The Ramsey Show - App - Find Freedom from Student Loans And Anxiety (Hour 1)

Episode Date: October 2, 2023

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. Dr. John Deloney, Ramseysey personality number one best-selling author host of the dr john deloney show is my co-host today open phones at 888-825-5225 you jump in we'll talk about your life and your money go ahead and give you a heads up uh it is for those of you listening live you know this those of you catching live, you know this. Those of you catching us later, this is Monday, the day after Sunday, Bloody Sunday, when the student loan payments began again.

And if you've opened your checkbook or you've opened your bank balance and you've looked at it after having to start paying your student loans again, you're one of 44 million Americans that owe $1.7 trillion. You've had an ouchy moment. And hey, we're here for you. We understand it's overwhelming. It's confusing. It's anxiety producing. And we're going to help you with the get out of debt thing and even the anxiety. Dr. John Deloney has a new book coming out. Tomorrow is launch day. It is book launch week for us here at Ramsey, Building a Non-Anxious Life by Dr. John Deloney. And John, that comes out tomorrow, by the way, and I'll go ahead and give you the pitch. If you order today before midnight

tonight, that is the official day, right? Then at our website at ramseysolutions.com, you can get the book for $ by the way the average non-fiction book is 32 to 63 cents in america today which shocked the crap out of me when i heard that books have gone up that much but since i actually know the cost of these things going up and the cost of paper going up i'm not shocked but it still caught me off guard but ours isn't ours is 20 through the night and you get dollars in free bonus items including the audio book the e-book and one of john's talks from smart conference and uh john this book is uh it's already i think we've sold enough that it'll be number one next week when the list when the list come out i'll be shocked if it's not we've sold a

bazillion of these things out of the chute deer unless some kind of weird statistical anomaly happens it'll be a number one uh and the reaction to it is matched with the need in the marketplace there's a lot of anxiety yeah it's everywhere um everywhere we go from wealthy people to those struggling to kids to adults to um geriatric populations everybody's wrestling with it yeah and the the population that has a student loan debt that just came to you and uh builds and you know one of the six daily choices that you teach folks to make in here to get there is this idea of freedom and that that goes a whole thing with the freedom yeah right debt free right i'm debt free and i'm stupid i got rid of sally may and so i'm free that it changes everything yeah there's also one of the the first steps is choosing reality

and i remember back in july when it came out and we started barking from this microphone here is your reality some of y'all bought houses some of you bought cars some of you signed up for memberships whatever that you can no longer afford because you thought the government was going to take your your student loan payments away like they told you and you weren't stupid that's what they told you and but here we are you were stupid you believe the government well there's that so start choosing reality now and start making moves now and just like we told people three years ago hey they're not charging you interest. Now is the perfect time to pay these off. Was it 1% of people chose that reality? And now it's back, right? So I want people who didn't choose reality, who continue to kick it and kick it and kick it, and then October 1st.

But that's true of all areas of our life on anxiety, not just money. That's right. But I want people to feel it. This is what your body's trying to tell you, you're not safe. It's been telling you for the last six months, you're not safe. That's what we're talking about here and the quicker you can choose reality and move from that whether it's student loans whether it's your marriage falling apart whether it's your kids don't want to be in the same room with you what your health whatever it is if you keep avoiding reality your body's going to keep banging that alarm louder and louder and louder to get your attention that you're not okay. Yeah. And so the purpose of the book, The Six Daily Choices, is not to do away with anxiety.

It is to do away with the things that cause anxiety because we live in such a frenetic, out of control, chaotic world that we've created an anxiety monster. It called our lives. Right. I don't want to live in a house without a smoke detector. That's silly. I don't want to work in a building without a smoke detector. That's dumb. But I don't want it going in a house without a smoke detector that's silly i don't want to work in a building without a smoke detector that's dumb but i don't want it going off 24 7 365 so this book is really a book about finding the fires in your house in your life in your marriage in your health not find the smoke detector not the smoke detectors find the fires let's get to work on putting those fires detector to quit beeping is to have no smoke that's exactly right yeah you can yell and scream at that little beep in your

car when your uh seat belt's not fastened and it just beeps and beeps and beeps or you can just fasten your seat belt all right that's what we're doing here we're going to find the simple things that are in all of our lives that we got to deal with yeah health and healing belief connection freedom reality and the freedom a portion of the subject of freedom is this idea of being debt free if if you paid attention the last three years about the student loan stuff because you had a student loan payment to make imagine a world where like whatever like i don't i don't care what they're doing because i don't owe anybody any money that's what we're talking about that sense of peace and that sense of and that could be jade warsaw took eight years with her husband

