The Ramsey Show - App - Should I Cut My Children Out of My Will? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: April 22, 2021

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's The Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Dr. John Deloney. Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. He's the host of the very popular Dr. John Deloney podcast. The popularity is going up and to the right. It's hockey sticking.

The numbers are amazing. So if you want to hear a really entertaining show about life and people's questions about relationships and so forth, he's there. And he's here today to help you as well. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Speaking of calls for Dr. John, Caleb's with us in Austin, Texas. Hi, Caleb. How are you? Good. Better than I deserve. How about you guys? Just the same, sir.

How can we help? Well, I'm calling on behalf of my amazing wife. Her and her mom had a falling out about three years ago. I'm sorry. Say that again. How long ago out probably about three years ago. I'm sorry, say that again. How long ago?

Probably about three years ago. Three years ago. Okay. Yeah. And it's still pretty hectic. What does that mean? What does hectic mean? It's not a good relationship.

So we had our son. He just turned nine months. Uh, they met once and the kind of the rules we have is he's not allowed at our house and my son's, our son's not allowed over there. And it's, it's, it's weighing heavy on my wife. Um, So why'd you feel the need to draw? That's, that's a hard boundary. Why do you feel the need to draw that boundary? It's just a cancerous person, I guess, to say. Be more specific. You're talking pretty vague. Be specific. Something happened that said you cannot be with my kid. What does she do that is a danger to your child? Well, just the environment.

Her boyfriend is not the best man in the world um she just she's very negative she's always heard our marriage would last and tell people we're not gonna last when my wife got pregnant said uh you know that i wasn't gonna stick around okay and we uh had a miscarriage and she just blew it off and my wife just just recently asked her if they could go to counseling and try and fix it, and she was just like, I'll think about it. And it's just, I mean, it's just, to me, my kind of view is if it's just the thought of being around someone stresses me out, I just don't even want to deal with that. That's easier said than when it's your mom.

Yeah. And your wife has a picture in her head of this new baby, and her mom's a part of that. And she had to draw boundaries for whatever reason. I still don't fully get it, but she had to draw some boundaries that doesn't include her. She's got to grieve that picture. I'm trying to understand just as a guy. I'll let John talk in a minute. So your mother-in-law's series of offenses are that she's a jerk.

Yeah. Has she done something other than just been a jerk to your wife? No, no, like physical harm. I mean, is she just like nasty and kind of mean? Yeah. Snarly. Snarly. Yeah. and kind of mean. Snarly. Snarly. And I mean, there's a lot of ethical things that have gone on with like finances and stuff

like that that I don't want to air out. Well, like she stole from your wife? Well, from her father. Okay. She's just a person of no character, right? Yes. Okay. And like, so she only will talk to my wife when her boyfriend's out of town,

and then when her boyfriend comes back, she doesn't respond to anything. So what's the challenge? Is your wife just struggling with just putting a period at the end of that relationship and moving on? Yeah, it eats her up inside. Yeah. And that's where I'm calling. And, like, I'm just trying to, you know, I guess the man in me is just like, well, you know, so long.

And for her it's harder, and I'm just trying to figure out. Yeah, it's her mom. Yeah, it's her mom. Yeah. You got to honor that. Don't get in the trap of talking bad about her mom. Get in the trap of supporting her and loving her. At some point she's going to have to make the decision.

She's going to have to put a period at the end of that sentence. Her mom's never going to do it with her because if she would, you wouldn't be in the situation in the first place. So your wife's going to have to decide to grieve this loss and then start creating a new picture

that's going to include her baby, you, and whoever else, but not mom. And your wife's going to do that on her own terms and her own time.

And that's frustrating and annoying if you're a husband who loves his wife and doesn't want to see her hurt. But anytime there's a separation from a mom like this, there's going to be hurt. It's going to be hard. Let me throw out something.

The secret to happiness is low expectations. Yeah. And so if her mother had a, I'll just make up something, I don't know, something where, let's say she had Alzheimer's. Okay? And when people get Alzheimer's, they generally either become much nicer than they used to be or much meaner than they used to be. My mother-in-law got Alzheimer's, and bless her soul, she got nicer. And kept feeding the dog until the dog got fat. I mean, it was almost humorous. And so, because she forgets she fed the dog.

