The Ramsey Show - App - Rachel Cruze Shares How You Can Spend Less This Christmas (Hour 1)

Episode Date: November 21, 2018

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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. Happy Thanksgiving Eve to you. We're glad you are with us. The original Thanksgiving proclamation by the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, October 3rd, 1863. And see if you don't wish we had modern presidents that thought this way, spoke this way, and believed this way. The proclamation. The year that is drawing towards its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. By the way, this is in the middle of the Civil War. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come others have been added which are so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail

to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of almighty god in the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, and the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theater of military conflict. While that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the

national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship, the axes enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that we should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience

commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, and tranquility and union. In testimony whereof I have heretofore set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed, done this at the city of Washington, this third day of October in the year of our Lord, 1863.

And the independence of the United States, the 88th president. By the president, Abraham Lincoln. You just don't have people in the public eye much anymore saying God's in charge. And the blessings come from him. I mean, we don't use language like that and it's kind of a shame because it's just beautiful language. It was actually written by Seward, his Secretary of State, and they were frenemies their whole lives. They were at each other's throat most of the time. They respected each other, but they both stood on different sides of a lot of things.

But just fabulous language. But the whole idea that the leader of this nation would cause everyone, Republican or Democrat leader, as if we've seen one of those in a while, would cause everybody to just stop and go, yeah, all the good stuff that's happening is God's fault. In spite of how screwed up we are, he's continued to bless us. That's what Thanksgiving is. So we have a cheesy tradition around here, and since it's my show, I get to choose the traditions,

that on the eve of Thanksgiving, when you call in, we're going to answer your questions and talk and do the normal Dave Ramsey show in that sense, but you have to tell us what you're thankful for. And that's your ticket onto the show today. Because if you hadn't stopped and realized that no matter what's going on, there's something going on that you can count as a blessing, something that you can count as a blessing, something that you can count as something to be thankful for.

I would wager to say that every single one of us have something in our lives we wish we could remove, some kind of pain, some kind of a problem, and some of them are huge and overwhelming. But every one of us got something going on. But every one of us got something going on that's good, too. And that's what this is about. Sometimes it's good to remember that the glass is really half full. Or maybe it's a quarter full, but it's filling up.

That's what we're doing. So what are you thankful for today? What is driving you to this? And if Abraham Lincoln is the father of Thanksgiving, then you know William Bradford I, the governor, the leader of the pilgrims. His original proclamation with a lot of ye's and these in it. Almost Shakespearean sounding with the old English language is probably the original proclamation. But this one I just read is when it became an official U.S. holiday, a federal holiday. Washington, George Washington in 1789 actually celebrated Thanksgiving in the William Bradford tradition.

And it's a shame that too many of our young people don't even know why the pilgrims came here. You remember? It's freedom of religion. They didn't want the Church of England telling them how they could worship and what they could worship and what their doctrinal stance could be. The Church of England was oddly enough heavy handed to say the least religious persecution that's why the pilgrims came

go figure now we forget that I think forget that that's the in the very very very very beginnings of the foundations of this nation. It was about that. Yep.

Well, what are you thankful for today? We're going to find out as we take your calls right here on the Dave Ramsey Show. Are high health care costs getting you down? Are you confused trying to navigate your options? Do you wish you could find an affordable affordable biblical solution to your health care costs? Based on New Testament principles, Christian Health Care Ministries, or CHM, helps Christian families, churches, and ministries join together as the body of Christ to share their major health care costs. Christian Health Care Ministries is the original health cost-sharing ministry, a Better Business Bureau-accred organization, CHM members share to pay each other's medical bills. It's not insurance. It's Christians financially and spiritually

supporting each other. It's what Christian Healthcare Ministries has done for over 35 years, and our members have shared over $2.5 billion in medical bills. To learn more, visit chministries.org. That's chministries.org. Christian Healthcare Ministries is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Live Events. chministries.org. Coming up, bottom of the hour, Ramsey personality Rachel Cruz will be with us to talk about holiday spending. And we invite you to be with us if you've got questions regarding holiday spending, Christmas spending. Then you can call in. Phone number is 888-825-5225 in the lobby of

ramsey solution solutions josh and amanda are with us hey guys how are you hey dave we're doing good good welcome so where do you guys live we live in san diego oh very cool so what are you thankful for today we're thankful that we get to have our first debt-free vacation and spend time with our family. Love it. Very good. And so here to do a debt-free scream. We are. And how much have you paid off?