to pay it off. That could be John and Sheila Deloney that took multiple, multiple years to pay us off. It could be that teacher that we talked to in New York City when they got locked down, who was a teacher who paid off in one year, six figures, just kept, I mean, just worked 20 hours a day. She said, I don't have anything else to do. I can't go anywhere. I can't hang out with any of my friends. I'm going to get these loans paid off. Whatever your path is, imagine sitting here right now on repayment day. I don't have anything to repay.

I took care of it. Yeah, I don't have anxiety today because I don't have a student loan today. That's right. All the inflation talk, it's just really annoying. But I don't borrow money from banks anyway, so I don't care. You know what I mean? It just changes how you do everything. Interest rates are driving me crazy. Not me. I don't borrow money. Yeah, I don't have money from banks anyway, so I don't care. You know what I mean? It just changes how you do everything. Interest rates are driving me crazy.

Not me. I don't borrow money. Yeah, I don't have any money out there. Interest rates went up again on mortgages, not mine. Exactly. And so it sounds trite and it sounds silly, but this is freedom is that word peace you've been talking about for 30 years. Well, I mean, relationships, our health, our spiritual walk, our finances,

these are all areas that you can make choices in Well, I mean, relationships, our health, our spiritual walk, our finances, these are all areas that you can make choices in that limit the anxiety bucket from overflowing. Right. That's right. And the daily choices are key to this whole thing. And it doesn't mean you're never going to have anxiety. It means you'll have less of it because you'll have less problems causing the alarm to go off. The way I've gone about describing this, Dave, is we all brush our teeth twice a day. Most of us.

George Campbell, we don't know for sure. 16 times. But most of us, most of us. He brushes his teeth a lot. Brush your teeth twice a day, and then over time, you don't have bad breath, and over time, you don't have cavities. But if you lean in to give your wife a kiss,

and she goes, ah, your breath is bad, then you know you probably have a tooth infection. i'm going to go deal with it similarly i'm going to do these things on a regular basis it can become part of my life and when the when i start feeling anxious i'm going to know my body's working just as it should and it's going to lead me to where there's there might be an issue yep that's how it works boys and girls building a non-anxious life comes out tomorrow. For those of you that have pre-purchased it, the tens of thousands of you, thank you. We will be shipping them tonight.

They'll be heading your direction. So they come out tomorrow. You'll start seeing them in bookstores tomorrow. Amazon, those of you that purchased it there, it'll be shipped. And if you buy it by midnight tonight, Building a Non-Anxious Life, it's $20. We're going to throw in $75 worth of additional items for free. We're bribing you to buy it before midnight. If you're listening to me, take the bribe.

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slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budgets at chministries.org slash budgets. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Well, we're doing something we've never done on the Ramsey Show. We sent Jade Warshaw and Ken Coleman to Washington, D.C. They've been up there for about the last 48 hours with the student loans restarting, talking to the man on the street and some women on the street and some people that should be on the street called congressmen. No, I'm kidding. And they're, hey, learning about what's happening with the student loans.

So what are you guys finding out up there? Well, Dave, thanks for having us on. So we spent yesterday the full day moving between Georgetown, the campus, talking to a lot of students about their current debt situation, and then we moved to the mall in between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument and talked to so many different people. It was a lot of fun. And we heard, I think, one key theme was that people really believe collectively, no matter how they vote or what they believe in from a religious standpoint, the message was tuition is too high. It's going up too quickly. It's outsized. And that was a very interesting theme, Jade. I agree. You know, and something else, they knew tuition was high, but when we

asked the students, so how much are you paying each semester? How much are you paying each year? When you come out of college, how much total debt do you think you'll have? And it was really interesting. They kind of seemed in a fog about how much debt they were going to leave with. One guy even said to us, he said, you know, I've got bigger fish to fry. I've got enough to worry about right now. I'm getting my MD. You know, I'll worry about that, you know, when I get out of med school. And I thought, oh my gosh, he estimated that he'd probably come out with about three or four hundred thousand dollars of debt, Dave. So that's pretty crazy. Yeah. And his starting salary, he thinks, sixty thousand dollars. So it's that kind of story that was pretty synonymous.