Yeah. So, if you had someone like that, you would not, we were never looked at Sharon's mom when she was going through that and said, we lowered our expectations of her because she was deficit. Does that make sense? Yeah, no, that makes sense. I mean, my expectations, I don't think you can lower. Yeah, and I think your wife still has high mom expectations of a woman who can't deliver. Yeah. And so if she lowered her expectations and just said pretend like mom has alzheimer's

and she's a little nutty because she's a little nutty dude the woman you just described is like oscar the grouch yeah and she's really not got she's really not got her crap together mentally this woman doesn't but i can see the challenge between someone with alzheimer's and saying this person's got i know but i'm, but I'm saying, if you, I'm talking about his wife, if she said, instead of hoping mom is going to be all super mom. Oh, she's never going to be. I know. Instead said, let's treat her as

if she's deficit, because she is. Gotcha. And you just go, oh, that's just my crazy mother. That's just my crazy mother. That's just my crazy mother. Then you don't get all tore up about it. Because the reason the girl's getting all tore up about it is she keeps thinking mom's going to come through. She's got this picture.

Am I wrong? Yeah. But I think that having lower expectations isn't going to make her feel good. She's still going to have to grieve that thing that mom's never going to come through like that. I don't disagree with that. Yeah. But I'm saying if every one of these conversations, it's like, my mom did it again, well, what did you expect?

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If the rattlesnake's going to bite you, right? That's it. Yeah. The stinking snake bites, so don't be, when they start, you know, when that little tail starts wiggling and making that little noise, you just get back, you know?

Caleb, let me ask you this. Are you in a place, have you all backed yourselves into a corner with an either-or that was a little bit over the top, or do you feel good about it? And I'll ask you this. I know a lot of first-time parents who make these big declarations, you can't come into my home unless you've showered in Lysol and washed your hands, and by third kid, you know, the kid's walking in with a handful of dog doo and nobody cares. Have you all first kidded this situation where you've made these declarations?

My mindset is if you have to hide seeing my son, then why are we even going to be around that type of person? I don't disagree with you. Well, yeah, the bottom line is there's a lot of heartbreak for your wife. It's very hard for her. Crazy mom's just going to be crazy. You're looking at it very like, huh, that's what it is.

It's her mom. You can't take that loose. There's still that umbilical cord in the spiritual world. Be gentle with your grieving, man. I'll send you a copy of Henry Cloud's book called Boundaries. He's a friend of John's and mine, and it's a world-class book on this subject. Hold on, I'll send you a copy of it. People all over the country are discovering a faith-based and budget-friendly way

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All you got to do is text the word insurance to 33-789. Text insurance to 33 33789. Text insurance to 33789. Rodney's in Rochester, Minnesota. Hi, Rodney, how are you? Good, and yourself? Better than I deserve. What's up? Hey, just recently been listening to you.

Got a couple questions on where I'm at with my job being a union member. We have what everyone knows as a pension and we also have an annuity. And I've been in the trade for seven years now. They send us statements.

Now listening to you, I'm kind of picking apart when my statement comes on what they're investing our money into. Um, kind of break, kind of to break it down. Uh, you recommend 15%. Um, last year alone, I made a hundred and like 111,000. So a little over 15,000 a year. And the hours worked last year out of, you know, our package. They take $6.50 an hour, put it into that annuity, and I'm, you know, getting pretty close to that 15%. Now, do you count that as my 15%? Do I need to go out and start anything else because I have my pension,

which we have a great pension, and the annuity? I'm just wondering where I should go from there. And I also looked on the statements. They have things like, you know, they put some of our money into bonds, but they have like the mid cap, good girl stocks and everything you talk about. But they also give you the option on this website that we can change what we'd like. And I wonder if I find like a, you know, a smart investor pro and he gets inside my annuity, can he break that down into just strictly the mutual funds alone?