Paid off a little over $133,000. Very good. And how long did this take? Three years, seven months. Yeah. Okay. Very cool. And your range of income during that time?

It was $110,000 to $165,000. Nice job. What do you all do for a living? We're both in IT. Yep. So I work in cybersecurity, and Josh is a systems analyst. Okay. Very good.

Good field, yeah? Yeah. Excellent. So what kind of debt was this $133,000? A little bit of everything. It was everything. Credit cards, cars, student loans, just about everything. You're just kind of normal.

Yep. Just a little bit of all kinds of American debt, right? Yep. Love it. All right. So what happened three years and seven months ago that made you decide to attack this and get rid of it? So at the time we were dating, and I was in my grace period of my student loans, and I was looking at the payment that I had for my car and my student loans that were coming into repayment, and I wasn't going to be able to afford it.

I didn't get that big fat raise that you think that you're going to get whenever you graduate. So I had to make a plan and clean up my debt. And then I jumped on board about a year into Amanda's debt-free journey. Okay, so Amanda gets real serious while you're dating, and she kind of inspires you. And how long have you two been married, actually? Two and a half years. Oh, okay. All right.

So three years and seven months of that, two and a half, you're doing it together. Yes. Very good. Very cool. So what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? You paid off $133,000. I really think it's the budget, because unless you're telling all of your money where to go, you're just going to spend it.

And then the discipline, right? Stick to the budget. It's going to work. It works. You just have to stick to it. So you guys started your marriage this way. I mean, you don't know anything else, really. Yeah.

Except working on a plan together and knocking out debt. But now you're free. I mean, you've got this weight off of you. We do. How does it feel? It feels great. It's amazing. I mean, we just paid cash to come out here, visit family, and do our debt-free stream.

That's so fun. Very, very cool. Well, congratulations. So what was the biggest budget fight that you had while you were doing this? I don't know. What's a budget? I don't know if we should talk a lot about the budget. Are you arguing over somebody spending something or somebody wanting to spend something or whatever.

What was it? I don't think we really fought about the budget a whole lot. He wanted an ice cream maker. An ice cream maker. That was the fight. Oh, that's the biggest one you got. You got a pretty low bar. Okay.

Ice cream maker fight's not a big fight. Okay. Good. Well, good for you guys. Very fun. Congratulations. Thank you. Who was your biggest cheerleader other than each other?

I would say the debt-free community on Instagram. There's so many people out there who are doing the same journey as us, sharing their stuff, and they've been our biggest cheerleaders. Yeah, I love it. Very cool. Well, they're all over, that's for sure. We're so proud of you guys. Well done. So got a copy of chris hogan's book for you retire inspired we want that to be your next chapter close the debt chapter open the wealth chapter and the next

one's become everyday millionaires right and outrageously generous as you go along. So very, very well done. Congratulations. Thank you. All right. It's Josh and Amanda from San Diego. $134,000 paid off in three years and seven months. $110,000 to $165,000 household income. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt free. Love it. Well done. Man, absolutely amazing.

