The Ramsey Show - App - Should We Use a Sinking Fund or an Emergency Fund? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: July 7, 2022

Dr. John Delony & Rachel Cruze discuss: Sinking funds vs. emergency funds, Should you make your kids tithe? How to budget for months with less income, I feel like I'm running out of time to save. 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

🎵 Live from the Ramsey headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee, this is the Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life and your money. I'm John Deloney, joined here by my good friend Rachel Cruz, the smartest person on radio. And that was Rachel, not me. And we're here to take your calls about money, life, whatever's going on in your life. We have a packed house out there.

It's good to see everybody down here visiting us in Nashville. It's good to see you. And give us a buzz. The call is free, and the advice is worth about that much too. 888-825-5225. It's 888-825-5225. Let's go out to Alexis in Phoenix. What's up, Alexis? Yeah. Hi. Thank you for taking my call. Of course. What's up? My question is with regards to the emergency fund from Step 3. I have several different

savings accounts, including some accounts that are more like sinking funds. Is that emergency fund the sum total of what's in all of the accounts or only what's in a dedicated emergency fund account? I would say what's dedicated in the emergency fund account because your sinking funds are to be used eventually for something, right? You're saving up for a vacation or you're saving up for a car. Well, one of them would be for a new car. But like one of them is what I generally call my bill account. And it includes things like car maintenance and house maintenance and things. So a lot of things that people would normally call emergencies, like new tires or something, all of that would come out of that fund at some point when needed. Yes. Okay. So I'll tell you what Winston and I do. So we have an emergency fund and it's six,

I actually made us put like eight to nine months. Just in case, I'm like, let's just have a little bit of a buffer all the way. So we have that money state and it is in a completely different account. It is like, it's just, we never touch it. It's just over there. And then we have that money saved and it is in a completely different account. It is like, it's just, we never touch it. It's just over there. And then we have a money market account. So after we do all of our investing and we do our giving and our spending, if we have some money left over, then we put that amount of money into a different account.

And that's what we really use that account for things that come up that are quote unquote emergencies, right? The, um, something happened to my car like two weeks ago. So we, we had to, uh, use some of of that money. And we didn't touch the emergency fund. That was over there. We used that other account that we kind of just had money in for those kind of expenses. Does that

make sense? Yes. Okay. So I would, if I were you, Alexis, just to keep it clean and neat, I would have just a separate account for your emergency fund and it's over there and you literally don't touch it ever unless you absolutely have to. And that's what it's there for. It's the ultimate safety net. Okay. Okay. Alexis, can I lean into something while I got you? Yes. Is it okay if I pry a little bit? Sure. That's what he's good at. So prepare your heart, Alexis. So I consider this a national challenge that we're experiencing. And it is complexity as an antidote to anxiety. Here's what I mean by that. We're an anxious group of people in this country. We have a lot going on. And our bodies are trying to get our attention that

things aren't okay, that we're not living in sustainable ways. One of the ways we combat anxiety is by just doing nothing. Okay. But one of the ways high performing people, which you clearly are, I could tell in the first 30 seconds of your question is more data as a way to quell anxiety. I'm going to have another cup of coffee. I'm going

to go ask my friend this, and I've gotten four opinions. I'm going to go ahead and get one more. I'm going to go talk to this guy. I'm going to read this book. Is that you? Yes, it is. Yes, except for often sharing with close family and asking opinions of other people because I don't necessarily think they handle their money properly. Yes. Okay, good. So you're judgmental too. I love it. You and I are very similar. Another way we burn off this anxious energy is through complexity. I've got 18 different accounts. I got four at this bank. I got three at this bank. I got a spreadsheet, but then I've got a second spreadsheet that helps me with it. See where I'm going? Yes.

What I would suggest is the way Rachel laid it out is simplicity. And there's peace in that simplicity. And for a high running anxious person like me and you, right? Yes. We have to deal with why is our body spinning and running and running and running in that gap between safety, between a fully funded emergency fund and a single account that's a sinking fund. And so my challenge to you is to simplify this process. You're making it way too complicated. And when you're not running and churning and churning and running and checking on this account and trying to get this code for this bank so you can log into that one and check this, you're going to feel a little bit buzzy, a little bit anxious, a little bit like you're not doing something. I want you to deal with that. Get to the bottom of that feeling

and aim for a more simple life because the word we use around here instead of simplicity, we say peace. You can just go to sleep. You can just breathe. See what I'm saying? I do, but, and this is definitely that working on that, how do you then keep track of what's supposed to be where? Like, if I have one account that has everything in it, how do you know what is available for house repairs versus what is available for, like, say, splurging on a new car? There's these awesome things called yellow pads and pins. You can use an Excel sheet.

