The Ramsey Show - App - Moving From Intensity to Intentionality

Episode Date: May 31, 2022

Dave Ramsey & Kristina Ellis discuss: Buying a house when you're a penny pincher, Being intentional (vs. intense) in baby steps 4-6, Why you shouldn't help your fiancée with their debts until you're married. Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the 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. This is the show where we help people build wealth, do work that you love, and create amazing and actual relationships. Christina Ellis, number one best-selling author and Ramsey personality, is my co-host today as we talk about your life right in front of you. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-8255. Let's start off this hour with Landon in Memphis.

Hi, Landon. How are you? How's it going, Dave? I appreciate you taking my call. Sure. What's up? So I'm 25 and my wife is 24. We're in Baby Step 7, and we're looking to upgrade here at a house that we have potentially to buy.

It's $275. The house I'm in right now is about $230. And so I have the cash, obviously, to upgrade, and we're obviously paying cash. But I'm wanting to know if it would be stupid to upgrade or if I should just sit around and be patient. And the reason we wanted to buy it is because it's a friend of ours, and they just weren't going to put it on the market where we didn't have to deal with the competitiveness of it, and it would just be a clean purchase without have to deal with the competitiveness of it. And it would just be a clean, you know, purchase without having to deal with other offers and stuff.

But my only really hang up is, is the area isn't really the nicest area in the world. It's not, it's not bad, but like the house directly across is an older gentleman and he doesn't really keep up with his property really well. Like, I mean, the grass might get away with them and there might be, you know, just kind of things all over the yard. But, you know, I'm just afraid that if I wanted to resell it that that might hurt me potentially or you know i don't know what do you think what do you make about 180 you're killing it dude freaking 24 years old with a paid for house and asking questions like this you're stud

well done appreciate you well done man it's amazing beautiful um well a couple things just pop into my head just listening to your story i mean there's nothing wrong with anything you're saying um it doesn't sound like much of an upgrade well it would be significantly more of an upgrade honestly um the house right now would probably wait wait wait i mean you're talking about forty thousand dollars oh no no no no, wait. You're talking about $40,000. Oh, no, no, no, no. Yes, I'm talking about an upgrade in house. I know, but I mean, how are you getting so much more house for only $40,000 more?

Well, the reason is because my buddy that's selling it to me, the flipper, and he's going to give us a pretty substantial discount on it. It would go for about $325,000 on the market. And it would be about 800 more square feet, and it's significantly nicer is really what I'm saying. And the only downside is the goob across the street? Well, you know, the area in general isn't the nicest. I mean, one street over, it's half a million dollar houses, and then, you know, it's this street, and they're probably in the $250,000s, the $260,000s.

I thought you said he's going to get $3.25. Oh, yes, sir. I mean, it would, but I'm talking about the last time these were sold, you know, two, three, four, five years ago. Well, that's not – what we're asking is what's it worth today. You're saying this is a $350,000 street today, and the house is one block over a half million. Right.

I mean, I'm not seeing a lot of minuses in this situation that's pretty incredible for this market to be able to have that kind of deal that's that sounds incredible what is your hesitation right now aside from the area aside from the neighbor do you have any other things holding you back yeah so it would just be spending the amount of money cash right now you know like i like, I don't know. Should I just be patient and pile up cash? I mean, we are saving our house. Oh, you're a tightwad. You don't want to let go of the money. Dave, Dave, I am a penny pincher.

Yeah. Now I know how you got here. Okay. And it's killing you to spend your little bank account. That's what it is. I can't really emotionally wrap my mind around it. What's your wife say about this deal she's the same exact way she loves the house not too happy about the area and you know but

she's okay buying five years from today are you going to be glad you bought it i would say yes not just financially but also in living there and living in that specific house i think we would be i think we would be you're not gonna be whining about the neighborhood five years from now no i don't think we would be and you know another main reason we wanted to tell it because we badly want to get out of what we're in now okay most neighborhoods are most neighborhoods are getting better or getting worse there isn't very few neighborhoods that are staying exactly the same five years from today five years from today do you think this one will be better or worse no it will be better it's a very trending town okay quit being a tightwad and buy the house in

okay okay you know if you if you don't think this is impulsive you haven't done anything impulsive since you were 12 that that's true you're gonna hey listen i have a hard time impulsing fifty dollars i'll be completely i understand i understand i know you and i and i appreciate that about you because it's what got you to where you are and it's actually but like with most of us our greatest strength can be our greatest weakness and in this case you're getting paralysis of the analysis because you get a joy from holding on to that money. So the resale doesn't make you afraid in any way. You told me the neighborhood was getting better. It is.

