The Ramsey Show - App - How Do I Know When I Can Treat Myself? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: October 28, 2020

Career, Retirement, Debt, Savings Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey Plus TODAY: https://bit.ly/31ricKt  Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR     

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. Christy Wright is my co-host today. Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author. Open phones as we talk about your life and your money. It's a free call, 888-825-5225, 888-825-5225.

Randy's in San Francisco to kick this hour off. Hi, Randy, how are you? I'm doing great, Dave, and thank you for taking my call. I listen to you religiously every night when I'm working out in my garage. Well, thank you. And was motivated to call you. I've told so many people about you. And at church on Sunday, I mentioned about your program and my pastor's wife spoke up.

She goes, oh, that's Dave Ramsey. I was telling her about this. So you are very popular out here in what I call tax-a-fornia. Well, I appreciate that. How can I help? Yeah. Well, I'm 66 years old. I've been working with my company as an employee for 27 years, anticipating I would stick around for another three years, and it looks like they're going to shut down my division, so I will be out of work. I'm having a little bit of anxiety about pulling money out of my savings to pay my house off. I was thinking, you know, maybe I should just move from here in about two years, so I would be okay with paying the house payment, or if I should just go ahead and pay it off, I could pay it off. And that's the only debt I do have left. But I'm anxious

about in my own money mindset, should I really let go of that much money or maybe I may need it for something, but I'm just kind of, I'm vacillating whether to, you know, pay off the home or don't pay off the home, leave the money alone. It's a cushion. What do I do? Why are you staying after you lose the job? Um, I was thinking about maybe stick around for a year and then, uh, why we train? I don't know. Yeah, you're right. Uh, yeah. Well, well so should i so maybe it's okay to have the debt on the house since i'm probably end up going to be selling it anyway if you're gonna lose if you're gonna lose the job i'd put a sign in the yard and go ahead and just accelerate your thing because

that you leaving in two years had a lot to do with you staying in this job for two to three years yes sir and that's all changed now and so you just accelerate your move out and then that takes the question off the table uh no i would not pay a house off that is up for sale okay if you're going to stay in for two years i might um i don't know this california real estate thing is very hard to figure out what's going to happen um i'm hearing uh as a matter of fact i heard this morning from a guy that lives in San Francisco that the rents inside the city themselves, not out in the suburbs, but inside the city have dropped 30% because the renters all left.

Yes, they have. I live right east of San Francisco where you put a house up for sale and it's usually gone that week. And I'm still hearing that. I had a long talk with a guy from San Diego the other day, and he said houses are still selling in three or four days for full price. So even though there just seems to be this mass exodus, because I'm hearing in every state Californians moving in all across America,

there seems to be this mass exodus. Eventually, the lack of demand is going to cause real estate prices to drop. We're already seeing that with rentals, rent rates inside San Francisco. But we've not seen the house prices drop yet because there seems to be enough demand still to drive the sale. I don't know what two years is going to bring if this exodus continues, though. I'm a little bit afraid for your real estate values two years from now. So if I'm in your shoes and I lose my job, I'm out of there. Yeah, I mean, the commodity out here are U-Haul trucks.

Yeah, I heard a guy say that they have five grand to get one. Yeah, it's crazy. I feel better about that i'm thinking yeah maybe i should just go ahead and let this wind down at the end of the year and then put the house on the market and just uh you know get out of here and um go back east yeah i have a sense just talking to you that you've you've done a really good job with your money and you've got a lot you got enough to pay your house off so we know you've done really well that's incredible and it's a san francisco area house so it's not a cheap house so uh you know we didn't ask any

numbers but i think you i think you're set it's just a matter of you're having to reset your timelines on where you're going from here and um i i am not predicting the crash of california real estate but supply demand curves are pretty simple things when demand goes down for anything yeah prices go down when demand goes up prices go up yeah it's pretty simple or if there's an if there's an oversupply if supply outpaces demand yeah prices always go down for whatever reason an example christy when we were during covid um the uh uh the ports closed and the oil, you know, we had a glut, this huge glut of oil to the point that people weren't driving cars. And so there was no demand for gasoline. The demand for gasoline dropped like 85% for two months there. Consequently, the oil companies had all this oil left over because they didn't need it to make gasoline because gasoline wasn't selling.

