The Ramsey Show - App - Our Favorite Calls of 2023 (Part 4)

Episode Date: July 3, 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 soon. Let us know what you think in the comments. Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Here's an EveryDollar deal just for our listeners: get a 14-day free trial PLUS $15 off your first year of premium. Click the link below and start budgeting today! www.everydollar.com/TRS 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 Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods, moving, and storage studios, it's the Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, host of The Ken Coleman Show, is my co-host today. As we answer your questions about your money, your career,

and of course, actual amazing relationships. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Paula is going to start us off this hour in San Antonio, Texas. Hey, Paula, how are you? I'm just fine, Dave, and you? Better than I deserve. What's up? That's me.

However, I'm trying to find out if I'm doing the right thing for considering my situation. I'm not trying to be an Elon Musk or a Bill Gates. I'm very happy with what I got, and I just want to live comfortable, and I'm not trying to be an Elon Musk or a Bill Gates. I'm very happy with what I got and I'm just want to live comfortable and I'm doing that. But I have my mortgage paid off. I am 76 years old and I don't work. I could, but I don't. I just choose not to. I have a $2,600 a month Social Security coming in. I have over $100,000 in a money market. I have $31,000 in a saving, and I save $1,000 a month. My bills are all paid at the first of every month.

Am I doing the right thing? Okay. So you have no investments at all no i that's right now i am too scared of that with the market so volatile and everything going haywire i don't want to play with the market okay i just want to be comfortable and happy and basically i am i just want to know if that happy, and basically I am. I just want to know if that's going to carry me through to my, you know, I'm a young 76-year-old. But you're not using the money. No, absolutely not. So if you continue like you continue, it would carry you on to 176. Well, I plan to live that.

I know. I can tell. I can tell. So me too. I i got more energy than a 60 year old no i'm serious that you're not using the money and so no you know it's if you were burning it if you were going through it a little bit if you were you know eating a thousand dollars a month out of it uh to live but you're living on your social security is what you're saying i'm living on it and still have money sitting in my bank yeah okay i mean if that makes you happy i'm not going to change it no i'm happy doing i just want to know if i'm if that's really the right thing to do for me it sounds like it is because it's what makes you happy yeah so i'm not i mean very comfortable you know if it was me and uh you know i'm 62

i've got my uh money in excess of an emergency fund uh if i had that extra hundred thousand i'm i am investing it into some good mutual funds that have a long stable track record um because i'm not scared of the market, and that would not cause me to lay awake at night. But it sounds to me like that that would cause you to lay awake at night, so you shouldn't do it. Well, it would because you see everything going up and down, up and down, and all the predictions of we're going to have a crash and all this, you know.

Wait a minute. I could go on and on. You and I are old enough that we've heard that every year our entire life. Yes. And it never happened. Well, I believe what you're saying, but I'm one of these kinds that knows that it can. There's always there.

Well, your bank can go broke. Well, yeah. And that's another thing I have a question is my money, the $100,000 or more, is in a money market, choice money market. Now, if the banks go broke, or I know it's federally insured. Or is it with a bank? Well, actually, it's with a savings credit union. Okay, so they've got NCUA.

So, yeah. That's it. I never get those. You've got insurance on the money if the credit union goes belly up. And then the government would have to go belly up, which is possible, too. Oh, yeah, the way they act. And then you would not get your money. And so that you know that's

your absolute worst case scenario now and if you invest the money uh it could go up and down up and down up and down uh but likely you know there's no track record of it disappearing either so but i i i'm not gonna push on it i mean uh paula this is making you happy yeah and you're saving i just want to be sure i'm kind of doing the right thing because like i said i put back well it's costing it's costing you about ten thousand dollars a year it's costing me ten thousand a year yeah if it was invested you'd be making about a ten percent rate of return on average in good mutual funds and on a hundred thousand that's ten thousand dollars a year so you're missing out on about ten thousand dollars a year but you know it sounds to me like it sounds

to me like that's an insurance policy causes you to sleep and i'm not going to argue with you about it well that's that's what i wanted to know then you know that's all i need to know that i'm kind of okay with where i'm at then you're not going to go broke you're more than okay paul you couldn't do something dumb with money if you tried. I just don't think she's got it in her, Dave. She's so wise. Well, I mean, the thing is this. Now, let's just back up and talk about it.

