The Ramsey Show - App - Get Your Finances In Order Now So You Can Enjoy Your Life Later

Episode Date: January 7, 2026

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Normal is broke and common sense is weird. So we're here to tell, help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network and the Fair Winds Credit Union Studios, this is The Ramsey Show. I'm Dave Ramsey, Rachel Cruz, number one. bestselling author, host of the Rachel Cruz show, Ramsey Personality, and my daughter is my co-host today. Phone numbers, AAA 825-5-225. Tracy's in Chicago. Hi, Tracy. How are you? Hi, good. Good. What's up? So, my husband and I had a few opportunities pop up that we never thought would line up and happen, that we were able to move closer to our family. It was something we were really

excited about the hardest thing with it was we have a small business that we are in the process of selling. We have never lived by credit card debt with this business. It involved purchasing inventory with a credit card. And now with the selling of this business, we know we're going to be left with that credit card bill, but not the income from the business. And so we're kind of at a really nerve-wracking stuck point. Are you getting money for the business when you sell the business? We are getting a small amount because of the distance we were moving. We had to sell it quicker than we probably could have got a better price if the sale could

have went longer. So that money is absolutely being put towards this. And then we are financing. So what are the numbers? How much are you getting for the business? you're getting for the business and then how much do you end up in credit card debt? So we have currently got 15 grand from it, and then we'll continue to get another 20 grand over the next three years. So it'll be small payments coming in. How much credit card debt is

it? So we have 49,000 that we will have a credit card debt. Wow. So this business was a real failure. Yeah, we had just taken it over, so we really didn't have time to start recouping the funds of the initial investment at all. Wow. All right. So you got $35,000 left in credit card debt that you're going to have to clean up. Exactly. So what are you going to be making at the new location?

What's your new careers? So we will still have income coming in for a few more months that we're going to. hoping to really pour towards that because there is a truck loan with the business as well. So we're trying to figure out if it's best to sell the truck or keep it within it since it's LLC. No. It's not an LLC. You signed personally for the truck. You signed personally for the credit card debt. I don't care if it's running through an LLC. That's only in your mind. The bank ain't going to sue the LLC. They're going to sue you. You are liable. No, you sell the truck today. How much underwater are you guys on that, Tracy? Do you

know? So from what I've looked at, the loan is around 38K and then the cash offer estimate would be about 30. Oh, you're killing me. Okay, well, it's eight grand in the hole. Yeah. All right, we got eight grand. Okay. So this is the worst business deal I've heard in a while. Well, it's not like $380,000. It's like $38,000. Okay. One more time. Then, What are you guys going to be doing for a living at the new location? So we both have different careers. We will be bringing in about $8,000 a month. We do have everything budgeted, so we would have about $2 to $3,000 a month to play with out of our budget.

Okay. And we will take it to $10 to pay this off. It's kind of irrelevant how we got here. You have an $8,000 hole that you're going to have to finance on the truck because you're selling the truck, and you have $35,000 in credit card debt, and you make $8,000 a month and $2,000 a month to go towards debt on your debt snowball. How much other debt do you all have? Only our house.

Oh, good. Are you selling it when you move? So we already sold and bought a new house. So right now it's just the one house. Okay. All right. All right. Yeah.

So, I mean, you're, you know, we have. $43,000 in debt, and we make $100,000 a year, and let's pay it off. And that's, you know, just run the debt snowball on it. Is there something wrong with that? Are there any good tactics for negotiating with the credit cards to get like a lump sum payoff? Because we will most likely still have another $52,000 coming in from the operation of the business. Well, that'll be nice if it does come in to recoup the fact that you had to take this money out of your cash flow in the meantime, because you're not going to wait around on that money to come. You're going to go ahead and clear this debt now.

No, there's not a tactic. The only way that people don't, the only people, the only way people accept less on the debt that is owed is if they don't think it's going to be paid. And the reason they don't think it's going to be paid is if you're not paying it on time. And so if you want to not pay your payments for six months, yeah, you probably could negotiate with them. But I don't recommend that. You have the money to pay your bill.

You should just pay your bill. okay okay thanks for the call open phones at triple eight no i mean no this is just so ficey the first call the show dave well it's okay people make listen that is life like every the audience like yeah dave yeah listen that's life though people that is a situation that happens let me recoup then for a lot for a lot of people come back to it for it could have been 38000 dollars in a car that we get, you know, we get that call. We get that call all the time. All the time.

Yes. Here's the thing. Okay. When you operate a business, it's supposed to make money. Mm-hmm. Otherwise, it's what called a hobby. Okay. And you don't buy a business that small and borrow $38,000 for a pickup.

You used your business purchase as an excuse to buy a truck you wanted. That's what happened. And now it bit you in the butt. and you ran up a bunch of credit card debt because you weren't running the business well and it was losing money. You don't get to just go, oh, it's inconvenient for me to pay that now. When I have the money, you pay your bill. Yes. No, I totally agree with that. Sorry if I'm chippy on it, but that's just it.

But they had the opportunity to move close to family. And so that decision is what caused them to sell the business, right? Well, let me just say what happened. They went way too fast on the whole thing. I agree. That's a great lesson, yes. On both things. The purchase of the business and the move to family,

if they'd slowed down, sold the business for more money. Yep. They could have limited the damage they did when they didn't slow down and buy the business carefully. And but now it's just like, we did this, and we just go do, we just go do stuff. And that's the kind of stuff that'll bite your freaking wallet in half is you just start jumping around on stuff. And it's slow down. Well, and it's the urgency. It's what we talk about even with,

sorry, this sort of analogy, but people that like invest in real estate, for instance, and they have so. So it's what happened to you? You have so much, and then you get in trouble, and then you end up selling for less. The urgency on anything, right?

You can do real estate business. I've often said this about me, and I'll say it about others as well, is right after I get desperate, I get stupid. Yeah. And that's what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah.

And so once you paint yourself in the corner and you realize you're going to get paint on your feet, then you get silly and you start ice skating in the paint. I mean, it's nuts. Yep, yep. Well, we know there's a lot of chaos and noise out there, making you feel like you can't get ahead with money. a lot of negative, hopeless messages out there, but you have more control than you think you do. And this year, it's time to take back your money, starting with our free every dollar

live stream tomorrow night, Thursday night. It's going to be hosted by me and Jade, and we're going to give you the clarity you need to finally get ahead with money in the middle of the noise and the chaos. And we're going to give away $20,000 cash that night. All you have to do is, you have to do is, is to enter the giveaway or to enter the sign up for the free live stream. It's free and you're automatically signed up for the giveaway. Register right now by going to every dollar.com slash live stream. And of course we'll be announcing the winners of the $20,000. There's $2,000 winners.

I'll go ahead and spoil our alert during the live stream. So again, every dollar.com slash live stream tomorrow night, Thursday, for those of you out there, depending on when you're picking this up, right? And we'd love to have you. It's completely free. Everydollar.com slash live stream. And Rachel, we've got about 2,500 people going to be on campus in the Ramsey Events Center. It is completely sold out.

And you guys, the rest of you, John and you and you and George and whoever, are all going to be answering questions for the live audience before we go to the live stream. that's right yep we will not be on the live stream but we will be hanging out with everybody that's here in person which will be so fun and yeah these events are always great it's always a great way to kick off the new year especially with people with their money goals and everything they have that they're looking forward to so yeah you get about 45 minutes of Q&A if you're on campus uh for that with uh deloney and rachel and kin and george and then jade and i will be doing the actual live stream uh in the in the second portion of it so uh wherever you're

you are. Make sure you join us. It's going to be an incredible event, and I promise you will leave with some actionable, doable things and some real hope in the middle of all the hopeless messages that are out there. John is in Chicago. Hi, John. How are you? Good, guys. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I'm just wondering if you guys be able to give me some clarity here. Another parent plus loan question for you. Back when I was 18, Both my parents took out a parent plus loan for me to go to school. And during this whole time, my dad just kept on saying, you know, hey, don't worry about this loan. Don't worry about this loan.

They even brought up, you know, staying home, but he wanted me to get the full college experience like at the dorms. And, you know, fast forward to now, my mom, my dad's no longer with us. um my mom is now expecting me to pay everything back in full when i've kind of organized my life to where i i would not have to do that i have been paying this loan for a while now and um now because i felt obligated why i'm kind of guilty why kind of guilty i thought you weren't obligated that's the thing they needed some help they came into some financial issues my dad got sick couldn't work anymore and eventually eventually that that illness

took his life but um I'm sorry okay so what do you make John I make my household income because I'm married is 221 and what is the parent plus loan what's the balance on right now

it's at a hundred and four thousand oh wow wow it's no minor puppy yeah no no does your mom have the money um that's the thing they've uh my dad had a really big life insurance thing uh probably i think it was like 200 or 250 and um you know i brought this up how both both of them promised like to take care of this my mom has got amnesia about it now but she decided to spend all that um paid for my

sister's wedding um re did her entire house paid off her car did all these things and still expecting me to do all this. So how does she, if she used all that money, how is she surviving? Well, she has her own job. She's working. What does she make? She does work. Last time I knew it was about 120, and that was probably five, five or so years ago.

I know last year at the beginning of last year, she got really sick. We did almost lose her to acute kidney failure, but. John, how old are you? I'm 34. How old is she? She is almost 60. It sounds like you all are disconnected. In 12 years, right?

Did you graduate 22? Yeah. Yeah. Or 20. Yeah. 21. This has been hanging out. That's what I was going to say.

This has been over a decade, right? Of you paying it. And how often do you guys talk? Like, when's the last time you brought this up to her? The last time I brought this up, it was actually a three-way call because it turns out I was actually, she consolidated this whole thing, and I was actually paying my sister's student loans as well. Oh, my gosh. And I didn't even dive into that until my wife, you know, bless her heart, she kept pushing me like, no, look at this, look at this. And I was paying that.

And I was like, hey, you guys need to pay this. I ended up paying almost two grand worth of her student loans. And, you know, all this has been combined together now. Is the 104 include your sisters? No, that's just mine. Yeah. And so is she asking your sister to pay hers? She did, but my sister just isn't paying it.

