What would you recommend that she would do just to bring in steady income? She's been a caregiver her whole life, a CNA or an at-home caregiver. She actually left being a CNA to go take uh take care of her mother at the last five years of her life and that's kind of why she's in this position because where's your dad her dad your dad your dad oh my dad unfortunately my dad is not in the picture he's off doing his own thing somewhere divorced a longced a long time ago. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, divorced a long time ago. Okay. All right.

Well, so we've, the math will break your stubborn streak. I know, right? 900 bucks doesn't pay for property taxes, insurance on $175,000 house, and food and lights and water correct period period it doesn't do it not even in evansville indiana which is a wonderful community to live in and very inexpensive to live in compared to uh most places especially metro areas so yeah she could sell her house and buy a 75 000 one000 one-bedroom condo there um probably that's probably real and it would probably wouldn't be in the ghetto right probably wouldn't be in the slums um and so um it's not gonna be great but it'll be you know at least a place to

live and renting is not an option because rent goes up every year and she'll run through her money it's not going to go up as fast as social security so she's working that's her only choice it's her only choice well then how do you navigate the not having insurance then well you're going to have to work on you're going to work on talking to um finding out what medicare does do in those situations and finding out exactly what the guidelines are i don't know them off the top of my head. And start talking to insurance agents and finding ways to get care covered. But she's going to burn through the money from the house because you can't live on 900 bucks. Right. Well, see, she was living off the inheritance or the money that was left to her from her brother

when he passed but it's gonna be gone oh it's almost already gone that's why she's kind of in this position now and then the money from the house will be the next thing that's gone and then we're going to be back in this position because we don't want to admit that 900 bucks won't work it won't work it right and so you don't have a choice one of you somewhere there's going to be some money into this picture now maybe you start giving her money i don't know or your brother who's a dentist i don't know i made that up but i don't know i don't know who's giving her money but somebody's giving her money so they're going to give her money to work or kids are going to support her because she can't make it on that right i i just did a quick search while

you guys were talking there are five big box stores in Evansville, Indiana. You know them. I don't need to say them. And then I searched one of the biggest ones, and they have 100-plus jobs right now available. And a 71-year-old lady who's healthy, who's mature, and she is. I don't know that because I didn't click on it. Probably $20, $25. And that's what the math has got to be.

So I did that search because while Dave was talking, if this were my mom, and that's what you call Nastas, then I would be going, mom, let's run the numbers. And you get into one of those stores, you're probably going to get some health care options. If not, it's still a math game and more money coming in. But she needs income. And I think a healthy 71 with a smile and great work ethic, I think there'd be plenty of big box stores that would love to take care of her. And a caregiver would probably make more than she'd make there.

I agree. And probably with the right care organization. Yeah, that was just a quick search. Hospital or whatever, you could get some health care. Great point on any health care facilities in the area. Yeah. Okay. Let's check on that.

But I think mom, she's, I don't know how you help her grasp this but the math is going to be forced upon her yeah and she's going to have to create some income and the more income she creates the sooner the bigger chance we can build to be able be to build a little bit of a nest egg to to make it all the way through this and not have to work until you're 92, you know. Wow. This is why you invest $100 a month from age 25 to age 65 in a decent mutual fund is $1,176,000, and you don't have that trouble. If you're 25 and you're listening to me, listen to her story. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host on the debt-free stage

in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions. Andrea is with us. Hi, Andrea. How are you? I'm great. How are you? Better than I deserve. Where do you live?

I live in Fort Myers, Florida. Excellent. Welcome to Nashville. And here to do a debt-free scream, how much have you paid off? $121,100. All right. Very good. How long did that take?

28 months. Good for you. And your range of income during that two and a half years? $85,000 to $135,000. Wow. Nice jump in two years. Yes. What do you do for a living?

I am an insurance agent. Ah, okay. Why did your income go up so much? Well, I worked and then also my book of business was growing as time went on. So you just built a business built a business but you had a real reason. Yeah I paid off my house. Yeah whoa small mortgage and knocked it out. Yeah sure did. Very cool. What's this house worth in Fort Myers, Florida? Well, my neighbors are selling theirs next door, and it's around the $270. Wow, good for you.

Way to go. And how much in your retirement nest egg? $140. And how old are you? I'm 33. No, by light, I'm 32. That's okay. You're rushing this.

You're just rushing it. Way to go. Thank you. I'm so proud of you. You're amazing. Thank you. You have to feel like you have a superpower I do yeah it's it's a great feeling you know you don't realize how much money is going away until

you can start keeping all of it what started all this two and a half years ago you're just kind of going along being normal yeah you were really in good shape you only had a house payment true I mean I did have debt prior but I was always trying to get rid of it as much as possible. And then when I started it, I really felt that I purchased it back in 2019, that it wasn't going quick enough. So I came around to you in 2022. So I thought, OK, how can I get this going quicker? And I came across you in that summer and then actually shortly after we were affected by Hurricane Ian. So before I could go after the house payment, I had to do some repairs. And then it wasn't until that new year in 2023, I really started to get aggressive

and making these little goals for me because I just wanted to be done with it. And I really wanted to own my own house and be able to do it all. I'm impressed by, I mean, this is, you know, about 60,000 a year, roughly. Yeah. You really went after it pretty hard. How did that change your lifestyle? And did you have second thoughts about it? And if so, how did you stay the course?

I worked a lot, so I couldn't have to spend it. Right. And then what really helped me is the goal that I wanted, I started to do two strong of goals to see how close I could get to them but I ended up succeeding on them so when I was doing the first year I wanted to get under 100 and then I did that with just a couple thousand under so then I wanted to really be able to do a bigger goal at 50,000 and I thought that was impossible in a year so then I surpassed that but I had these little mini goals throughout the way to make sure I was on track and just be able to have that accountability that I'm doing it correctly because I wasn't great at the budget. I just wanted to be able to do each little goal to feel that I'm doing a great job.

