The Ramsey Show - App - Love Someone Enough to Hurt Their Feelings (Hour 1)

Episode Date: April 22, 2019

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Music Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions Broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where dad 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'm Dave Ramsey, your host. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money. It's a free call at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Thank you for joining us, America. Katina starts us off in Fort Worth. Is it Katina or Katrina?

Oh, no R, not the hurricane. Okay, it is Katina. Hi, how can I help? Hi, it's a pleasure to talk to you. I'll get right to the point. My husband and his siblings are receiving an inheritance, or they did receive an inheritance from their grandparents, and my husband's in charge of giving a check to his sister. Now, just a little bit of a background, very little. She's aware of the principles and has gone through the program, They do not have a choice. We know that we don't have a choice.

He's just wondering, the question is, do you have any advice for when he gives it to her? He was going to call her today, later, to let her know that the inheritance check is in. Yeah. He's the big brother. He's the middle one. Okay, and how old is she?

Is she a little sister? She's a little sister or a big sister? She's a one. Okay. And how old is she? Is she a little sister? Is she his little sister or his big sister? She's the baby. Okay. And how old is she? She is, I think, one year at 32 or 33. Is she married? Yes.

And she's got two kids, first grade. And they misbehave with money, and she's getting ready to get a check. How large? It's $11,000. And I told him at least they're not doing, you know, alcohol or drugs, like usually giving drunk a drink. But it feels kind of like the same situation. Giving a drunk a drink.

He has no choice. Yeah, discussions on this show, giving a drunk a drink, is seldom actually, it's a metaphor, it's seldom actually dealing with alcohol. It's a metaphor for, you know, giving people money who are misbehaving okay number one you know like you said you don't have a choice the executor of a will does not get to make a moral judgment about the misbehavior of an heir they have to execute the will unless the will calls for them to and it doesn't most of the time okay right and so he has to give her the check. There's no question about that.

And so how is her husband? Is he more domineering over this situation, or is she? They're both free spirits, and they would say that she's more domineering than he is. Okay. All right. And where do they live? They live, I mean, they live close to us in Keller, Texas.

How far from you guys? Let me ask it that way. About 15 miles. 50 miles. Okay. 15. Oh, 15. Mm-hmm. Oh, good. Okay. Here's what I would do if I were your husband. Okay?

Okay. I would call the two of them and say, hey, I need to meet with the two of you. Okay? Okay. In person with no kids. Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay.

Meeting and schedule a meeting in a conference room somewhere. Maybe at the lawyer's office that is doing the checks. Okay? Okay, or whatever. And then I would sit down with them and I would say, listen, I have two hats that I'm going to wear as we sit together today. Hat number one is the executor of the estate for our grandfather. Well, let me, I'm sorry to interrupt. I just want to clarify, he's not the executor.

He's not? Who is? He's not? Who is? He's not. So the executor already gave us three checks, basically, to his brother. Oh. And the brother gave it to us, and he said, give this one to your sister. Why? So.

Why would the executor give you her check? That's completely wrong. It's been a three-year process, almost. Two and a half years. Is this the last of the money? Is this the last of the money? Yeah. The executor of the estate is misbehaving. They should never give you someone else's check.

That's completely wrong. Do we need a reverse or what? No, no, no. You can take it to them and say the executive. So it changes the conversation, though. You're right. Thank you for the clarification. So you hand it to them and you say the executive gave you this.

Now, I want to sit down and talk to you guys as your big brother. I love you more than life itself, and I really want you guys to do something good with this money, because I think you're going to look back later and regret that you've not been kind to our grandfather's memory when you waste this. He was not a wasteful man. He was a good man that saved money. He was diligent with money, and thus you have an inheritance.

And you are doing his memory harm when you waste money that he left to you. I want more for that you than that. He wanted more for you than that. And I just want to tell you, I think you can do better than you guys have been doing. And if you want some help, we'll pay. My wife and I will pay for you to go through Financial Peace University. If you guys want to get control of your money, if you want to do this, we'll walk with you. We'll be your accountability partners lovingly.

I'm not going to bother you or be all up in your business at all times. But as your big brother and someone that loves you, I'm just going to hand you an $11,000 check, and you're going to piss it away, and I've got to tell you, I think that's bad. I love you too much to not tell you that, and I'm not mad at you, and I want you to come over for Thanksgiving dinner and bring your kids. That is not what this is about. I just think it's time you two learned to handle money because you are dishonoring our grandfather when you piss away his inheritance.

