The Ramsey Show - App - Should We Buy an Investment Property Right Now? (Hour 2)

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

Dave Ramsey & Jade Warshaw answer your questions and discuss: "Should we buy an investment property before our own home?" "I feel guilty spending money on fun things" "How much should we throw at o...ur mortgage?" Helping parents with their finances. Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Join a Personality-led FPU class. Click here! Enter The Ramsey Cash Giveaway for a chance at $3,000! https://bit.ly/TRSgvwy Shop our bestsellers during the $10 Sale! https://bit.ly/TRS10Sale Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3cEP4n6 Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Interested in advertising on The Ramsey Show? https://ter.li/s64ye3 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods, moving, and storage studios, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships jade washall ramsey personality is my co-host today open phones at 888-825-5225 jessica starts this hour in salt lake city hi jessica welcome to the ramsey show hey dave it's a pleasure to speak to you how are you better than i deserve what's up in your world oh everything, everything. Life. You know, it happens. We have a question for you.
Starting point is 00:01:08 My husband and I, we are wanting to buy a house for our growing family, but we have some money set aside. And I was raised to buy an investment property before we buy a house for ourselves. You were raised wrong. Oh, okay. Well, there we go. Do we buy a house for ourselves first or an investment property or do we split the cash half and half and put it down the middle? Buy a house for yourself first. Okay. That's what we were wondering. What do you have saved? We have about $300,000.
Starting point is 00:01:37 Excellent. So what price range home? Yeah. So that's kind of where we're at and that's what we were looking for. If we put all the money down for an investment or a house. Yeah, I mean, what price range home? Oh, I'm so sorry. We haven't looked too far into it. Where we're at in Salt Lake, I feel like a normal-sized house, like for a solid family of like a four-bedroom house, starts at about between $700,000 and $800,000.
Starting point is 00:02:06 This depends on which street you're on. Yeah, that's true. Hey, how much do you guys make a year? About $100,000. Good for you. Okay, let me back walk the why behind our answer. Okay, tell me. our answer okay so personal residence is a key element paid off of the first one to five million dollars of net worth that people build okay not investment property okay statistically speaking
Starting point is 00:02:36 okay personal residence that creates a reasonable standard of living, not necessarily opulence, but certainly not, you know, living in a camping trailer out back of Ma's house. Okay, that's not what we're doing. But a personal residence that gives you a reasonable, sustainable level of standard of living creates stabilization in your relationships, your health is better, your career has more of a tendency to prosper, the budget prospers because the largest line item in everyone's personal budget until they're very wealthy is their home.
Starting point is 00:03:19 Okay. And so when you get control of the largest line item and stabilize it by buying a home and or, you know, paying cash for it or not, getting it paid off very, very soon, you have a higher tendency to prosper because your health is better, your relationships are better, your career blossoms. There's tons of data around homeownership that indicates those things. Okay. So another question for you, because we're looking into buying a house, or we only, so we live in my parents' townhome right now, and we only spend $1,000 a month on that. I also would feel guilty going out and spending almost $3,000 on a mortgage compared to where I'm only spending $1,000 a month in rent, but I'm only renting.
Starting point is 00:04:06 It's not an asset. Exactly. Okay. So you're making $100,000 a year and you buy a home with $300,000 down and then you map out how quickly we can pay off that home. Okay. And then that, because you're probably going to do it in five years. Oh man, I wish. wish no i really do i mean like okay so um probably seven okay i might be five be between
Starting point is 00:04:33 five and seven but you're making a hundred and of course you're not five years from now you're not going to be making a hundred on average your income will go up okay yeah that's true and we're going to throw everything we've get that we've got extra money at this mortgage because the goal becomes to pay it off because when you get the house paid off and now you're making 150 and it's five or six years from now um you're still very young to save up and pay cash for your first investment property and you're going to do extremely well oh i hope so i want to that's my goal that's i mean we all want to be rich and famous right i mean maybe not famous, but...
Starting point is 00:05:07 Jessica, you don't have any other debt, do you? No, no debt. I was going to say that $300,000 is about all of our funds put together, including our mutual funds, our personal IRA, our emergency fund. That's everything. Yeah, well, you cannot use retirement money for this down payment. That would be silly. No, no, no.
