The Ramsey Show - App - My Parents Want Me To Get a Credit Card (Hour 2)

Episode Date: August 5, 2021

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Live Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and a paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us, America. It is a free call at 888-825-5225

as we talk to you about your dollars and cents. Common sense for your dollars and cents. Common sense is so rare in America today that if you have it, it's like having a superpower. Lorena is with us in Canada. Hi, Lorena. How are you? I am awesome.

How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I just finished reading the Total Money Makeover, and I have a question regarding what I should pay off. My only debt other than my $99,000 mortgage is a $5,200 line of credit. Mm-hmm. Now, my question is, do I use my tax-free savings account, which is $6,700 to pay that off? Or do I increase my bi-weekly line of credit payment to $200 biweekly and get that paid off in a year? What do you make? Gross or net? Gross. Gross is $79,000 and $52,000 after taxes

and deductions. So you have a tax-free savings account. Are you talking about a retirement account? A tax-free savings account is the equivalent of your Roth IRAs. Oh, you're in Canada. Okay. That's true. That's me. Okay.

Yeah, we don't cash out retirement accounts to pay off debt unless it is to avoid a bankruptcy or a foreclosure, and you're not facing either. So what we would tell you to do, though, is $5,000 worth of debt should not take a year to pay off, making $80,000. I mean, you ought to do that in like three months. Yeah. Just tighten up the old budget here.

Tighten up the old belt. Lean down on that budget, and let's put's put about you know what are we putting five couple grand a month a little less on that and you're done in that's tight but you could you're done in three months that's what you know four months max something like that but it shouldn't take a year we don't want to wander out of debt we want to punch it in the nose as fast as we can mallory's with us in Los Angeles. Hi, Mallory. How are you?

Hi, I'm doing good. Thanks so much for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So my father is dating a woman in Ukraine who's about half his age. They've been dating three years now, but it's gone to the point that he's spending his money recklessly on her um and he lost his job during covid now he's working as a driver and i'm just really concerned for his financial safety he's been um he just bought her a new car in ukraine he's been paying for a rent giving her a monthly income and i need some advice on how to address the situation and help him because I'm really concerned at this point. How old is he?

He's 56, and she's about 32. And you are how old? I'm 25. Okay. Well, I'm with you. I mean, this does not sound good. How many times has he actually been in the presence of this woman? I would say about three times a year.

Usually they meet abroad on vacation together, but he pays for that trip, obviously, himself. But I wasn't so concerned about it at first. I really thought, you know, it's going to be a short relationship. He's going to wake up soon. Where's your mom? They're divorced. How long have they been divorced? divorced oh about five years now okay but they're still good friends yeah um he just he just lonely and got stupid i think so yeah yeah because you think you think he's getting conned

and so do i i mean this is like a mail-order Russian bride stereotype thing or something. This is like something you read about, right? Only it's really your dad. We've gone through the situation where it's real in his mind, and I don't want to damage our relationship at this point. So I'm just trying to support him. But at this point now, he just bought a new car. Yeah, that's danger, danger, danger, Will Robbins. I mean, this is like signals, flares going off everywhere.

I'm with you. There's all kinds of signals here. This doesn't sound right. Yeah. I mean, is every woman from the Ukraine evil? No, that's not what I'm saying. But there's a classic mail-order Russian bride scam that's been going around for a thousand years. You know, I mean, it's just it's a classic.