Is that something that's possible? So let me make sure I understand exactly. I think I do, but let me make sure. Your pension, of course, you're putting nothing in. They're funding that. Your annuity is coming out of your check. You are putting it in, but it's mandatory. Yes, sir.

Okay. And it amounts to almost 15%, and you have choices in there that you can do. And so that's much like a person in corporate America having a 401K. All right? And so only you have a mandatory money that you're putting in. Do they match the annuity as well, or they just do the pension? Just pension. Perfect.

Okay. Does the annuity have the option of being a Roth? I have not asked. Okay. So first thing I want to do is find out if it's a Roth, and then the next thing, you can get in touch with a SmartVestor Pro. They make their money, the SmartV the smart investor pros when they sell you a mutual fund and put it into like your roth ira or do a 401k rollover or something like that

so helping you pick your annuity over at the union makes them zero they might do it anyway as a favor because you're a dave ramsey listener so you could ask one of them they probably would do it uh just so they could help your wife or help your kids or your grandpa or whatever later, that kind of a thing. But they're not actually going to make money on that transaction. Obviously, that's a union transaction. But they might do it. So let's kind of talk through for a second, though. You said mid-cap.

I'm guessing they have mid-cap. They have small cap. They have bonds. They probably have large cap or something like that. Does that sound right? You nailed it. You bet. Okay.

Well, let's talk through and I'll explain to you what they are. And you can put percentages in each one, correct? Yes, I can. Okay. We teach people to put money in four types of mutual funds, growth, growth and income, aggressive growth, and international. And let's just have a little class here on what this stuff is because it's good for the listeners all across America to hear while I'm talking to you, okay?

So cap means capitalization. It means the money the company has. Large cap is big companies, huge, big dinosaur companies. If you were to look in that large cap fund you would see names like alcoa general motors big old honking dinosaurs that move slow and are predictable and steady okay small cap is quite the opposite it's the rowdy kids all right it's the brand new startups the tech boys some of the health care startup things. The companies haven't been around a long time.

It's going to make a lot more money but lose a lot more money. It's going to be wild child of the mix. You follow me? Yes. Because they're the small companies. They're brand-new, so they're more volatile. Or they're just rowdy, whatever. I mean, they could be in a rowdy industry, whatever. They mid-cap guess what that's goldilocks that's right in the

middle the porridge that's just right okay and so that's kind of you know that's that's like your uh home depot or mcdonald's or you know uh i don't know uh you might find Facebook in there. You might find some stuff like that. Those are big companies, but they're not old, stodgy companies. They still have some life to them. They're still kind of in the middle. It's like the young kid that's wild, the middle-ager, and the older guy kind of thing, almost, in terms of their behavior and their risk patterns. And so your large cap is much like a growth and income that I'm telling you.

Your mid cap is much like a traditional growth fund. Your small cap is much like an aggressive growth fund. Do you have anything that sounds like international or foreign? Yes, those are on there as well. They list, you know, I've heard you run through them and, you know, put a few of your YouTubes, and I looked on my sheet, and those are all on there, but they're not split exactly 25, 25, 25, 25%. Okay, are the large cap, is the large cap a group of funds or one fund that is large cap?

It'd be a group. There's multiple. Okay, so you have to pick to pick like one whole thing and be in that is that what they're telling you um yeah i don't i wish i had that that's okay i'm just i'm just trying to be a little more yeah it's it sounds like if if like mid cap is like 10 different funds in there i just and you have to pick one of them i'd pick that one okay because because it's right down the middle okay and it spreads it across those 10 funds and just forget it all right that's like a buying an s&p 500 fund kind of index fund almost like yeah

like buying an index fund i wouldn't want you in the wild child with everything i'd love to have some over in there though so if you could put 25 large cap 25 25 small cap, 25 mid cap, and 25 international, that would give you the mix we're talking about, and I think we're done for the day. You know, I mean, that's going to get you there. But I'm not sure that that's what they're allowing you to do here. I can't tell whether they're grouping these things. If you pick a single fund out of the large cap, pick the best one, the one that's got the best track record over 10 or more years.