Starting point is 00:05:23 And you have to have your emergency funds set aside so you're not going to put down quite 300 grand but um but i'm going to tear into this house and because you have this big goal of a paid for house and then a paid for investment property yeah and let's hit this again real quick because i don't know how much money she has outside of the retirement money that she was talking about using so let let's be really clear, Jessica, about that. Don't touch those retirement funds and make sure that that's going to change the equation a little bit for you. So make sure that whatever you purchase, it's no more than 25% of your take home pay.
Starting point is 00:05:56 And of course, you're doing that 15 year fixed rate mortgage. And given this discussion, I mean, Salt Lake is not a hyper cheap environment, but it's also not a hyper expensive environment. So given this discussion, you may want to actually look at 500 instead of 700. Yeah, absolutely. I just. Depending on how much you're putting as a downstroke. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:06:15 Because again, you know, well, this is my forever house. There's no such thing except heaven. There is no forever house. About the only thing you can count on is you're going to move. That's right. You know, I just don't know how quick or where but you're gonna move i always say forever home that's a slippery slope when people say things like forever home for me dave that means they're giving themselves permission to spend more that's what i have i have a forever wife and i have a forever jesus nothing else i gots forever everything else goes away
Starting point is 00:06:46 because i told sharon i mean we've been married 41 years i told her if she leaves i'm going with her so that's how that works open phones at 888-825-5225 guys one of the things about personal finance and it's illustrated in the answer to that question, is that it's as much personal as it is finance. And if you try to correct things that have anxiety and spiritual principles and relationship issues, you try to manage those things with math they never work so a stable home presence a castle for you to come home to after you've been working hard a safe haven an emotionally calm place that's good to reset and go fight again another day has tied with it actual income. Absolutely. That's absolutely the case.
Starting point is 00:07:48 And, you know, I think that people, I think that's why, Dave, so many people want to get to that step so quickly, even if it means getting to it the wrong way. Yeah, we know it, but we don't know why we know it. We kind of know it in our knower. That's right. Yeah, deep down.
Starting point is 00:08:03 Deep down in our knower. Yeah, that's exactly right. But yeah, it's, and you're right right it can cause people to short circuit it but i i think sometimes we're always going i gotta buy a house because houses go up in value and i don't want to be left out the market see that's all math and that's not considering that your stress level goes down so your your medical condition is better it versus not being there. Because, you know, when you've got to deal with all this other stuff, man, something else. That's true.
Starting point is 00:08:30 This is The Ramsey Show. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today thank you for joining us america so jade you're doing your own financial peace university class and you're not by yourself affirmative i and rachel cruz are also doing a class hers is both of ours have started they started may 8th but all the personalities are doing classes so So you could go to a Financial Peace University class with Dr. John Deloney. Yes, and you should. His class is actually coming up next, and you should sign up for his class. Or George Camel.
Starting point is 00:09:13 Yeah, George Camel, Ken Coleman, Eddie Cullen. Eddie Cullen, yeah. Everybody's doing a class. Everybody. Changing their lives. Love it. Very cool. So if you don't know what Financial Peace University is, you haven't been listening for very long because it's the best thing we do around here. It's nine lessons and you go through it with a coordinator in person or virtually online with a coordinator. And the coordinator is the one that guides you and loves you and holds you accountable and encourages you when you're scared and holds you accountable when you're about to screw up because you think you got this figured out if you had it figured out what are you doing in a financial class so hey we're here to help you we know what
Starting point is 00:09:49 to do and we've led 10 million people out of debt and into wealth 10 million people have been through this class that makes it the largest personal finance class in north america ever and i suggest i mean there's a lot of ways that you can take the class, but I suggest taking it with community. Always got to be with community. And you're going to be the head of your community. Exactly. The Jade community.
Starting point is 00:10:13 Check it out. If you want to go through with one of the personalities, you can still get signed up. Financial Peace University at RamseySolutions.com or go to FPU.com, either one. Abhi is with us in San francisco hey obby what's up hi good afternoon dave and jade um so i'm currently on baby step 3b and um i just feel guilty if i budget to spend money on vacation, then I just never do. And I spend it on other necessities instead, just because I don't want to slow down saving money. And I just want to get past this block.
