The Ramsey Show - App - Learn the Power of the Magical Word, “NO”

Episode Date: November 18, 2024

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Number one best-selling author and host of The George Campbell Show, a big hit on YouTube on the Ramsey Network, Mr. George Campbell himself is my co-host today. Open phones here as we talk to you about your life and your money. 888-825-5225 is the number. 888-825-5225. The call is free, and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. Megan's going to start us off.

Megan is in New Orleans. Hi, Megan. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hey, guys. Thanks so much for taking my call. Sure. What's up in your world? Okay, so I have a question and just to paint a small picture, my husband and I, we've been

married for seven years. We have no debt other than the mortgage on our house and so we're very thankful and have worked very hard for that. We've got two young kids, able to establish an emergency fund and retirement accounts and college savings for them. But with all of that said, my parents are really not on a same financial path as we are. My dad is in his 80s now and still works full-time. My mom does not work and she hasn't worked before, but just recently they've been bringing up to us, kind of my husband and I, that they don't know what they're going to do for retirement. They have no retirement savings, very little in a savings account. They're not even really in a place to afford the house that they own with the money that they're making.

And we're starting to get this feeling that they're expecting us to take care of them at some point or to do something to help them. And without tapping into our own retirement or savings for our children's college and things like that, we're just really not in that type of space. And so my question is, is it too late for them to start putting together a retirement plan? What are some options for them or how best really, what kind of boundaries do we need to set as a young family in helping out that other generation in retirement? Wow. I mean, it sounds almost ludicrous to just say out loud, he's 80, and now he thought about retirement.

Golly! Wow! Who's late to the party here? Like 20 years. Oh, my gosh. Oh, man. So he's working every day and he's 80. Yes, every single day. And he's one of these people, he loves to work.

So I think he always will. And at one point in your life, he can for right but you can't always you don't always have that as an option i mean his health his health may fail him what what does he make so he's i want to say he's making around right at about a hundred thousand dollars total because he does have social security coming in as well. But around $100,000, but my mom has never worked. And so the question kind of is, if and when one of them passes before the other, what are they going to do? And that's where they're turning to us is this younger generation and asking us that question. And I don't really know what to say. You know, the Bible

teaches us to honor our father and mother, but how does that translate into something like this? Well, let me address that before I forget it. Honoring your parents means you honor the position of fatherhood. It's like honoring the president. I may or may not agree with the president, but I honor the position of president. Does that make sense? And I can still agree with the president, but I honor the position of president. Does that make sense? And I can still disagree with the president because he might be wrong, you know, that kind of stuff, right?

So if mom's doing cocaine, we don't honor that, okay? That's a misbehavior, but we honor her position as mother. Does that make sense? So we can honor them, and it doesn't require we give them money. That scripture has nothing to do with giving them money. There's no financial obligation. You can still respect and honor them. I mean, just honor them, but it's just like, gosh.

Okay. Well, I think we've got to head this off with the pass. And I think it's just time for a real clear in person talk the next time you're in town and the holidays are coming up. So here we go. Right. So we're going to sit down with them, um, and leave your husband out of it and leave, you know, whoever else out of it and just sit down and go, mom and dad, couple things.

One is I love you and I'm worried about you. Two is what's your plan three is i'm not your plan okay and so since i'm not your plan i will coach you i will cheer for you i will help you in any way i can i don't have the financial mathematical bandwidth to be your plan so if you've got this in your head that somehow i'm going to pick this up when one of you can't we need to talk about what happens dad if you can't work anymore because your health fails we need to talk about what happens uh mom if dad dies and a hundred thousand dollars a year is not coming in anymore how are you going to stay in this house? We need to talk about, because I want to love you all well and walk with you as you face what looks like some very difficult decisions to me that you're going to be making.

And I hurt for you, and I want to help if I can in the coaching and sharing aspect, but not in the financial aspect. And I think you say all that out loud what you might discover is that that you know that they maybe have done something you don't even know about maybe they're further ahead than you think maybe they're worse off than you think but knowing if they if they open up the if they put their cards on the table face up knowing what's going on it's going to be a lot better for you than just guessing because guessing always makes us think it's worse than it is and some tactical pieces you can do megan is sit down with them and go let's make a budget together

we're going to sit down use every dollar let me get you connected to a smart investor pro let's get you investing some of this hundred thousand dollars while you still have it let's look at your total debt load do you need to downsize in home what sacrifices must be made for you guys to retire with dignity? You can help them answer the questions, but I would not just start funding their misbehavior for the last 20 years. You do not have a moral, ethical, or moral or ethical or spiritual obligation to write them checks.

And that's what we've been worried about. You know, we want to see them do well, and we've had some of these initial conversations saying we don't have that bandwidth. Okay, what do they say? So I think it may be just some of their own nervousness coming in. They kind of laugh it off a little bit and kind of joke saying, and this has been said by my mom, like, well, I'll just move in with you guys and help take care of your children.

And that's not really the plan that we want. And just say, you know, Mom, I love you, but I would kill you if you moved in here, and you would kill me, and so we don't want any murders. So we need a different plan. She might stop laughing. Oh, gosh, that was too real but that's these are tough boundaries we're going to sell your house and we're going to buy you a condo that's one-tenth the size of this house you're going to pay cash for it and live on social security mom that's what you're

going to do and that's going to be your best life now and um you know you just got to work you got to push them on through it and the problem is it's just very difficult it's very difficult but i don't want you to have i don't want you to misinterpret that scripture and let that be turned into an enabling vibe and that's what you're that's what you're struggling with you're like i want to be a good, I want to be a good daughter. I want to be a good spiritual person, but I don't want to be an enabler. And it feels like they've been not dealing with this. And now they're going to want me to deal with it since they didn't deal with it. And that's most of America right now, by the way. Yeah, this is an epidemic. They're

called silver squatters, Dave, relying on the kids. Silver squatters. Don't like it, but that's what they called it. Got a little silver hair going and they just squatted right there in the old living room, said, I'm going to take care of your kids. I'm going to take care of your kids. The Silver Squatters. Oh, that's awful. This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today.

Yahoo Finance. Generation X has gone by many names over the years. They started as the MTV generation, became known as the latchkey kids, were labeled America's forgotten middle child. But as retirement looms closer for Gen X, a new term is popping up in conversations that captures the anxiety and uncertainty many are feeling, silver squatters. There it is. There it is. There it is. It's a phrase that vividly paints a picture of a generation grappling with a looming financial crisis

as they edge into their mid-50s without the cushion needed for a secure retirement. The silver nods to the graying hair. Squatters suggest where they might end up staying with their adult children. There it is. Median retirement for 55-year-olds? Which we call these adult children the sandwich generation. They're sandwiched between their kid's college and their parents' lack of retirement planning.

And they're supposed to take care of people on both ends of the spectrum, and in the middle you get squashed! I feel like that would just create a cycle where they become the next silver squatters because they had to take care of the people on all sides and therefore couldn't invest in retirement because they were trying to fund mom and dad's retirement. Yeah. That's scary. I say you change your family tree and go, we're not doing that.

Well, I think you have to institute, you have to bring out the secret weapon. What's that? The ancient word. Uh-oh. The word that no one is allowed to speak anymore. You're not allowed to utter it in the American weapon. What's that? The ancient word. Uh-oh. The word that no one is allowed to speak anymore. You're not allowed to utter it in the American public. Has it been canceled? You can't say it in any place, particularly around government or around entitled people. You want to hear the word? I want to hear it. No. Dave, you can't say it on air. We're going to get taken off. I know.

You press your tongue towards the roof of your mouth, make a kissing motion with your lips. I know you've not used it in a while. No. No, we're not going on vacation. We can't afford it. No, we can't keep this house. We haven't saved anything for retirement. No, you can't lease that car, bozo.

You're broke. No, you can't afford a boat. No, you can't even afford the fish the boat would catch no you can't afford to put gas in the boat that the fish won't catch but no no no no no no Dave you're no fun yes I am I'm a lot of fun no Dave loves saying no it's one of your it's how you got here today it's a great it's a great boundary exercise no mom you're not moving in with us no I've just I just found out today you're called a silver squatter who knew I want to know what they kind of derogatory I'm not sure that's honoring your parents but yeah no

no no I have to feed my kids no you you're 80 years old you just now woke up and realized there's retirement what where the heck was your brain 40 years ago no no no no no you can't afford to go on vacation no you can't afford to eat out every night no you're gonna eat beans and rice rice and beans no eating out no no you're broke people broke people don't do things like that. No. No. You can't have a cell phone. No. You're broke. No. No. No.

No. It's the ancient word. It will set you free. I want to make that a ringtone and sell it so badly. It's just Dave saying no, no, no. Well, it's not a killjoy thing because you're saying no so that you can say yes to living. It's live like no one else so that living it's live like no one else so that later you can live like no one else it's no discipline seems pleasant at the time but it

yields a harvest of righteousness if i want my belly to be smaller i have to look at a donut and say no because my belly grows exponentially just by walking past donuts much less eating them i don't know smelling calories no fat boy no more donuts no no this could change america i'm telling you it's an amazing it's an amazing thing but no one says it to each other or to themselves and when you learn this magical word it will set you free because i want to be a good daughter a good friend a good wife so i'm just gonna say yes to it no no you're not an enabler no no i love you too much to lie to you no really seriously i set you free i love it so our brack friday sale is here and you don't have to say no to that because the deals are so good

some things you should how do you how do you segue out of that good marketing piece no you can't okay well if you if you've budgeted for christmas there you go what do i buy you can get hardcover books right now for just 12 bucks audio books for only eight bucks jade's new book bestseller money's not a math problem on sale right now get rid of the we ain't got no money mentality total money makeover we've sold a couple of those great gift right now for 12 bucks go to ramsey solutions.com slash store check out the christmas deals don't miss it and if you think you're going to miss it don't i said no don't miss it no don't miss it all right i did i think i should see that that was pretty smooth record

count alex is in phoenix alex what's up hey how you doing dave? Better than I deserve. How can we help? So I had a question. I recently just received, or I haven't gotten the check yet, but I'm receiving the second half of a settlement from a car accident I was in two years ago, which is for a million dollars, and I'm wondering if I should pay off my mortgage. Good Lord, hon, what happened? So I was, me and my buddy were on a trip to Vegas and gotten a head-on collision. There were two fatalities and the rest of us were all airlifted to Thunderbird Hospital. Fatalities in your car, hon?

