The Ramsey Show - App - Should Our Son Pay Us Back for Flunking College? (Hour 2)

Episode Date: November 6, 2020

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live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studio, this is the Dave Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life and your money. My name is Anthony O'Neill, host of the popular YouTube show, The Table with Ayo, and co-hosting with me is the one and only Dr. John Del host of the dr john deloney podcast and youtube youtube show and we would love to have a conversation with you give us a call 888-825-5225 kelly is standing by and we would love to have a conversation with you about your life and your money and i and i strategically said the word life there because i think some people get confused that this is not just only uh a money show we we have a mental health expert

on our team we have a career expert on our team we have a christian um uh personal developer on our team and christy right you have me who talk about life and money. Then you have Dave and Hogan who only talk about money. But we're here to help you out and give you hope in all areas of your life. And so for those of you all watching YouTube right now and complaining a lot about, hey, why does Dave have people on here talking about parenting? It's because Dave wants to help you out with parenting. He wants to help you out with parenting. He wants to help you out with your life.

And so that's why Dr. John and myself are on this show. How are you doing, man? I'm great. You want to cut on your mic? I'm going to turn the mic on, and I'm going to tell you I'm doing great. And, hey, let's be honest. If you've listened to Dave Ramsey for 20 years, it's never only been about money. It's never only been about money. And I think the person who said that the most is Dave Ramsey.

Yes. Money is just an indicator. It's a road sign in your life telling you how things are going, how you're doing, how good you're not doing. Are you being intentional? Are you out of control? And here's the thing, too, though. You know, if we only talked about money, we're really not helping you because we can teach you the baby steps,

but if we don't teach you how to do the first thing in your mind first, then you're not going to be successful with the baby steps. That's right. And so Dave is being very intentional about making sure he's bringing on personalities who are thought leaders who can help all of us become successful. Because with you joining the team, you've helped me out in personal areas of my life. And so that's what we all need, America. So for those of you on YouTube, love you. You guys know, I love the YouTube space, but I also see the comments and I just

wanted to say that, that, Hey, we're here to help you out in all areas of your life, helping out Phillip right now in Austin, Texas. Good afternoon, Phillip. How can Dr. John and I help? Hey guys, thanks so much for taking my call. Really appreciate it. So kind of a two-part question for you. In the last year, we've almost tripled our annual income. And through that, we were able to complete Baby Step 2 about two weeks ago. And we're working on Baby Step 3 now. And trying to understand how to be okay with spending money that in the past wasn't okay to spend. So I guess that's kind of the first question.

And then the second part of it, that income is very random throughout the year. A lot of it comes in the form of stocks and bonuses. So my monthly budget looks very different from my yearly budget. So how do I manage that throughout the year when months look very different from each other? Yeah, great question, man. You know, that's Dr. John and I's income fluctuates as well monthly. And so we are right there with you. Let me tell you this.

What's your average lowest month possible? So what do you know? Worst case scenario. $8,000 is what you would bring in guaranteed every month. That's your worst month? I mean, yeah. I mean, I was thinking the same thing. I'm still getting used to it, too.

What a boy, Phillip. And what's your best month, Phillip? When stock and bonuses all hit, it could be in excess of about $30,000. $30,000. Okay, so your worst month is $8,000, more than the average person in America right now. And your best case scenario is $30,000.

Now, what's your monthly expenses looking like? Without accounting for the 15% and tithe, if we're just looking at overall expenses, about $6,000 to $6,500. Cool, great. So you literally just answered your own question, all right? You're going to make a monthly budget off of the $8,000 that you know you have guaranteed to come in. Now, as you average that up and let's say, for an example, you know, your worst case average month is going to be around ten thousand.

Then you can go up. For me, what I always do is I take the last six months and I average out those six months and I make my budget off of the lowest point of that month of those last six months. So that's what I would recommend for you. Now, let's say for an example, you know, for sure, you're going to get extra coming in in the following month. I stay still make your budgeting off of your lowest. And then you can add that in once the check actually hits and you can add some things into your next month budget based upon what you received. So I that's the number one thing, Dr. D. I'm always recommending to people is if you have irregular income, if you're commissioned only, if you're self-employed, if you're a personality like us, and one month you'll have a big month, next month you can have nothing, to just make sure you look at your lowest month, the average of your lowest month, and bake a budget off of that. And we see people all the time, and I get the temptation.

