The Ramsey Show - App - My Sister Is Taking Advantage of Our Parents (Hour 1)

Episode Date: July 23, 2020

Investing, Insurance, Education, Relationships, Debt Tools to get you started:  Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR 

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. It's common sense for your dollars and cents, gods and grandmas' ways of handling money. The only thing we are sure of is that the common sense is just not that common anymore. As a matter of fact, it's a highly rated talk radio show. So we're here to talk with you about your life and your money. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, my co-host on the air today on the Dave Ramsey Show.

So you're going to get intelligence and wit and humor. It all goes in one handsome package one unbelievably handsome package you know people have used a lot of words to describe me people have used a lot of words to describe me over the years and unbelievably handsome has never been two put together i always get i got a face for radio. But anyway, 888-825-5225 is the number. It is a free call. Some say the advice is worth what you pay for it. 888-825-5225.

Starting off this hour in Omaha, Nebraska, is Elizabeth. Hi, Elizabeth. How are you? Hi. I feel like the lucky number caller. Well, we'll see when you're done. How are you? I'm so great and so happy that Dr. John Deloney is part of your team now.

He's amazing with you. Well, thank you. He's sitting here. He heard that, so be careful. And, hey, I've got your Venmo on the way. I'm going to get you paid up. All right. So my husband and I are recently on baby step three.

Good. And approaching baby step four, I just feel like 15% of our income is a lot to invest. We take home about $6,000 a month, and 15% of that is $900 a month. And our mortgage is $1,500 a month. So maybe we're house poor. And that's why I feel like that's too much money to be investing. Is it okay to invest less? Well, the math will work that if you invest less, you'll have less.

Yeah. And so if you invest more, you'll have more, obviously. And your mortgage is at 25% of your take-home pay so it's okay um i would suggest you try it because we've worked with millions of families and um sometimes people people feel like that's a pinch sometimes people feel like it's not enough uh and they want to do more. And so that, and that of course starves them from the ability to do other things with the remaining money in terms of generosity or purchasing things for the family and those kinds of things. But I would give it a run. All the years of doing this, it has shown me that you start saving

900 bucks a month or your income goes up shown me that you start saving $900 a month or your income goes up, we'll call it $1,000 a month later, you're going to have so much money later in life that you can retire with dignity and completely change your family tree, and that's the reason that we do that. But, you know, it's new. Here's what's weird. When you were back in baby step two, you probably had payments equivalent to the $900

and weren't thinking anything about those, the adding up of your student loan, your car payment, those kinds of things, your credit card payments. It's probably $900. You didn't think anything about that. But now that it's investing, it feels like strenuous. Like you're taking something from your today, like you're somehow taking good times out

of your day i i don't understand it um i don't understand the well human nature is to enjoy the moment well yeah yolo is human nature that's right that's right have you found over the years it's easier day when you're working with families that it's easier to out of sight out of mind it um yes or do you need to feel that pain a little bit every month? No, I want the autopilot. Okay. That's one of the reasons the 401K is brilliant. It comes out of your check before you even get it.

There you go. Or if you set your Roth IRA up to be automatically drafted from your checking account. I still do that. I trick myself into discipline in the sense that I probably wouldn't sit down and physically write out a check and mail it every month. Right, right. That would get, today particularly, that would be weird. But even in years past when that was more normal, anything that is an auto draft has a tendency to continue to do it. And, you know, if you live like no one else later, you get to live and give like no

one else. The whole purpose of this is not just to get out of debt. It's to get out of debt so that you change your family tree, so that you retire with dignity, so that you can put yourself in a position to be outrageously generous. Adam is in Tucson. Hey, Adam, what's up? Hey, Dave, thank you for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? So my mother unexpectedly passed away. I'm sorry to hear that, man. Yeah, bad things happen.