There was one in ours and then one in the other oh man i'm so sorry wow how are you doing now i'm doing really good um still have like some minor things that bother me like my wrists um i have like 90 mobility and it used to be a lot worse, but that and then my abs are still healing. I had been two holes in my small intestine, a hole in my colon, so they had to get me wide open. That was quite the healing process. So you kind of crushed in the accident then. Wow.

Yeah. Unbelievable. Okay, well, first question is, um, if your income into the near future or the long term future is affected, we need to set the money aside to all some of the money to side or whatever amount to offset that. Are you back to are you are you moving again i mean what's happening with your income yeah so um before the accident i was i don't remember what i was doing i don't think i was working a full-time job at the time um how old are you i i've got my i'm 23 years or 22 years old, actually. Oh, okay. Were you working on education? No. I got my EMT out of high school and then didn't like it

and have done a bunch of, like, construction jobs. So let me ask you this then. You're 23. You've got some aches and pains pains but it sounds like you're largely healed um what's the 30 year old alex going to be doing with his life career wise um probably real estate i got my real estate license and i also do um real estate wholesaling and i've done a couple flips in the past with my family.

Okay. So I would imagine I'd continue doing that. Okay. All right. And how much debt do you have? So the mortgage on our house is... Who's our house? Just under... Me and my wife.

Oh, you're married. Okay. All right. I missed that. What does she make? She makes roughly $3,500 a month. Okay. And how much have you been making in real estate?

Honestly, I have been slacking and haven't pulled in much in the last three months. Um, why? I just, I, the only reason I got my license was so that I could get clients that my, my parents own a, um, probate company and they have clients or not. That's not what I'm asking, hon. I'm asking why you're not working. You're 23 years old and you're married. Is it medical clients or not that's not what i'm asking i'm asking why you're not working you're 23 years old you're married is it medical condition or why are you not working i am like working i just haven't been working as hard as i could have and i haven't been making the calls i need to call i i have but but I also just haven't. Nothing's been working out.

Okay. And how much do you owe on your home? $290. Okay. All right. Yeah, I pay off my house. I'd set aside if there's any taxes on any of this. Some of it will be taxable.

Some of it won't be, depending on how it's structured. And I want you to sit down with somebody and address what it is that makes the sun come out again. It makes you get your ambition bone moving again. Because it sounds like this wreck hurt you physically but might have slowed you down emotionally as well. It would have me, by the way. Sounds like a horrible accident. I'm so sorry. This is The Ramsey Show.

George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today. If you're ever around the Nashville area, we're in Franklin, a beautiful little town just south of Nashville. And you can come by and watch this show. We do it live on the air, on the glass from 1 to 4, meaning folks sit in our lobby, anywhere from 50 to 200 of them watching the show. And we charge like nothing. It's worth every penny. And there's free coffee to bribe you. And even better than that, free homemade cookies to bribe you. So when you walk in here, it smells like mama's kitchen. In the middle of that lobby right here on the glass, so we can look out the glass and see them and i used

to have a sign in here with me that said don't feed the monkey but then i wasn't the only one on the air and other people took offense to that it wasn't me i know i thought it was hilarious it was ken any of us monkeys but yeah there you go so anyway on in the uh lobby is also the debt free stage kyle and samantha are with us hey guys Hey, guys, how are you? Good. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. It's good to have you. Where do you live? Manchester, New Hampshire.

Wow. Welcome to the South. Thank you. Good to have you. And how much debt have you two paid off? $130,000. Good for you. How long did that take?

Four years. Four years. And your range of income during that time? It started out at $130,000 and ended at around $150,000. Good for you. What do you all do for a living? I'm a dental hygienist. And I'm a mechanical engineer. Excellent.

Very good. So what kind of debt was $130,000? It was our house. You paid off your house? Yes. How old are you two? 36. And you have a paid-for house? Yes. What's this you two? 36. And you have a paid-for house?

Yes. What's this house worth? About $340,000 right now. Very cool. And how much have you guys got in your retirement nest egg so far? In total with the house, it's over $500,000. Okay. You're on your way to millionaire already.

Way to go. And you're not even 40 years old. Way to go, you two. Thank you. Looking at smart people right here. I love it. So you guys hit your early 30s. You're like 32 years old, been married a little while.

At what point were you married? We got married in 2012, right? Yeah. Okay. That's been a while. This is pretty deep into marriage, and you guys woke up four years ago and said, let's just go ahead and knock out the house. What started that journey for you?

One of my coworkers at my first job, he said the best $12 he ever spent was on the total money makeover. So I ended up buying it, and it was the best $12 I spent. Wow. Thank you. I don't necessarily always agree on this journey. I wouldn't be lying if I said that you weren't a swear word at times in our house. It's a gift. It's a trigger when i hear the word spreadsheet still i've been a trigger now i've thought of myself as a trigger i did think of myself as a swear word

but yeah i like it were you dragged and then as you made progress you went okay i get it and what happened here yeah i definitely um it took a while to win her over it's still it's still a work in progress so the engineer nerd yeah coming in, nerding out your life, and you're like, I want to have one, a life that is, and you're trying to steal my life. I hate Dave Ramsey. That sounds good. I like that.

Is that kind of how it went? Yes. I would have gone with that. Did he walk in with the spreadsheet going, babe, we could save so much time and money if we just made it up early? Wow. Twelve years you're married to an engineer. You didn't know that he thinks spreadsheets are sexy.

Right. I know that now. It's his love language. Wow. That'll work. Was your goal four years, or was it more aggressive? Did you do it slower, faster? Well, once we decided to pay off the house, it was around two, two and a half years, but

we had two kids in that amount of time to add to our three kids we already had so party yeah so it took a little bit longer wow got the gang here look at that i look at the dog and the dog yeah wow beautiful well done y'all well done life is good huh it is we're very blessed and uh the number one career in the millionaire study that we did the one most likely to be a millionaire is an engineer. So there you go. So stuff all pays off after all. So stereotypical. Yep, there it is.

You guys are doing it. That's perfect, you guys. Well done. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? It's communication, for sure. You have to be on the same page, and it's also important just to have a village around you that supports you and makes sure and encourages you.

What was your village? We have our parents, for sure, and then we've got our friends over here that are with us, too. Made the trip down for the debt-free scream? They did. All right. Very good. Cool. So what was the thing that drove you? What's your why? Why do this? I was more worried when we started having kids and trying to pay for college and stuff. So I just wanted to get out of debt because I had student loans and I didn't want my kids to have student loans.

So that was a big motivator for me. Yeah. That's changing the family tree. And you got a lot of kids. That's a lot of college to pay for. Yes. I know where that freed up mortgage payment's going. Straight to the 529 plans.

Yeah. Wow. What's the first big thing you guys did or. Straight to the 529 plans. Yeah. Wow. What's the first big thing you guys did or are going to do? Well, our trip to Nashville. We're calling it our yes year now. So now we can say yes to things. Yep. As Dave said earlier, you got to say no a whole lot.

We did. We did. You did it. You did it. You did it. So Samantha, what was it that actually did, all kidding aside, you actually did join the crusade here at some point. What caused the change that allowed you to do that? Just for me, my heart's always been forgiving and just one making sure that our kids

see how important that is. And, um, really just being able to be generous and let our kids know the importance of that. Yeah. Yeah. And you get yourself in a real strong financial position. You can do giving at a different level. A hundred percent. Yeah. And you're there now. Way to go. And you're only 36. You're going to be so wealthy, so generous, so out of control. Well done, y'all. Very, very well done. Very good stuff. So now that you're there, when you flip the switch and you paid off the mortgage, did you notice a change in the way just it felt? Yeah. Yeah. It definitely feels different, especially every first of the month when that money doesn't come out of your account

and you can see your account growing. Budgeting gets a lot more fun when you get to just delete the mortgage payment out. You got property taxes and insurance, but man, that principal and interest not being there, that frees you up emotionally, mentally, financially. Yes. Yeah. It's huge.

Yeah, way to go, you guys. I'm proud of you. Thank you. Who was cheering you on along the way? Your friends and your family and who else? Co-workers. Yeah, my parents were. We were actually in a race to see who could pay

off our house the first and we won so it was a little competition i love that were the kids aware of what was going on the older ones were they like okay we can see the sacrifice we're feeling it too we gotta meet beat grandma i wouldn't say that not cutting the snack budget no they weren't going along with it i If anything, I take away his snack money. Oh. Well, there you go. There you go. And now, if you snack like no one else later, you can snack like no one else.

So there you go. Good stuff. Well done, you two. Proud of you. Excellent, excellent job. All right. It's Kyle and Samantha. Manchester, New Hampshire.

$130,000 paid off. That's house and everything. They're debt-free, no mortgage America. You know what their interest rate problems are? None. They don't have one. That's right. They did this in four years, making $130,000 to $150,000, and it's hard.

But is it worth it? Yes. Definitely. Count it down, Kyle and Samantha hard. But is it worth it? Yes. Definitely. Count it down, Kyle and Samantha. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah!

This is how it's done. I like the irony because New Hampshire's motto, live free or die. What better way to live free than knowing nobody anything? Is it really? That's it. That's about as rock and roll as it gets. How did you know that? I'm from Massachusetts. I was always jealous we didn't have a cooler state motto.

Yeah, wow. Okay. Apparently from, adopted by the state in 1945. It was from a letter from General John Stark in 1809, the live free or die. Live free or die. Here's your history lesson. That's good.

All right. I got my trivia lesson, but yeah, I'll go with that though. I mean, here's the thing. All I can hear about when I'm doing media interviews and you're doing media interviews is that there's a whole generation that feels stuck. There's a whole generation that doesn't think they can get ahead. There's a whole generation, Gen Z that says, and Gen X and Millennials,

I mean, Millennials and Gen Z that says they can't make it. And then you meet Kyle and Samantha. And we get to meet them every week. You know how stuck they are? Not stuck. No excuses. That's how stuck they are. Not stuck. Not stuck. Get a how stuck they are. Not stuck.

Not stuck. Get a reasonable home, pay it off aggressively, live the rest of your life free. That's the same interest rate on their mortgage I got on mine. Zero. Don't have one. Not stuck. Take that for the two percenters out there who go,

I'll never pay mine off, Dave. Here's to Dave Ramsey's show for the crap. Dave Ramsey's not stuck. Zero mortgage. Zero percent interest. You got to love it. That's how much I'm worried about the Fed. Not stuck.