And she's also living there at my mom with her husband, both of my sister's husband, that is, my brother-in-law. Yeah, there's a lot of feelings. You're not real happy with your mom in general, aside from this. I mean, you made several derogatory statements, aside from this issue. Yeah. And, I mean, it is, I've talked about these things with her to try to get, like, through it, but it always is just like, well, you're the one who's the man. You have to be responsible.

I mean, she even at one point said, well, she's your sister and your only sister. You should just take care of that. And it's, I don't know, it just, I kind of been a dormant. I'll be honest with it because I just, uh, yeah, and I think you're, I think you're kind of over that. Well, I guess you got, I guess you got two choices, don't you? yeah and let's just kind of talk through what happens with either one okay one is you don't pay it say mom you know you and dad promised to pay it and you make enough money to pay this and you know um sister's not paying hers i'm not paying mine and you guys promised to pay it i know

you forgot about it but you did and um i'm sorry but that's what we're going to do and i'm not paying it anymore that's one option right yeah and the other option is shut up and pay it. Then that's not really an option for me because my, you know, my wife were, we just went through the financial piece, and we've paid off over like 120 grand worth of our own debt. Then you know what's going to happen when you stop when you cut this off, right? Yeah, I'm going to, I feel like I have a choice between my mom and my wife, and I got to choose my wife.

That's how it feels. Well, no, that's not true. that's not fair of your wife. Your wife should be participating in this decision. She's made her voice clear that she doesn't think this is right. I agree with her. It's not right. You agree with her.

It's not right. But now you've got to decide because a hundred percent chance when you do this, it ends your relationship with your mother and your sister. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I don't want my four kids and not have their grandma. That's up to their grandma. That's not up to you.

Okay. You know. Okay. Mom, you're more than welcome here. I'm not angry with you. We'd love to have you for Thanksgiving. Love to have you see the kids. Love to have a relationship with you.

But I'm not going to be paying this. My wife and I are not okay with the fact that the money was wasted on one side. You paid everybody's stuff except this after you and dad promised to pay this. And you make enough money to pay it. Now, I got to tell you, if she was a starving widow or something, and you yeah that's not what you've outlined here okay then i i might change my tune if i were you and i might talk to your wife about that and i don't like the unhealthy unbalance of putting everything on him especially his sister's not that's not fair yeah your mom your mom's definitely

out of control there's no question about that but when you set a boundary with boundaryless people 100% of the time they go cray cray craye Tiffany is in St. Louis. Hi, Tiffany. How are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve.

What's up? So my husband and I recently split, and I filed for divorce. I'm sorry. He was having an affair. So we have a bunch of debt, and he's currently not helping me. He was fired from his job. and I live on a very small income, and I need to know how to navigate that debt. What was he making at his old job?

60. And why was he fired? He won't tell me the truth, but I think he was on his phone and driving a truck. Oh, okay. All right. And, you know, because he doesn't tell the truth a lot. That's kind of a better. That's accurate.

Yeah, okay. And what do you make? 24. Okay. And how much debt do you all have? 20,000. On what? Car, credit cards.

That's about it. How much on the car? 10,000. What's the car worth? Probably close to 10. Okay. You're driving it or is he? Yeah, his car is it?

He took the car. Good. Okay. Is it solely in his? name, Tiffany? No. Okay, yeah. No.

Both are on it. Okay. All right. So there's 10 grand of credit card debt, really, because, okay, so you filed for divorce. That means you've actually seen an attorney, correct? Yes. Okay. And so first and foremost, let's step back from the $20,000 in debt and say, okay, Tiffany is probably

going to get a whole different career to have a whole different life. Okay. Because Tiffany can't do well in St. Louis, Missouri on $24,000. Agreed? Agreed. Okay. So what do you do? Right now I work at a retail store.

How old are you? I'm 51. Okay. So what are you planning to do? What's your new life going to be, your new career? Because I'm so excited for this new life for you. I don't know. I've always wanted to be a nurse, but I'm 51 and going back to school.

would be crazy. No, wouldn't be crazy at all. Wouldn't be crazy at all. Matter of fact, nurse is a great, great idea. Yeah. So I want you to begin to think about those things, and then what that does is it says, okay, let's pretend we're five years from today, and you're making $85,000 a year as a nurse. Right.

I like that plan. Yes. Now, then how much does this $10,000 car or this $10,000 credit card matter? It doesn't matter. right okay so what I'm trying to do is to take away the stress of it because right now on all the other things including your broken heart heaped on top of that is this the immediacy of this it's causing the stress is that fair yes okay how much is the bill each month or the credit card on the credit cards okay so let's redo the credit card the credit card they're

20. I'm sorry. The car is 10. Oh, I misunderstood. Okay. I know I did it wrong. I misspoke. Oh, okay. So, but, and he's supposed to give me half, which he's not because he's currently, whatever money he gets is giving to somebody else. So a total of, I believe I pay 600 a month for everything. Yeah. Okay. All right. So here's the first thing. The first thing you do is you call your lawyer and you have him get her or him get in touch with the other lawyer. and say, we're going to smack this guy. He and he starts paying his half. If not, we're on drag his butt before the judge,

and the judge is going to start immediately. Because when this settles at most, you get half of the debt. Right. Okay. And what I would recommend is you let him take the car and sell it. Right. And then that gets rid of a bunch of your half of the debt.

Then you would only have $5,000 in credit card debt, and he would be responsible for $10,000. Right. If you split this down the middle and he took 15,000 of credit card and you took five of credit card in the car and sold the car, that's what would happen. I like that plan. Will there be anything in the divorce, Tiffany? No, there's no money. Assets or anything?

He has 401K. Oh, he does. How much is in his 401K? He has 60. 60. Oh, good. Yes. Well, 30 of that's yours, okay?

that's true but I believe at this point he is trying to cash it out well I mean let's have the judge stop this young man this is illegal I did I called my attorney and I said I think he's trying to cash it out and so I'm waiting to hear back from him yeah and he's and he's not paying these bills and so right here's the thing your husband thinks he can just walk around do these things but the judge is going to teach him how this really works right okay so long term I mean long term being six months from now. The wrinkles will be ironed out of this as a part of the divorce. Now, you're going to end up with some debt, but you're going to need more money to live now and in the future to become a nurse. So you really got to start working on your career. I would say 60% of my answer to your

question is, let's get you making more money now and in the future. Do you have kids, Tiffany, at home? No, they're grown. Okay. They are here, though, living with me, but they help. Okay. They're not a problem. They're in addition. No, no. Okay. Good, good.

All right. Yeah. And so you guys don't own a home? No. Okay. All right. I think you get on your attorney and you start figuring out what Tiffany's going to be in this next chapter. And the short term, what can I do to increase my income substantially while I pursue the idea of what it's going to take for me to become a nurse long term?

Right. Okay. Yeah, you can't just keep working at 24K and this will work out okay. If you had no debt, you'd still be in a problem. Right. Okay. That's what my point is. And this is not a pile of debt.

You can actually get through this. But I would just not pay any of it right now. If he's not paying it, don't pay it. It's not the end of the world. They're not going to do anything. What are they going to do? Yell? We got plenty of yelling going on.

If they repow the car, he has it. Yeah, let them pick up the car. I mean, let Jr. figure out how he's going to do. you're going to walk to nothing, walk to see his girlfriend or whatever, right? So, I mean, it's like, I wouldn't pay a dime on any of this until you get the attorney straightened out and as a part of the mediation process. Or keep the receipts of what you have and let that go against what you owe, too. Yeah, but I don't think it doesn't serve any purpose.

Right now you don't have enough money to pay all these bills or a good portion of these bills even and live. So I want you to live first, food, shelter, clothing, transportation, and utilities. If you have some money left over, we can talk about you paying some of it after you clear that with your attorney. But just trying to carry it because he won't? Nah, don't think so. I'm going to let this come down on his head, too. And just let the weight build up on the whole thing.

I think it'll be good for both of you. I'm sorry. Sorry you're going through this. What a nasty situation. Frank's in Houston. Hey, Frank, Frank, what's up? Hey, Dave. Thank you for taking my call today. Sure. What's up?

Well, my wife and I had a question for you because we've been working off on paying off our debt. And currently, our mortgage is at $32,000, a little over $32,000. I do have the little credit card debt. I have a personal debt of $6,000. a, from my business, it's about 1,400. So I try to keep it as low as I can. And I had a really amazing year last year, and I'm so grateful that we've gotten to this point, whether we can ask this question,

whether I should just pay everything off. Why wouldn't you? With my emergency fund and everything, I have about $87,000 in liquid cash. Okay. So if you wrote a check today, You'd have 50, 60, or you'd have 40-something thousand dollars, right? Yes. Why wouldn't you do that?

And I'd be done. Of course you do that. I was going to wait until my birthday. I thought that would be a good time to do it. It's called an early birthday present. Happy birthday, Frank. You are too old to wait till your birthday. You need to do it now and say, happy birthday.

Just wrap up all the receipts and open them again at your birthday and go, whoopee. That is so funny. Let's walk out in the back. Go buy a nice dinner on your birthday. Yeah. Go out in the backyard and burn your mortgage on your birthday. You know, Dave, we hear a lot of success stories. You know, Dave, we hear a lot of success stories.

We get a lot of problem calls on the show That's why we're here to help if people have a problem But we'll also get success stories And I feel like in the lobby We always get fun tidbits of people Who are like, hey, we're on baby step seven Or we just paid off our house in October You get these like little like tidbits of success

We go out at the commercial breaks And take pictures and talk to people That's what she's talking about And we just had one A sweet, kind young lady Was talking about that she was going to go To film school and take out all these loans And then kind of binge some of our stuff

Her teacher said, don't do. The teacher is a hero in the story. Yes, and said, hey, yeah, there's a different way. Don't do that. Watch these Dave Ramsey things. And so she said, you know, three weeks before I decided not to go, and I want to be a financial advisor, and I totally changed the course. And it was just, we were just talking to the break after we met her.

It's just like, it's one of those decisions in life that everyone gets to make. You know, we all, whether you're on the car, lives. She was minutes away. Yeah, from like doing something different. From a decade-long problem. Yep. And her teacher, way to go teacher, hello, don't you know, teachers change people's lives. That's right.

