The Ramsey Show - App - Leasing a Vehicle Is the Most Expensive Way to Drive (Hour 3)

Episode Date: May 14, 2019

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Chandler is on the line to start us off in Santa Rosa, California this hour. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, Chandler. Hello, thank you, Mr. Ram Ramsey I just want to thank you and your staff for allowing me

to talk to you sure what's up uh so Mr. Ramsey I'm in a little bit of a fork in the road at the moment with my career um I have the opportunity and privilege as of the last three years for working for my father we do heating and air conditioning locally in Sonoma, Marin County. And you know how Marin County and Sonoma County, it's very populated and we obviously are going to make a very good wage out here to actually survive. I don't make that great of a wage to live out here. I make roughly $20 an hour, which is, I guess, a decent living. However, my question to you would be if I need to take a career change and a career choice that would be different from not working for my father currently. So you guys are a two-person operation?

No. There's actually, we're a small company. There's about seven or eight of us. All right. And your dad's been in the heating and air business for how long? So this company has been around, he's actually my grandfather. So we've been in business for 48 years. Okay.

And so your goal has been all along to take over the company someday? It's funny you say that. But honestly, Mr. Ramsey, three years ago, because I'm 22 now, I honestly had no idea what I wanted to do. And I kind of took this leap of faith just seeing if I would like this career path, and it ended going and know that I'm not going to take as great of a pay? Or do I go and find, you know, a different job, a different opportunity that would allow me, you know, to excel? I guess you would say financially excel where I'm currently at today and in the future. Well, I mean, you're 22, so when you're 32, you would probably be running at least part of this operation, correct? You know what, that's honestly something I have never discussed with my father

because right now, currently, I'm just... I mean, you're making your decision based on $20 an hour at 22 years old, and that's not the data point that you want to use to make this decision. The data point that you want to use to make the decision is what does the future look like. If the future 10 years from now is $20 an hour, yeah, I'm with you. You've got a problem. Okay? But if the future is, how old is your dad my dad is currently 45 okay so 10 years he'll be 55 20 years he'll be 65 right yep okay and so you

got to think about where are we going to end up because you could end up owning a 60-person heating and air company, making a half million dollars a year as the owner. Why could you not grow it? Why could you not learn marketing? Why could you not learn management and leadership and accounting and grow a business and say, okay, I'm not going to just own my job. This has been a small operation. It supported my family well. My dad did okay with it. He obviously makes more than $20 an hour.

Agreed? Absolutely. Okay. So what you need to figure out is, in some discussions with him, what your career path inside this family business is and at what point you're going to be able to influence the growth curve of the thing um and if he says no i'm never going to turn it over to you until i'm 80 and you're going to make 20 an hour the whole time you work here well i think you just you're gone you know right but if hey, you know, you're going to be running this someday.

You can make the decisions to grow the business and make it twice as big or five times as big, and you can implement your ideas. And in the meantime, right now, you're learning how to do the basics. Right. And so you're still in your apprenticeship program right now, not in the apprenticeship on how to work on the heat and air, but you're learning about business and learning about family business. So I think you need to clarify your future there before you automatically assume

that something else is going to be more profitable. Okay. Now, if there's a toxic situation with your dad that you need to get out of there or you hate the work and you don't want anything to do with this business, then get out of there. Okay. That's okay. That's a different issue. But if it's simply saying, I can make more money somewhere else, yeah, you might on the short term,

but on the long term, you might not. Mm-hmm. I guess what it really comes down to, what you're saying is, I need to really see what's going to be in the future 10, 15, 20 years from now with whatever's going to happen. Yeah. Assuming I do a good job and assuming I learn and grow, Dad, let's start talking about what the path is because that gives me patience to sit here and learn where I am. but if i if the if i feel like i'm stuck in this then i can probably make twice this doing something else today and get out and get out of here and that's what's tempting you right now so you know again i i i'm fine if if you're looking at 10 years of 20 an hour if you look at changing out

of that that's okay but and sometimes the person that owns the business or runs the business is not willing to turn loose of things, and it forces families out of the business. That's not unusual at all. But I think your dad has experienced this with your granddad when he handed it over. So you've got, you know, he knows some of your feelings. He's been there um but i i would tell you as long as there is a progression in your career there your relationship with your dad working in the business is good and you like the work there's not any reason that your

