The Ramsey Show - App - Should I Help My Kids With Their Student Loans? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: September 8, 2022

Take our Audience Survey & Enter to Win a $500 Visa Gift Card: Click here to take the survey   Dave Ramsey & Rachel Cruze discuss: Helping adult kids with their student loans, Preparing to take over a family business, Tithing vs. generosity, Moving across the country.   Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6   Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods Moving and Storage Studio, 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. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author. My daughter is my co-host today.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. Jennifer starts off this hour in Philadelphia. Hi, Jennifer. How are you? Hi, Dave. Hi, Rachel. How are you guys? Great. How can we help? So my husband and I are on baby step two and I'm looking at the seven baby steps and I had a question about baby step five not to jump ahead but my daughter is 27 and I just found out about you in my defense in March. So she has student debt about $70,000, um,

because mom didn't pay for it. I had a different perspective prior to listening to you. So my question is when I get the baby set five, should I help her pay off her student debt or is it now her responsibility because mom didn't help sooner although i did give her 15 000 with my husband's help on her room and rent um i don't know if i've ever had this question before it's an interesting perspective though because usually it's the 27 year old that calls us and says i'm debt free i paid off 70 000 student

loan debt uh because technically you know it's her debt that she took on yes was the guidance from you uh knowing helping her into that situation of debt yes um but to a point i'm like i it it was her that did it though do you know what i'm, it was her that did it though. Do you know what I'm saying? It was her that got the education. But I signed off on some of those loans with her because again, I had a totally different perspective. Totally.

Are you a co-signer now? Is that what you're saying? No, she's so responsible. She refinanced. You didn't sign off on anything then? Well, I did, but then she refinanced you didn't sign off on anything then well i did but then she refinanced

oh okay okay so she has seventy thousand dollars in student loan debt what does her degree in she is a nurse she has bsn okay and is she single she is what does she make between 80 and 85, more than mom. Okay. You are a sweet lady. You do not owe this money. You do not owe this money. Okay.

Your daughter is legally, morally, and capable of handling this. Okay. And mathematically capable of handling it. It's not, you didn't harm her. You didn't set out with malice to, you didn't benefit from this in some way. This is not money you stole that was your daughter's from her trust fund.

This is not anything like that. She simply went in the student, I mean, if, no, you're not liable. I don't, you're not liable. And I want to set you free. And I got a feeling your daughter no, you're not liable. I want to set you free. And I got a feeling your daughter doesn't think you're liable. She doesn't. She actually is okay because her and I have talked about it.

She's okay with paying it. But I'm like, you know. I understand. You feel guilt. I should have paid for her. You're a sweet lady. You're very sweet. Thank you.

Yeah. It's just you have a good heart and a strong conscience. And that're a sweet lady. You're very sweet. Thank you. Yeah, it's just you have a good heart and a strong conscience, and that's a good thing. So if you were worth $20 million or $5 million or something like that, and you want to take $70,000 and write a check and pay it off, that would be fine. You're not in that situation and if you did do that it would not be a baby step five thing anyway it would be a baby step seven thing right it would just be i'm helping my kids because i'm rich i'm not there well you'll be there you'll be there someday but she'll be out of debt by the time you're there so um yeah um, yeah. And she's, she's okay.

You have not harmed her for life. She is not permanently scarred. This isn't, she's not under some kind of burden she can't recover from. You have not destroyed her. Um, she's fine. She's going to get her debts paid off. And, uh, I tell you what, let's, let's let her go through financial peace university and Rachel and I will pay for it.

We'll give it to you. Okay. Oh, wow. That would be fantastic yeah sign her up and send her through that and um and just tell her that we're cheering for her yeah because jennifer too we we when we talk to families on the baby steps you know we we tell them that like hey if you're on baby step you know five and your kid is a senior in high school and you don't have the money, college is not an entitlement.