But she was set up for life insurance, $000. Um, and I'm her only child, um, that it's going to, um, I'm curious about how my wife and I should go about investing that. Uh, we have one rental property right now and would like to go further into real estate. Any direction would be great. So you're the beneficiary on the life insurance and you're receiving the entire $750,000? Yes. Okay. When did she pass away, Adam? Say that again. When did she pass away adam say that again when did she pass away she passed away fifth of july my goodness just the other day but i'm sorry brother um number one

it's okay to make decisions while uh while we're uh it's okay to not make big decisions. As a matter of fact, it's preferable to not make big decisions while we're grieving. And so it's okay to park this money for a period of time and kind of get the lump out of your throat, kind of the, you know, you're driving along the road and you suddenly just start crying, kind of get past those things, the initial waves of the grief, because you might not be making real clear decisions during that time. So I kind of use two things to answer this type of question. One is, obviously, I'm going to tell you to walk up whatever baby steps that are remaining in this process. Do you have any debt at all? No. We're debt-free, but currently renting as we're kind of in a transition stage.

Do you owe money on the rental property that you own? No. It's paid for? Yes. Okay, and you have zero debt. All right, well, I would make sure I had an emergency fund in place. I would earmark a small portion of this money to enjoy and do something nice for you and your wife. I would earmark another portion of the money to just do something in your mom's memory as a gift to something that she, a ministry or whatever, that she would feel good about you doing that. You can decide the amount. I don't think it has to be a big amount, but I just want you to have that exercise. I would set aside a chunk of this money to pay cash for your first home, and then I would begin to talk about with the rest of it buying rental property that I pay

cash for, but that I don't go into debt. All of those things can go slow, and there's no rush. The second lens I use is when you're doing any of those activities, ask yourself if when you're doing that, would your mom be smiling? I love it. And if she would be smiling, then you are honoring her legacy. You're honoring her memory with the use of the money that came to you with her untimely passing. I'm so sorry. Folks, I love telling you about well-made, well-thought-out products. Today, I'm talking about Grip6 belts. I don't know about you, but I'm not a fan of traditional belts.

They never fit right, and they're uncomfortable. Grip6 belts are unique. Owner BJ designed a truly modern minimalist belt made of high quality materials with no holes, no flap, and no bulk. And the buckles come in really cool designs and are interchangeable. I personally own these belts in different styles. And talk about affordability, Grip 6 belts come with a lifetime guarantee. And that means if you no longer like or fit the style of your belt, you can replace them for free. Plus, I like the way these guys do business. Grip 6 is determined to help build and modernize american manufacturing to learn more and get this month's dave ramsey special visit grip6.com that's grip6.com

the very first time i ever spoke after I wrote the book Financial Peace, and I had some actual books, the little blue books, and they were at the back of the table, back table, after I finished talking at the Kiwanis Club or whatever it was with my overhead projector. I walked back there. A lady's reading through the book, and she says, why don't they teach this in schools? Why don't they teach this in high school?

Well, guess what? We do. I've been asked that question since the very first day we started this business. why don't they teach this in schools? Why don't they teach this in high school? Well, guess what? We do. I've been asked that question since the very first day we started this business. And so now in about 30 or about 48% of the high schools, our Ramsey Solutions Financial Foundations, Foundations in Personal Finance is taught. Now, here's the thing. We also want to help you get prepared on a self-study basis.

So we got your back. With a fully digital self-study courses, your teen is going to know the right way to handle money. This is like the homeschool edition, and some of you are homeschooling. Lots of us are homeschooling. Didn't intend to, but now we are. That's right. The drinking starts at 9 a.m. Teacher's drunk and two students get expelled by noon. Yeah. So homeschooling is there. So

DaveRamsey.com slash self-study. And we've got courses available for your high school, your middle school, and you can make sure your kids are prepared. Because listen, parents, you don't teach your kids how to handle money. will live in your basement till they're 30 and they will learn it from their neighbors yeah for real 888-825-5225 annie is with us and annie is in albuquerque hi annie how are you hi dave hi john thank you for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? Okay. So I have a sister who's in her thirties and she had a kid when she was 21 years old and she's been a bartender for about the last seven years before COVID. And for the last several years, my sister has been taking money from our father and grandmother and they fund several parts of her life.