Yep. Said, don't do that. Go watch these videos. And then she went down the rabbit hole on the Ramsey videos because there's like 80 million of them out there. And so if you go down that hole, you may never get out, Alice. I'm just saying the Chessor Cat is in there, okay. Yeah, but whether you're standing on a car lot about to sign up for a loan, you know, whatever it is, you get a, you get a moment in your life. So you're like, which road am I going to take?

And I love hearing those stories. So it's beautiful. You know, and I, you know, one more time we get to say salute to teachers. Yes, yes, and amen. Teachers, they did one little conversation like that. Took a decade off that girl's life. I mean, it's pretty incredible. Yep.

Awesome. Awesome. Good stuff. Good stuff. All right. Derek is in Tampa. Hi, Derek. How are you?

Living and giving like no one else. Love it, brother. Call, guys. Love it. How can we help? My wife and I are, my wife and I are baby steps, millionaires. We are invested in the four mutual funds, growth, growth, and income, aggressive growth, and international. And every year on December 29th, I rebalance those investments so that they're even to start the new year off. Okay. Am I doing that right? There's nothing wrong with that. Did I do it more often?

No, no, I think once a year is more than enough. you're you're a detailed dude for sure um and um but it doesn't harm anything um i don't rebalance mine unless i look up and they're way out of balance like if i looked up and saw you know 70% was in one thing or something then i was going whoa that's a little heavy over there i need to reset that but 27% down to 25% no i don't i don't do that I don't fool with that. I just don't want to fool. But I'm not as detailed a person as you are.

I'm more big picture person. I'm a data engineer, so yes, I am. Yeah. And so it gives you peace to do that. It would cause me an ulcer to have to do that. And I can see the numbers move the next year, and it's kind of more exciting for me that way. That's kind of fun. Yeah, that part from a math nerd, I like that part.

I like saying, oh, look at that. And now it's out of balance again. Do you see a consistent trend? Derek, because you're deep in it. I mean, like, the fact that you've been looking at it every year, do you see the, do you see certain ones and balance over, you know, different ones each year? Let me give a, let me give a guess for your answer. International. The international has come up short for the last eight years.

And it just started taking off in the small cap is kind of, yes. Yeah. What you're saying is correct. Yep. It's, it wanted, yeah, I see them have been tied together. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So interesting. Very good. Very good. Okay. And that's, we almost redid our suggestion after 25 years about five or six years ago. I went in, I went down the rabbit hole with our, uh, smart vestor pro, who's a friend of mine. And he and I are math riddle nuts. And so we pulled up a whole bunch of hypotheticals of what if you went 20 years because the international has underperformed the other four categories substantially over a long period of time. It's the worst of the four. Okay. And you've like you've experienced that. That's why it was easy to guess. And so.

but but I was thinking about just pulling it out but what we figured out was that it's offsetting because it runs at the inverse of some of the others and so when we ran the hypotheticals without it we didn't make as much money which was weird because of stupid things underperforming but it kind of was almost like a math riddle like I said so but anyway we ended up leaving it in because the hypotheticals

that we ran out ran it out two or three different ways over two or three different age groups and so forth and it just didn't make, it made more sense to leave it. So, yeah, but you rebalance it does help offset the fact that the stupid thing is at a really lousy decade. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Very cool, man. How old are you? 53 and my life's 52. Yeah, and what's your net worth? 1.3, I'll give you a say 1.3 in our retirement and our house, I got a tricky answer to three there. Our house is worth about six, but we just, we're almost done with an addition. that $150,000 we're paying for in cash.

Okay. All right. And so you've got about $2 million net worth of $52. Did you inherit any money? No, all of us. All right. Way to go, guy. Way to go, man.

Thank you. What do you tell people that, how did you do that? What was the trick? Did you make a pile of money, or are you just smart? Or how'd you do it? We don't go into debt. We are people think we're crazy, but we do not go into debt. We moved from a three-bedroom house to a two-bedroom house.

and been here eight years saving to do this, and people think we're crazy. But we don't go into debt, and we see the benefits from it tremendously. Yeah. And what's your household income? My wife retired. 130. Okay. She was a special needs teacher.

And she retired at 50. She's due. She retired 48. She's doing some side jobs just to kind of, you know. Because you don't have to work if you got $2 million. Yeah, I got it. Okay. Proud of you all, man.

Well done, Derek. Way to go, Derek. Thank you, guys. Thanks for letting us interview you, too. Wow. Very cool. So if you don't know what rebalancing is, guys, we teach people to put a fourth of your income in growth, a fourth in growth in growth in income, a fourth in international,

which we're talking about was being the one that was sucking wind, and a fourth in aggressive growth when you're doing your 401K. If one of them grows substantially more than another during the year, in his case, he does it once a year, sometimes people reset it to a fourth at the end of the year. So you might get to the end of the year and one of them has 32 percent and one of them has 18 percent, you know, because one of them didn't grow much and the other one took off, right? And so what he's doing is he's smoothing it out each year and going back to 25 percent, moving them around inside the 401K, doesn't cost anything to do it.

And then it restarts and then his contributions are still at a fourth. And then he gets to look at it again at the end of the year. Because he's a data guy, and he likes watching it happen, and so forth. And, you know, that's a cool thing. So that's what rebalancing is, resetting it to a fourth each, 25% each, because that's our portfolio mix that Rachel and I use both. Rachel and Winston, Dave and Sharon, it's what we've suggested here for 30 years. It's what all of my retirement is set up on.

But mine is not sitting at 25, 25, 25, 25, because I don't rebalance as often as he does. again I don't because I'm just not that into the details I don't care it's just a big old pile of money it's all I'm worried about right and so I'm that guy but the but it's kind of cool that he's doing that and especially if you like all the nerdy math stuff which I actually do so I probably would enjoy doing it right because I enjoy that part of it I like to see the trends and the patterns you know we're talking about over time over a decade and saying okay which ones are continuing to not perform as much or as well as others so yeah so that that's what we teach folks to do and what that does is is it each mutual fund

has 90 to 200 stocks in it so if you've got a growth fund that has 90 to 200 a growth in income that has 90 to 200 an international that has 90 to 200 and an aggressive growth that has 90 to 200 so you've then got somewhere between four and 800 stocks roughly except for the overlap that that you're invested across and that's a lot of safety because the chances of all of those as a group going down over an extended period of time is really close to zero okay that's called diversification when you spread it around it's diversification it's a big financial word sounds like charlie brown's teacher okay but all that means is spread your money around money's like manure it's better if it's spread it grows things okay and so spread it around don't put it all in one thing when you put it all

in one thing you increase your risk and so if you buy apple stock with a million dollars or you put it in 800 different stocks with a million dollars the safety factor is way different even though apple is pretty stinking cool and incredible and stable but still your risk level is way up when you're in one or two stocks welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fair Wins Credit Union Studio. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, and my daughter is my co-host today. Stacey's with us in Baton Rouge. Hi, Stacey.

How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm doing great. First-time caller, but I'm a second-generation Ramsey family, and I'm so thankful that you took my call. Well, thank you. A financial peace, baby. All right.

How can we help? I'll never forget cutting my parents' credit cards at eight years. gold. There you go. What a memory. That's awesome. How can we help? Well, we are doing pretty well. We're at our 30s and we made the decision whenever I got pregnant with my third baby to put my career on hold and be a full-time mom and kind of take care of our little side hustles and do that whole thing, which has been really incredible. We've done that for about a year. Neat. But before I did it, that, I was volunteering and providing services for our local parish, and since I've done that, that has picked up significantly. So I'm just curious, and I can go into more detail, but

should I be pithing less because I'm giving more in other ways? The overall answer is it doesn't matter because giving is giving. And there's not a an angry god standing up there with a calculator that's saying i can't bless you because you missed this by four dollars okay so this is the the whole point of the tithe is to create a giving heart and a rhythm of giving in your life not to create a burdensome rule okay that's the whole point okay so once we've said that then the answer could be whatever you want to do right The technical, the technical mathematical answer is no, because the tithe is based on a scripture in Deuteronomy and a scripture in Malachi and a scripture in two or three other places, and then it's reinforced by Jesus in the New Testament. For those of us that are evangelical Christians, and you said perish, so you're probably Catholic, right?

Yes, sir. Okay. And so, you know, you're reading through the scriptures and saying, okay, what's God's love letter to me? my dad's love letter saying that it is a good way for me to live my heavenly father is crazy about me he wants me to win he wants to turn me into a generous person okay and so that's the overarching thing we want to do now having said that then the technical nitsy thing that i would go on because i'm a math nerd not a pharisee okay is just that the tithe says to tithe on your net increase, which would be the money that you make. So if you run a business, your profits,

not your gross. Okay? If you're a wage earner, it would be your wages. And you can argue about whether net increases before or after taxes. There's lots of good teachings on either side of that. I tithe before taxes, just so when I get to heaven, if I'm wrong, I'm on the good side, right? So I mean, it's that it's that kind of but it's just funny to me it's not i'm not i'm not i always give more than a tithe anyway financially okay and i don't reduce it by the amount of volunteer hours you know i'm going to charge god $20 an hour for this volunteer out of my tithe you know i don't i don't do that um and it's okay if you do but um but i instead what i would do is just say hey I'm putting a lot over here

and so I'm going to put a little less over here and God's not mad about this he's just trying to teach us to be generous children so originally whenever I started so first of all I love your take because I do think that by doing what I've been doing the service I'm providing I'm attending church more because it's an in

mass service so I'm closer literally and figuratively to God than I've ever been and you're getting more out of it than you're giving yeah certainly and um they originally offered to pay me they pay the other people who do this um and i just said no because i had a job well so do i it's up to you it's up to you it's up to you it doesn't matter okay you you can whatever you want to do you can't outgive god so if you want to give more money or you want to give more time or both it's okay

And don't feel guilty if you decide, hey, this is kind of turning into a part-time job? And so if everyone around me in the same position gets paid and they've offered it and I take a paycheck from them, that's great. Or if I don't take a paycheck and I reduce my tithe by that much since I've been offered a paycheck. That's a whole other wrinkle in the discussion. You can add that. But there's just no, you can tell there's no guilt trip on our end. Yeah, I would just trust the spirit, Stacey, honestly. I know that's such a fickle answer sometimes.

but like what what does your gut say like what inside feels right and I think that there's a level of that that's okay that's the holy spirit talking to you and you and your husband talk to do it for sure do it don't do what dave said yeah if you feel kind of convicted one way or the other you know you may have a different store than someone else in your exact situation over here because they are leaning somewhere else of how they're feeling right so I don't know there yeah it's not a it's not a legalistic thing by any means but I think whatever makes you whatever feels right to you and again I think it's the selflessness versus the selfishness is one of the gifts in giving. And so there is something about that selflessness that's beautiful. And however that happens when you're giving your time or your

money. Yes, all of it. So the giving and the serving, you're creating that in you already. Yeah. I think you're a neat lady. Very cool. I'm proud of you. Oh. Very good stuff. I think you're pretty neat too. Well, very good stuff. There's just no way you can mess up generosity. okay so I you know we use tithing as a baseline and then certainly for many many years have gone way beyond the tithing well and that's baby step seven live and give like no one else and so which you're there's um and as you're already finding the most fun you're ever going to have with money is giving yeah absolutely and my husband is an engineer and he's kind of fickle and I think maybe that's why I like to get the he wanted a rule he wants a formula he wants a formula he wants a

His rule was that we do the math, of course, and take what they would be paying us, withdraw that, carry the one, and, you know, that's how much we're going to get. Because we're getting less regardless, because we're making less, right? I'm not working. Well, you're only giving on your income. Yeah, you only give on your income. Right. And then he could just multiply his flow formula times two, and he'd be okay.