Then I ain't worried about the old man across the street. He's going to die and his heirs are going to sell the place. Right, right. Okay. I'm just afraid that if I wanted to resell it in five to seven years, that somebody would turn away because of what the neighbor's house looked like. If it's one neighbor and the rest of the neighborhood's getting better, I'm not worried about that.

And whenever you go to sell, maybe you can ask him if you can mow his lawn. Just take a day and fix it up for him. Yeah. We used to do that. We had a guy in the neighborhood. We would all just show up and clean up his yard. But that was a different world, though. Yeah, you did that now.

People shoot at you. But, yeah, it's crazy. That's fun, though. That's a really cool question from a really cool young man. Yeah, 24 years old on baby step seven, wanting to upgrade houses, and has the cash to do it. That is awesome. There's so little I had to correct in that call.

I'm just sitting here amazed. You know, I mean, he's already so far ahead of the game. And for those of you who don't know, Baby Step 7 means he has zero debt, has a fully funded emergency fund, is putting 15% of his income away for retirement household income. And if they have kids, he's funding kids' college funds. So that's all the Baby Steps. Baby Step 7 is the last of our steps, and it's basically become very wealthy and very generous, which, by the way, is always good for tightwads to do the generosity thing, too,

because it helps you loosen up a little bit, helps you enjoy your money a little bit more. Yeah, and I'd way rather him be a tightwad than just freely spending and irresponsible. That's incredible. It just makes him a unicorn. I mean, he's awesome. He's beautiful. Beautiful situation. He's got his family.

I mean, they're going to be multi-millionaires by the time they're 30. Right. You know, at the rate he's going. So making $182,000, $80,000 a year, by the way. Yeah. It gives me so much hope for the future generation. I feel like it's often so easy to dog on the younger kids coming up and say they're irresponsible.

But from what we're seeing, walking through this lobby and coming onto the show, it's like, man, we are seeing some incredible people in their 20s, which is just super inspiring. Yeah. I mean, the 20s got their group, too, but everybody's got their group, right? But there's a bunch of good ones in this batch. There really is. And we're running into them everywhere we go.

And being very smart, very wise, very careful. The best particular Z generation is they're a little more serious. There's not a lot of flower children among them. Well, they've been through a lot. You know, they've seen a lot of financial struggle. They've seen a pandemic. A lot of them are realizing you got to get on your stuff now. Yeah, I guess.

I feel like most of us have been through some stuff, but this generation, like, they're on it. They're game on. I like them. I love it. Good bunch. This is the Ramsey Show. Life has thrown a lot at us these past few years, hasn't it? You've weathered so much and you're still standing.

But it's taken a toll on many areas of our lives. Well, there's hope. Smart Conference is back and this fall we're bringing this world-class event to Dallas. You'll walk away empowered to grow in every area of your life. We'll be covering topics including personal development, building wealth, leadership, relationships, marriage, and your career. Joining me will be Rachel Cruz, Dr. John Deloney, Ken Coleman, George Camel, Christina Ellis, and Craig and Amy Groeschel. Smart Conference is an incredible day-long event that will give you the principles and tools to live the life you've always imagined. Join us on October 22nd in Dallas for what will be the best Smart Conference ever.