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might not be in all states. Today's question comes from Andrew in Switzerland. I'm an American, but I live in Europe where salaries are much lower. I'm a seasonal restaurant worker spending winters in Switzerland and summers in Australia. I also get free rent and food, so I'm able to save $30,000 to $35,000 a year. I invest heavily in crypto, and I know it's not a safe method for long-term investing. What are some other investment options where I can diversify my investment portfolio? I know I

need to diversify, but I'm an aggressive investor who thinks without risk, there is no way to win. This is a tortoise and hare situation here. He's the hare. He's going, I got to have the risk of my life, Dave. And you're asking us to diversify because you know you should have less risk. You know that you could lose your butt if one thing happens in the crypto world. Yeah. Statistically, Andrew, the fastest way to get rich quick is to get rich slow.

Because people doing the crap you're doing end up losing everything and they get to start over several times. You know how I know that? I did it. I was doing flip this house before Chip and Joanna were born. Okay. And I lost my butt because I never met a risk I didn't like. I believed in me and I knew I knew everything. And I'm so smart. I could out work the real estate market and the banking market, just like you're so smart. You can invest in something that's not even real called crypto and you're going to lose your butt and then you're going to get the opportunity to start over and then if you don't fix this broken thing in your brain that's causing you to look for a shortcut called pride which comes right before the fall quit looking for a shortcut there's no place worth going that there's a shortcut to. So you're not going to do any of this.

Because I went to her in Switzerland a nice summer in Australia. Oh, brother. Seriously. Lean in and get in a grind and grind your way into some wealth, honey. That's where it comes from. There's no statistical evidence anywhere in any wealth building study that I've ever seen or ever done that indicates anything you're doing is going to work. None of it's going to work. So how's that for depressing? But yeah, I mean, we're here.

We'd love you so much. We tell you the truth to be unclear is to be unkind. We are anything but an enabler. We want you to win so i'm talking to you like you were my little brother worse than that one of my kids and so no if you're going to do this thing you're doing for your career uh which also feels like some kind of a lot doesn't feel like a career it feels like vacation it feels like the whole thing to use a game and um but hey dude you do whatever you want to do you're not an aggressive investor you serve tables you're not an aggressive investor okay it doesn't look as good in the instagram bio i know you need to you need to steadily invest steady steady steady in things that are boring the antithesis of everything you're talking about is the best way to get what is the best way to become wealthy

all the data which are called facts indicate that that's not a difference in your opinion and dave's opinion no your opinion's wrong and mine's based on facts data so please don't do this honey you're gonna you're gonna so we'll answer your question i mean you want to diversify diversify across some different types all the crypto and i'd start investing in good growth stock mutual funds that have 50 and 100 year track records and this means owning little shares of a whole lot of companies that you will end up with much more money at the end of the story because you won't get the opportunity to start over three times because you're going to lose your butt in crypto.

One of the wealthiest men in the world said if he could buy all the crypto for $5, he wouldn't do it. His name is Warren Buffett. If he said if he could buy the whole thing for $5, he wouldn't take it. Because it has no utility. What's he going to do with it? It's not even a commodity. It's a currency.

You're investing in currency. Just go buy the Iraqi dinar. Oh, my God. It's a currency that failed. And that's what we're dealing with here. It might make it, but it's not an appropriate investment for someone in your situation. It's an appropriate investment for someone worth $2 billion to put in $50,000 and play with it, like they were playing a roulette wheel or something.

But this is Russian roulette here. This is dangerous. Please, please, please stop it, Andrew. This is just a mess. Everything in this is a mess. Nick is in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Hi, Nick. What's up?

Hey, guys. How's it going? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Me and my wife just started the second baby step a couple months ago. And I guess I'll just paint a picture of what I'm looking at. Um, so after we started the second baby step, we started to, uh, kind of just put the ducks in a, in a line and, um, see what needs to be paid off first.

So we, we had a bunch of credit card debt and those credit cards were high in interest um so we pulled out a personal loan and combined those with a small a lower interest so we would have an extra a hundred dollars going to the debt instead of interest um so we're working on paying that off right now, and then we have a bigger credit card that we're still paying normal minimum payments to. How much is the personal loan, Nick? It is just under $4,000. And how much is the bigger credit card, Nick? $11,000. Okay.

And what's your household income nick um about 78 okay and how much is your car payment the card payment is two no no car with payment auto car payment uh 258 what do you owe on it uh 11 000 okay what other debt have you got um other than a mortgage we just have those three so about 26 grand total in debt you make 78 we don't need to play shell games moving dead around anymore we just need to aggressively attack it yeah what's your question a hundred dollars a month screwing around with all this you could have found in a good budget by staying out of restaurants correct so the question was i was just kind of looking for a little more money to

pay down that personal loan cut your lifestyle up quicker what speed it up quicker with my lifestyle. Yeah, cut your lifestyle. That's where you're going to find it. Okay. You working a 40-hour job? I'm a truck driver. Okay, or you're working a 40-hour job? Or are you gone all week or what? Yeah, it's a 70-hour.

Okay, so you're gone all week? Yep. Okay, and what's your wife make? She's a stay-at-home. Okay, all right. So what we're going to do is we're going to, George and I are going to put you into EveryDollar, which is our budgeting app,

to show you how to make the money that you have behave because we can tell from these numbers that it's not behaving. which is our budgeting app, to show you how to make the money that you have behave, because we can tell from these numbers that it's not behaving. You're looking for a math hack. There's not a math hack. There's a spending hack. And you make a good amount of money, and your debt is not an overwhelming number. This is a number you can pay off very, very quickly, probably in a year or just a little over a year, but you're

going to have no life. Rather, your wife's going to have no life while you're on the road, and you're going to have no life while you're on the road. Peanut butter and jelly, beans and rice, tuna fish. These are the things that are in your future while you get out of debt, okay? We're not spending money in restaurants. We're not spending money on vacations. We're not spending any money anywhere because we're going to clean this debt up really, really fast. So what I'm telling you is I want you to find around $2,000

a month in this budget to attack this with. And I think you can do it. If you're bringing home six, that shouldn't be hard if you cut your spending. And you ought to be bringing home around six. It might be your withholding. It might be some other stuff. We'll help you with this. We'll even put you into Financial Peace University. You and your wife go through all of that. I'm going to pay for it for you and help you get moving. It's not a hack you're looking for. It's a grind. This is the Ramsey Show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right, so I was born and raised in Texas, and I love the myth of the lone cowboy. You know, the guy who doesn't need anyone or anything.

It's a fun story, and it's a lie. In our self-obsessed society, we're obsessed about our own diets, our own workout routines, our own jobs, our own social media feeds, everything. It's easy to forget that no one can do life alone. And I don't care if you're an introvert, an extrovert, or whatever you want to call yourself, we all have to have a community and a support system to do life with. It's time to shift the focus from doing it all by ourselves to knowing that we can only be well and whole when we ask for help. Therapy can be a great source of help and support for any area of your life. And if you're thinking about starting therapy, try BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy, so it can fit with your schedule. To get started, just fill out a short online survey to get matched with a licensed therapist. And if it's not the right fit, you can switch therapists at any time for no extra cost. This month, start to build your support system with BetterHelp. Visit

betterhelp.com slash Ramsey Radio to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P.com slash Ramsey Radio. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, number one bestselling author, host of The George Camel Show on YouTube, is my co-host today, Ramsey personality number one best-selling author, host of the George Camel Show on YouTube, is my co-host today. Ramsey personality, George Camel.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. Haley in Savannah, Georgia. What's up? Hi, guys. Thank you so much for taking my call today. My husband and I are both firefighter paramedics, and we've been together four years now. We got married this past May. We both want kids.

We're both ready emotionally and me biologically to go ahead and start having children. And I've heard what you said on the show before about, you know, not waiting around to have kids. My husband and I kind of disagree about something he thinks that our current situation it would be irresponsible for us to have a child um and i just i don't agree um you're right he's wrong that's what i keep telling him you're right he's wrong let me ask you something though is he saying to you without saying to you when you quit being impulsive and overspend and make our finances all screwed up then i'll be ready to have kids is he trying to reign you in um are you out of control Are you out of control? Are you out of control?

I don't think I'm out of control. No, I didn't ask that. I asked if you are out of control. Is that what he's saying to you? No. Like, I don't want to already have a kid. I don't need more. Is that what he's saying?

No. Are you sure? I don't need more. Is that what he's saying? No. Are you sure? I'm positive. Okay. Who's the nerd? Who's the nerd? Who's the free spirit? He is the nerd.

He is the nerd and I'm the free spirit. So what evidence does he have that you guys are not in a place to have this kid financially? So we have a HELOC, and it's around, it's got $44,000 left on it for us to pay off. What did you buy on the HELOC? $3,000. We were really stupid and had a big wedding. Wow. So you owned the home before you were married, then took out a HELOC to pay for a big fancy wedding? So the HELOC was my father's, and I'm on it with him. So we're paying, obviously, off what we put on it together, yes. We're making really big payments on it, $3,000 a month payments combined.

He and I make $136,000 a month payments combined he and I make 136 thousand dollars a year our cars are paid off and the only thing we're paying on our living arrangements is property taxes okay so you're together on your plan and you're living sacrificially to hit your goals correct so he wasn't calling you a princess then was he i was wrong i no he he's i mean i am his princess no that wasn't what i meant i'm talking about a negative princess not like you're my princess i'm not i don't need that that's not that's not for this show that's the lonely show no but no the um all right um so is it because of the heloc he's saying hey we've got this big heloc we're trying to pay off now is not the time to have a kid no he's just super conservative and he sees sees all kinds of pain every day he's very conservative um and he just uh i think he would feel more comfortable knowing that we were completely debt free if you're more comfortable

if you had two million dollars but you don't wait on that to have kids. Well, gosh, you win the whole argument today, girl. I don't even get to pick on you. I don't even get to pick on you. You fought your way through that. Way to go. And I don't know if he knows how kids work, but you have like a nine-month lead-up to get your act together

and get this HELOC paid off. So it's not like an instantaneous thing. $3,000 and you only owe $40,000, you're done in a year. I want to respect him and his feelings, though, about it. I don't want to push him, and I do feel like he is head of the household. Here's the thing. Opposites attract. Assuming both of you are healthy and living sacrificial towards a plan,

opposites attract. The spender always attracts the saver. The free spirit always attracts the nerd. And you need both of you. You need both sets of input. Because if two people just alike get married, one of you is unnecessary. So you need each other, right? So he needs respect you too in this so the year

that rachel cruz was born was the year we filed bankruptcy that's how irresponsible we were and that didn't have anything to do with sharon that had to do with me being an idiot she didn't cause any of that so but i think you guys face a lot of trauma in other people's lives all day long and that can translate into being super conservative and trying to keep control on everything at home, can't it? Yes, sir. And I think part of the issue or nervousness for him is obviously my lifestyle is going to change.