What I'm telling you is having multiple accounts all over the place for this thing and for that thing is just try it another way for 60 days. And if it's a total flop, then the banks are going to love you coming back and open up more accounts yeah and i think too alexis if you know okay i need to replace a car so i'm going to need 12 000 in this account to go and pay cash for the car that i want and we're going to have house repairs and all this so we're going to need like 6 500 here you then you just start doing the math to say okay how much is in this account okay uh when do i need the car by we have six months for that the house repairs probably need to be done in the next three months like you start to just kind of you just yeah you just get a yellow pad out and a pen and and start just kind of tracking it that way but some people do have you know account yeah george has him he's got several accounts so there

are people that definitely like this is my vacation accounts, all that. I just am not an organized person. So I literally would have, if I did that, if I did that system for my personality and I had 10 accounts, I would forget about four of them. And then I would get to heaven and Jesus was like, oh, Rachel, you had all these accounts that you forgot about. It's like pretty much like I just, I couldn't keep track of it. Here's what you're doing, Alexis. You're dress rehearsing tragedy.

Okay. You are looking into the future. There's a difference between, hey, our cars are starting to age on us, and so let's start being intentional about planning, and we've got to have a separate fund because what if the air conditioner goes out? And if the air conditioner goes out, then that means the transmission is going to fall out of the car, right? There's a difference in those two actions.

And one is borderline, like I'll admit to it, borderline prepping. You got meat in the freezer and a year's worth of dry canned goods. There's that. And then there's just being smart. And one of those causes a lot of anxiety and perpetuates this motion, motion, motion as though we're getting somewhere. And the other one is, I want to live a peaceful life. Being peaceful means I got food

in case things get silly, but I'm also not going to have a hidden freezer out back that I got to go check every two weeks. And I got, right. I tried this, Rachel. I had accounts all over the place. And it was Sheila, my wife, that finally came and said,

can we just have one? We're okay, yes. Can just have one? We're okay. Yes. Can we have one? Can we have an emergency fund and then our bank account and let's just keep this stuff? And it just brought peace to our house. The simplicity of it. Yeah.

It's good. Chaos does not help chaos. We'll be right back. Hey guys, George Camel here, and I'm so excited to tell you about the newest product from Ramsey. It's called Gazelle and it's a digital banking experience that will help you spend and save the Ramsey way with banking services provided by Pathword NA. You'll get a single spending account with no monthly fees and it's FDIC insured through Pathword NA. We're offering early access to our beta customers so you can help us make it the best experience it can be. Just go to ramsaysolutions.com slash gazelle to sign up for the waitlist today. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm John Deloney, joined by Rachel Cruz. And we are taking your calls on money, taking your calls on your relationships, life, work, whatever you got going on.

We've probably got an opinion about it or some expertise. And give us a free call at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Let's go to Charlie in Tampa. What's up, Charlie? Hey, John. Hey, Rachel. How are y'all doing today?

Doing great. Thanks for calling. Good. Well, I have a question about my wife and I have two children. We have a 15-year-old boy and an 8-year-old girl. And they've seen us in their lifetime on the Ramsey plan and doing our steps. And even the oldest

used the envelope system when he got a small allowance as a younger kid. Well, this summer he has his first full-time job, just during the summer. And he's making his first paycheck. He actually just got this past Friday. And I want to mention tithing to him. His reply was, yeah, of course, I'm going to give something

to the church. But when I was teaching him the 10% standard, his eyes got kind of wide because based on a little $20 allowance in there, that's a very small amount. But when he's looking at a $100 paycheck, you know, that's a lot of money at first. So the question is, I just assume that, you know, we require him to tithe being, you know, his parents and laying in our home and following our example. My wife's not at all opposed to that, but she brought up the possibility of him being

able to make the decision for himself. And so I'm going to see what you both thought on that. Yeah, it's a great question. You know, when it comes to giving, I think whether you're a parent teaching a child or it's yourself, the legalistic side always rubs me the wrong way. So I'm always, we encourage 10% at Ramsey and I believe, we tithe 10% even more, Winston and myself. So I believe in it 100%. But I don't do it because it's a rule and it's an obligation.