You don't want to miss this life-changing day, and check it out now so you don't miss out on our early bird pricing. Go to ramseysolutions.com slash events to learn more. Again, that's ramseysolutions.com slash events. Christina Ellis, Ramsey Personality No. 1 bestselling author, is my co-host today as we answer your questions about your wealth, your work that you love, and actual amazing relationships. Mike is with us in Philly. Hey, Mike, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Thanks, Dave. Happy that you took my phone call, and thanks for giving me the tools to really change my life. I really appreciate it. I'm honored. steps four five and six and ever since I paid off my debt and developed got my full emergency fund um I'm saving up for a house but the last six months I've been going over budget

and I just feel like I've sort of lost that gazelle intensity regarding my budget and expenses. And I just wanted to know if you had any tips to help me sort of get back on track. Mike, what motivates you to succeed financially? What gets you excited whenever you think about saving and money? I don't know. I guess just the idea of living free and being able to do what I want. I mean, I was under so much pressure from debt for so long and so, like, such a big part of my life that, like, it's this sense of freedom that's been really my you know i guess my passion or my uh uh it's how old are you you know what i mean i'm 37 what do you do for living

i work in philanthropy so you're a development guy uh yes okay cool um well one thing one clarification once you're in baby steps four five and six we don't teach gazelle intensity we say move from intensity to intentionality but even that you're violating because you're going over budget you're not being intentional because you're not doing with your money. Your money's not doing what you want it to do because you're goofing up. That's what you're telling me. So even that, you're not being intentional because you're not living on your budget so that you can buy the house, right? Now, is your budget too tight?

It probably is. Are you single? Yes. Are you a saver or a spender by nature i used to be a spender but i think i've become a bit of a saver except that part where you fell off the budget and didn't save yeah well i mean i'm still i i you know to be perfectly honest i'm that i'm still putting money into my retirement account. That's just deducted from my... Well, that's okay if you want to do that while you're saving for the house.

That's okay. Sometimes at Baby Step 3B, people stop their retirement, and sometimes they keep retirement going while they're saving for a house. Either one's okay. Nothing is violated there. You're more asking about motivation. So if your budget is reasonable for you to live on you're not having to strain and hold your breath like you were back in baby steps one through three instead you're just you went from a sprint to now you're in a marathon you feel the difference

yeah and if in that cadence that that rhythm, your budget is reasonable, then you've got to start asking yourself, okay, what do I want more? This donut or these eight pounds that this donut's going to put on me? These are questions I ask myself every day. So, I mean, it's like I saw a bumper sticker sticker one time i said nothing tastes as good as it feels to be thin yeah you know i might argue that but that's a good bumper sticker so you know um but the uh uh you know you know is it worth it to not do that thing that's a budget buster in order to get your house yeah you probably need to get like

pictures of houses that you like and put them on your refrigerator that's not a bad idea that's not a bad idea kind of get a visual in front of you that's punching you in the nose every so often and you're going wait a minute i've already spent my restaurant budget if i go out to eat three more times this week and screw around with this money, I'm not ever getting a house. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I was going to say is it's so important to have your why be clear. Like you need to know why you're fighting, why you're saving, why you're budgeting. I love that you're in philanthropy and you're already a giving person. One of the huge motivations of getting to Baby Step 7 is so that you can give and live like no one else. So like Dave said said get a picture of

the house that you want get take some time by yourself and just think through you know why am i doing this what is inspiring to me whenever i reach baby step seven when i have that paid for house you know what can i do with that money how can i give back what charities are excited about the other thing that helps um most of us is to have community around us while we're trying to be accountable and to be encouraged and to have some people in our lives and so if you've been through financial peace university i have not okay i'm gonna put you through that and get you into some of those groups and let those and just tell those groups you need to be real with a group and go hey group

y'all got to hold me accountable because you're going to be, you know. The good news is you're single and you don't have to convince somebody else to do this. The bad news is there's nobody ragging on you if you mess it up. Yeah. And so you need some people in your corner that are calling you out and reminding you what's real and what's important because you already know all this stuff. You're obviously a bright guy. You know how to do this. So pretty cool, man. I stuff you're obviously a bright guy you know how to do this so um pretty cool man i think you're gonna be fine the good news is you actually had a budget