Number one, that's her situation. I don't think in one radio conversation I'm going to cause her to have peace with investing. But I will challenge all of you out there to the tune of ten thousand dollars a year to me that means it's time for me to learn something and um now when she bought her home house prices go up and down she did not get a guarantee from the federal government or the ncua her house price could go down to more. But she's not concerned about that. You know why? Most of us, when we buy a home, we don't think about the fact that it's not federally guaranteed. The reason is track record. Track record matters.

It does. And we were just going through this, all the Ramsey personalities, walking through it with you in a room. And we were looking at this crazy, awesome poster, essentially, that they opened up wide and they showed the history of the stock market. And they showed how it did before and after some of the biggest events in American history, when you would think it would create a lot of fear and instability, and it did short term, but then it always came back. And I think that was one of the most powerful illustrations I'd ever seen on what you teach and what you have been teaching. Well, and track record is a thing.

Why are you comfortable buying a home with no guarantee? No federally insured guarantee, right? Because homes, if you got walking around since, have generally gone up over the scope of your life. I mean, first house I sold when I was 18 years old was $42,250 to a kid from my high school. Now, that kid wasn't smart. He bought a house from an 18-year-old. But anyway, yeah, but I, and, you know, turned out to be a really smart idea because that house today would probably be $350,000, $400,000, right? Sure. But that's a long time ago. But I mean,

we've all got walking around since we can look and say, okay, the track record of real estate is I'm not going to lose all my money. It might have a little bump in the road or two, but I'm not going to lose all my money. And if you actually look at the stock market, you know, with good mutual fund investing, good diversified investing, you're not going to lose all your money. There's going to be some bumps in the road, and you're going to make money. Now, that's the truth, but you need to get comfortable with that track record and that history. Like you did that piece of real estate. And then you can sleep at night. Never invest because Dave Ramsey said to always invest. Never invest because anybody said to, except you, you need to get comfortable with it. You need to understand what you're putting money in.

And then when you understand that history, I got a lot of peace about putting money in the market. No trouble with it for me at all. thank you to our audience you're apparently telling other people that we're here thank you our numbers are going up in every format from YouTube to podcast to radio. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate that. We know it didn't come from anywhere but you because we do not spend $300 million on marketing like SoFi. Instead, we just actually help people instead of screwing them. And then you go tell other people. So thank you for that. If you're new, you're one of those new people coming around.

You're trying to figure out all this lingo around the Ramsey thing, where are the baby steps and debt snowballs and all this stuff. You can go to RamseySolutions.com and click on the Get Started button. We'll help you figure out the next best step in your financial journey. It's completely free to do that. And we'll walk you through. And what's become famous around Ramsey was because many, many years ago, decades ago, people came to me and they said we'll walk you through. And what's become famous around Ramsey was because many, many years ago, decades ago, people came to me and they said, what do you do first? Do you do retirement first, or do I do kids' college first? That's very important. Do I have an emergency fund first? That's really important. I need to get rid of this stupid credit card debt. It's 22%.

That's very important. Where do I start? And what we did at the time many years ago was we laid it out and then we adjusted it a couple of times in the early days. We only adjusted it in 25 years, but we laid out what to do first, what to do second. And we call them the baby steps. Cause if you eat an, if you want to eat an elephant, you do it a bite at a time. So if you want to get control of your money, you do it a step at a time, baby steps, baby step one is you save a thousand dollars quickly, little starter emergency fund. Once you've done that, and some of you just have that money, you just name it that just now, you've already did. Baby step one, you just reset that money in your mind over to the side. That's baby step one.