There's a heart change that occurs when it comes to giving. And so for him, you know, I think it's a great exercise for him to learn to give, period. Right? Because you want to teach your kids the things when they leave home and become adults of like, here are the habits. Here are the principles and the values that I want to instill in you as a parent to a child. So when you leave home, that almost this is normal. This is how you do life. And so giving is one of those things for me. So giving is non-negotiable. Now, to require 10% out of every paycheck for him, I don't know. I mean, a part of me is like, I think it's kind of up to you as the

parent to decide what it was. And I was thinking with mom and my parents, when we got an allowance, we did have to give. Yeah, because we got like six bucks or whatever a week when we were kids. And it was like, yeah, you gave a dollar. It wasn't quite 10 percent. And, you know, they were not very legalistic about it. And then when I got when I babysat and worked at the mall and all of that as a teenager, I did give out of it, but I honestly cannot remember, Charlie, if mom and dad made us do the 10%. So for me, it's less of a math issue and more of a heart issue for him.

And I want him to have the heart of a giver when he leaves home and not just like the mathematics of I give 10%. And that's what I do. Does that make sense? It does. No, that's a good point. It's more of the spirit behind it that I want to encourage as a parent. Here's how we do it in our house, Charlie, and very similar,

is I think two guiding principles here. Number one, Rachel says that more is caught than is taught. And so I think he's old enough now to sit down with you guys and do your family budgets together hank um is my son's 12 he probably sits through one out of every three or four budgets now and he rolls his oh gosh sorry dude you got to sit down and watch us do this i want him to see that the first line in our budget is giving and we've got you know tithing but we've got places where we give i want him to see this

is how mom and dad roll with their money. He's watching it happen. Sometimes we'll let him hit the button to send payment X or whatever that, or this got automatically drafted. So we're showing him, this is how we do this. The second thing is, is I do think it's important to, like as there's a reason why you're still the steward, you're still the custodian of that money, right? You're still in charge of your kid. And so in our house, we've said, you will give to something.

Giving is non-negotiable. If at this age in your life, you are not choosing to give here, but you're going to give there, I'm going to let you make, so that's where the decision-making capability is. So he's going to see, my son is going to see, we give to this particular organization that we believe in. We tithe in this way. So every Sunday morning, hey, the lights are on here and the air conditioner works here and our pastors can get up on stage

and feed his family because we give. You will give, but you're going to give somewhere. So that's where that latitude comes in. Does that make sense? Because I'm with Rachel. The last thing I want to do is have a son who is counting dollars on a spiral notebook that he was forced to, quote, unquote, give away to a thing he doesn't. You see what I'm saying? No, that's a good point.

Very, very good to see that perspective. We both have no doubt that he is a very generous young man. We've seen that. We just want to continue to promote and encourage that. And no doubt that he'll be blessed through that, as we are. And he sees that in all the things that we're blessed with and able to do together. That's a very great point, and that's a good takeaway. Yeah, and one thing too, Charlie, with parents that,

and obviously you and your wife have done a fabulous job. I mean, from what even you've said in this call, like, man, that's such good intentional parenting when it comes to money and your kids. But I'm not saying this is you, but there are some people that listen to this show religiously and they are, they are hardcore. And it is like, there's no room for mistakes and we're going to make the kids do everything perfect. And we got this. And while the motivation is good, because you're like, I want my kids to learn this. I don't want them to make the mistakes I made. You have to give room for mistakes for your kids to learn on their own. And so it's better for them to make small, inexpensive mistakes under your roof versus going out in the real world. And the first time that they make a mistake uh you know that it's that it's out there so i'm saying all this to say for your son say you guys said hey

you have to give but the amount you want to give we're going to let you choose and let's just pretend charlie he gives one percent and he's like here's just a little bit and then maybe another month he's like oh man i i do feel like i really love this thing that i'm giving i'm going to give a little bit more and he starts to learn himself the feeling of the feeling of wow what the joy of giving you know brings in him and he's learning that at 15 versus it being a mandate of that 10 so and one quick side note i i don't have any data on what i'm about to tell you here's a decision i've made and my wife and i've made in our house. I've invited my son in to, he has a ballpark of how much money comes into our house every month.

