The Ramsey Show - App - My Wife and I Aren't on the Same Page (Hour 2)

Episode Date: August 9, 2022

George Kamel & Kristina Ellis discuss: Selling a house, Getting on the same page with your spouse about money, What to do with savings during college, Saving up for a house vs. moving in with family. 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

Девочка-пай From Ramsey Network, this is The Ramsey Show, where we help you get control of your money, get ahead in your career, and get on the path to living well. I'm George Campbell, Ramsey personality and host of the Fine Print Entree Leadership Podcast, joined today by my fellow Ramsey personality, Christina Ellis. And we are taking your money calls this hour. 888-825-5225 is the number to call. Don't be shy. We don't bite. Dave's not here. It's going to be a very pleasant, kind show. Okay, no one's going to get yelled at unless you rile me up, which is very much possible. Daniel kicks us off in Tampa. Daniel, welcome to the show. Hey there. Thank you for taking the call.

Appreciate it, George and Christina. Thank you for all you do for everyone. Great. So my wife and I are currently in step two. Now we kind of discovered the whole baby steps a little later in life. We already had some retirements set aside. But here's the question. Comparables in the area are running for about $660,000 for our house. We currently owe $325,000. We do have a growing family. I think we're outgrowing the size of our home. So ideally, we'd like to be in a five-bedroom home or so. So those are running for about $850,000 in the area. So here's my question. We bought the home just before the spike, so we owe about $325,000 on it currently. We have a good amount of equity if we're able to

sell that. And of course, that'll kickstart us from step two straight on to the next, I believe, step four at that point. My question is, is that a good approach? Should we sell our current home, use the equity to buy a bigger home, and get us out of the existing step two? It can be. Now, when you say buy a bigger home, it means we're going possibly further into debt. So it's not necessarily the best move, but I do love, I mean, people make sacrifices all the time to get out of debt. And one of those things is we're willing to sell the home, take the equity, pay off the debt and whatever's left,

we then move on and go, all right, what can we afford now? So what's the home worth if you sold today? It'd be about $650,000. $650,000 and you owe $325,000. How big is your family? You said you needed to upgrade, get a little bit more space. Yeah, so my wife and I both work from home. We have three kids. It's a 3-2 currently. So it's a little tight. Okay, what's your income?

It's $140,000 combined. And how much debt do you have? So we've got a van. It's about $20,000 combined. And how much debt do you have? So we've got a van. It's about $20,000 on the van. And I think, if I'm not mistaken, another $12,000 or so in credit cards. And that's all the debt except for that $325,000 mortgage? Correct. That's it. And we do have some retirement, I would say, combined probably close to the $100,000 range.

Okay. Are you guys currently investing? Yes. Okay. Well, you may not like my advice, but it is to pause investing while we pay off the debt. Now, if you're selling the house tomorrow and this is all going down, you may not have to do that. But following the Ramsey plan, it's countercultural, it's weird, and we focus on one thing at a time so that we actually make some progress. And looking at the numbers here, it doesn't give me a lot of confidence. Because if you sold for, you know, you said $650,000, you may net less than $300,000. Then we still have to pay off $30,000 of debt, leaving us with about $270,000. You tracking? So $270,000 down on an $850, thousand dollar home you're talking almost six hundred

thousand dollars in mortgage which is going to double your mortgage payment which doesn't put you guys in a great spot financially even though you're debt free sure and so i think we need to pause or we go to a maybe a lateral house that has more room that may be a little further out. You may have to make some compromises here and kind of reset the expectations of what home is next. Sure, sure. And for what it's worth, in the event that we do sell today and say we sit on, there's a gap of six months or so, we do have a place to live. My folks were kind enough to extend an invitation to house our family until we do find that bigger home. So I'm sort of counting on that.