Love that. I'm a salesperson, and I know that when I've got something I'm aiming at that I want the money for, it makes me work a little longer, four more calls make sure i answer every single thing i ring every drop out of the wash rag before i go home because i'm trying to get there on everything and if i don't have that then i'm a little bit lazier and so you were leaning in weren't you you were making every stinking closing i was you're closing every deal so but you the interesting thing is you're 33 and you never really had huge debt. I mean, your mortgage is smaller than most people's student loans.

Originally, it was 151 I bought the house for. Sorry. You're killing me. It was. It was a good time to buy. That was super. So you must have grown up with parents that had common sense. Yeah, I sure did.

Okay. Who's this over here in the gallery that's my grandparents okay so that's where the common sense really came from yeah and my mom's here too okay mom's there hi mom way to go well they are they're all here cheering you on because they're real proud of you yeah but you're the product of the way they have lived their lives too yeah yeah they taught me everything so yeah mean, 33 years old and not over your head drowning in four or $500,000 worth of miscellaneous everything is unusual, you know, and, but you just had a small one and then you just killed it. You slayed it. You took a machete to it. You're something,

man. That's so powerful. So you have no house payment, no payments of any kind. You are officially weird. How does that feel? It feels great. It really does. I didn't think I was going to be emotional, but yeah, it's a great feeling where I just don't have to rely on anything where it's all, I have control in that situation where if something's going wrong, I know I can. I really love when you said, I can't control what's going on in the White House, but I can control what's in my house. And that meant a lot. So, sorry.

That's okay. No apologies. That's beautiful. What you're showing is that when you set all this debt down that everyone else is carrying, they're walking around holding their breath. Yeah.

And you can breathe. That's all you're showing. And it changes everything. So, you're fabulous. Thank you. You're a rock star you you're a rock star man you're amazing you're amazing i'm so proud of you very very well done what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is set a goal that's important i mean and the mini goals the mini goals yes i didn't have um an accountability partner with me but listening to you guys every day was my accountability, where I was making sure that I was staying on track and then just having the mini goals, knowing that you're still going on that trend. Because when you're doing a whole year,

a lot can happen in that year. So when I was doing monthly or weekly goals, that's really what helped me get that motivation of I'm doing everything correctly. Yeah, but you're a numbers girl. Yeah, I am. And so those numbers were your accountability partner. You're looking at them and they're screaming at you. Get after it or you're doing good. They're talking back to you. Yeah. You know what I love about this, Dave? You've taught for years at Entree Leadership, you know, your number one bestselling book about goal setting and realistic goals,

achievable goals. And I love that's what you've got with these weekly and these monthly. Real curious, give us a real examples. I think people out there that are listening, watching could get something from that. Give us an example of that yearly goal and then break it down on what you did on a weekly and a monthly. Yep. So then I would just, when I wanted my mortgage to be at 50,000 at the end of the year, I broke it down monthly to every two weeks of where it should be at if I was making extra payments. So I knew by September, it had to be at this amount of money if I was going to be on track. So at the end, end I knew in 2024 I was going to pay off the house but then I made another goal to be more aggressive to have it paid off before my birthday so I was at least keeping track of where I was at in the year but I

had another line of where I needed to be if I wanted to supersede it earlier in that year and that was so firmly seared into your brain that you forgot how old you were a minute ago. By my birthday, and you beat your birthday, so you thought you were 33 because it was by my birthday. Yeah. I love it. That's good. That's good. I like this.

That tells how much emotion you put into this. Yeah, that's fabulous. Good for you. Thank you. Well done. Well done. Man, that puts you in a different place. You're a different kind of salesperson now.

Yeah. I don't need to make the sale now. and uh you didn't need to before correct but now you don't have any reason except doing the right thing for the people making sure they get the right coverage yeah good for you well done well i'm sure grandma grandpa mom are proud i'm sure that's why they're here cheering you on we're proud of you rock star you're a hero appreciate it absolutely amazing uh andrea is andrea or andrea it's both but no which is it andrea andrea i'll get it right i'll get it right andrea from fort myers florida 121 000 paid off in 28 months you're looking at a millennial with a paid for house you know how much whining i heard in this discussion zero i'm telling you the millennials are out there that are awesome and she is a representative of them there's some of

them that are amazing and she's an amazing one 28 months did this making 85 to 135 count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one i'm debt-free yeah amazing i've lost hope that i'm ever going to buy a home yeah the american dream the american dream is dead i can't buy a home oh she just said, hold my beer. I mean, come on. Love it. Wow. That's done. She just took away all your excuses out there.

Some of you. Some of you can get with it. You can decide, I don't have to eat out every night. I don't have to have a frou-frou pumpkin latte spice double backflip every day. I mean, I can do all kinds of stuff. I can do all kinds of stuff if I have a goal. I'm 33 with a paid-for house. What would you do to trade with her? What would you do to trade with her? Oh, maybe it's your turn.

Yeah, you. This is The Ramsey Show. After this segment, the rest of the show will be available only on the Ramsey app each day. And you can catch everything you want on YouTube and podcast. And after that, the rest of the show is on the Ramsey Network app. It's completely free. There is no paywall. There is no salesman will call. We're not going to start charging for it.

We use the Ramsey Network app to give you things you can't get anywhere else and we put everything else out here where you can get it for free and so jump on this for free download the app and stay tuned uh you guys on radio stay tuned you'll get what you've always gotten we haven't changed any of that and um you know finish the show in the ramsey app and you can listen to the whole show in the ramsey app and watch the whole show in the ramsey app so it's all there uh hey guys you don't want to miss our two-night virtual event coming up investing essentials i've only done this one other time george cam on our getting together and george is doing a deep dive on some of the investing trends that are out there right now some of the details of the trump tax act that looks like it's going through.