For example, she's never had a car payment. Both my dad and my grandmother have both purchased cars for her. And so she's never really had to make any effort to improve her lifestyle. And she'll say that she's going to do things, and then she doesn't follow through. And so my question is more about I'm starting to feel resentment toward my sister because I feel like she's taking advantage of our family. They don't really have the financial means to be helping with these situations, and they've been bailing her out of her situation financially for years, and I just want to know how I should proceed with a relationship with her.

Have you ever talked to her about it? I feel this way. Have you ever talked to her? No. I have talked to my dad about it. My grandma is way old. It's hard to talk to her. Hold on a second.

How come you never talked to your sister about it? Well, we had a falling out. We are just now starting to talk again we had a falling out because she had made some pretty bad relationship decisions with a significant other and i didn't support it um yeah it was a very abusive situation and i didn't know what to do so i just said i don't i don't know what to do here, so this is one of those family conversations that sounds a lot more complex in reality than it really is. The reality is you don't have a lot of power in this situation. And so what you can control is the boundaries you want to set up and the conversations you want to have.

Other than that, your mom and dad, your dad and grandma get to decide how they spend their grown-up money. And your grown-up sister gets to decide if she wants to continue to leech off other people or if she wants to get her life together. The choices you have are to have a hard conversation with your dad and your grandma and say, I think you're being taken advantage of by our sister. And that's about as far as that conversation can go. And then you can have a hard conversation with your sister and say, I don't like how you're treating grandma and um dad other than that you get to choose where you want to carry around a bunch of resentment and frustration and um because that pain is in your heart that's not on anybody else that you're choosing it's almost

willfully choosing to wake up every day frustrated right right? What do you think, Dave? Yeah. Well, you're exactly right. One of the hardest things in our lives is when there are adults that we love that are being stupid. And you can't keep them from being stupid. There's no law against stupid, right? Stupid is not illegal. And it's in almost every family, by the way, like every family. And so some put the fun in dysfunction.

But, I mean, it's uh but you know it it's just it's hard it's hard to watch people you love so the only way you possibly uh can do any good with your sister is just say uh i think you could have a better life than you have and it breaks my heart that your life is not good and it's not good because of some of the choices you're making and man i would love to walk with you and uh spiritually disciple you whatever uh on making some different choices and um cutting the ties where you're being supported as a grown woman by mom and by dad and grandma um and if i can help you with that, I love you. And I think you can do, I think you can do better. And I think you're going to have a better life and talk, make it

about her doing better rather than how bad she is. And, uh, go ahead. And do you, do you want to have a relationship with your sister or do you want her to stop? Yes, sir. So badly. So you don't have one now, but you have a, you have a broken one now right yes sir we're reconnecting now so slowly what i'm going to recommend a great way to heal a relationship is not to come out with somebody letting them know they need to make a bunch of life changes and they need to fix some stuff that you don't like sometimes the best way to start and repatch and reheal a relationship is to say, I love you. How are you?

How you been? How can I help you? I've missed you. How can I help you? And to start there. And true life change comes through relationship. It comes through connection, not through somebody barking orders at you. And so I'm going to recommend if you want to,

and the reason I ask you that question is some people just want their sister to quit taking their future inheritance. They just want their dad to start getting taken advantage of. That's different than, man, I miss my sister, and I love her, and I want to reconnect with her. Those are two different processes and two different approaches. But, man, I say call her direct and say, I love you, let's get together, and we're going to start from there.

As far as your dad goes, if you do want to have another conversation, it could sound like this. Dad, you're an enabler. You're bringing harm to so-and-so by helping them because all of her character muscles have atrophied. Because here's the thing, your dad and your grandma, I know about enablers. One thing I know about all of them is they're the nicest people. And they love deeply.