that said wait a minute you're off the bat you're off the path you hit the guardrail get back in the lane it's telling you right it's screaming at you and that's you didn't even have that before so now the numbers hold you accountable they wake you up and go wait wait wait wait rick is in springfield missouri hey rick welcome to the ramsey show thank you dave thank you kelly how can we help oh man i just inherited a million dollars from my mom i'm disabled and i don't know what to do i'm married i got two special needs kids um i get like eleven hundred dollars a month of disability check and now with all this money coming i need help so that it's not just poof up in smoke

i need to invest it so that my wife how old are you income i'm gonna be 50 this year what's the nature of your disability sir a car accident i got caught up in a 45 car pileup. Yeah, but I mean, what happened to you? Oh, I had an out-of-body experience. I mean, what is your disability? Your disability. The union told me that I'm not able to perform my duties. I used to get down in a 40, 50-foot hole, and now I feel like the walls were going to cave in on me, so I wasn't able to do my job.

I guess paranoia of my job. So anxiety from the wreck and so forth. Yeah, PTSD had okay that's fair how long ago was that back in 2008 okay is there have you ever tried to do anything else i don't like leaving my house in today's society me neither but uh i get you but uh um okay is your wife work outside the home no she's a home goddess she stays at home and takes care of the kids and y'all make it on 1100 bucks a month super budgeted wow okay well the million dollars like you say could go poof and i appreciate your fear about that and the way to keep you from doing that is to put some folks in your corner to teach you not to do

it for you i do not want you going and doing something because i said to do it or someone else said to do it the job of the people in your corner is they need to have the stock market and i'm scared of that it's okay if you're in the stock market i don't care if you're there that's that's where my my personal retirement is in the stock market in my 401k i'm not worried about that what i am worried about is you putting money in something that you don't understand and that someone else told you to do it and you're at you know then then that then the money's gone and you're a victim of that i don't want you to be in victim. I want you to be a victor.

Thank you. So you are in control. You make the decisions. You sit down with someone. If you want to talk to someone that does investing the way we teach here on the air, you can click SmartVestor at Ramsey Solutions. It'll connect you up with brokers that do mutual fund investing the way I personally do it. And you can begin to learn about it.

If you're scared of the stock market right now, that's reasonable. But, you know, you can't be scared of everything and have this million dollars make any money. It's going to have to make a little bit of money on something. And putting it in a coffee can and burying it in the backyard, we don't even have coffee cans anymore. Putting it in something and burying it in the backyard is a bad idea. That's going to cost you $100,000 a year. So you need to have a little bit of courage, but your courage is going to come from knowledge, not being rash or being a gambler.

You learn about buying a house before you buy a house, and then you don't make a mistake buying a house. This is the Ramsey Solutions, you can drop by. We have a visitor center, and you can get free cookies and coffee and see the place and hang out and watch the show. There's usually 50 to 250 people watching the show out here, and we charge exactly zero for the entire experience. So come by any time you're in the Nashville-Franklin area. Franklin's a beautiful little town south of Nashville where we live

and where we enjoy our lives. In the lobby, we also have a little debt-free stage where people come to do their debt-free screams. And Jorge and Vavara are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Great. Great, thank you. Where do you guys live? In Baltimore. Awesomeness. Welcome to Nashville. How much debt have you paid off?

$230,000. I love it. And how long did this take? Three years and three months. Good for you guys. And your range of income during that time? That's why I have it right now. So we started combined income at $120,000. And then after some side jobs, many side jobs, and a lot of moonlighting. We increased it at $180,000.

Good for you. What do you guys do for a living? I'm a researcher. I'm doing medical research, and he's an electrical engineer. Awesome. Very cool. What kind of debt was your $230,000? Oh, it was a combination of medical bills, IRS, credit cards,

lots of credit cards, 401k loans, and student loans. Most of it was student loans, Salome, and vet loans. Wow. It was all my debt. All yours? Yes. She married into this, huh? She did.

Wow. Okay. So now tell me, this is not a Baltimore accent. Where are you guys from? I am originally from Russia, and he's from Bolivia. Oh, very cool. And how did you two meet? We met online, actually, being in the U.S.