future is twenty dollars an hour as long as you've got a plan here that that's what i think you need to do but that's you know family businesses need to talk about this often and get that going so uh that's what i would do if i were you lots of communication lots and lots and lots of communication thanks for the call you know i'm doing some writing and messing around with this whole family business area because we've experienced it here at Ramsey, and I've been studying successful family businesses for years. And there's several conclusions we've already come to. One is the family businesses that generationally survive,

one of the things they have, as I was just telling Chandler, is extremely high levels of communication. They communicate what the succession plan is to the family, to the customers. The customers know Chandler is going to be taken over at this point. You know, the customers know Rachel Cruz, Daniel Ramsey, Denise Whittemore, the Ramsey kids, Next Generation sit on our operating board. The customers know that. You guys know that. We're communicating to you.

We're communicating internally to the team. We're communicating to the family. Lots of communication. Don't assume stuff. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. You know, I get asked all the time, at what age should I buy life insurance? Let me be clear. If you have a family, if there are people depending on your income, now is the time to have term life insurance. I don't care if you're 20, 30, 40, 50, or whatever.

Your age is less important than your financial situation. If you have debt and a lack of savings, it makes no sense to risk your family's financial well-being based on the cost of a term life policy. Term life rates are just plain cheap, even if you're not in perfect health. And the best way to compare those rates is through Zander Insurance. Zander only sells the plans I recommend and shops among the top companies to find the best rates and the right coverage for you. Call 800-356-4282 or visit zander.com. You got no excuse to put this off, folks. Bad things

happen to people all the time regardless of age and it's your responsibility to online store at DaveRamsey.com. That means you could save up to 56% on our best-selling books and life-changing tools. Choose from over 50 of our most popular books, audiobooks, e-books, envelope systems, and number one bestsellers. A ton of them, like the Total Money Makeover. $10. It's a deal. Sometimes when these things are happening.

Smart Money, Smart Kids, $10. Starter Envelope System, $10. Deal, man. Sometimes when these book sales are going like this, people buy a case of them because they like giving them away to people. And while you're there, enter to win our Fuel Your Summer giveaway. We are giving away a $5,000 Ultimate Summer Road Trip to one lucky winner. And we're also giving away $250 in gas money to five lucky winners every week in may enter to win daily no purchase is necessary you got to be 18 or older to win all right kyle is with us in new york hi kyle welcome to the dave ramsey show

hey dave how you doing better than i deserve what. What's up? Hey, so I'm a real estate guy. I got my license shortly after you did. I was 22 when I got my real estate license and I've been in the business about 14 years. Heavy on the investment side, I'm at a portfolio, rental portfolio that's about $3.5 million net worth, about a 68% equity position in it. And I did a calculation. I'm a relatively new fan, and I appreciate all the stuff you're putting out there. And so I did a calculation to figure out what it would actually take if I used all of the cash flow to point right at the debt, how long it would take to actually pay all of it off, which came out to about 10 years and three months.

But I guess my question is value in doing that versus value on continuing to use the cash flow to grow the portfolio, which to date is basically what I've been doing. Yeah, okay. So you've got a top-line asset base of $3.5 million, not net worth. Correct, yeah. Total portfolio value is $3.55. Equity is $1.132. So what do you got 14 15 properties right about there yep yeah okay cool good for you well done very well done and you're you're in a 70 equity position meaning you only

have 30 of in debt so less than a million dollars in debt. No, reversed. Oh. So 68% leverage. Oh, okay. So you don't have a ton of cash flow. It's about monthly after all expenses, mortgages, you know, CapEx, everything is around $7,700 a month. Yeah, that's not much. Okay, that's what I thought.

I thought it was tight um i mean 7,700 months a lot of money but not on three and a half million it's not so um that's that's you know okay here here's the thing you said you're new to all this here's what i went through um we had about four million dollars worth of real estate um and uh owed about three on it so we're in about a 75 percent ratio um some of that a percentage of that probably probably me and that was on 90-day notes because we were doing flips okay this is back in the 80s way back okay. Okay. And I was in my 20s. I had grown that from nothing in just a few years. And so I leveraged into every bit of it, obviously.

