The Ramsey Show - App - Small Changes Now Mean Big Wins Later

Episode Date: February 19, 2025

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, Ph.D. in Counseling, number one best-selling author, host of the Dr. John Deloney Show, and a couple other things he does around here. He's my co-host today. So we're going to talk about you right in front of you, baby. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

Boise, Idaho is up, and that's Brittany. Is it Brittany? Is that right? Yes, sir. Hi, Brittany. How can we help? Hi there, Dave. I was calling for some advice on how to handle a very financially abusive relationship regarding my mother and father.

Talk me through it. Okay. The basics are my parents are still together, and I'm in my 30s. It wouldn't be a big deal for me if it was just my mom and dad, but the problem lies with my parents raising the next generation. They actually raised my sister's twin daughters who are now 10. And I'm terrified that it's going to ruin their upbringing like it kind of did mine. What's going on? What are they doing?

My mother is financially reckless. I mean, for years, I mean, she did prison time for stealing from her employer when I was 16. Once she got out, she took out false loans in my name, my father's name, false grants through the state. And she's just been financially reckless on credit cards in her name and my dad's name. And it's just left them in financial ruin. Wow. She's not only reckless. I mean, she's like a criminal. She's a toxic human being, yeah.

Wow. So what does your dad do? And the problem, well, once he finds out about certain things, he does have a verbal confrontation with her, but he rolls over and pees on himself, basically, and he won't stand up to her. And I think his spirit is just so beat that he won't stand up for himself at all. And I'm just left here as the auntie who's trying to make sure that her nieces don't go through the

same situation that I went through as a child. So you experienced all of these things as a child while she was doing the exact same behavior and he was doing the same behavior you you talked about that twice how do you think it affected you because you sound pretty adjusted to me no i'm not saying it didn't hurt i'm not saying i'm the problem but lots of therapy there yeah you know was it lots of therapy is that what did it uh therapy helped a, removing myself from the toxic situation. My mom kicked me out when I was 17, right after she got out of prison, because there was a fight between us on, you know, the vehicle situation after she got out. So, you know, I had to grow up real fast. I raised my

younger sister for the last four years of her life. How does somebody with a criminal record get custody over two seven-year-olds? Because it was over 10 years after the fact. So after 10 years, their felony is erased or expunged from their record after seven, I believe. Okay. So, and they were in the system. So they went through the process

to do parenting classes and become foster parents and they got custody of the younger two. So whenever I hear a conversation like this, I always want to ask what feels like an obvious question, but it's only obvious when you're looking from the outside. It's really hard to see on the inside. What of this can you do anything about? And the way you've outlined it, you can't do anything about your mom's behavior. She's been who she's been forever you can't do anything about your dad's behavior he's been who he is forever and um the state has awarded these children right so what can you actually control here i guess you could sue for custody if you want to take

the two girls or you can have this big like this big um i call it like a william wallace type speech to your dad, and maybe you'll get through to him, which I can tell you right now you won't. No, I've already done that. There he goes, right. So what are you looking for? What are you hoping happens? Maybe some advice on how to proceed,

because I know my mom's a lost cause for me, given our history. Your dad is too. We're not on speaking terms. Your dad is too. That's, I guess, the tough pill. It is. Behavior is a language, and he's told you for the last 20 years he's not interested in your advice or wisdom, and that's really hard to hear on you. I'm saying it kind of callously and direct, but he doesn't care what you have to say. No, he doesn't. It never affects his actions, and I've convinced him two or three times to leave her. And he's always on

board. And he, you know, I have a big house with a basement that him and the girls can move in with me because I have a 10 year old too. I mean, I have four kids and we have plenty of space for them. And I'm like, dad, just get away. Just get away. Every time you do this, this just damages you. It damages your soul. It damages your spirit. It's affecting those girls and you're teaching them and conditioning them that this is okay behavior. And it's affecting those girls and you're teaching them and conditioning them that this is okay behavior and it's not and it took me years to figure that out myself yeah so i don't know if i should just wash my dad off and be like daddy i love you you're my favorite person in the whole world but i cannot i don't know that you wash him i don't know that you

wash him i don't know you wash your hands of him. He's still your dad. He is. He's my favorite human being in my entire life. You might quit trying to fix him. Yeah, you live in reality. Yeah, so I guess that's what I was asking for is just maybe a secondary opinion on looking at this from the outside and telling me I'm doing everything I can the right way and there's no fixing them because they don't want to be fixed. Exactly. There you go.

And that's really tough. One of the hardest things in adulthood is that other adults are allowed to mis fixed exactly there you go and that's really the hardest things in adulthood is that other adults are allowed to misbehave and you can't make them not if they call here i can hang up on them and move on to the next one but but i can't make them i can't make them go on and do it right um yeah exactly i wish they would because i know what would happen if they did change. And I know that this can be fixed. I know that, you know, the power of God in their life, for instance, could intersect either your mom, dad or both. And, you know, in a matter of months, I've seen people change their whole households.

And then they seek out the therapy to finish the work and they do all the stuff they need to do. But, you you know my grandmother used to say those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still and so that that you're just you know you're just barking at a brick wall is what you're telling us i mean so i think you pray for them and i and i think if you uh ever think of someone that might speak into their life that they might listen to because it's not you, that you send that person over there. If there's an uncle or a cousin or someone that they admire or a pastor that they say they like, have them speak into it because maybe they have a foothold. Maybe they have a toehold of credibility.

And you might write your father a letter and just call it my last my last my last letter right and i'm still gonna love you i just need you to see in writing you always have an open door at my house yeah and maybe when you start talking and start lecturing him he shuts you off like he shuts off his wife that's just his default setting but maybe um around the glow of uh you know the refrigerator at 11 o'clock at night when all the other lights are off in the house, he reads that letter and he exhales and says, I'm going to go. I wish that would happen. I know. I know. And have you, are you married? I am married. I'm happily married. So have you and your husband talked about taking in the two girls? Is that a possibility?

You know, I was married before when they were born to my ex-husband. And having a new baby ourselves, he refused to let me take the twins in because they were drug addicted. They were in the NICU. And he refused to let me take them in. But what I did is I raised them in the form of daycare until they went to kindergarten. Okay, but what about right now?

Right now, no, they're in school. No, would you take them if they would let you? 100%. Okay, make that offer in the letter then. There you go. Yeah, maybe make that offer and say, we would love to let them grow up around their cousins and take that burden from you guys. Yeah, you guys deserve to be free in your retirement years. There you go. And, you know, that'd be an interesting thing to see happen. But, yeah, I think you're right. You just got to lay it out there. Yeah. It's heartbreaking, man.

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Open phones at 888-825-5225. New Hampshire is on the line. Garrett's calling. Hi, Garrett. How are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve, sir.

How can we help? I've racked up about $156,000 in business debt and I've kind of been contemplating bankruptcy and I didn't know if maybe you thought I should, or maybe had other advice or options. Wow. I'm sorry. It's scary, isn't it? Yeah. Are you married? No. Okay. How old are you? 25.

Okay. And what do you owe the business debt on? What kind of debt is this? Credit cards or vendors? So about, um, so 30,500 is vendors. Um, $55,000 is I was dumb and took out a merchant cash advance. Um, and then I owe my parents like $65,000. Okay. And then another, another another vendor 72 50 uh 7250 yes sir okay all right and what kind of business is this or was it uh i sell cabinets and countertops okay Okay. All right. And, um, so, uh, a merchant advance on what? Yes. So my like future revenue, basically I gave them my bank statements and then they said, we'll give you this much. And it was like a daily payment. And then last year in 2024, I had a very slow time and it pretty much

just took me for everything i had yeah that that one got you it's a payday lender of your world yeah um the interest rates the interest rates also ridiculous correct yes okay and um so what method do they have access to your current checking account? Is that how they, they clean you out ever so often? They were, I've since put, um, like stop payments on them. And I'm actually, I was working with like a, or am technically still working with a consolidation agency, but that, that cost is like $1,200 a week, which i can kind of do but it it's hard to manage that and every time i miss a payment they're threatening to cancel the program and

it's non-refundable and it's still another twenty eight thousand dollars i have to pay into it before they'll um negotiate with them and yeah i think you stopped that immediately too you you jumped from the frying pan into the fire didn't you yeah yeah i panicked and yeah um i did all that before i kind of talked to anyone about it now pretty much my whole family knows and i've been a little more open lately so i've been getting like some more advice yeah okay so are you if you didn't have this mess did you do all this because you weren't making money? No, I was doing pretty well. And then I took a pretty sizable loss on a job. And I also got a little full of myself after like a really good four-month stretch. And I fell behind on my

bookkeeping, which, looking back, that was kind of a debt. That was like my detriment to it all. You did a really good job in two sentences describing what happened because that's exactly what happened. I can smell it. You're really on top of that. That's very well done.

You weren't doing your books. One job, you got out too far over your skis on, and they set you up for a fall, and you were feeling invincible. Those three things together put you here. I believe you. That's well done. Congratulations. Most people aren't that self-aware when they're in this much pain.

Well done. Proud of you. We work with entrepreneurs and have for years. I've been bankrupt when I was your age, so I know exactly how it feels to be where you are so the way we fix this is we take the things that are working and we apply them in a forced rank order of importance bankruptcy is not going to solve it because you can't bankrupt mom and dad you can legally but you're not going to you're going to pay them no so half

of this almost is one thing and it's them okay yes so the rest of it is 90 000 bucks worth of stuff um how quick can we make that now let's pretend that you were just operating properly you weren't out over your skis you weren't taking jobs that could take you down you weren't feeling of your feeling and you weren't borrowing any money. What can you make in this business? What kind of profit in a year can you make if you just started fresh? So last year, I did about $400,000 of revenue. Right.

And I have – my margins are right around 31%. Okay, so you can make $100,000 a year, and you have a $90,000 problem. Yes. Because mom and dad aren't pressuring you. No, but I kind of pressure myself on that. You want to pay them, but they can be at the end of the list, and that's okay. Yes. Okay.