Oh, very cool. How long have you been married? Almost four years. Very good. And then you decided we're going to go on this journey three years and three months ago, and boom, we hit this. How did you get connected to the Ramsey stuff well I learned about you a little bit before I met Jorge and I just I just got it I paid off my only one credit card and when I met him I was so into Dave Ramsey

that I started talking about about you like on the first date. Oh no. That's true. That's against the rules. You're not supposed to do that. And we signed up for a class. No way. Yes, we did. On the first date. Almost.

Almost on the first date. Yes. So. But I for some reason we just didn't follow through. Uh oh.

And after we married and we were on a family vacation and she can tell better yeah we went into florida and family vacation natasha was already born she was two years old two months old and there was a rainy day and um we got this message we got the email that we have two weeks left until the Dave Ramsey membership expires and we were like okay let's just watch it, let's give it a shot and we started watching it

and in two days we just binge watched the whole the whole disc and repeated the parts that we wanted to hear again like the first step and the second step, the baby step and we just kept watching it and then started watching all we found out about all all the uh the debt-free screams and we just

couldn't stop and we just love that you guys were all in so tell us about the journey what did you I did pizza delivery. I did Amazon jobs on the weekends, nights, and holidays. I did Uber driving. And then I figured that I could do moonlighting. And I started doing moonlighting. And that's what gave me the most. With the coronavirus, it actually worked out. I shouldn't say that, but it worked out well.

In the case that people were more... It worked out well for the plexiglass people, too. So it's okay. There was so much work in Amazon. They needed people. And so I took as many shifts as I could. And then for the moonlighting, I do cat drafting and Revit modeling. And I started just doing my own beam consulting gig.

And it just, when the coronavirus hit, the businesses were more willing to hire me remote. And I just went gasoline tense. That's amazing. So, y'all, watch Financial Peace multiple times. You worked around the clock. Did people think you were crazy? Definitely. Yeah, definitely.

Yes. 230,000 in three years. That's impressive. Yes. I mean, you've lived on nothing. Oh, my goodness. Yes. 230,000 in three years. That's impressive. Yes. I mean, you've lived on nothing. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. We lived before.

When we just married, we wanted to have a nice life. You know, we live in almost like a good apartment in suburbs. Yeah, with 1,600 square feet. But once we got on the journey, we moved to the city, to Baltimore, in a shoebox, basically. It was 400 feet, no AC. It was almost inhumane. Our parents thought we were nuts because she was five months when we moved. And they refused to come for a while because it was just no couch.

It was really uncomfortable. We didn't even have a table to eat dinner or lunch. We were eating in the couch. We sold everything on Craigslist. I sold all my instruments. I played music. I played guitar and drums and I sold all my instruments

because I didn't even have the space and I was working so much that I didn't have time to play with them anyway. So I just gave up all of that. Yeah, it was... So was it worth it? Oh, yes. Because now I can go to a guitar center

and buy myself a better guitar. Anything you want. Anything I want, as long as I can afford it. You make a couple hundred thousand dollars a year and you don't have any debt. Yes. That puts you in a complete...

And you got a baby. I mean, life is good. And nothing but a beautiful opportunity in front of you. Yes. You two are amazing. Thank you. Thank you. You're amazing. Oh good and nothing but a beautiful opportunity in front of you. Yes. You two are amazing. Thank you. Thank you.

Oh, and we tripled my income. Of course. Of course we did, yes. So what do you tell people who think it can't be done? Who feel like they're overwhelmed, you know, maybe multiple six figures in debt like y'all had.

What do you tell them right now? Well, first, get on the budget and just do it. Don't question it. Don't question it because we knew people who started doing that and just started analyzing it too much, doing too much math. It's not mathematical. Yeah, just do it.

Just follow it like this. It works. I don't know how to convince other people that it just works. It works. I think you guys are. Just go to work. Look at the weather forecast. And when you see rain in Florida, go get in a hotel room and binge watch FPU.

And that's the formula right there. Yeah. I love it. Also, I would say we were watching a lot of day free screams. A lot. Dead free screams. And eating. Day-free screams. And eating oatmeal. Every morning it was a routine.