They had tankers sitting in the harbors, and they wouldn't offload them. Wow. They were full. And some of these harbor cities were full of tankers, oil tankers. It cost too much to offload it because the price dove because there was an increase in supply the supply outpaced demand anytime that happens and so anytime you have a situation for whatever the reason that there is a shortage of something prices are going to go up when there's an oversupply prices are going to go down well and i think he brings up

an interesting point too because i've seen people do this and i've even kind of struggled with this in my life at different times. Something in your life changes, but you hold your feet to the fire of your original plan. It's like, okay, you had a timeline of two to three years. You're now, your job timeline is changing, but you're holding your feet to this original plan. Now, when things change, you need to change and adapt. I'll give you an example. I went to the University of Central Florida in Orlando for college out of high school,

and I thought I wanted to live in Florida. I thought I was going to make my home there, get married, have kids, settle down. And about a year and a half in, when I realized I couldn't get in-state tuition like I thought I could after living there for a year, and when I realized I didn't want to settle down and spend my life there, I just went ahead and transferred to UT Knoxville because my plans had changed. I wasn't going to live in Florida the rest of my life. I could save on in-state tuition at ut knoxville and you have to be willing to adapt so i i think your advice is so great to him because it's like well why are we waiting two years we don't need to you can move now now that things have changed and be on the front end of still having a good chance to sell your home when the demand is high and you're going to get a good price for it so i

think it's good to remember that before these curves cross and because i don't know if they're going to cross or not but california real estate has always had a little bit of gold rush to it um manhattan on the other hand has pretty much always just gone up but it's experiencing the exact same thing yeah uh when there's nobody wants to buy it prices go down when you can't get a renter rental you, what you charge for rentals goes down. It's real simple. The old saying, you can't give it away because they're everywhere. And so these movements of humans brought on by governors that are out of control,

brought on by pandemics, brought on by whatever. You can blame it on whatever you want, but the fact is that a lack of demand is going to destabilize an economy. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Families all over the country are discovering a faith-based and budget-friendly way of meeting health care costs, whether they're anticipated or completely unexpected. For example, take the Olcheski family from LaGrange, Texas. Jeff and Carice had just celebrated the birth of a new baby boy. Shortly after, they had another expensive medical issue come up.

They could have faced a huge financial setback. But thanks to Christian Health Care Ministries, the Olcheskis were spared from a ton of medical bills. As members of CHM, they're part of a group of believers who financially and spiritually support each other. CHM is the longest serving health cost sharing ministry and is a Better Business Bureau accredited charity. It's Christians helping other Christians, and it shared nearly $97,000 to help the Olcheskis. To be a part of Christian Healthcare Ministries, visit chministries.org. That's chministries.org. CHM is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com. They have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. That means even if you mismeasure, you pick the wrong color, they will remake your blinds.com they have a 100 satisfaction guarantee that means even if you mismeasure you pick the wrong color they will remake your blinds for free you get free samples free shipping and with the new promos they run every month you'll save even more the promo code ramsey will get you the deals christy our question yes this is from lonnie in california she writes i'm a single mother and i plan to finish Baby Step 1 this month.

I have $50,000 in debt, including student loans, and I make about $65,000 a year. I attended a business boutique a few years ago as I have a side Etsy business, Crocheting. I had to put Etsy on hold to help my son with school during the week as he was failing high school. With my weekends opening up, should I focus on building the business again to get more income for the baby steps even if it costs me money to start off again dave i get this question a lot and the thing that i always challenge people especially in a business like this where you're talking about crocheting you can start with almost nothing you don't have to go buy a ton of supplies a ton of equipment you don't have to get a ton of materials you can start with what you have and start to get income into the business.