Everybody thinks that tuition has got to be addressed. So tuition's too high, but they don't know how much it is. That's right. That's right. Very interesting. At Georgetown, a lot of these kids, yeah. Well, no, it's interesting at Georgetown, obviously, we saw a pattern, too, where these students were saying they didn't know how much they actually were going to owe because mom and

dad took out the loans or handled all the details. So that was kind of scary as well. And there's another piece to it, Dave and John. Not only did they believe that tuition was too high, everybody agreed that there's a major problem here. And we asked them specifically, well, what do you think about forgiveness? You know, Biden, these administrations offering forgiveness. Do you think it's a good idea? And here's what I thought was really remarkable. They all thought, hey, it would be nice to have forgiveness. All of us would love for somebody to come in and take care of our debt.

But they all agreed that it was kind of a selfish, you know, it was a selfish want that ultimately it probably wasn't best for people, for the government, for people in large to offer that forgiveness, A, because it's not fair for everybody, and B, because of the tax implication of burdening others who maybe didn't even take out student loans with the bill. I struggle with the cost part because it feels like yet another way of passing the blame onto somebody else. And I can drive by a car dealership, like a Porsche dealership, and the prices are going to be expensive, and the car is worth the money. I mean, it's expensive, but it's up to me to be responsible enough to know I can't afford a Porsche, so I'm going to move on. Do any of those students that you met with own the fact that they're going to a school that they can't afford, even how much it costs?

Well, there's no question you make a very good point, John. But I think it's different between the student who wants to go into social work, who goes and gets a really expensive degree and is only making $40,000, $45,000, and then the med student that we talked to. There's only one way to get that med degree, and medical school is crazy. And to give you real numbers, because these people are high in the sky. Why is a medical doctor only going to make $60,000? Well, he's talking about the intern years, is what he said, as a cardiac.

So he's got to intern for three or four years. But let me point this out, because John brings up a good point. But if we look at 2010 to 2022, the cost of tuition rose over 12% each year when you had inflation only moving up at about 2.5%. So it is ridiculous. These colleges and universities keep raising the price because they've got an audience who just keeps getting the loan. The federal loan program and these colleges and universities are colluding. That's a simple fact. That's right.

Oh, no question about it. If you cut the money off from the student loans, suddenly the price increases would go away. I mean, because they wouldn't have students willing or able to pay what they're charging. Yeah, they'd have to address the problem. But that goes back to, Dave, what you've been saying for the last year, which is the student loan bailout program

is almost beside the point. We deal with that after. You don't deal with the flood without turning the faucet off first, right? At first, you've got to deal with the faucet. And if they were serious about helping young people and they were serious about helping students and serious about not saddling future generations

with trillions of dollars of debt, they would deal with that up front instead of bailing water and letting it continue to run. future generations with trillions of dollars of debt they would deal with that up front instead of you got you know bailing water and letting it continue to run you can't keep making the loans that's intellectually dishonest when the when you know when we got a crisis on our hands of student loan epic proportions here so uh did you run into people whose loans are starting back today yes it's so funny that you mention that. We got the opportunity to talk to several folks.

I talked to a girl. Her name was Ariel. And she was excited to talk to us. She had strong feelings about student loans and forgiveness. And she was really banking, Dave, on forgiveness from the Biden administration. And when she didn't get it, you know, she's been seeing her interest pile up, obviously, since the start of September. And she told me, she said, Jade, I've already seen $1,000 accrue in interest from September 1st until today. She said it's the equivalent of three full payments almost. And she said it's blowing my mind how quickly this interest is accruing.

She's an educator herself. And she's like, I don't see a way out. And so, you know, I was able to talk to her. I said, hey, what if I told you that every day, you know, several times a week on the Ramsey show, we hear people come in doing their debt-free scream. They paid off $70,000, $80,000, $220,000, whatever number of debt. People are doing it every day. They've just got to have the tools in order to make it happen. And honestly, they've got to believe that it can happen. And I feel like that's the missing piece, Ken, that we've seen. And when Jade asked her that, she lit up.

There was so much hope that just took over her whole body. It was a really cool moment. So I'm curious, in my mind, there's 44 million people today that have a payment due for the first time in three years. In many cases, a large payment. It's going to take a chunk out. I feel like, I don't know why, I feel like we're the only ones talking about this. Like the typical person in America is talking about it, but I haven't run into anybody in the media that's gotten that today is a big freaking deal, economically, societally, everything else. Are you running into people that are going, my God, what a mess? Not really.