You have a great month, you have another great month, and then you just start assuming that money is going to be there for the rest of your life. Yeah. And that's just how much money you make. And you go buy a car based off that, and you go buy furniture based off that. Yeah. I love what you're suggesting is assume the worst. Right.

This is as low as it's going to go. Yep. And I've got an emergency fund. This is as low as it's going to go. And I've got an emergency fund. This is as low as it's going to go. And everything on top of that is gravy. And you're going to find that you can live a joyful life with what you're making. Absolutely.

And everything on top of that is what you can give more, you can save more, you can buy cool things after that. Absolutely. And I actually enjoy the kind of just playing it safe. The anything extra that come in this month, I won't spend it until next month. Yeah. And I add it to next month's budget because I know that's already in the bank. And you teach yourself restraint, right? Yes. It's tempting to get that check and go, whoa, that's a good one. Let's go out. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Adam is in Springfield.

Springfield. Good afternoon, man. How can we help? Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my call. No problem. I had a question with regards to refinancing my home and taking out the equity to pay off my student loan. Okay. All right. Why would you do that? Why do you want to do that? Well, so I believe I have enough equity in the house to pay off the loan and not have to worry about, you know, paying on that for the next, you know, two, three, four, five years. How much?

I'm sorry? How much do you have in student loans? $28,000. What's your yearly income? $60,000 to $65,000. Okay. Is that your only debt right now, student loans at $28,000. What's your yearly income? $60,000 to $65,000. Okay. Is that your only debt right now, student loans of $28,000? Yes.

Okay, cool. Besides the house, yes. All right. Sounds good. No. You're not going to risk your home over your student loans. What I want you to do is just go ahead and get on a strong budget. Get on beans and rice, rice and beans, or get on, like me, tomatoes, hot dogs, and rice.

Gross. Gross. Gross. And live below your means. Making $65,000 with $28,000, I would go ahead and just make out a budget and attack that, and you could be debt-free within a matter of the next 12 to 18 months. I want you to stay on the line. Kelly's going to get you a copy of Destroy Your Student Loan Book that I wrote earlier this year. It's about 80 pages long.

Take you about an hour to knock that out. Follow that process. Follow that step. I promise you, you will get out of debt. If you refi, you're refiing so you can get to a 15-year fixed rate loan so you can pay off your home mortgage earlier, not so you can add on student loans. Don't trade debt for debt, right? Don't do that.

Don't do that. Your home is something that you need to go up in value, not take a lot of risk on. So stay on the line. Keller will take care of you. And you guys, this is the Dave Ramseymade, well-thought-out products. Today, I'm talking about Grip6 belts. I don't know about you, but I'm not a fan of traditional belts. They never fit right, and they're uncomfortable.

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Grip6 is determined to help build and modernize American manufacturing. To learn more and get this month's Dave Ramsey special, visit GRIPSIX.com. That's GRIPSIX.com. This is the Dave Ramsey Show where Dr. John and myself, Anthony O'Neill, are co-hosting the number one radio show in the world, in my opinion, where we have a conversation about your life, your money, your careers, your mental health. If you have anxiety, we have the expert, the one and only, Dr. John Deloney, who can help you out with that.

If you're a young person, millennial, you want to get out of debt, build some wealth, give us a call, man. I love talking to young people. I love talking to all people. But I really love talking to young people, specifically right around that 20s and 30s and even 40s. I've left the 40s out. People are, well, I'm 40 years old. I'm still young. You could be 60 and still young.

But I love it all. So 888-825-5225 let's uh talk to mitch in rochester um good afternoon mitch how can uh dr d and i help hey uh thanks for having me on this is actually the first time that i've watched the live show so hey glad i could catch you oh man you're watching this on youtube yeah well that's what i was can't i can't out now i'm calling but that's what i was all right man how can we help man thanks for watching um yeah well uh so i have it's a career question and uh right right now i'm a uh insurance agent and i'm doing okay um but what i really want to do is definitely not as secure of a career.