And I was left out of that conversation growing up. I had no idea. And so I think that helps with perspective when he says, whoa, whoa, whoa, it was way easier to put $2 in the, I don't know, the collection plate, whatever that looks, when I made 20 bucks. It's hard to put $50

when I make $500 and you can say, yeah, I make $75,000. Here's what I'm putting in. And so it helps norm that scale. That question you were asking, it helps. And again, I know your kid,

he could probably go run to school and say, can you believe my mom and dad make this much? We have had hard conversations about don't talk about money and this is the right way to do this and let's be respectful and these are private numbers, etc. But I've just opted to let him sit down and say, here's what's coming in and here's what's going out. I want him to have a picture of how the world works. Yes, yes. And that may backfire on me.

No, I don't think it will. No, I don't think it will. I don't think it will. No. I don't know. I know. Isn't that fast? Yeah, that's a – I think it's so good to show numbers to a point to your example of,

like, okay, here's real world, and here's what this looks like, and, yeah, here's how much cable is. Comcast, that we're out of our paycheck. Yeah, those shows you watch. Here's Netflix, and they're seeing the dollars leave the paycheck, like, literally. I think it's yeah. Or it was the light bill was the one. He saw it on

the counter and he was like, how much? It was staggering, right? To a middle schooler, however many hundreds of dollars, I couldn't wrap my head around that. When I tell you to turn the lights off in your bedroom and it was like, oh! You know what I mean? When you crank the air conditioner down, it has a cost to it. When I tell you to turn the lights off in your bedroom, and it was like, oh, you know

what I mean? When you crank the air conditioner down, it has a cost to it. See, mom and dad, they did that. They shared certain things, specific numbers, but we never knew how much they, maybe they just didn't trust us. Yeah. I wouldn't have trusted you. I don't think, they were like, we're absolutely not giving Rachel any of that information.

My son is so much more trustworthy than you were. Exactly. Hank really probably. But hey, important thing, Morgan and A, I want to reiterate what Rachel said. Grateful for your intentional parenting. If you want your kids to start engaging in certain behaviors, remember, they watch you way more than they listen to you.

So if you want them to be givers, you be a giver. You want them to be generous, you be generous. How you tip people, how you love people, how you tithe and give, if that's part of your value system, whatever that looks like for you, model it and be intentional about teaching your kids. We are back and we've got two beautiful people up on the debt-free stage. Grady and Amelia, how are we doing? Good. I'm assuming that since y'all are standing on the debt-free stage,

that that means y'all are here to do your debt-free scream. We are. Excellent. Okay, so where do you live? Charleston, South Carolina. Charleston, South Carolina. Great spot. Great place. And how Okay, so where do you live? Charleston, South Carolina. Charleston, South Carolina. Great spot. Great place.

And how much have you all paid off? $55,140. I love the specifics. Not that we're being specific to the dollar. Excellent. How long did it take? It took 14 months. Whoa, 14 months.

How much are you making? At the high end, we were making about 120 120 per year what'd you start at um it kind of varies because i got a job and then i um with covid i started working more hours um so it's closer to like 110 110 man so y'all did y'all y'all went for it yeah that's amazing what do you do for a living i'm in the i'm in the navy okay and i'm a nurse wonderful thank you both i would say thank you both for your jobs okay so what happened 14 months ago and you're like okay i got 55 000 and what what was the debt was it student loans was it credit cards um it was a car it was a truck it was a motorcycle. And then the worst one was my family loan that we owed my parents money.

Why did you take a family loan? I was young and dumb with money, and it bit me. Your family loan? Yours? Your family? So her family loaned us some money because I had a couple of loans that were up to 28% interest, and we just couldn't handle it. So they said, hey, we'll pay it off, and then you just pay us with low interest or no interest or whatever it was. Okay.

Was that the best one to get rid of? Yes. Sorry, Mom and Dad. Okay. Hold on. What was it like going to your father-in-law and mother-in-law and saying, I'm in the Navy and I have a really cool jacked up truck and a motorcycle. Can I borrow some money? Walk us through that.