Natasha was one year old already. Yes, she was one year old. And we were eating the same oatmeal every morning and we were watching just day-free screams like crazy people. I will not eat oatmeal anymore. I love it, Ori. I love it. Beautiful.

All right. Let's bring beautiful Natasha up. And what a great Russian name to your heritage there. I love it. Natasha. She's a princess. How beautiful is she? Now, how old is she now?

She's three and a half. So you have a new country. You have a new marriage. You have a new baby. And you have a new future. You guys are new baby. And you have a new future. You guys are pretty cool. Thank you. Thank you.

This is pretty neat. You got opportunity in front of you like nobody's business. Medical researcher, electrical engineer. You guys can do anything you want to do. I'm actually in PA school now. I decided to switch careers. She stopped working. Why not?

Some time ago, we were cash flowing. We were paying off debt and cash flowing her school. Okay. Well, why not? Sometime ago, we were cash flowing. We were paying off debt and cash flowing her school. Okay. Well, why not? I like it. Very well done. You guys are something else. I got a copy of Baby Steps Millionaires for you.

That's the next chapter in your story for sure. You'll be there in 20 minutes the way you two are rolling. You're fun to watch. All right. It's Jorge and Varvara and Natasha from Baltimore. $230,000 paid off in three years, three months, making $120,000 to $180,000. What a wonderful story. Count it down.

Let's hear a debt-free scream. You can't hit that sound. One, two, three. We are debt-free! Love it! Wow! They are cool. Wow.

This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you. Well, there's a lot of crazy out there. Folks are looking for direction on how to handle their lives and their money, but they're also struggling to see how it's even possible to build wealth with all the news. When you read the news, you think, oh, my goodness. When you watch the news, you think, oh, my goodness. Well, don't. Quit. Hey, we want you to come to one of our Building Wealth live events. We're going to walk you through all the crazy

and teach you the steps to build real wealth, lasting wealth. The financial principles we teach are the only principles that work in prosperous times and in hard times. And no matter where you are with your money, you can get on a path to building wealth. Now, the Building Wealth Live Tour has already made a couple of awesome stops with complete sellouts in Las Vegas and Orlando. We've wrapped up our spring portion, and now we're looking towards the fall. We have four dates in the fall, and these are all over 75% to 80% sold out already. But you can still get tickets to Phoenix, September the 13th, Sacramento, November the 1st, Minneapolis, November the 10th, San Antonio, November the 15th,

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You and your wife, your husband, bring a couple friends with you all for $60. It's a deal. It's going to be amazing. RamseySolutions.com slash events and reserve your seats now. Seth is in Detroit. Hi, Seth. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, how are you doing?

Better than I deserve. What's up? So my question for today, so I actually, I did the Dave Ramsey course back in high school, which was about five years ago, but did all the baby steps and

kind of fell away from it a little bit, and now I'm starting to get back into it, but I'm recently engaged. Congratulations. When are you getting married? Next year, August of next year. So, yeah. Um, so we're really excited about that, but, um, yeah. So one of the things, um, is she is a spender by nature and I'm more of a saver by nature, um, which I find is a beautiful thing for our relationship. But also we are recently just trying to come together to be more intentional

about how we can like unify our finances and, and cutting down our debt. And something that I'm, my question is, is that, so right now I'm doing my debt and hopefully in the next six months I'm going to be debt-free completely. She has about $25,000 in debt, and it be feasible for me to help start paying off her debt before we get married? OK. So why is that?

Well, I mean, you're not married yet, so there's always a chance that between now and next August, something could happen. You know, obviously, that's that's a bit of time. We're well over a year. So just to obviously that's that's a bit of time we're well over a year so um just to take that risk is is a bit risky and just not what we recommend yeah you do it'll also impact your relationship when you start paying debts off and paying bills for somebody you're not married to it's a power play and even if you don't mean it you don't sound like a guy that does toxic power plays i don't think it to me, you don't sound like a guy that does toxic power plays. I don't think it's you.

I don't think you're a bad guy. But it changes the power structure of the relationship when one of you is paying for everything or paying off everything. One of you is responsible. One of you is not. It can build up resentment. It can do all this other stuff. Instead, what I would tell you to do, I love the idea that you're talking about it and you're beginning to communicate about it. And let me ask you a personal question.

