The Ramsey Show - App - Our Favorite Calls of 2023 (Part 1)

Episode Date: May 29, 2023

While we're out for the holiday, we've compiled our favorite moments from the year so far into a special episode. We hope you enjoy it and we'll be back with a live show tomorrow. Let us know what yo...u think in the comments. Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Join a Personality-led FPU class. Click here! Enter The Ramsey Cash Giveaway for a chance at $3,000! https://bit.ly/TRSgvwy Shop our bestsellers during the $10 Sale! https://bit.ly/TRS10Sale Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3cEP4n6 Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Interested in advertising on The Ramsey Show? https://ter.li/s64ye3 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods moving in storage studios, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Dr. John Deloney, number one best-selling author, Ramsey personality, and host of the Dr. John Deloney Show is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Elizabeth starts us off in New Jersey this hour.
Starting point is 00:00:59 Hi, Elizabeth. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Thank you, Mr. Ramsey, for having me. I have a question. I am currently in a situation to where I need to. Thank you, Mr. Ramsey, for having me. I have a question. I am currently in a situation to where I need to replace a hot water heater. I have $1,000 saved in my emergency fund, and I'm on baby step two. And I know you advise people not to take advantage of credit, but I'm in a situation to where I don't have the financial resources to purchase a new one without maybe
Starting point is 00:01:25 utilizing one of the finance options at my local provider. How much is the hot water heater? $2,823.17 is the least expensive I was able to find. I've contacted seven different plumbing services and each one was much more than that. And one of my local big box stores offered me that at that rate and at a 0% and I have a thousand to contribute, but I don't have the other $2,000 to put towards it. What happened to the hot water heater? It died. Um, it, it house that we recently acquired the house last year, and the hot water heater is from 2004. Okay, there's a lot of things that can happen with a hot water heater.
Starting point is 00:02:16 This is a tankless or a tank hot water heater? It is a tiny tank hot water heater. When the plumbers came out, they expressed I needed to replace it because it was leaking and it wasn't repairable. It's leaking? Yes, sir. It left a small pond on the kitchen floor. Okay.
Starting point is 00:02:40 Wow, I haven't apparently been hot water shopping in a while. I had no idea it was twenty eight hundred dollars to put in a hot water heater that just sounds outrageous to me um i agree it was it was in truth it was the least expensive one that i was able to ask obtain a quote from i was just trying to i just put one in and it was something somewhere similar okay it was two thousand so it was it was way more expensive than i thought it was going to be i don't remember being 2800 but it was a real expensive i just haven't bought one in a while i guess that's my thing okay um wow uh okay what do you make a year i make about 98 and you have one thousand dollars yes sir okay and what else
Starting point is 00:03:20 do you have what other things do you have i? I have student loan payments, which are $995.55 a month. They're on hold. I have. I'm still paying them, sir, because. I know, I know, but you have a hot water heater in the south, so it's on hold. Yes, sir. Okay. I have a car payment, which my car payment is $289 a month, and I only owe $1,176 on that,
Starting point is 00:03:48 so it will be paid off soon. And we have a few other credit card debts, which I'm working on paying off, and I don't use credit at all, so that's why I'm in a predicament that I'm concerned as to how to manage the situation. Yeah, I get that. So what is your paycheck? How often do you get a paycheck and how much is it? By weekly, and I make about $2,000 every two weeks.
Starting point is 00:04:15 That's what I take home. That's $48,000 a year. How do you get $48,000 a year out of 90? Hold on, let me double check. I was mistaken i my paycheck is about i guess it's more than that because i do make 98 000 on paper but and i have nothing coming out of my paycheck except for my insurances my taxes and yeah so your paycheck is more like four thousand dollars every two weeks
Starting point is 00:04:40 yes sir probably yeah okay and so when you get the next paycheck buy the hot water heater okay don't pay student loans put it on hardship i mean drop it over there in the biden plan don't pay it for right now you pick it up and pay it's not doodle may right okay so what i'm going to do is just rearrange your budget for a month and a half or two months, and, you know, you're going to have to push something and then catch it back up and pay cash for it. I think you've got the cash flow to buy this in the next check. And maybe just food. Right?