It's all right. It doesn't matter. that's the point and so but the technical answer is the tithe evangelicals particularly teach stacey and depending on which parish i land in which priest i'm talking to i don't know which well type is 10th you can't fit you can't i know but but catholic i mean like like our friend pat linchione's a raving catholic he's one of my favorites and um he says i'm an evangelical catholic so um which you know what he means is he believes the bible okay that's what he means And so we love Pat.

And so it's a wonderful, we've had great discussions around these kinds of things in those settings. Yeah. And the whole point of it is taking care of your local church, taking, and hopefully they are the ones taking care of the city, the town you are. It's an extension. The widows and the orphans. It is an extension. And the priests, which is the pastors, or literally the priests. Yeah.

But the, you know, the past, make sure your pastors are being taken care of and the widows and the orphans, the single moms are being taken care of in your church. and you ought to be tithing in your local church. That's an evangelical teaching that's been around way longer than I have. Well, buying or selling a home is a big deal, but it's starting to happen. Man, these interest rates are down. They're getting down next to 5% on the 15-year fixed, and the market's starting to move. the grass is going to get green in your neighborhood and here we go baby game on gonna happen ramsie trusted program is the only way to find a top agent you can trust that

we have gone through we've checked them out uh with their high octane high protein and we do not put ramsie trusted on an agent unless they are a big time real estate agent so find a local ramsie trusted real estate pro for free at ramsie trust at ramsysolutions dot com slash agent or click the link in the show notes. Jolene is with us in Toronto. Hi, Jolene. How are you? Hi, Dave.

Thank you so much for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Okay, so I am single. I have no dependence, no errors. I'm completely debt-free. And by October 2028, I will have owned my home outright. I've spent my entire adult life intentionally saving

and working to be 100% debt-free. I am a planner, so I think about when I want to downsize, and I'm pretty much stuck between two options. I could buy a condo with cash, and I'm struggling with HOA fees, which could equate to 18 to 30,000 a year and likely rising, or I could rent and knowingly deplete my savings over time. So since I don't have anyone to leave money to, and I plan to spend my money during my lifetime, how do I think about the choice between owning a condo with a really high HOA fee versus renting and spending down my assets? Very interesting. Okay. It's a high HOA fee. Why is it mandatory that the condo have a high HOA fee?

Why are we stuck with that is the only option? it's not the only option I mean why don't we get a condo that doesn't have I-I-H-O-A fee I'm sorry I think about when preservation no longer matters how do I optimize yeah I understand but I'm just saying

anytime I have two options and neither one of them are fun it means I don't have enough options is what I mean and so that's why I ask about why don't we find a condo with a low HOA fee Because HOA fees, if assume, let's assume for a second, it's not always true, it's not true often enough that the HO is managed accurately, then the HOA fee should be covering actual costs of operating the condo, which would be roof replacement, parking lot management, you know, maintenance issues, taxes, insurance on the exterior shells. You carry your own insurance on the interior shells, I assume, in Canada, like we do in the States, and so on. Taxes would be additional.

Yeah. Taxes are additional. An additional. Okay. But, you know, so the only way an HOA fee would skyrocket is mismanagement or maintenance skyrocketed. Or one of the costs associated with operating the condo skyrocketed, right? Right. So here's the thing.

If you rented a condo in that exact same thing and the HOA fee was accurate, your rent would cover the H.O.A. fee. So you're paying the HOA fee either way. Correct. I guess the question comes down to philosophically, would I own outright if I could pay for it outright? Or do I revert back to renting? Yes, I would own outright. And the reason is this, you're stabilizing the largest line item in your budget into old age. Because rent... But then my largest asset is trapped into a home. Yes. So what. You're living in it. I die with all my assets trapped into a home instead of depleting my savings.

You want to rent and travel and spend it all? Yeah. Okay. I don't, there's not a, I have no errors. It's not evil to do that. The problem is you don't sound that old. How old are you? 49.

Yeah, I didn't think you're that old. Okay. So, I mean, we're talking about a 40-year plan. We're talking about a 40-year plan here. You know how much rent's going to go up in 40 years? Yeah. That scares the crap out of me. It's the unknown.

I think that is a little nerve-wracking for your home, right? I think you're... Unknown for your shelter, for your place of protection and where you're going to be. You know what you mean? Like there's something about having no risk in that that gives peace that if you want to go travel and do other things, it may not be as big and luxurious because to your point, a lot of your money's tied up in the helmet.

But at least there's like, but at least there's this stability of knowing that if you, you know, get hurt, something happens to you that your place is paid for. Do you know what would the condo cost? If I were to downsize, I would pay it for a cash. So it would basically be the cost of my home or less. What would be equal to it? How much money would the condo cost?

600 to 800,000 maybe. And how much do you have in your nest egg total? I have $8.50 an investment. Locked. I have my home, which is about 800. Okay. And I have liquid of about 400. So my total net is around $2 million. Okay. What I would do is buy the condo for cash and ride that for 20 years and then remake this decision. Hmm. That's a good idea. If you run out of your money and you're like, you're not going to run out of money in 20 years. Because you're not even going to spend your income that this is creating. I don't, you're just talking to you, you're not going to spend too

$200,000 a year on travel? She might. Are you? Jolene sounds fun. No, I haven't traveled. No. I mean, what are you going to spend $200,000? What are you going to do to consume $200,000 a year?

Because you've never done that in your life. I think that's the philosophical question of that. What point do I stop saving and start living? Now. How much do you make now, Jolene? I make between two and $300 a year. And are you going to retire anytime soon? Or are you just going to?

I'm so concerned. concerned about not having revenue that I don't want to retire I would I'm trying to calculate I would read I'm trying to calculate what my house yeah so I would I would buy a 600,000 condo I would pay cash for it and you'll be sitting on a million to a million and a half dollars making 300k you can do anything you want for the next 20 years and you can work as much of that or as little as you want you can slow down a little bit and go travel or go whatever it is but philosophically you let's say a million and a half is going to create somewhere around $150,000 a year income without touching the nest egg,

without consuming it. The goose is going to lay without touching the goose. The goose is going to lay 150,000 nestsakes, okay? And so I should stop saving when my $850 investment becomes 1.2 or something. Whatever. You run your number out, whatever you want to be. But the point is that you're going to have a hard time. consuming all of this money, even if you pay cash for a condo.

Because the money's going to be making money almost as fast as you're spending it. So that said, doesn't it, do we care if it's $30,000 a year in HOA fees or rent, then? Do I need to own? Yes, I would own because it stabilizes because rent goes up every year and it destabilizes this whole freaking plan. You're 49. Think about what rent was when you were nine. I know. I know.

And that's what you're talking about here. So when you're 90, that's what we're talking about. And you don't want to be paying rent at 90. I know. This plan sucks. I'm trying to. Renting long term is not a good idea because it destabilizes it because it goes up every year more than the cost of operating the condo does. And the condo goes up in value too.

And you can always liquidate it and decide to consume the whole deal in your last 25 years if you have, if you have the luxury knowing when that is. I think that's a great plan. I don't think you didn't make a decision right now for the next 40 years of your life. Cut that in half. And it's so funny because I'm like, she's kind of, in one way, I'm like, oh, she's a little scarcity-minded because she's like, oh, I just, I don't want any revenue to stop, so I'm going to just work, work, work, work, work. But then in a way, it's a little bit of this like, oh, yeah, I'll just pay for rent

and it doesn't matter on the other end of the equation, you know? I don't know. Right place to splurge. Yes, that's it. I think that I would agree with that. have the home, have the peace, that that, nothing can be taken away from you. It is there, it is there. And yeah, when you turn 60, if you hate it and you're going on cruises every once a month,

and you're like, you know what the house. I predict you will sell the condo before 60 for one or two or three reasons, you know. A downsize. About the time I think I'm going to live in a house until I die. I live too long. So there you go. Today's question of the day is brought to you by Why Refi when it feels like your private student loans have buried your future. Why Refi can help you dig out with low fixed rate refinancing and a clear path forward.

Go to yrefi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y, rafy.com slash Ramsey. Not in all states. Today's question comes from Aiden in Alabama. My fiancé and I have been practicing budgeting as we prepare for marriage. We're both debt-free except for my house, and once we combine finances, we'll have extra money left each month. She likes shopping. I like to spend money on golf trips and don't buy many clothes. Would it make sense to set up a separate fund money or separate fund money accounts from

our joint account with a set amount deposited each month for us to spend however we want? I worry that when I take a solo trip, I might feel guilty about spending money on things that I enjoy that she doesn't really care about. Yes. Welcome to marriage, Aiden. Yeah, absolutely. That's going to happen. Yes, you're going to spend things that she doesn't care about. She's going to spend money on things that you don't care about.