We'll know by the time we do it that night. If it does go through, we'll be able to tell you exactly what that means in your investing, if it means anything at all. If it doesn't affect it, we're not going to spend much time on it, but we'll go into that. I'm going to open up only for the second time ever. I did it about this time last year. We did one of these, and I spent a whole two and a half hours on real estate, investing in real estate. I own several hundred million dollars worth of real estate I've been buying real estate since

I was 18 years old I actually went broke in the real estate business later doing stupid stuff so I know what it looks like I have a PhD in DUMB so um yeah I can pass along to you the real world knowledge there and um you know we own several hundred million today. So I'm going to show you exactly how to do that. I've got a degree in real estate. It's what I love. It's my second favorite thing to do other than doing stuff around Ramsey. And we'll get all we'll get into all of that. We're going to get into whatever if there's anything at all. We don't know yet, but we'll see what happens with this tax act if it even passes by then. We'll get into that. And we're certainly going to get into all the fads and all the stuff that you

hear about and the smart stuff that's out there and the dumb stuff that's out there and show you why and teach you to think properly about investing. It's a two night event. It's a lot of information. We're going to nerd out. If you want to just be entertained and giggle, don't come. You'll be asleep because we're going to go into the weeds baby with the sickle and cut the weeds and run the snakes out that's what we're

doing so you you want to you want you wanted the nerdville george is natural at it but i can do it i know how to do it my brain can do it and so i forced myself for two nights it's two hours each night two different sets of materials march 4th and 5th tickets start at 199 you can get them at ramsey solutions.com slash events it is a virtual event george camel dave ramsey investing essentials ramsey solutions.com 199 for march 4th and 5th that's only what two weeks away or something like that so you probably ought to go and get like get on the calendar get signed up honey i'm going to be doing this we're going to be doing this we're going to turn it on apple uh tv and put it up on the tv and watch it or however you techno people

do that stuff right so there we go atlanta georgia luke is with us hey luke welcome to the ramsey show hey thanks for having me on the call um i love the show. My question is, 50% of my income is in my housing, and I have $190,000 in stock. So should I sell the stock and recast my mortgage to lower my monthly payment? What do you owe on the house? I owe $402,000. Okay, what do you owe on the house? I owe $402,000. Okay. What do you make? I bring home $6,300 per month before 401K. So you have a lot of money in savings.

That's the only way you can breathe because Because monthly, you're choking to death. You're choking to death, aren't you? Yeah, yeah. Are you married? Yeah, I am married. My parents and grandparents have been good to me, and I have some savings. But, yeah, we're not saving a whole lot each month. You're not breathing.

Based on my income and expenses. I mean, I know what your budget looks like with what you're telling me. You have a $400,000 mortgage and a $6,300 take-home. I mean, you're starving to death. Yeah. Yeah, it is not a sustainable situation. No, it is not. So something's got to go.

Is your income going to be changing positively soon? So I just got a new job. Good. is your income going to be changing positively soon? I just got a new job, and now I was making $85,000. Now I'm going to be making $95,000. And so that $6,300 per month is from that $95,000, my new salary. Okay. What decision-making framework or process allowed you to do something this stupid well um i mean you you you signed up for death here right right right so yeah my wife yeah yeah so my wife had um an income as well when we first bought the house her income was the same as mine, so it was much better. Then we had two kids, and we decided

that at some point we would have to either move or increase our income, and she wanted to, or we decided that she would stay home with the kids, but we knew that we would have to either move or increase our income for that to happen. And so we're just getting to that point where— And you didn't do either. You didn't increase your—well, you increased your income a little, but not enough to where you can breathe. A little bit. Right, right. Yeah. I mean, you lost an $80,000 income and gained a $20,000 raise or whatever it is, right?

Okay. So the reason I'm digging around here is this you can fix this with your suggestion you drop 190 on this and you recast you're going to refinance it's not recast they're not going to recast the mortgage unless you got a bank loan but you could go just go get another mortgage what's your current interest rate 5.25 okay so you can get another mortgage and not see much difference there, a little bit maybe, but it's not appreciatively different. And you'll have a $200,000 loan, and you can afford that. Okay?

Mm-hmm. Now, if you do that, though, you don't get another one of these. Yeah. So you guys really have to do an autopsy on, that's why I'm busting your chops on your decision making. Because you can't sign up for this and go, yeah, but I don't want to work anymore. That's not an option. You just sold the house when you went home.

Normal people don't have $190,000 in the bank to bail this out. And you won't next time. So the next time you do this, you're selling the house and moving down in-house so she can be at home with the kids. And I'm okay with that decision, but make the decision. Don't stand around and act like nothing happened and starve to death because y'all are starving, man. I know what your budget looks like. I'm sad for you. The stress that's running down your shoulder blades has got to be unbelievable. Yeah.

One other question is, you know, I had questions about, you know, would I miss out on gains in the stock? And I kind of feel like I shouldn't worry about the gains and missing out on gains in the stock, you know, if it's helping with my monthly budget. But how do you feel about that? You can't afford the house. Yeah. If you want the gains, sell the house and move to a $200,000 house. Yeah. If you want the gains, sell the house and move to a $200,000 house. Yeah. Which one do you want? I want stability and a house. I don't really care about the gains. Okay. All right. Then you made your choice, but you can't have both. I understand. Yeah. Yeah. You can't

keep this house the way it's set right now. Right. It's killing you. Okay. And don't do this again. Yeah, I listen to this, and we hear this a lot. You know, I understand the wife wanting to come home and be with the children. I concur.