Now, my question would be, which is going to make you more money, a part-time job on the weekend or your Etsy business? And it depends on which one is going to make you more as far as how you should use your time. But I want to challenge that you have to spend a bunch of money to start crocheting again. The supplies for crocheting are not too expensive. So I would say start with what you have. Well, you're not buying a tractor-trailer load, for God's sakes, of yarn. I mean, you're just going to buy enough to do a blanket and then sell it or whatever

it is and then go sell it. Yep, and then get some more and sell it. So anytime somebody says in the baby step two, I'm trying to start a business to help get out of debt, the only thing I want to know is how quickly are they going to recoup. Yeah. And so if you spend $500 and you're going to make $1,000 that month, yeah, start the business. You're going to spend $50,000 and you're not going to recoup for gonna make a thousand that month yeah start the business you're gonna spend fifty thousand dollars you're not gonna recoup for

three years no don't start the business right um you're not in a position to you're broken in debt and so that that's that's what we teach and so if you can recoup really quick and there's no question with this she could uh but then your challenge is uh probably even more valid i don't have any idea what crocheted things sell for. Not exactly your target market. But my guess is that per hour you might do better doing something else. Yeah, it's a good chance. And it also depends on, she says she had this business before. I'm just curious if she already had a demand, already had a customer base,

that type of thing where she would be relaunching to. That might change things. But I think the premise of the question that i have to buy a bunch of stuff to be able to do this is false you don't have to buy a bunch of stuff you can start with what you have you can spend a few bucks at a craft store wholesale to get you your supplies for crocheting turn that into something you sell and put that money back into the business but it really just kind of depends on what's going to be a better use of her time. Fun week around here at Ramsey. We launched at the beginning of the week Rachel Cruz's new wallet, the new and improved wallet, made fun of the zippers because the ones we sold years ago had bad zippers

and made a lot of jokes about broken zippers. But anyway, this thing is fabulous. It is made by a – we've partnered with an awesome fair trade company in india that gives people a chance to get out of poverty and have the future that they want while working and so you buying these these wallets helps do that this is completely leather uh it's designed with only high quality materials it is an amazing piece and it's um it's the type of wallet that would sell for several several dollars, I understand. It has a leash on it.

I mean, a wristlet. It has a wristlet on it. It looked like a leash to me, but I'll keep you from losing it. And they're $68. You can get them at DaveRamsey.com in our store, or you can call the Ramsey Concierge Team at 888-22-PIECE. Also this week, we have launched the new Living True, 40 Days Back to You devotional. Matter of fact, that happened today for Christy Wright. Yes.

And this is so fun too, because this has been a couple of years in the making, but it's just amazing how often I hear women say those words. I want to get back to myself. I feel like I've lost myself. I don't even know who I am anymore. And whether it's a season of life that feels overwhelming or in parenting or in a job, it's just easy to feel like you lose yourself. And so this is a 40-day journey to help you get back to you and more than that, get back

to God who created you. And so it's been a really special project. I'm so excited now that it's out in the world and I can't wait to see what God's going to do through it. The team is getting geared up for the uh live stream event tonight with dr henry cloud and ian cron from the uh enneagram and of course our own dr john deloney joining rachel cruz on the know yourself know your money live stream event tonight it's only 15 to watch it if you're listening to this live you'll be able to jump in it's a wednesday october the 28th at 7 p.m central time uh if you want to if you want to watch it and get the book the book comes out and we're pre-selling

the book know yourself know your money uh you can get all of that for 25 that's effectively getting the buck for 10 so still the last few minutes uh we've had thousands and thousands of people sign up for this it's pretty cool uh and the last few minutes for you to get in or right now and you can watch it this evening if you'd like. Go to DaveRamsey.com and just check on the events or click on Know Yourself, Know Your Money. The live stream is what you're looking for for tonight. And again, it's only $15

and it's a huge lineup of people. Very, very well done. So lots of good things going on there. Open phones at 888-825- 5225. Shawna is in Lexington. Hey, Shawna, your question for Christy and me. Hi, Dave. Thank you for taking my call.

Sure. How can we help? I've got a question. My husband is 40 years old, and he currently is employed with the railroad and has been for 21 years. He plans on retiring in 10 more years, so between 50 and 60. He won't be putting anything into his 401k. He currently has $400,000 in his 401k and puts 10% of his $105,000 salary in a year. So when he turns 60, will he still have a good nest egg? Yeah, I don't know how it's invested,

but if it is invested and it's making around 10%, it's going to double every seven years. So the 400 seven years from today would be 800. Seven years later would be 1.6. Seven years later would be 3.2 million. And that puts you out there at 21 years, so from today. I was just curious from where that 10 years of that will have no contribution going to it at all. Yeah, I'm just talking about the existing $400, not counting the other contribution.