And you are not a bad parent for not helping fund college. There are ways to go to school debt-free. Now, I understand that this is the back end of that conversation of you maybe encouraging the student loans or telling it's not a big deal, all that. So I get that guilt,

but you have to let that go, Jennifer. I mean, I think that, you know, Pete, we've had two calls on this stage with people that had student loans and they a nurse literally in the first segment and she worked her way out so it is mathematically possible for your daughter paid off 80 80 000 and she was 33 years old yeah yeah that's right that's right close and i was a nurse so it's doable but i think again your heart behind it Jennifer is awesome and I think that there could be a great goal because you're you wanting to um you know quote-unquote fix that mistake that maybe you helped guide her in uh maybe you make a goal for yourself and baby step seven I want to take my daughter and we're going to go on a great vacation and I want to pay

for it and enjoy it and make that a goal for baby step seven you know you can still do stuff to bless her and to love her but you are not obligated nor are you in a position yet to feel like you have to cover that 70,000 that's in her name exactly and uh but it is nice to talk to people with honor and that have a conscience and that feel the responsibility as a parent too right because it's that feeling of like man i messed that one up and I want to go and repair that. So that's a very honest, honest feeling. But the position you're in, Jennifer, I would keep going along

and she's going to be okay. Yep. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Thank you for joining us, America. We're so glad you're here. We appreciate you being with us. The evils of the student loan debacle continue. And the documentary Borrowed Future is heating up again.

Its popularity is randomly, organically rising with the Biden administration's token offer to prop up the midterms. With a student loan sort of, kind of, maybe, probably not forgiveness. So I heard an interesting other stat on this today. All right, give it to me. So my friend Stephen Mansfield, who hates student loans as much as I do and spends a lot of time in Washington coaching and working with legislators, senators, congressmen from both sides of the aisle, and his podcast, I was listening to it today that came out just a couple weeks ago.

He made an interesting observation. He says that they have absolutely no intention of forgiving the student loans. It's a complete political move. And he never does this because he's always level-headed academic type right and he said the reason we know this is is that zero work has been done at the administrative level in the department of education on any of the websites at studentaid.gov none of them knew this was coming you got 30 million people you've got to serve with this program and you've done absolutely zero preparation on the technical or the staffing that's going to be required, the number of people, and it's all going to hit by the end of the year and they've done zero. Translation, they're not really going

to do it. That was an interesting prediction. It was all political. He says just to prop up the midterms. This is The Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author. My daughter is my co-host today. We have created the best way to do your daily goal setting and motivation it is a modification of a product that we did with christy wright that was vastly popular and rachel was doing the unboxing as we speak since i just learned that unboxing is a thing apparently opening a box on instagram is a big thing wow look've got to hop over to Instagram. Lots of inboxes in here. Wow, look at this. And so the Ramsey Goal Planner is here, at least the first copy. We will start taking orders this week, and it will be with you for 2023.

We'll actually ship them in October. It is larger in format and thus thinner because we had people ask us to not make it so chunky. The other one was more like a brick, right? I guess so. I don't really remember. Remember, it was smaller and thicker. Yeah, yeah. But this has got the, you know, a month at a glance,

and then it's got daily goals. This is someone's personal. And somebody wrote in it. I don't know whose it is, but yeah. I saw mom's birthday. I was like, oh, no. But at the beginning of each, there's an article by Rachel Cruz, Dr. John Deloney, or George Camel,

and they'll challenge you to work on your financial, your relational, your spiritual goals all through the year. Yep. And set your goals and get things going. It begins in, it's a beautiful, beautiful item. The design is gorgeous. The design is good. It's actually very practical, very usable for your calendar and for tracking your spiritual goals, your spiritual goals your financial

goals everything else you can walk all the way through this and uh man i gotta tell you this thing has been very very popular we've sold out of them every year and every year we've tweaked them and iterated i guess is a better word and made them better so it's pretty cool uh they're 49.99 and they're available for pre-sale now they will ship out in october the ramsey gold planner good job rachel well i love it because you get the month at a glance um that you're able and then a week and then a week on two yeah and then some teaching uh whether it's on spirituality relational financial and then you got your per week, so a week at a glance. So it's, yeah, there's not tons of stuff.

I mean, it's good teaching in it and everything, but yet it's practical because for me, when I look at my calendar, I'm like, I just need simple. Like if I'm getting this, this is what I need. So it's a mix of everything. Get to the point. You want on a planner and that's what it is.

So it's awesome. And it's beautiful. There's like gold foil. It's a good design. You see that shine? Good work, y'all. Shiny, shiny. Shine, shine.