But I did good buys like you have done, which gave me strong equity positions. And so, you know, I was at about the same L to V you're sitting at roughly and a little higher but but i had a higher risk position because of the 90-day notes and the flips which is actually what took me out that's what broke me because the banks called the notes on the 90-day notes bank got sold and they freaked the new bank freaked out when they looked over and saw a kid in his 20s that owed a million dollars and so they the new guy freaked out and that started a tumble that i couldn't recover from uh and so what i learned from that process was a lot of things of course uh but as a real estate guy one real estate guy to another real estate guy i learned that um well let me stop a second okay in i also a finance degree, and in the process of getting the finance degree,

we were taught in other investments to not measure risk investments with lower, high-risk investments with low-risk investments, apples to apples, meaning an example would be an aggressive growth stock mutual fund, which is much more volatile than a growth and income mutual fund. You wouldn't compare it making a 20% rate of return with a growth and income making a 10% rate of return. Apples to apples and say, oh, we're not going to consider risk. We're just going to go with the 20%, the higher rate of return. Because when you consider risk, you equalize out those two funds, the lower risk and the higher risk.

You have to mathematically put the risk in. And in that world, there's a way to mathematically insert risk. It's called a beta, and it's a statistical measure of risk, the volatility of the hills and valleys if you chart it, and all of that. Okay? So all of that to say is there's actually a math formula that you can use when comparing two investments of that type because the beta is stated by the mutual fund company. It's a volatility index. And long story short, you can adjust for risk so you can compare a high-risk investment with a low-risk investment, apples to apples. Does that make sense?

Sure. Okay. Now, having said that, then when I went broke in real estate business, I suddenly realized that in the real estate business, which I grew up in, we are not taught risk at all. We're just taught it's all leverage and it's all good all the time but common sense tells you the more leverage you have the higher leveraged you are meaning if you had a 90 leverage position instead of a 70 68 leverage position you would be at a higher risk agreed right but we don't adjust for that correct and if you had a a 100 paid for real estate portfolio your risk would have dissipated like light years from where

you are today agreed sure yep and yet we're not taught to mathematically adjust for that all we're taught to do is go let's take the cash flow buy more real estate let's go in debt some more we do not adjust for the risk of leverage in the world that you and i are we're in okay we're not taught that nobody does and so we that leads us to a faulty presumption that risk isn't there and so we just go buy stuff on debt and just let's just you would always take i mean what kind of fool wouldn't have debt on real and so we just go buy stuff on debt and just let's just you would always take i mean what kind of fool wouldn't have debt on real estate and we just go buy real estate and that's what i did for years and what i believe for years because i was not taught

academically and no one in academics that i've ever found i've never found anyone who actually applies a risk formula to the leverage issue in real estate. But it's there. We know it's there from common sense. All of that babbling to say, I came to the conclusion, and I've actually run some pretty sophisticated math models I developed myself because I'm a math nerd, that shows that paid for real estate will prosper you. A smaller portfolio of paid for real estate will prosper you more than a large portfolio of leveraged real estate over the span of 20 years. Okay? And so high leverage guys, nothing down guys, all those guys that have gone broke, I knew a bunch of those guys back in the day.

I don't know any of them made it 10 years. They all crashed within 10 years. Like super high leverage you're not that guy okay but the nut you know the nothing down crowd you know what i'm talking about right yeah well i mean in in all fairness and disclosure i mean i i started it with you know 17 grand probably and then we've you know kind of just rolled up pulled the equity out bought the next one fix it up exactly spend the money money wisely, but it's all going right back into the same pool. Exactly.

And if you look at 7,700 flow on what you got, it's not that great. Right. You don't have that much movement for the amount of money you are controlling and manipulating every day. And this is also a side business. I mean, that's not my primary income by any means. I think how you got there, I'm not going to be mad about it. I'm just glad you're there.