But that's probably a six-month margin. But even then, you're still going to have over a half-million-dollar mortgage. Right. Yeah, and I love that you have the desire to pay off the Baby Step 2 debt. I love that you want to get rid of that van. I love that you want to get rid of the credit card. And if you are selling your current house to downgrade and create more margin where you could pay off that debt and then not increase debt in another area, I'd be all for it.

But I think just that makes me nervous going up so much in-house. And like George said, having such a big mortgage following that, that's just kind of like a little bit nerve wracking. I think especially with having three's just kind of like a little bit nerve wracking. I think especially with having three kids, it just feels a little bit nerve wracking if I were in your shoes. What's your take home pay every month? $140,000. It's about $6,800. Okay.

Because I'm looking at the numbers here. And if you did a 15 year fixed rate mortgage, which is the only mortgage I'm going to tell you to get, and you put $270,000 down on an $850,000 house in this market, your monthly payment is $5,500. You guys won't be able to eat. And so even six months of saving, even while living with the parents, it's not going to change the numbers drastically enough to make this a wise financial move. So what that tells me is this. You make $140,000. You've got $30,000 in debt.

We can pay off the debt and stay in the home for now. And you said you feel like running out of space. We might have to get a little bit creative right now and see if we can squeeze out another year living here until we make a move. And again, it may be more of a lateral move. We may only get a four-bedroom instead of a five, and we make that work. How many kids do you have? Three. Okay.

Can either of them share a bedroom? They currently do. Okay. Sure. Are they miserable? Do they feel like they're in a prison? No, we are. No, you are.

It's the parents, of course. Yeah, no, they're great. Well, you guys are on the right path. What's the van worth? Um, well, I know that we owe 20, I haven't done numbers as far as what it's worth. I do have a paid off vehicle that's about, just about the same. It's definitely worth about the same. Okay. And you need the two cars, right? You gotta haul the kids around? Is that what the van's for? Yeah, just, you know, in the event that one breaks

down, we do have the backup means of transportation. But you only need one car? I would say we do just need one, because, you know, we do both work from home. Okay. Well, I'm just wondering, if the van's worth, you know, $30, and you owe $20 on it, that gives you a net of $10, I'm just wondering if the van's worth, you know, 30 and you owe 20 on

it, that gives you a net of 10 and you almost clean up the credit card debt and we're debt free by tomorrow. And then we can start stacking up cash to make this home move. That's an option. Now you may need the van or, you know, but I'm just looking at the options here going, if you don't only need one car, you both work from home, the kids can fit in the other car for now. If one breaks down, you have an emergency fund, right? You're right. So we're good. We'll go fix it up. We'll go get another car, whatever we have to do to get back on the road. But that's one way to clean this mess up. Now, I don't know the worth of the vehicle, so that's your homework assignment is to look into that and figure out, is this worth selling? There's no need to. It's not a huge part of your financial world.

But if you're itching to get out of debt fast, I would do that way before I would think about selling the house. Way less of a hassle. Okay. So that's the move, man. I'm pulling for you. That's tough. Three kids. You got some debt.

We want to upgrade the house. But it's going to have to wait. And the kids, they won't remember it. They're just going to remember the awesome childhood they had sharing a bedroom, right? Yeah, and you'll get there. This is only for a season. You will get there. You'll get that bigger house, have a little space and room to breathe.

But we're going to do it the right way and move at the speed of cash, pay off the debt, and do it with wisdom. Thanks for the call, man. This is The Ramsey Show. how many times have you found yourself saying one day when thinking about a goal that you have one day i'll be able to buy a house one One day, I'll be happy with my career. Or one day, I won't have to battle with anxiety anymore. Well, stop waiting around. Whatever your one day is, you gotta start now.