The existing $400 will double every seven years, give or take, if it's invested in good mutual funds and averaging around 10%. That's just a rough and dirty figure, but it gives you an idea of where you're going. I think there's another issue on the table. I have known lots of guys who retired at 50 years old or 30 years old, or they sold their company at 45 and retired, and they go fishing or go play golf, and about 36 months later they are sick and tired of retirement he actually wants to go drive the school bus

when he retires because he he worked he doesn't work locally he works all over so he wants to be able to stay local for a while that's reason why he wants to retire in 10 more years well there's certainly no shame and there's certainly no shame in driving a school bus, but that's not exactly shooting for the moon on the career chart. But at 31 years of constantly state to state to state. Yeah, but that doesn't mean you could open a business in your town and never leave town. There's a ton of things you could do.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm challenging the idea that it's a good idea to start sitting on your butt for the next 45 years. I just don't think that's good for him. I don't care about the money part. So, I mean, Christy, I've already put him on notice around here. I'm not retiring. I'm going to continue to come around here.

We're ready for it. Even when I'm not running the place, I'm going to come around and spread hate and dissension. We know. We are ready for that we expect it yeah and i'm going to be on the air until they have to push the dump button because i make no sense or if i make no sense maybe i should run for president that would work yeah so there you go but um yeah and i mean when i get to where i'm just feeble-minded i guess they'll pull me off by my uh by my neck or something but um i you know i really i like what i'm doing i haven't needed money for a very long time i do this because it's fun and it's

helpful and it's fulfilling and so forth and so and i enjoy that part of running the business as well and working with you on a new project like this new uh devotional and working with rachel even working with rachel on her wallet which I've made fun of to no end. But but the whole, you know, working on this stuff is fun. And so I just I I'm OK if you work part time or something or you do something. But really, let's I answer your question, though. I think he's going to be OK financially if he's got that money invested well. So see a smart investor pro and make sure your money's invested in some good mutual

funds. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Well, one of our favorite things to do is have a debt-free scream right here in the Ramsey Solutions Lobby on the debt-free stage. The only thing better than that is when it's one of our favorite things to do is have a debt-free scream right here in the Ramsey Solutions Lobby on the debt-free stage. The only thing better than that is when it's one of our own family, one of our Ramsey team members. And we got that today. Hadley Brown is with us and her husband, Andrew. Hadley's been with us for about a year working on the Ramsey Plus team. Welcome, guys.

Thank you. Thank you for having us. Congratulations. How much have you paid off so we paid off about 43 000 in six months wow that's awesome during the time you've been here yes yeah okay very cool so what kind of debt was this so um well we got married in march well technically we eloped uh because our big wedding got canceled. I think they call that a marriage.

Yes. You got married. Yes. So we eloped in March. And so at that time, we currently had a car payment and a bunch of student loans and a little bit of medical debt, too. So you had a big wedding plan and COVID nixed it? Yep. About a week before our big day oh man no

a week before what the venue turned up on you or what so um i actually found out that our wedding was going to have to be postponed on the day that we had to leave the office so it was because oh what a great day wow yeah oh gross yeah we shut the office down sent everybody to work from home and that day you find out you oh gross so what the venue the venue canceled on you so we um none of our uh family could come in so we just we decided to postpone it we did have a big celebration in september so we were able to celebrate with most of our family that's cool we had to cut it down a little bit but okay so you come here with 43 000 in debt then you get

married and get rid of 43 this has been a big year yeah yeah i mean it's like the best tale of two cities the best of times and the worst of times huh yeah wow what kind of debt was the 43 000 so you know we so we had my car um and we paid that off in may and then we had some student loans the first thing that we did i think it was literally the night that we got married. We were in Pigeon Forge for like our quote unquote honeymoon because everything was closed down. But we literally logged on to his medical debt. We immediately paid it off together. You're so romantic.

What did we do on our honeymoon? We paid off medical debt. That's great. I love debt. That's great. I love it. That's so fun. So you combined your finances immediately upon marriage, but had not done so ahead of time. We did not. And the combined debt was 43.

Yes. So technically, the 43,000 was what we had on March 28th when we eloped. Okay. Yes. Okay. And then you knock it out in six months following that. Yes, in the middle of a pandemic. Yeah.

Cool. So, Andrew, was your job stable through this time? It was gone. It was gone. I'm a freelance musician. Oh, God. The whole thing was gone. Oh, God.