Starting point is 00:05:22 Okay. I don't know. I mean, I can't see your numbers right now but i mean well i i we have credit card debts which like i said i'm paying all well don't pay them right now don't pay them don't pay them for a month pay them late for a month i just didn't okay it's one month or pay them pay them at the end of the month or the beginning of the month or only pay the very very bare minimums on all of them and take that extra. Because you're trying to keep baby step two going and deal with this other thing.
Starting point is 00:05:53 Yeah, you've got to push everything on pause as far as baby steps go. And you've got to push everything you can push and pay cash for this and then get back and reengage again. But I've had to do that. I've had to shuffle and just delay something to be able to cover this. And I think you can cover it inside of a couple of weeks here, but something else that you thought was absolutely vital is going to wait two more weeks, and it's not absolutely vital, other than food. I mean, keep your lights on and your food, and that's about it.
Starting point is 00:06:26 But even if you paid your rent on the 15th instead of on the 1st, as an example, whoop-dee-doop-dee for this month, and then get back in the saddle and get caught right back up, and it may take another month to get things back even again, and then after that, then push play again and start your debt snowball. But I think you've got enough money coming in with your income because you only need $1,800. And good for you for having shopped it and gotten the best price.
Starting point is 00:06:58 And just ask them what their payment terms are. I mean, will they bill you at the end of the month if they put it in? Or do they want it all up front? Or do they want $1,000 now and $1,800 at the end of the month? Or whatever. Not credit, just a billing. There's a difference. And just see what their payment terms are. There may be some things like that. Because all we're looking for here is a little bit of movement, a little bit of oomph to get your cash flow flowing that's all we're after here so dave you've done this way longer than me it sounds like if you don't shut that door all the way if you don't take i can just go borrow this off the table that you're gonna end up back in the mess yeah you have to take
Starting point is 00:07:41 borrowing money off the table the rest of your life i I just took it off the table. I don't borrow money, so I've always had to do what we're doing. I've got to figure it out. I've got to figure it out because it's not an option. Or I've got to not do it. Not doing hot water is not a fun thing. Especially in freaking New Jersey this time of year. Good Lord. In Tennessee this time of year, I don't want to be without hot water.
Starting point is 00:08:04 I mean, everybody's talking about the benefits of cold showers, but this is not the time to do it, right? So, yeah. So, yeah. No, thank you. Not as a mandatory item. That needs to be a choice. Not for my wife. But, like, you've got to close the door.
Starting point is 00:08:21 I've got to take that off the table. Otherwise, you're going to have a thing after a thing after a thing. It's always going to be a thing always yeah so i'm even wondering where the hot water heater leaked yeah you know like did it leak around the element and the element is bad and they're trying to you know i'm gonna buy an element and seal that puppy if that's it and that's a couple hundred bucks you get me 30 more days or 60 more days well or get me a year yeah you know but now if the actual tank broke there's no fixing that okay so that in porn yeah there you go this is the ramsey show hey you guys health insurance costs are only moving one way and and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough,
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Starting point is 00:10:14 George Campbell Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Let's face it, taxes are confusing. And if you buy what some of the tax services out there say, you think you never get a grasp on taxes. You have to have somebody do it for you because you never get a grasp on taxes you have to have somebody do it for you because you're too stupid well we don't think that today's tax tip we think you can do it we think you're smarter than that and you deserve the truth most tax software exists for one reason to take your money they fee you to death with up charges processing
Starting point is 00:10:43 fees and they want to sell you into buying debt. They're trying to, they use the tax software to gather your name and sell to you then. But now you can say no more. Take control of your taxes. Use a service that's on your side like Ramsey Smart Tax. It guides you through the process of filing online with low upfront pricing, no hidden fees, no sneaky offers to put you into debt. Ramsey Smart Tax gives you two easy ways to file. They both include all major federal forms and deductions from the start, which can save you up to 70% versus using other software. So you just decide the level of support you want for your questions,
Starting point is 00:11:21 and you can add a state return if you need to. RamseySolutions.com slash smart tax. It's easy and you're smart enough to do it. RamseySolutions.com slash smart tax. Vic's in St. Louis. Hi, Vic. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, good afternoon.