But it's something that I really love to do. Hey, Mitch, we just lost you there. Can you restate? You said, I'm real excited, too, and then we didn't hear what you said. What did you say there? Did we lose you? Yeah, I think we lost him all right mitch if he if you come back um let's just let us know we'll uh definitely help you out let's go out to atlanta georgia and have a conversation with caleb caleb good afternoon how can dr d and i help uh hi how are you guys doing? Hey, man, doing great. How about yourself? I'm doing all right.

How can we help? Yeah, I just had a question about my next step. I'm 21 years old. I'm a full-time student. I have no debt, no student loans or anything. Come on now. I already have a full-time job lined up. I'm already started on it.

Okay. In January, I will begin that job fully. I'm kind of in training right now. And so I'll be moved out of my parents' home. Um, and so with that, I kind of had in mind, I will be graduating in May of 2021. Okay. So right now I have about a little over right about six thousand dollars saved up. I'm trying to start saving up a lot more. And so I was just kind of wondering what I need to start doing. Oh, man. Caleb, I just want to just this just man, this is awesome.

Twenty one. You are ready to move out on your own. You're graduating college debt-free, and you're graduating college debt-free with $6,000 in your savings account. Okay? I want you to hear this from me. You are ahead of nearly 48% of the people in America right now because 48% of the people in America right now can't even afford to pay cash for a $400 emergency.

So I want you to really understand how huge this is for you, okay? And I love the fact that you're calling into the show and you're talking to us about what should you do next. So let's talk about this because I really want to help you win because you are ahead of the game. What is going to be your yearly salary with this new job that you're going to be getting? Around 50 grand. 50 grand, okay. Are you staying in the Atlanta area? No, I'll be moving to West Tennessee.

Oh, you're coming to the beautiful Tennessee area. Yes, I am. All right. So that means good. So the cost of living is going to be good there. So the first step, okay, of what you need to be doing immediately, okay, is go ahead and get a fully three months set aside for your emergencies and expenses. Now, we teach in Babysit number three, which you're going to skip two, uh, to have three to six months, but because you're 21, because you're educated 21 year old, and because you're young, I I'm cool with you setting aside three months only, uh, because you

can get into another job quick and you're young, so you can move quicker. You can get up and go wherever you need to go to. Once you get that three months, I want you to immediately jump on the phone with a SmartVestor Pro and start investing into a Roth 401k. That's going to be in babysit number four. And as soon as your job allows you to start investing into a 401k, I'm sorry, I want you to invest into a Roth IRA with SmartVestor. And then as soon as your job allows you to invest into the 401k, I want you to do that as well. So you should be able to 401k i want you to do that as well so

you should be able to get all this within the next 12 months and let me just paint the picture for you ma'am if you can do that invest 15 of your income starting the age of 22 and do that to what's at 22 32 42 and to about 52 55 years old um you're going to be sitting on about in between $3 to $5 million just off that investment of your 401k and your Roth IRA. So that is the next move for you right there. Dr. D., am I missing anything? No, but Caleb, I'm just going to tell you. I graduated with college. I had a little bit of debt.

I went and got my first big job, and I was making decent money out of college. Wow. And I ended that first year in two to three times as much debt than when I started. Because I got so excited about my salary, I never said no to myself. Wow. I got a big truck. I got a fancier apartment than I probably should have. I had to put furniture in it.

And I just went out and I hung out and I never said no. Yeah. in it and I just went out and I hung out and I never said no and so you gotta put yourself on a budget and start practicing living intentional living right now Caleb have you read Chris Hogan's book Everyday Millionaire I have not okay cool I want you to stay on the line

Kelly's gonna give you that book I feel like giving away someone else's book today I do too because if you can really take advantage of this season that you're in right now uh caleb you will be a millionaire before you turn 50 years old if you just follow the steps that you're going to learn in this book and the reason why i'm giving you this book caleb is because you're going to see what other everyday millionaires are doing to stay in that bracket and if you can start thinking that way now at 21 you may not be able to do everything that's in that book but if you can start having

that mindset at 21 years old i i i can even say this you might even be a millionaire but when you turn 40 seriously but wait a minute anthony millionaires are only millionaires because they inherited a bunch of money or because they make a million dollars at their job. I mean, yeah, that's what I thought, too. And then Chris Hogan did a study with over 10,000 millionaires where a lot of them, the majority of them, I don't know the numbers because I didn't write the book, but the majority of them did not inherit the money. What they did is they worked their behinds off. And they saved and lived below their means. Saved, lived below their means. Anthony, lived below their means didn't finance a car if they did finance a car they paid it off they paid off uh their mortgage

um and here's the thing too that that that i'm that i'm learning and i even felt a little convicted by this and there's no right or wrong answer here but most millionaires live in about a four hundred thousand dollar home because you why? They got nothing to prove to nobody. Nothing to prove. You know? I got nothing to prove. Gracious. Now, let me say this to the world listening right now.