It's just over. Yeah. Literally overnight, we watched. He was going to have probably the biggest April that he's ever had. And literally overnight, it was just like text after text after text canceled canceled canceled canceled um i've talked to some big-time artists that are friends of mine and they're they're like they got hammered yes they have lost their self yeah exactly and it's still going on so yeah and and he won't do Yeah, I guess. So he made up most, not all of his lost income, but most of the lost income just by pulling out his lawnmower.

Hardcore, man. That's amazing. Hardcore. Hey, when you got a skill, you can always whip it out, right? Yeah, absolutely. I love it, man. You know what the skill is? Courage and hard work.

That's a great skill. You married a good man. That know what the skill is? Courage and hard work. Right. That's a great skill. You married a good man. That's good stuff. Well done. Very well done. I love it. Yeah, because a lot of people would sit around on their pride and not do anything.

Sure. Or on their assumptions or whatever. Yeah. Waiting on the government to fix them. Instead, you get up and go, let's cut some grass, baby. Game on. I love it. Well done. I'm so proud of y'all.

Thank you. How does it feel like one of the first orders of business in one of the craziest years of the world, you paid off all your debt? It feels amazing. Absolutely amazing. It feels nothing short of a miracle. And I will just also say not only with the help of my amazing husband who stepped up to the plate and uh, and really took care of the household, but also to my, my Ramsey family. Um, there was probably about three weeks that we didn't, didn't know what was going to happen. Um, I was scared. My husband was scared. Um, but my, and my leadership stepped up and they came around us and said, we've got you, we've got you. And,

and without, you know, every dollar without the baby steps, you know, even though I work here, those, those things still translate so, so well into our life. I mean, we literally were like, okay, so let's say you don't make a single dime. Let's say nothing happens with mowing. We'll just go to our every dollar budget and we cut everything out. We're like, okay, so let's say you don't make a single dime. Let's say nothing happens with mowing. We'll just go to our every dollar budget, and we cut everything out. We're like, what does this look like, worst case scenario? And it never got to that point because this leadership came around us and said, we've got you. Wow. Yeah.

We were blessed. We worked really hard, all of us, and not a single person missed a check. And not a lot of companies were that blessed. Obviously, the entire live events thing freaking disappeared and evaporated but we we were able to make it up in other areas and not a single person uh missed a check or was laid off or anything else or furloughed or anything so it was uh um you know i'm real proud of our team and and the result of that is just you guys i mean here, here you are, newly married. You're one of a thousand people on the team.

And that's how important it is that we do that stuff in leadership because it's you. You know, you're it. You're it. That's the thing. I'm so proud of y'all. Well, and you just kept at it. Like, it would have been so easy in March and April when you looked at those numbers to go, oh, well, the goal is out the window. We're just hanging on. We're just going to reset everything.

And you still just kept forging ahead, and you just found new ways to do it, and you pivoted, and you got scrappy, and you got creative, and just that drive and persistence paid off. It would be impressive to do what you've done in a year, but especially this year. It just shows how quickly you guys adapted. Well done. That's amazing. Thank you.

Very, very cool. Thank you. Very cool. So other than Ramsey, obviously you got a lot of positive peer pressure around here. This is a dadgum. It's a dadgum cult you're part of. But other than that, who were your biggest cheerleaders? Our family.

These are my parents. They drove in from East Tennessee today. All right. Yeah, Alcoa area. Yeah. I was born in Maryville. Hey, guys. and then hadley's family as well over here i mean we just had a great great support system behind us in them wonderful yeah okay we also had a financial coach so um even throughout the baby steps we decided that we needed somebody in like a third party position to help us out and motivate

us. So we had a financial coach that stepped in. And even before we got married, I was working with her one on one. So you were already kind of dialed in on this before you came to work here. Yes, I definitely it amplified as soon as I got here. But That's not optional. Yes. So it was actually Andrew who introduced me to you. So his grandmother who is watching today, she actually gifted him total money makeover. And so he, he, uh, he read the book while he was on tour. And when he came back, we were just dating at the time. He said, Oh, I read this really cool book. You should check it out. And at the time, I was like, I know how to deal with money. Like, my credit card is fine.

My lease car is fine. I'm fine. I got this. I got this. Here we go. I love it. But I read Total Money Makeover after his suggestion and was instantly hooked.