Jacob is with us in Redding, California. Hey, Jacob, what are you thankful for? Hi, Dave. I think I'm thankful for my wife she's been a just a great partner in both financial peace and just life in general amen how can i help today so i um so i live in reading and you've probably heard of the uh the wildfires that we had a few few months ago sure um and thankfully there's another thing i'm thankful for. Our house is fine. We rent a house on kind of the other side of the city. Um, but with, with the Redding fires and then there's this fires in paradise, which is only about 70 miles away, that's something like, like 12,000 structures in this North state

area that have been wiped out for houses, um, for family housing anyway. And I'm just wondering, should I be concerned that housing prices are going to skyrocket? We're on baby step 3B, so we have a small down payment, but it's not enough to be Dave approved, let's put it that way. They usually go up, like when a hurricane hits and, um, you know, an area of Florida or Texas loses a chunk of housing and, or, or, you know, like Houston got that huge flood a couple of years ago with that. And, um, so, you know, there's all of that. And usually the house prices go up after that because there's just, it's just, you're right.

It's a supply demand thing. The supply went down by 12,000 units. It's just devastating, man. It's hard to emotionally grasp that many families losing their homes. But that's what's going on. You're exactly right. And so when that happens and there's more people chasing fewer products, whatever it is, the simple supply-demand curve, it does drive prices up. And it's not that anybody's gouging anybody.

It's just people will pay more because there's a shortage is what it amounts to. Now, the good news is that does level out. That usually doesn't last that long, maybe 24 months, maybe 36 months, depending on the area and exactly what's going on and how fast people build and that kind of thing, how fast the builders get in gear. Because the thing that follows is a building boom, right, too. So, I mean, you've got a lot of vacant lots and a real opportunity for people in the construction business to visit one of these areas and serve their fellow man by applying their trade, building property, building houses.

So anyway, I don't think it's a permanent thing, so I don't think it's anything to panic about. And truthfully, you know, you probably don't have very long before you're going to see that spike. Because these families today don't have a place to live. And they're starting to get insurance checks pretty quick here. And so they're going to be in the market. It won't be long before you see some of these bumps in the area. And, again, it can be dramatic. It has everything to do with the total size of the population,

what percentage of the population has a housing issue now and that kind of thing. 12,000 units is a lot of units, though. That's a lot. There were that many easily, though, that lost homes in some of these hurricanes that have come through in the last decade or two that I've been doing this. So it can get there, too. I'm so sorry your friends and neighbors are facing that, though.

It's a horrible thing. We're probably going to do a little bit of a show on that next week and talk about what to do when you're in a disaster area. We've always done that when the hurricanes hit or other things. But these Paradise fires, campfires, they're crazy where it's gotten to. And we spent some time not long ago. When we were doing the San Francisco event, we spent the next weekend in Napa, and Napa had the fires last year, of course.

And they're telling us the stories of what happened there. I don't know that they necessarily came up with some kind of a shortage of housing there. It wasn't, the housing loss wasn't as severe, but it just, I mean, it tainted some of the great production and that kind of thing with the smoke smell. But anyway, we'll talk about that a little bit more next week and get into it a little deeper. But I'm sorry you guys are facing that. Yeah, I wouldn't panic because it's not a permanent thing where it skyrockets and never returns to be within reach.

But usually there is an abnormal jump in pricing because of simple supply-demand stuff in the months and weeks following. So, hey, thank you for the call. And again, our prayers are with you guys in California. This is really, really rough times right now. That's a tough thing. A fire is just devastating. It's emotionally devastating. Coming up next, Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, and my daughter are going to join us to talk about holiday spending, Christmas spending.

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Go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. Do not wait until it's too late and you have to go through this nightmare on your own. Go to Zander.com. So earlier today I handed my assistant a Christmas card that came in the mail. And she said, that was just 20 minutes ago that we had Christmas. And now it's here again. And it's going to be here in, like, oh, just a handful of days. I mean, it's like 34 days or something, and Christmas is here. And, wow.