Do it. But they should have made the choice on the house back then. Should put a house for sale sign in the yard. They can do it. I agree. You've got to adjust your lifestyle when you adjust your life. In other words, they didn't adjust their lifestyle. Staying home with the children is the right decision.

Yes, it is. But then there's math that goes with that. Okay, I'm with you on that. No problem. But you can't ignore the math. And you don't get a pass on math because you did the right thing math will still smack you upside the head that's the problem with it it's mean it's nasty it doesn't have feelings and it will it will just oh it'll mess with you so and then you wake up and you can't sleep and you don't know why that's right and you're fighting

with your spouse and you don't know why i know know why. Your house payment is 50% of your take-home pay. You can't breathe. And that's what, this is what, number one cause of divorce in North America today. Money fights and money problems. And it's all exactly around issues that do stuff, that sound like this. Sweet little people. Luke's a nice guy. He's a nice guy.

Sell your house, Luke, or sell your stock by Friday. This week, Friday. 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. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Ken Coleman. Ramsey Personality is my co-host. He is also the host of Front Row Seat, a brand-new interview program on Ramsey Networks.

Be sure and check it out. Lots of good information and great questions being asked there, along with a few great answers. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. Denise is with us in Richmond, Virginia. Hi, Denise. How are you? Hey, Dave. I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? All right, Dave. So my husband and I have been married about four years now. We've been together for 10 years total now.

And at this point, we're struggling on how to manage our finances together. What we do, of course, we split our rent currently, and then he takes on some of the bills and I take on some of the bills. But funny enough, you heard some of your segment on Theo Vaughn's show and he was like, you know, that Dave Gragnose that he's talking about,

you should listen to him. So I actually read through your total makeover book, which was great, by the way. Thank you. We sat down, had a conversation about our finances and we realized that

we're not handling our finances the greatest currently. Cool. But we don't, yeah. It's cool that you found it because now you can fix it, right? Right. My dad used to say 90% of solving a problem is knowing there is one. So good job.

I'm proud of you. That's good. Okay, so what you were doing isn't working, so we've got to change what you're doing, right? Yes, sir. Okay, cool. you were doing isn't working, so we've got to change what you're doing, right? Yes, sir. Okay, cool. How can I help? So I know I have our take-home, like a roundabout.

So currently, our monthly take-home is about $6,800 a month. And while I get a set salary, my husband my husband he's a salary but he also gets commission so we're kind of conceit we can kind of like gauge the average but we're you know we're still learning like navigating this because it's it's really weird we've never been really dealt with the commission world um but is he making money is commission world code for he hadn't made much or is he making good money so he had to go through a question of the training pains and learning the systems and all that but now he's like getting consistent checks and he said okay i'm breaking even he's breaking what's breaking even he has to his cost involved so sorry no he's making what he made at his previous job oh okay so what did he make in a month what's he make a month

roughly on commissions uh roughly on commissions i would say it's about 1600 okay and and with upside he can go up from here because he's just getting started, right? Yes, sir. And you're making what? What's your take-home? My take-home is $3,600 a month. Okay. All right. So we know we got to work with somewhere around, what, $4,600, $5,600 or $5,200, right?

He also gets, they do give him a bi-weekly salary, and that's about $800 after. So now we've got $6,000 to work with. Okay, cool. Good. Yes, sir. Okay. So this is both emotional and practical tactical, okay? So you have to manage the emotions while you're going through the obvious tactical.

The obvious tactical is we get details more than you and I have right now down to as close as we can get for the month coming up. So let's do March, okay? And we're going to figure out this is what we're going to make in March, and here's the dates that the checks are coming in. They're coming in on the 14th, the 12th, the 22nd, whatever, right? You map out your income. You say, this is what our income is.

And it's all on there, all of his and all of yours, okay? Okay. And then we spend that on paper. We give every one of those dollars an assignment. We're going to buy groceries for this much money. We're going to pay the car payment if there is one. We're going to pay the rent or the house payment if there is one. We're going to pay for the lights and water.

And you start spending the money down the page before the month gets here. We, change your pronouns, okay? We, not yours and mine, because now you're married. It's now we. You're not a joint venture. You're a marriage. And so you're not deciding who's going to pay for the mustard in the refrigerator with your roommate.

This is not college, okay? So it's now this is my wife, this is my husband. We have an income. And we are going to spend it on our dreams. And so we have to talk about our dreams. One of our dreams is probably get, you know, where we're handling money better and get out of debt. And one of our dreams might be having an emergency fund. And one of our dreams might be to start investing to become wealthy.

One of our dreams might be to pay off the house. One of our dreams might be a two week cruise. I don't care, but let's start to make our money go to and we start talking about where we want to go what we want to do who we want to be and we make our money that we work so stinking hard for go do only those things we care about which does not include eating out every night. And it does not include buying crap you can't afford to impress people you don't even know. Right? And this is what most Americans do. They live other people's dreams with the money they work so hard for.

Go live your dreams. Get debt-free. Become wealthy. Be on the same page. Yeah, I'm curious, Denise. You've been together 10 years, married four. Do you two trust each other? If I were to interview you both separately in a different room and I said, hey, no one can know what you're going to say, and I asked you both, do you trust each other?