So now, here's an idea. Nice as well. What vendors do you have to pay to keep supplies coming to keep the business open? What dollar amount does that represent? $37,000? Not entirely. Yeah, I didn't think so. Half of that.

$17,000. Yeah. About $20,000. Gotcha of that. $1,417. Yeah. About $20,000. Gotcha. Okay. About $20,000. So you need to get on the phone with them first, and we need to get on a program with them where we're going to clear them first. And in return, they're going to keep sending you supplies COD.

Yeah, I have been. I've been paying them. It was a large amount. Now, listen, I'm giving you a program. I'm not asking for the story now. I've been paying them. It was a large amount. Now, listen, I'm giving you a program. I'm not asking for the story now. I'm telling you what to do. Okay? Okay.

Get on the phone with them and set up a program to pay $37,500 plus your new material needs going forward out of your $100,000. It's the first thing you do. The merchant people tell them they're not getting paid maybe ever but they're certainly not getting paid right now you're going to sit on the sidelines and we're going to settle up later if you want to sue me sue me but i don't have any money and if you sue me i'm going to file bankruptcy and you're going to get nothing so you need to just sit over there until i can get this thing cleaned up and then i'm going to come pay you off. Okay? You have a conversation with them, but you give them no more money and no more access to your business.

You're going to make $100 a year, $120 a year. You clean up your vendors first, and then you keep the cash flow running. You keep your books up to date, and then you save up $30,000, and you call the merchant people that you owe $55 to, and you settle with them for pennies on the dollar. Then you go pay mom and dad the next year. Right. You're out of debt.

I just got you out of debt in three years. Sounds good to me. It's doable. What I just described is very doable. I've done it a thousand times. Now, the trick is you've got to believe it, and you've got to be tough enough to run off these people that have been scaring the crap out of you. They've been running your life emotionally.

They live in your head rent-free. Can you tell I've been there? Yes, yes, for sure. It's no fun. And you feel like they're saying you're not a good guy, and you're a good guy that made a mistake. You're not an evil person. You didn't set up a business to go screw somebody. Right.

You're just a young guy that made some mistakes, and now you've got to go clean up your mistakes. You can file bankruptcy if you want, dude, but you're still going to have to pay your parents, and you did all of it over $90,000 that I just settled for somewhere around $ for somewhere around 50 and you shouldn't file bankruptcy when you have the ability to make 120 a year not morally but i mean mechanically shouldn't file bankruptcy when you've got the ability to make 120 a year and 50 grand cleans up your mess because you're going to pay the 37 you can pay the 37 000 worth of vendors because you got to keep them in your life the other people you're going to settle for 50 cents on the dollar and then you're going to call mom and dad and pay them as quick as you can and never borrow money again from anyone not even your parents have you learned your lesson

yes yeah you can do this garrett you can really do this i promise you can isn't that cool? Yeah. It's the master class. When we get scared, man, we go to fight or flight, we stop thinking. And sometimes it just takes someone to sit down and say, hey, here's a plan. Here's the forest. Here's the trees.

Yeah. Yeah. Don't burn everything down. I'm lost in the woods. We don't have to burn the forest. Yeah. That's exactly right. Just got to cut that two trees over there and then we can get out.

But you got to keep walking. Yeah. Just keep moving. Keep moving. keep moving. And the good news about this guy is he's really smart because he quickly self-analyzed. Very unusual. Very unusual. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, guys, I'm Jade Warshaw, and I want to talk to you for a quick second about student

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refinance their student loan, so make sure you run the numbers. But for some people, it is the right move. Learn more at laurelroad.com slash Ramsey to find out more about their student loan refinancing. That's laurelroad.com slash Ramsey. Laurel Road is a brand of Key Bank National Association. All credit products are subject to credit approval. Dr. John Deloney, PhD in counseling, my co-host today. Jumping out on the microphone to join us for a segment, my friend Jefferson Fisher and John's longtime friend, Jefferson Fisher. He's a trial lawyer, writer, speaker. His work's dedicated to helping people communicate during life's everyday arguments and conversations.

If you've ever seen him on Instagram, on Facebook, his stuff is absolutely brilliant, this stuff on communication. The new book is The Next Conversation, Argue Less, Talk More. He's one of the speakers at the upcoming Entree Leadership Master Series that will be in, it's not Master Series, Entree Leadership Summit. It's in May in Denver, May 18 through 21. He'll be hanging out with us there. We're excited to have him be exposed to all those entrepreneurs. There'll be hanging out with us there we're excited to have him uh be exposed to all those entrepreneurs there'll be about 3 000 of them there uh and so welcome good to have you my friend thank you very much i'm honored to be here and of course i learned everything from dr deloney continue you can continue no i told him earlier on dave um when me and my faculty friends at the law school there

would talk we would all know hey we all need to be nice to jefferson because we're probably gonna be working for him someday so we all knew that jefferson's been brilliant um so since everybody's version of the story is you were at the uh university where he was in law school correct yes he was already a student when i showed up so i can't claim it's my last year that's right yeah your first year that's right that's in an indirect way he's a former student and that's i claim that claim that. Exactly. Okay. All right. Very cool.

So how did you get, I guess, trial lawyer, you get drug into the idea of argue less, talk more. How do we have a conversation? How do we control an uncontrollable situation? How do you intersect these things and reset the conversation? I guess that's what drug you into it. Yeah. Studying to be a trial lawyer.

Well, it's really just truly a gift that my parents have prayed for. They've always prayed for wisdom and discernment over my life. And I learned to communicate well at an early age. So my mom can tell you I probably spoke too much. But being a trial lawyer certainly honed that skill of just dealing with conflict. Okay. So there's a lot of conflict out there right now. There really is.

A lot of division, a lot of anger. I mentioned your stuff on social media. Anytime you put something there, you get trolled. Anytime you stick your head up and your site's massive, your footprint's huge on this. So you got people coming at you all the time. But in a society where people don't know how to communicate, how are you navigating that in teaching? I teach that arguments are not something to win. You never want to win an argument because you start to lose the relationship. Instead, you want to see arguments as something to unravel,

find the knot in the conversation and start to unravel it rather than tugging your way and me tugging mine. And so when you go into the conversation with something to unravel, find the knot in the conversation and start to unravel it rather than tugging your way and me tugging mine. And so when you go into the conversation with something to learn rather than something to prove, you're going to walk away with a much better communication. All right, I'm going to use that tonight when I get home. Yes, exactly, exactly. I'm not going to try to win the argument. Well, and Jefferson, I think that's important because we often are looking for

feelings right we're looking for some sort of emotion to let this relationship know it still has got spark to it right right and so we end up fighting and fighting and fighting instead of asking the harder question and you taught me this yeah like what do we what do we both want with this conversation? Yeah, absolutely. And at the same time, we are trying to replace connection with transaction. You're meant to feel the warmth of a smile, not read it in an emoji. And so too often, we replace one for the other when all you have to do is just pick up the phone. And most people don't want to do that nowadays. Why not? I think it's much easier to stay safe and not feel like you can be direct or aggressive or say what you need to say. You'd much rather kind of stand in the back.

But if you really want to level up your life, you have to practice the skill of disappointing people. You have to practice the skill of being direct and saying what you need to say. You can still be kind. You can still show grace. But at the same time, to avoid clarity is to create confusion. We say around here, to be with our team, being unclear with a team is to be unkind. Yes. Because in the name of being Southern and nice, we're passive aggressive and we don't deal with it.

And bless his heart. Yeah. Bless his heart. Yeah. Hey, I want to give you a wild, this is just a story that's come into my mind. Let's pretend you're a mid-level professional and you have a very opinionated, outspoken CEO that runs your company. Who would that be? I don't know what you're talking about.

Yeah. Again, this is total, I'm just making this up on the fly here. What are some tips you could give a guy like me on how to honor and respect the person that I work for, but also challenge? Well, you always make sure that you say what you need to say right up front. People believe that confidence is something that you need to say everything all at once. Confidence is very quiet. Insecurities are very loud. And so when you're always just holding it in or feeling like you know better and you only wish I could only just say, people that are in positions of

power or positions of superiority, they will appreciate the more transparent, honest conversation every time rather than you trying to be a wallflower and just be a yes man every time. So you have to be able to get out front of it and say what you need to say. Put it out there? Yeah, every time, or else you're really doing yourself a disservice. Yeah. Yeah. And I've noticed when we're teaching people leading financial peace university classes, for instance, that to hold someone accountable to a behavior that you're trying to get them to do for themselves, for their own benefit. I always tell them you have to have your arm around their shoulder before you can smack them in the back of the head. I mean, there has to be a relationship before you can

hold someone accountable. Yes. Yeah. I think that when you come at it from a position of making them feel good and close to you, but also being very firm. My dad would say this, I would come with him with something that I didn't like and I needed to vent. He'd say, making them feel good and close to you, but also being very firm. My dad would say this. I would come with him with something that I didn't like and I needed to vent. He'd say, well, that's fine. You don't have to like it, but you need to understand it. And it was this idea of you can connect with somebody and still be mad at them. I can still love you and still be upset.

And so he would always say, well, you don't have to. That's fine. You don't have to like it. You just need to understand it. And that allowed me. I mean, I didn't like to. That's fine. You don't have to like it. You just need to understand it. And that allowed me. I mean, I didn't like it when I was young. That didn't feel that great. But now I'm seeing the wisdom in it, that he was allowing me the time to connect with him

and truly be on the same page at the same time and say, well, then's the breaks. This is what it's going to be. You don't have to like it. It's fine. We're doing it. Yeah. You don't have to like it. But you need to see why we're doing it.