Rachel Cruz joins us this hour, this half hour, answering your questions about Christmas spending, Christmas budgeting, things to watch for. If you have a question in that regard, call us right now. The phone number is 888-825-5225. This is an opportunity for retailers and a problem for regular people. That's a good way of putting it. Yeah, well, it's hard because coming up here in a few days

is Black Friday, Cyber Monday, where there are deals going on, there are sales, but just the overall emotion around Christmas, specifically with gifts and buying and shopping, it is, it's unbelievable. And every year, it's kind of the same conversation

we have over and over again. But the stats are still out there that on average average people go into go into debt up to a thousand dollars for christmas and as a parent i like i it makes me laugh because i'm like honestly half the toys and no offense half the toys even you and mom bought the girls we've ended up throwing away because you just you know there's stuff everywhere you know you're cleaning out stuff and i man, and I have thought multiple times, if we had gone into debt for this stuff, you would have thrown away things and still been paying for them. So it's just, we get crazy this time of year. And so there's just a couple of things to remember out there. You guys, when you're shopping, first and foremost, just like you preach here on the show,

stay away from credit cards. Don't fall for signing up for them because now the retailers are doing an even better job saying, oh, it's not just 10% off. Now they're going up to 20% off, right? Like all the percentages of what you can do when you sign up for the credit card and what you can take off of the purchase. I mean, all of the above. They're out there. They're ready to hand you that application.

There's no free lunch. If they're knocking 10% off or 20% off, it's because they're making it up on you. Well, and honestly, most of these places, they have like 40% off sales like every other week. So just wait and buy stuff when you get more. Versus the credit card. And there was a study that came out, and it said that people can spend up to 83% more when they're using plastic. And I know we always say that, but I read that. That was the highest percentage I had ever seen.

So it is. It's so non-emotional when you're using your credit card. And so stop and use cash. And it is amazing when it's emotional and you're holding on to it and you have to let go. And there's an exchange that happens when you pay with cash. You have to let go of something in order to gain something else. And even just that, going that through your psychology, you know, through your psyche, it's amazing what that does to your spending habits. And it allows you to keep more of your money. And so that's, first and foremost,

just stay away from the credit cards. Well, and, you know, the typical percentage we see on credit card spending is, it depends on the category. It varies dramatically. Sure. The less expensive it is, the more it increases the spending. The more expensive it is, the more it increases the spending. The more expensive it is, the more it won't.

But average across the board is usually 12% to 18% increase in spend when you use plastic versus cash. Because cash, as you said, activates the pain centers of the brain. But what happens with this 83% number is it's the season. And the season is impulse city. And there's a level of frustration like i want to get this over with and get out of this mob i mean very few people enjoy the mob aspect of it right being in the middle of nine million people you know there's some people get energy out of that for a little while but most people after an hour or two of that, are done. Right. And so it starts to be throwing chunking stuff in the buggy. Just to get it over with.

Yeah, and your spending goes way up. And mix in some toxic family chemistry, where you're guilt-tripped to buy something for your mother, who's a travel agent for guilt trips or whatever, I don't know, or for the nieces and nephews that you see once every decade. I don't know. Whatever it is. But mix that in there, and there's this level of angst, and it's almost like I feel guilty because I should be joyous. But it just turned into this frustrating task for a lot of people.

But like you said. And it drives impulse spinning through the roof. Oh, absolutely. And I think it's because other people's expectations are driving your life. And that's what I find with a lot of people, I know. And it is so disheartening because sometimes you do get to January and you look back and you're like, What just happened? We didn't even enjoy it.

And so taking time and having a plan and enjoying it. And part of that, as I always tell people as well, is to make sure that not every good deal is a good deal for you. So there are going to be all these great deals, which I'm planning on shopping on Black Friday online. I did all, you know, I bought every Christmas gift last year online. It came right to my door. I never left my house. I can't believe it. If I had a Christmas gift, it was really amazing.

You are just thoroughly modern Millie out there. But there are, thank you. But there are going to be some great deals. And so those aren't bad. But if you don't have a plan, then they can turn bad because it's the idea of, oh, it's a sale. So I'm saving money. So I might as well go and spend and buy. So just remember, just because it's a deal doesn't mean it's a good deal for you.

