The Ramsey Show - App - Only the Strong Can Help the Weak (Hour 2)

Episode Date: December 10, 2018

The show about you

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, 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. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us, America. It's a free call at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. James is in Tucson starting off this hour. Hi, James. Welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show.

Hey, Dave. Thanks for having me. Sure. What's up? I have a question for you. I work at a... I'm just seeking some advice. I work at a car dealership and I work in,

I work in the shop and my boss, who's the manager, is looking to retire. Well, I usually fill in for him when he's out and I want to apply for his job and I want to be able to show my superiors that I'm serious about wanting his job. Do you have any advice on how I can do that effectively? Sure. So you work right now turning a wrench. Yes, sir. And his job is to watch over you guys that turn wrenches.

Yes. Okay. So one set of skills is working on a car. Another set of skills is leading people who work on cars. And real leadership is what you're applying for. You obviously are a professional at working on a car. You have a proven thing there. That does not mean that you know how to lead people. And so you need to be working on that skill and thinking about this new job in that way. It's not just a glorified mechanic.

It's not what it is. You're changing jobs. Right. If you do this. And if you'll look at it that way, it'll help you to analyze what they are looking for. For instance, an example here in our organization, we've got several sales teams. Just because someone is a great salesman doesn't mean they are a great sales manager. It's a different set of skills. You see what I'm saying? Managing all the people that do sales, you might not be a great salesman, but you could

be a great leader and get the most out of those people. You know, you don't have to be a world-class football player to be a world-class football coach. Okay, understood. That's what I'm talking about. So there we go. Anyway, so sit down with them and say, I realize that you know that I'm really a world-class mechanic. I'm really good at what I do here. And I have realized that in order to be ready for this job, I've got to learn some things about leadership.

What would you recommend I do? What classes should I take or books should I read? What would you like me to be doing to be prepared to be the kind of leader that you want leading in your organization? Okay. Now, you might use different words, but that's exactly the message you need to deliver. In other words, ask them what you've got to do to get tooled up to be ready to do this job in their eyes. And then if you can check those boxes, you've got a really good shot, right?

Right. Coach, show me what I've got to do to win. And then you go do the stuff it takes to win. And then coach is going to put you in. You know, that's what it comes down to. I'll send you a copy of our book, Entree Leadership, which is how we run our organization from a leadership perspective. And the best leaders I know are not bosses.

They're leaders. Bosses push. Leaders pull. Bosses crack a whip. Leaders stand in front and show the way. And what that means is you build relationships and you have you get to know the guys you're leading get to know their families and uh they think that you are the guy who's gonna go to bat for them and the reason they think that is because you're the guy that's going to go to

bat for them it's not manipulative at all you're there to serve them to make sure that they get the best out of their life that they can get, which also happens to be the best for the company. Okay. One guy said servant leadership is the only kind of real leadership there is. And servant leadership does not mean subservient. It doesn't mean you bow down to them. What it means is that you think about their best interest while you're making decisions. And so if you've got a young guy that's, you know, he's got a drinking problem or something,

and he comes in, well, you've got to think about him. He's got a wife and kids, and, you know, this drinking thing's got a whole lot more to do than his work. It's just affecting his work as far as you're concerned, but it's affecting everything else in his life. And so if you can help this guy turn his life around, you've got a great team member that's going to be very loyal to you, and you've had this incredible personal satisfaction of having led him through a dark time in his life, and he'll always look up to you. If you've ever had a great coach or a great leader, a great boss, you know what I'm talking about. I do.

Be that guy. Okay. And ask your guys what being that guy looks like in their mind. What is it you want me to do? They may say stuff like, hey, we want you to get more productivity out of these guys. You know, there's a mess out there all the time, and we don't want a mess out there all the time. We want the place kept clean.