And that is why we created Smart Conference. It's the one day event where we tackle all areas of your life. And guys, let's face it, we could all use that kind of boost right now. You're gonna hear from the nation's top thought leaders on money, career, mental health, relationships, marriage, and leadership. This event is hitting the road and will be coming to Dallas, Texas on Saturday, October 22nd. But event passes are selling fast. The VIP and platinum passes are already gone, sold out, but you can still get general access passes for just 39 bucks for an all-day event. Best-selling authors and world-class speakers Rachel Cruz, Dr. John Deloney, Ken Coleman,

myself, Christina Ellis, and Dave Ramsey will be there in full force, not to mention we've got some special guests, our friends and leadership experts from Life.Church, Craig and Amy Groeschel will be there, and of course we've got some big surprises planned too. Some amazing live entertainment, some music. Maybe some of the personalities will be a part of that. We don't know, Christina. That is so exciting. Maybe Christina will sing. I've heard from your husband who's out there in the lobby

that you've got some pipes. Gosh, that would be amazing. And it's time. Don't hide it under a bushel, Christina. Let it shine. It's my first Ramsey live event. I am so excited. Oh my gosh, that's wild.

Well, I'm pumped to hear you speak there. You can go to ramseysolutions.com slash events to get your event passes today. You don't want to miss this. People travel from all over the country to be at this event and we love seeing you guys out there. We're going to pack out an entire arena. How's that for your first speaking event here at Ramsey? Amazing. Just in a giant arena with like 8,000 of your best friends. No pressure. No pressure. It's going to be so great. It's a blast. RamseySolutions.com slash events. We'll see you in Dallas, Texas in October. Cannot wait. Open phones this hour, 888-825-5225. Let's talk about your life and your money. Tim has decided to do that. He's out there in Tucson, Arizona. Tim, welcome to the show. Hey, thank you for having me. I appreciate you guys. Absolutely. What's going on?

So my wife just graduated from nursing school, so we're moving into, I guess, a season where we're going to be making more money than we've ever done before. Love it um, I guess our first goal is we're going to pay off debt. We have roughly 20,000 in debt between a credit card and a car payment. Um, but from there, I just, me and my wife aren't quite on the same page as far as what to do. You know, I, I just don't want to make mistakes and I want to, I guess, take her along this journey. Cause I've been listening to you guys for a little while, but she doesn't want to. What does she want to do? Well, I, I, she, she, uh, you know, obviously wants to get a new car and, you know, kind of say, you know,

enjoy some of the money, which I'm perfectly fine with, but I also want to set up our kids to be able to go to college and, you know, have, have, have money saved for retirement, not just spend all of our money, you know, as it comes in and just going straight out, you know? Yeah. Where do you think her resistance is coming from? Because it sounds like there's kind of like a hard line where she's just like, nah, don't want to hear it. Well, it's definitely, you know, she, both of us grew up not really having money. I mean, just the fact, I mean, what we make now is more than any of us had growing up. So I think, I don't know, it doesn't want to deprive the kids from going on trips and doing stuff.

So I think it's the scarcity of money is kind of what has driven it. How have you talked to her about it so far? Whenever you've told her about this plan and you're excited about it, what have your conversations looked like? Like it's, you know, just kind of spelling out what I would like to have done. And then she's like, yeah, but I want to do this. And it's very, you know, money isn't something that was talked about growing up for her or me. And so it's new, I guess.

One of the ways to get on the same page is to have common shared language. And I think that's one of the reasons Financial Peace University has been so powerful in getting couples on the same page and improving marriages. And so I'm going to gift that to you guys for free if you agree to watch all nine lessons and go through it together. Absolutely. That's one of those things where now she's like, oh, you just explained it terribly. This Dave guy is way better at this.

And you go, yeah, exactly. Because what it sounds like a lot of the time is, well, Dave said we have to sacrifice and we're never going to eat out and we can't have anything nice. And she's like, what dude, I worked so hard to get through nursing school and now you're telling me I can't enjoy life. You know what I mean? Like you get how that sounds. No, absolutely. And I don't want to sound cheap or anything. I mean, that's not the, I mean, it's just, I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to do stupid, you know? And, and. I think that's what you tell her. You say, hey, listen, I've made a lot of stupid decisions.