What would the answer be? The answer is yes, but being completely honest, taking full accountability, I do know my husband has apprehensions on my part in the finances because of some decisions I've made or things I thought happened. Like, for instance, I had a family member open credit in my name. And when I found out, I didn't report them because, of course, you know, they're family. So I kind of just, like, took the bullet on that. Was that early in your relationship? Yes, it was early on. And then I found out um

more had occurred from the same family member yeah okay so i mean dave you gave him great practical advice i'm just bringing this up that's a good because there's some psychological stuff here that's going on and for all the practical advice and that's absolutely a huge part of this um you may need some therapy or just a good old-fashioned you know sit down as dave is talking about and when we discuss what we want we're gonna have to say do we trust each other and what accountabilities do we put in place because this is a psychological issue and an emotional issue let me give you an extreme example interrupt you can um when sharon and i broke, she lost a lot of trust in me for good reason

because I did some stupid stuff. I borrowed like millions of dollars and went broke, lost everything, okay? And she had nothing to do with it. It wasn't her fault. She just thought she married Sir Galahad. Turns out it was Goober, right? And so it took a while to rebuild that. But one of the things we did is

we put some rules in place to rebuild the trust like for instance we don't spend over 300 without talking about it we don't spend anything except what's in our budget without talking about it and then you can't go help a family member without talking about if that's our contract that's good if that's our rule yeah and's good. If that's our rule. Yeah. And we had to put that in place. And now, you know, 30 years after going broke, she trusts me completely. I trust her completely. But that, you know, we rubbed all that stuff out.

But it took a while. It took a while. Hey, hang on. We're going to put you in Financial Peace University and every dollar premium for free. I'm going to pay for all of it. It's going to change your life. You are in such a prime place right now. You're going to be an amazing hero.

I'm proud of you. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. As I mentioned earlier, Ken is the host of a new program here on the Ramsey Networks called Front Row Seat, where we have a live studio audience, and they ask questions of celebrity types, thought leader types, leadership types. First interview he did was with Nikki Haley as an example. And we're going to have some wonderful people in there.

Ken is a world-class interviewer, has done this for years, and he'll get to involve the audience. And you guys have a live studio audience. How does someone sign up to be here at Ramsey and sit in on the show? Yeah, they can go to the website, kencolman.com. They'll see the show information, front row seat, and they can sign up there. We've got a great little sign-up page, and we're constantly updating that with everything we've got coming down the pike.

So it's a lot of fun. If you're in the Nashville area, check that out. See when we're recording because it changes every given week. And it's a lot of fun. Come sit in on it. We have anywhere from about 12 to 15 audience members, and it's a lot of fun. You get to meet these folks. It's like sitting in a living room. It really is. With a very very cool people that's right it's an exclusive deal and

by the way completely free we don't charge so it's a first come first serve and uh it's a lot of fun the audience gets a lot out of it very cool yeah hey so ken coleman.com and just go to front row seat and the sign up page if you want to be in the live audience yeah so that's fun good stuff and what day do we tape do we have a certain day no every day is different because of our guest you know when the guest is coming so we kind of every day is different every week's different so we'll do two this week and many weeks we have three so it's uh you just kind of kind of pay attention and we're updating it so for instance if you go right now you can see what we've got scheduled in the months ahead because we're scheduling all throughout the year. Very cool.

Good stuff. Well, it's kind of a who's who that's been on there, so that's pretty neat. By the way, I saw you have made the schedule. I don't know if you know that. I'm going to be on it. They pretty much voluntold you, I think. Oh, cool. But we're excited.

So you and I are doing a deep dive coming up around the corner, and that's going to be a lot of fun. Oh, now I'm scared. Yeah, he's shaking. It sounded like his knee's knocking. Crystal in Indianapolis. Hey, Crystal, how are you? Hi, Dave. Hi, Ken.

Hey, what's up? Well, I'm excited to talk to you guys. But I do have a question about whole life insurance. Okay. Your favorite topic. I know you don't like it. And we took a policy out before we found you, um, in 2017. And it's for me, it's 25,000. And my question is, do I keep it since I have paid into it for so long or do I get rid of it? We've already replaced it with a term life insurance

plan. Okay, so you have adequate insurance in place if you were to pass away, your family's okay? Yep. Good, good for you. Okay, so there's a rule, it's a great rule and it taught me a lot, so I'll teach it to you because maybe it'll help. There's an old, the Harvard Investment Newsletter. I read this article in there 25 or 30 years ago, and it taught me this idea. And I didn't know the idea before. I did not get it in my academic education. I didn't go to Harvard, believe me. They said the professor in this finance class taught the students that anytime someone started analyzing an investment based on what they had in it versus based on what the investment is going to do in the future, the whole class would yell at them, sunk costs. In other words, you don't ever, what you put into it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is what the future is.

Makes sense. Okay, let me kind of give you a weird example. Let's just make up a company. And let's say you bought the stock for $50 a share. And the stock goes to $2 a share, and you think the company's probably going to fail. You would never keep it until it fails. You would go ahead and at least get your $2 out,

even though you have these sunk costs of $50 which make you cry you follow me so whatever's in the rear view mirror is not how you do the analysis you do your analysis through the windshield in other words we're looking forward now would i buy this again if i didn't already have it there's another way of saying it if you could buy in other words like that failed company i'm talking about it's two dollars a share but it's still opening still open doesn't look like it you know it's going to close probably but at two dollars it ought to be a bargain no it's not a bargain because it's probably going to be worth zero right even though it's only two dollars well i you, two years ago it was $50. I don't care. It's $2 for a reason.

It sucks. And we don't buy it at $2, even though that sounds like a bargain, but it's not a bargain because you're going to lose the $2. So the same thing is true here. That's exactly what you're doing. And you can do that with personal items if you have a boat in the garage that you've not been it's not been in the water for three years and it's worth ten thousand dollars you can say if i had ten thousand dollars and didn't have this boat would i go buy this boat no then why are you keeping the boat or yes my family loves this boat we're going to use it every day this summer then fine keep the boat there's

nothing wrong with that if you would buy it again keep it if you wouldn't buy it again sell it that's what sunk cost means that's helped me a lot does that help it helps tremendously yeah yeah sell it cancel it cancel it it's crap that's the answer to the question i almost knew the answer before i asked it but i just wanted to hear what i was what i want to do them more more than Dave said do it is that Crystal said do it. Okay. That's more important because that's what makes your decisions going forward is you look at something and you go, would I do this again? Yeah.