And they may give you some real tactical stuff like that, and you go, well, that's easy. I can get that done. But how do you want the people out here to feel? How do you want the organization, you know, how do you want me to recruit new mechanics here? Because if you get a reputation of being a great place to work, you can get the best mechanics in the whole area to work for you, right? Right. That's one of the reasons we get the best talent is because we treat our people so well.

And people want to be here. And I want them to enjoy being here. I don't want to run. I'm not sending people off to the salt mines. There's no fun in that. Cracking the whip on their back or something. There's no fun in that. Leading by fear is shallow.

It's not really leading. It's just bossing. You can get results on the short term, but not long term. Long term, all you got is a revolt on your hands and a revolting company to work for. Kenneth is in Chicago. Kenneth, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Kelly, send the last guy an Entree Leadership book. I'm sorry.

Go ahead, Kenneth. Good afternoon, Dave. I just started listening to you two weeks ago, and I just wanted to say thank you for being a help to a nation that needs personal finance. Well, thank you, sir. How can I help you today? I wanted to ask you, what would you do if you were in my situation? I am a 21-year-old living with my disabled mother, my sister, grandmother, and uncle. It is my grandmother's house, and the reason I am still living here is to save money so that when my grandmother passes, I will be ready to take care of my mom and either buy the house we are currently living in or find another home for us.

I currently make $28,000 a year, which will increase as my carpentry apprenticeship progresses. I have a debt totaling $22,000, $15,000 on a reliable car, and $7,000 on student loans. I also have $5,000 saved, and I am tempted to move out of my grandmother's house, but don't want to leave my mother behind.

What would you do if you were me? That's an awful lot for a 21-year-old to carry, sir. Awful lot of responsibility. So does your mom have disability income? Yes, she does have disability income. Can she make it on her own when your grandmother passes? I'm pretty sure she'll be able to find some type of financial help, but as of now, I would rather her be in my care.

Okay. You're a generous good man. I'll tell you what, hold on. When we come back from this break, I want to learn a little bit more about the situation, and we'll talk it through together. Hold on to the break for me. Are high health care costs getting you down? Are you confused trying to navigate your options?

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That's chministries.org. That's chministries.org. Christian Healthcare Ministries is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Live Events. chministries.org. Okay, we're talking with Kenneth in Chicago. He's 21 years old. He's got a handful of debt himself. He's finishing up his apprentice work as a carpenter. His income is getting ready to go up from $28,000. His mom is disabled, and he takes care of her in the home.

He lives with his grandmother. When she passes away, what's he going to do? There's other people living in the house as well. This young man's carrying a big load by himself. So tell me one more time, Kenneth, did you say an uncle lives there? Yes, he's autistic. And honestly, it's not even just him. I have two cousins also here.

They're in their 50s, and, you, and there's nothing wrong with them. They just didn't get their lives going for themselves. It's not a lot of space here at the house, and I'm just being tempted to move. Two years ago, I went to Ball State University. I was trying to take up nursing, but I had to leave due to some financial trouble and had to come back. And, you know, so I kind of got that little taste of independence, and I felt like going, you know, to get my own apartment or taking up something with some roommates. But then again, I'm thinking about my mom, and she's going to have to come with me, and, you know, I'll have to take care of her once my grandmother passes.

Okay, so your plan would be, if I'm understanding you right, that you're okay with moving out now, but when your grandmother passes someday, you'd probably have to reach back and take care of your mom. Exactly. Okay, and how old is your grandmother and what kind of health is she in? She's 84 years old and she's in good health right now. You know, nothing wrong with her other than, you know, some back and toe problems. But other than that, she's fine. What's the nature of your mother's disability?

She has multiple cirrhosis, and she's been in remission for about four years of stage 3 breast cancer. Okay. So she doesn't work at all? No. Okay. Is the MS keeping her from working? Yes. So the symptoms are pretty severe on the MS?

Yeah. She walks around with a stroller, and sometimes in public events where it's just a lot of walking, I have to wheelchair her around. Right. And how old is she? She's 49. So she's receiving disability, SSI.