So, yeah. Well, here's the problem. Once someone has powdered your butt, they don't want your opinion about money or sex. Right. So you have powdered butt syndrome. It's hard for parents to listen to their 25 year old kids even when the parent is going nutty nutty like your dad is okay so that's the uphill battle you've got so in other words if he was doing cocaine and you walked in there and and started you know trying to be his mother and

say you're not doing cocaine anymore you're killing killing yourself, Dad, I love you, this is stupid, you have to stop, he's probably going to toss you out on your ear. You don't have position of credibility in his mind to tell him what to do, right? Correct. Who does? Pastor, brother, uncle, friend? No. Everyone in his life has told him he's making a mistake and he's just starting to push

them away which is why i've taken the position of trying to be supportive but no it's not when you support stupidity and harmful things you're causing them to occur right yeah i mean you don't want him to be under the illusion you think this is a good idea but you don't have to be nasty about it and and cut off relationship but um you know so i i don't know i you know you could talk to a family therapist and get some input uh that's better than mine probably i'm not one but um sadly i've ended up working in these things a bunch of times over the years as a financial coach, and so I end up right in the middle of it, and so I end up with people like Dr. John Deloney breathing down my neck telling me what to say.

So, you know, it probably, what you don't want to do is sever the relationship, but you have a moral obligation, a love obligation to your father to give him the warning absolutely yeah i want him to be set up if he chooses to continue or chooses to separate from anyone who dares question his his wisdom then that's just on him. You can't make people do that. But listen, you know, I don't even know you, and you called here, and I love you enough to tell you the truth. I'm going to, you know, you hear me do it all the time to people, right?

And it's not for the entertainment value. It's because I want them to go win. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to participate, and they're crazy. And so that's what you've got to do. You've just got to sit down and go, Dad go dad i love you this is scaring me it's got all kinds of red flags around it my spidey sense is going crazy and i'm afraid for you dad i think this is a bad thing but no matter what you do i'm always going to be here i'm always going to be your

daughter and i'm always going to love you but you need to hear from me that out of love, I think you're getting messed over. And I don't think this is going to end well. And I think you really need to get this. I think you really, really look at this with a solid set of eyes. A simple conversation in person like that, that's an act of love, is necessary in this situation. However, I don't think it's going to work. You're going to have to watch him crash and burn because he's not going to listen to you. But you are obligated to tell him that. You know, I heard a sad and touching story recently. Zander Insurance has set up a scholarship for children whose parents died without life insurance. Last year, they gave away over $165,000 to help kids avoid debt

and go to college to pursue their dreams. It's touching, but also sad since it's a situation that occurs all over the country and can be avoided in so many cases. This is the reason why I talk about Zander and term life insurance every day. It's not expensive or complicated, and it's gotten even easier with many companies no longer requiring medical exams. Zander shops and compares all the top term life plans and stays with you the whole time to make sure your family is taken care of. That's why I've used and recommended them for over 20 years. Go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282

so i don't have to keep talking about these sad stories Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. No parent ever wants their child to experience the panic of being unprepared for an emergency. But teaching your teens how to be smart with money can be a really big job. Well, we got your back. With our digital self-study courses for teens, you can rest assured that your teen will know the right way to handle money. No matter what curveballs, life may throw them down the road. And the best part, there's no instructor needed. If your teen has a tablet or a computer, they're all set.

Text SELFSTUDY to 33789, and you can learn more about all the different courses we have for your middle schooler, your high schooler, either one. Text selfstudy to 33-789. Our question of the day comes from a great American company, Blinds.com, the number one online retailer of custom window coverings. You get free samples, free shipping, and with the new promos they run every month, you'll save even more. Use the promo code RAMSY to get the best possible deal. Olivia is in Missouri.

I'm 18 years old. I live at home with my parents, who I highly respect. They convinced me to get a credit card for purchases and to pay it off every month to build my credit score. Not only that, but they got rid of their own debit card because they believe that credit cards are more protected against fraud. Having listened to your show every day, I disagree with them, and I want to get rid of my credit card.

I would like advice on how to get rid of it without upsetting them. If I do get rid of it, how do I buy a house without a credit score? Well, I don't know how to control whether your parents get upset or not. One thing that that would involve would be how you approach this subject. And number one, are you obligated to discuss this with them if you're 18 years old? If you feel obligated to discuss this with them, I mean, you can share with them some of the YouTube videos of me talking about this. The debit card has the exact same fraud protections as a credit card does. And so they're wrong.