And just call them out lovingly, kindly, firmly. And then end it. Don't bring it up again. If they just say, well, it's none of your business. Okay, you're right. It is. You're grown adults. You can do what you want to do.

And, you know, you love them anyway. We've all got stupid people in our family. All of us do. And all of us have crazy people in our family. And you just go, that's the crazy one. That's the stupid one. And you just eat dinner with them anyway, and you love them anyway. But if you can love someone enough to help them change the direction of their life, that is real love.

Most people don't love someone enough to risk hurting their feelings for them. I get called a jerk, and I'm mean to people here on the air, and I get all these Dave Ramseys of this, Dave Ramseys of that, things that you can't say on the radio, and he's all of those things. And really, I probably am, I guess, but none of the correction or sternness or anything I give you here is anything but love. It's the same thing. You people call in, you go, I've been through Financial Peace University six times.

What do you think of the new Honda I just leased? And I'm like, well, you're stupid. Now, that's not because I'm a jerk. It's because you're being stupid. And I love you too much to just let you go. I'm just I learned nothing. And I went through the class three times. I must have a learning disability. Oh, my gosh. you're being stupid and i love you too much to just let you go i'm just i learned nothing and i went through the class three times i must have a learning disability oh my gosh i mean what is

your problem you know but you know i'm going to call you out on your stuff because i care about you and you don't get your life changed if everybody just goes along with you crazy and says oh i love your new clothes emperor when you're walking down the middle of the street butt naked, you know, somebody needs to go, dude's got no clothes. And they need to love him enough to tell him that, you know. And that's love. It's not being a jerk. Now, you do it kindly, firmly, no cuss words involved, no raised tones or anger involved. Just tell the truth lovingly.

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and our members have shared over $2.5 billion in medical bills. To learn more, Thank you. Number one bestselling author of the new number one bestseller, Everyday Millionaire's Chris Hogan. Ramsey Personality joins me at the bottom of the hour to answer your questions about life and money. We'll be doing the show together in the bottom half. If you have a question in particular for Chris, you're welcome to jump in now. The phone number is 888-825-5225. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Tim and Jessica are with us. Hey, guys. How are you?

Hey, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. Where do you guys live? Chicago, Illinois. Awesome. And all the way to Nashville to do a debt-free scream. That's right.

Very cool. How much have you paid off? $344,000. Whoa! How long did this take? Just about three and a half years. Wow. And your range of income during that time?

Just over $300,000, Dave. Wow. And what do you guys do for a living? I'm a chef. I run a bunch of restaurants. And I'm a consultant and author. I have a few books. Good for you guys.

Well done. Very fun. Wow. Big incomes, wonderful careers. And what was the $344,000? It was the house, Dave. You paid off the house. We got it.

We got it. Looking at weird people. That's right. I love it. Well, congratulations, you guys. Very well done. So what's this house worth? it. Well, congratulations, you guys. Very well done. So what's this house worth? About $600, $625.

Love it. And how old are you two? I'm 42. And I'm 40, turning 41 this week in two days. All right. Well, happy birthday. Thank you. Very nice.

Very nice. So you decided three and a half years ago, we're making a ton of money. We need something to show for it. We're going to knock this house out. You've heard this story before, huh? What made you decide to do that? Well, I mean, you could have just gone ahead and lived it up in lifestyle, right? Very, very true.

Well, we like to organize our money journey in three stages of give, save, and spend. So it started about when we were married eight years or so. We went through some marriage difficulties, not related to money, but we had a lot of reason just to get our act together. And at that time, we committed wholeheartedly to giving, giving at least 10% to our church, doing some other giving. And so that helped us just get on the same page in a lot of ways. A couple years later, we read The Millionaire Next Door by Tom Stanley.

And we realized, wow, the average millionaire is not who we think it is. And they don't do the things that we think that they do. And that really kickstarted our savings. We were able to save $100,000 in one year to the down payment of our house. After that, we did keep saving, but we would do what I would call a save and drain. So we would save everything in one account and just do a house renovation and then drain it down and say, oh, we need some more in there to do the next thing, to do a vacation. And we knew that we needed emergency fund. We knew we needed to save for retirement. We knew we needed kids college, but we didn't really have a system.