They just love. They just want to be helpful. And if he can become convinced that he's actually doing harm, which he is, rather than helping, then he will suddenly grow a backbone and introduce a new word no because he is doing harm to your sister and as a dad if he ever gets that he'll stop it but as enablers all feel like they're helping oh i can't i could never oh my child i could never they could never and they they say things like that with always a wisp in their voice that's what i'm talking about the breathier it is the more dramatic it is yeah it has to be oh they would be homeless the the grandchild would

be i couldn't turn my grandchild out on the street right it's like as if she wouldn't get her butt in gear and get a job and probably figure this out. You will figure it out. That's right. So as if you are the sole barrier between your grandchild and homelessness. Right. Homelessness. Well, and I also know enablers who they love to be needed and they love to play that role of support and care.

And sometimes they need to look in the mirror on their own selves right because if if my daughter does go get a job she does start start supporting her kid on her own then who am i i'm not necessary anymore i'm not as valuable as i once was and that's a lie too but when you're participating in funding someone's insanity you are bringing them harm that's right what it's the equivalent of giving a drunk a drink. That's exactly right. Well, that's tough love. No, darling, that's just love. Right. Love is making grown-ups grow up. So I've got two young kids, and I know about this intellectually.

You've got grown-ups, grown kids. What do you tell yourself if they were to come back and say Hey, I need some support If they have an emergency situation We would help them But it's not a pattern The pattern is the problem It's not a one-off Kid needs to move back home, that's fine

A safety net is okay A hammock is not okay This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. Dr. John Deloney, my co-host today on the Dave Ramsey Show, Ramsey Personality. We're here to answer your questions about your life and your money. Jeffrey and Michelle are with us fromia to do their debt-free scream what's up guys what's up dave how you doing good to have you guys how much have you paid off so sixty two thousand six hundred and sixty nine dollars in 13 months yes congratulations guys love it and uh your range of income during that 13 months?

110 to 144K. Nice jump in one year. What do you guys do for a living? So I'm in the Air Force. I'm a C-17 pilot. I've been in since 2001. Thank you for your service. And I'm a signed professional model,

so I do everything from print to runway to e-comm. And a funny story, Dave, is I actually worked with Blinds.com, and I thought how cool would it be to tell Dave once we do our debt-free screen that I worked with them. And they've just put your picture up in that ad on YouTube, so the YouTubers are seeing it, and people look deeply into your radio, you can see the picture. Okay. That's so cool. That's so great. That's so great.

That is so cool. Was that an agency thing hookup or just a random agency thing, and it just happened to be? Yes, it was an agency connection. It's one of the clients. Wow, that is so cool. Fun, fun, fun. And we just saw the picture come by. You guys got four kids.

Now, what ages? Yes, so the boys are three and five, and then the girls are eight and nine. Y'all are in it right now. This is fun. What kind of debt was the $63,000? So we had two cars, some student loans, and consumer debt, so no more credit card, no more living. So you're kind of normal. Yeah, normal people. And then check the check. So what happened? What was the wake up call? So I was approaching close to retirement time. And, you know, we, when I commissioned, of course, you know, more income came in and we always thought, you know, in that next rank, things would get better. And then I'm, you know, put on captain and, you know,

increase in pay and things are still the same, you know, kind of that check the check feeling. And, you know, I was, you know, retirement is around the corner and I would love to get out without any type of financial stress. And then. So we actually sat down and we looked at where we couldn't figure out where's our money going. And so we printed out everything, all of our statements. And I noticed that even after buying groceries, I spent $400 to $500 in one week at Publix. And so that was a big wake-up call where we said, okay, we need to sit down and really look at this deeper. And that was it, the straw that broke the camel's back, I guess. Okay. So when you start paying attention it was like

oh crap this has got to change absolutely and how'd you connect to us so when i uh commissioned uh a former commander of mine colonel scott zip wad he flew in and he commissioned me and one of his gifts to me was your book totemoney makeover and you know unfortunately i was you know we're getting married about to come into a lot of new money, and it became a decoration in the house. That's nice. Usually it's just a coaster. Yeah, just a coaster, right? And, you know, when we sat down and we had that conversation, I remember the conversation with him, and then we went and picked up the book, started reading it, and then it was game on from there.