Baby step two is you pay off all of your debt except your home using the debt snowball. The debt snowball is where you list your debts smallest to largest pay minimum payments on everything but the little one you attack the little one with a vengeance you're not going on vacation you're in debt you're broke you're not going out to eat you're in debt you're broke you work all the time you're in debt you're broke there's a great place to go when you're broke to work okay this is what you do and you bust your butt and it's scorched earth no lifestyle no nothing you sell so much stuff the kids think they're next you name the dog ebay and the cat craigslist everything's going out the door we're getting this mess cleaned up we're sick and tired of being sick and tired. People that do it with that

intensity get out of debt in an average of about 18 to 24 months. Now, average means that some of you have half a million dollars in student loan debt like Jay did, took her seven years, okay? And then average means some of you have $5,000 in debt and $10,000 in your bank account when you heard me rant and you just went and paid it off. you're debt free took you 13 seconds okay but the average is 18 to 24 months then when you finish that with the same level of intensity you continue we call this gazelle intensity the gazelle running from the cheetah for its life when you get out of debt you finish baby step three with the gazelle intensity and that's three to six months of expenses then we turn off the intensity and we move from intensity to intentionality and we do

baby steps four five and six simultaneously that's 15 of your income going into retirement that's what's going to make you a baby steps millionaire in about 12 years following this plan you're going to put money into kids college if that's applicable and you didn't sell them off number baby step six is any other money we can find in the budget we're going to throw at the house and the average person paying off their house following these baby steps is doing it we've been doing this for 30 years is doing it in about in about 10.2 years in our baby steps millionaires study we did of millionaires some of of them had followed our stuff. Some of them hadn't. They were doing it in about 11 years. Wow.

But the point is there's an intensity for that first three steps to get out of debt and get your emergency fund in place because until you do that, you're broke. And you're walking around in a culture strutting around like you got some money. You got no money. Shut up. You're broke. Quit acting like you got some money you got no money shut up you're broke quit acting like you're something you're broke and this putting on the crap has got to stop and jade you've been hearing this thing in baby step two where people are struggling with motivation yeah you know i get it all the time dave they go in my in my dms direct message even in our financial peace

university class i get the same question, which is, Jade, you guys did this for seven and a half to eight years. How do you stay motivated? And, you know, at first, Dave, I would kind of give like the nice answer, like, well, you gotta connect to your why and all of this. And I really got to thinking about it. I was talking to Sam about it.

And the more people ask me, it kind of frustrates me because there's got to be no other option y'all don't get jade frustrated okay there's a bad idea when Sam and I were getting out of debt there was no option to not do it it it's a must I have to my life will never be what I need it to be what it should be what God wants it to be if I don't do this. So this idea that, well, maybe I'll do it and maybe I won't, that cannot exist. It's not an intellectual exercise. It's not an exercise. You've got to... It's an emotional, visceral decision. Yes, I must. And nobody can do that for you. You listen to this show or you come to a live event

and we'll light that match for you, but you've got to like stoke your own flame. My buddy Lucas did a talk about this. He said you could be a spark or you can be a flame. And you can tell the difference by when the wind blows. If you're a spark, the wind blows, immediately you go out just like that. But if you're a flame, when the blows you get you get bigger you get more aggressive you get larger and more fierce and and if you're talking to me and you're asking me how can i stay more motivated i'm sorry to tell you you're a spark you're just you're just a little

fluttering spark and you've got to do what it takes just called you people name she called you a little spark you're just a little spark wim spark. And the moment the wind blows, man, the minute you have to dip into your emergency fund, the minute something happens, you're ready to go, well, I don't know if I want to do it. I don't know if it's worth it to me. I tried that Ramsey stuff. It doesn't work. What do you mean? What do you mean you don't know if it's worth it to you?

Do you want to change your life or not? It's that simple. If you're waiting to feel motivated you will be waiting forever because that is completely mythological motivation is not an external substance no it doesn't come from out there to take you in here yeah and you know one of the things i've kind of run into this over the years me teaching it to the same frustration blake thompson our old producer he now runs all of ramsey networks yeah he used to do these comedy bits and he created this comedy bit that we would play on the air called detenol and it was a pill you could take that would get

you out of debt if you just took this pill you'd be out of debt and that's what everybody's looking for they're looking for a magic pill you know i was wandering in the vitamin aisle and i ran into my one of my pastor friends who's kind of loud, and he yells down the aisle, Ramsey, there's no pill on there that's going to help you. You've got to eat less. So good. It's so true. Y'all want the magic pill that's going to magically make this easy.