We were doing a budget, but not every dollar. We were pretty sloppy, I would say, toward the end. And we would still have a lot of money fights. I'm the nerd. He's the free spirit. And I felt like I was doing a lot to manage our money. And he was like, where is all the money going? And there was a lot of friction around that. So that's when you came on the scene through our friend Melinda. We were talking about money a couple of times and she said, you know, some of the things you say, like, are you Dave Ramsey people? I'm like, well, what's a Dave Ramsey person? Can I be one without knowing it? And so she was telling me about you. And around that time, Tim had started listening to the

Entree Leadership Podcast. So he said, hey, you know, this Dave guy also has a call-in money show. I'm like, a call-in money show? I love that idea. So that became my part-time job, was listening to your podcast when it was about an hour long, still in the podcast format. We read the book, and then we just decided to do it. Paid off $15,000 on the car right away. That's not included in the 344. And then really

the third stage of the journey, because we were still having trouble with the budget and Excel and Quicken and every tool out there I've used. And the day that you announced EveryDollar, I think it was May 2015, I think. Yeah, I think so. I downloaded that app and I was like, hallelujah, this is amazing. It's perfectly app, and I was like, hallelujah. This is amazing. It's perfectly aligned with his philosophy. We're going to be able to see the same thing at the same time in real time. And we took off from there, went right up the baby steps, emergency fund, retirement, saved a big chunk of college, and did our first uh extra toward principal in

january 2017 so the 344 itself was was paid off in two years wow yeah through through just focus boom just like that yep wow i love that idea on the savings account where we put it in and drain it out i had one guy call it a put and take account put it in take it out put it in take it out and you never really get anywhere that way. Exactly. It's like gaining weight, losing weight. Gaining weight, losing weight. And there's no peace.

I think that was the biggest problem we had. We'd give towards a missions fund. We'd give towards a church project. We'd do a renovation. And then as soon as we did it, we'd second guess ourselves. Like, wait, where'd all the money go? Are we doing this right? Yeah.

And we had no peace. There was no overall plan. Yeah, what your program brought us was just a plan and then the peace that comes with knowing that you're on the plan and you're actually making progress. Way to go, you guys. You're fun. This is great. Thanks. So you're probably everyday millionaires then, too, aren't you?

Yeah, I think we just went over the mark a few months ago. Yeah, with your 401K and a $600,000 paid for house. Way to go. That's a twofer, man. Dead free. Everyday millionaires all in one day. How about it? Well, not really.

Seemingly. Way to go. And you're Dave people now. Exactly. Who knew? There we are. Exactly. We didn't even know it.

Can I be one of those and not know who it is? That's great. I love it. Somebody that pays attention to their money and starts winning with it. There we go. Way to go, you guys. Very, very well done. Very, very proud of you guys here.

So what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? You paid off your home. You're 40 years old. I think for me it's two things. The first is make hay while the sun shines. You know, we didn't know how long we would be having a pretty sizable income, and we didn't want to turn around one day and be like, what the heck did we do with all that money?

You know, why didn't we make progress when we could? You just don't know what can happen to you. So that's number one. And number two for me was just maintain fidelity to the plan. Don't do ish. Don't do I sort of do, Dave, and I sort of do my own thing. We did exactly what you said, and we got exactly what you said we would get. No surprise.

Wow, fidelity to the plan. That's a strong word. For me, Dave, I would say that it's just don't turn the radio off. Especially when your podcast went to three hours instead of just the hour. That was great. We always listened to it. We talked about it. We led three classes at our church.

We were about to lead some more, but then we chatted to some churches. We were always talking about the plan. We were always encouraging each other. We were always getting with people that were part of the program. Kind of like Coleman's new book that's coming out. We were always talking about the plan. We were always encouraging each other. We were always getting with people that were part of the program, kind of like Coleman's new book that's coming out. We were in proximity with everybody that was on the same page with us, and that just moved us forward that much faster.

Wow. Way to go, you guys. Who were your biggest cheerleaders outside the two of you? I would say our parents, our sets of parents who taught us to work hard, and giving was always a priority, I think, in both of our households growing up. So I would say our parents, sets of parents who taught us to work hard and giving was always a priority, I think, in both of our households growing up. So I would say our parents' sets of parents. Yeah, and our kids. They saw the popcorn jar that was full of popcorn at one time get drained lower and lower.