So that was more of her doing. She kind of did that. Went to her mom and was just kind of like, we're moving and I'm about to not have a job and I don't see how we're going to make it. And her mom was kind of like, okay, well we can, we can loan you all the money and, and pay off that. And then y'all can slowly start paying us back. And that was our number one that we paid off. Okay. Yeah. How much of that was the 55? Um, it started at 28,000. Okay. But by the time we started Dave Ramsey's program, it was about $22,000.

Okay. Okay. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So half of that was that family loan. Okay. So what happened that got you?

How'd you come up with us weirdos? How'd you get connected to this whole crazy crew? What happened? So she had already heard of Dave Ramsey and was, uh, doing the debt snowball, but it, um, it only works so well with one person. And then our church had the, uh, FPU. And so she said, Hey, we should go to this. And we went, and I think within a couple of weeks I was on board going, we could do this. Okay.

So what changed your mind then? What was the thing that, that clicked for you in that class or what was said that you were like, okay, this could be doable? Seeing the reality of it, seeing the numbers work and just seeing so many people that were successful in it and it was kind of like, okay, that could be us. That's amazing. How old are you guys? 28.

Oh, my gosh. 28 and no debt. Do you have a house payment or do you live on base? So we live on base in Charleston, South Carolina and have a house payment in Georgia, which we're moving there at the end of this month. Okay. Very cool. Man, y'all, congratulations. Thank you.

I mean, you did it. And it's one of those things like no matter what season of life you're in, it's hard, right? So you could be 55 with old kids. You could be in the middle of your 30s with littles or you could be 55 with old kids you could be in the middle of uh you know your 30s with littles or you could be single right whatever whatever the the life situation is it's doable for anyone uh but for you guys what was the hardest part though you're in your late 20s you're more established you have good jobs you're like we are living on nothing and throwing all of our money at this debt how what, what was hard about that?

Um, the fact that I'm, I'm in a, a stage that I'm not deploying and it's one of those that we, instead of going out and celebrating and playing, we were spending all of our money on debt and trying to get that paid off. So the time that we had the most time together, we weren't getting to really go out and enjoy. Wow.

That is hard. You sacrificed a lot. Yeah. I think the hardest part for me was that we work different schedules. I work night shift and he goes to work at 7 in the morning and I get home at like 8.30 a.m. And so we were just kind of like ships passing in the night. And so the most sometimes I would see him would be for dinner.

And so that can just be really hard. And then when the hours were there, I would work more. And so that was pretty hard. Okay. So talk to people listening, because that's one reason a lot of people don't say, hey, we're not going to go all in because I want to, you know, spend time with my spouse, which is a very normal. I got a little kid and I can't do it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is very, you know, like heroic. I get that. Absolutely. But what would you say to someone 14 months later, completely debt free? Was it worth it? Absolutely. Because now it's what we have is ours. We don't owe anyone. Um, it's ours for the, the freedom of being able to like, cause we know we're moving at the end of this month. And so the freedom of being able to move and not question, how are we going to make this month work? And, um, you know, we don't live anywhere near our family. So, um, as like my grandparents get older and as things happen, you know, we can't, when you're, when you have the

debt there and it's hanging over your head and something happens and you're like, well, we need to go home. We need to have that ability. You don't have that ability when you're like, I can't make it all work. Absolutely. Yeah. That's incredible, you guys. Wow. Well done.

What's the thing that you had to sell that still hurts a little bit? Honestly, we got by without selling really anything. You just paid it all off. Sheer grit. You got to keep the truck and the motorcycle? Look at him smiling like, yep. He even got some upgrades to the motorcycle, too. Oh, of course he did.

Very cool. Guys, I'm so proud of you. Who are your biggest cheerleaders? Probably our FPU leaders, which they are probably listening, Alicia and Jamie, and some of our friends at our church, the Edwardses and the Gatewoods.

And your parents. And my parents, obviously. Just those people were definitely in our corner and we celebrated everything with them. What was the, if y'all could distill it down into one key takeaway, what was the number one key to getting out of that together? I would probably say just keep trying. Just keep, you know, some months, I think three months in,

our dogs got into, like, three pounds of chocolate, and so we had to pay two thousand dollars at the emergency vet um and so that was really hard um and just just keep trying like the sheer grit like things are going to happen along the way um murphy's laws are real things so just just keep re-buckling down and keep going well for two people who give your most precious resource to all of us, which is your time, and you give your talents, and you give your life to everybody, both of you, on behalf of everybody, my little kids, Rachel's little kids, thank you.