When we were on the college campus, it was interesting, Ken. On the college campuses, it's almost like they're just in a blur. They have no idea this is happening. I probably talked to five different students who I said, hey, do you understand the significance of today? I said, do you understand student loans have been on pause for three years? They're finally starting back. And they were like, I don't know what you're talking about. That's right.

It's business as usual, Dave. It's not a big story because, quite frankly, it's so old. It's been around forever. And I think the American people have lost a lot of hope to where it's not a sensational story anymore. And that's what's really a crime. You know, this has to be addressed from the leadership level in Congress, in the White House. It's a crime that they're giving this money away to people who can't afford it and then charging them crazy interest. This is not about helping people get educated. This is a hidden tax on the American people, in my opinion. And there's a little bit of onus, Ken, on the parents in this situation because a lot of the students we talked to, they said from their own mouth, hey, I think

my parents took out a loan. I think they signed for it. I'm pretty sure they're taking care of the bill. And, you know, to which I said, hey, you better have that conversation and have it fast, because when it comes time to pay the piper, you need to know who's on the hook. Well, Jade, you bring up a great point. There's a million there's millions and millions of parents that use the college their kid got into to give themselves a pat on the back and to be able to tell their friends and church and the community instead of having a realistic honest conversation about hey child what do you actually want to do when you grow up and what is the best path for you and our family there they just want to run and say hey my kid got into georgetown my kid's going to georgetown that's right forget the fact that it's going to be 40 years of paying that thing off yeah what a mess what's's absolutely right, John. Jade Warshaw, Ken Coleman in Washington, D.C.,

reporting live on the first day that the student loan payments kicked back in officially, actually technically as of last night, but there you go. Man, we're starting to see some movement out there in the marketplace and we thought we wanted to be right on the front lines. Thanks for hanging

out with us, guys. We'll check in with you next hour this is the ramsey show dr john deloney ramsey personality is my co-host today in the lobby of ramsey solutions on the debt-free stage. John and Rachel are with us, and a special debt-free scream because John's one of our newer team members, right? That's right. How long you been with us? I'm going on eight months now. Okay, wow, good deal. And tell everybody what you do here at Ramsey. I'm on the K-12 renewal team for our Ramsey education team. Okay, so K through 12, meaning our high school curriculum. That's right. And you work with that team making sure that high school students get our high school curriculum around America.

That's right. Very good stuff. Well, thank you. Good work. Good work. All right, John and Rachel, how much debt have you paid off? $50,000 in 13 months. All right.

Eight months of it, you were here. All right. And I won't ask your income because we don't do that since you're a team member. I was going to have you announce it to all of your friends and community members here. All the people that you work with will be standing around right now, and we're going to tell them what your income is. I think that'd be just tacky. So we don't do that. But congratulations. Okay, so five months before you got here, where were you all living? Right here in Nashville.

You were here in town. So what got you started on this five months before you came here? Well, so the really fun part of our story that I think even the HR team got a big hoot out of is that when I asked Rachel's dad, who's here with us today, for his blessing, he was like, absolutely. But the only thing that we had to do was he said, you just have to go through FPU before you get married. I like him! That kind of kicked off the entire journey for us and so as soon as we got married and graduated

it was kind of time to be a gazelle and time to get after it yeah so we graduated in may of 2022 and then got married in june and right after we got back from like our honeymoon and everything it was august of 2022 that we started attacking all of it. And then just a couple months later, you go to your father-in-law and go, hey, FPU, one thing. Now hold my beer. I'm going to work there. Exactly. Yeah.

I don't know who was more excited, if it was my wife or him, actually, to start being here. Not going to lie. I didn't just go through FPU. I'm going to work there. I got a job there. That's cool. I like that. That's fun.

Very cool. Very cool. So that means, Rachel, you grew up a financial peace baby. I did. Yes. My parents went through it in 2017, and then they were inspired by, like, they're still in their journey. They're almost done as well.

And so they started teaching generation change change like the oh wow yeah they started teaching that at our church yeah for the teenagers yeah so i took that um with them when i was a senior in high school and um foundations and personal finance at in high school as well which is cool because now john sells that wow you couldn't get away yeah not at all so you're stuck all the way around yeah yeah john you didn't have a choice. No, not really. You're just getting into this. Does that mean all the debt in your marriage was yours?