Starting point is 00:10:54 I mean, if you're saving for a home and you're foregoing certain expenditures because you want to save faster, that is your prerogative. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that, especially when you're in those first three baby steps. I mean, you're looking at the situation. You've got a set of scales in front of you, and you go on one side of the scales is a vacation. On the other side of the scales is I get to buy my house faster, and I'm choosing to buy my house faster.
Starting point is 00:11:19 That's not guilt. That's just you made a choice. Yeah. I understand, but I also feel like I feel like this is going to continue once I do get the house. I'll be like, oh, I need to pay it off. I just want to...
Starting point is 00:11:35 I listened to what you said, and I said you allocate a percentage to spending and enjoyment, but I just feel like I just never do it. Are you married? I don't know. Are you married? I don't know. Are you married? No, I'm single.
Starting point is 00:11:49 What do you make? I make $120. What are you talking about allocating for a vacation that you wouldn't do? Maybe like $2,500 or $3,000, and it'll go up as my net worth increases, of course. So I think the point is this. What you need to do also is to put actual – you're dealing with feelings, which are okay to admit we have feelings. That's not a bad thing.
Starting point is 00:12:15 But you need to put the actual numbers to it and go, okay, if I spend $2,000 on this vacation, how much does it really damage my goal of setting a house mathematically okay i mean i've already saved 50 000 i'm probably going to save another 40 000 or whatever the number is how much is 2000 really going to blow it up now if you said i'm going to spend 20 grand on vacation then i would say well let's back that down you know because it's probably going to use up a whole bunch of your savings but usually if you put actual math to it and go, is this really keeping me from hitting the goal?
Starting point is 00:12:50 Yeah, it's not. Yeah. And then that's going to help you with all the other stages as well. He seems like a formula driven guy or like a, I just go, go in steps. And I feel like he just needs to almost like he said, he just, when the time comes, he's got to make it part of his plan. Well, allocate a non-damaging percentage of your savings to enjoyment. Yeah. Not house.
Starting point is 00:13:16 Not house. A non-damaging percentage. It's good for the mental health to get away every once in a while, Abby, so add that to the list. All right, let's go to Justin in Grand Rapids. Hey, Justin, what's up? Hey, guys, thank you so much for taking my call. So my question for today is my wife and I are on baby steps four through six, and we just decided to tackle our mortgage and to get it out. We have a couple of businesses that we have. The house that we're living in is a duplex. So we have the rental income and that side of the
Starting point is 00:13:50 business. And then we live off of my wife's full-time business as a potter. And so my question is how much do we allocate? We have 42,000 sitting in a bank. How much do we allocate to throw at the mortgage and to get that out of here as soon as possible? And then how much do we allocate to throw at the mortgage and to get that out of here as soon as possible um and then how much do we set aside for the two businesses of the pottery business and the duplex this is interesting so you've got tell me how much money you have again i was taking all of that in 42 000 42 000 now is this how much is owed on the duplex uh just under 300 000 and what do you make a year i'll sold it how's the taxable income about 50 after taxes and business expenses
Starting point is 00:14:36 and her business is successful and why do you not make money? I'm a stay-at-home dad with our kids, and then I'm also doing whatever side hustles and remote contract work that I can on the side. Okay. And so her pottery business is making $35,000? It's making $36,000 gross, but the expenses are extremely low because it's just the pottery cost. Okay. You don't need an emergency fund for it, and we certainly don't need one for your other business. It doesn't make any money at all.
Starting point is 00:15:17 Yeah. Well, right, yeah, for me personally. But then it's mostly like how much do we have? Oh, the duplex, you said. You don't need a huge emergency fund for the duplex. We just need to start working to get it out of debt. So you make $50,000 a year. You have a $300,000 mortgage.
Starting point is 00:15:31 And how many kids? We have two kids, four and one years old. Okay. The thing that's missing in the equation that's glaring is your income is low. Your household income is low. That's the number that feels out of whack when I hear your story. So what's the plan? I have been working as many side hustles as we can.