Yes. Is she getting anything other than SSI? Teacher's retirement because she was a first grade teacher. So what is her income? About, you know, if you don't mind, I can ask her. She's right next to me. What is your income? A year.

So she's about $600 a month, so $612. She gets $600 a month, SSI? Yeah. Okay, and what's the teacher's retirement? $400 a month. Okay, so she's got $12,000 a year. Okay. Not enough for her to live on by herself, yeah.

All right. So it sounds like you've got to get pretty busy in terms of cleaning up your own mess because only the strong can help the weak, right? Right. And so, you know, your income is probably going to double as you finish this apprenticeship, agreed? Yes. You'll be up over 50, and then you're going to get the car paid off and the student loan paid off and the other odds and ends paid off and start saving aggressively to be able to bring your mom into the situation. And then the next step is for you to build enough wealth that you might be able to take care of your mom in an independent situation, that she could get care.

You know, let's say, for instance, that you got married and had kids. We might want to set up a separate household for your mom at that point, but you'd have to have the money to be able to do that, right? Right. i'm not suggesting you abandon her but i am suggesting you figure out how you're going to have a life when you're 31 because she's only going to be 59 and that's you know pretty young so depending on how severe the ms symptoms are um you know you've just got to look at all that and start thinking that through as to what your responsibility is and how far you're supposed to go with this. And I would never suggest you abandon her. And that's not what you're hearing from me.

I am going to suggest you abandon the rest of that crowd. The two that don't work just because they don't work, especially. And your grandmother just takes care of everybody over there she's a serious enabler okay so you're gonna yeah you do need to get out of there and you get out on your own get you some roommates and just get get this mess cleaned up as fast as you can the mess of yours get your income up because the more wealth you can build the more savings you can build the less debt you have the more you can help your mom. And the less strain it'll be to help her.

You know, just say if you had $100,000 in the bank and you were making $70,000 a year and she needs some help, you could help her a lot more than you could help her today with your numbers today. You got a good heart. You're carrying a heavy burden, a lot of weight for a 21-year-old guy. But I think you can do it. And as you're walking this journey that is obviously in front of you, you call me any time, I'd be honored to help you

and help you think through some of these things as you're facing them because there's a lot of emotional pull and strain with what you're facing, Kenneth. So I'm glad you're there for her. And let's just figure out a way to do that with wisdom and do anything we can do to create income around this whole situation. Jason is in Cincinnati. Hey, Jason, how are you? Hi, Dave.

Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Well, I'm wondering which retirement option we should choose. If we could choose only one, what would you choose? 20 or so cash flowed rentals or the more traditional route of a 401k or IRA with about $1.8 million. Right now we have three rentals, which will be paid off in 2019. We don't have a mortgage.

We don't have any money in any sort of retirement accounts. And right now we don't make enough money to do both. So the long-term solution is to make more money. But right now if we had to choose one, what would you point us towards? I think you do have the money to do both. It just slows them both down. Okay. How would you split that out?

I would at least be funding a couple of Roth IRAs and some good mutual funds. I love real estate. I got a bunch of real estate, and I'm a big fan of real estate. I really think you need more in your portfolio mix than just real estate. You can do that if you want to do it, but the illiquid part of real estate will kill you. There's times when you own real estate that it eats more cash than it makes, even if it's all paid for. And, I mean, I've had some properties that were just alligators.

I've had some that are just a huge financial blessing, too. They just write me checks. They're like crazy. I love them. You know, but there's some of both. But I really love having several million dollars over mutual funds, too. And I've been overlooking towards that. So I think you can do both. For instance, if you were going to start putting some money in 401Ks or SEP IRAs or whatever you've got available to you, it's not going to be a lot of money.