They saw our debt chain kind of get cut one link at a time, and they were always encouraging us. Our son was writing his own money book about what he understood to be happening. And just seeing the whole family get behind it, you know, in all avenues was great. Fabulous. Brought us together a lot. And you brought the guys with you. Yeah, for sure. What are their names and ages?

Mason, he's 12 years old. And Harley, she is 7 years old. All right. Very cool. And practicing their debt-free scream all the way from Chicago. They're loud, yes. You've got to watch it. Good, good.

I like loud. Wimpy debt-free screams are the way from Chicago. They're loud, yes. I love it. Good, good. I like loud. Wimpy debt-free screams are not good. Nope. Yeah. Especially when your house is paid off and you're 40. I mean, that's just strong, you guys. We've got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you, Everyday Millionaires. Obviously, that's the next chapter.

You're already in that chapter, deep into it in your lives, and well done. Everybody here at Ramsey is so proud of you guys. Thank you. Very, very well done. All right,sey's so proud of you guys very very well done all right tim and jessica mason and harley from chicago 344 000 paid off in three and a half years that's their house and everything making 300 a year count it down let's hear a debt-free scream here we go three two one wow i love it you know we've been doing these dead free screams for 15 20 years now and only in the last few months

with the advent of Chris Hogan's new book, Everyday Millionaires, have we thought to stop and say, you know, you're probably already a millionaire just by getting your house paid off. When somebody's doing a house payoff debt-free scheme, it's not unusual for that number to take them over a net worth of a million dollars depending on the value of the home and how much is in their 401ks and that kind of thing. So very interesting. Very interesting.

So we're getting some twofers now, debt-free scream and everyday millionaires all at the same moment. Well, it's not really the same moment, but we're going to celebrate it at the same moment. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. The last thing I want you to feel is buyer's remorse, especially when you offered thousands more on a new home to win a bidding war. If I've taught you anything, it's that blindly throwing money at a problem is a stupid plan and something you'll regret for years. The key to avoiding this rookie mistake is to call Churchill Mortgage and get certified.

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The phone number is 888-825-5225. Ramsey Personality, number one bestselling author and host of The Chris Hogan Show, which is broadcast as a podcast and on YouTube, is joining me this half hour to answer your questions. Welcome back, Chris. Well, thank you, sir. It's good to be back. And good to hear a debt-free scream right before the break that also are everyday millionaires. I love hearing that, Dave. And to see the family out there together united, that was a serious scream.

Yeah. I mean, we had some walls rumbling. Yeah, they did a good job. They did a great job. Yeah. No wimpy screams here. No, we don't need those. Good stuff. Good stuff.

Good stuff. All right, jumping in with Luke in Waynesboro, Georgia. Hi, Luke. Your question for Chris and me. Hey, gentlemen. How are you doing? Pleasure to speak with you. You too.

Quick question. So I'm 30 years old. My wife's 28. I work nuclear contract work. So as you know, jobs can kind of come and go. My wife and I have gotten in real good control of our money over the past 18 months. We paid off 50K in debt. We're leading FPU at our church coming up next month. And so we're getting ready for retirement, but we're looking to buy our first house. And so my question is, we've got our down payment and now that we've

gotten there, we're kind of hesitating because we don't know, because of my type of work, should we go ahead and buy our house back home in Florida where we permanently live, or should we just continue to wait and save, you know, until we got the 100% down plan? What's the probability you're going to be in your current location for three to five years? What percentage chance of that? Zero percent. Okay.

So you're moving. Yes. Our plan is to go back home to Florida, where we're from. So right now I'm just on a contract job, which is what I do. I travel for work, but my home base is in Florida. We just don't own a home. And we're ready to do that. My son's starting kindergarten, and we're ready to settle

down back home. Oh, okay. So why would you not buy there? That's what I'm talking about. That's where we want to buy it. We just don't know if we should wait until this job is over and then go buy, or because we have a good, steady income right now, everything looks good on paper, go ahead and

go get our house now with our down payment, and then just be aggressive with paying it off until this job's over. Yeah. What do you want to do? I want to buy the house. Okay. What's she want to do? She wants to buy the house, but I'm just here. That means you're commuting to Georgia, right? Well, yes, sir. I live here, you know, full time. No, I mean you're moving to Florida under this scenario, and you're going to be commuting to Georgia under this scenario. Yes, sir. But you're going to be commuting to wherever you contract.