Connor is on the debt-free stage in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions with a question. Hey, Connor, what's up? Hey, how are you today? Great, man. How can we help? I work for a family-owned business. My family's been in business for 33 years. My dad is about ready to retire next year.

And that would put my wife and I in the position of taking over the company. I guess my question for you is, what steps should I take to prepare for that transition? And what steps have the two of you taken to prepare for that eventual transition here at Ramsey? Yeah, it's a great question. And so you're in the business currently? Currently. Yeah. How many team members are with you guys?

About 30 full-time. Okay. What do y'all do? What's the business? Catering. Okay. Awesome. That's so great.

Does the team see this coming? Yes. Okay. So they know. That's good. I was going to say, number one, it's just communication. Do they think you can do it or do they think you're incompetent? They think I can do it. Okay. Good. It just communication. Do they think you can do it or do they think you're incompetent? They think I can do it.

Okay, good. It's important. Connor, you can't do it. I didn't ask him if he could do it, if he was competent. I was just asking if they thought he could. I know, I know, I know. That's a different thing. That's true, that's true.

Different thing. That's true. I mean, yeah, Dave could probably speak to more of the logistical, financial, legal, I don't know, all of that. But I think just from a team perspective, I would, if I were you, because it's going to be here in the next, what, 12 months? So I would start leading more and more and more

and having him, the slower the transition out, the easier it is. When it's just whiplash, even if everyone knows it's happening and it's just like day one, here you are, Connor, and he's gone. It's just so quick. If there's a gradual transition you guys can do with responsibility and leading the team, the team seeing you slowly month after month, being more and more visible, more and more in it, taking more and more responsibility, leading more and more. So that way when a year happens in a year when that transition happens it feels like oh yeah

connor was basically doing it anyways and it's just it's it's an easier transition on everyone when it's gradual versus really fast and the key customers as well they need to know oh that's true too your key accounts that you guys if you guys have consistent accounts you and your dad need to be hanging out with them together and then your dad doesn't need to go you need to go okay and that kind of stuff back and forth so that they they kind of have that oh no big deal because this is the way it's kind of been all year you know and it didn't kill us when you know and so uh you know in a sense you're watching that here okay we went from the dave ramsey show to the ramsey show about a year and a half ago and uh we went to co-hosts on the air about two

and a half years ago, and that's been part of a decade-long plan to gradually even transfer the brand so that you folks, our listeners, begin to trust these guys because they're trustworthy. When I'm not here, two of the Ramsey personalities are sitting here, and some of you like it better, which is fine. That's good because someday I'm not going to be here. I'm the oldest one of the bunch. Okay, let me ask this question between you and your dad is he did he start this business yes okay so we got the gen one how's he doing for turning over i know i was like emotionally there is something when you when he he's built this thing like he has grinded he's put his his his mind to it off to college i mean it's a they

there's a lot of deep ownership because they they're the ones that sacrifice right we had the benefit of second gen gen two coming in and helping alongside and hopefully growing it even further but there's a gen one holding on emotionally that is very real which i i would totally understand so how do you feel like he will do in a year when the transition occurs or even in the next 12 months as you guys start to transition will he let go of the reins do you think i think so it's um unfortunately we're in a position where it's um where he he needs to retire it's a health concern that's that's arisen so um it's that's that's the the process there yeah

so he's not got a choice right yeah because what's what she's talking about what happens is gen one turning over to gen two as we've studied family business transitions and we've studied a bunch of them uh is the most difficult one emotionally uh it's actually the easiest one in some other ways but because gen one the founder is always a hard head because that's what enables you to pull it off, right? You have to fight through the briars and the bushes and beat off the lizards and everything else to kill the dinosaurs, whatever it is you've got to do to get it done, right? You've got to get her done.