Starting point is 00:11:41 I hope your Wednesday's going well. It is, brother. How can we help? So I am a government employee working for the Air Force nearby. I'm invested in the Thrift Savings Plan, and I'm also familiar with your mutual fund investing strategy equally across the four types of funds. I'm looking to retire in about four years,
Starting point is 00:12:01 and I'll direct transfer equally into those funds. But my question pertains to when it comes to taking the distributions, how do I do that? Do I equal withdrawals or is there a situation where maybe I don't want to take as much out of, say, the growth in income or the international? I was just wondering if you could speak to that a little bit. I didn't really see anything on your website about that. The truth is it doesn't matter much. What you need to do is just figure out how much money you need coming home and just have that amount come out of whichever funds you want to pick. You can have it done equally across them.
Starting point is 00:12:42 I'm a retired Air Force, so it's probably not going to be a lot. It'll just be whatever the required minimum distribution happens to be. Yeah, and you won't have that until 73. Right. So even then, when you get there, how much would you take or what are you going to take? You're going to set your required minimums or set an amount or percentage, whichever one you want to do, and you can have it come across all of them equally, or you can have it come from one until it's gone and leave all the others in place like if you have a fund that's really cooking and you like it uh maybe you leave it alone and you drain
Starting point is 00:13:13 off some of the others right you know that's okay uh you can sit down with your smart investor pro at that time and they'll help you develop a strategy but there's not a right or wrong thing here it's not like oh well you absolutely need to go ahead and you know drain that dog fund off and you know let that one that's cooking real good let it keep going that's not a bad plan it's not the end of the world but you've already made it by then so you're in good shape you're making money you've you know you've built some wealth now it's just a matter of maximizing it and so forth. So you're right. You're probably not actually going to be taking anything until you're forced to. That's a good problem to have.
Starting point is 00:13:50 Yeah, that's a great problem to have. And thank you for your service, Vic. Absolutely. Tyler is with us. Tyler is in Chicago. Hey, Tyler, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my call.
Starting point is 00:14:01 Sure. What's up? So, uh, me and my wife are having some disagreements on how we want to go about paying off, uh, our debts. You know, I'm, I'm a heavy Dave Ramsey listener.
Starting point is 00:14:14 I listen to you guys all the time and I follow the baby steps. Whereas she's, um, she's been raised her whole life to believe, you know, just pay the minimum payment until it's all paid off that way. So I'm wondering a way forward on how we can agree on how to attack our debt. This is a fun one. So how much debt do you guys have?
Starting point is 00:14:36 So currently I have a truck loan with about $1,300 left on it. And we both have student loans at about $8,000 apiece. And that's everything? That's everything. Okay. What's your income? What's your household income? So I'm active duty Navy, so I made around $46,000 last year. And is she working outside the home?
Starting point is 00:15:03 No, she's a stay-at-home mom. We have a four-month-old daughter. Okay. So we're looking at $17,000 in debt with a $46,000 income. Correct. This feels like a solvable problem, but it sounds like she doesn't want to get out of debt. If you're just making the minimum payments, you're talking about a 10, 20-year payoff plan with the interest causing the loan to balloon. Exactly. I mean, I've laid every bit of evidence and piece of information out showing, I mean, I made a debt payoff tracker. I made a very detailed budget for us to go off of. But this isn't a disagreement on how to get out of debt. It's a disagreement on should we get out of debt? Exactly. So does she feel, are you feeling the pressure?
Starting point is 00:15:50 Is she feeling the pressure of this debt in your life? Are you guys living your best life? I mean, yeah, we save a lot of money. I mean, we have about $30,000 in our savings account right now. So you could pay it off today. We not hurting at all but she's she's more concerned about investing now because she's she's uh she's really big on investing she's been doing it for a long time she's more worried about getting money and investments now and paying off debts later rather than vice versa, like how I believe. How old are you guys? I am 26 and she's 24. Okay.
Starting point is 00:16:39 So here's the thing. She's broke and 24 years old. So her plan's not working. And she's not big on investing. She's not old enough to have been big on investing very long. A maximum of a few years. And so you got $30,000 in savings. It's not about Dave Ramsey. It's not just about getting out of debt. And it's not about Dave Ramsey, and it's not just about getting out of debt,
Starting point is 00:17:06 and it's not about the Ramsey way or something like that. The question on the table should be, that the two of you need to consider, is what is the shortest right way to build wealth, and what is the data to back that up okay there is zero research that indicates her process is going to work there's zero evidence that rich people do it the way she's talking about none none so it's not going to do with me or you or is my way right? Your way is right. It's a matter of the data.