That's correct. Yes, sir. Okay. Chris? What amount of down payment, Luke, have you guys saved up? About $30,000. Okay. And looking at that, your emergency fund, how much of an emergency fund do you all have

uh we got about six months okay good because with your contract work that's the thing that i want you to make sure that you have it's scary yes sir yeah no and i think also as you all look at this i think it's really important for you all to make a business decision on this home you buy in florida uh that you don't get caught up emotionally, that you look at something that's in that price range. That's my fear is we've gotten emotional already, and we've already started looking above the price range and things like that, and I'm like, let's hold on for a minute, and let's really look at this from a business standpoint.

What size, what dollar amount have you all been looking at? We're looking at about $180,000 is where I'm comfortable. I make $160,000. Yeah, you're fine. That's nothing wrong with that. So if you buy the right price range house and you're doing it in the right place in the baby steps and it's where you're going to be and it's what you want to do, then there's no green light.

I mean, there's no yellow lights or red lights here. Nothing's stopping you as far as I'm concerned. I would go ahead and buy it. The only red light or the only yellow light is this commute to Georgia starts sooner. The commuting away from town for your contract, which is in your future, but it's going to start sooner by going ahead and buying. But that probably puts the kid in the kindergarten, probably gets everything else lined up on the family, and it's just a part of what is your life now, it sounds to me like. No, Dave, i agree with you and that commute i think he can we can have house excitement right now and it doesn't sound like a big deal but the reality of that starting to happen i think is

going to get old pretty quick no it's going to get old but it's way of life going forward right it's the rest of his life as long as he does this type of work so um that's what you're talking about there so i don't see any reason with what you've outlined here. It sounds like you've done it properly, sir. And well done. All right. And Justin is with us in Atlanta. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, Justin. Your question for Chris Hogan.

Thank you. Thanks. Good afternoon, Mr. Ramsey, Mr. Hogan. I really respect both of you guys. I want to get your opinion. I want to buy my mom a car, and she doesn't really have much income. She cares for my elderly grandmother, who is a widow. And I know you say you shouldn't spend more than half your income on a car,

but this situation is a little different. I want to see how much should I spend to help buy her a car. This hasn't got anything to do with your income. It's got to do with you buying a gift. Okay. So the ratio of car to your income doesn't matter. This is the ratio of car to your income doesn't matter this is a ratio of gift to your income okay is this putting your income and this is putting your home in jeopardy you buying her so much car somehow troubles your household no i bought a house during medical

school i remodeled it and sold it for about $225,000 more than I paid for it. And so I used that money to pay off student loans. And then I had extra that I wanted to use to bless her with a newer car. And what are you buying? A Toyota 4Runner. What price and what year? Like 2015 to 2016. So what's that cost?

20 grand? Is that 20 grand? About 20 grand, 20, 25 grand. Yeah. Okay. And you're a doc? You're a doc. What are you making?

I make between $350,000 and $425,000. I don't see any reason not to buy her a car. Okay. And that's not too much. Her income is like $12,000 a year. I think it has nothing to do with her income. I think it has nothing to do with her income. I think I can do with her income. This is a gift you are buying.

It's not going to do with your income, except that the gift is a small proportion of your income. But this is you doing charitable giving. It just happens to be your mom, okay? And you're not putting her in a car that's completely – I mean, if you're going to buy somebody making $12,000 a year taking care of an elderly person, an $80,000 Beamer, we probably need to rethink that. You know?

But this is a very utilitarian, basic vehicle you're buying. You're buying it slightly used. It's going to be in great shape. I heard a lot of common sense here. Chris, what do you think? Justin, how old is your mother? She's 61. Okay.

How's her health? She's in excellent health. Okay. Her home is paid for. Okay, good. Because you're talking an SUV, so she's her health? She's in excellent health. Okay. Her home is paid for. Okay, good. Because you're talking an SUV, so she's going to have to step up into that, correct? Right, which is good for my grandmother. Hey, I'm 58.

Shut up. I can step up into a freaking SUV. Ramsey's getting riled up over here, Justin. Hold on a second. Calling people 61-year-old people. But no, I'm just thinking through this process. You do. And here's the other thing,

Justin. Is your mom going to pay the insurance or are you? I cover all of her expenses. She stopped working full time so that she could get care for my grandmother. So I cover her expenses and that would include the insurance. Okay. And what baby step are you on, Justin?