Congratulations. You've done great. If I'm you, I'm going to dial down that risk for my long term stability. I would rather own less real estate that is working towards getting it paid for. So I might cherry pick the portfolio and keep the ones I really want to hold 20 years. And some of these others that I'm not that thrilled about, I might flip the equity out of those towards debt reduction. I might go the other way. Matter of fact, I know I would. All of my real estate's paid for, and I pay cash for all of it, and I got a bunch of them. Hey, man, thanks for the discussion. This is week around Ramsey. We are in the process of launching the Ken Coleman book, The Proximity Principle,

the proven strategy that will lead to the career you love. The Proximity Principle by Ramsey personality Ken Coleman came out officially on Monday. Those of you that preordered it, it has been shipped. Should be in your mailbox by now. And Ken is in Chicago doing media today on the booktories in New York yesterday. He will be doing a book signing in Chicago tonight at 6 o'clock at the Barnes & Noble in Skokie at Old Orchard Center. I'll be giving away $450 cash and a $50 coffee card to encourage you to have meetings with people who are going to connect you to the career you want. You get in proximity to the places and people,

and voila, things start to happen in your life. Thursday, after he does his book signing tonight, he'll be flying home tomorrow, and they'll be doing media here in Nashville, lots of it. And Ken will be doing a book signing here Thursday evening in the Cool Springs area in Nashville, right down from my offices at Moores Lane and Mallory Lane at 6 o'clock Brentwood. And again, $450 given away in cash, no purchase necessary, must be present to win an 18-year-old or older.

And all of these things, there'll be some of the Ramsey personalities will be hanging out, including me, with Ken this Thursday evening. Make plans to join us. We would love to have you with us. Looking forward to that. This book is doing extremely well. It's currently on Amazon, number one bestseller in job interviewing and careers section at Amazon. And it's running number 71 overall of all books on Amazon, which I think is the entire universe.

I looked up somebody's book today. It was number 333,000 on there. That would be depressing. But, hey, it can happen, you know. So definitely not the case with a book launch around here. And with this book, we are really, really excited about what this is going to do for some of you with your careers very good times here debbie's with us in philadelphia hi debbie welcome to the dave ramsey show hello hey what's up taking this call sure how can i help um well um my

husband and i um annuitized our final investment two years ago. We had $1.2 million. $900,000 of it went into an annuity, which we live off of. It's our nest egg plus our Social Security. And then $300,000 went into a brokerage account, which we try not to touch. The problem is we want to leave something to our children. So we bought universal life insurance in 2008. And I know what you're going to say.

So we have $250,000 on each of us, but it's extremely expensive. Yeah. And we're trying to decide. So wait a minute. What happens to the annuity upon your death that's $900,000? I believe that once my husband, if my husband, when my husband passes, then it goes to me. And as long as we have something left in that fund, it reverts back to $900,000 insurance. Yeah.

Insurance? Well, I'm not using the right word. Okay, it goes back to the original principle. Yeah. I'm not using the right word. Okay. It goes back to the original principle. Yes. So you have a beneficiary named on that annuity that when both of you die, that is left to your kids. Our three children. That's what I was thinking, yeah. So they're going to get a million dollars.

Oh. Oh, yes. Boy, am I dumb. Yeah. Yeah, so then we were trying to decide whether to let the insurance lapse in December of 2021. Oh, I would just close it today. I'd quit paying that bill. That's right, and it stays in force. No, I don't want to stay in force.

I want all my money. Just close the whole puppy down. Get as much money out of it as you can get. You've been ripped off long enough by those people. But it's universal life. There is no cash value. Universal life has a cash value. But this one doesn't.

This one has no cash value, and it cannot be converted. We were very naive. Okay. I don't know what you bought. I never heard of a universal life with no cash value. Either way, you're buying $500,000 worth of life insurance in your retirement years that you do not need. Okay. Cancel it as soon as possible.

Okay. Quit paying and quit letting it milk you as soon as possible. And you need a new financial advisor. The one you have sucks. Open phones at 888-825-5225. John is in Fairfax. Hey, John, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave, how you doing?

Better than I deserve. What's up? Hey, good talking to you. So I've been listening to you for a couple of years now. I love your advice. I'm 45, a net worth of about $1.3 million. I am a car fanatic, and I've always leased cars. I like to kind of get a new car every 20 years or so. But obviously I know that's not what you like doing, and you want to purchase the car. And so I'm in a crossroads right

now where I'm actually, my lease is up, and I'm about to get into a new car. What's your household income? About $450,000. Good for you. Well done. Okay. Well, it's obviously not going to bankrupt you making a wrong decision on this. But the reason I tell people not to lease a car is very simple. It's the most expensive way to operate a vehicle. Period. When you run the math out, it is the most expensive way for you to do what you are doing.