And so then when you get ready to turn that over, and I did it as an act of intentionality. I started working on it 14 years ago. We started the first stages of our very, very, very gradual succession plan that probably has another decade left in it, give or take. And so, but the first time I planned to be less important, and then I was, it was kind of disturbing. It was a little emotionally shocking and I did it on purpose and I still went oh I don't know if I like this so how can Jen how can a Rachel and a Connor a gen 2 help gen 1 I'm not asking selfishly I'm really asking for you Connor how can he best

love his dad in this coming year be outrageously competent be so good that he knows he's not screwed up by handing it to you and it makes it easier to hand it it's like if you're teaching a teenager to drive how can you let them leave the car leave the house in a you know thirty thousand dollar automobile i mean it's a good car and you're not worried about the kid they're going to kill the car right and so you know but how do you let them do that well you've ridden with them so much that they're you've watched them drive and they're competent you've been able to mentor them you've been able to talk to them about you know you missed your blinker and no you can't look at your dadgum phone while you're driving and you know you've had these conversations and you've mentored

and mentored and mentored and mentored and they've proven themselves competent so that when the brake lights are tapped as they leave the driveway first time at 16 or 17 years old and drive away you don't pass out on the floor and with anxiety you go they're going to be okay and your dad's the same way you prove you can drive the car and then when you got when you drive off in the car he's not going to be worried about you or the car and then here's another fascinating thing connor which you know the stats because studying business i don't have it in my head family business but there's a small percentage of success from gen one to gen two and even less from gen two to gen three but the ones that do succeed there was like attributes about those family businesses that you were like that had a

higher calling for one thing you have to have a sense of calling on this it can't be just a job there was like attributes about those family businesses that you were like that had a higher calling for one thing you have to have a sense of calling on this it can't be just a job and uh it's you know it's bigger than just me it's bigger than just dad it's just it's even bigger than the company we've got a big higher calling and we're serving these people with our catering business to help accomplish what they need and we're here to help them right like you find that thing in their sense of nobility that's big yeah sense of nobility. That's big. Yep. Sense of nobility in business. And there is a sense of nobility in business.

But you've got to. The people that have that have a higher chance of turning it over well. Yep. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personalities, my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage. Jacob and Jenna are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Good. How are you doing? Better than most, Dave. Good, good. Good to have you guys.

Where do you live? We live in Indianapolis. Oh, cool. Welcome to Nashville. And how much debt have you guys paid off? We paid off $106,154.91 in total. Way to go. How long did this take? 25 and a half months. Wow, good for you. And your range of income during that two years? We started the first year at $81,000 and then finished the second year at $126,000. Wow, nice job. Good work. So,

what do you do for a living? I'm an athletic trainer in an outpatient setting. And I work as a manager in a warehouse. Okay. Very good. So why did your income go up so much? I got a couple of promotions at work. There you go. That's good. Congratulations.

Just in time. Well done. Well done. What kind of debt was the $106,000? 100% student loans. Whoa. Got real and Navient. Sally Mae.

Yes. Gave the old woman her eviction notice. Yes. What are your degrees in? I have a bachelor's in athletic training. And I graduated in chemical engineering. All right. Very good.

Very cool. Some smart degrees. I'm sorry? Smart degrees. Yes, yes. Both of them are smart. So how long have y'all been married? A little over two years.

Okay. So about the time you get married, you say, game say game on we're cleaning this up how did all this go down how this conversation happened and this connection to the ramsey way yeah so it really started my freshman year college when the debt started accumulating really she only had 3,500 i had the rest so sorry married into it yeah and uh 103, three thousand dollars you thought he was worth that uh yeah she stuck with me since the eighth grade so i mean we're gonna be yeah eighth grade sweethearts yeah you kind of knew what you were getting into i did i'll give a shout out to my freshman roommate logan urbanski who introduced myself to your principals but i didn't really listen to him obviously i was a failed student there, but we got married in June of 2020, a COVID wedding. We moved up to Indianapolis. She started working.

I still had a class left for my degree. I wasn't working, and she said, hey, we're going to be really doing this. Get your butt to work, please. I graduated college. I followed Ken Coleman's principals. I was working in a warehouse as an associate and then graduated with an engineering degree, but they had a management role for new hires for a college and got there and got a couple of promotions. Wow. Just like that. Boom, boom.