It ain't going to be easy. It doesn't exist. Let me tell you what easy is. Easy is when you finish. Easy is when you finish. It gets easier. But let me tell you this. I mean, there's the other side of that where people go, man, this is hard, right?

Paying off debt is hard. Well, learn to do hard. Working is hard. You wuss, learn to do hard. But can I just say, it's also, what is also hard is not being able to afford groceries. Man, that's hard. That's hard. When you look up and you don't have the money to take care of your kids, you don't have

the money to spend the gas to go visit a loved one in the hospital. I'm talking about myself. That was hard. That's hard to stomach because that reflects back on you and you go, oh, my God, I've been an idiot with money. And in comparison, just saying in comparison, it's easier to sacrifice to win so that you don't have to endure those other things. You live like no one else so that later you can't have to endure those other things. You live like no one else so that later you can live and give like no one else. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, the Bible says,

but it yields a harvest of righteousness. Listen, you're going to pay a price. You're going to pay a price. You're either going to pay a price of mediocrity throughout the whole scope of your life and your life's going to suck perpetually. Yeah, because the time's going to pass regardless. You're still waiting on the government to fix your life that's humorous and you know so you're either going to live a life of mediocrity because you have but do stuff or you're going to pay a price for a short period of time and you're going to light yourself on fire and be a flame not a spark i love that

it's a good line i like this and a lot of you are going to look up you know dave said the stats on getting through baby step two most people who get through baby step one through three, it's two and a half to three years. That sounds a lot like a lot when you just say it. But man, that is just a drop in the bucket over time. And some of you who've been kicking your student loan can down the road for three years, you could have been done and finished. You could have been done. And let me tell you something. I think she just was shamed you.

When this thing kicks back up, you are going to regret it. Start today. Yeah. Start today. So where does it come from? It comes in believing the best way to live your life

is free and it's worth paying the price to get there. That'll give you the motivation. Sure will. I want to change my family tree. I want to look in my kids' eyes and have a different set of values. A godly man leaves an inheritance to his children's tree. I want to look at my kids' eyes and have a different set of values. A godly man leaves an inheritance to his children's children. Amen. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today.

Thank you for joining us hey you guys can help us and a bunch of you have been we appreciate you we know you have been because our numbers are going up substantially on podcast on youtube and on radio and we appreciate that so here's how you can help we don't spend like eight bazillion dollars on marketing you guys are our marketing you tell other people and that's about the only thing we got. We don't have any stadiums named after us like SoFi. Excuse me, I'm sneezing. But, yeah, we don't do any of that kind of stuff.

And so if you want to help us, subscribe to the show. If you're a podcast or YouTube consumer, we appreciate that. You can leave a five-star review. One stars don't help. Mama said if you ain't got nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all. Five stars all we need. Thank you very much. Move on if you don't like it.

It's okay. And what's the other thing you can do? Oh, you can share the show, and that means you tell people some method or another how you're consuming the show. We're watching it on TBN. We're listening on our local radio station there's 680 of them that carry us in the nation by the way uh there's uh we you know you got an actual share button on podcasts and on youtube so share it subscribe and leave a review you'll help us out a bunch john the questions for human cards are officially a uh a mega hit they're part of the ramsey lexicon

now man oh i'm yeah that's that was a goal i don't even i had to look that up yeah okay so wow it's a big deal yeah so you know those moments when you're sitting next to someone and you feel a thousand miles apart um you're staring at your kids uh i my son turns 13 today so happy birthday to him but we were sitting across from each other at waffle house this morning happy birthday big hank we have uh breakfast together every tuesday there's been some of those breakfasts i'm staring across from my 12 13 year old son i don't know what to say i don't know how to say it or he says things like like, fine, good, good, fine, fine, good. Some 13-year-olds are aliens. Most of them. Most of them are. But these cards have been amazing. And so, listen, you can put your phones down, and we've substituted deep and meaningful

conversations for binge-watching Netflix, scrolling social media. You deserve better relationships. Your kids do. Your spouse do. Your grandparents do. Everybody does. That's why we created Questions for Humans, conversation starters that will help you disconnect from your screens and actually connect with real human beings. We have a deck for everyone, dating, couples, girls night, guys night, parents, kids, friends, everybody, work. And as we've talked about over and over, it's been hard to keep them in stock.