But if you start throwing some money that way in some mutual funds, at least you're going to get a little bit of balance to your portfolio. And it's probably not going to slow down the paying off of those rentals that much when you actually look at what you were talking about here. I mean, let's say you put $20,000 a year in retirement. I'll just make up a number. I mean, how much does that really slow down paying the rentals? It's going to take two more years to pay them off, you know, because of that. Well, so what? You know, it's 40 grand.

It's not, you know, and we're getting some diversification out of that. So I think it's a false premise to say it has to be one or the other. I think it should be both. Good question. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You ever thought about coming to work here at Ramsey? Well, it's not a job here.

This is a mission. And you know what that causes us because we all care so deeply? It causes us to work like maniacs. We work so hard. And we run around with such smart people. We just don't have any tolerance for anything other than excellence. And not mad at each other. We don't yell and scream at each other. But, man, it's a fun place to work it's a hard place to work

if you're interested in doing work that actually matters we're looking for marketers looking for an associate creative director right now we're looking for a managing book editor right now looking for programmers right now you can work alongside these 800 other super motivated, super talented, super smart people here at Ramsey. And we're growing, man. We love this team. Got a great team. Click Dave's hiring on the right hand side of the Dave Ramsey homepage. Let me tell you a story about two families that are very much alike in a lot of ways. Both families have two working parents and a couple of young kids.

Each has debt and has struggled to make ends meet. But they're starting to make headway with their budgets and smarter decisions with money. They have dreams and plans, and the only real difference is that one family has the right amount of term life insurance and the other doesn't. Big difference. If one of the parents die, and that does happen, their well-being would be destroyed. Paying for the mortgage, utilities, food, and other bills would be impossible, let alone saving for education or retirement.

That's why every day I talk relentlessly about getting term life insurance. Just go to ZanderInsurance.com or call 800-356-4282 and see how inexpensive it really is. Be the family that takes those deliberate steps to be different and responsible. It really does make you the hero of your story, and it puts you on course for better things ahead. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Brett and Sarah are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Pretty good.

How are you? Welcome. Where do you all live? Elizabethtown, Kentucky. Cool. Welcome to Nashville. Good to have you. And all the way down here, which is not all the way down here.

It's about an hour or whatever. But down here to do your debt-free scream. How much have you paid off? $108,000 in 21 months. Good for you. And what was your range of income? $135,000 to $140,000. Good.

What do you all do for a living? I'm the VP of Safety at my family business, Matt Owens. And I'm an optometrist. Okay. Very cool. Good for you all. What kind of debt was the $108,000? $103,000 of it was my school and the rest was credit cards.

Whoa. All mine. All you? Yeah. All you? How long have you two been married? Two years. Two years.

Okay. So how do you become an optometrist with no debt well have a family that basically does your plan but okay financial peace baby that actually believed in the parents believed in saving money yes okay all right that's good that's an awesome thing no shame at all that's a great thing so 108 you married into. And right after the wedding, you guys are game on. Tell me how this all unfolded. Before we got married, she signed me up for an FPU Classic. I didn't get to do the class.

But after we got married, we did it together. And it was the best thing we did for sure. Cool. Very cool. Okay. So she's like, okay, I'm ready to sign on for this $108,000, but we're going to do a game plan here. Yeah. And to convince him that it was our debt and not just his.

Yeah. Okay. We're going to get in. Well, he wanted to man up and clean up his own mess, I'm sure. But it's a good thing to learn to do it together when you're married. So very well done. Good for you guys. So what did you learn in the class that enabled your pay off 108 000 in 21

months that's pretty impressive yeah it's uh following the budget for sure um like you say it's like getting a raise whenever you do a budget and that's the one of the best thing that we did was actually get on a plan a written plan so makes life a little less unpredictable. Gotcha. Okay. Very cool. Good. Very well done, y'all. Very well done. Proud of you.

So who were your biggest cheerleaders? My family was mostly on board with it. My brother, actually for Christmas last year, I got both of my brothers FPU. They stuck with us pretty much the whole way through. Oh, good. Okay. So you got everybody else on after you got on. Yeah, and actually I just got finished teaching one of the whole way through. Oh, good. Okay. So you got everybody else on after you got on. Yeah, and actually I just got finished teaching one of the classes, too.