I haven't done a great job leading our family well in the area of finances, and I want to improve in that area. And one of the ways I want to do that is go through Financial Peace University. We got it for free because this guy, George, and this girl, Christina, they were very nice, and they said we have to go through it. And if she does that, I think that's going to change the way she sees this when you go, wow, this guy's got a vision for our future and I'm in it. I'm a part of it. And it includes going on vacation and upgrading cars and enjoying life. But it comes at a time once we're debt free with a fully funded emergency fund. And I'm sure she's goal oriented. You got to be to be in her field, right? Absolutely.

And so you set the goal and say, all right, honey, it's going to take us two years to become debt free. She's going to go, what? That's forever. You go, yeah, that sucks. What if we could do it in a year? What would it take? What could we sacrifice? And then she gets excited about it because now it's competitive. Right. Well, I think it's especially important to avoid that scarcity language. Like you said, you guys both grew up without a lot of money. She probably heard a lot of that growing up. So if she hears you come in and say, we're just going to sacrifice and we're going to pay off this debt, then she's like immediately tensing up and going, oh, no, thank you. But if you can cast that vision of like this program will help us build wealth, it will

help us not ever have to worry about money in the future. Yes, we may need to sacrifice for a period of time, but it's so that someday we can just live and give so generously, like change that language so that it's just, she doesn't have that instant reflex of, oh gosh, no, this is scary. It's hard. I mean, it's a lot of new stuff that she's going to be going, what? And then over time, when she starts to get on board, gets on a budget, starts baby step one and two, she's going to get excited about this. That's what always happens. So what's your newfound income? So we will be roughly $200,000. So up from, I was just making $75,000. I just got an increase to about $105,000. And then she's going to be making anywhere from $80,000 to $100,000.

We love it. That's amazing. So making $200,000, you go, how quickly could we pay off $20,000? Well, realistically, I mean, we're thinking, yeah, December we'll have it paid off. You can do better than that. Just rough, quick math. Where's all the money going? Are you guys investing currently? No. Okay.

I mean, we do have three kids, and we've had— That's where all the money's going. There it is. We found out. Like you said, she hasn't even started yet. So we won't be seeing her first paycheck probably until middle of the month or so. Got it. Well, this is a good place. This is a fresh start. And I think you pitched that and go, hey, listen, with this new income, it's going to put us in a completely different place financially. And I want to make sure that we are very wise with this. And that includes having fun and spending. But part of the plan is there's only three things

you can do with money, give, save, and spend. And I think all she's hearing now is the save part. And she's going, but I want to enjoy this. I've worked so hard for this. We've never had this kind of money. I've always grew up worrying about where the next paycheck is going to come from. So I think once you see it that way, you give a little, a little open-handed there, you save a little, which makes you feel good about the future and protects you from Murphy and emergencies and everything that happens in life. And then the spending part, which I think that's the part she's most excited about right now. For sure.

And if she gets the car, we got to get her a used car. Now, it could be a nicer used car. You guys make $200,000, but we're doing it once we're completely out of debt. And once we have a fully funded emergency fund, then we can upgrade the car. Then we can go on vacations. There's a time and place for it, and it's baby step four. And she's going to learn all about that in Financial Peace University. So hang on the line. Our friend Austin is going to pick up. He will make sure we get that over to you.

We're also going to throw in EveryDollarPremium, which is our budgeting tool that will help you guys get on a plan. And I want you to work on the budget together. I don't want you to go in a room and go, honey, here's the budget. And she goes, huh, what? No, I don't want to do your plan. Make it her plan. She's got to have a say in the budget line items. And that will get you guys on the same page.

If not, have her call in and talk to Christina. Christina will persuade her. You probably want some persuasive speeches in your day. Were you in debate club? I was not in debate club, but I did do speeches. I'm just scared to debate you. That's all. Very intimidating. I will pump her up. More of your calls coming up. 888-825-5225. This is The ramsey show our question of the day comes from Blinds.com. Find out for yourself why they're their number one online retailer of custom window covering. You get free samples, free shipping, and with the new promos they run every month, you'll save even more.