A single fund out of the mid cap, pick the best one, the one that's got the best track record over 10 or more years. Do a single fund out of the mid-cap, pick the best one, the one that's got the best track record over 10 to 25 years. Same thing in the small, same thing in the international. And you put those four funds together out of those four different categories, now you've got a portfolio like we talk about, like I personally do with my 401k, John does too here at our company. But these names tell you what they are so teach me what an annuity is i hear that a lot an annuity is technically an insurance company product savings

account with an insurance company okay this is a variable annuity that's funded with mutual funds a fixed annuity is a it sucks a fixed annuity say it's like a cd but at an insurance company it's going to pay two three percent and they're going to take the gap and and but the annuity, it sucks. A fixed annuity is like a CD, but at an insurance company. It's going to pay 2%, 3%. And they're going to take the cap. But the annuity wraps around the money and keeps it warm from taxes like being in a 401k does. So it's just a different product under a different bank. Exactly. But inside of a variable annuity, you can have all these different options we've been talking about.

Okay. And so it sounds like they've got a fairly good offering. It's a broad offering. It's a really great, yeah. If you can just weed through the weeds and figure out what to do with it. So, yeah, you can check a SmartVestor Pro.

One of them will probably help you walk through it and knock this down. But that's the general ideas of how you get at this, Rodney. Thanks for being a listener. Thank you. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Riley is with us in Kansas City.

Hi, Riley. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave and Dr. John. It's an honor to speak to you guys. You too. What's up? So, my wife and I got married back in January. Congratulations. Thank you, sir. you too what's up so my wife and i got married back in january congratulations thank you sir um we finished up baby step three in march and we're trying to figure out now whether we should move on to baby step 3b or move into baby step four with the idea of throwing whatever else we can into a savings account for a down payment eventually. Awesome.

Good work, man. That's incredible. So how old are you guys? I am 23 and she is 21. And what's your household income? It's going to be roughly $100,000. So she is still in school. She finishes in May and she'll start working full-time in July.

What's she going to do? She's an architectural engineer, a lot smarter than me. Well played, man. Well played. Always good to marry up, brother. So what do you do? I work in landscaping. Good.

Very good. Okay. All right. So $100,000 household income. You're in your early 20s, and you're thinking about starting to save for a house. What's the downside? Well, we're not entirely sure when. We know the place that we're living at now, we have a contract through until next July,

and we're kind of thinking we'd potentially be in the position to buy a house maybe next spring, but we're also not sure. So I don't know if we should save up. And I really wouldn't know how much exactly to save up for at this point and then start baby step four or start baby step four and throw whatever we can. Well, you've got plenty of time to do either. You're very smart, very wise, very ahead of the game at your age. And so you're not calling me up at 62 with this question. You're already, you know, you've got 50 years here to play this out. So you're going to be fine, dude.

You've done well. So you're going to get both. You're going to get retirement and you're going to get a house. So it's just a matter of what the order and what the first things are. So what's the, in my mind, as young as you guys are, I would, you know, how much to put down? I'll give you a hint. The more you put down, the better off you're going to be. You can't put down too much.

It's impossible. So just start saving. I mean, why don't you just pile up as much money as you can pile up in the next 12 months? Okay. And guess what? If you don't want to buy a house then, you still got to be able to pile up money. It's okay. Okay.

And then you can start your baby step four. run numbers from you know 25 to 65 that 40 years investing 15 of a hundred thousand that's going to be like 15 million dollars that's what you're going to have so my point is if you if you put this off two years and save for a house and then start saving for retirement as long as you do 15 the rest of your life and that's if you never get a raise which by the way if you work 40 years and never get a raise you're a loser okay so i think you're going to be okay right you follow me i mean the set of assumptions here is very conservative is my point yes sir yes sir you're going to do great i've just pile up as much as you can pile up this year just make it a game how much of a down payment can we save he sounds like a guy that got in a football game, and on the very first pass,

he made some good moves and scored a touchdown, and he crossed the line, and the crowd's cheering, and he didn't know what to do with the ball. He didn't have a dance planned. He doesn't, like, do I just hand it back to the ref? I don't know what to do, man. And it's just celebrate, and then go to the next step. Yeah.