Okay. All right. So, Michelle, she says, we've got to fix this. And you go, I think there's a book here somewhere. Yeah. All right. I got it. Well, well done, you guys. So it was as simple as the Total Money Makeover book led you to do it

or showed you how to do it. It started the drive, and then, then you know we got gazelle intense i started you know on my time off i would deliver groceries deliver food uh deliver stuff walmart i mean just finding every way to just increase the income to throw at it and then michelle started taking every modeling gig that they would the agency would throw at her she was traveling all over and uh that's how the increase in income jumped, because we just buckled down and tightened the budget and just went after our debt. Really got intentional. How did your marriage change when you all got together, started making these plans,

and you started following a roadmap together? Tell you what, it gave us this entire new team dynamics, right? It was a thing where talking about money was no longer stressful. It was fun. We put ourselves on a clear path together. It gave us something to work towards. It gave us a connected goal. And it's just been great ever since. So now all our money conversations are just great conversations because we now know exactly where we're headed financially. Very cool. What do you tell people the secret to getting out of debt is? Being intentional.

Just being intentional, going after it, setting the goals, setting the big goals so the smaller steps that you have to take to get there aren't as hard or doesn't seem as insurmountable. And, you know, I enjoyed it so much that I became a financial coach. So I'm one of your RPCs. Wow. I'm leading Financial Peace University here on Travis Air Force Base. So anybody listening on base, we're going to do a virtual one here soon.

And, you know, it's all about giving back now. You know, this has changed our lives for the better. And with this new knowledge, everything that I can do specifically to the military community, it's just been great. Wow. Well, thank you for doing that because, as you know, we to the military community. It's just been great. Wow. Well, thank you for doing that because, as you know, we love the military around here. We do a lot of work with you guys, and for you to have that virtual class going on this base is pretty incredible. Way to go, guys! So the kiddos, were they into it?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, they actually – I went through the Smart Money Smart Kids, and we actually purchased the materials and implemented that with the older ones and then now the five-year-old. And so they have their envelopes, and they, you know, keep track of their own finances, and it's pretty fun to see them just learning and growing along with us. That's fun. So you're not just getting out of debt.

You're changing the entire legacy of your family. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And they're going to get married and have kids that don't even know what debt is and don't know about owing somebody money, and they're going to have this whole other layer of free life because of the work you guys put in. Well done.

Yeah. Amen. Touchdown, baby. This is so great. You guys are incredible you're heroes i'm so proud of you so proud of you thank you we've got a copy of chris hogan's book for you everyday millionaires because that's for sure the next chapter in your story you are on your way what a power couple right here man this is pretty incredible you guys are awesome all right and the kids names are what are they going to scream with you? Are they there?

Yeah, they're right here. They're ready. What are their names again? Jeffrey and Roman and Penny and Shelly. All right. And Jeffrey Sr. and Michelle. I'm going to mess this up, I'm afraid. All right.

$63,000 paid off in 13 months, making $110,000 to $144,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream that's so awesome you know there's very few times in life you can hear a metaphor. Yeah. And when you hear those little chipmunk voices, you are hearing a family tree change. Yep. You are hearing it. We talk about the concept and the metaphor of, I'm going to change my family tree. I'm going to change the destiny of the ones that come after me.

I'm going to do that. When those little voices are screaming like that, and they're plugged in with smart money, smart kids, and mom and dad have committed to this stuff and mom and dad are teaching this stuff, this thing has changed. This is a permanent transformation. And it's not only about money because they got to see mom and dad

sit down at a table and work together and have discussions and disagreements and then realize, oh, wait a minute, they disagree, but they still love each other and they're still on the same team and they still circle back up the next week and the next week. And that becomes a change in your DNA. That becomes a change in every part of your life.

And they're going to treat their bosses differently. They're going to date differently. They're going to do everything differently. Their brain chemistry is different. Everything about these kids is different. They've watched goals be accomplished, the kids have. They've watched mom and dad do healthy conflict for excellence sake. And circle back and say, we still love each other.