Starting point is 00:17:47 When you when you study millionaires, you don't find any of them became millionaires doing what she's talking about doing. Instead, they almost unanimously agree and and you know 79 84 92 agree that the way we got wealthy is we got out of debt so we had more money to invest absolutely and and you know that's that's the point that i've been trying to make for the longest time yeah and and And so, you know, her theory is just that. It's a theory, and there's no data to back up that she's right. So I'm not sure where all this arrogance is coming from at 24 years old. I mean, how much are you guys investing right now? So I currently do, so I have TSP through the military. I do 10% with
Starting point is 00:18:50 the 5% match. And she recently rolled over her retirement from her last job into a Roth IRA, and we're investing in that. And that has about $2,000 in it. Well, show her on paper. Here's what it's going to cost us in interest to pay off this debt over the next 20 years, and here's how much we could make in the market if we paid off the debt today, invested that payment, and still had $13,000 left over in savings. Yeah. If she wants to argue with math, that's the way to do it, but I think it's beyond math. Tyler, at the point that the two of you on any issue as a married couple cannot find some common ground off of actual data that indicates the behavior you're engaging in,
Starting point is 00:19:34 raising kids or being married or building wealth or having a career, you can't come into agreement on that. At some point, you've got to sit down with a marriage counselor if you can't get past that. What you should do today is write a check and pay off everything. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. This is The Ramsey Show. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Mark is in Joplin, Missouri. Hey, Mark, welcome to the show. Dave, what are y'all up to? Just struggling through, man.
Starting point is 00:20:13 How can we help? I understand. Hey, me and my wife here, we're kind of twixt and tween a lot of stuff, and we need to ask a question. Okay. We're twixt and in between step five and six, and our gazelle, he's kind of sitting in the thicket there, catching his breath a little bit,
Starting point is 00:20:31 and we was wondering which way to point him and how hard to kick him. Well, you got it dialed in, man. I like it. Well, what we tell folks is you do gazelle intensity, which is scorched earth, no life, 100% game on in baby steps one through three. And I'll tell you what, we have crossed the prairie. You did that. Yeah, you got through.
Starting point is 00:20:56 You did. And now you've got your emergency fund in place and you're debt free and you're doing baby steps four, five, and six simultaneously. And we tell folks when you go when you do that we uh we do sideline the gazelle uh we move from intense to intentional right from a sprint to a marathon we're still running girls are yeah our girls are fixing to get out of school in may and we'll have them through school. So they'll be done with that. Got them off the payroll.
Starting point is 00:21:31 Yeah, they'll be done off the payroll and gone. Good. And basically, we got about $170,000 left on our farm, and then we'll be done. Yeah, and so intentional looks like this. Yes, if you need to upgrade your couch, that's going to slow down the paying down on the farm by the amount of the couch. Yes, we're going to go on vacation. Mama needs one.
Starting point is 00:21:56 And that's going to slow down the paying down on the farm. But we're not going to consume so many things that we don't do anything towards getting rid of that farm debt. But we're also not doing beans and rice rice and beans gazelle intensity at this stage and having no life this is the stage where we have a life but we're careful about it and intentional so that we still accomplish those other goals as well so you move from intense to intentional that sounds that sounds better than what we've been doing hey here's the thing mark you you're gonna have to practice it because you're not gonna be any good at it we start we ain't
Starting point is 00:22:32 really used we ain't really used to it no because that means here's what it means in the past for the past few years you don't have a conversation about the couch and just know we're paying off debt now you and your wife gonna have to have a conversation about a couch. And that's a skill set that most married couples don't have. And so we're going to practice it. We're going to practice where do you want to go for vacation? How big is it going to be? And how small is it going to be?