Use the promo code Ramsey to get the best possible deal. Today's question comes from Colin in Washington. I'm 18 years old and have approximately $20,000 in cash, 1,000 invested and 7,000 in my Roth IRA. I am debt-free and have a car worth around 12,000. I will be moving across the country to attend college and selling my car since I won't need it while I'm there. My education expenses will be entirely covered, including housing and food, which means I will have over $30,000 cash sitting in my savings account. Wow, good job. What plan should I have for this money while I'm in

college? That's, wow. I feel like there's a trend happening with wise young people out there where they're doing better than their parents are, and they've got a pile of cash and no debt. And so my goal is to stay that way for Colin. And if he sells this car, like he's saying, he has 20 cash right now, he sells the car for 12. He's got $32,000 sitting there. He's wondering what plan he should have for this. I'm going to read into it and guess that Colin is asking, should I and can I invest this money? Because this guy loves to see his money work for him. Which is incredible at 18 years old to have that mindset, that desire to grow your wealth and to actually save money.

That is amazing. And to actually have college completely pay for it. I wish we were talking to him because I have so many questions. Yeah. When he says my education expenses will be entirely covered, including housing and food, we don't know where that's being covered from. And if that's in, you you know is this a blood oath that this is going to happen for the next four years or is there an off chance that something could fall through or there's expenses that he's not thinking about that he might need to cover right so i'm worried about him throwing all this money into the market for the next four years while he's in school i would much rather have him put this money in a high yield savings account while he's

there oh we're gonna go the boring safe route so So, but people hate it. But the good news is the interest rates have been rising. Mine's sitting at about 2% right now, which, you know, it's back to how it was in about 2019. That's where the interest rates were on savings accounts. And so I feel pretty good about that. Yeah, that's awesome. And I think that that's just great advice because you are 18, you're going into college and I love that you have tuition paid for. I love that you have housing paid for. But there might be some surprises. You know, you may get to that college and hate it and go, I really want to transfer schools. Or perhaps, I mean, obviously, we hope this doesn't happen, but maybe, you know, something happens with your scholarship and you don't get the same amount the second year, or maybe you need a car, you didn't think you needed a car, but you find this amazing job off campus and you actually got to drive there. Having that money gives you a safety net to be able to have options. You're not locked into one certain thing if you have that cash. Plus, you may want to go to grad school, and we want that to be debt-free as well. So having that money saved up while you're in college

is just the safest, best route. Yeah. And he's 18. So he's got plenty of time to invest and become a multimillionaire and become one of our Baby Steps millionaires. And he's already got some money invested now. He said he has 7K in the Roth IRA. He said he has 1K invested. I don't know where that 1K, I mean, that could be crypto for all we know. But it sounds like he's got a good head on his shoulders. He's got a pile of cash at 18. That would give me some great financial peace while I'm in school that I can cover anything that comes up. And once I'm out of school, I'm ready to roll with a pile of cash. And that's if he does not work at all in school and doesn't add to that pile of cash.

Right. That's how I was thinking. I'm like, don't stop here. Keep going. Whatever you're doing to make this money and to build this wealth so early on is just awesome. I hope that you'll leave with a down payment for a house or something really awesome. So that's your plan, Colin, is to keep that cash nice and safe in a high yield savings account and be ready for the future. Cashflow your entire college experience, graduate debt free. Then you can get a sweet ride and you're going to do it cash, and you'll have a sweet down payment potentially if you keep this route up. And he's going to be calling us at 22 going, I got a house. And at 30 saying, you know, I'm a baby steps millionaire.

The house is paid off. I'm a millionaire. We love to see it. Let's keep that trend going. All right, let's go to the phones. The number to call is 888-825-5225. Sam joins us up next in St. Louis. Sam, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you for taking my call. Absolutely. How are you doing? How can we help? I'm okay.