No, it was both of us. No, it was combined. So I think it was about, you had 16 and I had about 28. And then we had some medical bills that popped up over the last year as well that we were able to prepare for, even paying off debt. But that was by far one of the most stressful times was when we had a lot of moments where we looked at each other and we're like just tearful um and my my team member ryan andrew can also attest like where i just was like i'm so

ready to be done with this and so that that journey that like drive to just be to knock it out i mean the pain is what really just gets you going because you're like i haven't done with this so what kind of debts were those students all student loans okay and so uh yeah standing here today with student loans kicking back in knowing that's not there is a big relief yeah absolutely yeah so you mentioned something that's really important i think for couples to understand there's that rah-rah moment that really excited you have that first conversation and we're gonna to do this. And then there's month nine where it's hard.

It's hard. You're exhausted. You just want to go on a date. Y'all been married one year. Can we go on a date? Nope. We got to finish this journey. You can go. You just have to go to the park. That's right. You got to do another free day, another walk around. We got real creative with it. We really did. Yeah.

But, tell them what it feels like on the other side. Like Dave just said, student loans are kicking off today and yeah. Okay. Like for y'all, it's not, it's not an event in your home, right? Tell them, tell them what it feels like to be on this side of it. It feels so good. Um, I think we talked about before this, what like the hardest part was for us. And it was definitely like going through it and being like, okay, we're almost there. We're almost there, but also seeing like relationships and friendships change because of our lifestyle change. And at the same time, like we had all of these new friends like come alongside us and support us in it.

So you got rid of the dumb friends who got smart ones. We like, we. Dave, they're watching too. Why did you call them like that? We had a lot of people. She's trying to be so sweet will you please list the dumb friends but we had so many people

come alongside of us and like celebrate with us and like so many are here today and watching everything so it feels really good to like have such a great community around us supporting us yeah I think one thing too is you know a lot of people who are living life a different way and they're like, well, that first year marriage was so fun. And

you're like, I don't know, that first year marriage was really hard because like we didn't live together. There was other things too. It's like we had to learn how to communicate and not to mention, and FPU was such a big game changer here because not only were we heading into this, but we also were going into this knowing full well of like what conversations we needed to have to start off. And so we already were talking about money. We were already talking about relationships. We were talking about where are we going to live and what's going to be financially savvy,

not where do we want to be, but where do we need to be? And so even making those budgetary decisions was a game changer. Yeah, you guys got a real head start. I mean, there's so much, you're so functional. It's amazing in a dysfunctional world. Well, and if you think about it like a sports team, if the whole team gets together

and the first weekend they all get together, they just start playing live games. They're going to be terrible. They're not going to be good. But you all two spent the first year of your marriage, first year and a half in the weight room, working hard, right? Working hard, working hard, working hard,

learning to work together. And now you've got the next 60 years where nobody will own you two. Not even Dave. Nobody will own you two and y'all are going to be able to make decisions. I mean I do work here remember so he does kind of send me checks. So did he.

I used to. I used to also. But nobody's going to own you two and y'all can make decisions about your homes and your kids forever now. John, I'm curious. Did you have much background on Financial Peace University or anything before your future father-in-law dumps this weird request on you? A little bit here and there.

I grew up in Southern Illinois, and so my parents had kind of done some of it. So when he said that, what did you think? Tell the truth. Honestly, I was like, whatever it takes. Well, yeah, he could have said, well, son, you can marry my daughter, but I'm going to set you on fire. And he would have been like, okay, I'll do that too. Get the matches. Exactly.

Get the matches. That's right. I'll bring the guests. Okay. So it was that category. It wasn't like, he's weird. It's strange. I mean, and two, they've been coordinators for a couple of years now.

So even we got to kind of visit in on some of their classes as well as we were kind of back and forth between here in Cleveland, Ohio. And so even that part was really fun to get to be a part of it. Even two is, you know, we're looking for leaders here. And so how we can step into our communities and continue to lead from a place of accomplishing these tasks and then being able to encourage other people to do the same thing, which I had my buddy who I was his best man. He came to me and he's like, well, I've've got this these like credit cards that I use for school I've got like ten thousand dollars and they just got married and

had like 60 grand liquid cash and I'm like dude what are you doing I'm like pay off the dang thing and so I'm sitting down with him basically as his financial advisor and I'm like this is what this looks like it's really simple and it's going to avoid a lot of heartbreak down the road because you've got this now and when Dave as you say when you invite Murphy in bad things happen yeah i got a feeling john's gonna be able to talk some schools into doing the curriculum i would i'm literally ready to buy it right now i'm thinking i'm thinking this is game on right now well done you guys we're very proud of you proud to have you on the team and uh love the heritage and the history and the whole thing it's a beautiful story and uh multi-generational uh financial peace stuff going on here.