Right? It's this weird, we're 23, and we are crushing it, and do we... I don't want to screw this up. I scored, man. Hey, I scored a touchdown, dude. It's weird. We're 23, and we are crushing it. And do we... I didn't want to screw this up. I scored, man. Hey, I scored a touchdown, dude. It's awesome. It's awesome. That's fun.

You've done so well, sir. So well. Monique is with us in Bangor, Maine. Hi, Monique. How are you? Very well. Thank you to Kelly for taking my call today. Sure.

If you got by her, your life's good. What's up? That's a good move, Monique. So I am looking for some guidance from Dave and Dr. Delaney about my will. I have two daughters, one of whom is doing very well financially. She and her husband are in the 1%. And the other daughter earns about $50,000. And for several years, I felt uncomfortable about how to divide up the assets. I'm an everyday millionaire. But more recently, I've gotten to a point where I don't want to give either of them any money. Why? I feel like I've worked so hard my whole life. I paid for college for them.

I've paid over half a million dollars for college for them. And they've turned into socialists. And they just, but they have. Well, you're still in the wrong college yeah monique you're my favorite call maybe in two months i i know we're all laughing no we're with you we're with you i'm depressed i'm very depressed about where i see my children heading and i think I don't want my money to go to them, and I feel terrible about that.

You shouldn't. They're not entitled. They didn't hit the DNA lottery. They're not entitled. My children have been instructed since they were small that in order to get the opportunity to manage the money that God gave me to manage, meaning that I panned off the responsibility to manage some of the Ramsey fortune to them, they will have to be people of character.

Socialists are not people of character. Okay. They're parasites. And so if my children are going to be parasites, I'm not going to finance their lives so that they have a reality show. Is there a way to put money in, let's say, a trust where they couldn't get access to it until they were, let's say, 70 years old? Well, I mean, then they'd just be a 70-year-old socialist, right? Well, but I'm hoping by then they will have kind of woken up.

You can. hoping by then they will have kind of woken up you can i put mine is my all of our estate is trust-based and our trust is um we've done it from a faith perspective not an economics perspective but uh if they're not walking with god they don't get to manage god's money it's what the trust says really yep and no uncertain terms. And so, you know, in your case, you could change that lingo and just go, you know, when you become a capitalist, you get the opportunity to manage this money. Monique, here's what I would do. I would take some time to distill down beyond the monikers and the labels. The report on Atlas shrugged. That's fantastic.

Man, I am not usually at a loss for words and you got me on that one um monique i here's what i want you to do i want you to distill down beneath the quote-unquote word socialist okay what are the things that they are saying that concerns you that you think that you are leaning into and i want you to have a direct straight conversation about what these things are and then i want you to identify them and like dave said it's your money you can do what you want to with it i i've seen more and more of the last four or five years a lot of semantic shell games and once you say i talked to somebody it's like oh we're way on the same page i just thought this about this about that right i i think can say that you are not required morally ethically legally spiritually to leave your money to people that

you do not agree with how they live their lives period full stop in there right so now once you said that then you can start to have some discussions with them that are very gentle and very life-giving and direct very kind, and very clear. And it's like, okay, I've paid for all this stuff for you, and truthfully, I don't agree with the way you're living your life, and I'm not willing to finance that going forward. And so it's up to you if you want to do that. I'm not being controlling.

I just want to let you know that I'm going to go ahead and do a reading of the will, and you're not going to be in it as long as you're living this way, whatever way is if your kid's a heroin addict you sit down with them and go i'm not funding your heroin but what you did that is unique is you articulated what that meant not you're not vague yeah no no i'm very clear very it's unbelievably detailed and it costs twenty five thousand dollars to write the trust very clear it's ridiculous yeah the legal field fees on this were amazing but i'm just you know and and then we get to have this meeting once a year where we revisit and go, oh, by the way, remember what we said. If you're going to manage money for God, this is what managing money for God looks like. First, you've got to be walking with him. And we do this kind of stuff.