No, we're not saying if you want to be a millionaire, you got to live in a $400,000 house. The studies are showing that millionaires are living way below their means. Just because they can do it, millionaires are millionaires because they told themselves no. They said, nope, we're going to live in this house. It's just me and you. Our kids are gone. We don't need no million-dollar house and 15,000 square feet. We just need 2,000 square feet, and that's good.

Some of the greatest wisdom I ever received, Anthony, was that you get to become a millionaire 10 bucks at a time. That's two coffees a week. That's a lunch that you brought instead of bought it right 10 bucks at a time not scratch off at a time not hey delona we thought you did a great job this year so uh here's a million dollars that's not how that works wow 10 bucks at a time over the long haul day after day after day right one of my friends plays for the NFL. He's a multi-millionaire. He lives in the house smaller than me. Drives a car that is 15 years old.

And I said, bro, why? He was like, let me tell you, man. If I can't pay for it at least two to three times, I can't afford it. I was like, what? He was like, yeah, if I can't afford to pay for it two or three times and still have a large amount of my savings account, I can't afford it. That dude is planting legacy seeds. He's thinking about people in his generational line that he will never meet. Yes. And that's why

I'm so passionate about this younger generation, like this young man who just called in, because if we can get them to start thinking like that, they can be homeowners and millionaires in their 30s and 40s i in, this is the Dave Ramsey Show, where Dr. John Deloney and myself, Anthony O'Neill, Ramsey personalities, are co-hosting together today. And I am super excited to be able to provide hope and encouragement for you. So give us a call.

888-825-5225. We have like one or two phone lines open to stand by. And Kelly will check you out and get you through or not get you through. I don't know. Kelly makes those calls. Not us. We just answer the question. So let's talk to Marsha.

Marsha out in Dayton, Ohio. Good afternoon, Marsha. How can Dr. D and I help? Hi. I was wondering, my question is, should we require our son to pay us back for the year of college that he grew? He dropped out of classes

and he did not communicate with us. Hey, Marcia, speak directly into the phone. Speak directly into the phone. This is a great question. I want to make sure everybody's hearing this one. Can you hear me now? Ashley, maybe take the phone away from you and then bring it back so that way we can

reset it. How about that? There you go. There, a little bit better. Okay, so we've been wondering, should we make our son pay us back for the year of college that he blew? Should your son pay you back for the year of college that he blew? Yes. Tell us a little bit more info. He dropped out of classes without having us. And he also has, like, learning disabilities,

and he was sent up on campus to work with his teachers, you know. They have that all over the colleges now. And my husband and I basically were requiring him when COVID hit, he came home, and we were like, well, you know, you can start looking at him in black. And it just seems to me, I don't feel peaceful about it. I don't, it's, there's a conflict in me. It's like $16,000. Great.

And I just feel like that's putting him in debt, but we cashflowed it and he blew it. But like, how does, how do we, how do we move forward? Like, how do we reconcile?

I'm having a very hard time. Yeah. I can hear it on your voice. Yeah. Definitely. And I care for him and I want him to be successful and move forward. I don't want him to feel such a burden that he goes to, you know, crazy measures to pay us back. I don't know. Did you guys have an agreement before he went to college that said,

we are loaning you this money contingent on your success, contingent on you doing these things, you've got learning disabilities, you're going to take initiatives did you guys set up any sort of framework about this money yes we said you know we the hope was that if he had a certain gpa he then would apply for a military type scholarship and so hold on but i'm talking about you hoped things. Did you sit him down and say if you go to college and you are successful we will pay. If you drop out you'll have to pay us back. No.

The understanding was when you eventually graduate and then start your career, it will be understood that you'll be paying this back to us. A certain percentage, not the whole thing, just half. What was that percentage? Half?