So having a plan is key. So we're doing something new, which is fun. We have a Christmas budget this year sponsored by EveryDollar. So if you haven't done a Christmas budget, this is a great thing to do. So what you have to do is text CHRISTMAS to 33789. 33789. Text CHRISTMAS to that number, and you'll get a free Christmas budget, which is so fun. Yeah, one of the benefits of having done this radio show and achieved a level of celebrity

is I've gotten to meet some really famous people. And I know Santa Claus personally. And what I discovered in talking to him. My daughter's in the booth right now. She has no clue what's happening. Well, Papa Dave knows Santa Claus. He doesn't know Santa Claus. But he has a rule.

He says, make a list, check it twice. Check it twice. And it's a good rule. It's an old rule, but it works good. I was out in L.A. earlier this a doing a show on this kind of topic and yeah and just like the common sense approach of making a list of everyone you want to spend put dollar amounts next to their names making sure that that adds up to exactly what you want to spend in total for christmas and then stick to it and stick to it and that stick to it! And that's it! You know, and everyone's like, oh, that's so smart! Whoa, where'd you come up

with that? Yeah, it's so insightful. It's so funny, I'm like, just like what you talk about on this show all the time, but it's true, it's so easy to understand, but it's so hard to do. Because I'm even guilty of that, right? You see something cute comes up, you're like, oh my gosh, we should have gotten that. But it's like, no, just stick to it, and then you don't regret it. Because again,

you're buying just crap anyways. That's what I always come back to. I'm like, this stuff is just gone in like a few months anyway. It's not going to be in style. Keep the perspective. The toy's going to break. I know. So we did Christmas. Aren't we downers?

And then I had the minimalist on my show, and I went through and hit the minimalist challenge where you like... Cleaned out your house. For like 536 items or something insane. Yeah, I went up to the playroom. I was like, we're getting rid of all this because it's just plastic stuff. And I'm like, oh, and out of it, honestly, who is the Christmas toys you and mom bought? She points at me.

Because y'all bought them a lot of gifts. She threw away Papa Dave's toys. They don't need all this stuff. I do not believe it. There was a child somewhere who needed those toys. Hey, I gave them to Goodwill. I didn't throw them away. All right, there you go.

No, no, I gave them him away but out of our house gosh well the bottom line is we do people do wake up with when you do things without a plan you overindulge and you wake up with a financial hangover and it can last all the way till may the average person pays off christmas down into may and um you know when you think about that and you say that out loud that's just dumber than a rock i mean that's just stupid you know it's just it's not there's that is so childish to run a truckload of debt up like you're in congress to enjoy the holidays to enjoy christmas which we all know christmas is not about you know buying a plastic toy it's not yes i want you to buy a plastic toy for your kid i will buy too many for the grandkids

again this year it's my spiritual gift and it is my solemn entitlement right as a grandpa i will give it away just tweet me your address no i'm kidding i, Chris. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. But, yeah, it's true. It's true. So, anyway, the Christmas budget, how do they do that again? Text Christmas to 33789. That's free. Free, yeah. A free download from every dollar of a Christmas budget to help you lay out a game plan.

And so, a couple of spending questions and Christmas budget questions coming in. If you want to join us, you can do that. Rachel Cruz is my guest this half hour as we celebrate on Thanksgiving Eve and three days from Black Friday. There we go. Phone number is 888-825-5225. Jump in. There's a line open right now. Ramsey Personality, Rachel Cruz, host of the Rachel Cruz Show on YouTube, joins me this half hour.

Number one New York Times bestselling author multiple times. Talking about holiday spending, Christmas spending, Christmas budgeting. A couple, three things she covered in the last segment. Don't use plastic. Use cash. It causes you to spend less. Sales on things that you don't want or need. A bargain on something you don't want or need is not a bargain.