Do you mind? Why are you waiting 18 months to get married? Just because we're saving, wanting to save up for, it's not like a huge grander's wedding, but we're, so she currently works at Ywam which is youth with a mission yeah i know yeah so she's doing that and so she's finishing up like her obligations with that and then was doing the bible school and so there was a lot of like uh barriers just for us to get like we tried to get married this year but it was just way more stress and we felt um we just felt like the lord was like leading us to get married next year. And, like, that was kind of the main reason.

Now, what do you make? I make around $62,000 a year. Good for you. Okay. And so she's living on donations and then going to Bible school on donations, right? Yeah, yeah. And so that was kind of, like, part of the reason why i wanted to start helping i guess like because i do give to the mission already um every month to help support her um

just like and i also give to like other missionaries but um that's just something that we um kind of agreed on it's like because she's in missions that was kind of a way to support but i know that can still get money yeah it can and it's all about it's all about if you'll do a good bible study on unity and on the power of it that's what you're creating you're creating you know like when you walk down the aisle the preacher says and now you are one right but until then you're not right yeah and that's the danger that you're violating, and you can get yourself in a mess. And it can be subtle little things. It could change the way your mother feels towards her.

Right, yeah. Which figures out you're paying off her debt. It might not change the way you treat her, or it might change the way she feels. I'll give you an example of that. When we went broke, we were married, though, in this case, but it still had the same effect we went broke many years ago sharon's dad who's the nicest man on the planet he's like a saint he he loaned us a little money to catch the house up so we didn't lose it in bankruptcy until i got that debt paid he never said a single unkind word never looked at me once she never said anything it drove me bananas thanksgiving dinner just didn't taste right until i got back on level playing field with him

it was like it snapped something inside of me and so i don't think you're going to see something that extreme here but that's the principle that's in play so anyway what we're going to do is we're going to bless you i want you to to go through financial peace university as part of your pre-marriage counseling and i'm going to pay for it well thank you so much thank you so much okay and then the two of you are studying these principles because if you can come into you know jesus said your treasure is where your heart is so if you can come into agreement on your money you know even though you're not combining it we're both talking about it she's doing the same things you're doing you're only operating on the same biblical principles of finance and you're both in agreement that this is how we're going

to live our lives you have a huge step up. Now, then, whatever money you would have put through YWAM to her or whatever money you would have paid on her debt, just pile it up. Okay. And the day you get married and when you get home from the honeymoon, write a check and pay it off. Yeah. It's the same effect.

You're still going to be out of debt at about the same time, actually. Depending on how much of that $25 she could have knocked out on donated income, probably not any between now and the next August, very little she's going to reduce it. But if you piled up $25,000 over there in an account, you come off the honeymoon, write a check, boom, boom, we're done. On to the next baby step, and you're going to be walking your way right through this. It'll change everything. account you come off the honeymoon write a check boom boom we're done on to the next baby step and

you're going to be walking your way right through this it'll change everything but there is something uh there's a reason that jesus talked so much about money in the new testament uh more than he did grace by the way in the parables there's something powerful about the the shift when you start mixing money into relationships and by the way you're always all of us you start mixing money into relationships. And by the way, you're always, all of us are always mixing money into relationships. And so we tell folks, be very careful to keep your money separate until you're married. Absolutely. But the thing is, is like you said, he can still be setting money aside, setting it aside for when they do get married. The moment they get married,

that evening he can go in and pay off her debt. And I just think it not that evening you have to wait till the next day true true they'll be busy yeah come on christina you're not that old but i will say how cool i mean he said he took foundations five years ago so there may be what 22 23 yeah they got plenty of time they got plenty of time they're gonna be good you're in good shape young man hang on we'll get you signed up for financial peace university and we'll be part of your pre-marriage counseling this is the ramsey show Have you been inspired to make a change with your money? Want to know where to start? Take our three-minute money quiz to get a plan you can follow. Go to RamseySolutions.com and search for Get Started to get a plan for your money.