I can't work the physicality of the job while being pregnant or obviously things will be different afterwards um it's a very demanding job yes it is we're away from home at night so you guys are heroes that makes them nervous yeah i i think he's got reason to be nervous because he's a young dad to be and that's mandatory for all young dads to be to be nervous it's like comes with the territory but as the old guy here i'm gonna tell you have babies right now right now that's what i would do and really when you look at the actual cost of what it's going to take oh it's not cost you know like what's going to be in the budget you can do all the math but i don't think that's enough for him i think he truly is just he feels like he's he's not ready well regardless if she is responsible and i was accusing her maybe not

being that i was wrong because i think she held up to that that interrogation that's pretty strong yeah she wasn't bowing down she didn't she back down that's good good strong lady yeah yeah i mean because i i you know because sometimes for for for you ladies out there sometimes husbands speak is um they're saying one thing but they really mean something else. Oh, wait a minute. Wives do that, too. Yeah. Okay.

It's human condition. Yeah. But, you know, so sometimes, you know, your husband's saying we can't afford this. What he's saying is because of you. And that's what I was going. But I was wrong. I missed that one. I missed that one.

I don't miss them often, but I missed that one. Rick. Rick is up. He's in Albany, New York. Rick, what's going on? Hey, thanks, Dave and George, for taking my call. I'll be quick. My wife and I just completed Financial Peace University.

And during Lesson 6, which is about understanding insurance, I brought up a question about a whole life insurance policy I have. It's well over $100,000. It's got a fairly large cash value. And I know I need to get rid of it, and I want to sell it. And my question is, you hear about all these ads on TV like Coventry, Direct, and that they say before you let it lapse or you sell it, find out what it's worth, and that you could probably get more for it.

What are your views about selling it to someone else? That's a viatical, and I would stay completely away from that. There's no point in that because it's still in your name. It's still all screwed up. No, it's real simple, Rick. You're right. It is a quick question. Just the things that you learned told you it was not a good product and you decide to get out of it. You're just trying to figure out the best way to get out of it. And the best way to get out of it is just cancel it. Surrender the policy. Surrender it. And get term life in place first. Before you do that. And then get your whole cash value back and use your cash value on your baby steps. And certainly that includes investing in investing in anything is better than a universal policy. Putting it in a fruit jar, you'll end up with more money. This is The Ramsey Show.

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jimmy is a uh an expert on generosity man i mean you have done some of the best video work on randomly messing up people's lives in an awesome way with generosity. I'm so proud of you. Well done, sir. Thank you. Thank you. It's a blast. It's what we're all called to do, and when we do it,

we feel like we're in our purpose and we're alive. So seeing someone else's day made because you gave a sacrifice, whether it's small or big, it's always worth it. So, Jimmy, you DM'd me out of the blue, and I was like, Jimmy, did he get hacked on Instagram? And you were going, man, I'm a big Ramsey fan. And so we got connected, and it's been a blast becoming friends with you. And I want everyone to know the story of how this got started because it's powerful, and it started with your own life change.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, when I was a little kid, the first time I really experienced what it's like to give something away and bless someone, my parents for Christmas gave us $200. They said $100 for you to keep, buy whatever you want, $100 you got to give away away and bless someone. My parents for Christmas gave us $200. They said, $100 for you to keep. Buy whatever you want. $100, you got to give away to someone else. And so the very first time I gave was a guy on the street. He had a sign. I gave him $100. And just as a kid, seeing his face just melt changed my life and marked me. And then it kind of lived for a knucklehead the rest of my high school years and did a lot of party videos. But then when I was 18, I just met the love of jesus got transformed and never thought i'd pick up my video gift again and i was out reading the bible

one day and i felt like the lord said jimmy it's time to go back and make videos but this time do it for me and i said all right i mean what do you want me to be a preacher what does that mean he goes no i want you to ask people for help and when they help you change their life so that's when i started doing these videos asking someone to help me get a tank of gas in my car or to you know buy me a gallon of milk and when they did that we gave them 500 bucks and just uh to see their their reactions was powerful and then the internet started donating and that person's two dollars or five dollars they gave me turned into them getting back like $50,000. And so it was pretty powerful. Yeah. The videos are, I can watch them all day. I mean, it just makes you cry,

makes my eyes leak. I love it. And just watching these people's face change and, and, um, I mean, you're, you're really, really good at your craft too. You've developed this. I mean, uh, it's not manipulation at all, but, but I mean, uh, you're editing in the process. You, you build such a great story in such a short timeframe. Uh, the arc goes through that thing and it works so powerfully. I watched like 10 of them this weekend. You got to get back to work. People need you out there.

And like Dave talks about, you know, you're the, you're not the hero in these videos. The person is, and it's why you don't, we don't see a lot of Jimmy in the videos. You want to make it about them you're simply the guide and we've got a clip and I this is one of your favorite yeah yeah yeah with our friend Lulu let's check it out over $42,000 was donated to help you out 24 hours earlier I met Lulu a struggling mom who couldn't get a job because of her smile sorry to bother you. I'm just trying to ask people for a dollar to get the bus out of here.

I don't know if you have anything, but it's not going to hurt you? No. It'll help you more than it'll hurt me. Thank you. What's your name? Lulu. I then surprised Lulu with $1,000 for her kindness, and then she shared this with me. Thank you. Are you serious? Yes. I've got five kids. I've been paying for her kindness and then she shared this with me. Thank you. Are you serious? Yes.

I've got five kids and I'm going through a lot. Not having a job. They act like they want to hire you, but then when you've got a messed up smile, they think about different things and they say that they don't hire you because of that, but I feel like it is. The next day, I met up with Lulu to give her the surprise of her life. Over $42,000 was donated to help you out. No way. Yes. No way. So you're going to be able to get new out. No way. Yes. No way.

So you're going to be able to get new teeth. Is this something you've been praying for? Definitely. All right, what actually happened? You walked up, asked her for a dollar to get on the bus. She gave it to you, and then you did what? Yeah, she gave me a dollar to get on the bus, and then I asked her her story, and she started telling me that she's been trying to get a job as a single mom,

but it's been really hard because her teeth were kind of messed up and people assumed she was on drugs and all this. And so it was just the saddest story ever. And I ended up giving her $500. She starts bawling her eyes out. And I gave her a hug, got her number. And I said, I'm going to be praying for you knowing that she doesn't know, but there's millions of people watching on the other side of that phone that are going to want to change her life. And so we ended up raising over $50,000 for her and ended up flying her out to Nashville. And she got brand new teeth, Jason Aldean and his

wife, their dentist, they helped make that happen. So she's got brand new teeth now. She moved, went back to Vegas, got a job. She's given her life to Jesus I've heard. And so her life's got back on track. And we got the photo here. If you're watching on YouTube or the app, look at that smile. Before and after. Yeah, that's awesome. And those are the temporaries. They'll even look better than that.

So, yeah, that's incredible. That's so fun. Yeah. And I mean, so your whole approach is you walk up, find someone and ask them for help. And then they finally, I bet you get turned down. Yeah, yeah, a few times I get turned down. And when I do, I mean, you know, I'm just looking out there for the people that do pass the test because we're really trying to find people

that have lived a lifestyle of generosity and kindness their whole life and never got rewarded for it. But in that one moment, they become the hero. And if you read the comments on my videos, like 90% of them are about the person and not me. And that's why they want to help out. And so it's been really powerful. And there's been a lot of amazing stories. Yeah. My favorite one is probably Steve. He was a homeless vet. He was in Anaheim. He was just sleeping on the side of the road, went up to him, saw he was struggling with addiction. And I was like, man, I don't know if there's anything to do to help this guy. So I almost kept walking. That's when I felt the Lord say, no, no, no, maybe not money this time,

but ask him what he wants, what's on his bucket list. So I said, Steve, what's on your bucket list? And he just perked up and he goes, man, I want to skydive, hot air balloon and go deep sea fishing. It was like he was ready for me to ask the question. And I said, all right. And sure enough, a few hours later, I came back in my little Honda, picked him up and he was jumping out of an airplane and we were going over the sky. And he then got out of addiction, got moved into a housing, got his life turned around. And all he needed was a spark to realize life can be fun again. Wow. That's powerful. And we talked about this, Jimmy, but you've got to have the margin to be generous. You've got to have your eyes up looking for opportunity instead of looking inward,

stressed about your own life. And that's part of why you follow the Ramsey plan. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You know, yeah. Having your fist like this with money in it, you know, obviously if God tries giving you something, it'll just hit the ground. And so when you're generous and give to people, God can also bless you more. And so that's just how it works. And yeah, when you live within your means, you don't buy stupid stuff, you save your money, you can give to other people. And that's just something that will never get old. And yeah, whether you've got a million dollars in your bank account to bless someone and get them a new car, or just like the poor widow and the Bible and all you got is a coin,

heaven is moved by generosity and it'll make your heart come alive when you do it. Wow. Wow. So Instagram and TikTok sensation Jimmy Darts is with us. At Jimmy Darts is where you pick him up. You guys got to watch these videos. They'll make you work your tail off to get your act together so you've got some money.

You'll live like no one else so later you can live and give like no one else. They're inspiring. It's really, really inspiring. We talked about, you know, I love the Rachel Cruz quote, give a little until you can give a lot. And so what Jimmy's doing with even the GoFundMe, I might only have a few bucks to give to this campaign, but what we're doing as a community to change someone's life is powerful, and it makes you want to give more. Generosity is addictive. Yeah, absolutely. Generosity is addictive.

And, yeah, I mean, if all you have is a couple dollars to give, what's worth a couple bucks? A coffee. If all you have in your budget is $10 a month to give away and you buy a stranger a cup of coffee every month, it might be outside of your comfort zone, but it's going to blow them away. Because when's the last time someone bought you in the line, a coffee in line. I can't remember that happened to me.

So probably Dave Ramsey. It probably was in the lobby here, but yeah, that's why we give away free coffee. Oh man, it's powerful. And you've got a lot going on, Jimmy.

You've got your kindness challenge cards. People should check out. And it's kind of a scratch off. You can do with your own family, your own friends, help strangers out. So everyone needs to go check out Jimmy on Instagram on instagram tiktok youtube at jimmy darts you're an inspiration man i'm honored to know you thank you couldn't have done it without you guys or i'd

probably be in debt over my ears so yeah i got a feeling you're gonna be okay brother yeah i'm proud of you it's good work you're doing thanks for hanging out with us. We appreciate you. Thanks so much. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys. Health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer, and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy. So if you feel like the system is working against you, try a biblically-based alternative to health insurance, Christian Healthcare Ministries.