It was half, 50%. Was that established or was that something you sat down and talked through him specifically or is that just a number you and your husband had in your head? No, we spoke it out loud. It was very clear. We've been talking to him since high school. And really, you're not going to go to school like all your other friends. We don't have that kind of money.

We didn't plan that far ahead. We have a very large family, and he's the oldest of all of our – we have a lot of kids. Sure. Here's my thing. The whole thing, no. 50% based upon the agreement up front, yes.

And I was a kid that was actually kicked out of school. And my parents cash floated as well with a scholarship with my father's GI Bill and some cash out of their pocket. And my parents did not require me to pay them back. This is why

I tell parents you never loan your kids money. You give it to them. So that way the emotional side is out and I hear her heart like I care. She cares about her son.

But right now she's in a in a sticky situation. Right. Her son is not in a position to pay her back. The agreement up front was we're going to loan you this money, but you're going to pay us back 50 percent, which is why we don't agree with the word loan. We don't agree with debt. You should never want your child to be indebted to you. Right. OK, so that's number two. But if there was an agreement between them two saying,

hey, when you graduate college, you will pay us back 50% of it, then that still holds now. And I would say, hey, son, when you get a job, when you get on your feet, then yes, we need you to pay us back. I think that's the most you can ask for. Right. I am weary of mom and dad feeling like they've got to punish him. pay us back. I think that's, I think that's the, the most you can ask for. Right. Right. Right. I am weary of mom and dad feeling they've got to punish him. Yeah. He's a grown man being punitive about it. I think he's learned his lesson that mom and dad aren't going to help him anymore. Right. And going back and saying, because you did this, you're angry. You did, you burned 16,000

bucks. That's a lot of money. Your son with a learning disability struggles. You're going gonna have some guilt about that because you told him he had to go do the things that were gonna help him be successful he didn't do it you're gonna continue to carry that because you carry that in high school for him and all that's natural but to go back and then say well because of that then you have to give us this money that's you're right that's gonna that's gonna put a big brick in his backpack that he's not gonna be able to earn at a minimum wage job bouncing between a class or two. But you did have an agreement going up. And so if you want to hold him to that, then absolutely you can hold him up to that agreement. I think I'd be more willing in my house to pardon my son and say you will not get a dollar from me for higher ed in the future unless you show a successful year or a successful two years or

whatever we'll reevaluate but at this point you're done i've learned my lesson i'm not gonna be bit twice i love you i don't support you but you're on your own now i would pardon but i wouldn't give my child any more money unless i can give it to him never loan it yeah this. This 50%, this 35%, you know, we may make a decision. I'm going to pay for it. I'm going to, like, come what may. Yeah. Or I'm not. But this, we're going to loan you part of it, and you're going to get that part of it back.

That just sets you up for these situations like this. Yeah. Nick is in Seattle, Washington. Good afternoon, Nick. How can Dr. D and I help? Well, I'm trying to figure out i um recently we sold our house and uh when i was younger i had a uh friend talk me into filing bankruptcy so i'm i uh my credit's kind of low i've worked up to 600 uh but uh i've I've got about $25,000 in the bank.

And I'm trying to figure out the best way to work on boosting that credit quite a bit because right now it's low. I've got a car payment and a credit card, but they just don't seem to be bringing it up very much. And I can't seem to kind of pull myself up out of that lower credit score. How much debt are you in, Nick? Not a lot. I think I've got, I think it's like an $800 credit card, and I think I owe about $8,000 less on the car. $8,000 on the car, and how much is on the credit card?

About $500. Okay. All right. So wait, I thought you said you have an $800 payment on the credit card. Oh, no, no. I've got, uh, I've got about, I'm about 800. I've got an $800 line of credit. $800. Okay, cool. All right. So about 500 on. So your question is how do you get your credit score? Let me ask you this question. Do you want to borrow money for the rest of your life? You want to be in debt for the rest of your life? No, no, I'd heavily prefer not to.

I was, uh, most of those choices were when I was, I was really heavily in debt and then, uh, someone talked me into the terrible idea of bankruptcy. And so, uh, the car payments high credit card payments high. And, uh, I figured it was the only way to get my credit up was to do something like that. How much do you make a year, Nick? About $50,000. Hey, Nick, I'm popping in here. This is a money question, and Anthony's your guy. But I want to – we're going to hold you over because I want to talk into this conversation because I want to frame it before Anthony starts answering it for you. So we'll be right back. This is The Dave Ramsey Show.