It's just blowing money. Stay away from that stop the comparison game you don't need to look like you're doing someone else's christmas and you can get a free christmas budget from our friends here at every dollar our team here uh just text the word christmas to 33 789 and they will send you the free download for setting up your christmas. It makes it really, really easy. Nick is in Kalamazoo. Nick, your question about Christmas spending. Hi, Dave. Thank you for taking my call.

Sure. I definitely, like both my wife and I, have been longtime listeners. And we, you know, so much as we we cash flow just oh everything now um and what is the best way to uh you know work holiday shopping into our budget um from now until christmas because that's normally not normally not in our budget okay do you have any money saved for christmas um yeah we definitely have uh like several because we you know spend we get about like a few like 20 30 dollars per person like in our family we do not really do that but we don't normally you know buy gifts um okay but i mean the amount you're going to spend

for christmas do you have that amount saved yes we do we do. Okay. Yeah. Perfect. Just run a little separate budget. Download that budget we're talking about, and then check off the spending. And you're spending with a plan, just like you do anything else. You don't necessarily have to work it into your main budget. You can keep it as a separate side budget, and it's just Christmas spending. And then, you know, when you jump on Black Friday, you're not buying stuff for yourself. You're buying stuff to fill out your list, I guess guess rachel what would you do yeah absolutely i mean that's it yeah you take the money that you've saved for christmas you allot dollar amounts to what you want to spend it on and there you are so i'm curious nick so you do have the amount of

money saved for christmas how long have you and your wife been saving for that like when do you guys start saving for Christmas? Well, usually we start, I mean, when we come around to this, the fourth quarter, we usually are putting, we're putting like a side, like several hundred dollars per month. Yeah. We know, I mean, we have a large family, and we, so each gift isn't huge, but we want to give them, get them something. Yeah, I love that. So what is your total Christmas budget?

We are total, we are looking to have it about $400 total. That's great. About how much? $400. $400 is what you're going to spend on Christmas. Correct. I mean, that's what our goal is at the end of the year, to spend $400 on Christmas. Gotcha. And I just think a lot of people

can learn from you guys, Nick, because of how intentional you are. That's what ends up happening. It's kind of the can learn from you guys, Nick, because of how intentional you are. Because that's what ends up happening. It's kind of the joke we have. It's like Christmas is in December. Every year. December 25th.

Like it's there. They don't move it. But yeah, it's like it sneaks up on us, but we always know it's there. And it's amazing. If you just set some money aside, even starting like August, September, just a little bit, and you get down to this time, Black Friday. Oh, I was reminded, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday. There's a thing called Small Business Saturday.

And then there's a Green Monday coming up. Green? Yeah, there's a Green Monday. What does that mean? That's up in December. It's Cyber 2. Cyber Monday 2. What?

Yep. You knew something I didn't about the Internet. Hey. I'm so impressed. I'm learning about retailing is what I didn't about the Internet. Hey. I'm so impressed. I'm learning about retailing is what I'm learning about. I know. It's pretty good. Okay.

Anyways, all these things going on. There's going to be some great deals. There's going to be times that you're going to spend. You're going to be buying for Christmas. And learn from Nick. Start saving. Put some money aside per month. So when you get down to this time of the year, it's theirs.

Yeah. We have never, Sharon and i have never integrated it his question was do you integrate it into your budget and i we keep our regular budget and then we've got our holiday budget our christmas budget because i think if i if i mix them together i would spend some of that money on me yeah well in our every dollar budget we have a line item christmas with our total of what we're going to spend in general. And then out of that total, you have your side list of all the people and what their gifts are and all that. So every time a transaction comes in, we just slide into the Christmas line item in the budget.

But essentially, it's separate, sure. And so I wonder how many people do Sharon's Socialist Christmas. That's what I call it, where every kid has to get the exact same amount. So if you, whatever she spends, if she spends more on one, then you get a check for $1.27. Whatever the difference is. It's Socialist Christmas. It's all even. I think last year I got it.