Starting point is 00:16:00 We've been working on my wife's business every year. It's growing by about 50% of its previous year's income. It's only about three, four years old. And so, yeah, we're just working as hard as we can, as well as taking care of the kids and that sort of thing. Is there anything more that you can do to add to the equation? I mean, picking up more hours, more side hustles, that sort of thing. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:16:28 Okay. Well, I think that's what you got to map out here because that's a bigger question than out of your $42,000, you should set aside an emergency fund of three to six months of household expenses. You don't have any debt except the house, right? Correct. We are completely debt-free except for the mortgage, and we already have a— So what do you think three to six months of expenses for your emergency fund is?
Starting point is 00:16:54 Well, we have $18,000 allotted for our personal— Oh, in addition to the $42,000. Okay, that's good. So the $42,000 is just sitting in our bank in high-yield savings account until we decide what we're doing with it, essentially. Okay, do we need any of that to grow her business aggressively? No, we don't because it's just her. And then she does have one employee, but it's...
Starting point is 00:17:19 Yeah, but you said it doubled in the last three years. If it doubles again, you're going to need some help. True, true. I mean, you may need another killing. I feel like I'm just thinking about your situation and the money you have saved in your personal and the money you have set aside from this business money. I feel like I would keep,
Starting point is 00:17:42 I would want you to have six months of expenses because of the nature of what you do. I also would like you to sit on a large portion of what you already have saved from the business because you've got a duplex. And I feel like that could come with a lot of cost. Maybe you keep 20,000 of it aside. Yeah, I think I'm going to put another 20 with that 18 and then throw the other 23 at your house. And make sure that you really thought out the pro forma for growing your businesses and where you're going to end up here make sure that you've really thought out the pro forma for growing your businesses and where you're going to end up here. Because you may need some of that money to do that with. Because I'm more concerned about getting your income up in this equation than I am what happens
Starting point is 00:18:15 to this little $20,000 towards your mortgage. I agree. This is The Ramsey Show. jade warshall ramsey personality is my co-host today the phone number here is 888-825-5225 thank you for joining us jacob is next in Kansas City. Hi, Jacob. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Hi, Jayden. Pleasure talking to you guys. You too. What's up? So I got a lot of moving pieces on my financial chessboard right now,
Starting point is 00:18:57 and my wife and I feel like we're doing all the right things, but we're also talking about having our first kid next year, trying to have our first kid next year. Yay! And I just want to make sure that I... Thank you. I mean, we're excited just talking about it. But we want to make sure that we're prioritizing the right things to not only set up for sustained success through that life change, but also, ideally, maybe allowing my wife to switch to part-time. She's an RN. So,
Starting point is 00:19:27 you know, being able to go part-time would allow for more time with the hopeful future kid. You're going to be a good dad. That's exciting. You're actually thinking about it. Wow. Who knew? And yeah, very cool. So what do you make? Our combined W-2 income last year. No, you. Oh, me? 75 to 80 right now. Okay. How old are you?
Starting point is 00:19:56 I'm 27. How much debt have you all got? Other than our mortgage, nothing. Wow, great job. Can you live on 80? Thank you. Other than our mortgage, nothing. Wow, great job. Can you live on 80? Thank you. You know, we hadn't fully considered that.
Starting point is 00:20:15 We bought our house last year. I've been paying close to 200 extra per month straight to principal, trying to pay down that mortgage early. And, you know, we haven't been maxing our Roth IRAs. What does she make? I have not maxed mine. She makes 55 to 60. Our combined is about 135.
Starting point is 00:20:40 So no debt. How much do you have left on the house? Is that your goal, that you want to have that house paid off before she would go to part-time or stay at home? Is that the goal or that's just what you've been trying to do? I realistically don't think that's possible. I am just trying to get ahead of the curve and, you know, build a habit that will allow us to continue. I mean, we're already, well, I think you're ahead of the, we've been in it a year, so, you know, you're ahead of the curve. You're ahead of the curve in the way that you don't have debt and that you're on a plan which is good and you've got three to six months saved i'm assuming uh yeah we have about 18 000
Starting point is 00:21:16 in a high yield savings okay good deal untouched okay so here's the deal uh What will she make if she goes part-time? That's the great thing. If she goes to night shift and she's finishing her bachelor's this December, her pay virtually won't change. Well, there you go. There's not a question. This is a no-brainer. It's not, but that's honestly, we were wanting to avoid that. Wanting to avoid her working at all no avoid her having to work night shift oh okay oh i see the baby oh
Starting point is 00:21:52 that makes sense i don't argue that all right so what can she make if she works not working the night shift part-time um it it would be probably about a 2020,000 to $25,000 estimated pay cut. So you guys are... Remind me what she makes again. $55,000 to $60,000 last time. Okay, so let's call it $40,000. Okay. And you make $80,000.