But that's why together you decide, hey, here's how much money a month we're going to spend that we each get to spend. And you get to do it guilt-free. There's no worry because it's. It's a set amount. Now, if you go over that amount, then, yeah, there's going to be some frustration of, hey, we said this amount and you're going over it, but that's a whole other discussion. If you want to open, he's saying set up a separate account for fund money only to deposit the money from the budget, the joint budget and the joint account into a fund money account.

You could do that or you could just open up a sinking fund. Just do a sinking fund in every dollar. Well, but it's separate fund money accounts. So she has a fun money account. It's fine. It feels like It feels like different checking accounts Do it all out of my account

And it's in the budget And in the budget Okay, if you get $200 for your fund money And Winston gets $200 for his fund money Where do you put that money? It's all in our checking. Okay. Yeah.

But how do you keep up with it's his? Every dollar. Okay, you're slinking fund. No, not a sinking fund. Just when the transaction comes in I get my nails done, I drag it into the Rachel line item. Yeah, but what if you don't spend the whole $200 in a month?

Well, that's a bigger discussion of how what would you do in any category? saving up for a golf trip in any category well in that case yeah then you do a sinking fund okay yeah and just put money aside that's what i'm saying that's the same thing i mean the only question is whether you just how do you do the accounting to separate it and keep it separate so that he doesn't feel like he's spending her money or she doesn't feel like he's spending her so you do it with a sinking fund if it goes over the portion of a month or you could have a separate account just for the trip just for the fund money yeah that's okay i don't know i don't know why it feels legalistic i don't know i don't

I feel legal estate. That feels like separate accounts to me. Okay. All right. I don't care. I don't do it. As long as everybody has access to it and you can see. Oh, 100%.

And all of that. 100%. But like different line items. Because even in different savings, like high yield savings, you can have different line items within it. Yeah. Within the actual account. Yeah.

So I wonder if you could do it that way too. But I think it's sinking fund in every dollar is a better plan. Yeah. Actually, because you don't get into the. This is my. The spirit of it. Well, yeah, it's the, this is my money over here. Yeah.

This is my money. And so it is. Well, it has been allocated to. It's been allocated, but it starts to feel. Well, let me give you an example, okay, that fixes it. Okay, so like, when we first started doing this, you were a little kid, and your mother would be, would play the Southern Bell martyr and spend all of the clothing money on the kids. And, of course, I'm buying clothing money at two for work, right?

Right. Period. So she ends up with no clothing. Yeah. So I ended up to get her to stop doing that. We were using envelopes with cash-in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had a kid's clothing envelope and a Sharon's clothing envelope and she had to spend the Sharon money on Sharon. Yeah. No excuse. Because she would spend it all on y'all and I'll just wear the drapes. You know, I'll make something out of the drapes. Hashtag limit O'Hara, right? I'll take the drapes down and it'll be okay. And, you know, like, there's no reason to be a martyr. We have. That's Sound of Music. That's Maria on Sound of Music. She took the drapes down from the captain.

They did. They did. And they did it in sound in both places. Yeah. It's where Sound of music got it. But anyway. Still, man. I hear you.

I hear you. The important thing in this whole discussion, Aidan, is that you're not even married and you're already both concentrating on this. That means you're going to win. Yeah. And there's a little bit of me. I kind of like the exposure. I think it's good practice for yourself.

spend money on yourself and let your spouse see it because one of his things I might feel guilty spending money on things that you should enjoy it. I'm like, you have to learn about that in merit. Like there is like there's a part when you kind of just hide that over here so I don't have to feel guilty. That's where I'm like run into that. Like go straight into that emotion. Okay. Let her see what you're spending. Let her be like, I think that was probably kind of stupid and silly or whatever she's going to say to you. Hopefully she shouldn't say that. But I don't know. I don't understand you spend that much money to put a very small white ball in a very small I don't understand.

Golf, I don't understand it, yes. I don't understand purses that cost more than a car. So, yeah. But it's, yeah, it's, I don't know. These are great discussions to have in marriage. I think it's good to kind of face it head on. You need another gun? Yes, I do.

Oh, my gosh. As a newly wed couple, I think there's like a level of exposure there that's good to live in. And she may feel silly about buying something that you don't think, but I think that's good discussion to have, like talk about those things. Yeah. Versus avoiding it and putting it in separate. account so you don't have to feel it. Okay. That's what was tickling your spirit.

Maybe. I don't know. He was hiding it over there. He was ducking the emotion. Yes. I like everything in the lights. Bring it in the lights. Yes.

Yes. That's good. But the great news and the overall thing is, Aden, you guys are going to win because the number of people that are smart enough to do what you guys are doing right now and actually have these discussions before marriage, boom, boom, boom, you're going to be huge. Y'all are going to be amazing. You're going to be very wealthy. These are indicators that are just incredible for you.

Way to go. Jillian's in Charlotte. Hey, Jillian, what's up? Hi, Dave and Rachel. Hi. I have a question about paying for college. Cool. I have the answers to all your questions.

So do you want to ask me or do you want to start? What are you asking? Tell me what the first I need to know the question about how to pay for college now or in the future. How to pay, how to navigate the next. next four years of my life. Gotcha. How old are your kiddos and how many? We have three children.

Our daughter graduated from UT in 23, so one down, two to go, and she is married, so she's off of our payroll. Good. Okay, so we got two to deal with. And they are 17 and 18. Okay. How did you pay for college for the first one? out on my nose and around my elbow and you know yeah well and out of state

Jillian right yeah yeah so you don't have you don't have the money for these other two is that what you're saying right but um I have seven seven grand in a 529 but we didn't have that or youth any for her college got and she came out, you know, her degree cost about 208, and she had 18,000 in debt, which she's almost got that. What's her degree in? She went to UT. She went out of state.

That's not $118,000. Just four-year tuition? Yeah. It's $20,000 a year. For what? It's 52 per year at UT, out of state. University of Tennessee is $52,000 a year out of state. state they don't want you people apparently or they do they want her money because it's

$12,000 a year for in-state did she do nurse did she do um okay they're really good to their in state Tennessee is very good to the Tennessee yeah okay all right let's move on we're going to run out of time let's move on we got a 17 and an 18 year old they're going in state because you don't have the money well and they're going to a community college for the first two years, because you don't have the money? No, one of them is finishing his first year at the community college, and he's going to Appalachian State. The other one is...

How much is Appalachian State? Appalachian, I mean, all-in, housing, room, board, tuition, fees, and books is about 28. Okay, so here's the thing. The thing that causes people not be able to pay for college is not college. It's college choice. you choose a college that fits your budget the kid works you take scholarships you stay in state and you choose a college that fits your budget and that's how you pay for college

okay time to circle back uh we have a best not best not best selling. That's not right. No, no, no, no, no, no. I just said it during the break. I said let's don't. No, no, no, no. I'm not talking about that. Okay. Um, yeah, y'all are right in a family discussion here, but, um, no, the, uh, we have a documentary, Rachel called, called, uh, that the public knows about, okay, and, uh, that I can talk about since I own it. And, um, yeah, it's called borrowed future and it's award winning and you can watch it for free and it's talking about the student loan debacle and what's going on as we did in-depth detailed research on this ridiculous student loan crisis and it is ridiculous there's 1.8 trillion

dollars in student loan debt now and congress talks about it being bad everybody talks about it being bad but they keep doing it if it's so bad you have to forgive it but you keep making the loans that's intellectually dishonest okay and so anyway all of that is in that documentary and you can watch it but the thing that the core thing comes down to our last caller okay how do you pay for college if you list out five things that impact whether you can pay for college the thing that takes up 70 percent 75 percent of the space and the other four take up the 25 percent of the space is college choice because nothing in our society has a wider spectrum of cost than colleges, okay? So, an example being that in-state tuition

for the University of Tennessee, I said 12,000. We looked it up during the break is 13,000. I missed it. Okay. And out-of-state tuition is not 52,000. Out-of-state tuition is 32,000. But with room and board. But with room and board all in, it was about 50,000, and the girl went to school four years, and she had 200,000 out of pocket. So that's what the mom said. So the mom's numbers were right, but it was all in. It wasn't room and board and everything else. Right. And that's pretty hefty on those numbers.

But anyway, so you have to ask yourself, what am I getting for what I'm spending? Okay. So what do you get when you go to a college? You get the college experience, whoopty-d-d-d-pty. You get to say you went to that school, which there's no correlation between, what school you go to and what success you have, no piece of research ever, has ever said

a certain school is more successful than another. None. A lot of people believe it, but it's not true. There's no data to back it up. Okay. So if you want to go to a super expensive, fancy, fancy school that has a big name on it and you have the money, it's fine. I'm not mad at you, but don't tell me that you have a higher probability being successful because there's no data to back up your statement so what are you getting if you get basically the same knowledge base so i've been to the university of north carolina i graduated from the university of tennessee both are fine academic institutions if you graduate from either one of them we will hire you at ramsie okay if you went to Alabama you'll have to kind of squeeze through but yeah yeah there you go

that's funny i don't know there's an alabama lady sitting there And Bobby's back there. Yeah, that's questionable about that stuff. Florida for sure. But anyway. So you see what I'm saying? So the point is, if you could pay $13,000

or you can pay $32,000 for the same thing, why would you do that? And they're literally 300 miles, 200 miles apart. The only thing that she's closer to the University of Tennessee than we are in Nashville, when she's where she's calling from,

but she had to go across the state line and ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, tripled the cost. Why? Would you do that? If you're short on money. Now, if you have the money, that's fine. Like, I've got a friend who sent his kid to Alabama,

but he went to Alabama, and he's got plenty of money. And, by the way, Alabama has actually, actually really good out-of-state tuition. They like out-of-state people. So I can make a real funny comment about that, but I'm not. But anyway, just keep moving. But the point is, where you go to school, you only do that if you have the freaking money. In most states now, you can go to a community college free or almost free for the first two years. so don't spend $76,000 in student loan debt a year to go to Vanderbilt

that's stupid now if you again if your mama's rich and she's going to write you a check I'm okay if you want to go to Vanderbilt whatever yes I'm okay if you want to go to Vanderbilt if you want to go I don't care, but don't go in debt to that and tell me you got a bargain. You did not get a bargain. So how in the world can children go to school? You go to a school in place they can afford, and you make wise choices based on the value

that you're getting for what you're spending, and that is huge. And folks, Rachel, you said this in the documentary, and I'll never forget it because I thought it was really wise. You said it's more of a parenting problem than it is a student loan problem. problem. Yeah, well, because the 18-year-olds, their frontal cortex of their brain isn't even fully formed, you know? So I'm like, they're still kids. I mean, yes, they're 18, but they're not. I mean, they're stupid. They don't know. And I do think the repercussions of what happens in your life, because we sit in these chairs, you know, every day taking calls from people that have 38,000,