Yeah. They've watched, and then they participate in the win. You see, when that 12-year-old is 32, I remember being on the radio. Oh, yeah. With 17 million people hearing him or her scream. And he'll be bummed out that he doesn't get to yell because he never was in debt. Yeah. But there's no chance.

No chance they're going to, ah, yeah, that's so cool. This is how it works, boys and girls. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Thank you for joining us, America. We're so glad you're with us. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, is my co-host on the air today here on The Dave Ramsey Show. Nancy is with us. Nancy's in. Why can I not push the right button?

All right. Let me try again. Nancy is in Los Angeles. Hi, Nancy. How are you? Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve.

How can we help? I would like to know some advice. My son has his money parked in a credit union. He has $100 on the CD, and he has $530 on a regular savings account. And he would like to know if I could put his money in a Robinhood app investing account. No. I want to know your advice. No.

He does not need to mess with Robinhood. Dangerous as a cock gun. No, thank you. If he wants to do some investing, that's fine. But it's not about the actual results. $500 is not going to give you actual results. It's more about learning about the investments and so if he wanted to do a $500 investment in some mutual funds sit down with

a smart investor pro let them teach him because he's obviously interested in that kind of thing then you know they would help him and there are a few mutual funds you can open for as little as five hundred dollars and um many of them are a thousand or twenty five hundred but there's a couple of them you can get in for 500 bucks but it's not because that's going to make him a lot of money it's because it's a teaching experience for him and he's obviously got an interest in that sort of thing um truthfully other than that i would not do it. I would say $500 is a good thing to start towards his car. $500 is a good thing to start towards the insurance on the car he drives. $500 is a good thing to start thinking about college with, those kinds of things, rather than playing around.

But Robinhood's going to be single-stock investing, and that's a really dumb idea. The lesson he's going to learn here is going to be pain. Right, and he's only 12, so that's why I figured I wouldn't do it, but I wanted your advice. I kind of already knew you were going to say no. Yeah, absolutely. So, again, if he wants to sit down at 12 years old with a SmartVestor Pro,

that's fine from a learning perspective. But really, it's going to get fairly boring fairly fast once he makes the investment because mutual funds don't they're not something you look at every day they don't go up and down there's not a lot of action uh it's um it's a little bit boring really good investing is what do you tell somebody dave who's how to find that balance between teaching a 12-year-old or a 13- or 14-year-old about, here's a couple of goals to save towards, and enjoying money. Like you worked hard to mow a couple of lawns. You need to give some of that away.

You need to save some of that. What's that balance? Well, I mean, you can decide the balance, but the balance has to be that there is some, meaning that if you only save or you only give or you just blow it like or you only spend or you only spend then you're you're not you're not that's just misbehaving okay and so the goal here when you're talking about teaching kids about money is not the actual results of the 500 it. It's not that if the kid takes $50 of that and blows it on something stupid, the goal is it doesn't damage his life permanently from a math standpoint.

But if he doesn't learn the lesson from having done something stupid with the money, then that sets a pattern up that he's still doing or she's still doing when they're 35. That's exactly right. And so we're going to spend and I'm going to let you do something dumb. then that sets a pattern up that he's still doing or she's still doing when they're 35. That's exactly right. And so we're going to spend, and I'm going to let you do something dumb. I'm going to tell you that if you'll save up a little more, you can get a toy that will last, or you can buy the cheap one that will be broken by Friday. Right. But I've got to have it.

Okay. Then when it breaks Friday, I do say, I told you so. Okay. Because I want you to learn the lesson now remember when dad and you talked about this and i said this is going to be the result so now your whole all the money you spent on that toy is gone now because you bought the cheap one and it broke and we talked about this and i'm not browbeating them or shaming them i want to make sure the lesson lands they see that a plus b equals c i want i'm going to say that this is

what this is the result of your actions because my goal is to teach them to work, to give, to save, and to spend wisely before they leave home, and then there's a high probability they can stay gone. This is the goal. Abigail is in Akron. Hi, Abigail. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hello.