Exactly. And that made the difference. Yeah. If you get the why, then it helps. I'll go back to what you were talking about when we first turned on the microphone. You said an argument is a knot to be unraveled. And I think the first time as a hard-driving person I ever realized that the best negotiation is a win-win. And so trying to find out what the other side needs to win,

and there's a similarity to that, I think, the win-win negotiating versus win-lose negotiating to what you're talking about. Yeah, I like to teach that when you set out to win an argument, you begin to lose the relationship. So if you and I were in an argument, and I, as intelligent people do, we like to send that zinger, that thing that's really going to make the point, hit home and zing and hurt them, congrats.

What have you done? You still have to live with this person. You probably still have to work with this person. You've now just won to be first up to apologize, most likely. I mean, you've now just had to, you've earned that awkward silence when you still have to pass them in the hallway. When you set out to win an argument, you only win contempt. You have to see things as something to learn rather than something to prove. Rather than pushing my point, I want to learn more

about why you believe what you believe. I can't, if I have my glass full and you have your pitcher full, I got to let you pour it all out before I can ever pour anything of what I have into you. And so it's being curious before you start just pushing my way, my way, the highway. But that also means that if I'm sitting with somebody who we are just not going to come together, I have to be confident enough to push my chair back and head out. Or I've got to be confident enough to say what I need to say and then go on about my day and not hope that I can still outsource my self-worth to you, right? You got it. I mean, and that's why in the book,

I set up this framework of how I teach communication is that when you say things, you're going to say it first with control, and you're going to say it with confidence, and you're going to say it to connect. And when you really have those three main pillars to communication, it's going to set you up much better for success. I like to say that most people don't know what they're saying until they're already talking. And so what this book allows them to do is have a GPS and point you north. I love it, man.

The new book is The Next Conversation. Argue less, talk more. You can follow him on at Jefferson Fisher on Instagram, and you should. You'll be entertained and educated simultaneously. Good to have you, my friend. Thank you for having me, Amon. Welcome to Ramsey. Look forward to having you at Summit.

Thank you. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right, so I was born and raised in Texas, and I love the myth of the lone cowboy. You know, the guy who doesn't need anyone or anything. It's a fun story, and it's a lie. In our self-obsessed society, we're obsessed about our own diets, our own workout routines, our own jobs, our own social media feeds, everything. It's easy to forget that no one can do life alone. And I don't care if you're an introvert, an extrovert, or whatever you want to call yourself, we all have to have a community and a support system to do life with. It's time to shift the

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Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Thanks for hanging out with us. If you're a business owner or you know someone who is, you know that running a business is hard. We've got a new book that we launched the pre-sale on this week called Build a Business You Love, Mastering the Five Stages of Business. It's out right now for $29.99. You can get over $350 worth of free bonus items if you buy it. I haven't done a book in four or five years now, so this is my latest. It might be my last. I don't know. You never know. So if you want to share what we've learned over the last 30 years, come and check it out.

We're going to show you what we've learned working with 10,000 small businesses and growing Ramsey from a card table in my living room to where it is today. Ramseysolutions.com slash store, or if you're on YouTube or podcast, you can click the link in the description. Our question of the day is brought to you by YRefi. If you're struggling with defaulted private student loans, YRefi offers a great solution to get you back on track. For a low fixed rate and more flexibility, go yrefi.com slash ramsey that's the letter y

r-e-f-y dot com slash ramsey might not be in all states all right today's question comes from madison in ohio my husband and i have been happily married for six years the only place where we struggle a bit i love that a bit, is on our finances. My heart is with my babies and raising them while his is focused on money. I'd rather him tell me what our monthly budget is so I can just follow it, but he wants me to be on his level of monetary ambition. We have no debt, save roughly $1,000 a month, and we have $25,000 in savings. If I'm not negatively impacting his goals, then why is it bad

that money doesn't excite me like it does him? I feel like finances is his thing and raising our family is mine. I'll support anything he wants, but I don't want to lose myself in his ambition. I think they've got more than a bit of a struggle here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, this is a bigger challenge going on, man. Yeah. I, okay, I'm just, this is the Ramsey Show, so I'm just going to say what I think.

Yeah. I'm calling BS. I am too. Okay. I think this is a bunch of crap. I think she just wants to be taken care of and uh buy anything she wants anytime and he said no this feels like uh in counseling they call it the one down position it's like um when the when somebody's mom goes oh that's okay um i don't want

to eat there but i'll just eat the napkins in the glove box. I'll be fine. That's that. We're not going to buy me a dress. I'll just use the drapes. Right. I don't want to get my fingers dirty, my hands dirty with the money stuff. The money stuff. I'm the mom. Right, right, right.

Oh, brother, you're killing me here. Okay, now there is some truth to this, and there's a bunch of bull to it too. But the truth is that you're the free spirit. You're not concerned about spreadsheets, and there's a bunch of bull to it too but the truth is that um you're the free spirit you're not concerned about spreadsheets and that's fine he's the nerd and he's all into the details and that's fine you can function in your strengths but to what you've done here is you spent the entire email making him the evil bad guy that's all money hungry and you're the sweet person that loves little children and bullcrap yeah if you want to take care of your kids you got to have money to take care of your kids your kids like food yeah and dry diapers and college degrees and whatever so

you got to do both so being a grown-up mom involves being an adult woman that is raising children involves having enough say and enough involvement in the budget and in where our money is going that i get a vote and i and i'm in agreement and we're aligned on where we're going that does not make you money hungry it does not and the fact that he has a gift with detail doesn't make him money hungry and doesn't mean he hates children um so um and actually i i guess where i can feel my heart rate getting up a little bit getting a little frustrated is the number of calls i get from wives saying i wish my husband would just include me and i have somebody here and now he's not he's he's speaking spreadsheet which if he was here i'd bonk him on the head and say, bro, lead with your heart first and do spreadsheet second.

But this is somebody that sounds like they're trying to connect and trying to bring mom in, bring his wife in on the finances and the money. And here's where we're headed. Here's what we're going to buy. And she's kind of beating him up for it. And I kind of, I mean, based on this little little paragraph here i honor the fact that he's trying to connect with you even though you keep saying i don't want anything to do with the money part i just want to do the mom part yeah um i don't want anything to do with evil money yeah um i just want to be the sweet mom and that just that really drips off of here and it's insincere yeah

uh you you want something to do with evil money if the rent isn't being paid. If the light gets cut off and the water gets cut off, believe me, my wife was there when she had little babies, and she was concerned about that. So anyway, so I would say. Can we get to the root of this? I don't like him. He annoys me. I don't like having conversations with my husband.

Let's get to the truth here um or i'm really kind of spoiled and i don't like to deal with some of this stuff we need to get to the root of these things because this is the way some people just operate in the world um and it ends up in ash right it ends up and then he's going to get painted as the bad guy yeah he already is and then he didn't know his wife didn't like him i don't like you right yeah yeah um so he could he could take a the thing we could give him some help the help we would give him is like you said lead with your heart yeah and say and what does that mean and what i what i believe is i believe you have something to add to this conversation honey yes and so so your vote counts. I want your vote in this. It doesn't mean you're overwhelmed with money.

It doesn't mean I'm overwhelmed with money. But we're two adults trying to make our way through this world, and it involves money. Or the dreams you talk about, these babies that you just want to be yours, you've said, I want them to drive this kind of car, go to this kind of college. Well, that takes us planning right now for that to happen down the road. Let's talk about what we're not going to do so that we can do. That's right. Let's dream about it we're not going to do so that we can do. That's right. Let's dream about it together.

Let's make that decision together. You're way too smart to be a kept woman. Right. And he needs to lead with that rather than we're going to save $1,000 a month and here's a spreadsheet. That's right. Which he probably is doing a little bit of that. Of course he is. Yeah.

And the other side of it is, hey, these are my kids too. I want to be a dad. Yeah. You don't get to just do the kids and I do the math. I want to be involved with the kids. And if he's not, Madison, then sit down and say, your kids need a dad more than they need a spreadsheet right now. They need you to talk to them, hang out with them,

go do whatever dads do in this house. So ultimately, this first line, we have been happily married. I think things are not as great as they seem. Let's be honest with each other and go from there yeah yeah we're married yeah yeah and sometimes it's happy all right kale is in edmonton canada hi kale how are you hey good dave how are you doing better than we deserve what's up it's an absolute pleasure to even speak to you to be honest i'm i'm shaking a bit and calling in lots uh biggest thing for me love the book red baby steps um i have a small business and i'm really torn between personal debt business savings and what to do like it's there's no perfect plot for everybody and you know worried about retirement

i got a young small family uh yeah okay yeah well you know in the business you need to set aside a percentage to grow your retained earnings in the business a percentage of your profit each month yes beyond that beyond that you bring and you need to set aside the money to do the next thing if you're going to be buying a piece of equipment you said decide the money to do that beyond that you need to take the money home and attack the debt okay and so you need to give every dollar a name in the business the business okay this much is going to retain earnings and i got to set aside ten thousand dollars over the next 12 months to buy this piece of equipment or i'm making up something there but i'm saying that's 800 bucks a month so i gotta set i gotta set aside

800 bucks a month to buy a piece of equipment and uh that's ten thousand dollars in 12 months and then everything else is coming home and i'm going to work on the budget with it everything else is coming home we're going to attack the debt with it so there is a perfect plan it's just a detailed system uh and then if you're not saving for a piece of equipment that's 800 more you're bringing home would you pay yourself your mic so would you pay yourself a quote-unquote higher salary um if you have personal debt and a small business that's kind of crushing right now it's not a salary i mean i just take everything home that the business didn't need okay that's what I mean. All of it. Okay. I just bring all of it home, whether it's salary, whether it's bonuses, whatever you want to call it. Whatever it is.

I'm taking everything out of the business other than what I'm setting aside for retained earnings and other than what I'm setting aside for this marketing program or this piece of equipment. And that's line item in the budget of the business but then the profit above below that all comes home yeah it's not a vague thing when you make it a vague thing is when it feels like oh my thing's different your thing's not different write it down this is the ramsey show live from the headquarters of ramsey solutions it the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. This is a Baby Steps Millionaires Theme Hour.