I got rid of my debit card because it doesn't protect fraud. It has the exact same protections for fraud that a credit card does. Exact. The exact same protections under Visa or MasterCard products, either one. So that's just a complete misnomer. In other words, it's false. It's a lie. It's mythology.

So they're operating with bad information. If you were to get rid of the credit card and get a debit card you are not exposed to fraud any more than they are now everybody in our world today is exposed to fraud but uh you have a visa and mastercard both have a zero liability policy for fraud they do not charge you for fraud it's that simple period um now if that upsets them i i can't control whether your parents are upset or not just like i can't control whether or not they're wrong about something um so you just need to be kind and respectful and like you have been it sounds like you're a respectful young lady and you can decide to deal with this after you move out, or you can decide to deal with it head on while you're there gently and just go, Mom, Dad, I've looked at this, and this is what I understand to be true. And

I'm sorry, but I think you got some wrong information. And so I'll be getting a debit card and getting rid of my credit card. Now, as far as a mortgage goes, here's the core issue, Olivia, that you're asking. Is the credit score necessary to have a quality life? That's really what you're asking down in this question. Do we have to worship at the altar of the great FICO because the great FICO is the provider of all good things? Oh, great FICO. Thank you. We bring you offerings of interest. And payments. So that you raise our score.

Due to our worship of you. And then you give us more debt. Because let's think about this. Why do we run a. Why do we go work on. How do you work on your FICO score? How do you work on your credit score? There's only one way to do it.

Borrow money. 100% of the algorithm variables that fair isaac uses to create your fico score have to do with your interaction with debt so when you quit having any interaction with debt your fico score credit score disappears because it is just that it is a credit score A score of you dealing with credit. When you quit dealing with credit, you wouldn't have the score anymore. So mine is zero, and I have a pretty good life.

I have a very good life, but I don't take any offerings to the great FICO. So how do you build your credit score? You go into debt, and you pay payments you build your credit score you go into debt and you pay payments so that your credit score goes up so that you can go into debt and pay payments so that your credit score goes up so that you can go into debt and pay payments so that your credit score goes up it sounds like a good plan if you're a bank, but it doesn't sound like a good plan if it's you. Yeah, but I might not be able to rent an

apartment. Yes, you can. Check out YouTube. Anthony O'Neill's on there talking about it. He's got a beautiful YouTube video on there, and he clearly, he calls like 25 different apartment complexes, and only one would not rent to him without a credit score. He just called up and said, hey, I'm moving to Nashville. Can I rent there? Yeah, what's the deposit? I don't have a credit score because I'm just moving out of my parents' house. Every one of them but one would rent to him.

So this idea that an apartment won't rent to you without a credit score is absolute hogwash. It's a lie. You can't get a mortgage without a credit score. Yes, you can. It's called manual underwriting, called Churchill Mortgage. Now, you have to have zero credit score, none, and you have to have proof of income, and you have to have a down payment and have like a job and stuff,

which you would like to want to have anyway to get a mortgage, and so you do not have to build your credit score to get a mortgage. That's a lie. Well, you have to have a credit score to get a car loan. Maybe, but you shouldn't be getting a car loan if you want to be rich. You have to have a credit score to... Hey, dude. Listen.

I haven't had a credit score in 30 years. And I'm a multimillionaire. And one of the reasons I'm a multimillionaire is I have not taken any offerings of interest to the great FICO. I have not participated in buying bank furniture for the bank. I have not participated in paying Lexus Motor Credit, Chrysler Motor credit toyota motor credit general motors credit ford motor credit american distress or discovered bondage i have not followed any of the stupid debt tricks that most americans who are broke and have no money follow consequently all the money that we made the only thing that came out of it was taxes,

and I had the rest of it to be generous with and to build wealth with, and I became wealthy again, many times over. And you can too. So this idea that you have to build your credit score to have a quality life in America is absolutely a lie. Now, what you do have to do is buy things you can afford and pay cash for them. Now, Olivia, you're just going to have to be kind to your parents and respectful to your parents, and I don't know what you'll do. You're 18.