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chministries.org slash budget at chministries.org slash budget. George Campbell, Ramsey personality is my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the Debt Free Stage. Jill is with us. Hi, Jill, how are you? I'm good, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. Where do you live? Atlanta, Georgia. All right. Welcome to Nashville. How much debt have you paid off? $102,000.

Good for you. How long did that take? About 27 months. Good for you. And your did that take? About 27 months. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? Started at around $60,000, ended up at $124,000. Cool. Good for you. Well done. What kind of debt was the $102,000? Let's see, about $11,000 in credit cards, about $9,000 in medical bills and some IRS debt, and then $82,000 in student loan. Wow you were kind of normal. Yes. Not fun. No it was not. Wow okay so what happened two years and some change ago that was your wake up call and you said we're going to get out of this and doing this Ramsey stuff. How'd that all

happen? Tell us your story. Yeah so actually my story starts back in 2018. I was working full time and decided I want to go to graduate school. But even then I told myself I'm not going to take any more student loan. If I'm going to go to school, I have to pay for this in cash. And then that fall my church was hosting FPU. And I said, yes, this is my chance to make sure I'm doing this right and not have to take out any loan and just make this whole process a little bit easier. So I did that and I can tell you Dave I completely 100% cash flowed my master's program. Yeah okay step one. Yes got that done. What's your master's in? Nutrition and dietetics. Good for you okay good. Yes so then later the end of 2019, due to some contract changes, all the dietitians and myself,

we were all let go from our hospital. And so starting 2020, I had started a new job. And then we all know what happened in 2020. COVID happened. And so I just kind of went in survival mode. I had finished paying that last semester of grad school. And so I just wanted to save because I had just lost my job recently. You know, I didn't know what was going to happen with COVID And so I just wanted to save because I had just lost my job recently, you know, didn't know what was going to happen with COVID. So I just kind of just started saving and just, you know, continue to work some side hustles and some side gigs just to see, you know, kind of what happened. So once I got settled in my job and, you know, had kind of built up some savings, all right, let's get this started again so I tackled the medical medical bills and the credit card debt on about 10 months wow yeah um and then so I was like okay I can

breathe a second I've I've paid off some of these some of these big ones all I have left is the student loan uh so at that time I decided to move to Atlanta for a new job opportunity pay raise all that kind of stuff um and then I was like, okay, we're settled. Let's do this. But the thing, Dave, is my student loans were private. So while everyone else's student loans were on pause, the interest payments, all that this whole time might have been going. And so I could have paused my loans, but I was like, the interest is still going to go. I just can't take this anymore. It is keeping me from having time to do what I want. I'm working all these jobs. I can't save for a house. I can't have a car emergency, nothing. And so I was like, hey, we're doing this.

This is the Goliath I'm looking at. Let's go. Let's do it. So January of 23, I put my foot on the gas pedal and had a full-time job, two part-time jobs, two other side hustles. I was doing 60, 70, sometimes 80 hours a week trying to pay this off. And then my church in Atlanta did FPU again. And so I was like, okay, this is step, baby step three is actually in sight. Like I'm getting so close. I'm in like the last six miles of this marathon like i can do this so i had a great support system went through that and then in may of this year i made my final student loan payment wow way to go that's definitely putting your foot on the gas to the finish through the tape she wins i like it doubled your income i did you went all right i'm going to

sacrifice for a short time so that I can be done with this faster. And it worked. It did. It did. So that was hard. It was. Was it worth it? Oh, 100%.

100%. Yeah. You're free now. I am. I am. I finally have time to do the things I want to do, get more involved in my church, investing in people, and just being able to live. It's very freeing. Yeah, I guess.

Congratulations. Thank you. So proud of you. Who was cheering you on? Oh, man. My parents first. First of all, when I made that last student loan payment, I had them on FaceTime.

And they were with me when I hit send or hit pay and we all just cried I love it it was great my aunts and uncles my co-workers are amazing when I paid off my debt they had a little party for me had a little banner made that said Jill is debt-free friends family just it's been amazing and being somebody who's single it was important to me to kind of have that support and accountability yeah I couldn't have done without them wow yeah you brought a crowd with you just to support you it was important to me to kind of have that support and accountability. I couldn't have done it without them. Wow. Yeah, you brought a crowd with you just to support you.

You got your own posse over here, which is awesome. And that is huge for folks that are single out there because it's so much harder when you don't have that built-in accountability of a spouse. Correct, correct. So I'm proud of you. Thanks. Did people think you were crazy? Oh, yes. People were like, well, why are you paying this off?

Like, you need to be investing. And I said, well, these student loans, think you were crazy oh yes people were like well why are you why are you paying this off like you need to be investing like and i said well these student loans this is keeping me from investing in my future and this is keeping me from living um and i'm i'm doing it this way and here i am on the day ramsey show i love it you did it very very cool good stuff so what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? You are very successful at it. Yeah, so first and foremost, my faith in Jesus Christ is what helped me get through it. Having that great support system to help keep me accountable. And then when I got to the student loan part, I was at $82,000.

And I was like, okay, so I made some payments, got into the 70s. And I was like, okay, how fast can I get to the 60s? And then I just kept going. So I made some payments, got into the 70s. And I was like, okay, how fast can I get to the 60s? And then I just kept going. So I made it a game. And I took the power back that that debt had over me and made it how fast can I do this? And that really changed my mindset. So changing that mindset and having that support system is huge. Taking the power back. It really does come down to hope.

It does. When you take the power back back that means that you now see that this is possible ding ding hope kicks in belief kicks in and then you then you don't even feel the sacrifice then because like you said it's a game i'm sprinting to the finish line i see the tape yes i'm in pain but i can see the tape by the where this is not forever it's not no discipline seems pleasant at the time but it yields a harvest of righteousness. Well done, young lady. Well done.

Very well done. Now you're free. How's it feel? Well, Dave, you know how you tell people when they pay their house off that grass feels different? Dave, buying groceries feels different now uh being able to say yes to trips or friends are going to this restaurant this new place open in atlanta let's all go like being able to say yes to that uh just being able to change like my priorities and my time it's just it's been amazing deleting the student loan app off my phone was huge oh yes yes that was a moment you are now done i like it

never again will i go back worst app ever do not recommend zero stars wow zero stars oh that is incredible so what's next for you uh obviously coming to nashville my family we're all going to texas next month to celebrate another family member's birthday so I got to do that and I was recently promoted I'm a registered dietitian and I was promoted to clinical nutrition manager so now I'm somehow I'm not shocked yeah in the midst of working your tail off they go hey she's a hard worker let's give her the job yes yes God was just blessing that that student loan balance coming down, the job opportunity came in. I finally got to get rid of some of these side hustles, and I'm just excited what God has in the future. Yeah, it's going to be big. It's going to be amazing. We want to bless you. We've got two

every dollar yearly subscriptions for you. You can use them, pass them on to someone to kickstart their journey as well. Way to go. Thank you. How old are you? 36. Yeah, there's no stopping you. There's no stopping you. You're wide open. I bet you were wide open when you were a little kid mom yeah mom's shaking her head yeah okay yeah it's kind of a rachel cruz thing right there yeah rachel was wide open when she was a little kid i mean we talked i told sharon i said we're going to point this one she's gonna go off you've got to use these powers for good. Yeah, that's it. You're something else. You're amazing.

I'm so proud of you. Thanks, Dave. Very, very well done. I'm glad I made you proud. All right. Jill is in Atlanta, Georgia. She paid off $102,082, which was those dastardly student loons. 27 months she did it, making $60,000 to $124,000.

Lots of work. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-,000 to $124,000. Lots of work. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. I'm debt-free! Yeah! Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop. Yeah, baby!

That's how it works around these parts. This is The Ramsey Show. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts and you'll get ten different answers. Economic growth or a recession. Business taxes will go up or down. AI will help us work or it will replace us all. But there's no such thing as a crystal ball. That's why more

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Well, we just launched a brand new tour. Me and Dr. John Deloney are hitting the road and coming to a city near you on the Money and Relationships Tour. We're putting a whole new twist on these live events. You, the audience that have bought tickets, are going to shape the conversation that we have each night. At each stop on the tour, you get to select the topics that matter most to you in the pre-show,

and then we're going to design the show right before we walk out. Whether it's budgeting or relationship dynamics or achieving your financial goals, whatever the question is, you get to choose the topic, and that's what we're going to do. We're going to be in Louisville April 21st, in Durham April 23rd, Atlanta April 25th, Phoenix May 5th, Fort Worth May 7th, and Kansas City May 9th. Dave Ramsey, Dr. John Deloney, live in person in those cities on that date. You're going to laugh, you're going to cry, you're going to learn, and we're going to do some Q&A. We're going to have, it's going to be very, very interactive, a way different kind of live

event for the Ramsey Bunch. If you're tuning in on YouTube or podcast, you can click the link in the show notes, or you can go to ramseysolutions.com slash tour and get your tickets right now. Cindy is with us. Cindy is in Orlando. Hi, Cindy. How are you? Hi. Thank you for taking my call.

Sure. What's up? So my husband and I are on Baby Step 3, but six months ago he lost his job. And we're trying to figure out, do we get rid of the life insurance, the umbrella, My husband and I are on baby step three, but six months ago he lost his job. And we're trying to figure out, do we get rid of the life insurance, the umbrella, to help with everything? Or do we want to keep those things on our budget? Why isn't he working? He was laid off. He's in in sales and he's been trying and um praise god he's been

humbled so he's been trying everything and now he's even taking classes and we only have the one car because we went gazelle intense so uh the car that we have for Lyft, I think it's too old, the year of it. What was he doing when he got laid off? Sales. Sales. Selling what? Software. Software sales.

Why did he get laid off? I think production-based, if you don't hit a quota. So he wasn't making sales. Okay. What kind of income was he making? $50,000. Okay. And so what does he want to do with his life now?

For the unemployment, he's doing the cybersecurity. He's taking the classes for that. He's taking classes for what? Cybersecurity. Cybersecurity. Yeah. What do you make? 73. Okay. So you've been living off of your 73, but you're also trying to build up this emergency fund. And he's not creating any income at all? Unfortunately, no. Okay. What did he make his last year in sales? What did he make in sales?