If you've never been with us when we did one of these, Dr. John Deloney and I are going to take calls from real millionaires, regardless of how they became a millionaire, because I have found millionaires all over America for the past 30 years. And I found a whole bunch of them in the last decade that I helped create showing people what to do. And they went and did the stuff we teach that would be the baby steps. So whether you followed the baby steps, whether you won the lottery or whether you got an inheritance, however, you became a millionaire, we want to hear your story, but that's all we're going to talk to today is real millionaires, not people on Instagram with an opinion.

Cause my pastor used to say, a man with an experience is not at the mercy of a man with an opinion. So we're going to really talk to real millionaires. Now let's help you with that. What is a millionaire? Because some people are confused about this. It is not a million dollar a year income. It's a million dollar net worth. When people say net worth millionaire, that's redundant. That's like saying, you know, black, black, white, white, whatever. I mean, it's redundant. It's a net, all millionaires are net worth millionaires. It's the only type of millionaire there is. It's an accounting function. What you own, your assets, minus what you owe, your liabilities, is your net worth. Your house is included. Anything you own that is of value

is included. Now, some of it are higher quality items than others in terms of financial instruments doesn't matter you don't have to be a cash millionaire you don't have to be a real estate millionaire just what you own minus what you owe when that equals one million dollars you are by definition a millionaire well it's not enough it's not i'm not asking that question we're just asking is are you do you have a net worth of a million dollars? Well, no one should have that. Well, that's a different discussion. Well, you can't make it on that.

That's a different discussion. Don't convolute this. This is simple. Do you have a million-dollar net worth? If you do, you're one of about 26 million Americans. And the rest of them are saying, I'd like to build a level of wealth heading in that direction so that I can be stable, sustainable, have a great life, change my family tree, and so on. Is that rich anymore? Well, in 1920, it was rich. In 2020, 2025, it's not that rich,

but it's richer than most people, so shut up. They got there, so we're going to talk to real millionaires today and ask them how they did it so that you, if you're not one, can learn something from the ones that actually did it. And you can head that direction. Nicole and Dan are in Stamford, Connecticut. And hey, guys, what's your net worth? Hey, Dave, we have a net worth of about $6.3 million. Good for you. Break that down a little bit by category.

How much in real estate and retirement and so on? Sure. So we have about $100,000 in cash, which includes our emergency fund. We have retirement funds that are worth about $2.8 million. We have mutual funds, which includes a college fund for our son and a small charitable trust that we recently started. That's worth about 500,000. We have paid for real estate, including rental property worth about 2.2, 2.3, depending on how you measure it. We have some passive business investments worth about 500,000 and then other assets,

a couple of cars and some collections and things that make up the rest. Good for you. How old are you guys? Well, I'm 54 and I'm 42. Okay, cool. Very cool. How much of this 6.3 did you inherit? Um, we inherited about $70,000 from my parents when they passed away about four

or five years ago so you were already millionaires yes we were okay all right and what's your best year working income household and your worst year so our best year we were a little north of a million dollars um our worst year is probably right now um Neither one of us is working at the moment. Dan was diagnosed with cancer a few months ago, so we decided that we had the ability to step back and focus on that and focus on each other, so we did. Good for you. But I'd say, you know, our entry level, you know, my entry level was probably around $30,000 a year, and Dan's was about $40,000.

Okay. Wow. Okay. So about $70,000 was your startup. About $70,000 was where we started, yeah. Wow. Okay. So about 70 was your startup? About 70 was where we started. What were your careers? What did y'all do? I started as an accountant and then became a consultant and ultimately, you know, just an executive. Dan, you want to talk about your background? Yeah, I started off in the military and then I got out, I went into manufacturing

and recently left as an executive with a manufacturing firm handling supply chain. Gotcha. Okay. All right. What do you drive right now? What kind of cars do you drive? We always buy used cars. I have an F-150, and Nicole has a Honda Accord. Okay. How old is your Honda Accord, Nicole? It's a 2022. Okay. And how old is your Honda Accord, Nicole? It's a 2022. Okay.

And how old is your F-150, Dan? It's 2020. Okay. That's not too bad. Sometimes I have to tell millionaires to go buy a car because their car sucks so bad. But y'all did okay. I can see that. You got through this.

I can see that. So, Nicole and Dan, when we talk to people who are concerned about their net worth and trying to build, you know, get to millionaire status, sometimes there's a negative connotation. Like, for what? Talk to the person who is sitting there listening to this going, yeah, yeah, yeah, but so what? Talk to them about the freedom you have when your husband comes home and says, oh my gosh, I just got this diagnosis. And y'all can exhale and say, then we're going to take some time off and just be together. Yeah.

Well, I'll tell you, we've been big fans of the Ramsey Show, and Dan went through financial peace when he was in the military. But we've only decided to call in now for that reason, because we did want to share that. I mean, you know, when we paid off our house a few years ago, that felt amazing. And the freedom that we had then to really, you know, do some things that were a little more risky, so that we could create even more wealth at that point was incredible. But it's kind of nothing compared to the freedom to say, okay, we know exactly where our money is.

We know exactly what we need to have coming in every month to be able to sustain ourselves. And we don't have a bunch of debt hanging over our heads and big payments on things. We can actually, we can choose to spend this time together and to fight this battle together. And it wasn't even a second thought. We just made that decision and moved forward.

And if you need 300 grand to try an alternative treatment in XYZ City, you load up a plane and you go write a check and you go do it, right? Yeah, 100%. And you don't even think about it. It's incredible. You didn right? Yeah, 100%. And you don't even think about it. It's incredible. You didn't even think about it. No, didn't even think about it. That to me is the true definition of freedom is we can go do the next right thing and we

don't have to think about it. Yeah. It's pretty amazing. I'm sure Dan has some other thoughts about the freedom and the security. Well, it's putting the plan that you've been building and what you've been working on through these steps and everything through over the years in case something happens, right? Everybody's healthy until you're not. Right. And, and to be able to, you know, take a step back and have the freedom and the, and just really literally the peace of

mind to know that I'm going to focus on my health and I'm going to go back to work eventually. I'm going to get there. But right now, for the next four to six months, I'm going to focus on this. And this is where all my energy is going to go in. We're going to beat this thing. Yeah, go beat it, man. And I don't have to worry about the electric bill or the mortgage.

Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. Hey, we'll be praying for you, brother. Thanks for sharing your story, you know, the electric bill or the mortgage. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. Hey, we'll be praying for you, brother. Thanks for sharing your story. You too. Fabulous. It's a Baby Steps Millionaires theme hour. I've been doing this show for over 30 years, and some of the saddest calls I have taken are from situations that are completely preventable. Yeah. And what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible,

are people that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly and they don't have life insurance. When you have to think through how am I going to pay my bills in the middle of all that grief, it's terrible. So life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids, that I'm so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive. Zander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of So life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm like so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive. Zander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance. And it doesn't cost much because Zander shops among a gazillion different companies.

It doesn't cost much. You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here. You got to say it out loud and you got to say, I'm going to say I love you to my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place. The cost of stinking pizza to get a free quote, call 800-356-4282. That's 800-356-4282 or go to zander.com. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personalities, my co-host. It's a Baby Steps Millionaires theme hour, which means we're talking to real millionaires not your broke

brother-in-law with an opinion where do millionaires really come from well we did the largest study of millionaires ever done in north america we studied 10 167 of them and they weren't all ramsey millionaires there were people a lot of them who didn't even know who we were. And we did a detailed airtight research methodology, meaning the facts that we got out of this are what are known as data, not opinions. So if you disagree with the conclusions of the study, you're what's known as wrong. All of that white paper from that research and the detail and the conclusions are in the baby steps millionaires book that i did my last bestseller number one bestseller and if you want to pick it up and learn more about what we're talking about this hour it's very important one of the things we

found for instance was that a lot of americans because of stupid stuff on youtube and tiktok believe that millionaires all inherit their money. And what we found was almost none do. Three types, three things go on. Number one, 79% of millionaires inherited zero. Number two, 5% inherited a small amount like $5,000. They did actually get an inheritance, but it's not enough mathematically to make you a millionaire unless you live to be 200 years old. Number three, like our last caller, they got a good amount of money, in their case $70,000,

but sometimes we heard $200,000 or $300,000 in inheritance after they were already millionaires. So by definition, 79 plus 5 plus 5% is 89 percent did not become millionaires because of inherited money that's 9 out of 10 now what does that mean well number one it means the anarchist leftist crazy communist people saying all rich people inherit their money is not they're they're factually incorrect they have an agenda of something else, apparently, if they know what the truth is. Number two, it should give anyone out there that's not a millionaire great hope because nine out of ten didn't become millionaires because of inherited money. They became millionaires because of habits and processes and things that they did or

dumb luck. They hit the lottery or something like that. But anywhere in there, and that can be you. But it wasn't the proverbial rich uncle died and left me a bunch of money. Or mom and dad died and left me a bunch of money. That's not where it came from, statistically. That's a data-based fact. Rob is with us in North Carolina.

Rob, what's your net worth? Hi, Dave. Hi, Dr. John. Net worth is just over $1.1 million. Good for you. And give me a little breakdown by category, real estate, mutual funds, retirement, whatever. So $475,000 in retirement, $325,000 in real estate, $100,000 in checking savings emergency funds, $70,000 in mutual funds, $70,000 in paid-for vehicles, and about $110,000 in business interest. Good for you. And how old are you?

I am 37 and my wife is 31. Good for you. Okay, cool. And how much of this $1 am 37, and my wife is 31. Good for you. Okay, cool. And how much of this $1.1 million did you inherit? We inherited zero. Okay, all right. And your best year working income and your worst year working income? Best year was last year, $275,000 for the household.