Starting point is 00:22:19 That's $120,000. Start living on $120,000 now and have babies. Go. Ready, set, go. Okay. Easy. start living on 120 now and have babies go ready set go okay easy it's it's easy i love these calls because he has options he's made it to where he can sit and decide do i want to do this do i want to do that and in this case it's really cool because i kind of feel like you thought jacob that we were gonna lay out this plan why you know as to where you can't do what you want to do, but you've set yourself up in a fabulous way. If you want to live on 80, she can just quit. That too.
Starting point is 00:22:53 Which they could do. I mean, they just have their house payment. It's what the Ramseys did. Yeah. And it wasn't 80, I can tell you that. And if she wanted to, you know. It was also 38 years ago, but yeah, there's that. After a certain period of time, maybe she wants to go 38 years ago but yeah there's that but yeah after a certain period of time maybe she wants to go back to work again maybe she doesn't yeah you know make sure
Starting point is 00:23:10 you keep those certs up if you're a nurse for sure if you go to trouble to get that keep those certifications in place and his income is going to go up over time as well absolutely you guys have done great you've done great so yeah if everybody waited until they could afford to have kids they would never have kids facts man it's just um and the best thing ever happened today ramsey's babies except possibly grandbabies if i don't know how great grandbabies were going to be i'd have been nicer to their parents okay sarah's with us in minneapolis hey sarah welcome to the ramsey show hey guys cash is king that is dumb love it love it love it how can we help uh so i'm calling because my husband and i um we're on baby step two we're hammering out um the debt as we make extra money i'm picking up
Starting point is 00:24:01 extra shifts at the hospital my husband uh paul, Paul Snow in the winter. So he makes every time doing that and all of it's been going into debt or things that have come up that we could cashflow. Um, but right now we're wondering if we should sell our townhouse and, um, take that money, pay off school loans, fully fund our emergency fund, and just rent until we could save up the 20% for a new home. What do you owe on the townhouse and what could you get for it? So we owe about $100,000 on the townhouse. And the last we checked was a couple months ago, and they said we could get around $230,000 for it. And school loans are $70,000. So have you priced out, if you were to, you know,
Starting point is 00:24:52 go from your living situation now to renting, how is that going to change your monthly payment? The rent would be a little bit more because our mortgage as well. But if we didn't have any debt because the only debt we have we put our camper up for sale and then we have school loans um and hopefully our camper will sell we're like just praying it does what will it sell for um we'd be what are you asking for um we're asking 23 for it okay and how much do you owe on it 20 20 okay so it's not gonna help with the school at all no well you just get rid of the payment yes yes so we get rid of the yeah what's your
Starting point is 00:25:35 household income uh we make about 130 a year keep the townhouse you haven't been doing this very long no we have not no yeah you just got started and you realize this is hard yeah it is hard uh yeah we paid off about 32 so far yeah and then when you sell the camper you're going to pay off another 23 and then you make 130 and you only got 70 left just knock it out i agree with that yeah well we we were hoping that we'd sell the camper but if we sold the townhouse, that money could pay off school loans, fully fund our emergency fund. Yeah, and then you're out of the real estate business and you've got an expensive rent. No, I'm going to sit in the townhouse, let it go up in value while you clean up the rest of this mess.