I am in baby step two. I'll be debtfree except my house in July. Okay. What debts do you have left? I have $20,000 on a truck and about $13,000 on a line of credit. Okay. And I've got $35,000 in the bank now. Okay.

What's that $ 000 doing well that's most of that is leftover profit from the sale of the house i didn't want to put i wanted to use some of that money just to honor god and to to bless someone else i didn't want to throw all that at my debt since i felt like that house was a blessing is some some of this $35,000, are you using the $20,000 for your mom's car out of this $35,000? Yes, sir. Okay. Well, the other $15,000 goes on your stuff. And you're making $300,000 and you just continue your baby steps.

Line of credit gets paid off today, Justin. Absolutely. Yeah, finish it up. I mean, yeah. It's got the money to do it. And you're making bank, dude. And here's the thing. You're being very wise and very intentional.

And, you know, you're doing a really, really good job. Well done. Dave, why do we struggle with the permission to give like that? Well, he was thinking the car as a percentage of income thing that we always use. Don't buy depreciating assets for yourself. Right. People buy too much car all the time. But once he looked at it as a gift, it wasn't a struggle for him at all.

Gotcha. I'm going to go out here at the break and do my stretching exercises so that I can get into my SUV at my ancient age. I'm never living that down. You're right. You're not. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. Number one best-selling author, Ramsey personality, Chris Hogan, author of the book Everyday Millionaires, How Ordinary People Build Extraordinary Wealth and How You Can Too. Number one best-seller, Learning About Real Millionaires, How They Really Got There.

You can do it with Chris's book. And we have the free Everyday Millionaires Investing Guide at your website. Talk about that. Yeah, Dave. You know, a lot of people are asking, you know, what is the process as I get myself out of debt and build up an emergency fund of how do I go about investing and why do we believe what we believe and teach that? And so we walk you through this.

This PDF is about 40 pages long and it's free and it gives you a lot of details as you sit down and think through your process as you get ready to go sit down with the smart investor pro uh dave we found in the study uh that you know almost 70 of these millionaires were working with an investment professional so we want you to do what they were doing and get the right kind of help and guidance that's it pretty simple chrishogan360. start now. It's a 30-page guide. Download it free. The Everyday Millionaire's Investing Guide.

Chris wrote the book Retire Inspired was the number one bestseller. Everyday Millionaire is the number one bestseller. This guy knows his stuff. That's why he's part of this team. Kristen is with us in Louisville, Kentucky. Hi, Kristen. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. Hi, Dave and Chris. Thanks for taking my call.

Sure. How can we help? So, I just finished reading Financial Peace, and my husband and I have sat down and just kind of mapped everything out. We have approximately $104,000 in debt, but we own a house which has approximately $100,000 in equity.

So we're considering selling our house and renting for a while, and we're just not sure if that's the best bet or if we should just try and snowball. What's your household income? Around $60,000. What kind of debt is the $104,000? $69,000 of it is student loans. We have a $20,000 car and about $16,000 in credit cards. Okay.

Have you cut up the cards? No. No, they're not cut up. And you hesitated too long. Okay. And you like the house? The house is great, but I feel like being debt-free is better. Okay.

All right. Well, generally we sell the house as the worst-case scenario, unless the house is killing you or you hate it anyway and are going to sell it anyway. Chris, what are you seeing? Kristen, how many are in your family? There's six of us. Okay. So we have four kids.

Four kids. What's their ages? 18, 13, 5, and 4. Okay. All right. And so looking at this proactively, even if you all were to consider selling the home, you've got to find a place to rent to accommodate, correct? Correct. And here's the other thing that I hear.

You know, you could sell this house and you could take that equity and you could pay off that debt. But until you change your habits, until you guys start to look at this debt, like right now you see it as kind of like a friend. You're realizing it's more of a frenemy. It's not helpful because I've seen people make this kind of lifestyle adjustment and sacrifice. And guess what they do? They go right back into debt because they don't see it for what it is. So, you know, with a family of your size, I'm probably going to sit down and keep talking about this, but it's more a matter of looking, Dave, as I see this, of looking at ways to get more serious about budgeting, using every dollar, but also looking for ways to get the income up. Yeah.