I have a question on a little bit of an emotional level, so I'm sorry about my voice. Oh, it's okay. Take your time. I'm 31 years old. I'm a single mom. My daughter and myself still live with my parents, and it's great. It's fine. But where I am now, I need to make a change. I have my own space. It's fine, but I would love to have my own house or property. My grandpa has been sick. Since March, he's had maybe two to four mini strokes. He's in the hospital now waiting on surgery,

and it's been delayed for many reasons. My one option was to move in with my grandma and grandpa to be a safety net for them if something else were to happen. Um, and my grandmother and I, uh, worked out some, um, she's a very old school group of a woman.

As grandmas are. We love it. Yes. Oh, I love her to death. So we sat down like formally and financially and she's like, okay, well you're not just going to be here.

These are the rules. Grandma's got boundaries. We love to see it. Excuse me? Grandma's got boundaries. Yes. You will come to church with us, and that's fine. But we worked out a budget as far as rent and utilities and, um,

input. And that would be rounding up about $750. My other question is, is I currently pay no rent here where I'm at. I, I pay the water bill and I help with groceries and buy supplies for the house. And that probably comes about to,

I would say $3 to $350 a month, depending on the time of year. Okay, so your expenses are about to increase by $400 if you move. Correct, yes. And my other question is, or should I just stay where I'm at? Two options. I know I want to save for my of land about eight and a half acres, and it's priced at $64,000 currently. And then you build on that? Yes, it is grandfathered in to build on.

I think it is a very wooded area, and most people use it for camping or like a conservation type of zoning, I would guess you would call it. How much debt do you have, Sam? I have around about $9,800. And what kind of debt is that? $1,500 is from a personal loan. And what kind of debt is that? $1,600 is from a personal loan. I have a combined credit card debt of $7,200 and a store card with just over $1,000. Okay.

And what's your income? My income varies. I'm a waitress and I work part-time because I also homeschool my child. So the take-home pay on a weekly basis is anywhere from $400,000 to $900,000. I believe what I filed last year was between $17,000 and $18,000, but I hope to pass over $20,000 this year. And are you safe at your parents' house? Is it an okay situation? Yes. Yes. Yes. It's just emotional.

Yeah. Well, I'm going to stay there for a beat. I think you need to increase your income. We've got to get rid of this debt. We've got to get an emergency fund in place. Then we can look at moving in with grandma. But right now you can't swing the extra 400 bucks. That's an entire paycheck. And you're trying to take care of this little one and you're trying to buy a house that will come later. Right now we've got to get rid of the debt, have an emergency fund in place. And I'm going to gift you Financial Peace University. I hope that gives you some confidence and what to do next. And hang on the line, Austin will pick up. We're going to include every dollar premium to help you get on a plan for every dollar you have coming in from this job and possibly a new job as you try to increase your income and increase that shovel. Thanks for the call. I'm George Camel, host of the Fine Print and the Entrez Leadership Podcast.

You can find both of those on the Ramsey Network or wherever you find your podcasts. Joined today by Christina Ellis, bestselling author, scholarship expert, famously known for going to school debt-free, getting half a million dollars in scholarships. Do you still remember those days like it was yesterday? Maybe not yesterday. I feel like I'm getting older. I have a birthday this week. Well, all the kids will do that to you too. You got some real cute babies. Yeah. Having a one and three-year-old kind of makes you feel like you're up there a bit. But yes, I do remember getting the scholarships and getting that letter in the mail. It was snail mail back then. But opening it up and just seeing like, wow, this is literally thousands and thousands of dollars, which is what I get so excited to

talk about with kids. Just being like this application that you can fill out in one hour can equal literally $10,000. Like, where else can you make that kind of money? I mean, that's the OG get rich quick right there. You know, forget crypto, kids. Go apply for some scholarships. There you go. Some good bang for your buck there. Well, I love that you're inspiring the next generation to the preventative medicine,