Starting point is 00:22:53 And the more we spend on that, the less we can put on the farm. That's right. And expect some tension there. If you don't have tension, something's weird. You're going to have tension there, and that's part of the deal. You will always have tension because you always have a limited amount of money. No one has unlimited money. And an unlimited amount of i wish we could yeah there's always a there's always a list and it's always longer than the money um and so it doesn't matter and it's like the list does get more fun of course because the stuff on it is much cooler
Starting point is 00:23:21 when you've got some money but uh it's still a list and there's still some things we're going to do right now and some things we're not going to do right now. And you've got to make those forced ranked decisions as a couple. I wonder, Dave, if it's just sometimes easier. I've never thought this. I'm saying it out loud, so catch me if I'm wrong here. But in some ways, it's easier just to take off running, just to scor earth it does because it's simple it's singular focused and so you don't burn hardly any mental calories the answer is not everything the answer is no to everything except paying off
Starting point is 00:23:54 debt right and so it's you don't have to stop and think about it yeah there's no no no it's hard to decide what goes in retirement what goes on vacation But then when you back up and you go, okay, now I'm – yes, we can do that, but do we want to? Now, that burns some calories. That's right. That takes up some mental anguish. I never put that together before. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:24:15 JW is with us. JW is in Atlanta. Hi, JW. How are you? Hey, Dave. Just fine. How about y'all? Better than we deserve.
Starting point is 00:24:24 How can we help? so me and my wife are having an issue right now uh i'm we got you jw we got you i'm about twenty thousand dollars from having the house paid off excellent but now she wants me to sell the house and buy a more expensive house. And I can taste it. I'm almost there. I'm so close. And I don't know if, you know, I talked to her and was, why is it that we need a more expensive house?
Starting point is 00:25:03 And because that's what everybody else does. I'm like, well, I don't want to take out another loan. I'm so close to having it paid off. She said, well, that's what everybody else does. You just suck it up. That's what everybody else does. I don't want to be like everybody else. I can't understand.
Starting point is 00:25:23 I can't figure out how to convince her to let's just pay this one off so you've drug you've drug her kicking and screaming into debt free yeah yeah and she's going to try to drag you kicking and screaming into 3500 more square feet oh my god 100 more square feet. Oh, my God. All right. Here's what I guarantee you haven't done yet, JW. You ready? Yep. I guarantee you haven't sat down with her and said,
Starting point is 00:25:56 Honey, I'm exhausted, and I'm scared. I'm scared that when I owe money, when we owe a mortgage, if something happens to me, that I'm not going to be able to take care of you and the kids. Yeah, absolutely. But hold on. But most of us knuckleheaded guys try to attack this, your wife's question with a math answer.
Starting point is 00:26:24 I want you to approach this with a hard answer for probably the first time with your heart. Okay? I'm scared. I'm exhausted. I need some time.
Starting point is 00:26:34 I'm not interested in being like everybody else. I'm interested in you and me building something magical that's ours. And maybe that's a bigger house someday. I can't borrow more money right now. Yeah, I can't.
Starting point is 00:26:51 But you've got to connect with her there, man, because otherwise it's going to be a tug-of-war game. She feels like you won the first match, and she's going to win the second match. We've got to change the position from daddy-daughter to husband-wife. Daddy, I want a bigger house, Daddy. Give me a bigger house, Daddy. Everybody else gets one, Daddy.
Starting point is 00:27:13 Instead, it's like you and me are a team. How can we have the life that we want to build, not other people want to build, but the life that we want to build that includes an amazing future and us making our decisions together you get a vote and i get a vote not i'm denying you what you want because i'm a mean old husband that's a daddy daughter thing you're not you're not her daddy and yeah yeah absolutely yeah and so you know that that and that happens in every marriage some more than others some function all the time that way some function uh for 20 seconds that way occasionally or it flips and yeah or it flips mommy little boy's got a mommy little boy's got a mommy taking care of him she does all the bills and he just works he doesn't have to think about
Starting point is 00:28:02 anything he just brings in the money and i do all the adult stuff and oh God, creepy. And so, um, yeah, that happens all the time though. And so, uh, you don't have much of that here, but what John's telling you is come alongside her and then just pour your heart out and say, this has been a goal of my life. For the first time in my life, I'm free. I can breathe. And you're asking me to let a 300-pound man stand on my chest again. I can't do it. I can't do it. And I do want to give you what you want.