It's an easy answer for me, but, yeah, we'll hold him over. Yeah. Ramsey show. It's an easy answer for me, but yeah, we'll hold them up. Yep. Before the break, we was with Nick And Nick was telling us about Pretty much, you know, how he wants to get his credit score up And how his friends talked him into it And so we're going to bring him back on here. Hey, Nick, so I held over. This is normally a pretty quick and easy answer

for anybody listening to the Dave Ramsey Show, for Anthony, for Dave, for any of us. But you said something that I wanted to hone in on, and this is for everybody listening to this, and this applies all across all of our lives, myself included. You said several times that your friends talked you into a bankruptcy. Is that right? It is. It is. Yeah. Because I was talking to them about wanting to buy a house, but I needed to get out of the debt. And it was a few years ago, and they managed to talk me into filing bankruptcy without the information. So here's what I want you to do from this point forward.

Do I have your word? Before I even tell you what I want you to do, I want you just to say, yes, I will commit to that for the rest of my life. Yes, I will commit to it. I want you to take full ownership of grown-up decisions that you made and stop pawning off decisions that you now regret on friends. They may have talked you into it. They may have talked you into it. They may have given you bad advice. Cool. But at the end of the day, you're the one that signed that paper.

And I want you to be a person like I'm trying to be, like I'm trying to raise my son to be, like I know my friend Anthony is. I want you to be a person that, regardless of what happened in the past, that owns their decisions decisions right wrong and different and then they can fully own what the next steps are because if you walk through the next 5 10 15 20 years of your life always saying man it's because of them it's because of them hey listen you're a grown-up when you sign that paper so at the end of the day they gave you some data that was wrong they they were in your ear You're always going to have people in your ear.

And you always have to be accountable to the final decision that you make, right? And so from this point forward, I don't want this story to ever be retold as, well, my friends made me. My friends talked me into it. I want this story to be retold. I declared bankruptcy. And let that be a period at the end of that sentence. And then go on to say, here's what I did about it. So that's my piece on the conversation.

That's not why you called. You got that advice for free, and I'll turn it over. How do you raise the FICO score? How do you get your credit score up? Should you even get it up? Anthony, you're up. Yeah, it's an easy question. I mean, I think you can answer for yourself too, Nick.

Did you ever get the house that you filed bankruptcy for? And so bought a car, got a credit card, some different things like that. And so the payment was high, but I thought I could afford it, which I can, but it's not fun. So the ultimate goal is a house for you and your family, right? Correct. The ultimate goal beyond the house is financial freedom, financial peace, correct? Correct. Cool. I can't teach you how to get into more debt.

I can show you how to get into a home. I can show you how to bring financial peace. I can show you how to start building a legacy for your kids, at least on the financial side. And it's not really building your credit score. I know several people who have 800 credit score who do not even have $800 in the bank account. I want you to have $800,000 eventually in your bank account. And how we do that is by avoiding debt. And so the best way for you to get to the financial piece, the best way to you get, uh,

to get to a point to where you can be a home owner, uh, in a peaceful way is you said you had $25,000 in your savings account, right? Yes, I do. I want you to take that and become 100% debt-free today. And then from there, I want you to get that savings account up to a three to six months of expenses. Then from there, I want you to save at least 10% to 20% to put down on a home.

Then I want you to call my family at Churchill Mortgage. As a matter of fact, when you pay off your debt today, give them a call today and say, hey, listen, this is my situation. I would like to be a homeowner in the next year. Anthony O'Neill and Dr. D and Dave Ramsey told me to come see you. What does that look like over this next 12 months? How much money do you need from me? Do we need more than 10%?