if you will, to avoid student loans and show them that it can be done. You can cash flow it. There's a dozen ways to do this. It's not always scholarships or grants. Sometimes it means work. Sometimes it means mom and dad were able to save, but it starts with having an honest conversation, which most parents are not doing because they have their own shame and guilt and baggage and they're not great with money. And so they're like, I don't want to have this awkward conversation with junior about how we're broke. Well, and that's the thing that I hear so often when people hear my story, they often say to me, Hey, like, why did no one sit me down in high school and say, I could win scholarships. There are other ways to go to school other than taking on student loan

debt. And they're just frustrated. So it's like parents, mentors, anyone who has a relationship with a teenager who's thinking about going to college have these conversations. Like you have the opportunity to be that person that they look back on and go, wow, somebody did sit me down and talk about this. Like they don't have to be that person that's 25 years old with $100,000 in debt asking, why did no one talk to me about this? You can be that person. I know. I wish I had more honest conversations with my family. I just thought they were like loaded and had it taken care of. And it turns out it was like, we'll take care of it with student loans. And then next thing you know, I graduate with $36,000 in student loan debt. And it was monopoly money to me at 17, 18 years old. I had no idea what scale that would

be and how much money I would be making. Because in your mind as a kid, you're like, well, I'll make a hundred grand out of college. That'd be great. And I remember interviewing some kids for our high school curriculum. We did a segment and I thought I was just going to ask them, hey, like, what are you going to do with your future? What do you think college is going to be? How much is it going to cost? And it turned out to be an accidental interrogation. There was legitimately some kids that ran out of there crying. Because I was asking benign, innocuous questions. But what I didn't realize was that no one had ever talked to them about this stuff. So they left feeling scared and insecure going, I don't know. Now they're starting to feel the weight of what this could mean for their future and how what they thought in their mind may not be reality.

And that's what's happening. There's a disconnect between reality and the decisions we're making at 17, 18 when it comes to college. And going, well, I want to go out of state because I want to get away from home. But the out-of-state school is, you know, $20,000 more a year. And now we're $80,000 extra in the hole. And mom and dad didn't have the conversation. They're not saving because they're also broke, keeping up with the Joneses.

And now Junior's graduating with 100 grand in debt, and no job is ever going to be enough. And so now he can't do what he wants to do because of this debt in his life. And we saw that with the Borrowed Future documentary featuring some heartbreaking stories. You were featured in there as a success story trying to be on the other side going,

it doesn't have to be this way. Right. One of the key parts of my story is that my mom actually sat me down freshman year and she said, Christina, I can't afford to pay for your college education. So you need to figure out how you're going to pay for college. And some people might think, wow, that was kind of harsh. Like, why were, why are you telling a freshman this? But at the same time, I look back and I just feel like that was a gift because she really couldn't afford to pay for my education. And if she wouldn't have told me that early on and let me in on the financial reality we were facing, I wouldn't have gone through the effort of applying for scholarships and having the opportunity to go debt free. So be willing to have hard conversations. I know there's

there, like you said, there can be a lot of shame around money a lot of guilt a lot of like oh man I wish we had this saved for your college education but we don't but take that and pour it into a proactive decision to go you know we don't have it saved but guess what there are all sorts of ways you can graduate debt-free you know there's scholarships there's going to a tuition-free school there's community college first there's getting a job potentially that will help pay for your tuition there are so many options out there. So have the conversation. Yes. Yeah. Most people back themselves into a corner and go, there's two options. Either I go to my dream school with a pile of student loan debt or I'm a failure forever and I hate life. And you got to realize there's a lot more options than that. And school is school at the end of the day.