So Ken Coleman helped here. Yeah, he did. Okay. So you're newlyweds. Start this journey where most people, you know, will get married married and oh yeah they go and get new cars and they buy a house and they're taking great big kids they're just living their newlywed life but you guys like no we're gonna pay off six figures of student loan debt okay so what was the hardest part of that and what was the part that would maybe maybe is the glimmer of hope

for newlyweds out there they're like no I would do it now versus later um well you know we were making more money than we've ever made in our entire lives so I guess that made it a little bit easier yeah um but communication was definitely key for us um going into it I'm definitely the free spirit he's the nerd he's got all the numbers um so just two different minds kind of coming together um and just I don don't know, communication has been, I feel like, the biggest thing. Yeah. For me, the hardest part was the emotion tied to it. Once we became married and it was like sitting down, putting all the numbers together,

it finally connected emotionally with me and spiritually with ourselves. And then we were just game on at that point. Okay. So your roommate introduced you at your freshman year, but you said, nah. So how did you connect back up to us at this proper moment after marriage and go, okay, I remember that crazy guy, Ramsey. What was the deal? I mean, how did you reconnect? Yeah, so, I mean, I never really left Ramsey.

I wouldn't listen to the podcast and everything. And so as a newly married couple, we didn't really have financial habits. So we just stuck with the plan before we could make any bad habits started a plan yeah we started we also did financial peace university through our church um online which definitely helped me with the process yeah you you got to catch up on what he had been learning exactly and not doing yeah good very good very good cool all right so this is pretty intense. I mean, you guys got after it for two years. You've been on beans and rice. There's not a lot of room in this budget.

No. I mean, who made fun of you? A little bit from all of our families. A little bit. Oh, yeah. It was all good harassing, right? They thought you'd lost your mind and joined a cult. Yeah. And what was it they think that y'all were like what what were what would be the jabs was it like oh you're not going out to eat guys enjoy life y'all are too serious like what was the yeah it was little

stuff like that i remember sitting around the campfire and his brother-in-law you guys always talk about your brother-in-law talking about something about credit cards and going overseas and i was like gosh dang it jacob what are we doing we're sticking to a plan that's what we're doing we're not following him that's awesome we love them we love all our family they've been really supportive throughout all of this um even though they give us a couple of jabs here and there yeah for sure that's kind of like motivation yeah it's like yeah well watch this watch my dust yeah i like it well done y'all okay what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is um i would just say discipline um knowing your why and all of it like what was your why i feel like um you know being able to build wealth and leave a legacy for our family going forward,

like whenever we have kids and be able to live and give like nobody else and be able to have it be God's glory. And I feel like that's my big motivation with all of it. And just staying committed. Like I said, having communication with each other is really key in marriage. Yeah. I kind of have two thought processes. First, any high school-age students that are forced to listen by their parents or willingly listening right now, please know that student loans are not free money. They do cost you interest, time, and stress and stuff.

Two years of your life. Two years of our lives. Please just avoid it and not have it in your life. And secondly, just like I think at the previous debt-free screamer said, just believe that there is another option out there of living and that you can do it, but please commit yourself to it.

That's good. That's so good. Well, you guys, you did it. So how does it feel? How does it feel to finally have no student loan debt? It feels good to see the bank account start growing a little bit. Yeah. With the emergency fund. Yeah. Be able to keep that money.

For sure. For sure. She says she's more motivated to work now since we get to keep it. I get that. I don't argue that a bit. It's like, oh, wait, that's mine. Yeah. I get to spend it and enjoy.

Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome, you guys. Good job, you guys. Thank you. We're very, very proud of you. Good work. Good work.

Hey, we got another copy or another membership to Financial Peace University. Give it to your brother-in-law. Congratulations. We're very, very proud of you. Good work. Good work. Hey, we got another copy or another membership to Financial Peace University. Give it to your brother-in-law. Yeah. I know a guy that needs that. And Baby Steps Millionaires for you guys. This is the next chapter in your story. Like you said, you can go on and build wealth and live like no one else and give like no one else. This is our latest number one around here. And, of course, a total money makeover book, and you can use that to bonk somebody on the head with, as someone said earlier. It's not a bad thing to use.

So help somebody get started on the whole process and everything that you've learned. So we're very, very proud of you. You're an impressive young couple. Well done. Thank you. Thanks. Good work, good work, good work.