We've got them. All the decks will get you spending time laughing together, learning something unexpected, and building deeper stronger relationships pick up one two five ten all kind of packs find them at ramsey solutions.com slash humans so if you guys don't know what he's talking about with there's like a deck of cards and you just draw one out and it's got like a question like the funniest thing happened to you in college or something like that and it starts a conversation and when my daughter finds out that like i went on my daughter's favorite thing she's seven is she asked that one of the questions is what's a what's an old date that went horrible and i told her that i went on a date with somebody she's still to this day she's like what does she think about like

no matter what we're doing she thinks it's the funniest thing ever but we've been able to have you actually had a date before her mom right yeah and oh my goodness well what does she think about the house if she's shocked that you had a date before your mom everybody was shocked yes every friend i had was shocked um but it just it just created a whole new um interaction point and and again i'm embarrassed to say that uh i found myself like i'm gonna grab these cards because i'm starting to say that uh i found myself like i'm going to grab these cards because i'm starting to get disconnected from my own kids they're great and you wrote them yeah yeah i wrote them yeah but they're great man and they've flying off the shelves flying a massive massive success all right patricia is with us in fort lauderdale hi patricia how are you

i'm doing well hi dave hi john hey well we help? Okay. So I'm hoping you can help me solve a debate with my husband. Okay. We both have really good incomes between us both. There's like two 20K. We have some savings, 160K. We are debt free. We're doing 15% of growth into investment, stock investment. And we're at this point now looking for a home. You don't own a home? No, we don't. We live in a one-bedroom apartment right now. Okay.

So the house that I would like to move into is about $400 to $450. And the house my husband would like to move into is about like 400 to 450 and the house my husband would like to move into is about 250k um we see some in this area they're really small they're really ugly okay your phone's breaking up you're gonna speak directly into it you saw some in this area that what we saw some in the area that are 250k. This is my husband's range. Yeah. And they're... You make $225,000 a year.

You have $150,000 in savings? Yes. What do you guys do for a living? Oh, so I work as a software developer, and he works as a stock trader. He works as a what? A stock trader. A stock trader. I bet he does.

Okay. And, yeah, how long y'all been married three years okay all right and so he he's what 26 no he's 47 47 i'll miss that one why does he want to buy a $250,000 house? Because he's a cheapskate and he's a player. Into a multifamily home. Yeah, he's a player. He's a stock trader.

Yeah, does he always have a scheme on top of a scheme on top of a scheme? Absolutely he does. Okay, here's the thing. My advice to your husband is that you separate being a playa from where you live. Okay? P-L-A-Y-A. Yeah, from where you need to separate it from where you live because you don't play with your home. This is where you live with your animals, your

future children, and God help you, your wife. Okay? This is where you live. You don't play high-risk maximize investment games with your home. It's a

safe haven. It's a place. It happens to be a good investment but it is not a speculative we're going to make a bunch of money investment in the short term and that's how his brain works so i know this guy because i used to be him that's why i said 26 because when i was 26 i did the same thing we moved so much our furniture was trained to jump on the truck because i was a player i was always wanting to do some deal and i'm pull my poor wife around by the hair on her head and she went along with it and we've been married 40 years and she tell 40 years she now tells people we've had 33 good years of marriage she doesn't count the first seven right and that's because of stuff like

this right here so i can speak directly to him i was him when i had hair okay that's it so the uh the best thing he can do is separate relationally psychologically investment philosophy separate your home from your investment mentality it happens to also be a good investment by the way but you need to separate it out that's my advice to him and my advice to him also is happy wife happy life you guys can afford a four hundred and fifty thousand dollar house he needs to go get a four hundred fifty thousand dollar house and then he needs to do his other stuff after he gets that house paid for you win the argument hey patricia are you is he always running a scam? Does he always have a thing going?