You said 50K? Yeah, he made 50. All together, we did 130 in our taxes last year. So he made like $30,000 in sales. How many kids do you have? Two. How old is he? And one's in daycare.

How old is he? He's 41. Okay. All right. Well, there's, here's the thing. When you have zero income coming in and you go for a job interview, you walk differently and your voice tone is different than if you have income coming in. Right? And so the fact that he's doing nothing is not helping him land a position

so i would prefer that he cut grass and drive uber 80 hours a week clean toilets whatever he has to do to get some income coming in and actually put his hand to something other than YouTube or whatever he's spending his days on these days he really needs to get to work for his own sake and that's going to make him more employable at one of these other jobs it's not that he's lacking a class if he wants to take a cyber security class at night while he's working full time during the day um that's fine but sitting on his butt taking one class or two classes is not cool y'all are broke so you said he was humbled but i think he needs more we got more to go we need to swallow our pride and go do something i don't really want to care if he's humble what i want him to do is go to work.

Understood. Yeah, my grandmother used to say there's a great place to go when you're broke, to work. So, yeah, I mean, and here's the thing. I don't care if he takes a career job until he gets a career job, okay? But I want him to do anything he can do to go make some money. And what that does is it gives him dignity and it gives him purpose and believe it or not it gives you energy when you're working hard and then when you walk in to a job interview you got a little swagger instead of your head hung down and your lip stuck out they can smell desperation yeah every human can smell it we see the body

language you see the the pacing in your in your voice the tone the energy level the eyes are lit up or they're glazed over which is it and all of these things happen and so and the guy you're describing to me right now is not going to survive a good interview understood if he got one how many interviews has he actually been on? Two. In six months? Yes. Okay.

So sometimes what happens when we get fired, which is what really happened because he didn't make his sales, then it takes some of your dignity and some of your self-confidence some of your mojo so i i think um you encouraging him to go be somebody is going to be really good for him it's not nagging him it's lifting him up so i'm gonna be his coach at halftime and go we're behind and you've got the stuff i want you to get up in the morning and shave and put on nice clothes like you're going to work. Oh, and by the way, go ahead and go to work while you're doing that. Yes. And I don't care if you're serving at a restaurant.

I don't care if you're delivering pizza. I don't care if you're Uber Eats. I don't care if you're cutting grass. I don't care if you're working cleaning toilets. You can get a job by the end of the week doing one of those things or all of those things. And believe me, Orlando needs the help. There's people in Orlando that need help. a job and then by the end of the week doing one of those things or all of those things and believe me orlando needs the help there's people in orlando need help get you a leaf blower from home depot rich people are afraid of leaves and so you know that kind of stuff right so i mean go

go do something because what that does is it gets you up off the the the pity party that we all I went through that when I went broke it took my confidence like when you get fired it took my confidence and it took me a while to get and and I was but I had two little babies and I didn't have a choice I had to go make something because we were starving to death and so I went out there and did anything I could do for a period of time until I could get the income moving again. And then with that came my confidence. It came back. And slowly, the more I did it.

And so, you know, I hope that's all it is with him. I hope he's not lazy. But most people aren't lazy. Most people struggle with hope. And he's probably not a lazy guy, but he probably just doesn't feel great about him. You're over there making money. He got fired.

And so I want him to get back out there and get back out in the marketplace, get back up at the plate, start swinging the bat again. And I'm going to send you Ken Coleman's two books, Proximity Principle and Paycheck to Purpose, and tell him to get on KenColeman.com and start using that proximity principle to get some positions and get some things moving. He's got to get an income moving. That'll help your household and help the mathematics, but more importantly, it'll help his mental state. That's right. And to answer your question, do not cut your life insurance and umbrella. You got to keep the defense there while you're

playing offense. So you need to find spending cuts somewhere else. You don't have to do spending cuts. Increase your income. He needs to go make some money. He can make $3,000 or $4,000 a month falling off a log, man. I mean, he can almost get his old income back, you know? Really. I mean, the number of people we talk to that make $1,500 a week delivering pizzas right now.

There's no excuse. I mean, you can do it. There's people. There's a shortage. You can do. There's no excuse. I mean, you can do, there's people, there's a shortage. You can do anything to go make money. So, and there's a shortage of everything out there right now. People that will work show up that have bathed and smile. It's amazing how it works. They'll pay you.

You can get a job. And so I want him to go do something for him because I want to, I kind of smell that. I remember how that felt and it wasn't a good feeling and I want better for him. And for him because I kind of smell that. I remember how that felt, and it wasn't a good feeling. I want better for him. And with that goes better for you, hon. This is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love,

and create actual amazing relationships. George Campbell, number one best-selling author, host of The George Campbell Show on YouTube, Ramsey Networks. He is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Sarah is in New York. Hi, Sarah. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Hi, Sarah. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave.

Hi, George. How are you guys? Better than we deserve. What's up? I had a question. So I downloaded the EveryDollar app, and I just feel like I'm kind of lost with how to even start a budget. I've never created a budget in my entire life. I wouldn't say I'm bad with

handling my finances, but I definitely want to be better. I just don't even really know how to begin. All right. So what got you to download the budget in the first place? Oh, well, I started listening to you guys recently and, you know, I guess I've never created a budget, but I feel like, you know, I do make a good amount of money and I feel like I should be saving a lot more than I am and I just like at the end of the year I don't know where all my money has went and I just you know thought maybe now I want to start creating a budget to see if I can really save some money to you know put myself in a better position financially. Did you open the app and go through the steps to set it up? Yeah, I did.

And then I'm like, I still just feel like, you know, I put my paychecks in and I put things here. And I think I'm just like not understanding kind of the planning. And I know it's probably super clear and I kind of feel a little stupid to be like, I still don't get it. Well, it takes a little while. Don't pick yourself up. We may have messed up in how we built it to help you. It's not helping you. So we can take responsibility. It takes a few months to Don't beat yourself up. We may have messed up in how we built it to help you. It's not helping you.

So we can take responsibility. It takes a few months to get it dialed in. So your first one, it's messy. You're trying to find the bank statement and what is my electric bill every month and what's it going to be. Yeah, but the actual setting up in every dollar. Yeah, they walk you through it. You've done the webinars on it. Yeah, we have a video actually we upload on the Ramsey Show YouTube channel where Jade and I walk through setting one up from scratch.

And we did it in under six minutes just to show people how easy it is. So the team will, you know, when you sign up, it'll show you, hey, list your income. Here's the paychecks. Next, list your expenses. And we go through those in kind of buckets so it's not overwhelming. You're not looking at, you know, 4,300 different line items. Where did you get hung up? Do you remember?

I just think, like, I put everything in and then it was like, oh, you know, how do I start, you know, budgeting for this and for that? And I'm like, I don't even know. You put everything in, but you didn't budget for this or that. What did you leave out? Like, budgeting for, like, how much I'm going to spend on groceries a month. That's just me, like, setting that number for myself and being like, I'm not going to spend over this like yeah it's just like i said i've never really created one before so i

just feel like i'm like totally at the bottom floor and i just work my way to doing it but yeah maybe i just need that's okay it's okay so yeah it is is a little bit intimidating and overwhelming to set it up the first time, to George's point. And then what happens is the thing that I had to remember, because I don't like bureaucrats, and so I don't like processes telling me what to do. I'm like a renegade. And so this idea of a budget telling me what to do, that kept me from doing it because it kind of pissed me off. But then I figured out it's like a four-year-old kid, like you're saying, you're not the boss of me. The budget's not the boss of me until I put on it what I want me to be. And then i'm the boss of me and so when you write down that grocery number if it's wrong the

first month change it so what if it was wildly unrealistic it was 300 bucks and really you need to spend 500 or 500 and you need to spend a thousand then change it well you might realize oh i was spending 1200 eating out let me limit that to two hundred dollars and stick the biggest thing is it starts to give you feedback of where your money's going and so once i got it written down and it became the boss of me then the trick is to let it boss you around because that's that's the version of you you want to become that makes sense like i don't want to spend uh five thousand dollars a month on clothes i want to spend two hundred dollars a month on clothes or whatever it is and you say okay then when you give yourself a mechanism where you say i'm not going over the

200 and that's what the budget's doing it's it's giving you guardrails but you set the guardrails so that took some of the intimidation out for me was a i have permission to mess it up for the first three months it's not going to be perfect it's an educated guess the first month's going to really suck the second month less the third month it'll actually start to work b i'm actually in charge of this thing it's not in charge of me so i can change it if I want to. I have the power, right? And so those things helped me. And then I went, okay, and if I was managing a company and my job was to handle money for that company and I was managing money for that company the way I manage money for me now,

would I fire me? And the answer was, yeah, I i suck at this i'm really irresponsible and chaotic and if it was my job i'd get fired right and that's that's you because you're really bright and yet you know there's some chaos in there that shouldn't be in there yeah and so your job is to not get fired from the job of managing you and you can do this you're bright there's it's not a it's not an intellectual challenge with you it's just you just got to power through the will part of it and whatever the emotions that are rising up in your throat yeah i just think it's like i get scared yeah like exactly i don't ever want to be broke i don't ever want to be in that situation

exactly i can't but if you were if you were going to buy a company that was failing and or a company was failing and you were brought in to be the manager of the company to turn it around you would have that fear now you're not broke but you would have that fear of that company's going to go broke so you would start doing the things to measure everything and control everything so that you could turn that company around and that's all the budget is it's you managing your life rather than your life managing you you tell your money what to do or you will always wonder where it went that kind of thing and so if you get through that then jump on you to jump on the youtube channel and pick up george and it was jade

jordan jade that's right george and jade on how to actually build it and if there's some of the technicalities our tutorials not walking you through well in the actual app itself then that that particular youtube thing will put some english language on it instead of techie language and help you get the thing set up properly. And if that still doesn't work, you call us back and we'll help you, okay? Yeah, thank you so much. But I think it is emotion, Sarah, as much as it is. That's why I'm appealing to that. I don't think it's a tactical problem.