It cannot be uneven. I got a check for $8.76. There you go. I was like, Mom, I'm glad they have mobile checking. I can just put it in the account, but we're fine. She's really not a socialist, but she has a tremendous fair button. Yes. It needs to be fair.

Yes. It needs to be fair. My grandmother used to do the exact same thing. Yeah. We'd get a little bit of money in an envelope, and that was the makeup over what the other grandbaby got or whatever. So funny. So funny. So make a list.

And I think the idea, too, and this app will help you do it if you just go download the, you know, text Christmas to 33789. It's a free downloadable Christmas budget. But you just make a list of people's names with a dollar amount beside each one and then if you spend you got 20 you know fran sally and you spend 22 you gotta take two dollars off somebody else because this thing's not gonna grow well it'll grow if you let it but i mean the point is to have some guardrails to have some boundaries to not go out of control with it i'll be honest the best feeling is after you've done all your shopping and you realize you didn't spend as much as you thought you would you're like oh look there's some extra money that can go into january we didn't end up spending it all that happened to us we had like 23 left

over and i was like that that's perfect feels good it's great so great touchdown that's right we did it we pulled it off but another great way to have as opposed to having this financial hangover down into may which is what most people are paying, continuing to pay off their Christmas debt. Don't let the January you hate the December you. But a part of that really is looking at a debt-free Christmas, and Financial Peace University is one of the best tools to help with that. It's something that we've been working on constantly, this whole project of FPU, and

I'm really excited about it. It's going to be great. So making sure that you check it out. If you've not gone through Financial Peace University yet, make sure you do it, because on average, people, I think this is insane, people save $2,700, and they pay off $5,300 in debt in the nine weeks. In the 90 days. The 90 days from the time they start the membership.

Yeah. And they attend the nine weeks of classes, and then they plug into EveryDollarPlus. And some of you that have been in Financial Peace University, you may want to rejoin this membership because you may want to watch some of the refreshed lessons and so forth that are coming out next year. But also, the Legacy Journey, the entire course is built into the membership. You can watch it all online. The Smart Money, Smart Kids course from Rachel, and it's primarily Rachel's, I'm involved in it,

but that course on teaching your kids how to handle money is all involved in the membership. It's all part of it. And so if you want to do some follow-up courses, plus we're also going to be putting all kinds of goodies in there, some streaming stuff, some of the events we're doing and all. You're going to have, as a member, you're going to have privileges. It's going to be pretty impressive, the stuff you get a hold of and that you can do.

Has that announcement been made about the new? The new what? Updated videos. Oh, I think I just did. Oops. Oh, well. Not all of them. We just did a few of them.

What we're going to gonna do because it's an ongoing membership we're gonna constantly refresh them from now on yes yes and so you know there's a few of them are going to be refreshed and we'll be coming out next year right and by the end of the year there'll be a few more and we're just going to constantly be adding stuff um i mean it's really exciting it really is so make sure you yeah check it out because and give it to give it as a gift to someone that, you know, needs this plan because I've been having couples on my show that are in the middle of their debt-free journey or they're in the middle of Financial Peace University.

And it is, it's just so encouraging because what you are, you're getting this wealth of knowledge maybe that you've never had. They paid off 17 credit cards. 17 credit cards. Yes. In 10 weeks. Yeah. Like so fast.

And again, and it's one of those things, it's like you just, for a lot of people, you just need that extra motivation and that extra guidance to show you, okay, this is the step by step. This is exactly what you do. And you're like, okay, let's do it. And then it works. And you start paying off debt. You start living intentionally.

It's a pretty amazing thing. And then you get in a position to be one of Chris Hogan's everyday millionaires. Yes. Yeah. But go to DaveRamsey.com. Check out Financial Peace University. Seriously, it's so great. And the more people I talk to, the more I fall in love with this product more and more

because it will help you. I promise. There you go. Well, happy Thanksgiving Eve to everyone. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, my daughter. Thanks for stopping by. Yeah. Thanks for having me.

This is the Dave Ramsey Show. 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.