There's always something. You've been married three years. At some point, you need to have that conversation because this will keep coming up, and it will come up in all sorts of different areas. When your parents start aging, when you've got to think about retirement facilities, it's always going to be another thing. You have to sit down, and like Dave said, you've got to be really clear and intentional about boundaries we joke about it now at our house patricia but when i'll start working on something if sharon smells that she looks at me and she says you're scheming and scamming

and meaning i'm trying to i'm trying to use my intellect my mathematical skills to out finagle reality and that's what she's telling me you hear me in other words i'm violating common sense here because i'm starting to just go off in some little corner of something with some math riddle and figure out a way that i can maximize something that wasn't intended to be maximized like the place you live or to get what you want right yeah yeah so if he wants to do fixes and, he should do that with cash after your personal residence is paid for and is a sufficient resident. You've been living three years in a one-bedroom apartment. You make a quarter of a million dollars a year.

You've already sacrificed. Time to get a nice house. 15-year fixed or the payment's no more than a fourth of your take-home pay. This is The Ramsey Show. our scripture of the day matthew 12 36 and i tell you this you must give an account on judgment day for every idle word you speak i don't even want to think about that one after doing all these hours of talk radio oh my lord give me grace jesus oh is it better to offer no excuse than a bad one george washington interesting you know dave i think you could be one of those bible readers on the bible app one

of the voices you know you've got like morgan freeman the hillbilly version james earl jones the dave ramsey version the uh hillbilly redneck version of the bible that's the one i would do i'd like to take a poll on that yeah i'm i'm up for it i can do it yeah like read the whole sounds like a lot of work don't don't sign me up for something here. What are you with? Are you some publisher or something? I'm just curious. Some people might like it.

Yeah. All right. Aiden is with us in St. Louis. Aiden, get me out of this. How can we help? Doing all right. How's it going? Better than I deserve, man.

How can we help? Yeah. So, um, I took a weekend trip to Texas and I messed up and bought a car while I was there. Were you drinking? No, I just saw the car before I went down there, and it's my dream car, and I just messed up and ended up doing it now. I can't get the thought out of my head that I could be using that money for a down payment on a house. What car was it, and how much did it cost you?

The car was $20,000 and it's a 2013 Nissan 370Z. What's the payment on that? My total payment works out to around $450 a month. Okay. And what were you driving before uh a 2002 honda accord with 275 000 miles and it's broken on me like four times in the past two months how'd you get to texas um i just went with my buddy okay so you still got the accord. How old are you? 19. Okay. And what's your question, sir? Just don't, I just don't know if I should keep the car and deal with it because I, and pay the

taxes, you say, because I know I messed up or or what to do from here because I can afford the payment. And between me and my fiance, we make enough money where it's not exactly a big financial strain on us, but I just can't shake that idea of the down payment on a house. There's not an us. You're not married. Yeah, well, so we get married in a month from now. Oh, okay. So you just saddled her with a car payment instead of a house. Yeah. on us you're not married yeah well so we get married uh in a month from now oh okay so you

just saddled her with a car payment instead of a house yeah i bet she's happy she kind of told me she thought that i deserve to have something at least kind of nice but she said she's gonna we're gonna work as it on it as a team together what your income now, and what's your income going to be when you're married? So my income now is about $3,500 a month through my night job, and then I just got my real estate license at the end of last year. And then she makes around $3,000 a month, and so it'll be around $6,500 a month without anything from real estate. Okay. around 6,500 bucks a month without real, without anything from real estate.

Um, Wow. Can I ask what other debt you have in between with her as well? Neither of us have any other debt other than this. I've got, um, I personally, I have, um, a little bit of cash, about around three, three months worth of expenses. I've got 6, personally, I have a little bit of cash, around three months' worth of expenses. I've got $6,000 in a Roth, $2,500 in mutual funds, and this is like my first ever mess-up, essentially. And then she has around $20,000 cash with no investment.