Oh, wow. Well, thank you. Thank you. Very cool. It was a lot of fun helping people. Sarah, I'm guessing your family, being savers, were like, great, they're cleaning this up. Were they cheering you on? Yeah. Okay.

Good. Very good. Well, congratulations, you guys. Very, very, very well done. Proud of you. We've got a copy of Chris Hogan's retire-inspired book for you and a copy of his new book coming out in January. We'll send you one of those as well, Everyday Millionaires,

because that's what you're going to be. You're on your way. You're going to be millionaires. That's the next step. And outrageously generous as you go along. And you've learned how to handle money and absolutely incredible fun fun fun stuff what was the hardest part for y'all um getting on the budget for me was the hard part and actually like you know sticking to it so i like to stop at the gas stations get snack water

on the way home and that adds up every day so it It's funny, all the little habits that will eat you up. Oh, yeah. The little things that will get you. And, you know, I've had a number of people that quit smoking, you know, as an example, while they're getting out of debt. And it helps them break smoking habit forever, you know. But it's just expensive, you know, for one thing. And you just look around and you go, whoa, I'm spending a lot of money on that. I'm spending a lot of money dropping in there and picking up snacks and a Coke every day or

snacks and a water every day or whatever. Yeah. That was the biggest thing for me was just cutting the little things. Yeah. And once you get that under control, you can do almost anything. Oh, yeah. So very cool. Well, great job, you guys.

Brett and Sarah, Louisville, Kentucky, $108,000 paid off in 21 months, making $135,000 to $140,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free. Yeah. Woo. Yeah, baby.

This is how it's done right here. Living life large. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Chris is in Chattanooga. Hi, Chris. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up? Great. So I am calling because I have a question. Lost full-time employment at the end of August. I was a case manager for a domestic violence shelter. And I was able to get the majority of my loans deferred due to that unemployment, minus three, which are out of variable interest.

And when I took out these loans, I didn't know anything about your program, but, you know, trying to clean this up. So they totaled $94,000 with Navient, and Navient called on Friday asking for a status and wanting to know what I plan to do. My wife and I, we have followed your program. We're on Baby Step 2. We facilitated two FPU classes. And so we have the budget, but we've kind of held off on any payment to loans. And just wondering what your advice would be now.

Yeah. And so you have how much total debt? Total debt? One, $175,000. Including a house? No house. Okay. How much of that is Navient?

$94,000 is Navient. Okay. And what else is the rest of the $80,000? Student loans. So it's all student loans? Yes, sir. Okay, and what is your degree in? Intercultural communications and community development.

For $175,000? Unfortunately, it took me a long time to finish school. You got an undergrad only? What's that? Undergrad only? Undergrad. Okay. And does your wife work?

She does. She works, and she's making $28,000, and I've looked for work here and have been able to pull together some part-time gigs, mainly painting. How old are you? I'm 30. Okay. And what were you making before you lost your job? $35,000.

Doing what? Case management. Oh oh you said that you said that which was somewhat in your career field then right exactly okay okay so i i want to make sure because sometimes i don't know and this is one of the cases i don't and i don't know something about an industry or an area and i do not know what a person with your degree field is supposed to do for a living is caseworker or all that is that the most upside there is well um it's it's pretty much a launching point for for things like law or medical school or graduate work. But has there very little value other than that?

Well. I mean, if you were supposed to take this undergraduate degree and go get a career, what would you be doing? Yeah, so working with a nonprofit organization, communications, marketing. So $30,000 to $50,000 a year is all this is worth? Unfortunately. Okay, all right. Well, I think what you've got to do is take three steps back then and say,

what do I want to be when I'm 50? I'm 30 right now, and I have overpaid severely for a degree field that is based on what it's going to return me. Is this what I want to do with my life? If it is, it's going to take me a while to get out of this mess. Or is there something else I want to do with my life where we can get our household income up dramatically? That's why you've ended up just painting houses or picking up part-time jobs because you don't have a good long-term trajectory on where you want to go.