Very good stuff. I love it. I love it. You're so set up to be multimillionaires and to be unbelievably generous and help so many people. We're honored to have you guys on our team. People like you are who we want. We're going to give you the live and give bundle as if you didn't have all that stuff already. With working here, the Baby Steps Millionaires book, the the total money makeover book and a financial peace membership you'll be able to give those away to somebody in addition to

things we already give you as a team member to give away so you got lots of things good stuff good stuff john and rachel franklin tennessee members of the ramsey team members of the family fifty thousand dollars paid off in 13 months count down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah! That's how it's done in the education department. I'm just saying.

This is The Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Shannon's in Columbus, Ohio. Hi, Shannon. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Thank you. Thank you so much. Sure. What's up?

I am 67 years old, and I'm wondering your opinions. I haven't heard you talk about this on pre-planning and pre-paying for a funeral. Well, it is a gift to your relatives if you pre-plan. It's a gift to the funeral home if you pre-pay. Okay, that was kind of my thought, too. Yeah, because the inflation rate of funerals is around four percent so you're basically making four percent on your money okay okay and uh and you're of course locked into everything but if you the more detail the more nerdy and detailed you want to get into

it uh and i'm feeling guilty right now because i've done zero casket picking, and I'm 63. So I've not pre-planned or prepaid in my case. I probably actually should go do some kind of a something and give them a guideline because I'm so pre-planned on every other part of my estate plan. It's so detailed, and we have meetings once a year to go over it, and I haven't done the casket thing. I pre-planned my funeral to a t you did and my wife made it very clear i'm not running errands for you after she goes this funeral will be how i want it to be that's who i married yeah well sharon will be so upset when i'm gone that she

won't be able to think clearly as you were saying this i was thinking i bet your kids i bet your kids have a casket a little bit of a celebration wood box yeah here would be my concern is that the version of the funeral you have in your mind that possibly you even prepay for i would imagine there's two or three leadership changes by the time um you pass away and what your family would actually get would probably be less than what you have in mind though i i would love I honestly have not experienced that, honestly. I mean, it's a valid concern, but I've never run into that. What I have run into is I finally realized that the funeral world is an industry, and it's an extremely profitable industry.

Very much so. And like many things, when you add the financing or prepayayment to it you add to their profits i have figured that out and that's true they make as much money on the prepayment plans as they do actual margin on the uh goods and services associated with one being buried in your final day so uh your final arrangements but yeah so uh yeah i think it'd be it's it is a gift for people to not, in an emotional state, have to make a bunch of value decisions. Okay. That does make sense to me, although I'm being very upfront and admitting I have not done that part of it. I've done everything else in the estate plan, and they'll figure it out probably.

This bunch will be able to afford it, I can tell you that. But, yeah, I would not prepay. i've always told people not to prepay and the extreme examples are if you took the amount of a funeral and invested at age 30 instead of making four percent on your money you made an investment return on your money you'd have like 600 000 bucks when you get to 80 and so prepaying like in your 30s or 40s is mathematically ridiculous. Now, when you're 67 or 63, like me and you, then, you know, it's not as many years for that to compound, you know, even if it's 20, you know, or whatever. So, yeah, I don't I tell people don't prepay and I do tell them to preplan. That's the overall thing, even though that's one of the few areas I've not done what I say to do. What about plots?

What about buying family plots or i have not but i i'm not against them okay i mean because you're purchasing them yeah uh and what you're doing is locking in the location and all that kind of stuff and uh but i gotta tell you uh if i had bought those uh 25 years ago they'd probably be in a different place than they would be today. So, I mean, think about that. Where you'd want to be buried 25 years versus now? Yeah, I mean, think about how the city's changed and, you know, our lives have changed and stuff in 20 or 25 years. Think about where you were, you know, 20 years ago. I would have bought.

You've been in Texas. That's right, yeah. And now you live in Tennessee. So, I mean, it's an interesting thing. So, I have, it's an interesting thing. So I have not avoided it. I've just not been good and diligent. Well, but I think you've paid for your funeral, right?