And worst year would be when we both started out of college. We were about $45,000 each, so $90,000. And I'd say average was about 160. What's your career? I am in construction engineering and my wife is in, she's a manufacturer's rep for a steel company. Do you have a four-year degree? I do. In what? Civil and construction engineering technology. Okay, very good. What was your GPA? 3.2.

Wow. Attaboy. That means you had fun. Good for you. Yeah, a little bit. Good for you. Very cool. So what's the most expensive pair of jeans you ever bought?

Oh, I'd say $80, $60 to $80, just recently, too. Still have them. I'm a fan of the Costco pants though. So a picture of you just came up. How much do you spend on grooming that amazing mustache you have? Oh, that, uh, that thing, that thing's long gone. Oh, it's gone. Okay. Had that for a year. That was my dad's stash. Excellent. Good for you. That was, that was welcomed little one into the world. Goes with the doodle yeah

yeah i love it very fun all right what do you guys drive well my wife drives a 2023 palisade and i drive a 2020 ram 1500 good it's good cars good okay it's about right about right are you guys spend more time on TV or on books? Oh, I would say more on TV, unfortunately, but we do do a lot of driving and trips together, and when we do drive, we listen to books on audio. Gotcha. Okay, cool.

Very cool. Do you think someone that's coming out of college with a civil engineering degree today can still do this? Absolutely. What should they do? Absolutely. Well, I'd say surround yourself with the right people and make sure you're on the same page as your spouse regarding money because I'm telling you right now,

life gets real easy when you guys don't fight about money. Wow. Good insight. That may be the most profound moment of the show today. That's a mic drop right there, just a one-liner, and it's just the real things there. Things get real easy when you don't fight about money. Just all right there.

Life's pretty good when you don't fight about money. Yeah. And nothing left to fight about much, you know. Well done, Rob. Congratulations, hero. Very proud of you. Mark is in Nashville. Mark, what's your net worth?

My net worth is $2.1 million, and then I have a business that's probably worth $400,000, so $2.1, I guess. Okay, give me a little breakdown by category, retirement, real estate, whatever. Yep, real estate, $1.7 million, retirement, $305,000, cash, $100,000. Okay, very good, very good. How old are you? I am 59. 59, good. And how much of this 2.1 did you inherit?

Zero. Okay. I inherited a Bible and a book. A Bible and a book. I like it. And served you well. I like it. So what was your best year working income and your worst year working income?

Best year working income would be about $225,000. Worst year was probably $20,000. Got you. What's your career? I'm now in a training company, but for years I actually worked as a safety professional in manufacturing. Okay. Training in manufacturing. Okay, training in manufacturing. Okay. You got a four-year degree?

I do. I have an undergraduate degree and an MBA. Okay. All right. Very cool. Very cool. Do you think people can still do this today? I know they can.

Just have to want to. What would your suggestion be to them? What would they need to do you know what helped me uh was following my very strategic around following net worth not income so it's just you win the month or the day or the year and so what when i started doing that that was probably the biggest you know that's what i would tell people you? That's very true because you're concentrating on the right things then because you can burn through income. Right.

And the old saying, it doesn't matter how much you make, it doesn't matter how much you keep. Right, right. And that's the essence of what you're saying. So walk me through that. I don't think I was smart enough to catch that just then. Concentrate on building your net worth, not building your income. There you go.

Okay. How big is my net worth is a lot more important question than how big is my income. Because you can absorb your, I mean, you can balloon to fill up your income with cars and clothes and vacations and nonsense. That's fantastic. I love that quote. Say that again one more time, Mark. Yeah. Focus on your net worth on a weekly, monthly, yearly basis, not on your income. I think that's something that Congress needs to hear. I think that's something that the average person just driving down the road needs to hear. Yeah, it's very wise because it's long-term thinking.

It's long-term thinking. Because the reason for your income for most people is not consumption, although they consume it. It should be to build a legacy, to change your family tree, to retire with dignity. All those things are based on net worth, not based on your income. So it's the exact correct thing to aim at. I love it. We're actually doing some work behind the scenes with the software engineers right now to build a net worth calculator and be able to track it as a part of the EveryDollar app continually

because that's the exact thing you should be doing. Mark's exactly right. Excellent, brother. I agree with you. Well done, hero. Proud of you, man. Very cool. This is a Baby Steps Millionaires theme hour. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. There's a time in your life and at the Baby Steps for renting, but you don't want to do it forever because when you rent, you're still paying for a mortgage, just somebody else's. Plus, rent means instability in your budget because it always goes up, never down. So when you're ready to buy, make sure you work

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1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100. RentWidth Tennessee 37027. So, baby, Steps Millionaire's theme hour, we're talking to real millionaires not broke people with an opinion we've painted the glamorous as the millionaire and statistically that's not true you don't have to be a rock star country music star actor in hollywood or sports professional to be a millionaire. As a matter of fact, less than 1.6%, less than 2% of America's millionaires are famous people like that. They're not. They're just not. So, I mean, there are those that are out there,

and some of them are billionaires that you know, but the truth is you don't have to be able to play in the NBA, otherwise I'd be screwed, right? Or professional golf, I'd for sure be screwed. Or be a professional actor, I'm not pretty enough, I got a face for radio, or whatever, to be a millionaire. It turns out that it's the tortoise beats the hare every time. It's slow and steady wins the race. And these are the people that we meet all the time. Now, if you've got money some other way, I still want to talk to you because you're representative of what millionaires are.

And we don't set these calls up. I mean, we do. People call in, and we arrange them to be on the air during this hour. But we don't tell them what to say, and we don't only take certain types of millionaires. We put the real people on that really listen to the show, that really have a net worth of a million dollars or more. Michael is one of them in St. Louis. Michael, what's your net worth?

About $1.7 million. Good for you. Give me a little breakdown by category. So probably about $600,000 in stocks and mutual funds, about another $600,000 in IRAs and 401ks. Then I got about $400,000 in equity on my home, and then I've got a vacation home with about another $150,000, $200,000 in equity on that. And then I've got probably $70 70 grand sitting in a savings account. In cash. Okay, cool. How old are you?

53. Cool. What's your best, oh, how much of this did you inherit? None. Zero. Zero. Okay. And what's your best year working income, worst year working income?

My best year working income is 230 now my worst year was when i started very very long time ago at about 18 000 a year yeah that's what i started at that's cool okay and what and i'm older than you uh what uh what was been your career i'm in finance i'm a cfo right now okay and a degree in finance or accounting or what? Actually, I've got an undergrad in psychology, but a master's in finance. Okay. MBA with specialization in finance. Okay.

And your GPA on the MBA? 3.7. Gotcha. Okay. Because that's the other thing people believe. The other myth that people believe is that all millionaires have like a 4.2, that they're all geniuses or something. And most of us, our GPAs were in the threes. Mine's actually a 297.

I'm still pissed about that three one-hundredths of a point, too. But I think beer was involved. All right. So what do you drive? I just bought – so the first time in my life I paid cash for a car. I just bought it two weeks ago. It's a Toyota Land Cruiser. Good.

Okay. And what's your wife drive? She drives a Lincoln Corsair. How old? The car or the wife? The car. It's a 21. Okay, good.

That's the right answer for your wife, too, brother. You can keep both of them okay stay at 21 no i always tell my wife it's 39 and she's been 39 for 20 years yeah it's a 20th anniversary of your 39th birthday that's right i love it okay good good mine just had that yeah all right so uh uh can this still be done can can someone still become a millionaire by age 53? Oh, yeah. It's just about work, Dave. I mean, it's hard work.

It's putting money away. It's not, you know, my wife and I talked about this a couple years ago. You know, we watched our friends in our early 20s, you know, go into debt, going on vacation and buying cars. And we didn't do that, right? We stayed at home. We didn't have our first vacation until we were married for four years. And it was a road trip to Colorado. So, you know, we were our dates were picnics in a local park that had a concert during the summer on the weekends. So we can go out to dinner. We didn't do that stuff. We socked our money away. And the other thing I will tell you is we also didn't,

we also have conversations about everything, right? Like she knows our investments. I'm not hiding anything from her. We don't make any big decisions without talking. Even when I want to change jobs or move on, I don't do it unless I have her blessing. Yeah. How do you handle the frustration? Because there's a sense that once I become a quote-unquote millionaire and you're almost 2x that i don't have to worry about stuff i'm buy whatever car i want i can live where i want you know there's there's kind of that that leap between oh i'm actually a net worth like my net worth is a million dollars or more but i still have to think about it i still

gotta think about it oh yeah i i you never i think at that point, you're going to lose your million pretty quick. So, I mean, my opinion, I mean, I agonized about this car for four months before I bought it. I've never bought a new car. I take that back. I bought one new car early on, and my father let me have it. He was in the car business and made it very clear that buying a new car was not smart. So this was kind of a little thing for me and and um you know even then if he was still alive i'm sure i'd be getting the what for for buying a new car well you got a land cruiser that's a beautiful

ride man yeah it's a great car it's a great car way to go hero thank you for sharing your story we appreciate you all right amos is in memphis what's your net worth amos right at one million gotcha okay and a little breakdown on the uh categories please uh 400 000 in ira 100 000 in cash 350 property and 150 in savings bonds. Got it. Okay, cool. How old are you? 62. 6'2 or 5'2? 6'2. 6'2, okay. And how much of this did you inherit?

None of it really, well, I guess the $100,000 cash is kind of, my parents put me in their trust, and they placed everything in my name 25 years ago. And my mom has now moved in with me 25 years ago and my mom and mom has now moved in with me and everything's all the accounts are now merged so it's it's all mine did that money cause you to be a millionaire or you were already a millionaire when you got that money i was all that kind of put me over the top okay i was already i was already on path and on my project i'm going to be probably at two or three very shortly yeah yeah okay good good and what's your best year working income in your worst year

my best year was this last one that counts severance because i was laid off after 19 years and that was 129 my lowest was probably when i was making nine dollars an hour driving a truck yeah so it sounds like the majority of your life you've made under 100k was probably when I was making $9 an hour driving a truck. Yeah. So it sounds like the majority of your life you've made under $100K. Yeah, under $50K for most of it. This is just the last 19 years. When I started this last job, I had nothing. And I'd been trying to get into this company for a while.