Starting point is 00:26:18 Exactly. Townhouse is not your problem. The camper is your problem. Oh, for sure. That's why it's for sale. Yeah. much a problem the camper is a problem oh for sure that's why it's for sale yeah um i mean we were kind of thinking what you said but i don't know the appeal of not having any debt and the appeal of doing this fast and easy it's not fast or easy either one and it's not the smartest choice even money wise because like dave said you're in the real estate market which is where so many
Starting point is 00:26:43 people want to be and if you just sit on that property long enough It's going to be worth something when you're actually ready to go and buy a full-sized house And right now I think what dave said man dave. That's so true It's hard to pay off debt. It's hard to walk through that process. And I think a lot of times when people get into this They're looking for What's the quick fix? What can I sell? How can I get out of this fast? And although wanting to pay off your debt fast is a good thing, you've got to think about what you're selling when it comes to your house, if it's really the wisest choice
Starting point is 00:27:12 long term or not. In this case, I don't think it is. I think they've got a good income. And I think if they put the pedal to the metal, they can pay off their debt quicker than they realized. It's fun when you see all the information and you go, I could do this. And you got all this enthusiasm and then you go about three months in, you go, crap, this is hard. I'm picking up extra shifts at the hospital. We're not going out to eat. Tired.
Starting point is 00:27:37 I'm tired. This is hard. The kids are whiny. This is hard. It is hard. But you know what, over the scope of your life, the two years it's going to take you to get out of debt when you sell this camper, it's really not much. It's very hard. But Sarah, you got what it takes to do it. I'm proud of you. You can do this. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you for joining us, America. Jade and I were just out at the commercial break.
Starting point is 00:28:15 If you want to and you're coming through Nashville, stop by and watch the show. We do it on the glass from 1 to 4 Central Time every Monday through Friday. There are two of us Ramsey personalities sitting in here doing the show. It's sometimes like watching Ugly Paint Drive, but you can come and we would love to have you. There's usually just a handful of people out here today, but there's usually 50 to 200 folks come by. The coffee is free. The cookies are free. And I got to talk to a young couple just now when we were out there getting our pictures done with them. Said, you changed our life. Well, of course, we didn't change there getting our pictures done with them. Said you changed our life.
Starting point is 00:28:45 Well, of course, we didn't change their life. We just told them how. And they changed their lives. That's what we do. We tell you how. And you are the hero. And you get to win. You get to go slay the dragon.
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Starting point is 00:30:21 apropos hi dixie how are you i'm good how are you? I'm good, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Hey, so my mom, she's 59 years old and she's going to be trying to get into retirement soon but she doesn't have anything saved for retirement. She currently has about 20k left on her mortgage. She has student loans. She has $18,000 on her part. How much in student loans? That I'm not too sure. How old did you say, 5'9 or 6'9? 5'9.
Starting point is 00:30:54 Okay. Yes, sir. Could you guess how much she had on her student loans, if you had to guess? Maybe about $35,000. Okay. We'll call it that for discussion purposes. How can we help? Okay.
Starting point is 00:31:08 So my mom, her mindset is everybody is going to be in debt and there's no way around it. And I've come across you guys for maybe about a year now. I have the Total Money Makeover book. I tried to offer her to read it, but she's not, she's not a big reader. So every time I get a chance, I try to sit down with her and talk to her about different things that I feel would be beneficial for her. And she'll sit and she'll listen. But I think maybe because in her mind, I'm young and I'm not wise and I'm not, I don't know what I'm talking about.
Starting point is 00:31:41 She'll listen for a few minutes and then she's like, oh, you know, I don't think that's the best way for me to handle something. So my question to you guys is how could I help guide my mom to better set her up for retirement? I'm sorry. This sucks. I hate this for you. You know, you're the kid and you've got hold of this thing that you know can help her. And she just, I'm'm just gonna be honest she's still in that childlike phase where she wants what she wants and she's gonna do what she's gonna do and i'll be honest with you you're not i hate to
Starting point is 00:32:17 tell you this you're not going to be the one to convince her otherwise probably true right we call it the powdered butt syndrome once someone has powdered your butt they don't care about your opinion on sex or money right so she doesn't she doesn't think that she's headed towards calamity clearly if she's retiring now at 59 or if she does you think it she doesn't believe there's hope yeah so dixie what i and the only luck i have ever had is one of two things. Number one, you can't talk to her about her situation at all. That will not work. You've tried that previously. What you can talk about is your situation and your feelings.
Starting point is 00:33:02 You know, Mom, I used to believe I was going to die in debt. I thought I was going to be in debt my whole life. And you know what? I'm almost out. And I did this stuff, and it made me feel so good. It's been hard, but it's been worth it. And it's the first time in my life I've got confidence about money. My hope factor is so high right now.