You need to lay down where you want to end up 10, 15 years from now. Jump on Ken Coleman's website, download some of his stuff, and let's get you into a career path. That's where you need to be. He's got some great PDFs that'll help you think that way, but you're going to have to get aligned on that and be heading somewhere more than where you're heading. Because not working is not an option here. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Andrew is with us in Los Angeles.

Hi, Andrew. How are you? Better than I deserve, Dave. How are you? Just the same, sir. How can I help? So I've heard you talk about and give advice to callers about not waiting to get married until after you pay off debt. And I've also heard you talk about the four things, the money, the relationships with family and stuff like that, that drop divorce rate down to zero. The situation I find myself in with my girlfriend is that divorce is rampant in her family. I don't know anyone in her family who is either never married or was divorced.

So I guess I'm wondering what kind of maybe statistics game I should be playing to drop that divorce rate for us down. And then maybe some books or ways to get on the same page before we get married for those things. Okay. There is a book out, and I think it's Shanti Feldman that did the book. Okay. And I can't remember the name of the book off my hand. My guys will be looking while we're talking and trying to find it so I can give it to you. But Shanti was actually on the show one time, and I've heard her speak several times,

and she's done – it's about the mythology of divorce. You know, you've heard the statistic 50% of marriages end in divorce, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. You know, you've heard the statistic 50% of marriages end in divorce, right? The book is called The Good News About Marriage. Shanti, S-H-A-U-N-T-I is her first name. Shanti, I believe it's Felton. I think that's the right last name. Anyway, she did data analysis in that book, and it sounded something like this.

Yes, 50% of Americans into marriages end in divorce but if you graduate from college both of you it goes way down if your household income is over fifty thousand dollars a year it goes way down if you both attend worship together meaning you you have a a agreed value system on religion, it goes way down. If one of the things you can't control, if both your parents stayed married, and in this case you don't have that, that's not a variable you can control. If you don't live together prior to marriage, it goes way down. If you don't have kids prior to getting married, it goes way down if you don't have kids prior to getting married it goes way down and so when you look at some of those things that she reported in the data that she has pulled

it amounts to when you make a bad a series of bad decisions in your life regarding education, money, morals, and so forth, it ends up affecting the statistical evidence, the data points on whether you make it or not. And so if you're educated, make decent money, you just don't face as many problems. To be unfair to the people that don't have that. Now, does that mean you can't stay married if you're uneducated no it doesn't mean that does it mean your marriage is not going to make it if you live together first no it does not mean that but i'm just saying these are the data points that say if you do all this the other one was and i think this is in shanties or i may have read it in another report the uh length of engagement is six months or longer but not too long like 12 to

six months uh you know when you're in other words if kind of common sense tells you if you met somebody three days ago and you get married you have a higher likelihood probability high statistical likelihood of ending in divorce than if you uh dated for eight months prior to getting married and got you know and were engaged six of those that kind of a thing um and so you know in other words you actually know who you're freaking marrying well duh you know that kind of thing so the other one is pre-marriage counseling and uh the catholic uh church does a wonderful job with pre-marriage counseling and they've got a bunch of data i've read a few of those reports i can't cite it right now i'm just kind of rambling but there's just there's all this research laying out there that says if you do pre-marriage counseling in depth which in your case i'd highly recommend

because i'll tell you what happened when my kids went to pre-marriage counseling i didn't go i didn't i wasn't smart enough okay i was just a dumb redneck but um my pre-marriage my pre-marriage counseling was five minutes with the uh with the baptist preacher that was going to marry us before he agreed to marry us that my wife had grown up in that church and so he probably rolled his eyes and went this kid this kid ain't got a chance but that but good pre-marriage counseling makes you ask questions like uh what are the good parts of your family you want to bring into this and what are the bad parts you don't want to bring into this and my kids really experienced that because you could think marrying into my family