Jacob and Jenna, don't you wish you had started your marriage this way out there in America? Yes. $106,000 paid off in 25 and a half months, the first two years of marriage, making $81,000 to $126,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free.

Yeah. Yeah. We're debt-free! Yeah! Ha, ha, ha, ha! That is how it's done, ladies and gentlemen. Wow. You know, when I first started teaching this stuff 30 years ago, that's the thing that always came up. I wish I'd learned this when I was young. I wish I'd learned this when I was young.

And it is really beautiful to see a couple in their 20s in their first two years of marriage come in here and do this. And the 19-year-old on YouTube that's watching and doing this stuff. And that's just, man, there's so many dollars involved where that's going to take someone. How you've got all those decades in front of you to go do amazing things with money. It can be done at any age. That's right. But man, oh, man, when you do it at this age, you've got to, whoo. Oh, the compound.

I mean, we were talking about compound interest in another segment, but I'm like, it's true. The earlier you start, and man, when they're able to just put money away, they're going to be able to give like crazy. Yep. Because they're going to have the income. They're going to invest this early on in life which is incredible buy a home

pay I mean all of it it's just yeah you get a jump start so and it was them that decided it that's the thing too is you wake up one day and say we have six figures

of student loan debt we're going to take care of this it's a hockey stick life up and to the right baby this is the Ramsey Show show. Our scripture of the day, 1 Corinthians 16, 13-14. Be on your guard, stand firm in the faith, be courageous, be strong, do everything in love. Queen Elizabeth II passed. Our condolences, rest in peace to the royal family.

Oh my goodness, what a lady. She said, it has always been easy to hate and destroy to build and to cherish is much more difficult very true our question of the day comes from blinds.com find out for yourself why blinds.com is the number one online retailer of custom window coverings with free samples free shipping and new promos they run all the time. You'll save even more. Use the promo code Ramsey to get the best possible deal. Today's question comes from Cindy in California. If you donate to charities like animal rescues, local fire, police, and rescue departments, pro-life pregnancy centers, neighborhood schools, and mission trips, and uniforms for a little league team, are these things tithing, or does

it only count if you give to a church or religious organizations? It feels so good to help and show thanks for the work people do, but we would like to know where this falls in our monthly giving. That's a great question, Cindy. I mean, the technical term for the tithe is giving a tenth, and specifically to your local church. So if you want to get legalistic about it with direct phrases and direct terms, that is what the tithe is. So technically donating to a Little League team is not a technical tithe. But if you just want to say, hey, you know,

we want to give 10% as a family, and we're going to give that to these things, and that's going to be our giving for the month, then that's totally up to you. But for me personally, in our family, as an evangelical Christian, we tithe, and then anything above the tithe that we give to these things that you've listed, or other things that we're passionate about, we give above the tithe that we give to these things that you've listed or other things that we're passionate about, we give above the tithe. But we personally give that 10% to the church that we attend. But again, if that's not your conviction or your spiritual walk, giving in any capacity is something that we recommend because you experience this level of selfishness in our

world, right? That everything is focused on me. And when you give and open your hands, there is a selflessness that's created. And so that's the goal in all of this to know that, hey, we're opening our hands. We are not holding and hoarding money and we're letting money flow. And regardless of where we are financially, giving is going to be part of our story. And so how you do that really comes to your own personal values and personal convictions. Yeah.

So when you say tithe, if you just mean generosity and you're not a person of a certain faith, then this is perfectly fine. You know, if you just are substituting the word tithe for generous, and it happens to be person of a certain faith, then this is perfectly fine. You know, if you just are substituting the word tithe for generous, and it happens to be 10% of your income that you're being generous from. But the tithe is a religious term, technically, and it would apply to primarily evangelical Christians observe the tithe, and Orthodox Jews.