And so we're not mad about it. But we feel a responsibility to not fund heroin addicts or socialists. You know, I mean, it's like, wow, this is the Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Ecclesiastes 3.11, He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in every human heart, yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. Ogmandino said,

Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later. So I think it's good to revisit that last call because it was not only highly entertaining but it was um but the concept needs to be talked about uh we tell everyone to get a will 100 everyone needs a will and i always tell people go ahead and have a reading of the will while you're alive yes uh meaning tell people what the flip's in it so that there's not some drama after you're dead and and they because what ends up happening is you leave one of your kids as the executor and they have to execute what's in your will and other people that are or aren't in the will are mad at the executor and you and

they should have been mad at you your executor to shoot your arrows and that's not cool yeah you need you need to go ahead and take those arrows while you're alive and go, look, you're not in this because. Have some character. Yeah, you're not in this because. And it helps the family, after your death, not be caught off guard and have all these unmet expectations. They thought they were going to get a million dollars. They got nothing or whatever. They thought they were going to get $100.

They got nothing or whatever, right? I mean, so go ahead and have a reading of the will, meaning you tell people what's in the will, okay? If I pass away, this brother and sister are going to be the guardians of our children. This person over here is going to be the trustee of our life insurance proceeds to be given to those children according to our trust. And just let you know that so that, you know, this other person over here that thought they were going to be managing both and getting either, well, I wonder why he didn't do it.

You know, well, shut up. You know, I've already covered it while I was alive. That's right. So you have a reading of the will. You do a will while you're alive. You tell people what's up. You tell them where the will is. Yeah, where it physically is.

Right. And have multiple copies so it can be found um and it's properly executed and you go to mama bear legals form.com and you get one you can do in 20 minutes if you don't have a complicated will uh now when you're filling this out you're going to discover the angst that that that precious lady has and that it requires thought about how life works because you're planning your death. It is what your will is, what your will, like you have a will. It's what I want to have happen, that's my will, upon my death.

The last thing I wanted to have happen, my last will. And I testify to that, a testament. And so then you sign it properly properly and it becomes a legal document. The executor is not in charge. They don't have free will. They get to execute. Executor. Execute.

That's what that means. They execute what is in the will. They're not allowed to do anything else. They're allowed to just do what you said. That's all they can do. So you need to be real clear about what they're supposed to do. Very clear. In there. That's all they can do. So you need to be real clear about what they're supposed to do. Very clear. In there. This is what goes to that.

And you need to update your will anytime there's a major life change. You change states because wills are not federal law. Probate law is state law. It's not federal law. It's state law. And Louisiana law is French-based. You know, and you know, very, very different.

Yeah, we had to update ours when we moved to a new state. Texas still thinks it's its own country. It's a non-probate, yeah. So Texas has got weird laws. California and Florida, very weird laws. New York, ridiculously weird laws. Most of the rest of the states are fairly similar, but still change your will, update your will if you change. If you go through a divorce, obviously, you know, you update your will if you change if you go through a divorce obviously you know you update your will but the premise is pretty simple you are not morally or spiritually

obligated to leave the work of your hands to your kin to anybody you don't want to period yeah you're not obligated to anybody um and you're not a bad person if you don't do that by definition of having not done that right uh they're not entitled because they happen to have the same last name they're not entitled because they crossed your path somewhere um and so you know my dad's my dad's third wife got everything it's your dad's money it's your dad's money. It's your dad's money. He gets to decide that.

Maybe she was better to him than you were. Or maybe, yeah, maybe there's some issues and you've got to grieve that. Yeah. But that's not, you know, you don't get to decide. I'm going to fight it. Well, you can fight it if you want. You're going to lose if the will is put together right. And you should lose because it's not his desire.

It's not his will that you got the money. So tell me how you think about this. I may have been told by a counselor in my life that I'm hyper-controlling. No. And I have this. Which makes a great talk radio host, by the way. The best. I have this fantasy about having money that I pass along and I'll be able to still pull strings and I won't even be here.