You've got time. Don't worry about it. But if I were you, I would get rid of the debit card, get a credit card, tell Mom and Dad, I'm sorry, I know we don't worry about it but um if i were you i would get rid of the debit card get a credit card tell mom and dad i'm sorry i know we don't agree about this i still love you but if if you're going to have to manage every item of my business for me to live here then that means i can't live here that means it starts to be time for you to leave because that's a level of control that that's that's not okay now if they're paying for all your bills, then they get to decide, but they're not paying all your bills.

So anyway, that's a case where the parents are normal, the parents are making a mess, the parents are believing a lie, and now they're infecting their own children with this crap. Ah, so maddening. Again, let me restate. One hundred percent of the variables that create the algorithm, mathematical formula, that dictates your FICO score have to do with you interfacing with credit.

It is not, the FICO score is not a measure of how good you're doing with money. It's not a measure of net worth. It's not a measure of your income. Your boss can walk in today and give you a million dollar a year raise. It won't change your FICO score one ounce. Because it has nothing to do with debt. FICO score is 100% to do with debt. FICO scores 100% to do with death. This is the Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Garrett and Christina are with us.

Hey, guys, how are you? Pretty good. How about you, Dave? Better than I deserve. Where do you all live? We're from the state of Washington. Awesome. Welcome to Nashville.

And all the way here to do a debt-free scream, how much have you paid off? $125,323. All right. And how long did that take you? About 17 months. Whoa. And your range of income during that time? $170,000 to $205,000.

Awesome. What do you guys do for a living? I'm a journeyman lineman. And I'm an adult felony, probation, and parole officer. Okay, cool. So you guys put in some hours then. Oh, yeah. So that journeyman lineman thing, you make some money, but you're getting after it.

Yeah, 40-hour shifts and 18 hours a day during storm season. Phenomenal, phenomenal. All right, so what kind of debt was the $125,000? We had $7,000 on credit cards, $24,000 on vehicles, and $94,000 on our mortgage. You paid off your house! We did. Looking at weird people! Yep. I love it! credit cards, $24,000 on vehicles, and $94,000 on our mortgage. You paid off your house. We did. Looking at weird people.

Yep. I love it. How old are you two? I'm 26, and she's 23. Wow. And a paid-for house. What's this house worth? Well, with today's market, probably $300,000.

At 26 and 23 years old. I love this. You guys are amazing. Wow. Okay, tell me the story. What happened that got you guys so on beat here and fired up? Well, it kind of all started. I was just out with my dad. He always listens to AM radio.

I hadn't even heard about you. And your show came on the radio. And I've always kind of believed in the debt-free lifestyle but didn't know you existed. And I just started listening to your show, and after about two days of listening to the podcast, I went down to the bank that day, paid off my credit cards, cut them up, and paid my car off too.

Wow! Wait a minute. Did you talk to Christina about this? We just got married a month ago. Oh, okay. I actually Whoa! I actually mentioned to her, I'm like, hey, I'm doing this Dave

thing and next thing I know she's like selling all sorts of stuff on Craigslist and she didn't even tell me but she started doing it too. So it's pretty awesome. I paid off my car before we got married and all we had left by the time we got married was the house and I had bought my house when I was 20 and was able to resell it for a pretty

good profit since we decided to keep his house and was able to take the proceeds from that sale and pay off our house now. Ding, ding. Yeah. Look at this. Yeah. So you guys were pretty well in control. I mean, you were a little bit normal.

You had credit card and car and that kind of stuff, but you'd also been doing pretty smart stuff at a young age, like buying houses and that kind of stuff. And so, boom, you were able to roll all that together and create a really great story. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Well done. I mean, you had money in the bank to just go down and pay the stuff off, right? Yeah, I did. I was just kind of, I was living.