If I were in your shoes, what I would do, moving is very, very, very expensive, emotionally and financially. It's a pain in the butt. Costs you money, the move itself itself the actual commissions and everything on the sale of the house the whole thing um and as chris said then you still got rent every month so you didn't get rid of the monthly obligation all you did is just knock out the debts what i would do if i woke up in your shoes based on what you told me is i would cut up every credit card as soon as i hang up the phone well we actually haven't gone into any more debt for over a year. I didn't ask about that.

I told you what I would do. Because Chris is right. You're playing around with these credit cards. You're still playing footsie, and you've figured out it's all okay because you haven't added any extra debt, and you're going to go back in debt when you sell this house, and you're going to have a lot of regret, and our advice would have been bad advice. I wouldn't cut up the credit cards, get on an dollar budget and i'd sell your car i'd keep my house

that's what i would do now you can do what you want to do you can work whatever plan you want to work you're an adult you get to do that but you called here saying what would we do and um that's that's what we would do and our reasons are that uh the recidivism rate on people going back into debt after the after cleaning up debt is very high it's much higher for people who get out of debt quickly and quote easily and so if you're going to get out of that quickly and easily you have to have some other signals in your behavior patterns that indicate that you've really had it, the I had and I've had it moment. And you still got credit cards, so you don't. That's my thinking. I don't know. I agree with you, Dave. And I think people need to hear out there, America, the rationale behind the emergency fund is to make

sure you've got money to take care of life so you don't have to go backward. So if you ever use your emergency fund, job number one is to put a break on all spending and get that built back up so you never have to go backwards. Yep. Jessica's in Buffalo, New York. Hi, Jessica. How are you? Good. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. How can we help? Hey, I'm a senior in college. I'm about to graduate. I'm about to go out of school locally and my tuition is completely paid for about to get my first job and um i've been a fan of your show

for over a year and i'm familiar with the steps but i was wondering where to begin saving and handling money okay so you're taking your first job doing what making how much um i'm gonna be a sound associate and i'm gonna12.50 an hour so it's not that much but it's a start What's your degree out of college? Psychology Psychology. What do you plan to do long term? I'm going to become a psychologist

so I'm still out of school And how does the job you take help you do that? It's not really going to help me but I think that just building up money will be a good first step and i'm going to take some internship opportunities once i begin college once you begin college like once i go in the fall semester i'll start taking internships that will help me oh i thought you're graduating may you're when do you graduate i graduate high school in uh june but I'm going to college in my fall semester.

High school. Okay. Sorry if I got that confused. Sorry. Okay. All right. I thought you were getting ready to graduate from college and you were making $12 an hour. I was about to melt down over here.

Okay. Okay. Good. I'm feeling much better. All right, kiddo, you're doing great. Well, your main thing is to get through school debt-free, and all of your money should be piled up to cause that to happen. And keep your lifestyle down.

Don't spend money on the dorm. Don't go to a school you can't afford. No debt. no debt. No debt. And that's the process. So no debt. And if you'll pile up money and take care of that, you're going to be better off. Jessica, if you write down those two words Dave just told you, no debt,

the way we've got a student loan crisis going on right now, it's around $1.5 trillion. And you don't want to set yourself back in your career by starting off in the hole. So look for scholarships and grants. Get onto DaveRamsey.com. Dave's got many articles and blogs on there about how you can go to school debt-free. Check into that. I'm proud of you. As a senior coming out of high school, you're already thinking about this. And I'm going to play like Santa Claus in spring and send you dave's total money makeover book because that's the book that changed the game for me and you starting off reading that and understanding and hearing these stories i promise you it'll put you on the path so make sure you select the school that you can afford to pay cash for whether that that's a community college or an in-state

or your parents are paying for everything. You mentioned you had a lot of your scholarships and a lot of tuition covered. That is wonderful. But that is not a guarantee you're going to get through school without debt. And so we want to make sure that we need debt or that we don't need to avoid debt. We're picking out a school that we do not have to borrow to go to. And Dave, you know how we can get more seniors like this getting ready to go to school? Getting our foundations curriculum into these schools.

Yeah. We have to teach these young people. She caught us both off guard. We thought she was a college senior. She's in high school. Yeah. Well done. Yes.

Very well done. Chris Hogan, thanks for dropping by. Thank you for having me, Dave. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, guys. This is Blake Thompson, senior executive producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. Did you know over 15 million people listen to The Dave Ramsey Show every week? And a lot of those people listen to one of over 600 radio stations across the country.

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