Not a chance. And it's a good question, by the way, because you had already solved that I need a better protection, but now it's like, hey, should I get the money out? And the answer is yes. So I'm glad you asked that question. No dumb question there. The very reason that we didn't keep it or that we wouldn't buy it again is the reason we don't keep it.

And you can do that with a lot of things. It's a good decision-making framework. It's a good decision framework. Let me ask a question on behalf of the audience here because i think it's so good to revisit this what is the emotional or psychological hook that those people who sell that product a whole life product what are they playing on what is the trap because we're never going to stop getting this phone call of people who have been sold whole life what's the trigger or the hook if you walk down the street man on the street with a microphone and said what comes to mind when i say insurance does anyone say anything positive

no rip off i've been scammed because you feel like you're buying something that you never get something for right like if you buy car insurance and you don't have a wreck, then that money just evaporated because you weren't purchasing a thing, an experience, an asset. What you were buying was a transfer of risk. The risk was transferred. You got what you paid for, and some insurance is good insurance. But the concept of insurance, people just generally emotionally don't like it right we feel like we pay into it we don't

understand it and we don't get nothing and the only time we use it's a negativity exactly it's a negative time it's like the only time i go to the hospital unless it's a baby right is a bad thing right and so you know so what do you think about hospitals is where people go to die you know it's like oh god no that's not exactly how that works dude but but insurance you know what i'm saying that that yeah that's so if you take that understanding and you want to sell life insurance which activates only when you die i'm literally not getting any benefit of this only my family that's left behind now you got to do something to make this negative negative negative be a positive and so they said let's build an investment into the side inside of it called

cash value and then we can say at least you're not losing all your money right and so they weren't they quit selling insurance and they started selling investments inside of the insurance but the only problem with it is the investment is one of the worst. I mean, it's like payday lender for middle class. It's horrible. But it's an emotional hook, like you said, because you take a negative on insurance, and then you take a negative of death, and you've got to do something to make people want to do it. Well, we'll turn it into an investment.

Yeah, and then it makes sense to people. Yeah. Positive spending. That's good. That's a good breakdown. You wouldn't want to be a renter when you could be the owner. That's their line, right? Yeah.

Why would you be a renter when you can buy the house? Yeah. That's one of their famous lines, which has absolutely nothing to do with insurance at all. It's a complete misnomer. It's apples and oranges, but it's a great sales line. This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today.

I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Jack is with us in Chicago. Hi, Jack. Welcome to the Ramsey show. Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So right now I'm a 21 year old. I'm in college. I have a scholarship so that I go to college entirely free. They pay my housing, my tuition, and even some of my food. I'm very fortunate. Wow. From what? Is that athletic? Are you smart or what? It's a Chick Evans scholarship, if you're familiar with that. It's actually through

caddying at a country club. Wow, that's cool. Yeah, that's amazing. Good for you, man. What are you studying? I appreciate it. I'm studying health technology so i'm interested in going into health care um on the more side of the business side coding finances and things like that good for you wow sharp man and you're 21 and you're a senior i'm a junior junior okay cool so how can we help so right now i have around 15 K in my bank account. And like I said, I have very little expenses other than just practically being alive. But right now it's sitting in a student account. I only get 0.1 on it and I'm having trouble getting a high yield account because

when I try to apply for them, I don't have a steady income because I only work a few months a year. I don't have direct deposit, so they won't give me a good rate. So I really don't know what else to do with my money. I'm okay with not touching a heavy portion of it for quite a while if that's what I need to do, but I kind of feel like I just hit a dead end. Hmm. So a lot of the online or the click and mortar combos won't take you for if you don't have direct deposit and don't have an income that's weird yes that's because i mean what if somebody's retired and they got 200 000 bucks in their account they don't have an income exactly i looked at like sofi pnc who i already have an account with so fast crap i wouldn't do anything with them anyway um and the bit the deal

is you're trying to deal with the big boys and they're not who you want to deal with to start with you're in chicago i'll tell you what i'm going to put you i'm going to put you on hold one answer to your question is this and then i'm going to try to feel around give you two answers but one answer is we have an uh a national credit union that we endorse called fair winds credit credit union okay and credit unions by and large have a different spirit on them than banks okay because credit unions are non-profit the members the customers are the stockholders so if they make a profit they roll it back into increased interest rates to the on savings or decreased interest

rates on borrowing or cheaper checking or whatever they roll it back in and they generally have a more consumer friendly spirit in general now there's some credit unions are jerks and there's some local banks that are awesome so there's some of each but people like um you know fifth third gag or sofi gag or jp morgan gag what's in your wallet kiss my butt now i don't want anything to People like Fifth Third Gag or SoFi Gag or JPMorgan Gag. What's in your wallet? Kiss my butt. Now, I don't want anything to do with you people, okay? Horrible, all right?

So what you do want is you want somebody that's got a local feel, and I don't know who that is in Chicago. If there's a smaller regional, you don't happen to be like in a suburb, do you? I do. I'm just outside of Chicago when I'm at home it's called Elwood Park it's real small yeah I'm looking for a small regional or local bank is what I'm looking for or I'll get you in touch with the folks at Fairwinds and the Ramsey people will make a connection for you and we'll get you set up there for sure uh they'll have a high yield and they'll do it even if they don't normally do it just because i said do it on the air they're they're wonderful but um i think it's that you're running into corporate goobers rather than uh that aren't worried about whether they serve the customer or not rather because i can't imagine if uh so far

i won't take a two hundred thousand dollar deposit from a 71-year-old that doesn't have a job and doesn't have direct deposit. Of course they will. So one of my friends got approved, and he makes like $15 an hour, and he works like 30 hours a week. Nah, you don't have to go do that. You're fine. You got your scholarship. I'm not going to go do all that to bend over for some bank. The bank's bent over for me. That's their job is to serve me. i'm not going to go do all that to bend over for some bank the bank's been over for me that's their job is to serve me i'm not there to serve them they get

confused about that sometimes so yeah you need to we'll put you on hold and get you hooked up with fair winds but if you if that doesn't work or if you want to go just another direction then all you do is just jump around and look for a regional or a local community bank, like a small town bank that's only in that town where you can walk in and look at the manager and go, dude, I'm on a scholarship from golf caddying, and this is what I'm studying, and I have $15,000, and I want a high-yield savings. Do you want to give it to me? If you don't, I'm going to walk down the street.