I just didn't have a purpose behind it. And that's one of the big reasons I started falling. It's like, you know, lots of little charges, you don't realize how fast they add up. And I just want to make a quick mention how important the emergency fund is. During my journey on this, I sustained a back injury at work and I was off work for three months without pay, but I had the emergency fund. And so I was able to just focus on getting better and didn't have to worry about money during that time. work for three months without pay but i had the emergency fund and so i was able to just focus on getting better and didn't have to worry about money during that time wow that's a big deal that's a big deal so you're okay now yep healed and back to climbing poles all right good for you

man good for you so you're making you guys are making great money between the two of you're 23 26 with a paid four house married a whole month Okay, so it's not like you had this long, grown-out journey. I mean, you made like three moves here and then knocked it out, right, and finished it off in terms of the marriage and everything else. So what do you guys think the key to getting out of debt is? Definitely budgeting is huge. Like I said, before I started following the plan, I would look at my bank statement. It's like I would always tell myself, oh, I'll start saving for this when I make a little more money.

But, you know, it's like you got to take charge, start budgeting, and your little charges add up more than you think they do. So you got to live with a plan to make a plan. Yeah, I hadn't budgeted ever in my life and then started making my budget. And at the time, I thought I was living paycheck to paycheck. And I definitely felt like I got a huge raise once I started budgeting. It was like, oh, I'm spending a whole lot in this category

when it should either be not being spent or be spent somewhere else. And so it was easy. I mean, I was only making $50,000 at the time and paid off my vehicle very quickly because i was budgeting i didn't really even realize i had this extra money sitting in there have y'all had time to even sit down and do the math that making 200 000 a year at 23 26 how rich you're gonna be we just kind of started our minds are kind of blown it's millions

and millions and millions of dollars if you just pay yourself a house payment for the rest of your life that's all you do it's that's probably close to 10 million dollars yeah oh my goodness our smart investor pro has been pretty impressed he definitely had some wide eyes once we told him the house was paid off and he's listening today i think too that's awesome yeah yeah he's like oh i wish I could get every 23, 26-year-old in my office to do this. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Yeah.

Because he knows how that compound interest is going to work for you, compound growth on those mutual funds and buying other things and the level of generosity you're going to be able to have and just the level of choices that you've got in your life already. Yeah. You know? Yeah. It's pretty cool. You guys have done an amazing job. who were your biggest cheerleaders i would definitely say each other

you know uh we kind of at the start before we were married you know we kept our finances separate but we cheered each other on and she would she would text me during the day like hey thinking about going out and getting lunch at work today and i'd be like well I'm debt free just wait till the week and I'll take you out to dinner and we just kept each other in check and yeah and just having that accountability partner is huge yeah that's a big deal both of our families are pretty supportive but we've definitely kind of started making our own path in a new family legacy no question about it absolutely impressive what was the hardest part for y'all? I'm the spender. So for me, I was in baby step two a lot. I mean, he was in baby step two for a day until he paid off his car and it took me about eight months. And so for me, it was just

not spending money on like small little things like my dog. I want to go spoil my dog and go buy her toys all the time or eating out. Just the convenience of that was the difficult part of like, okay, I used to be able to or want to do this all the time and I didn't, I wanted to do it, but I knew I didn't need to do it. And so kind of refocusing and really imagining what life is going to be like, um, after the vehicle was paid off and knowing that we were getting married eventually, um, and now we're actually married was a cool goal of wanting to be on the same page when that does come around now we're here how's it feel now that you're a hundred percent free it's amazing i can't even explain in words it's like the options in life are endless when you don't know anybody anything yeah house projects