I love it. And he's actually the reason why I work here, too. He was like, you should go over there. That's awesome. All right. Hadley and Andrew. Hadley being a part of our Ramsey Plus team. What a great story.

$43,000 paid off in six months after the huge marriage. Oh, it's an elopement. I love it. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah!

And the 200 team members that are not working are out there cheering. That's awesome. We've got priorities right now. I'm glad you cheered them on. That's great. That's very cool. So fun. What a great young cheering. That's awesome. We've got priorities right now. I'm glad you cheered them on. That's great. That's very cool. So fun. What a great young couple.

That's cool. Gotta love that guy grabbing ahold of one more. Oh my gosh, I love it so much. I love that. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. our scripture today joshua 1 9 have i not commanded you be strong and courageous do not be frightened do not be dismayed for the lord your god is with you wherever you go. Mark Cuban says, I fear failure, but I won't let it stop me. Sometimes you've just got to do it or else it doesn't happen. I fear failure, and you know what?

Not doing it because of fear will 100% of the time cause it. That's right. I mean, you know, it causes it every single time. Carrie is with us. Carrie is in Peoria, Illinois. Hi, Carrie. How are you? Hi.

Good. Thank you, Dave, for taking my call. Sure. How can Christina help? So we all know this has been a tough year. For us, we've been very blessed because we've had our jobs. My husband's a machinist and tool guy and he is in the army reserve um so we saved up twenty four thousand dollars and we have twenty two thousand dollars

with that um so we're wondering if we should just bite the bullet and just pay it all off and leave 2020 behind us or just use some of it and have like our emergency funds um we wouldn't do partial we're going to do one of two things we're either going to keep doing and have, like, our emergency fund set and done. We wouldn't do partial. We're going to do one of two things. We're either going to keep doing what you're doing, piling up cash, or we're going to push play on the baby steps and immediately pay off, use everything but $1,000 and pay on the debts,

which it sounds like you can get really close to or pay off your debts one of the two um so the only reason you would push pause is if your financial life is unstable not because the world's gone crazy but you're looking at your situation going we could lose our incomes there's a high likelihood we're going to lose our incomes or a high likelihood something else is coming at us but just the general bs in the world that's going on no we don't push pause on that because some people are having the best years of their life and it sounds like you guys are doing fine um we have we have two children too they're pretty young yeah so that's why we're kind of like hesitant about paying it all off i guess wait a minute i'm sorry why why do young children make you hesitant to pay it off? Oh, I mean, like... There's nothing different.

...to go to a hospital visit and everything. Okay, well, that's just a general question. That has nothing to do with pandemic or this year. Yeah. So that's just when you decide if you're going to work our plan or not. Oh, yeah, I want to. My husband's just more hesitant about it. Yeah, I understand uh the thing is this

okay refresh my memory now tell me how much debt is there 22 000 and how much money do you have in your account 24 000 all right so we tell you baby step one is one thousand dollars after you pay off all of your debt you're going to have $2,000, and you will have finished baby step two, and you have no payments, right? Mm-hmm. And with no payments except your house payment, on a tight budget, are you doing a written budget? Are you doing your every dollar budget with your husband?

Yeah, I mean, I'm the one that writes everything down. Okay, good boy needs to get involved. I know. I tell him to write stuff down.'s no he don't need to write stuff down he needs to look at the budget with you and the two of you agree on it and stick to it yeah he's hesitant because he didn't know what the flip's going on yeah you're not his mommy yeah you're not you're he's supposed to be like a grown full man and the two of you working Mommy. Yeah. He's supposed to be like a grown, full man and the two of you working together on this thing. And that's where his hesitation is coming from is he doesn't know what's going on.