It's a degree. And yes, we want you to have a great experience. There's a lot of growth and maturity that hopefully happens in college and not a lot of bad decisions. But remember while you're there, we're not just paying a big bill to have a good time. That's not what college is about. And just don't get lost in the idea that you have to go to the most expensive, fancy school. Like you said, they often see those two options. I got to go to this dream school that takes a ton of debt or I'm a failure. And that's just not true, especially working at a really competitive workplace here like Ramsey. We see people who come from all sorts of backgrounds. We have people, you know, who went to community college and then transferred to a four-year school sitting next to

people who went to a super competitive, expensive university, and they're doing the same job. That's right. And so it's like, it's not just the name on your degree, the title, you know, be willing to explore different options that allow you to go debt-free. That's right. You don't need the degree to be successful. It doesn't determine your success, you do.

So great reminder there. And if you guys want to make a hard conversation about college easier, go watch Borrowed Future. It's the documentary that we put out. It won a Webby Award for Best Long-Form Documentary. And it's 88 minutes long. And I promise you, if you sit down with your kid and watch this, they're going to be the ones with questions going,

is that true? How does that work? We need to talk about how we're doing this. We got to get a plan. I'm not going to go into student loan debt. It is that good. And so make sure you go check it out. Watch it over the weekend with your kid as we head into school season. How is it already back to school? It's insane. It's wild. Here we are. Whenever they

see a doctor crying because of student loan debt, that's pretty eye-opening. When he squealed. Oh, my. I want a spoiler. No spoiler alert, but there it is. Well, tied to that, Christina, there's this article that our producer James shared from Yahoo. Nearly three quarters of millennials are more than $100,000 in debt, most not from mortgages. Recession, inflations, out-of-reach housing market. Millennials are no strangers to financial anxiety. A recently published report by the site Real Estate Witch shows that most members of the net generation are also saddled with huge amounts of debt. It found that most of them have over $100,000 worth of debt, with most of it not connected to a mortgage. Almost half of them reported having some form of student loans,

with the average person owing $127,000. But the most common type of debt was credit card debt, with two-thirds having some amount of debt on a credit card. And while most millennials have accrued a large amount of debt, the bulk of them, 63%, believe they can pay it off over the next one to five years. Only 10% said they never had debt. And so this is what we're seeing. One of the reasons this generation is frustrated, and rightfully so, is because they feel like they were lied to. They feel like they just got screwed and they went, well, mom and dad got a house and a car for $2,000 and a bushel of raspberries. And I'm over here and that average house is 400 grand and college costs 80 grand a year.

I can't breathe. It's a huge problem. It's a huge problem. I know I've heard a lot of the frustration and just how it feels like the line has moved. It feels like it used to be somewhere that seemed attainable for them and then they're watching it move. But I think one of the biggest challenges is not getting lost in that feeling of desperation or hopelessness because we're still seeing all sorts of millennials pay off debt, pay off all their debt and buy houses and pay off houses. So yes, being millennials, obviously we're seeing this and I'm in the housing market, I'm frustrated

with it too. But you got to keep that hope up because we are seeing evidence constantly that even though it is frustrating to see the market change so much and move and feel like we got, people got lied to about student loans and all of that, that's frustrating, but there's still hope.

Yes. We can't just sit here with pessimism and sarcasm and funny mean tweets about how life sucks. We have to move on. We've got to get a new picture for what our life is going to look like. We've got to stop comparing ourselves to our parents, which by the way, it took them 25 years to get to where they are today. And you're

not going to get there tomorrow. So we got to have some delayed gratification. We've got to have some patience. We've got to stop looking at Instagram and going, well, I'll never be enough. And look at that house. I want that house today. Sorry, buddy. The FOMO is real. But you can get there. It's going to take longer than you would like. But this plan is the best path to do it, the baby steps. It works. I've done it.

Christina's done it. And there is hope for you, America. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books. My thanks to my co-hosts, Christina Ellis, Austin, Ben, James, Zach, Andrew in the booth, keeping this show afloat in you, America. We love you. We appreciate you listening. We'll be back with you very soon.

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.