Okay. I want you to tell her I said this, okay? Okay. You don't deserve the car. She's wrong. If you deserved it, you would have had the money to pay for it you don't deserve 450 car payments you're not that bad a guy yeah you don't deserve hell okay so i'm not gonna you know no you, you're deserve something when you have saved the money and you pay for it until then. You don't deserve it. That was a that's a childish statement.

And if you if you repeat that statement over and over, you're going to be broke your whole life. Yeah. I deserve it. No, that's McDonald's. I deserve a break today. You deserve a Big Mac. that's McDonald's. I deserve a break today. You're going to deserve a Big Mac. That's the best you can do. Seriously.

So what would I do if I woke up in your shoes is I would sell the car because you have cost your family the down payment and I would get rid of it. And you made a mistake. You impulsed and you made a mistake, you impulsed, and you made a... And the other thing, Aiden, that I do when I pay stupid taxes, I want to do an autopsy, a CSI on the situation and go, okay, what was going on that allowed me to be this stupid? Was it your buddy with you? I think I was just with my friends and i just really wanted i just wanted a nicer car because my car you know what process is going on

in your life what process is going on in your spirit in your intellect in your decision making paradigm that allows you to make this bad decision you know you want to know that so you don't do it again right yeah because i think it's if you impulse twenty thousand dollar items and your fiance says you deserve it you're you're gonna be broke your whole life man and so the bad news is you made a mistake the good news is you're only 19 and you have the whole rest of your life to never impulse a car again yeah you might do some other dumb things but let's take that one off the table this is the last time you're going to do this one check never do that one again because it's going to cost you some money by the time you get out of it you're probably not even going to get out of it without writing a check right and so it's going to set you back but i i

wouldn't i would get rid of it because of how it occurred. Well, he's never going to be able to enjoy the car because of the way he feels about how he purchased it. It's always going to be that burden to him. It feels like he's got a financial hangover. Right, yeah. Yeah, I'd sell it too. I mean, numbers-wise, they could probably make it work, but I think it's a principle here,

and honestly, it's how they're setting their marriage off, and that's not the foot I'd want to set it off I I think I'm admitting that what I did was a bad idea by getting rid of it I think by keeping it in some way you're endorsing this saying some portion of the decision was a good decision. Right, right. And honestly, none of it was. Yeah. So I think it's not really about the car and it's not even about $20,000 with their $80,000 income. It's more about I've got to make sure my brain never works this way again because it didn't work well when I was doing this. And you're the sum of the people you hang around. I just want to throw that out there.

It sounded like whoever he was with had an influence on him being an idiot. Yeah. Because. Listen, if you run around with your drinking buddies, you're going to have a drinking problem. Heck yeah. This is how it works. I mean, you become who you hang around with.

That's right. So you just got to watch this stuff. It's, yeah, I want to be hard not on you, Aiden, because you made a mistake that almost everyone in America has made at one time or another in their lives. But I do want to be very, very hard on the actual event. I want to be very hard on the way your brain was working during that event so that you don't repeat. Right. And you don't have to live with this kind of pain that, you know, when Sharon and I went broke, Aiden, and we lost everything, we were 28 years old and we had a

brand new baby and a toddler and a marriage hanging on by a thread. One of the benefits of having gone broke at that age and lost a million dollar net worth lost four million dollars worth of real estate is i got the opportunity to repeatedly do what you're doing or what i'm asking you to do and that's do an autopsy on my stupidity you know okay what killed the patient why did he die you know is it what's the comorbidity i mean we know it was covid but what's the comorbidity right so comorbidity it had to be covid it's everything's covid but we you know but he but it's a never mind the fact he got ran over by a car when he had covid that but he died of covid you know but let's really get to looking at what really really happened here with the patient why did the patient

expire why did i make this stupid butt decision? And I had to unpack that. And I spent actually a year or more unpacking that so that I never went back again. Right. And thus was born what we teach every day. I love that. So there you go. Go through the process, people. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it.

In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Hey, what's up, guys? It's Jade. Look, if you like what you heard in this episode and want to know more about getting started on the Ramsey baby steps, go to ramseysolutions.com and click the get started button. We'll help you figure out the best next step for you based on your specific situation. That's ramseysolutions.com and click get started.