He's got this vague sense of things. So here's the thing. If he was involved in the budget and the two of you were looking at the budget and were both in agreement, were unified, and you write a check and pay off all the debt, and you look at your budget and you go you know we can save two thousand dollars a month we already got two thousand dollars in there so next month we'll have four thousand the next month we'll have six thousand the next month we'll have eight thousand then all of a sudden all this uncertainty starts to go away because you're going to build this emergency fund really really fast but only if the two of you get

on the same page yeah so the reason you're struggling with all this is you're half butt doing all of it yeah he didn't get it yeah you cannot make cake without putting in the sugar there's a recipe and the recipe is you do the written budget and the two of you work together and you're both fully informed there's a tremendous power in that christy yeah and when you're not having the conversation that's where all the ambiguity that's where all the confusion if you simply have a conversation explain the why get on the same page with the what and the how then i think the hesitation will uh he won't have the hesitation but he's just he's not in it you're doing it and he has the luxury of throwing grenades at your plan and he's just sort of pretending to go along with it but he's not he's not he's not

he doesn't get it he's not going along with it and here's the sort of pretending to go along with it, but he's not. He's not. He's not. He doesn't get it. He's not going along with it. And here's the problem, Carrie. That increases fights in marriage, and it decreases the probability that you're going to win with money when the two of you aren't working together. Almost all the millionaires we interviewed for Chris Hogan's book, Everyday Millionaires, 10,000 of them said one of the keys was that they were working in tandem with their spouse. None of them were dragging along dead weight. They were working together, and they were tuned in together.

And there's a high correlation on that. This is like one of you disciplines the kids and the other one doesn't. You know, that's just, you know, when your daddy gets home. Oh, that never happened in my house. We didn't have to wait for daddy. We already got it before he got there. You know so we knew we knew it was coming from whichever direction if we were going to misbehave and we didn't say that over our kids either you know you know if when you misbehave you can expect a problem from anybody that's an adult in the house you know and so same

thing here you got to both be on this and you can't he he needs to step up he really does you need to call him out on it you can be kinder than i'm being carrie but the you should be actually but the the truth is it's it's it's paramount to the probability of you winning and that's why i'm so concerned about it aiden is in st louis hi aiden welcome to the dave ramsey show hey dave hey how can christina help um so i was just wondering when you should treat yourself what are you talking about aiden what are you talking about what do you mean um so i i understand that you know you want to save as much money as possible and such you know but i'm 17 and i don't have any debt or anything, but I also want to save.

So I just want to know when I should allow myself to take out money to buy stuff for extracurricular activities and such. Okay. I'm curious what Dave has to say on this because it's interesting because you're 17. So, I mean, how much money do you have? What are you doing? How much money do you got? Well, at the moment, I have about $1,800 saved up that I'm not using. What would you buy if you said, okay, permission to treat?

I really like classic cars and such. For $1,800? Well, I have an old truck that I just kind of haven't been fixing because I want to save for after I'm supposed to graduate early soon. So I might be going to college and such. And so I just don't really know. I mean, out of your eighteen hundred dollars, what is it you have an itch to buy right now? It's not a classic car.

I mean, nothing really, I guess. OK, well, here's the thing. Here's your general principle that you can use throughout your life. There are three things you can do with money. You can give it, you can spend it on fun and lifestyle, and you can invest it. You should do all three all the time. Okay. You should always be giving some of what you earn,

you should always be saving some of what you earn, you should always be saving some of what you earn, and you should always be enjoying some of what you earn. I recommend that you set percentages on that. Okay. A great theologian, Wesley, said if you give 10, save 10, and live on 80, and that would be as an adult, you always be prosperous and that's really not a bad formula either so i'm not suggesting that necessarily but you ought to allocate some

percentage to fun and splurge or whatever the word was you used a minute ago uh but and then you can have your savings be for bigger goals maybe someday you want to save and pay towards your education or you want to save and do buy that classic car someday it's going to be more than eighteen hundred dollars depending on how i mean it's there's classic and then there's hoopty classic i guess but um but yeah but the you're gonna have to move up past the 1800 but you just got to get some of each going on yeah yeah and i think it's cool because depending on your stage of life and depending on what your goals are you can adapt the percentages.

Let's say that if you have this big savings goal of a classic car, you're 23, you can say, okay, I'm going to keep my expenses low and I'm going to save 20%, 30%. You can get more aggressive with your saving and change it depending on what your goal is. But yeah, you need to do all three. You need to have fun. You need to save. You need to give. That's a good rule of thumb we teach. Cool.

Good job today. Thanks. It was fun. Ben Hill on the com. As James Child's out today. Madison on the phones with Kelly stepping out. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. 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. Have a friend or family member that needs a daily dose of Ramsey advice in their life? Let them know about the Ramsey Call of the Day podcast. It's a quick hit of advice about life and money in under 10 minutes. Check out the Ramsey Call of the Day podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.