oh my gosh strong personalities a lot of spotlight a lot of pressure a lot of um you know any toxicity is magnified can you imagine marrying my son just got married this year and a young lady married into our family we love her she is wonderful but her heart, she really came into a mess, you know. And so, Ramsey's, we're loud and crazy and fun and scary and all those things, right? So, but, you know, you've got to talk about that in the counselor's office of what are you getting into and how are you going to act in this situation, how are you going to react in that situation. So there's really good data on length of engagement and depth of pre-marriage counseling. It's why a lot of people go through Financial Peace University together, to get on the same page on money.

Let's see here. Length of engagement or length of dating? Because I'm in my first year of college. She's in her – I'm sorry. I'm in my second year of college she's in her i'm sorry i'm in my second year of college she's in her third um so i what i planned on doing is waiting until we're at least you know close to the end of college to get married because of that that would be fine that wouldn't be unusual in your situation were you both out of school to just delay it just to delay it for two years would be would be a lot weirder than you doing it right now

to delaying it you've got an actual reason no i agree that you're marking it with and uh one of our kids got married uh her husband winston graduated the month they got married and she had six months to go i didn't think i would ever be okay with that as a dad but winston was such a stud such a sharp guy that we're like okay this will work and so they actually got married lived in knoxville and she finished her schooling finished six months of school afterwards and then moved to nashville and joined our team but in rachel cruz's situation but so you can do stuff like that if you just kind of talk it through and everybody's good with it but i think you really got to get into the other parts of this.

And the fact that you're asking this question and you're thinking about how to plan this and you see the potential trouble spots, if you'll address them and know what they are, take them on head on, then you really can increase your percentages considerably on all of that. So really cool question, Andrew. I would recommend that you have a detailed plan that both sets of parents are in on and that you feel good about, and I would really spend some money and some time in the counselor's office, in a good family counselor's office, maybe a good pastor that does this or a good on-staff counselor at a church that does it.

If you're a person of faith, you get that element in there. And, you know, what part is God going to play in this marriage and how is this going to work together? And, you know, when you open your mouth, is your father's voice going to come out? Or if your parents' marriage didn't work, why? And how do we address that? And what insecurities is that going to bring you know if you come out of a uh a household that they uh there was alcoholism or there was drug use or

there was something else going on um you know then then it's it's you know you've got the adult child of an alcoholic thing to deal with and that's that's just part of it it's okay it doesn't mean that the person is not whole and we're all broken somewhere uh but you just got to get in there and kind of ferret that stuff out and deal with it ahead of time you put it up on the table then when it raises its head you go oh i recognize you we talked about you earlier when that monster tries to kick its way out of the closet by the way folks here's a couple of other stats that I just pulled up that are interesting that I do actually have in front of me. A recent report on this topic focusing on millennials reports that 97% of those who

follow the success sequence, which is earn at least a high school diploma, go to work, and marry before having children, 97% of the time will not be at the poverty level when they enter their 30s. This is largely true for ethnic minorities and those who grew up in poor families. But sadly, fewer millennials are keeping these things in order compared to their boomer and exer-forebearers if you will graduate from school first work second then marry and then have kids you have a 97 probability that's pretty cool of avoiding poverty only four percent of homes with a married mother and a married father are on food stamps. 21% living together are. 28% of single parent households are.

Yeah. That's what we're facing right now. And these are decisions that we all make. And we're here to help you wherever you are. We're not mad at you. These are just data points to help you figure out how to win. Hey, it's Kelly Daniel, associate producer and phone screener for The Dave Ramsey Show. Did you know that in 2017, Dave Ramsey Show listeners paid off $50 million of debt?

That's pretty impressive. And it could be you this year. Keep listening for more inspiration.