And when I got in there, I got into their 401K and put in six matching, and then they had an option I can increase the percent, 1% every year. And so I set that, so every year I'm putting in more in the 401k. And they had a pension plan, and I had that, and they had stock purchase, and I got into that because the jump from my last job to that was almost $20,000. And we were kind of setting our budget, so I just put all the extra money towards retirement because I didn't have it started. And so I just had one.

So in 19 years, you turned the whole thing around, yeah. Right. What was your career? What did you do for a living? DBA. I got an IT. Oh, okay. Very good.

Yeah, I went from driving trucks to driving a computer. Got it. Okay. Works for me. Can people still do this today? Yeah. I like the fact that I don't know if I found anything new, but if you are getting like normal cost of living increases is something that I learned when I was a kid is like to pay yourself first. And so if I get a 3% raise, I always put a 1% towards retirement.

And then you don't even notice it. You just forget about it. And it just, like you put it, it snowballs. This is a good one, yeah. You know, the good kind of snowball. The compound interest gets in your favor, and here we go. And it's slow and steady, slow and steady. And, John, one of the things we have learned is people set it and forget it.

What he said there, you create a system where you don't have to think about it. That's right. Reduce the friction, as James Clear says. It's not some kind of strong, muscular discipline. It's just like it comes out of my check, and I don't think about it. That's right. And it stays on autopilot, and that keeps me doing it. This is a Baby Steps Millionaire's Theme Hour.

Thank you for joining us, America. This is the Ramsey Show. It's a Baby Steps Millionaires theme hour. John and I are going on the road here in a couple of months. We're going to be in six different cities doing the Money and Relationships Tour. We're going to be talking about raising money smart kids, how to fight a fair fight in marriage, finding contentment. We're going to talk, of course, about wealth building, of course, about anything having to do with relationships. And here's what's weird. It's unfiltered, unscripted, and packed with wisdom.

What we're going to do is we're going to put up a bunch of topics for the audience when we first get in the arena or in the theater, and you guys are going to text in and tell us which ones we're going to talk about. So you're going to build the event that night when you get there, and that's going to be weird and fun. We're kind of excited about it. We're going to be in Louisville, Kentucky, April 21st is the first one. Durham, North Carolina, April 23rd. Atlanta, Georgia, April 25th.

Then a couple weeks later, we're going to Phoenix on May 5th, Fort Worth May 7th, and Kansas City on May 9th. You can get your tickets at ramseysolutions.com slash tour, or you can click on the link in the show notes, and it'll get you set right up. John, this is going to be fun. It's different. Dude, it's going to be wheels off.

I was talking to Rachel. We did the money marriage event this last weekend, and I said i don't get nervous very often for these kind of things i'm excited nervous for this one because it's gonna be us two on stage letting it rip man we're both gonna be out there and we just gotta you know it's like it's like contemporary i mean i took a i was in like a speech thing when i was in contemporaneous speaking. I can't even say it. But, you know, it would like draw a subject out of a card, a deck of cards, and then you had to go. Let it rip.

And you had to go. And that's kind of what we're going to be doing. But people don't get to see us cutting up and having a good time and poking at each other. And we'll be answering your questions in a sense. And we've got a whole interactive format built. It's going to be very fun. It's something different

and every show is so uh cookie cutter now right and like it's just stamp and stamp and stamp and what i love about this one is every every city is going to get a new show and uh the new events it's gonna be fun and in some cases that's gonna be good that's right that's right i can't wait so be sure hey it's in April and May, six cities. Check it out at RamseySolutions.com. There's still some tickets left, and we'd love to have you come visit with us. We're looking forward to meeting you when we're out on the road. Debra is our next millionaire up in Atlanta.

Debra, what's your net worth? My net worth is $1.4 million, $1.5 million. Gotcha. And a little breakdown by category? $500,000 Roth IRA, $5,000.5 million. Gotcha. And a little breakdown by category? 500,000 Roth IRA, 5,000 mutual fund stocks, 300 in my house, and one to 200 in money market savings. It's my emergency fund. Gotcha. How old are you? 67. 67. And how much of this did you inherit? About 100,000, a little bit from grandparents and a little bit from my parents.

How long ago? From grandparents, 30-some years ago, and my parents, 15 to 20 years ago. So a real part of you being a millionaire is inherited money then? No, no it isn't. It was only $100,000 and the rest I earned myself. Okay, alright. But if you had invested that it would have been a big part of this, right? Oh yes, but that was invested. That went into my

investments. I never touched it. I see. Okay, good. What was your career? I was an administrative assistant. Okay, and what was your income, best year and worst year? Worst year was probably when i started maybe i made eleven thousand dollars a year and and when i retired last june um 42 000 42 so you never made over 42 000 i never made more than that and you're worth a million

and a half at 67 what do you tell people when they're listening to this that are in their 20s? Can they do this, and what did you do? What should they do to be like you? You can do it. I had a great teacher, especially my dad. Started early, had a piggy bank and bank account. Couldn't reach the teller window, but start early as you can. Live with what you need, not what you want. Don't try to keep up with friends and neighbors. Look for the far future, not just tomorrow. You know, just keep slow and steady, slow and steady. Live on less than you make. I always paid myself first that went into savings and, you know, i lived on the rest i didn't try to keep

up with others what do you drive um a 15 year old uh honda uh honda civic and i bought it used incredible dude incredible what's it like being 67 and not worrying about money it's it's a weird feeling i i still can't get used to it. My financial advisor, who is fantastic and helped me get this far, he keeps saying, you know you're okay, you know you're okay, and I'm going, well, I'm not sure yet. Well, I'm proud of you. That's amazing.

Yeah, you did a great job. I was just well-taught. You know, any money, anything that was extra always went into savings. You know, if you got raises or bonuses, it was like untouched. Put it in savings. But, you know, when I say savings, I mean, you know, in my Roth IRA every year, in my mutual funds. Just keep plowing through it. Well, there's lots of ways to find information these

days and you're one of the rare people that just went and did it and so that's amazing that's we're proud of you you know you know your dad you know your dad's really proud don't you i hope he is i hope he is he had a saying he said if you're walking down the street and you see a penny on the sidewalk pick it up because you may need it to make a dollar there you go that's how it works oh where are those guys oh my goodness i love it alex is in sioux falls south dakota alex what's your net worth it is 1.1 million very cool and uh give me a little breakdown by category it is 700 000 in my emergency fund and my retirement savings and my kids college and then 200,000 in home equity and about 150,000 in vehicles and other assets and toys gotcha how old are you 33 how much of this did you inherit uh nothing my parents did help me out with college

but that's about it okay and what do you make a year? $450,000. Whoa, what do you do? I'm a financial planner. Good for you. Well done. Very cool. Well, and you're obviously doing it for yourself.

Well played, brother. The Cobbler's kids have no shoes. Not yours. They got good shoes. I like it. Well done, sir. Very well done. Well, congratulations. thank you for sharing your numbers with us guys it's not mythology and it's not out of reach and the american dream is not dead the people out there telling you trying to steal your

hope i call them hope stealers that's an evil evil movement when people tell you you can't win you need to stay away from those kind of people. You can win. And it's not a panacea. This is not Pollyanna. It's not easy. It's not automatic. But it's very doable when you apply yourself. None of the people we talked to today were geniuses.

None of them were crooks. None of them were trust fund babies. They were all people just like you. John, this can be done. Yeah, it can be done. And every single person on here has remarked about, we just did a thing and we just kept doing it. Consistency, consistency, consistency, consistency. And you look up and you're 33, you're 55, you're 67, and you're worth more than a million dollars. So it's just not a hack to it, man.

It's just not a hack. You got to keep showing up and keep showing up. Live on less than you make and save some money. Whoa. I mean, that's it. I mean, it's 42 years old, 31, 59, 53, 62, 67, and 33. That was the millionaires we talked to today. They weren't 92.

They didn't live in a cave and collect lint and only come out on triple coupon Thursday. They had a life. They're driving reasonable cars, which sometimes I find they're still driving cheap junk and I need to get them to get a car. But because they've been driving cheap junk so long, that's how they got there. But, you know, you guys have done such a good job. This is very doable. If you want to learn more, pick up the book, Baby Steps from Millionaires. I've sold almost a million of those now. it's because i want to make more millionaires and you know what makes them it's not magic it's hope and that's why we do this hour to give you guys hope

and take and offset the hope stealers that are saying the american dream is dead it's impossible you're not waiting on the White House to fix your life. What happens in your house is more important. None of these people said the president sent me money. Because the president never sends you money. Well, if they do, it's a trick. Be careful. He'll come ask for it back.

Wow. Love it. That puts us out of the Ramsey show in the books. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey solutions. It's the Ramsey show. We help people build wealth, do work that they love and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thanks for joining me today. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author,

PhD in counseling. He's my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Luke is in Memphis. Hi, Luke. How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm doing all right.

How about you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I have found myself backed into several different financial corners after the past year of dealing with some unexpected health issues and just awful, awful money management. And as of Tuesday, I lost my job as well. And I just, I need to know what you think I should do next. Wow. Pretty scary. Why'd you lose your job?