And they'll do it. Somebody will do that. Absolutely. Someone will do that. Absolutely. Someone will take that money. That's nothing more than big-time corporations. They come up with a policy, and it's unable to deal with real people. And so somebody just is a pencil pusher going, well, we have a policy, and they don't think about it. Bank of America.

Oh, shoot me, please. Right. That's all that is. So you're right. Someone will work with them on that for sure. Love that story, by the way. Really cool stuff. Just another little highlight there. We don't know his story. We don't have time to get into that. But I looked up that scholarship and the Chick Evans, I've heard of it before, but they're sending high achieving caddies who have limited financial resources to college, a full ride. That's still available in America. There's a lot of these. What do they do to qualify? Well, I don't have time to read that, but it is probably a GPA, probably hours

earned, because it's basically the largest scholarship program for caddies. Thousands of hard work since the 1930s. Yeah, it's full tuition. So these are teenagers, 17-year-old carrying your bag. Strong caddy record. So that's going to be how did you do with wealthy men who want you to take care of them on the course and not, you know. Serve. Be seen, not heard. Academics.

Let me tell you what's harder than that is wealthy women. Right. That's true. Listen, that's true. I'm not going to say anything more, but that's really true. On a golf course, I'm just telling you, that's a hard job. If you're caddying for a foursome of ladies, you better do a good job. Be sweet with a smile.

You better be everything. So, yeah, it's being a good caddy plus academics. And then you've got to have low income because the only people that are getting that are low income. But the point is that there's a lot more opportunities for grants than I think people realize if you just look for it. This guy goes to college four years free. Everything. Cover. I mean, and he got 15K in the bank. mean yeah and there's no chump schools in chicago we didn't ask

him where he is but those are those are not cheap schools wherever he's at so really cool story really fun very cool good stuff natalie's in houston hi natalie welcome to the ramsey show hi dave hi ken how are y'all than we deserve. What's up in your world? Hey, well, what's up's pretty good. So I do have a question regarding the future, but it's not a crystal ball question as much as it's just how could we plan well. We are in baby step two. We'll be out in June. And then we will have our emergency funds saved by April of next year. Phenomenal.

Yes, thank you. We have been so grateful for your help. We paid off our two cars. We paid off three other cards before that. So we've been working really hard to get here. Cool. My question is, when my husband bumps his retirement to the 15%, we just want to try to know how do we prioritize with three children saving for their college while paying off the

mortgage? Great question. So our oldest as of now is 12. And. And you've got kids heading straight into college, and you've got no savings as soon as you come out the other side of your emergency fund. You put 15% away into retirement, and you're probably not paying anything extra on the mortgage for the next few years. Or very little. Most of it's going to go to college. Okay, that's good to know. And we will still do scholarships. Good, yeah, and work.

They can work. Work is a good thing. It's a surefire money-making scheme. And then my one other question we had, which is mainly from my husband's perspective, we have 210 in a Roth IRA, a 401k through his job. You leave that alone. No, you don't mess with that for college. We're going to put them in a school we can afford to pay for with work and scholarships and your cash. And so college choice is paramount. Because one college is $12,000, another $72,000 a year. So choice matters.

And it matters more to you than it will ever again. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, John 16, 33. I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble, but take heart. I have overcome the world. The words of Jesus. Ronald Reagan, here on President's Day. Status quo, you know, is Latin for the mess we're in.

Oh, the one-liners. The one-liners. The kind of gleam in the eye. He could deliver some vicious lines with a smile the uh the only one that even comes close to him is winston churchill yeah for liners i mean this is liners hey our every dollar team has some free trainings for you this month join live to learn how to break the paycheck to paycheck cycle in just 90 days you'll get a step-by-step walk through of the every dollar budgeting app

which by the way you can put on your phone for free uh plus you get our biggest budgeting questions answered live in the q a spots are limited sign up now for free at www.everydollar.com slash webinar you know ken i remember in the early days of the internet that we used to say www all the time. I know. I was wondering why you went back to that. I just thought it was fun. I just thought it was fun to kind of throw back. I'd like to go back to that. People would say, you don't say that anymore, Dave. Yeah. Well, I know. It gets your attention though. Yeah. It's just, it makes you stop and think. Worldwide web. There we go. I'm going to embrace it.

I'm going to irritate my kids specifically. Yeah, that's a good one. Have you checked out WWW? They'll freak out. They'll die. You're such a boomer. You're so cringe, Dad. That's what I hear.

Wes is in Illinois. Hi, Wes. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. How's it going? Great. How can we help? So I have the opportunity to buy the house that I've been living in for 10 years along with the property. And I don't have the cash for the down payment.

I can do the first farmer's loan on it, but I don't have the cash for the down payment. But I do have it in an IRA, and I didn't know if it would be somewhat wise to pull it out or not. No, it would not. You're going to get hammered with taxes, fees, everything else. No, it would not go that route. How much is the house? I was offered to buy it for around $325,000. What do you make? I make $120,000.

Okay. Why do you not have any money? Past mistakes. Okay. Good answer. I had about $20,000 in credit card debt. I paid off. Believable answer.