100,000 of student loan debt. And they're, you know, they're working their way out. 104,000 in a parent plus loan because mom and dad borrowed the money to facilitate the stupidity. that was in the first hour yeah so it's just it is the 18 year old doesn't know doesn't understand the full consequences and repercussions of this decision that they're making at 18 and that's what's so frustrating about it right i'm like if you're can't buy fear but they can borrow 100 grand yes seriously and if they go and try to get a mortgage or something i'm like no no one would give them that much money ever the banks wouldn't give them that much money the government wasn't so stupid that it guaranteed it yeah yeah that's the thing so it is so i mean so i mean so i mean

I mean, this is the deal. So, moms and dads, listen, here's the deal. You go $12,000 a year. You live at home for the first two years and you go to community college and then you need $12,000 year. That's $24,000. You've got a degree from an in-state tuition like the University of Tennessee University of North Carolina. Okay. Two years in a community college transfer, plan your curriculum out to where it's all the credits transfer and all of it meshes up and works in the syllabus.

It's not rocket surgery. If you can't do that, you probably can't graduate from college anyway. So you need to do this. Okay. lay out the plan, execute the freaking plan, and if you lived at home the entire time, you could do it for $24,000. You can make that driving Uber while you're in school. You can make that delivering pizza mowing grass while you're in school.

Go to Home Depot and buy a leaf blower. Rich people are afraid of leaves. They will hire you to blow their leaves, okay? You can do this. You can go to school working if you keep your stinking costs down. Retail. Work retail. You can keep your costs down.

and get through we can't work while you're in school everybody listening to me right now worked while they were in school except the three people that said that just now you know seriously you everybody worked I worked I was in school like an animal because the only I had to have money I didn't mean money we were so broke we couldn't pay attention I went out on the first date with my wife I had a dollar 17 in my checking account I mean come on people this is this is This is college. What do you think this is? The Taj Mahal?

Yeah, but what's happened is it's, it's, I know. The debt has been so normalized that you live off of it. You don't have to work, right? Because it's all paid for it. It's all right there. So it is a, you. Stinking colleges have a lazy river. No, they don't.

Yes, they do. One does. You can float down the river. No. Yes, it does with an intertube, just like you're at the park, like you're in six flags. Promise you. I, yeah. We have been to some campuses and some stuff.

You guys have lost your minds. It's all financed by state funded. You know, and so, guys, choose a school you can afford. And get your kid knowledge. The degree is worthless. And if you're a parent with a senior in high school. Knowledge is what matter. Replay this clip if they're a senior in high school because school choice, it's coming around the corner for these seniors.

If they haven't already done early acceptance. So, well, you don't have to go just because you get accepted. That's true. I know somebody like that. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio. Tom is in Seattle. Hey, Tom, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave, thanks for taking my call.

Sure. What's up? Dave, I just need your opinion, if you two would be so kind to give it, on an upcoming rather sizable purchase I have planned. Okay. My 11-year, I'm sorry, my 11-month-old pup needs an operation that's going to run about $7,000. And so my wife and I have mutually decided to cancel our vacation this year, and we're going to get her taken care of. All my friends and neighbors that I've told about this,

just look at me and shake their heads as if they don't agree. You know, what do you think? Am I missing something? I cannot see not doing this. Okay. I'd say a couple things, Tom. Do you guys have the $7,000? Yes.

Okay. And is the surgery, there a guarantee at the end of this? No, there's no guarantee, but they guarantee without it, she will go lame fairly quickly. Is it a bulldog? No. Okay. No, she's a Chihuahua mixed.

Okay, I was going to say, our George Camel just spent a sizable amount more than, I think, what you're about to spend on his, and his ended up in a wheelchair. His dog really did. Yeah, he's in a wheelchair right now. Yeah. Okay, well, I'm taking it. We've been picking on Georgia about it. So, but, yeah, but good-naturedly, we love Georgia and down, but he's, he's fun about it.

But, so, okay, first thing is the Ramsey's are unbelievable dog lovers, okay? So my, my opinion is skewed. I mean laughingly I could say if it was a cat no way right I'm kidding but no so I'm kidding that's a joke okay but um but the uh but yeah I love my little dog I walk three miles with her in the morning and um you know the thing I run into with people on this question and I've had this question over 30 years several times or something like it is the first thing is are we doing this for the animal and is it going to be in pain is this selfish on the humans part so for instance i know a lady that put i know a lady that put her dog through four

years of chemo that was unfair to the dog in my opinion okay she was doing that because she didn't want to lose the dog but the poor dog suffered okay and you know that that's harsh as far as as i'm concerned i wouldn't do that to a dog i love but i cry every single time like like a 10-year-old girl when we put a dog down. When we put ours down, you cried. I did. I came over and visited yours the day before she went before Nala went to heaven. Yeah.

And all dogs do go to heaven. There's no question. So it's a theological fact. But the, but so, you know, that's not the question. The thing is, number one is the dog, are you doing this for you or for the dog? Because I could fall into the category. If I'm not real careful, I don't want, I don't want to lose my dog. You know, I mean, I love them.

and so I'll do anything and but that's not fair to the dog and because these are dogs are not humans and so it's a different it's a different measure far as I'm concerned you ask our opinion so anyway what but is seven thousand dollars completely unreasonable on a one year old dog if it fixes it mostly and the dog is not going to be in pain because you are selfish as a human to keep it around if a dog walks with a limp and hurts the rest of its life because you did this and you didn't have the courage to make a call, that's not fair to the dog. But if the dog is healthy after this and you get 10 good years with the pup, you know, or whatever after this, because of this, the pup has a great life after that, and you got the

$7,000, no, I don't think you're crazy then. If you got the $7,000, you're going to put on a credit card, nope, sorry, you couldn't afford the dog. Nope, I've got the money and, yeah, we're going to do it. Yeah, you see what I'm saying, though? but yeah i mean i understand that because it depends on where your neighbor grew up right my wife grew up on the farm and let me tell you a hundred percent chance that dog ain't going to make it okay she's got she's not does not have this yeah yeah she's more she does not

dog crazy like i am right so this seven thousand dollars nope nope nope not happening hey y'all spend a crazy amount on maggie's hips your golden retriever but i did it in spite of your mother. I mean, you know, yeah. And I got, and that dog had 10, 12 good years. You know, we did spend some money on that dog. That was a golden retriever had bad hips, okay? And as a pup, we had to do the hips.

And so it was, it was expensive. But it was a pain in the butt. But the dog was great. It's one of the best dogs ever had. So, anyway, all that to say, yeah, but. You're not crazy. Just don't make sure the dog isn't suffering. But if you grew up, as long as you're not hurt,

as long as you're not being a selfish, immature person and you're doing this and Herman the animal. You know what I'm saying? No. No. And so this is for all the people that are trying, that are going to hate me after this. So just get in line.

All you cat people get in line right behind the dog people that get in line, behind the credit card people to get in line. It's a long line around the block. Yeah. There's a spectrum of what people's threshold is. Yeah. For an animal, a pet, right? Financially.

Yeah. And your mother's is much lower because animals come and go on the farm. And George, I think, is even past you, Dave. I think are George Campbell. George is over our line. Yeah, he's over my line. George will do anything for those dogs. Yeah.

And so it's where you fall, personal value, where you want to put your money, to make sure you have the money. And don't, and be a kind person that doesn't cause an animal to hurt for your selfish, because you're selfishly weak and can't go through the pain of doing the right thing. Right. You know? It's just, that's a lack of courage on the humans. part, and that's unfair to the animal.

That's inhumane as far as I'm concerned. And I see people do that because they're just like, oh, well, you can't get rid of, whatever. And we get, because we all get so attached to them. Oh, my gosh. I like my dog more than I like a lot of people. I mean, you know, it's really, I do. We do get attached to them. Dave, big dog, small dog.

I like them all. I really do. I like dogs. And Jade lost hers a few weeks ago. I know. She'd had him for 12 years or something. Big old Rockweiler, and they had to put him down. They were part of the family.

He just couldn't get up one morning. Yeah. It's awful. And, yeah, it's just. Dad's dog now is a little, what is Bella? She's a bear dog. No, she's not a bear dog. She's a legendary, yeah.

This breed keeps away bears, and I think the legend is true because I've not seen a bear since I got her, so I'm pretty sure. Yeah, she's 12 pounds. Just know, we all hear. Bella! Bella! Where's Bella? Like, Dad, she's in the other room.

Just go, go, go. Get her. Go get her. They give me a hard time. The whole family. The whole family. On vacation. This was on vacation.

Just. No, that's not true. It's not true. But, yeah, it's funny. We love our dogs, though. We are dog people. But you're not crazy. You're not crazy.

All three Ramsey kids have a dog, and we have a dog, and we love our dogs, and all three of us cry when we put them down, and that's the way it is, and it's part of, you're not, unless something really how bad happens to you, you're going to outlive them. regardless. So you better get, you better get that as part of the program. Noel is in San Antonio. Hi, Noel. How are you? Hello, I'm doing good. How about you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Yes. I currently have a card note that's $1,200. And I'm looking to, at first I wanted to get a single family home. But now that I've been doing research and looking into getting wealth, I was thinking on a multi-family home. I'm just wondering if I'm at a good, point in my life to get it right now, or should I wait on it? You should wait.

You should get your debts paid off, either get rid of the car or pay the car off. That car payment is out of control. Is it $1,200 a month, Noel, or the whole note is $1,200? No, it's $1,200 a month. A month. How old are you? Yeah, I'm 24. How much do you make a year?