Starting point is 00:28:37 I want us to have things that we like together, but I want to do it like grownups. And so let's start talking about getting a bigger house and how we can get the money together to do that with cash. It might take three years instead of three months. But the chances of me going into debt again are precisely zero. I'm not doing it. And, I mean, Sharon's pretty acquainted with that conversation.
Starting point is 00:29:05 I don't borrow money for anyone, for any reason, ever again. I'm through. I had my run with that. This is The Ramsey Show. Dr. John Deloney is my co-host today, Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author of the book Own Your Past, Change Your Future. He's been in the writing cave, writing a new one. We'll be telling you about that soon. It'll be coming out this summer, so save your quarters and nickels.
Starting point is 00:29:43 You're going to want to buy it. It's going to be that simple. Timothy is next he's in chicago hi timothy welcome to the ramsey show well hello hey how can we help great uh so i'm gonna get married in july which is very exciting very awesome good i'm gonna be married into fifty thousand dollars of student loans that That's awesome. Okay, we discussed it. And that's behind us. We're going to make different choices going forward. So the really quick question here is, it's a relationship question built into a money situation. So I have $100,000 in mutual funds and just regular brokerage accounts.
Starting point is 00:30:20 So clearly I could just cash them out and wipe off the debt. My concern is that the loans are on my future mother-in-law's name they're her loans their parents left alone and so i don't want to be the rich boyfriend that comes in pays off all the debt and then just has that status of you know rich boyfriend that he's got on a title or something like that you you don't you want you don't want the status of you don't want to look like a snob is that what you're saying Yeah, I want to basically I didn't know they've had trouble with finances before and it's tight and hard for them so I don't want to I want to guess I prove that I can work hard and Be smart and it wasn't just all given to me by my parents or grandparents
Starting point is 00:31:03 Which some of this money has so it wasn't just all given to me by my parents or grandparents, which some of this money has been. So it wasn't all money that I earned. Okay. How much of her student loan debt is her parents' debt that's Parent PLUS? So all four years are Parent PLUS loans. It's been agreed that me and her will pay off the last two, which is $50,000 in Parent PLUS plus the first two are like $45,000. You were not in on the deal.
Starting point is 00:31:32 It was agreed originally when they did this that she would pay, that your fiancé, when she got out of college, would pay the first two and mom and dad would pay the second two? No, the reverse of that. She'd pay the second two, they'd pay the first two. But they would agree when they were finishing high school, yeah. Okay, so that's the deal she made with her mom and dad? Yep.
Starting point is 00:31:52 Okay, because she's not legally obligated, but she has a handshake with them that she's going to do this. Yes, that's exactly right. And you're talking about paying off the portion that she gave them a handshake and agreed to pay right only yep not the first half okay the other the other's on mom and dad and it's still on mom and dad after this story's over right yep okay yeah that's a no-brainer after the honeymoon write a check and pay them off don't pay the mom and dad pay the loans off right yeah and as far as whether you're a snob
Starting point is 00:32:27 or not here's how you don't be a snob don't be a snob just don't even bring it up i mean can you emotionally let this go and not roll your eyes at them when they're doing something else stupid because you paid this off uh i think that i could it It would be, yeah, it's my dad, so it would be fine. On my end, it would be okay. I could handle it. If you, yeah, I'm confused as to, you must have gotten some smoke somewhere along the way. Did you pick up a dinner tab one time or something
Starting point is 00:33:00 and there was kind of some awkwardness around the table? So we were planning on being missionaries and fundraising our salary when I asked if I could propose and the father-in-law was not super thrilled about that and so in the end I told him that I had this account. I was like, look, if we're missionaries for two
Starting point is 00:33:18 years, there's no way we're going to be totally screwed because worst case scenario this could float us, which is what we were planning on signing a two-year contract. That's how what we were planning on signing into your contract. That's also, we're not going to be missionaries. We're going to have regular jobs. So I think that's kind of... So here's what I would recommend. This is early as possible in your marriage.