are a lot more fun now too everything is we just look down and go i need a little money for that okay let's put in a budget yeah there's plenty of room you know you got some big thing planned to celebrate that you're gonna do or buy uh we're coming here now do our debt-free scream and uh keep uh we're gonna be building addition on a house pretty quick so i'm just saving up to cash flow that and then find a boat after that yeah okay good good well you ought to be that's very well done you're going to be in great shape you're you're already in great shape but you're going to be an amazing amazing shape this is a what a story what a wonderful story very well done we've got a copy of the legacy journey for you that's a

next chapter in your story to move on to Baby Steps Millionaire, everyday millionaire status. You'll be there if you're not already pretty quick. And, man, you got a great start. 23, 26 years old, paid for house worth 300, paid for everything. Wow, married a whole month. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Amazing. And also a copy of the total money makeover for you to give to somebody because you can't help but talk about this stuff,

and that will give them a track that they can run on and go join you in this quest and this journey. Very well done. Garrett and Christina Olympia, Washington, $125,000 paid off in 17 months, making $170,000 to $205,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free. It's hard to explain how rich they're going to be.

Those two. Oh, man. Yeah, paid for a $300,000 house at 26 years old. Journeyman lineman. Not $300,000 in student loan debt at 26 years old. But I have a PhD. Yeah. I think he made the right choice, boys and girls.

This is The ramsey show kevin is with us in spokane washington hi kevin how are you not. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Well, I've been reviewing the beneficiary status on some of my accounts and things, HSAs and retirement. And so my wife and I have five kids, and I'm wondering, they all ask for a secondary beneficiary. At what point does it make more sense to try and set up a trust now in the event that it was needed, in the event both my wife and I, something happened to us, or should I just break it out percentage-wise per kid on the secondary thing?

It just seems to get a little complicated. I'm wondering when it would streamline that. How old are the kids they're all uh uh teenagers on down so they're young they're minors okay yeah so what we did at that age um was we made the secondary beneficiary the uh family trust and the family trust would be formed or the children's trust, whatever you want to call it, your last name, so-and-so children's trust, that's formed upon your death as an action of your will. Your will says upon both of you dying that this trust is formed for your minor children. And then you can put all kinds of things into that trust, right?

You can dump. But the purpose of that trust is to manage all of the assets, basically, for the good of the kids. And the trustee of the trust, their job, if you do the trust well, is to execute what the trust says to do. They're not allowed to do anything else with that money. Typically, I want the guardian of the children to be a different person than the trust uh trustee yeah currently is right now

okay and uh then you what we had in our children's trust again it never activated because our children grew up and we did away with that portion of our estate plan because now it's just left to adult kids in a different setting right uh in a much more complicated estate plan these days. But point being that once they're all grown, you don't have to do that anymore. But we left it, all assets were to be funneled into that for the good of those kids. Now, out of that then, we dictated, for instance, that a monthly amount off of the returns of the investments the money's liquidated put on into investments across four types of growth stock mutual funds like i teach growth growth and income aggressive growth international working with a smart investor

pro that's how ours read and um the monthly income off of that up to a certain amount would go to the guardian for the care of the children, effectively child support, right? And so we want to make sure that much money is coming out of the income. Any other amount would just continue to grow the wealth. They can't really touch the money for anything else except maybe to buy a car when they turn 16, college education, major medical event if some money was needed because one of them, we can use the money for that.

And then as they graduate from college, you can distribute the money to them. You can actually distribute it to them at 18 or 21, either way. But ours was just when they graduated from college, they got their share of the trust. We didn't keep it in the trust until they were 30, so you can do that if you want. You can give half of it at graduation, half of it at 30, or however you want to dictate it. But that's the kinds of things you can put into that trust then. But the whole point being we're going to just throw all the money in a pile, and the income off of that takes care of those kids.

Right. So on all the accounts and everything, you just list the trust as a secondary beneficiary. And within the will, you figure out how to deal with it all. You don't try and do that on every account. Exactly. Within the will. And the trust is not even formed until both of you die. Right.