60, but I just got a job offering, and they said I could be up in there, in the 80s. Yeah, and what do you owe on this car, sir? I owe 80. 80? Yeah. Let me as kindly as I possibly can say that's insanity. Yes, it is.

Trust me, I did not want to get this vehicle. Yes, you did. You got the vehicle, and you're 24, and you were sober, and you signed the note. So, yes, you did want to get it, but yes, you do need to get rid of it. Yes. Now? I tried calling them trying to see if I could trade it in maybe for something older because my parents basically forced me to get it because they said I should get something reliable since I have two kids and before this vehicle I was having a lot of car problems and you have a lot of excuses is what you have. You're a 24 year old man. Your parents don't force you to do anything. Yeah, there's some struggling. There's definitely putting

the blame of the car on other people, Noelle. Just so you hear us, I mean, my parents forced me. I had to, these are pretty extreme statements that you didn't have to do any of this. And you could get a reliable car for $10,000. Yeah. For your two kids. So you need to sell this car. Yeah.

You don't need to trade it in on something slightly older. You need a $10,000 car. How did you get the financing for this, though? If you make $60, how did they finance you an $80,000 car? Well, first I had traded in an equinox. I had and uh was a negative value rolled over yes okay and then my grandma helped me co-signed also oh they loaned her the money yeah your poor grandmother yeah oh my gosh you got to get out of this car oh man I'm so scared for her right now no I really am this is not going to go well sir

what do you think this car is actually worth I called today saying what it's worth and they said it's about 40 and you were how far upside down on the equinox I think it was 30 I believe okay and so this has already lost 10,000 and you bought it how long ago

I'd say like eight months ago oh my gosh honey yeah no you don't need to be talking about buying any kind of house, you have an extreme car crisis on your hands and your grandmother is at risk. I'm very afraid for her right now and I really, really, really want you guys to take six jobs and start paying extra on this car. Pretend like you have $40,000 in credit card debt

and you have a $40,000 car debt. Yeah. Yeah, the finance manager at this leadership should be put in jail. Horrible. So horrible. They took an old lady and put her on as a co-signer. Yeah, they With a guy making $60,000, with negative equity. So stupid. This is, this is, it's not illegal, but it's legalized fraud. This is ridiculous. And who knows what interest rate. Yeah.

It was $1,200, yeah. Oh, my God. And he makes $60,000. So honey. Yeah, so, Noel, I would be acting like I make $40, and if you get this extra $80, which is amazing, get this car paid off in a year. Like, you have some upside on this, but this needs to be your number one focus. Yeah.

Clear the car. Do not act like you make 80 if you get this job. Clear the car. For God's sakes, honey, take care your grandmother by clearing the car. Because it's going to land back in her lap. Because it's going to go sideways if you don't straighten it up. And so far, your track record on cars is pretty lousy. So, and don't go back over to that dealership for anything, ever.

Just drive by and wave at them. And go on Kelly Blue Book and just see a private sale. I'm just curious if it's a little bit more. Right? You can have, if there's any more relief in it, even a couple of thousand dollars. There's any way you could sell it for 50 and get a hoopty? Tell your parents to jump in a creek and start paying off the other 40 or 30 so your grandmother doesn't get screwed over here. Because this thing's going down in value every stinking day you own it and it's adding to the problem.

So you need to get rid of it. But you're going to have to cover the difference somewhere. And I don't know how. your poor grandmother oh i'm so pissed right now at the dealer at the mom and dad i'm sad for the grandmother i'm sad for noelle and yet they all were adults and all made decisions wow see grandmalls attention grandmothers 100% of the time you co-sign you're stupid 100 oh he's a good little boy he'll pay it

honey he's dumber than a rock he can't pay the bill not you noel no I'm serious you cannot pay the freaking bill I don't care how sweet he is I don't care if he's out of your DNA he cannot pay the bill that's why they called you old lady don't co-sign for your grandkids kids you're not a blessing you're a curse you helped him get trapped don't do that grandparents

and parents quit telling people to buy crap they can't afford because your grandbabies are riding in it unless you're writing a freaking check shut up oh my gosh you people this is ridiculous killing me these poor people man and then you go in there in this car finance guy smoking crack Who makes this loan? Who makes this loan but a crackhead? Nobody. Oh my God. You loaned $80,000 to an old lady and a kid that don't make enough to pay the bill.

You crackhead, you ought to be put in jail. This is ridiculous. Oh, my gosh. See, this is what happens. This is the problem. You guys get victimized by these stinking car companies by these student. loans, you get victimized by Citibank because Samuel Jackson, who has a little red wagon carrying his money around, because he made it all trying to sell you city bank.

What's in your wallet? It ain't Samuel Jackson's money, I can tell you that. So you guys got to quit doing this stuff, man. You got to quit lining up like sheep to the slaughter. You just walk in and go, I'll take a $150,000 student loan and yeah, I got to get my cash back, Samuel, Well, thank you. And that guy that lives in the Citibank lobby, he don't live in the Citibank lobby, people. That's an actor. Hello. He lives in a mansion that he paid for by being an actor on Citibank commercials.

With your money, hello. Quit believing this crap, y'all. You're getting screwed by all these people. The borrower is slave to the lender. Quit lining up and tell me I was forced to buy. You weren't forced to do squat. You're like a grown person and stuff. Act like it.

Quit this, people. Noel, I'm not just yelling at you, honey. I'm yelling at you. I'm yelling at everybody that's like you that's out there listening and they're all going, good God. I want you to be free, honey. I'm glad you called here, and we'll help you. We'll put you on hold.

I'm going to put you with one of our coaches for free since I picked on you so hard. But, honey, my God, do some math. Jeez, this is just how in the world somebody find that finance manager and put him in jail. Please, before he acts again. I'm just glad you haven't picked on Jennifer Gardner.

Oh, I need to. I can do hair extension, but then not have to get you. No, sweet, sweet, sweet Jennifer Gardner. Are you staying on track with the baby steps? so you can take a quick quiz to check your progress and receive a personalized plan just for you. Click the show notes and say, hit the link says, are you on track with the baby steps?

Free quiz, get you on track, show you what you're doing. We'll help you, help you develop a personalized plan right quick. Ashley is with us in Columbus, Ohio, on the other end of the spectrum, one of our Baby Steps Millionaires. Congratulations, Ashley. What's your net worth? 1.16 million, Dave.

1.16. Okay, cool. Break that down for me a little bit. What's the categories, like 401K and so forth, and how much? Yes. So in our house equity, we have $420,000 in investments, which include retirement, our $529 plan. We have $570,000. Personal assets slash collectibles. We have $120,000. And then we have about $50,000 in cash. Good. Well done. How old are you? I'm 30 and my husband's 29 Wow you're young millionaires How much of this did you inherit So we were blessed that my husband's parents Had a 529 plan for him

That was not used up We inherited a hundred thousand dollars That's now a school fund for our daughter And we got that this past wintertime So we were just over the millionaire mark Before we inherited that But we are blessed that we were able to have that from his parents Absolutely

Absolutely. That's great. But the point being mathematically, you did not become a millionaire because of inherited money. Correct. So, how did you do it? By 30? We're very boring. So I thankfully found you relatively young. I was graduating. Wait a minute. That's not boring. I like that. So I found you when I was graduating. I realized I had a bunch of student loan debt and I was trying to find a plan of how to pay that off. I found y'all. and I've just followed your plan ever since. So we're very boring. We invest. We are big savers, actually, both of us.

We kind of break the norm. Do you have any fun? Yes, we do. What do you do this fun? We travel a lot. We buy things that we want when we want them. What's the coolest place you've traveled to? The coolest place we've traveled to.

I would say we did a joint trip both to Paris and then to Ireland. That doesn't sound like boring. Yeah, that's fun. No. We got to do Paris when I was pregnant with our first, and then we got to go to Ireland to pick up a great gift for one of my husband's employees, which was such a blessing and a really fun time. Wow.

Very cool. Very cool. So, man. So you have had fun. You've had a life. But boring, I think you just mean you're intentional. Correct. Well, nothing flashy.

You're just investing. I don't know. Paris is pretty flashy. No, no, no, I'm saying, like, from a wealth-building perspective. They're not like, oh, we're going to go do all this, like, you know, crypto-all-this. It's just like, we just invest, and that's, you know, the main thing, which is great. Yeah, we live below our means. That's something that we've always done.

I'd never used credit cards drawing up, neither did my husband. What's been your income through this period of time? So our lowest or worst income, I was making about $37,000, and my husband was making about $30. We weren't married at the time, so we were separate. And then our best income year was probably this past year before I become a stay-at-home mom at $325,000. Oh, nice. And you became millionaires on that by age 30. Yeah.

Wow. Correct. Very, very cool. Very cool. What are your careers? My husband's an aviation management, and I'm a geologist who's working to become a stay-at-home mom in the next couple months. That's cool. What do you do as a geologist?

I play in the dirt, I like to say. Yeah. That's cool. How many kids do you have? we have one baby girl and a baby boy on the way hey good for you so great Ashley that's congratulations so proud for y'all very very very well done so if we got a 20-something out there listening what would what would you tell them I would say my husband's advice and he's very adamant about this is to live below your means and don't try to be fancy or clever

be boring do the slow things invest save for your future don't try to outsmart the system There is no outsmarting it. Do the boring things, as I said before. And then my advice would be, I was very thankful that I found you young. I worked seven days a week to pay off my loans and save money. I always thought of it when I was in debt as that I had negative money. And that really motivated me to be responsible and work as hard as I could when I was young. Now that I have babies, you know, I want to be home with them and there's more excuses to not work hard.

And thankfully, we're in a position where we don't have to, I don't have to work so. 70s a week, but I worked hard young so that I can now reap the reward a little bit older and spend time with my family. You lived like no one else, and now you can live and give like no one else. Exactly. It's almost like a plan. I like it. It's awesome, Ashley.

Well done. Very well done, Ashley. Excellent. Excellent. What kind of car do you drive? I drive Alexis SUV, and my husband drives a BMW SUV. What year? My husband's, I believe, is a 2000.