And so, you know, and and in both cases we're following scriptures uh that give us an indication that we're supposed it's old testament uh indications that the tithe goes to the storehouse and the storehouse in the old testament had two primary goals and that was to feed the widows and orphans and to feed the levites which were the pastors the priests and um and so that's your local church and that's where that teaching comes from and why evangelical christians and why orthodox jews of you know of most ilks they're certainly nuanced that give a tenth of their income but never even even properly observed within those religions it shouldn't be

legalistic it shouldn't be like god loves you because you tithe or he hates you because you don't that's just not true there's nowhere in scripture that says that but there is a lot of scripture that talks about giving and about generosity and about tithing and it's because of what rachel was talking about god is trying to teach us to be less selfish and more other-centered, and giving does that. It shifts you. It changes your character. And that's why giving people who are generous

have a tendency to prosper because they end up having an other-centered character and they're very attractive in that regard. But we don't ever want to get real technical but the technical you know if you're going to do a bible study on it because you go to a church an evangelical church then that's what you would probably hear and i would agree with uh but i don't impose that on say my muslim friends uh their tithe is not in the quran uh that i can that i know of unless one one of you Muslim friends wants to teach me about it

but I've had a lot of fun discussions with you and I don't think it covers that the Quran hates debt I do know that big time and usury big time but I don't think there's a tithing mandate there but so anyway

you know what that amounts to is are you defining that as generosity and 10 of my income is just going to generosity and i'm not a person of faith that is a church attender or a synagogue attender then yeah that's perfectly fine what you're doing is great yeah giving is you you're never gonna maybe not i'm gonna say never but seldom are you going to be generous and look back on it and regret it. The only time you regret it is if you figure out you gave something, you got scammed. And I've had that happen.

But they didn't really have a need, did they? Yeah, well, that's different. But that means I got some work to do in my giving process. But by and large, yeah, it does feel good to help and show thanks for the work people do. I agree with you, Cindy, and we want to encourage you to do that. The very first line on your budget sheet in every dollar, or if you get the old sheets out of the backs of the books I've written over the last 30 years, there's always budget

sheets in there. The very first line is always giving. It's always generosity. It's always charity. It's always a it's always charity it's always a line like that so the very first thing you should do in your budget is to allocate some money to give because for a christian tithing is off the top it's first fruits before you do anything else and that's just the tithe to your local church now that's a great discussion though um so

you just gotta kind of interpret what she meant in the email and where she's coming from exactly but yeah good stuff good stuff colton is with us colton is in spokane washington hi colton what's up hey dave hey rachel how you doing better than we deserve how can we help so i'm calling uh my wife and i are almost to baby step three. We are just a couple thousand dollars left to pay off and I just accepted a new job in Tennessee. So my company is going to reimburse me for my move, but we currently don't have the money to make the move. They're not going to actually give me the reimbursement until a week or two after I get there. Have you asked them to advance it because you don't have the money?

Yeah, we talked about that, and they said that there was a policy. I worked for the government, and whatever the policy that they had in place, they weren't going to authorize that for me. Okay, so what have you got to move? We have a four-bedroom house and two vehicles, which we'll end up probably just driving ourselves, and then our five kids. Yeah, and you put them in the vehicles. Yep.

So you've got some furniture to move out of a four-bedroom house. We have some furniture to move, and we have a pretty good deal with Moving Company already. We have that in place. I feel like it's going to be cheaper than a U-Haul or a

U-Pack kind of deal. So that just leaves basically food, gas and... What's that? How much does it cost? For the movers yeah um let's see the the quote that we got was uh about 4500 and you got the money you said yeah we have the money we have the money for uh or we we paid we paid half of that um a few months ago we booked it in advance and then uh we don't have we don't have the remaining uh but i don't think that we don't owe them uh owe that until after we get there

until after you get to tennessee or after you get the reimbursement until after yeah i want once we get to tennessee like we'll we'll get a bill for the remaining so so that part is fine. I mean, I'd sell a bunch of stuff is what I'd do, and then I'd go work like extra. All you need is gas to drive some cars to Tennessee, dude. You're there. You can do it.

$2,000 for the rest of it? Yeah. I mean, go deliver pizzas for the next three weeks like a crazy man and have the world's largest garage sale, and that'll lower your move bill, too, because don't move a bunch of this crap all the way across the country. It isn't worth the cost to move it, most of it. So that's the truth of most of our houses. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show and 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. Dave here. We just launched a brand-new audience survey for The Ramsey Show, and we'd love your feedback. You can be entered to win a $500 Visa gift card. No purchase necessary. Take the survey at RamseySolutions.com slash survey.