Or unless both of you die. And so that trust that I was mentioning earlier, we detailed it all out, but it was never formed. It ended up going in the trash basket because our kids are grown now, you know. And so our old estate plan is predicated on grown people, not minors that must be taken care of. And so it's a different process now. But you still need to do it. You still need to get it all laid out in case something happens to both you and your spouse. And that's a beautiful thing you're doing right there.

Very, very smart. Art is with us in Baltimore, Maryland. Hi, Art. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Thanks, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

So I am interested in your perspective as a Christian businessman and landlord. I have about 50 tenants whose rent I have not increased in between two and four years. I'm contemplating raising their rents 5% to 8%, which would still put them at 5% to 10% below the rents that my new market rate tenants are coming in at. And I was kind of curious, given the last 18 months, whether that was just a tone-deaf move or whether it made sense. So that's my question for you. I don't know why it is Christian to not charge market value for rent. Why is that a Christian concern?

No, I just wasn't saying it was necessarily Christian. I was just kind of curious as to whether it was charitable, if you will, to keep people's rents a little bit low because of the challenges we've had over the last year and a half yeah um no i i uh what we have done is we've been charitable with people who fell on hard times sure in individual case by case situations and some of the i've got commercial property and i've got residential property and um you know we had one guy in residential that lost his job because of COVID. Well, you know, we didn't come down on him like we would have in another time, you know. We just said, hey, we're going to give you some grace, some mercy. And you can't live here two years free.

You've got to go get a job because you've got to pay rent somewhere, right? But we're not going to just, you know, we're going to give you a little wiggle room here. And then, you know, the back rent that you can't pay right now, we'll work it out. You can pay it a little bit at a time and catch up. Right. And so we did that. We actually did that with we have a workout facility, a gym and one of our commercial properties. Obviously, it was shut down and the guy's a small business guy. And so we just said okay you know we're not gonna uh we're just gonna let the rent pile up and you can catch up later and we'll work out a

catch-up schedule we didn't forgive it but we just didn't we just didn't muscle him you know and so uh and that was just an act of uh compassion it's also not a bad business move because by the way if you throw them out you got to put somebody else in there in the middle of this environment so uh but i keep we keep our rents at market across the board and then on a case-by-case basis where we run into a situation whether it's covid related or just an individual situation we had a tenant one time who um the dad was the sole provider, and he got terminal cancer. You know, so, and I'm not the kind of guy that puts that family in the street, right?

Yeah, I've been there as well. So, I mean, you know, you work with them, and, you know, I don't want to be played, and I don't want to be conned, and sometimes people will try that stuff. You've probably experienced that as well. But on the other hand, you know, the good news is I don't have any debt on this, so I don't have to collect the rent to eat. And because I'm collecting market rent on everything else, it gives me lots of margin to be able to be merciful over here on the other side.

So we keep all of our properties at market as best we can, as close as we can within reason. We don't overcharge or undercharge. It's not greed-driven. It's just a matter of being a good steward, a good manager of the assets that God has given us to manage. And amongst that is mercy and charity on individual case-by-case basis. But I don't think it's charity to just say, overall, I don't charge as much, and somehow lump that under our faith issue.

That's just not, I don't agree with that. Hey, thank you for the call. It's a good discussion. I appreciate you bringing it up. You're a good person, obviously, a great man. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in.

We'll talk about your life and your money. By the way, it's always good to remember, money is not the root of all evil. The love of money is the root of all evil. Money just buys clothes for your kids and keeps the lights on and puts food on your table. Pays the rent. Money's not good or bad. But when you place it in the hands of a human, oh my gosh.

You get to see how that human's wired, don't you? This is The Ramsey Show. Have a friend or family member that needs a daily dose of Ramsey advice in their life? Let them know about the Ramsey Call of the Day podcast. It's a quick hit of advice about life and money in under 10 minutes. Check out the Ramsey Call of the Day podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.