Starting point is 00:33:35 And this is harder for some people than it is for others. But at the end of the day, you and your wife have to build a marriage together. And you can't be responsible for the regulation of the adult emotions in your life around you so okay what you have is a debt you're going to pay that debt off because you're a person of character of an integrity you worked your butt off to set yourself up in the situation and you got some gifts to set yourself yourself up in the situation great if he wants to turn and get offended by it or feel less superior or whatever he wants to that is his and the earlier you can learn to not try to control that the more peaceful your marriage is going to be moving
Starting point is 00:34:18 forward it makes sense and expect it expect it if you know it's coming back then it's coming back cool and it's just you're gonna be ready emotionally when that happens and you just smile and nod and wander off to the other room and pour a cup of coffee yeah because you know it's coming you know you know it's going to come and then then you're not the snot the beautiful thing about this conversation timothy is you're self-aware enough, and you kind of felt that rise up in you in that other conversation that you kind of went, oh, that could happen again. So John's right. You smelled smoke before.
Starting point is 00:34:54 And so you're self-aware enough to go, I really need to steel myself. I need to put some backbone in myself on this issue because this is probably coming at me. And that's really the question you were answering that's right asking and uh john's answering and so yeah because we know the right thing to do is to pay the debt off yeah you need to pay the debt off because that's it whether it's a legal debt a moral debt an ethical debt uh which is only the last two um it becomes your debt when you get married and you're going to write a check when you get home
Starting point is 00:35:25 from the honeymoon and be but you know if she had a car loan you'd pay it off if she had a student a regular student loan you'd pay that off whatever it is and you're thank god you're aware before going into this exactly what you're getting into and you're willing to do that and she's worth it and it's just and now we go forward and then by the way when you get the flu she'll make soup so for in for richer for poorer and sickness and in health and the old book of common prayer that you would have heard maybe in the 40s or 50s at a wedding says unto thee all my worldly goods i pledge it's a beautiful old marriage vow, seldom used now, in an I'm independent culture. But I'm married.
Starting point is 00:36:10 But I'm independent. But I'm married. There's your problem. It's not real. There's your sign. Yeah, Timothy, you're doing good. I'm really proud of you. I think you're very self-aware.
Starting point is 00:36:24 You're observing this, and you're going, I could do this wrong, and how do I not do it wrong? The fact that you're asking the question is probably a sign you're not going to do it wrong. If you just didn't even know it was there and you were oblivious, that's probably when you're going to step in it. And put yourself in his shoes, not to excuse the behavior, but to give yourself a little gap between the stimulus and response he's got a guy coming in and writing a check for his daughter that he couldn't write that's gonna hurt a little bit it's gonna hurt a little bit and i can imagine that stinging a
Starting point is 00:36:54 little bit and so so be it i get it it's it's silly it's inappropriate but i get it well it's kind of interesting too that he was questioning their financial plan when he's broke it's incredible but that's that's that's i mean that's where the that's where the the biggest jeers come from the cheap seats right that's where the complainers come throw the peanuts only from the cheap seats exactly uh this is how it works man i'm telling you so yeah that um it's it's a sweet spirit you've got on this timothy i think you're going to be just fine. I think you're doing a good thing. And thank God it's not $500,000.
Starting point is 00:37:33 Or more likely, the way I usually hear this call is, I don't have that money. And father-in-law is asking for the check right now. Where's my money? Good luck with that. I don't have it. I didn't do this, dude. You did. I can write that check.
Starting point is 00:37:42 Yeah. And so it becomes this push thing this push and pull and uh this is why we tell you student loans are evil parent plus loans are straight from the pit of hell because the parent is borrowing the money for the kid to go to school and then there's all these side deals or these unsaid unmet expectations or there's a deal and then suddenly you get a nice job out of college and then surely they change the deal yeah i mean look at him he makes all this money how to pick it up i told him i pay it but i mean look at that gym and it's just these things have not only the problems and the weight of a student loan but they have the ability to drive wedges in families as well and in relationships.
Starting point is 00:38:29 It's straight up from the pit of hell. This student loan thing is, man, it, hey, Congress, stop making them. You're screwing up a whole generation or two. Stop it. There's nothing good coming out of this. They only got a degree in left-handed puppetry. Stop it.
Starting point is 00:38:51 This is The Ramsey Show. Dave here. You can find all of our shows with the Ramsey Network app on your smartphone. It's the only place to listen to the entire back catalog of episodes. Download the Ramsey Network app in your favorite app store today. We'll see you next time.

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