I mean, that's what an inheritance is for. They can handle it. I mean, it's a small percentage, and it's not a big enough. If somebody's not left much of an estate or no estate, and then someone has to pay for the funeral, it's even more emotional than if you're a multimillionaire and it's, I don't know, $15,000 or whatever, and you don't think about it. It's a non-issue. So it does take the pressure off that way.

You could really screw up a funeral in our situation, and it wouldn't be a be a big deal yeah i've sat with some folks who are looking at me wide eyed saying how much does a funeral cost and you know and that's one of their first questions that they're struggling and there's no way they can come up with you know 5 10 15 grand whatever they're going to charge it's a that's a hard hard conversation yeah yeah so it is uh but what has happened is if the way let me tell you who's a sucker for it if hard conversation yeah yeah so it is uh but what has happened is if the way let me tell you who's a sucker for it if you're out there if you've been through the while you're grieving having to go in and select all this stuff and make all these decisions and you're not sure about the money thing while on top of that uh then you don't want your people

you love to have to do that on you so that's the people who prepay because they want to never have that happen to the people they love. And so, but still, I would preplan. You can do the exact same thing as prepaying, every detail if you wanted to, right, and or that. Or you could just dictate, I kind of want the F--150 not the bentley and not the smart car i don't want the used dodge neon don't want the bentley and uh somewhere around the used f-150 level right that's kind of what i'm thinking here so uh some of you will get that and the rest of you will be looking up the cars to figure out what they are well are you going to get one of those uh are you gonna get like like an above-ground monument, Dave?

I'm not going to be getting anything. I'm not going to be here. Sharon's sure not spending that money. I'm not going to be. I guarantee you Sharon's not thinking that's a bargain. Kathy's in Boise. Hi, Kathy. How are you?

Hi. So I'm a new listener to your show um and so you may have already covered this but i've heard how much you dislike credit cards what do you do about rental cards because i've tried to um rent it without with just a debit card and they wouldn't do it at all okay it depends on the company hurts and uh enterprise hurts enterprise hurts will not enterprise will at some locations and not at others and so what you've got to do is pre-plan your trip and i can't tell you this you can't walk up to the counter and get one in the city you live in it's very difficult uh to get to rent a car that way uh and so you got to have a return ticket

you know so forth but if you're traveling to another city yes there are companies that will rent to you without a debit card i haven't had a credit card in 30 years now i rent cars uh today uh we have corporate accounts they're not credit cards i mean we have a company we rent cars all over america because we're trapped this you know i got a thousand people working here so we have corporate accounts and and they don't require a card in those situations obviously so that's an unfair advantage that you don't have but i travel a lot right and with like just doing family stuff and i i just i don't have a problem i've had one bad experience hurts won't period okay dollar will but it's very difficult turo will my my experience with enterprise has been awesome my experience with enterprise 90%

of the time is fine yeah um just been awesome so i didn't know that um i i would call around i remember i won't i won't say the company but i i sat there and i said here's what i want to figure out i'm trying to give you my money and they were so difficult i figure out a way that you can take my money from me and they wouldn't figure it out yeah because they were working a job that didn't care yeah that's it i mean that that's the situation with the hurts they look at you like the blank stare like you lost your dadgum mind or something but um but that's the thing and we had dollar we had the dollar rent-a-car studio here for a while they sponsored the studio for a while.

And during that regime, after COVID, they all went bankrupt. They all almost went bankrupt, and they turned over all their leadership team. That regime went back and changed everything. But we had Dollar set up to where they'd take a debit card, just like a credit card, nationwide, and we endorsed them for that reason and gave them a lot of business. The new regime came in after COVID and the bankruptcy and the loss. Dollars owned by Hertz. Okay.

And so they came back in and the whole new marketing people, everything. They went back and said, no debit cards. So we had to take the dollar. We can't be endorsing them. We had to take the dollar from our car studio down. So couldn't do it anymore. That's why we got in a fire customer. It was painful. But that's how it worked now they didn't renew because they didn't want to be involved with

somebody like us that said only use debit cards never go to dollar never go to hertz that'd be kind of weird this is the ramsey show Hey, it's Dr. John Deloney. If you love the show and want a deeper dive on your money journey, we have a weekly newsletter that gives you trending and helpful articles and tips on following the Ramsey way. Just go to RamseySolutions.com today to sign up for our newsletter. Again, that's RamseySolutions.com today to sign up for our newsletter. Again, that's RamseySolutions.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.