Okay. You got debt now? I do. How much? About $10,000. It should be paid off here within a month. Good. Okay.

And how are you paying off 10 000 in one month if you make 120 uh i've got that's not a lot of debt i only all about uh yeah like 10 000 and then um now you said you make 120 that's 10 000 a month how can you pay 10 000 in one month if you make 120 and still eat savings oh you have savings i'm000 in one month if you make $120 and still eat? With savings. Oh, you have savings. Yeah. How much savings do you have? I have about $8,000 in savings.

Okay, okay. So you can put two with it and knock it out. I got you. Good for you. Yeah. Okay, so the owner of the house, you've lived in the house for 10 years. Correct. What do you pay in rent?

It's cheap, $800. Excellent excellent excellent um here's what i would do i don't know if you'll do it or not because i think you've got the i think you've got house fever but if i were you i would call them up and say if you'll give me a year to sign to save up the down payment um i'll raise my rent to $1,000 a month. Okay. And I want an option to purchase the house anytime during that year for, what was it, $320? Yeah. Yeah, okay.

So I want an option to purchase for $320. I'll pay you $1,000 a month instead of $800 a month. You keep the whole $1,000, no credit towards the thing, and I'm going to save up my down payment during that time because I've not passed mistakes. I've not saved up money. And this is a very generous offer thing and i'm going to save up my down payment during that time because i've not passed mistakes i've not saved up money and this is a very generous offer and i'm very appreciative and i'm asking you for one little favor give me one year to get the money together and then go get the money together and get out of debt stay out of debt stay out of restaurants and no happy hours and no traveling and no eating out and pile up cash and get you

a house my man okay that's what i would do yeah yeah good question thank you for calling in open phones at 888-825-5225 and um hey if you've got past mistakes in money um you know that that just makes you human everybody does everybody does denise is in detroit hey denise how are you hi i'm fine thank you sure how can we help well um i'm trying to follow your your advice and pay off debt good um i've i've paid off a bunch of credit cards, closed accounts. I now have a, or I have had for a short time, a debt of $369 to a credit agency who says I owe them for a AAA homeowner's insurance that was supposed to have been canceled when we sold one home and purchased another. I disputed it with AAA. I disputed it with the credit card company,

but the credit agency tells me that I still owe that money. It's a collection agency. It's a collection agency. Yeah, they don't have a brain. Should I pay it off? Yeah, they're not allowed to have a brain. They're just a barking dog the question is do you have anything in writing that proves that you canceled the policy

no no records phone you canceled it over the phone yeah you still do business with triple a i do not anymore if they're going to screw you well so call triple a and say if you're going to screw you. Yeah. So call AAA and say, if you're going to screw me, I'm going to cancel your policy and go get me another policy. Maybe you'll help me get rid of this because I canceled this, and you people now turn me over to collections, and I'm pretty pissed at you right now, so much so that I'm going to go get another insurance company.

You have about 10 seconds to straighten this out. Oh, now nine, now eight, now seven. Are you going to straighten this out oh now nine now eight now seven are you going to fix this or not this is what you do all right that sounds great if you're triple a what do you do if i'm if i call and i'm doing that if i'm triple a i'm going to fix this because i'm scared of the niche now well you know i did try to do that initially before they turned it over to collection when they told me i owed the money okay i'll pay listen you're going to pay the 369 but you're not going to get but it's the last money you're going to get out of me because i'm moving my insurance the last thing i'm going to do is do business people screw me that yeah that sounds

great light somebody up on the phone and if they don't give you the right answer, say, you may want to get your supervisor on the phone because I'm going to be writing letters and making a deal about this on the Internet, and you guys are going to be all over social media because Denise is getting ready to go to war, and you all need to know this is happening. So you've got just a minute to fix this, a hot minute to fix this. You don't want me on your bad side for $369 that I don't really owe. You need to get your supervisor on the phone, honey.

And just go ahead and have a little fun with it. If you're going to pay it, have $369 worth of fun. Okay. That sounds great. All right. Thanks, kiddo. I think we know what went wrong. Denise might be the nicest person on the planet. She's way too sweet. And you're giving her that

script. I want to see how that goes. That'd be a good reality show. I just want to inject a little Dave blood. I'm with you. That's great. You just got to get to the point. Just be smart ankle. Just get your smart ankle going. Yeah.

But you know, the point that you make is great because you know how Stacy is. She's Miss Sunshine too. Oh, I know. But she gets on this kind of stuff. Oh, man. And people quit because she tells them right out of the gate, I'm not going to let this go. And she just tells them. And then people get to a point where they go, all right, we're going to fix this

because I don't want to take another call from her. You just got to have a will. You got to have the will. And she does. She's got the will of an iron maiden on that. I mean, I'm telling you, it's impressive. The Bible says keep knocking if you want the door to be answered. Yeah, I like that.

Keep knocking. I like your approach where you're counting down from 10. I got nervous and I wasn't even involved. I was just over here. James, you started counting down from seven. I was like, somebody do something now. That's a good technique. It's not a bomb.

It's a customer. I know, but I think that's impressive. My pulse got a little quicker. I'm like, what am I doing? Man, it doesn't always work work but at least you need to get your money's worth i agree if you're gonna do it you need to get your money's worth and don't do business with them again yeah for sure you know i i there's companies i haven't done business with in 20 years because of stuff like that because i'm hillbilly i carry a grudge you know so that's

how it works that's what you need to do we need like a hillbilly advocacy group. That like Denise could hire. She could call up 1-800-HILLBILLY-ADVOCATES or www.hillbillyadvocates.com. I'm making websites up right now. Owned by the Hatfields and the McCoys. And you pay them to call collections agencies and just fix it. It's actually pretty good. It's actually what I've done for about 30 years, but it's

worked out for me. I like that idea. 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.