And this is a nice pro tip from Rachel Cruz. She has a miscellaneous line item in the budget as a catch-all for some of those things that you go, oh, my gosh, I forgot. And instead of getting totally thrown off for the month, you go, okay, I was prepared for the unexpected. And if you see patterns, let's give it a home and a line item and not continue to be sloppy. But that helps a lot of people who go, I need it to be perfect. Every cent needs to be perfect. Pro tip from Dave. The miscellaneous line item item is not 50 of your

budget it's not for oops a sale will happen it's not like i do whatever i want with half of it and the other half i'll behave no that's not we're talking about it's a line item it's a category is all there you go i've had some people actually turn in budgets oh boy most of it's miscellaneous spending dave everything's three thousand dollars in miscellaneous it's French for whatever I want to do. Oh boy. This is the Ramsey show. Millions and millions and millions of people have now downloaded the every dollar app. That's what we were just talking with her about. Doing your budget, telling your money what to do instead of wondering where it went is necessary. You can't say, ready, aim, aim, aim, aim. No, you've got to pull the trigger. You've got to do something different if you want a different result,

and that includes making your money behave. It will leave you. Money is a misbehaving, spoiled little brat. And if you don't make it behave, it will leave you and go play in the street. Money is a misbehaving, spoiled little brat. And if you don't make it behave, it will leave you and go play in the street. And so you have to make your money. You have to crack the whip on it. And that's what all a budget is.

It's you telling your money what to do. You're going to do what I tell you to do. I work too dead gum hard for you. The best way to make the most of your money is by creating and sticking to a monthly budget. Download the EveryDollar app for free in the App Store or Google Play. Click the link in the description if you're listening on YouTube or on a podcast. Sam is in Philadelphia. Hi, Sam. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, thank you so much for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So, first of all, I'm so thankful for everything you guys teach. I'm 22 and about to graduate from my master's program without any debt on my own. So I'm very thankful.

But my question is... Good for you. What's your master's in? Education. Good for you. Very cool. Okay. I'm sorry.

Now, what's your question? So my question is actually more about my grandmother than myself. She was recently scammed out of $500,000, which is all of her retirement investments, which was about $400,000. And then about $30,000 of credit card debt for the scammer and then we're anticipating about 70,000 of taxes that she is going to have to pay now on this $400,000 of investments that she withdrew. The money is not gone, but basically, so over the course of about a year, a scammer convinced her that her retirement investments were used as part of a funding for the drugel, and that everything was secret, it was all under investigation, and that she had to transfer her money so that it could be reviewed and investigated. And in that process, she ended up transferring all of her money to the scammer.

It's long gone. It's been months between the last transfer and now that we discovered it. Have you turned it over to the FBI? Yes, yeah, it's all been turned over to the authorities. They're basically saying, like, unfortunately, this money is long gone. Untraceable? Yeah, totally untraceable. It was sent mostly in the form of gift cards and gold bullions

and cash wrapped in tinfoil, wrapped in books. And she consulted no one over this year. No family knew about this. I mean, my grandma wouldn't know how to do this. So, I mean, the fact that she knew. Yeah, it was extremely surprising to us because, um, we thought that, I mean, she lives with us. We thought that she would be a little bit better equipped to handle something like that, but she's 81.

She's been in cognitive decline for a couple years. I think she was just vulnerable and scared. And they just kept telling her, your money's coming, your money's coming. This is the best decision. And she thought we were under surveillance. How did they get in touch with her? It was someone pretending to be someone referred by the person that managed her investments is my understanding of it.

Was it a phone call, an email, a text? I just want to warn others out there if this happens to them. I think it was initially, I'm not actually sure. I think it might have been a text or a phone call. I knew she communicated with the person over the phone. Okay, so bottom line is she's going to have a $70,000 bill on taxes. She's 81 and has no money. Yep, in addition to about $30,000 in a credit card debt.

And she has absolutely no assets. She has her car, which I think she still owes maybe a couple thousand dollars on, but it's almost paid off. And she's still driving? She has no almost paid off. She's still driving? She has no home. Yes, she's still driving. She lives with you all? She lives with us. With your parents?

Her kids, your parents. Okay. Yes. Okay, this is the 1% of the time this might actually work. For the rest of you, it won't work. Okay? There is a thing called an OIC, an offering compromise, with the IRS. Okay? And if you can prove that you are totally destitute and have no assets and no income,

you can negotiate away a tax bill. Now, you see these people on cable TV going, if you have a $10,000 problem or greater with the IRS, we have former IRS agents that will help you. Well, that's absolute bull crap, okay? They're not going to help you because very few people are actually at destitute level. Your grandmother, through this shocking series of events, is actually destitute. She has no money and no income.

And so she may actually qualify for an OIC. It'll probably cost a few thousand dollars, but a lot less than $70,000 to get it run through. Do not contact one of the goobers on cable TV about it. Instead, in your town of, where are you philly yeah are they in philly uh sorry are they in philadelphia who's that sorry your grandmother and parents yes yes where they live you live there too okay so yeah all right so anyway get in touch with one of our tax ELPs on our website at Ramsey Solutions and ask them who a good tax attorney is and get a referral for an OIC,

an offer in compromise. I think you can get this $70,000 blown up. Thank you. Good to know. And then all you got is a credit card debt, and the same thing goes for them. If I were your mom and dad and I had some net worth, what kind of shapes your mom and dad in? Not good. Okay.

They've been trying to borrow money from me for several years, and I've had to put up some boundaries with them. Boundaries, okay. They're not in the greatest shape. Yeah, all right. Well, then here's the thing. If the credit card company gets no money from your grandmother they could sue her if they were to sue her what could they take nothing that she doesn't have anything

and in that world we call that part that destitute person judgment proof because they have nothing to take very few people are in this situation but because she's homeless lives with your parents has no money owes money on the only asset she has her car so she has no net worth just a negative net worth and so um i i probably wouldn't pay the credit card company and then i would settle with the $35,000 on that for if one of y'all want to chip in $2,000 or $3,000 and settle it for peace of mind for her, you can. But if she never pays it in the rest of her life

and goes to her grave with it, it's no big deal. It's unsecured debt. Sad situation. Not how you want to see it go, but... I'm so sorry. Not only so much we can but the answer to your question is i would not waste the money on bankruptcy because nobody can get anything the tax irs can't get anything and the the irs could take her social security check

that's why i want to get rid of them but with an oic but the credit card company they can't take social security check it's. It's not garnishable. And that's the only income she has, the only asset she owns. You're sure about all that, Sam? The only other thing she has is she has $2,000 coming in a month from her pension. Okay. That can't be garnished either. So that's protected in every state.

So you're good. I'm not an attorney but i've been doing this for 30 years and what i just told you is right so i wouldn't if it was my grandmother i would not file bankruptcy i would help her get an oic and get rid of the irs i might chip in three grand after that credit card's not been paid for a year and let them settle it for 10 cents on the dollar or get nothing i really don't care which because any bozo bank that loans an 81 year old that's broke 35 000 on a stinking credit card deserves to get screwed because they're predatory so take it a step further freeze all of her credit with all the bureaus cut up the cards

close all the accounts yeah make sure she shut down because our cognitive decline george is right we need to shut down everything where she has access to nothing yeah that's all been done every all the finances are taken over and all the credit is frozen so yeah too late too late oh my god i'm so sorry man what a horrible thing i'm so sorry get in touch with your grandmas, everybody. That's the second one of those I've heard in a month on this show. They're just preying on the elderly, and they're getting slicker and slicker. But the dadgum gift card thing. If somebody tells you

that they're from the government, and there's a dark web secret, and the conspiracy theories, and man. Wow. And get gift cards, which always goes with the conspiracy theory that makes sense that makes no sense at all this is the ramsey show george camel ramsey personality is my co-host ashley is next in knoxville hi ashley welcome

to the ramsey Show. Hello, sir. Thank you so much for taking my call. I'm missing the legend there. So I'm going to try to not get so emotional. My son has NCAG renal disease. He's 23. It just happened within the last two weeks. And of course, as a parent, we want to do whatever we can for our children. And he has his own house. He mortgages a house over in Virginia. I'm here in Tennessee. And obviously, he has a subletter, thank goodness. They're not going to be helping with the remainder of whatever is not covered in the mortgage.

He had his own little debts. God bless him. He was in the process. I kept on talking about the Ramsey stuff, the Ramsey stuff, because, you know, kids don't tell us stuff, whatever. But the main question is this, because, again, I'm emotionally tied to this situation. That is my son, or our son, like, you know, me and my husband's son. What guardrails should we as parents, you know, have for our children? Now, he's under our insurance, thankfully, with Tricare military. So that shouldn't be an issue. I also deal in the medical field.

So I understand claims, Medicaid and Medicare. But what advice do you have for us? And where we were in the middle of the baby steps we had before this all happened, about $12,000 in debt. I had, I had to add 3000 more just because I had to go down to Virginia. I had to go get his stuff from Minnesota because he was a traveling welder. So anyway, I'll let you kind of go forward, and I'll answer any questions as we go on. Okay. What did you say he's got? End-stage renal disease.

He's on dialysis. He had pediatric issues when he was a kid, so it wasn't like he did something wrong to himself. Okay, so he's on kidney dialysis. Yes. Okay, and what does that do? I mean, that's not a terminal illness, right? It is.

No, it is, actually, especially according to the Medicare system, because if he doesn't, like, what is it? I want to say 20% or 10% chance that he will pass before you get a kidney. He's young. 20% or 10% chance he will pass before, what did you say? Before he gets a kidney transplant? Before he gets a kidney transplant, yeah, he has to go on the wait list. Yeah, because if you don't get dialysis, you die.

That's why Social Security is supposed to be very quick about turning on the insurance and Medicare. But again, of course, on that side... So he's on dialysis waiting on a kidney. Yes. We're still in that process, yes, sir. Okay. And he's 23 years old and otherwise healthy.

Is there any reason that he would not be at the head of the line for that donation? We don't know. We have to wait until we screen. He should be ahead of the line because of his age. Other than that, he's in good health. With the kidneys, there was always a problem. Yeah, and it's not self-inflicted either with something, his bad habits of some kind.

So another reason he gets to the front of the line. So this sounds like he's a good candidate, but you're early in the information. And then he's single. He's military? No, no, no, he's not military. No, we were. He had issues as a child. Okay, so what does he do?

He was a traveling welder, so we got to retrain for him like that's that's something too we're looking into is like going through vocational rehabilitation yeah so he can't travel with dialysis obviously well yeah even though they're so funny there well he was working again as a contractor in a industrial area so it's just it's just not going to work that way um when we go to vocational rehabilitation and we're looking up uh our other options we're trying to you know i'm trying to encourage him he's got to choose his own path because obviously mom mom can't tell you what to do right but it's trying to encourage him basically if he can get retrained while he's going through dialysis and make an income

then uh gets a kidney transplant and keeps going on with his life, then he's just got the normal process to clean up any debts that occur or have occurred prior to this, right? Absolutely. And of course, again, we as parents are going to assist him. My husband's retired in the military. I work as a social worker. Okay.