Starting point is 00:33:20 But, boy, I used to really think I was never going to be able to win. I thought I'd be in debt my whole life. And, man, mom, it's just a lot of fun all you talk about is you and pretty soon she'll catch herself bragging to her friends you know my daughter dixie she's getting out of debt and then as soon as she starts saying stuff like that she's gonna go hmm i wonder if i should but you can you could it is not it is never offensive for you to talk about you. Okay. But, you know, if, like, I got a guy in our company here that lost, he's one of our software engineers, and he lost like 60-something pounds. And I went up to him, I'm like, man, what in the world?
Starting point is 00:34:04 That's amazing. I mean, you lost like a Backstreet Boy. I'm like, man, what in the world? That's amazing. I mean, you lost like a backstreet boy. I mean, this is crazy, you know? And he's like, yeah. I said, man, I'm so proud of you. His shoulders kicked back. His chest stuck out. How'd you do that?
Starting point is 00:34:16 I ate less. It's amazing. And he didn't come up to me and go, you know, Dave, you could lose 25 pounds. You'd feel a lot better, Dave, if you'd get out of the donuts. I'm not in the donuts anymore. But he didn't come up to me and do that, right? He just came up to me and he stood there as this walking testimony that his new way of life is causing him to be able to feel better and be healthier.
Starting point is 00:34:39 Right. That's a wonderful thing. The second thing, other than you talking about you, is if you know someone that she respects in the area of business and money, you might talk to them because she might listen to them if you put them on her. Right. So Uncle So-and-so has always been, you know, Harry, he's always had money. He's good with money. Well, go tell Harry to go talk to her, right? What do you think she'd say if you said,
Starting point is 00:35:08 Hey, Mom, I found out about this Financial Peace University class. I'm going to take it. Do you want to take it with me? What do you think she'd say? I feel like if I was taking it and I offered her to go, I feel as though she would go. Yeah, but you've got to be real careful not to ever during the whole class say anything about her. You just say, I'm doing this for me.
Starting point is 00:35:32 And at the end. Except for encouraging her. Yeah. But never like, Mom, you've got to get this straight. Mom, you better get desperate. No, you are not her accountability. That will not work. It's like when you take a friend to church and the pastor is speaking you don't go that's for you yeah and that's for you too
Starting point is 00:35:49 he's talking to you can you hear him you know what i'm saying you can't do that right it's just sit be quiet and that's it you know that's a good point that's very right you know that's very good i think that's what you that's what i would take away from this. I would I'd say, Mom, I'm signing up for Financial Peace University. I've got to get a couple of things right. You know, I've been listening to the show. Hey, you know, I've got two free passes. I'd appreciate it if you go with me, because I think you'd be I think you'd be an encouragement to me.
Starting point is 00:36:17 Oh, that's good. Right. That's good. Yeah. But don't you dare say a word about her stuff. That's right. If she brings it up, you just smile and nod and say, Mom, I think you can win. That's't you dare say a word about her stuff that's right if she brings it up you just smile and nod and say mom i think you can win that's all you can say you can't say that you
Starting point is 00:36:30 know you can't think that way because it doesn't work it just doesn't work right that's good well i appreciate that yeah this is tough i'm proud of you for calling in i'm proud of you for getting your own situation intact. That's exciting. Yeah, good for you. And, hey, Austin, can we give them Financial Peace University? We'll give it to you for free. Now she can't turn it down. There you go.
Starting point is 00:36:56 Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah, let's do it. Call back and tell us how it goes. Yeah, we want to hear when you're debt-free and mom's winning and everybody's on the same page now and all that yeah it's it's you know it's weird though that when we're talking with family we feel like we can bypass this persuasion step and just go straight to the you're stupid step yes you know and you got to persuade family like anybody else because they're
Starting point is 00:37:22 grown-ups they get to do what they want to do that's true you have to use persuasion especially if they're your elder oh for sure for sure yeah yeah you know sure ah that puts us our the ramsey show in the books Dave here. You can find all of our shows with the Ramsey Network app on your smartphone. It's the only place to listen to the entire back catalog of episodes. Download the Ramsey Network app in your favorite app store today.

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