Yep. And so the other option was to i was gonna buy a used car with cash the car i was looking at was it's about a fifty five thousand dollar car so the thought was you know to take the fifty five thousand out of investments and put in a depreciating asset i just don't think it makes that much sense but it doesn't cost you it doesn't cost you as much as leasing it does. The typical car lease, when you run the numbers back out, and you can do it with a financial calculator,

it has a cost of capital of 14.2%. Money Magazine and Smart Money Magazine have all done analysis on these things, and they always come back and say the most expensive way to operate a vehicle is to lease it it's cheaper to take out debt on it than it is to lease it but it's cheapest to pay cash and to avoid the debt altogether even if you're buying a brand new car and if you've got over a million dollar net worth i'm fine with you buying a brand new car if you want to but because you can afford to take the butt kicking and depreciation i'm not going to do it i'm looking at a two-year-old car okay but either way the depreciation and the cost of capital uh are built into the lease numbers otherwise the car company would lose money when you turn the car in and believe me they're not

running actuarial tables where they lose money right they're making money on you net net net on the cost of capital as if you had borrowed the money and they're making money on you to enough to cover the loss in value when you lease the car. And so you did not save the depreciation. You still financed a depreciating asset. What about on the purchase side? Same thing. So a car is $50,000. Yeah, same thing.

You take the $50,000 cash, put it in a depreciating asset. Dude, you're going to take the depreciation. Period. When you own the car. You're either going to take the depreciation, period, when you own the car. You're either going to pay it to them, pay them back for the loss in their depreciation, or you're going to lose the money. But either way, you're paying for the loss in value. Got it.

You do not get out without covering the loss in value. The stupid things go down in value, and they're not going to lose money on you. They're not going to cover your loss in value. You're depreciating. You're depreciation. So I just accept it. I just buy a nice car that I like, and it just goes down in value. It's just a small percentage of my world. Thank God.

And in your case, it's a small percentage of your world. You make a lot of money. Thank God. And in your case, it's a small percentage of your world. You make a lot of money. Thank God. our scripture today psalm 34 8 oh taste and see that the lord is good blessed is the man who takes refuge in him ralph waldo emerson said To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. Rachel Cruz wrote a number one best-selling book called Love Your Life, Not Theirs. Same issue, right? you know same issue right in a world where everyone puts their personal highlight reel on facebook you understand that the pictures posted on facebook are not someone's real life you know that right you know that they too have ugliness and bad days in their family and in

their life like everyone does and so when you try to keep up with someone else's highlight reel, it's an impossibility. To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. One of the key things you have to do to be able to get out of debt and handle money well is you have to quit caring what other people think. Your need to impress other people will make you broke and keep you broke the rest of your life, keeping up with the proverbial Joneses. Erin is with us in Dallas, Texas.

Hi, Erin. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. How can we help? Hi, Dave. I'd like to ask about paying off two credit cards. I need to pay them off completely, and I wondered about taking a settlement amount from the credit card company and how that would affect my credit in the future. Well, it obviously harms it because you did not pay the debt in full.

Okay. No question about that. Are you in default with them now? No. Okay, they're not going to settle with you if you're not in default. They have no reason to reduce the balance. Well, I mean, I did call one of them, and they were going to take off $800. Really?

In your current? Yes. Wow. Okay. But I wanted to pay it in full, and I asked them if that was something that they could do. But if it's going to affect my credit, then I don't want to do that. Well, I'm not sure it will in that case. You're current, and they're settling.

I don't know why they're settling. I don't understand. So they may not report it as a settled debt. They may just report it as paid in full. Because they offered up on a current account a settlement. That's highly unusual, by the way. It was just a thought that I had, and I called them up to see if that was a possibility.

Because I've been doing it on some medical bills. Yeah. Or I did it on some medical bills, and they transferred me around. And they can't tell me whether or not it will affect my credit. It will. They'll just report it. It will. Yeah.

Okay. It will on the medical bills for sure. I'm not positive on this particular instance on a credit card. Normally, you've got something that's in default and then you take it one step further and they don't get all their money you know that's a settlement usually and so usually it's a it's a it's a black mark it's probably worth doing in those cases but uh um but and i don't run around worshiping at the altar of the great fico anyway uh he's not he's not my provider and so my credit score is zero i don't run around worshiping at the altar of the great FICO anyway.