Because I do have a bankruptcy on my credit report. What do you need from me to make this happen? One thing I love about Churchill, Nick, is that they're going to work with you because they have manual underwriting, okay? And so if you can stick with them, I promise you, you'll be successful. But Nick, I need you to hear me this

and I'm keeping you on the phone because I want to hear you say, I hear you. Or if you disagree with me, I want you to say, I disagree with you, AO. And that's fine. We can still love each other and respect each other and disagree. But I don't want you to focus on a credit score. I want you to focus on your financial future and having financial peace. And that is getting rid of debt. And that is having a lot of money in your account which nick let's be honest you have a good amount of money in your account already and so i want you to be able to look at kids in an eye and tell them like hey son hey daughter these are the mistakes

that i made financially in the past these are the mistakes i want you to avoid here's what i want you to learn from my mistakes stop listening to people stop listening to culture stop listening to the world who are saying hey get an 800 credit score get this get that no you know be a young man be a young woman who is determined who has integrity who has a savings account

and so from there that's how you can really be successful so what do you want the most honestly Nick I want you to be honest yeah I mean I can that's how you can really be successful. So what do you want the most, honestly? Nick, I want you to be honest. Yeah, I mean, I can definitely agree with that. I mean, it sounds like it would definitely be a better route in the long game. Okay.

Have you taken Financial Peace University before? I have not. Okay, cool. I want you to make a promise right here in front of 17 million listeners. I want you to vow that you're going to pay off your debt with your savings account. And I also want you to tell me that you're never going to borrow money outside of a mortgage. If you do that, Dr. D and I will give you one free year of Ramsey Plus, which is Financial Peace University and a lot of other great stuff that's going to help you, your wife, and your family start this journey. Can you make that promise to us today?

I will absolutely promise to do that. I love it. Well, stay on the line. Kelly's going to get that one free year Ramsey Plus for you. And listen, man, listen to Dave. Dave made some stupid mistakes when it comes to money. I've made some stupid mistakes when it comes to money. I never have.

You never have? I've made a lot of stupid mistakes, man money. I never have. You never have? I've made a lot of stupid mistakes, man. Wow. Yeah, I think you need to go see a therapist. And I thought you were. Trust me, brother. You're not the first person to tell me that today. But you know what, America? I want to ask you a question.

What's holding you back from making your money goals a reality? Whatever you're thinking right now, it's time to get rid of the excuses. It's time to take control of your money, just like our friend Nick. And this is like for real, for real, real good. I won't lie to you. It will take some work. It's going to take Nick some work. But with Ramsey Plus, it'll be a heck of a lot easier because with Ramsey Plus membership,

you'll build confidence with your money. You'll learn how to take charge and power through your money goes and you will get to take all the tools and make it happen i'm talking online classes uh life on entropy's university and three brand new courses we added just this year okay plus you'll get the premium version of the everygeting app and the Motivational Baby Steps tracking app. First, I mean not first, I'm sorry. Hey, you can do this. You can really do this.

You just have to take the first step. Test out Ramsey Plus today in a free trial. Go to DaveRamsey.com slash store to get started. That's DaveRamsey.com slash store. Let's quickly get to the Blinds.com. It's a pretty quick question here. Find out for yourself why blinds.com is the number one online retailer of custom window covering. You get free samples, free shipping with the new promos they run every month.

You'll save even more. Use promo code RAMSY to get the best deal. All right, Anthony, today's question comes from Carrie in New Hampshire. My husband and I are in baby steps four, five, and six. However, my parents took out a parent Plus student loan from my college 15 years ago and there's still $50,000 left to pay back. They're no longer able to make the payments because of financial instability

from COVID. Dad is saying not to pay it back in full and just keep making payments because the loan will go away when he dies. But I'm wondering if I should kick back into Baby Step 2 and pay it off for them. I mean, if you have the means to doing it back into Baby Step 2 and pay it off for them. I mean, if you have the means to doing it, yes, go ahead and pay it off. Yeah.

You know, if you're in Baby Steps 4, 5, and 6, you have $50,000. You can pay it off. Yeah. You borrowed money and you told somebody, I'm going to pay it back. Pay it back. Pay it back. That's the bottom line. I mean, heck, I would do that.

That's what I would do. America has been great. Dr. would do. America has been great. Dr. D, this segment has been great. I want to thank our producer, James Child, social producer, Kelly, Daniel, and America U, and our beautiful audience out there. Thank you for chilling with us. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. On your smart speaker, you can add our skill by saying,

Alexa, open the Ramsey Network skill. From there, you can listen to all our shows, ask Dave money questions like, how do I invest my money? Or what is the debt snowball? Find out more at DaveRamsey.com slash smart speaker.