2021. Mine's a 20, 2005. Oh, you drive a junker. Okay. We're working on upgrading. That will be when baby number two comes. Yeah, you need to. That car sucks. I don't mind what I drive, though. I know. I can tell. It doesn't bother you a bit. It's a great car. Lexuses will run forever. Yeah, apparently. This one has, yeah. Almost. It's a 20-year. It's a 300,000 miles on it. It's a 21-year-old vehicle. It's a fine vehicle. Good for you, absolutely. Yeah, good for you. So proud of you. It's excellent.

The number of times that somebody's driving a Toyota when they're millionaires, the first one to two million is just scary to me. I don't know what it is about Toyotas, but they're everywhere, yeah. And, of course, Lexus is a Toyota in case you didn't know, folks. But, okay, very cool. Congratulations, Ashley. You're the great American hero, man. Baby Steps Millionaire.

Start doing our stuff when they're baby children. I mean, 20 years old, right? And just like game on and clean up the student loan mess that they had and work like a crazy person. And make great income. Now she's got, now she doesn't have to ask the question, can I, afford to stay at home. The question doesn't come up.

Such a gift, yep. And so they can easily live on his income. They've already got a $1 million net worth by age 30, which, by the way, you can do just a quick predictions. It's fairly easy to say that if they stay just generally on track, it's probably 20 or $25 million when they're $65. That's about where that'll land. So not too shabai.

Well done. It's called Changing the Old Family Tree right there. So mom and dad left $100,000. Well, and they both grew up. Nope. They both grew up with, they both said, we both, you know, never had credit cards. You know what I mean? So the household environment that you're raising your family in, that matters.

More is caught than taught, Rachel Cruz says, yes. They're watching. Yeah, they're going to do what you do. And so financial peace babies do matter. Yeah, it's a big deal. And so she grew up learning this stuff, obviously. It's a benefit of having, for me, of having been doing this now for 35 plus years is that I am getting to see second and even third generation of people that have been following this stuff. And the results are astronomical with compound interest and with wisdom parlayed over that many decades, what you start to see happen.

And so, I mean, if you think about Rachel was born in April, we filed bankruptcy in, September and she's sitting here you know I mean that's that that that's the same thing you know in a way and so it's it's the principles this is what the principles that we're teaching God's ways of handling money do because scripture is God's love letter to you it's your dad that loves you he's saying do it this way and a hundred percent of the time by the way he's right and if you disagree with him 100 percent of time you're known as what's wrong okay so you're just This is not going to work, all right? And so even if you're not a person of faith, it doesn't matter.

This stuff is just the freaking truth. It works, okay? Every stinking time. And then when you parlay it out over an extended period of time, you get Ashley. And those things are working hard and being diligent, staying away from debt. Every time debt is mentioned in scripture, it's in a negative fashion. Exactly. Saving.

Yep. Being generous. Always. Looking at what you're spending, knowing what you have. managing it well. It's all of it. I mean, it's common sense, right? That's why the gods and grandmas tagline is so true. But in a world that, that again, she kept saying boring, boring, boring. And I understand what she's saying, because when you go and scroll, you know, where a lot of people are finding their financial advice on social and YouTube and

all of it, there's exciting things over here that you can do this, an Airbnb, and you can do, I mean, it's just, it is like, it's a lot of distraction. And so to just invest and pay off your house. In today's terms, that is considered boring, but that's the thing that is tried and true. It's the tortoise. It is just, it always, it works. It works. Decade after decade. Our scripture of the day, Psalm 1110, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. All who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise. L. David Marquette said,

one of the things that limits our learning is our belief that we already know something. That's fun. Jennifer's in Hartford, Connecticut. Hi, Jennifer. How are you? Hi. Thank you for taking my call. Sure.

What's up? I'm married and I have two children and our family has started the baby step. and we just finished baby step two um the reason i'm calling is because our we lost a family member unfortunately and that person uh left us five hundred thousand dollars wow okay and the person told us verbally that they wanted it to go to our children and so we are going to honor that So my question is, should I take... They should have left it to your children. Well, didn't, and we're going to honor that, so they'll get it anyway.

They'll get it anyway. So my question is, do I use some of that money to move us through the baby steps because the kids will end up getting everything we own anyway, or do I just keep that separate and say, no, I don't touch that? I would. I would walk it right through the baby steps because that's the way your kids end up getting the most bang for their buck out of the $500K, assuming you leave it all to them anyway, yeah. Yeah, because you're past baby step two, Jennifer, right? So it would be baby step three.

What would be a fully funded emergency fund for you guys? How much out of the $500 would that be? I would say $20,000 out of the $500. And what do you owe on your home? $240. Okay. So you still got $250,000. thousand bucks roughly, 240,000 bucks left, and give or take. And that's to be invested. And, of course,

then the home's going to go up in value, which is an investment. And kids are going to be just fine with that. I absolutely would do that. Now, it is incumbent upon you then because you took a leap forward, regardless of how you took the leap forward, you know, where the money came from. Okay, let's just say you got a bonus check for that. I still tell you exactly the same thing as my point. to make sure you guys permanently stay out of debt and that you permanently invest for the rest of your lives what would have been a house payment plus more money so that this becomes millions and millions and millions of dollars in the future.

Okay, so you would apply it to the baby steps. Yes, because that's going to be the best deal for your kids. As long as with the asterisk that you guys or continue to be responsible and continue to invest for all of this to move forward, right? Oh, absolutely, yeah, absolutely. We're following the baby steps, and I just didn't know morally is what I'm saying. Yeah, I mean, if I should do that, I hear what you're saying. Yeah, morally, if the kids are going to get it anyway, how can we maximize the money for the kids?

Correct. The baby steps. How old are your kids, Jennifer? Nine and 13. Okay. Okay, yeah. Now, the other thing, the other thing is this, okay? I'll just sidebar for a second.

I mean, you're fresh in the middle of all this, and you've got all the emotion around and everything. Who passed away? A grandparent. Okay, all right. And so let me tell you what the grandparent did not mean. Okay. They did not mean that one of your children has all kinds of problems later,

and they're addicted to heroin, and so you hand them. a million dollars which would cause them to overdose and die that is not what the grandmother meant and so you're not morally obligated to violate common sense with this inheritance process so i'm just going to extrapolate this way out into the future somewhere okay you're talking about like in 40 i'm saying i'm saying if your kid your nine-year-old is 49 and they're misbehaving and you're going to fund that with his grandmother's money because Granny said 50 years ago that that was a good idea, no, that's not what she meant.

Right. She wanted to be a blessing is what she meant. Yeah, and being a blessing is not giving money to someone that's misbehaving. So I'm not going to become a control freak over it. I'm not saying that, but I don't want this verbal obligation to go crazy and turn you into some kind of codependent thing 40 years from now either. And I've seen that happen. I don't think that's going to happen, but you're trying to be, you're being very careful

to do what Granny said, and that's a good thing, but let's just understand Granny's heart was to be a blessing. It wasn't to the thing. So good, good question. We appreciate you calling. Very good. Rachel, that goes back to the thing that we've taught for years, and it's good to remind everybody that money doesn't fix things.

It magnifies things. so it magnifies the good and it magnifies the bad so today that money is a lot of money and it magnifies good because they're working a good plan she's got a good heart she's trying to be honorable to her grandmother yeah and so on and all of that's good so that good is being magnified by this and my point is is that sometimes you get out there a few years there's some bad things going on decades later is what you're saying yeah yeah and if you throw money at bad situations it magnifies that too yes so whatever you do money's not good money's not bad it magnifies what's already there in every one of us the bad things in every one of us the good things

in every one of us and so if you're a giver and you're generous you get money you become a philanthropist you know if you've got a temper problem and you get money you become a complete rageaholic and a bully right if you've got and so money magnified it makes you more of what you already are yeah it makes you more what you already are. That's right. And so, and that's going to be true of granny's money 40 years from today. Yeah. And it's true of granny's money today. And so it's a good question by Jennifer. And it's a, it's a, I mean, I would almost put the word dangerous tool in the world. Like you have to be very, very careful with it. I mean, we were just talking about scripture less. There's as many warnings about wealth. Yes. And you know what you mean?

Like it's a, it's a, it's a, you've got to be careful with this stuff because it'll mess with you. So the working on the character of who you are is as big of a deal as the money that you're making in your investments. Yeah, it's interesting that the things that can bring you the greatest blessings also have the power. That's right. It's a double-edged sword, right? I mean, you put anything in there. Money, sex, power. Fame, anything.

Yes. It's a double-edged sword. Yeah. You got to be careful. It's going to make you more of what you already are and you're going to have a problem with it and a blessing from it. So you just got to decide how you're going to walk from that point forward. So Jennifer, that's a big. beautiful question and you're really wise to ask it. You ask it in a very good way and it's

very, very, very, very dialed in. So in the book, the legacy journey, which is probably my worst selling book or one of them, but it's more than enough. That was more than enough. It's one of my favorite, more than enough by far the worst. Yeah. It wasn't even close to enough. But the legacy journey, we talk a lot about wealth and through the lens of scripture. It's the only book I did that's uniquely Christian. If you're not a Christian and you read it, you're going, who is this guy? But yeah, because it's all scripture and it's all laid out exactly the warnings on wealth are all in there. And we talk about, is it okay to be wealthy from a spiritual standpoint? And part of that is that those of us that are people of faith that are believers, we understand we don't own it.

We're just managing it. And so I just manage more than somebody else manages. That's all wealth is. And so, but if you, if you actually feel, if you take the heart position of, I own it, then that's where wealth really can start to screw with you from a spiritual perspective, start to mess you up. And so, but certainly we know that rich people are all not going to hell. That is not a scriptural thing. That's a toxic version. It's people trying to teach theology on TikTok.

Never get your theology from TikTok. That's a bad idea. Matter of fact, you probably shouldn't get anything from TikTok, including us, but we're there. And so, I mean, but if you want to learn more about that kind of stuff and look at the lens of that, is it okay? Because sometimes people are worried about becoming wealthy like they did something wrong because there's a portion of our culture that wants to yell at you, the socialists and so forth, that you did something wrong. And you didn't do anything wrong. You just helped a lot of people. That's the only way you get money.

It's the only way it works. So good show, Rachel. Well done. That puts this hour of the Ramsey show in the books. Well done, Booth, people. 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.