So what is it that you're asking me then the guardrails basically guardrails of like because again we're emotionally tied like where we of course you are you love your kid that's a good mom yeah i'm glad so what does he need right now he doesn't need anything right now he needs love support and a cheerleader until you get more information that too but also we're going to be helping out with the mortgage um i already went like i had to go backwards three thousand dollars again to get the the truck and stuff like that and i already know like i i mean i didn't know like what guard rails would you give to us as parents of sick children or children like even adults of adults

sick children even to kind of like not not to do what i want to do is i want to do things that cause sustainability not that patch up a situation that is that it's not gonna if you throw money at something and it's still bad after you throw money at it then that's good money after bad right so in other words you don't want to catch up the house and then him be behind on the house again in six months so we have to have a sustainable situation so if you catch the house up he's got a job he can keep the house current that's fine but you can't keep catching the house up that's you participating in a delusional situation he's got to get rid of the house if that's the case you can't keep catching the truck up he's got to get rid of the truck if he can't

make the payments from this point forward yeah definitely so what you're trying to answer your question is your guardrails that we use with anyone we're helping and especially people we love where our vision gets a little cloudy from the tears is that whatever money we throw at something we want it to create a situation after we throw money that's sustainable otherwise we're participating in a tragedy tragic situation and a horrible thing but we're participating in um everybody lying to themselves so if he can get a job and maintain that job while he's on dialysis waiting on a transplant and that allows him to keep the truck in the house, then we'll help him keep the truck in the house. But if you're going to just be paying a house payment for the next eight years, no, no, when you get rid of the house, it's not sustainable. He needs to get rid of the house.

So his mom doesn't have to go in debt to pay that payment on a house he can't pay. He's 23. And so, I mean, this is a situation where you might move him back in with you for a while, sell the truck, sell the house, sell everything, clean up the debts and let him get the other side of this transplant and let him do the dialysis there in your town, um, instead of where he is. Now that's up to him. Of course, he is an adult. He gets to make those decisions, but that's a time I would help an adult child by letting them live with me for a while, because it's a tragedy. It's a situation. It's not a permanent thing. And it's not because they

were too trifling to get a job or something. That's not what this guy is. But if we can get him on his feet financially, he's got to create an income to maintain the life that he had prior to this diagnosis. Yeah. You don't want to prop it up artificially. Exactly. He's out on his own, and he can't live because we were in denial of the reality. But I like the idea of simplifying life. When this tragedy hits, let's go, okay, how can we simplify? That might be selling the house and selling the truck.

Yeah. And just focusing on our health for a while. Exactly. And if he wants to stay in Virginia, do that anyway and rent a house. Rent an apartment or one-bedroom apartment for a fraction of what he's paying now. I get it. And, you know, but get everything dumbed down where you're not working on anything but your health instead of health and financial stress.

He's not having to work extra to make a truck payment. Because it's not good for his health for his mom to have to pay his bills because that adds stress to him. And he didn't want that. He's trying to be independent. And so if he can be want that he's trying to be independent and so if he can be that's cool but um yeah i i think that the three of you guys sit down and have a good conversation in person or over the phone you and your husband and him and say all right what what are you going to do and how can we help you that is sustainable and that is not participating in denial and um

and uh you know the guy the you know these are the kind of folk you want to help your kids your relatives your friends because they're they didn't bring this on themselves yeah the context is this is not misbehavior so we're not enabling exactly well, we are enabling in the sense that we're enabling the delusion of him not working for eight years and keeping a house. That's a delusion, so we don't want to enable that, but that's where the boundaries happen. Is the action that I'm doing leading him to sustainability, or is it patching up a dream that has already died? And if the dream dies and we get our health and we don't die, then life's good. We can go there.

This is the Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. All who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise. Zig Ziglar said, rich people have small TVs and big libraries. Poor people have small libraries and big TVs. There you go. Timeless wisdom from Zig.

Brooke is in New Haven, Connecticut. Hi, Brooke. How are you? Hello, George and Dave. Thank you so much for taking my call i'm very excited good to talk with you what's up i am just wondering what is your recommended deductible uh for home insurance um currently it my deductible is one thousand um dollars but my premium is increasing by $710 this year. And I already pay annually to get bundled insurance for a discount, and I have an independent broker.

But I have the option to increase my deductible to either $2,500 or $5,000 to save either $319 or $594 annually. And I didn't know if it was too much risk to go up to a deductible of $5,000 or not. Do you have $5,000? Yes. So I am in baby step six. I'm trying to pay my home off early. How much is in your emergency fund?

I have $30,000 plus. I even have like a thinking fund for home repairs. Then you can take whatever deductible makes mathematical sense. Okay, now let's do mathematical sense. At $1,000, the difference in the premium between $1,000 and $2,500 is how much? The difference between $1,000 and $2,500 is $1,500. The premium change changes how much? Oh, it increases by $319 annually.

Okay, so it increases $319 instead of increasing $700. Yes. Is that right? No, I'm sorry. Okay. Let me see here. No, so my quoted for the for the 1 000 is 710 higher than last year okay uh so if i if i increase the deductible to 2.5 um thousand it would go down my my bill will go down by 319 okay so that's a thousand dollar savings right yes okay 700 increase versus 319 decrease seven and three is a thousand you're

with me are you saying it's going to go 319 less than 710 i think is that what you're saying uh so it it would go down to i said i guess about 400 400 bucks instead400 instead of $710. Okay. Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Stop, stop, stop. No, no. The premium was going to go up $700. If you raise the deductible to $2,500, how much is the premium going to go up? It would go up by, well, let's see. Or does it go down? It will go down.

So last year I paid $1,646 in total for my home insurance. And if you did the $2,500, what would it be? I would go up to $2,356. If you did the $2,500, it goes up to $2,300? About $2,000. It would be about $2,000 instead of $2,350. Okay, so it's a $400 savings. Okay okay i had it back okay it's not a thousand dollars it's a four hundred dollars less to take that's okay it's four hundred dollars less to take the

twenty five hundred than it is the thousand okay and you have a from one thousand to twenty five hundred you're taking one thousand five hundred dollars more risk at 2,500 than you are at 1,000. You see that? Correct. Okay. And if your savings is $400, you can divide that into that. And somewhere around three and a half years with zero events, you start making money. That's your break even.

Because you took $1,500 more risk. And for that, you're saving $400. Okay? Okay. You follow me? Yes. And so if you can go three and a half years without an event that you turn in against the deductible, after that you start making money because if you took the $400 and put it in a bank account for three and a half years,

you'd have the $1,500 extra risk you took. you took the 400 and put it in a bank account for three and a half years you'd have the 1500 extra risk you took you follow me yes okay so yes you do this because you probably don't have an event every three and a half years how about the five thousand same thing we got a four thousand dollar change and how much is your change in premium that would decrease it um by 594 dollars okay plus 700 is 1200 1200 divided into 4000 is again three and a half years to break even okay okay so i carry like huge deductibles on everything, on my stuff, because I'm not worried about the first $50,000. I'm worried about the next $5 million. So I carry huge deductibles because all these break-even scenarios work out about like this.

But that's how you can tell if your break-even makes sense on a higher deductible. Sometimes they raise the deductible. They don't lower the premium enough to make you want to do it. in your case they make me want to do it because three and a half years you're break even do you see how i did that yes so i'm taking the five thousand if i'm you you got thirty thousand in the bank that's what i was hoping you would say yeah yeah i'm taking the five thousand because you got thirty thousand bucks in the bank you can cover the five thousand if a worst case event happens otherwise you're saving a thousand bucks

1200 bucks a year until an event happens so that covers your extra four thousand dollars in risk very quickly okay that's how you do a break-even analysis on deductibles there it is and i like this she's in baby step six so if you were in baby step yeah two if you were in baby step two and you had a thousand dollars in the bank no we're not doing any of this but you've got a fully funded emergency fund and so you can transfer more risk to yourself and you'll benefit from it yeah that's the beauty of following steps exactly exactly you're making me want to go reshop and see if i can increase my deductible yeah i raised mine a bunch this year on the properties that we've got a bunch because rates changed a lot with the storms that have come in, even though we didn't have storms in Tennessee. But insurance rates, it's been a banana year for insurance rates.

And so I did the exact same thing. My numbers are a lot different, but it's still, that's still how you do it, is you're going to take X dollars of risk and y dollars of savings for that risk does that pay back fast enough let's say you divided it out and we had to go 15 years to break even no i'm letting them take the risk they're not they go hey you can save 10 bucks it's probably not worth they're not saving me enough on premiums to take the extra risk because i'm probably i'm going to have some kind of an event in there that is going to hit that deductible. A deductible-based event, in other words. But, yeah.

So, and I don't have events very often. I almost always pay out of pocket because I want to keep my rates down anyway. I don't want to keep the stuff in place. And more claims. And higher rates are going to be. You start to realize insurance is only for worst-case scenarios. It's not something you make money on. And so limit the dollars you're paying out.

But here's another benefit. The rich get richer. You always heard that? I've heard that. She's rich. She's on baby step six. She's out of debt. She's got $30,000 in the bank.

She's funding her emergency fund. She's funding her retirement. She's going to be a millionaire. And now she's going to get there faster because she's not giving the money to the insurance company. That's what happens so you save money when you've got some money to do these things the right way and it's not a trick it's just you can't take the risk if you're broke exactly and i love that she's working with an independent broker and you know i use zander for all of my insurance needs and here's the deal i saved a co-worker actually 80 bucks a month and they got better coverage

because I told them, hey, you need to reshop. Your rates aren't looking good. Your coverage isn't looking good. You know, they had some old account from their college buddy at State Farm or whatever. I said, go reshop it with Xander

and immediately she said, they saved me 80 bucks and I had way better coverage now. A month. A month. So $1,000 savings a year just by making a phone call. So I encourage everyone,

go reshop your insurance. As rates skyrocket, you better be working with an independent broker. Love it. Love it. That's exactly how you do it. So yeah, an independent broker shops among several different companies and gets you the best rate. And really, the answer to the question is, everybody needs a George. That's true. I'm the friend who's going, you could do better. I can save you some money. Just let me help you. Help me help you. But no one wants to go fill out a form to a form to go talk to a person i go trust me this will be the best five minutes you spend today and you made a thousand dollars in that five minutes

wow by doing that there you go let this be your sign it's time to reshop it's a sign oh there we go that puts us our the ramsey show in the. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Thank you. Bye.