He's not my provider, and so my credit score is zero. I don't have a credit score, so it doesn't bother me one way or the other. Because I don't borrow money, and you don't need a credit score if you don't borrow money. It's an interesting thing. So anyway, all of that to say, what's the balance on this account that they're offering an $800 discount on? The first one is $7,000. I haven't actually called. It's a little over $7,000. I haven't called the second credit card to see if they would settle yet.

Okay. All right. My financial advisor, who is a facilitator for you, said not to take the settlement. Okay. Well, if you're concerned about your credit, I wouldn't. I'm not that concerned about my credit, so, you know. Okay. Yeah, I might have to move the house into my name, solely into my so i am concerned about that okay all right well

that's fair that's fair and so yeah you got to look at that and let's get it cleared up as fast as you can either way so and see the medical bills are due on full the day that they send you the bill and any 30-day period that elapses after that you're in default on those they may not put you in collections for a little while but technically you're in default and so you're discounting that that is going to ding your credit when you take uh for sure when you take a hit on medical bills so that's something to think about mark's with us mark is in san antonio hey mark welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave.

Thanks. I appreciate you taking my call. Sure. What's up? Say, my wife and I have been a very long-time listeners of your show. Wait a minute. I'm having trouble hearing you. You're going to have to speak directly into your phone.

Oh, can you hear me now? Yes, sir. Great. Say, wife and I have been long-time listeners. Thank you. We've been married 23 years, have two incredible children. We made our last mortgage payment at age 43, and we are now 50. Yay!

We have no debt and no mortgage. It's fantastic. Yay! So, about a year after becoming debt-free, we received an inheritance on my wife's side of the family, which increased our income substantially, and we've been able to accumulate sufficient wealth that we'll be able to live well the rest of our lives. We are really well-blessed.

So my question is in regards to helping my mother and stepfather. Mom is 80, stepfather is 69, and they've been married 36 years. Both, of course, work on commission and have that whole feast and famine income cycle where they borrow to make ends meet when their economy is down and then pay things off when their economy is up. She's a realtor. He's a mortgage broker. And in the last year, he has become the pastor of his father's church, which has finally given them a small monthly income. They are historically horrible at making

sound financial decisions. Currently, I spend as much time as I can helping them around the house, and I do try to pay for as much as I can when I'm with them, but we do not loan them money. They might be debt-free in two years if, of course, they can sell a couple more homes, but my mom is wanting to take out a home equity loan to consolidate their debts and help bring down the interest that they're currently paying. So my question to you is, should we financially help my parents knowing they have a bad history of making good financial decisions? We could loan them the money to pay off their debts. We could even provide them a gift to pay off their debts, including their mortgage.

Yeah, I would never loan someone money, especially your parents. It would be a gift. That's the only thing I would consider as a gift. And then the gift is not a gift if you're giving a drunk a drink. And so in this case, what I would do would be I would do some kind of a matching plan that encourages good behavior. So, Mom, if you guys will go through Financial Peace University and you'll start living on a budget and you'll show me your budget, we'll pay a dollar of your debt for every dollar you pay down. And that includes you do not take out a home equity loan and you do get in the business of getting yourself out of debt. You're 80 years old. It's past time.

Yes, sir, it is. And this is the conversation. This is what it sounds like. So how much debt do they have that's non-mortgage? Non-mortgage is probably credit cards, $35,000, and they own a travel trailer, which is about $15,000. Okay. All right. And so $50,000 makes them debt-free.

Do you have any idea what their household income might be? She both together is about $10, month with social security and uh so they have the money to clear 50 000 pretty quick especially if you matched it i think within a year yes they can certainly do they can come up with 25 000 making 120 yes yeah if you put in 25 but i'll put in 25 mom match you dollar for dollar on your debt reduction if you start making wise financial decisions. And that includes no home equity loan, and that includes you two go attend Financial Peace University. Fair enough. And so we're going to teach them how to fish, and we're going to give them some fish.

I like that. That's a good compromise. Because it's actually helping them instead of participating in their lunacy. You just don't want to participate in lunacy. That's not love. That's just a cop-out. And ignoring them is not a good idea. They're your parents. You love them.

That puts us out of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Hey, it's Blake Thompson, Senior Executive Producer for the show.

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