Yeah. Good luck with that. So there's part of me that says, I want to detail this sucker out, and y'all are going to X, Y. And then there's part of me that knows the futility of that and want to say, I'm raising two good kids. I've got good charities, I believe, whatever the thing is. And when I'm dead, how do you balance that? Because you've got a lot more commas and zeros

than I do. Well, what you've got to remember is that when you leave money, substantial money, it magnifies whoever you leave it to. All their good and all their bad. So whatever's wrong with your kid is going to be 10x. And however generous they are is going to be 10x. Same thing with that charity.

If they're disorganized and chaotic and they get a bunch of money, they're going to be 10x disorganized and chaotic. They're not suddenly going to fix their deficits. They're going to be magnified. They weren't waiting on the extra money to clean up their act. And so, you know, wherever you leave it, so it's not necessarily a blessing. And so the extreme example we used in that call is you leave a heroin addict money, you're going to kill them. Because they're going to OD. Because they can finally afford it.

So you don't want to curse people. With your money. With your money. But money's not the curse. The curse is you've magnified whatever's wrong. They're challenging. And whatever's right yeah and so and you're not going to find any perfect organizations or any perfect kids and you're not more spiritual if you left it to charity than if you left it inside your family you're still managing it for god if we're christians in either case and that's

what we're called to do so so how did you determine when you were doing yours how did you determine the character ethos that you wanted to wrap around this money after you're gone? Well, I wanted them to be walking with God. And that also in our world involves handling money the way we teach because it's biblical principles. And so to the extent that they're doing that while I'm here, I'm comfortable with them being there and training them that their brother or sister decides to go off the ranch and wants to live on the back of a yacht and not work, which is not in the Bible. And they'll wrap around that and hold them accountable. Yeah. They're going to go, you're not getting any more money.

Gotcha. And they've got the tools to do it the way we structured the thing. Okay. So we're not going to fund, I'm not going to name names, but I mean crazy people in reality shows, you put the names on them, right? They're pitiful. And I don't want to be the cause of the pitiful.

Not in my lineage. But I'm not obligated to leave it to charity because humans are bad. Because humans run charities. So this is ridiculous. People, well, if you were spiritual you'd leave it all to the church. Where some guy that doesn't even know how to handle money is the pastor? Come on.

That's a bunch of crap. Or you raise three off-the-charts generous children like you have, and you know that that money is going to be magnified with the generosity, right? And if they learn their lessons, then the same thing will apply as they leave it to my grandkids. To their grandkids, yeah. They're not going to ruin one of them. Because if you fund one that's off track, you're going to ensure they stay off track.

That's what it amounts to. And that's one being a charity, a ministry, a person. And so that's where you've got to look at it. In her case, she's saying they became socialists, meaning she thinks that their political view of the world is way off base and she doesn't want to fund that and she and so and she's disappointed different yeah different ideology and so it's her money she can magnify what she wants to leave it to um conservative conservative think tank i don't know i mean you know. I don't know. I mean, you know, whatever. I don't know.

But whoever, wherever you feel like is going to implement that. But even remember then, though, there are people running that. Right. And so where the control breaks down is when we all, you know, the controlling from the grave, the sense of control freak that you and I both share breaks down is we realize that even having done all of that, then it's still in God's hands because those kids can still just go crazy. They can do what they want. Yeah.

They can come back. They can go away. They can come back. They can go away. You know, you could leave it to a ministry, and then they lose their way, and they completely leave orthodoxy and go some crazy direction with their theology, and you go, I'll credit all the money of those people. It starts with an articulation of what do you want to see this money magnify.

I love that. Yeah. Yeah, because it's going to magnify. to see this money magnify. I love that. Yeah. Yeah, because it's going to magnify. It's going to magnify. Loves it. Good discussion, you guys. And get your wills done, people. Do a will.

Do a will. This is The Ramsey Show. 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. Have a friend or family member that needs a daily dose of Ramsey advice in their life? Let them know about the Ramsey Call of the Day podcast. It's a quick hit of advice about life and money in under 10 minutes. Check out the Ramsey Call of the Day podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.