It was a policy violation on my part um i worked for a national pharmacy chain um and i was needing extra money and i have a friend from church who owns her own independent pharmacy and i you know she told me you know come pick up a shift you know every now and then and you know with the extra money she helped me out my main employer found out and they ended up terminating my employment so the policy was that you're not allowed to work for other pharmacies correct as a competitor although both locations were over 30 minutes apart yeah in two different cities so what do you do are you a pharmacist

um i will be hopefully within the next four to five years right now i'm a pharmacy technician i've been doing it for a decade. So can you go pick up a new job real quick? What's the market like? So the market is, for technicians, you know, is not the best. At the job that I was just terminated from, I was making $23 an hour, and that's with a decade of an experience and for national certifications so are you able to exhale and what I'm saying is I I put

myself in your position I wouldn't I'm not saying this is gonna be easy but you can get in that ballpark maybe not all the way to 23 but you can get 20 bucks an hour throwing boxes at Walmart and it doesn't have the same prestige but also put your headphones in and just get after it and move your body a little bit and get your feet underneath you you know what i'm saying yeah like get some yeah it's just it just it's a gut punch getting laid off right yeah and well then moving my body part of it is a it's a hard part that's part of the medical issues I've had right now. Okay. I'm on the cusp of we're trying to determine whether or not I have multiple sclerosis.

I'm sorry. Yeah. No. It's not a good time. Yeah, I imagine. Okay. And what bills are you behind on? Well, your most favorite one, my car payment, three different credit cards, and then please don't string me up.

I have a 401k loan out, and now that I'm, you know, I no longer work for that company, I'm not going to be contributing to that 401K. I need to know what to do with that. Okay. How much is the 401K loan? Total right now is $7,800. Okay. And how much is the car loan? Car loan total left is $2,100.

Right now I have $2,000 past due. Okay. So $10,000 changes your life. Yeah. Okay. All right. And, um, well, the rule number one is we do what we call the four walls. So you do go pick up something and you can pick up something immediately. And almost all somethings, whether it's throwing boxes, which you're not capable of doing, but Walmart is hiring at customer service, so is Target, so is everybody right now, and it's all around $20. So you go pick up two or three of those, and you cobble together a 50-hour week, and you know, you do something that's not physically straining, but you're putting in the hours and you're stacking cash and, you know, this is your wake-up call to get some cash stacked,

then as you create that income, your first rule is food, and that's not restaurant food. That's grocery store food. There are no restaurants in here near future yeah i i cook i cook at home almost every single day good well you get to now and number two you take your lights and water number three you pay your rent are you behind on any of those no good okay stay current on those then Then the next thing, most important thing, is the car to get current and stay current on it. And then I want you to scrape together $2,100. If you do that within 60 days and pay off this loan, you'll have no tax problems with the 401k loan.

Then we'll attack the car. I'm not worried about the credit cards they can jump in the creek for right now so food shelter and clothing 401k loan car that's your order of attack with as much income as you can possibly create and um you know i've talked to you here for five minutes you're bright you've just been disorganized and have not been focused and disciplined. Agreed? Very much so. You know you can do this.

It's just a matter of you haven't. And that's okay. Most people screw up in this area. No shame. But, you know, the guilt and all that garbage is now in our rearview mirror. Now there's a new version of Luke, and we're about to get after this thing. Tear into it. Yeah.

This is the new you. You're going to knock out this debt, and you're going to knock out this problem. I'll give you a prediction. If this is MS or something related, I've got two friends that have MS, actually three, and I don't know anything about it from a medical perspective. I just know what they've told me is that when they have less stress and less fatigue, they have fewer symptoms, meaning they have peace. They have fewer symptoms. And it's not about necessarily working hours. It's just a matter of the stress is the biggest problem.

And so once you've got a game plan here and you start executing on it, I think you'll probably see an improvement in your health. Now, that's not a medical professional opinion. That's just an old guy that's watched a lot of stuff happen. Yeah. And Luke? professional opinion that's just an old guy that's watched a lot of stuff happen yeah and i can it's definitely it is definitely tough the stress does play a fact like yeah yeah it's it's not a good time that's real that's real and brother let me tell you this i don't say this as worth in like um like you know self-worth right but financially you've you've put in a ton of work

and you've been credentialed and you're an expert in your technician job that job is worth more than 23 bucks an hour yeah so find a job that you can do with that level of stick-to-itiveness and passion and the paste for three times yeah expertise and go make some real money dude um that's the next part of your career too good of an employee yeah to make 23 bucks an hour like that yeah you've been feeling stuck for a long time and now's your freedom so the worst thing and the best thing that ever happened to luke was he got fired here we go it's gonna be a great end to this story this is The Ramsey Show. March 4th and 5th, George Campbell and I are going to do a two-night event,

a live stream, a virtual event called Investing Essentials. The first night, we're going to talk about all kinds of investments and investing philosophy. The second night is going to be mainly devoted to my playbook on real estate. So if you want to learn about investments from real people that really do it, not somebody that has an opinion that lives in their mother's basement and has a TikTok account, we're going to be doing this. George Camo and I. And again, March 4th and 5th, it's $199.

It is a two-night, two hours and some change each night event, and it's not a duplicate. You need to be there for both nights. Get your tickets today at ramseysolutions.com slash events, investing essentials virtual event, March 4 and 5. Rick is in Omaha, Nebraska. Hi, Rick. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Thank you. Welcome to be there. Glad to have you, sir. Hi, Rick. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Thank you. Welcome to be there. Glad to have you, sir. How can we help? Well, you can warm it up up here a little bit for me. It's like negative 18 yesterday morning. That's why I don't live there.

How can we help today? Dave, I'm 70. I'm nearing the end of my debt I'm down to $22,000 the house will be paid for first of next month I got a lot of friends retiring

I still work every day driving trucks and I'm contemplating getting everything paid off and wondering I don't have much in savings you know about 2500 is all not very well prepared and just wondering what my next steps should be what are you going to use for money to pay the light bill and food well wife and i both get social security so so that's about 37,000 a year,

but I, you know, I'm still, I'm still physically able to work part time. That's, that's my question. You know, I had open heart surgery last July. Well, they wanted me to take three months off. I took two, but I went and borrowed $5,000 from the bank just to keep the lights and gas on while, you gas on while I was off work because I didn't have enough in my emergency fund. And, I mean, yeah, it wasn't the right thing to do, but, you know, in the circumstances, that was the easiest thing to do.

Well, I mean, retiring with $2,000 in the bank and only living on Social Security is going to put you in that same situation again, probably. I would want you to have an emergency fund at least and preferably have some more of a nest egg. But I don't know how much longer you're able to drive the truck. How much longer can you do that, Rick? Well, my family has long genes. My dad, 90, he stole a Moses moses church and cemetery along he goes golfing and plays cards he drives himself everywhere he goes and his folks was mid 90s so i mean i'm expecting to hang around this earth a little bit longer but there's no guarantee there no for sure

for sure but i mean if you can work you know if you cleared up this debt and put 50 000 bucks in the bank you'd be in a much better place is all i'm saying can you do that exactly exactly yeah i mean that's that's that's part of my question you know i mean i'm not saying i want to retire tomorrow you know next two or three years four years you know whatever i mean yeah i think you need to set some very specific goals and you and your wife budget toward those what you earn from the truck plus social security and first things clear the debt the second thing how much of a nest egg do we want to build before i pull the plug on this exactly exactly you know i've been sitting here

looking over the budget you know what can we what do you know what do we actually need what can we cut out you know how much can we you know trim it yeah i mean obviously if we had it to start over and you caught me at 50 years old i would have you build up a huge nest egg but um but that's really not a fair mathematical option at this stage if i'd have just made this call back when i first heard about dave ramsey i'd have been a lot better shape we went through financial peace in 2015 my first three months budget i sort of got a grenade went off right in the middle of them it was it was a mess but it but it got me started okay we found out at that point that you know that i'm the i'm the nerd and she's free spirit and she was a little pissed at me because

she had done all the financing before then because i was too lazy or to helper. I was, you know, using the excuse, I've been gone all the time. And it can be easy to point the finger at her and blame her, but actually I've got to point the finger at me and blame me for not getting her involved. Well, I mean, we can do all that if we want, but probably what we need to do is lay out a game plan for the future now. I'm blaming on the past. I don't want to spend my energy doing that.

That burns too much calories. But let's take where we are today and say where are we going and I I have found Dave the way I can personally metabolize when my friends are super successful in ways that I'm not or like his situation they're all retiring and he he can't do that is to exhale and choose to celebrate your friends call them and tell them that you're proud of them. Call them and say, hey, I'm not buying beers anymore. You guys, y'all are retired, y'all are paying, but we're still going to hang out.

This is a math problem. It's not a touchy-feely problem. He just didn't have the money to retire. Didn't have the money, man. I hate that for him, especially when everybody around him is starting to pull the plug and go hang out and play golf. But, man, if he was my dad, I would would say i want you to take three or four years and save like you've never saved in your life yeah now it's time to get the most serious you've ever been ever because

this spots get yeah real uncomfortable in those later years yeah i mean if you needed five thousand dollars when you're laid off for three months or when you had a heart heart open heart surgery for three months what are you going to do now? Same thing. So you need to get some money built up and get tight on that budget, and let's see how much we can stack cash and be debt-free. And, man, they've put a clock on Social Security. I mean, it doesn't have a long runway for solvency,

and so I wouldn't put a ton of my eggs in that basket, or at least like to do what I could to supplement that in case they have got to cut it by some percentages down the road. There you go. All right. Up next is going to be Tyler in Memphis. Hey, Tyler, how are you? What's up, Dave? I am well.

Thank you for taking my call, man. Sure. So I'm a 26-year-old guy. I don't have a wife or children, and I got $36,000 in college debt, some credit card debt from business coaching a couple years ago. And my question is,

do I just hit this debt really hard right now doing my full-time job as an EMT, or do I tackle this debt working as an EMT and doing part-time personal training at the Y? So starting another business, I just started that a month ago, and I have five clients. I'm kind of like, do I slow the ambition down right now and just like hit that? Well, it doesn't cost anything to be a personal trainer. You're just making money, right?