And for your example, showing us, hey, I'm going to not see the person I love the most in the world for 14 months so that I can see that knuckleheaded guy or that beautiful. I can see them whenever I want, right? Y'all did it. You made the sacrifice. Grady and Amelia from Charleston, South Carolina, soon to be Georgia, paid off $55,140 in 14 months, making $110,000 to $120,000.

Unbelievable. It's a Navy stud and a nurse stud. Is that the way to say that? I'm just getting as awkward as possible. Count them down. Let's hear your debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free!

We're debt-free! Yeah! Amazing. Amazing. And hey, we're going to give you a copy of Dave's number one bestselling book, Total Money Makeover, so you can gift that to somebody who needs it. We're also going to give you a copy of Baby Steps Millionaires, because that's the next step in your journey.

Unbelievable, Rachel. Incredible. I love it. It's what we talk in your journey. Unbelievable, Rachel. Incredible. I love it. It's what we talk about all the time and they did it. I can listen to Debra screams all day. So great. Congratulations, you guys. We'll be right back. Triple A at 825-5225. This is the Ramsey Show.

Let's go out to Morgan in Pocatello, Idaho, Rachel's favorite place in the United States. What's up, Morgan? Hey, how are you guys? Remarkable. How are you? Doing good. Excellent.

Hey, I just have a question. When you don't have holiday pay, how do you budget for months that are short? For Memorial Day, Labor Day, Fourth of July, Christmas, Thanksgiving. You know they're coming and you know they're going to be short. So do you take money? For instance, June we had an extra paycheck because we got five paychecks. We usually get four. So do you take that money from June on your fifth paycheck

and just budget it towards July for the 4th of July? Or do you just work that into your budget and kind of cut down on other expenses? So are you getting paid hourly and whenever you get, have a holiday, then you don't get paid on that day? Yes. It's my husband. My husband works and yes, he doesn't get holiday pay. He's a union electrician and they don't have holiday pay. Yeah. So you can either, yeah, limit some expenses for that month if you want, or I would just keep a buffer, Morgan, as we're talking about all these different accounts we could have.

But when you're on commission, or I don't know, yeah, in a sense, this is kind of the same idea because some months may be higher, some months may be lower. And to make sure what is in your budget is getting paid, you could have a buffer account that you have some money in. And you're like, okay, on the month. Say again. So not like a zero-based account.

Like I can have like an extra $1,000 in our checking account. That's not my emergency fund. Correct. Yes. And a zero-based budget does not mean zero in your checking account. So you don't want to do each month where you literally have nothing in your checking account. You do want to buffer because stuff is going to come up and I don't want you going into the red in your checking account.

So yeah, so I would have your $1,000 emergency fund and then just say, okay, we're going to keep it. And it doesn't have to be a ton because there's not that many holidays and it's just one day. So it doesn't mean... July we're short too because there's a holiday in July that we celebrate in Idaho okay that has work off that the rest of the nation doesn't celebrate and so you know and so it it comes up and I'm sort of kind of new I

kind of I had my I had a moment last week and so I'm like cranking down. In our house, we call it our lag account, and I'm on commission too. And so that's exactly the way we do it. And we worked over the last few years so that I'm always paying the next month's bills with most of what was left in the checking account. Does that make sense? We zero base every month, but I've got that lag account there. And I can't let you go. What is the holiday that Idaho celebrates that the rest of us don't? So Idaho and Utah both celebrate the 24th of July. It's the day that Utah became a state.

But we live in a county that is basically Utah, but we're in Idaho. Yeah, it's like, pick them up, right? We call ourselves Cachevallians, but we don't live in that county,

if that makes sense. Man, Utah celebrates when they became a state. Pick it up, Tennessee. Why aren't we, what are we doing? Hey, Texas celebrates that every day of the year.

They're always celebrating how y'all became a state. Exactly. Hey, well, thank you so much for the call, Morgan. Let's go out to Carla in Atlanta. What's up, Carla? Hey, thank you, John and Rachel, for taking my call. I really appreciate it. You got it.