Thank you guys so much for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Okay. So to kind of make a long story short, I am 22 years old. I graduated with a degree in health science in May of 2019. However, I'm pursuing my second degree in nursing. It's an accelerated program, so I have 10 months left. I'm, you know, barring I don't fail, I'm supposed to graduate in May of 2021. Good. However, my boyfriend, I've been dating this wonderful man for almost two years, and he just graduated with a degree in accounting this past May. Obviously, it's a tough field right now to find jobs, so we're both still living at home.

He's in Michigan. I'm in Ohio. We've been doing long distance. However, we both have goals to continue on with our schooling. I want to become a practitioner eventually. He wants to get his CPA. And I, the expectation that I have is I would like to be engaged before I graduate from the nursing program to kind of like, you know, let's get a move on. You know, like I don't want to necessarily put off getting married, have that dual income.

However, we both have a significant amount of debt. So I don't know what to prioritize here right now. What's the arbitrary date for? Is it just for your heart, just for your soul? Um, well. You just want this dude to hustle up and wrap it up. I mean, I, like, I understand the importance of waiting and I know, you know, I've already gotten myself into a financial mess here and I don't want to do anything that's going to make that worse. So I'm of course willing to wait if it's what's best for the relationship,

but I don't want to put it off if there's no need to put it off you know what i'm saying i mean i don't want to say like yeah that was really well stated you were very articulate so how much debt how much debt do you have okay just student loans i don't have a credit card or anything else it's ninety seven thousand dollars what about him he's got about the same he also has a six thousand dollar car loan are you guys have you had uh the define the relationship discussion when it comes to debt are you on the same page that this has to go away quickly yes we are yeah for the most part we definitely we want it to go away quickly we just don't know if you know if we're going to get engaged and married. I got that part. I got that part.

But I'm asking, let's assume that you are married. Are you both in, have you both discussed that we are going to destroy this $200,000 worth of debt as fast as possible with these two stellar careers in accounting and nursing? Yes, yes. we definitely not like we're going to screw around keep sally may around like she's a freaking pet no no i i mean yeah we both want to get out of debt yeah my opinion is get married asap okay like the sooner the better okay even so yes his whole thing though yes he's wrong doesn't have a full-time job i don't care okay i don't care okay i don't care i mean sharon and i got married i made eighteen thousand dollars a year and she didn't have a job and the year i got married i quit my full-time job so i could go be a knucklehead and and get another phd just be an idiot yeah so he collects phds yeah

he's got a whole collection of them he's got more degrees than a thermometer and not a lot of friends but it it sounds like something else is there it sounds like something like that is he not wanting to get married because of the debt um his whole thing is now he's like he wants to get he has a sequence of things he wants to get a full-time job first he wants to get save up for a nice ring he wants to get like his some schooling out of the way like he i'm telling him like i think it'd be best for us to just kind of jump i mean but also i want to get married but like you know but is he is he a kind of guy that he's a planner that's gonna say is he a planner does he tuck his shirt in really tight yes he's an accountant irons his jeans before he goes a little pocket

protector yeah or is he yeah is he another kind of guy that's like always has a couple of things he's got to do that's going to keep you on the hook, but he just doesn't want to move out of his mom's house and get married? I think part of it is the fear. I think part of it is. I mean, he's only 22, and I think part of it is it's a huge goal. You stand a better chance of winning financially married. The sooner the better. You stand a better chance of your relationship going well married.

The sooner the better. I'm a big marriage fan. So if he's the right guy and he'll do it, go for it. She's going to go tell him. Dave Ramsey said for you to ask me. Dave said you have to marry me today. Dave said you got to marry me now. Painter, get off the ladder, buddy. This is what Dave Ramsey said for you to ask me. Dave said you have to marry me today. Dave said you've got to marry me now. Painter, get off the ladder, buddy.

This is The Dave Ramsey Show. This is James Childs, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. You can listen to Dave, Rachel Cruz, Chris Hogan, or the rest of the Ramsey Network anywhere with the Ramsey Network app on your smartphone. Catch all of our full shows, browse by topic, or send clips to your friends. Head to the App Store and

download the Ramsey Network app today.