What's up? So, I am a single mom and I am done with baby step number three. So I'm excited to have money in the bank and my debt gone. Yeah, congratulations. Thank you. I felt great relief from that. But now I'm struggling to find peace because I just have this overwhelming sense that I'm running out of time. I'm 46. I have like 20 plus years of work ahead of me. But I think part of it may be I'm a mom of four children ranging from 21 to seven. And I feel like I lost a bunch of time with my older kids because I wasn't in a financially good place. And now I'm like trying to figure out how to save for a car, save for a possible wedding for my oldest, save for a house, like all these things

that I want to do and accomplish, but I feel like I'm running out of time. So two things are at play here. Okay. Number one, you have to set that guilt down. You didn't miss out on your kids. You worked to keep that thing running. Okay? I want you to, this is going to sound so cheesy, but I want you to do this.

I want you to go to Home Depot and buy a brick paver and I want you to duct tape on it lost time with kids. And I want you to carry it around for a bit, 10 or 15 minutes. And then I want you to set it down and never pick it up again. Okay? Okay.

The second thing is the only thing you can control moving forward is what your time is with your kids, like with the kids that are at home, right? Yeah. You can make that change. Whatever that change looks, I don't think it's as bad as you think it is. You may want to sit down with one of your older kids and say, I am haunted by the guilt that I didn't show up for y'all

because I was too busy trying to get my stuff together. Have that conversation with them. They may free you or they may confirm it and then y'all can grieve it together and then move on about your day. And then when it comes to these expenses at the end of the day, the best you can do is write down your expenses

and tackle them as they come. But what you're doing right now is you're robbing from your current, present joy with future problems that haven't happened yet. See what I'm saying? Got it. Yeah. No, I do.

I do. I just have felt so stuck in trying to free myself from that. It's grief. Like you were calling it. Yeah, exactly. It absolutely is grief. You're going to have to grieve it. I'm going to give you, hang on the line. I'm going at it, right? We're terrible at sitting down and saying, I wanted it to look like this, and here's reality. And you got to sit in that for a minute, and then there's some really clear paths out of that grief and experiencing it. And some of that grief is going to go forever. You're going to always regret,

man, I missed this, and I didn't show up for that because I was busy working. And at one point, your kid's going to look at you and say, yeah, but we had a roof and we had food and I love you and I'm so grateful for you. Right? Yeah. Yes, absolutely. Hey, for whatever it's worth, you're worth being well. Well, thank you. And for the first time in a long time I want you to start being nice

to our new friend Carla because you're mean to her is that fair? I am you're mean to Carla don't I like Carla and Carla too

all the expenses you were talking about are legitimate right a wedding is the car for you or one of your kids? for myself eventually okay yep absolutely my car right now is paid off

I just want to yeah upgrade and all that. All of that is on a spectrum and there could be a point that you say because of where you're at financially of like, hey, I'm a single mom. I have a single income coming in and so my upgrade on my car may be just this even though I would love this. Maybe

it's this for this time because I'm going to spend time with my kids and not work extra to get a crazy upgrade on the car. Or maybe for the wedding, it's, hey, I'm going to do the best I can to save. But I'm also going to realize that what is more important as a mom and who I am to my kids is being present with them, being in conversation with them, asking them questions, knowing them, being with them. All of that carries such weight, Carla, for your kids into their adult life more than you paying for a wedding. Even though I want you to do that, and I think it's a very noble goal, but I think take the pressure off. I think

you're doing a much better job than you're giving yourself credit for. And I want you to grieve those pictures she just mentioned. You have a picture of yourself at 50 in this dope, I don't know, escalator. Are you an escalator kind of lady? Like you have this awesome escalator and it might not happen. You might be riding a Corolla and you have this picture of a wedding.

You're going to be able to lavishly, it may not happen, grieve that picture and then come back to reality. You're doing great, Carla. You're a good mom. You're such a good mom. So good.

Hey, that's the first hour of the books here on The Ramsey Show. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Hey, it's John Deloney, co-host of The Ramsey Show. Did you know over 18 million people listen to The Ramsey Show every week? A lot of those people listen on one of our 600-plus radio stations across the country. To find a station near you, go to RamseySolutions.com slash show.