Right. Is that not like an excellent part-time job to go with your emt to get out of debt yeah i would agree why wouldn't you do that because the other thought was do i just pick up another like ems job for another company and just work that like 70 hours a week and get out of debt within a year or what makes more money well they both pay 25 and excuse me 25 an hour but one of them is sales which you know that skills that i have to continue to sharpen but then i enjoy that okay but i mean can you make it the same number of hours roughly no because it's up to me really to find a lot of my clients here at the YMCA.

I mean, if you make $25 and you work three hours and you could have worked, make $25 and you could have worked 30, now that's not an even trade. Yeah. Matter of fact, you could probably do both of those. How many clients have you got? Five? Yeah. Do you have five hours a week or five hours a day or what? Yeah. yeah five hours a week or five hours a day or what yeah so it's hour-long session and then my other like two days and i'm off i just like live at the y talking to members giving them free workouts and just uh trying to how many 25 hours in a week are you selling at the y

right now so last week i think i sold 11 um So you worked 11 hours as your part-time job? Okay. As my part-time, and then full-time I worked 40 hours. Okay, and what's the second job you could get if you weren't doing training? How many hours can you get at it? It would be with another... No, how many hours can you get at it? Oh, it would be about 20 to 30.

Okay. So the difference is in 11 and 20 to 30 so if you can't get the uh you know the the uh personal training to 15 headed towards 20 then you probably should be doing the emt on the side because you can work twice as much almost three times as much right now that's a lot more money yeah but if you can get twice as much, almost three times as much right now. That's a lot more money. Yeah. But if you can get the personal training up and just quit giving out free workouts. Yeah. Check out my buddies at Mind Pump that teach personal trainers how to go do this and how

to work the sales aspect. Sounds like you're doing a lot of Mind Pump. They're amazing guys. But it sounds like you're doing a lot of hanging out at the Y. And man, I'd love to see you get out of debt before you just spend a lot of time chilling there. This is The Ramsey Show. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, PhD in counseling, number one bestselling author. He's my co-host today. Catherine is in Austin, Texas. Hey, Catherine, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave and Dr. John. Thank you for taking my call today. Sorry, I'm nervous. I'm going to

make this as brief as possible and as concise. Okay. So my fiance and I are getting married in a couple weeks, and he is in the process of moving out of his, um, the home that he has been renting from, um, one of his friend's parents, uh, for the last three or so years. And, um, there was a, uh, water leak that he noticed out of the side of the outside of the house. And so he told his landlord about it. And basically it's turned into this big situation where like basically the entire bathroom has to get ripped out. And there was a small leak on the inside of the bathtub that like dripped into the bathtub. And he hadn't said anything about that. But then as soon as he saw the outside, he said something. What I'm getting at is now they want us to pay, or they want him to pay the $5,900 deductible,

and the plumber said that the leak was inside the wall, not outside the wall. I'm sorry, even if it's outside, it doesn't matter. Why is it the renter's fault that the water leaked? This is why you rent. Okay, thank you. That's what I was feeling, but oh, God, I'm sorry. If your fiancé did something that caused the leak or, you know, like had a, I don't know, a water bed or something,

and they caused the mold or they caused the rot, then is there even such a thing as a water bed anymore? I was going to say, welcome back to the 90s. Welcome back to the 90s, Dave. Back to the future one. Yeah, but anyway, I mean, if he had a cold plunge, okay, let's get back. And it leaked, okay, something modern. And he caused the mold or caused some rot. That's the tenant damaging the property. He would be responsible for that.

But if I own a property and I own a bunch of property and the water line breaks or has a leak in it, that's not the tenant's financial responsibility. Has there been a handshake deals like under market rent or something because those are parents of a friend? Yes. Yes. So there was no like contract. There was no, they didn't ask him to get renter's insurance and he had been paying like five hundred dollars and then seven hundred fifty dollars more recently and um so so they're kind of coming at him not from legally but kind of like hey bro be cool dude and give us six thousand dollars kind of like that right like yeah we've let you live here for this amount but it's like now you have to fix our house when it breaks okay thank you that's

what i was feeling he's just that my fiance is just so wonderful and he thought because he had seen the leak on the inside that was dripping into the tub and hadn't said something sooner that he feels he has some bit of responsibility no he does not no he does okay okay should we be i mean do you have any recommendation on how to approach this conversation with them? It's not by your hand, but in your lap. They've chosen to put the relationship on the table, and so they severed their relationship. And so there's not a way that you can, no matter how nicely you say what you need to say, which is no thank you, or I'm unable to pay or unwilling to pay.

I'm not responsible for this. I'm a tenant. My agreement with you did not cover me fixing your broken house because I got cheap rent. Okay. Thank you. I have listened to y'all for years, and that's what I thought. And my mom had rental houses, but this felt way over the top. And, yeah, he doesn't want to sever the relationship, but I felt the same.

They've already severed it. No, they already did that. No, they put a price tag on it. It's $5,900. There you go. Okay. But that's not the issue. I mean, so all you can do is just be kind and smile and say, gosh, I'm so thankful for the rent,

but I did not sign up for doing all the repairs for your home. That was not our agreement. You were kind to me. You were generous to me. Thank you for that. But I am not, I, I, I didn't know time and I'm getting married in two weeks. No, I'm, I can't, I can't splurge out $6,000.

I don't have it and it doesn't. And I'm not responsible for it i'm so sorry i hope that doesn't upset you but if it does then that's that's your decision i guess okay thank you all so much does that make sense yes that's exactly what my argument was and what i thought but i just my yeah my fiance is maybe softer hearted than I am. And I've got to tell you, I've been in a lot of situations like where we have a house, and one of our rental houses, and the lady got cancer. And we let them live there for free because nobody's working in the house, and it was just a horrible situation.

We were able to do that because the house was debt-free. But we didn't come back at the end of that and say, this, this, this, this. Right. Even if they had torn up something, we made the decision to be generous, grace, to extend grace to that family. But then we didn't try to, like, take that back. Right. Like, you owe me.

And so these people are strange is what i'm saying yeah well that's what i told my fiance because i've listened to y'all for years and i said you know this they they treated it all these years like a gift and dave has always said like if you're going to give somebody something then you accept like you don't loan somebody something unless you're willing to gift it, like a family or something. And so I was telling him, like, this is not a gift. If their handshake agreement was he does all the repairs and he keeps the house up, then he should do the repairs.

But nowhere in the story have you said that. That's correct. That is not the case. And there's a really fine line between he's so wonderful and spineless. That's a really thin line. Yeah, he needs to be very kind and extremely strong. Yeah, and the other thing is that they're trying to say, we've made all these concessions for you, like let you live here for $500,

when they've had the house full of storage and it's a paid off house yeah but hey don't do that don't do that don't go don't go none of that matters stories none of that matters all that matters is you gave me a deal thank you that was our deal our deal was not that i pay for the plumbing breaks and i not only won't i not only can't but i won't i'm so sorry and if that makes you angry that really makes me sad but then that's your decision to be angry goodbye okay end of story but you katherine don't sit there and spin up stories about yeah and they use storage that is a choice for you to be miserable in the moment yeah and your fiance let them store stuff that was part of the deal because he didn't change it right if that went on for more than 30 seconds he's he went on with it so that that you you get a deal but i'm gonna store some stuff okay that that you know if if you don't object to that

then you made the deal and and going back to what dave said earlier i love the way he said it he said it much more eloquently than me they have put a price tag on this relationship and it's about six thousand bucks and it's not you guys violating some sort of bro code by they hooked you up and then if something goes wrong down the road they're going to circle back and make well you owe us now because we were nice to you, so you've got to be – we don't have $6,000, so we're going to move on. But they're the ones that violated the relationship. Kind of bums me out, Dave.

I don't like that. I'm just trying to think. I mean, you know what the problem is. It just occurred to me. The house is paid for, but these people have no money, money probably and so they're struggling with the six thousand dollars and before they knew it they got weird they might not even be weird people but they just for a moment here when you get desperate you do some they lost their minds yeah that's rational they just got because they're talking about a newlywed couple getting ready to get married in two weeks. And the first thing I'm going to do is present. Here's your wedding gift, a bill for plumbing.

Yeah, I can imagine like a canceled. I'm going to help you with your rent. And I'm going to give you a wedding gift. A canceled check. It's a canceled check for a bill for $6,000. Who does that? Somebody's not thinking. Somebody's not thinking.

Somebody's weird. Because that's just so strange the timing on the whole thing i mean golly oh man crazy crazy crazy crazy crazy crazy crazy crazy crazy yeah be careful when you sign up for stuff and there's not an agreement hmm oh wait we didn't sign up for stuff yeah be careful when there's no agreement this is the Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Proverbs 16, 28. A troublemaker plants seeds of strife.

Gossip separates the best of friends. Maya Angelou says, I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one. Oh, excellent. She's got some good ones. Sean Lee is with us in Honolulu, Hawaii. Hi, Sean Lee. How are you? Hi, Dave.

I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay. The big question that I need advice on is if you guys think it would be a good idea or if it'd be okay for me to quit my job now that my husband, he has a new job and he makes almost what we've made before in total. He has a new job. Well, you got babies at home or something or what

yeah so um i have twins they just turned one last weekend yeah so that was a big change and you have a live tiger in your living room now two two of them yeah um but i think some of the details might help paint a big picture of how I'm getting to this question of if I should go for it. Um, yeah, quick. So, um, the dream has always been to be a stay at home mom. When we were dating, uh, we agreed together, you know, the end goal is that I could be a stay at home mom while we have little kids and just get to raise them. And he was all for that. And so was I, but we live in Hawaii it's very expensive here and I actually used to make more money than him or even on our leave based I made more money than he did and my job was more stable so we actually have a three-year-old as well she was born in

2021 and after maternity leave I went back to work full-time and my mom watched her and that just like it killed me because I wanted to be home with her she's my first daughter I was like getting all the first you know pictures and text messages she did this and that and I wasn't there so I knew in me like that's what I want to do I want to be out so what did you make what do you make now? Well, now, after the twins, I now work part-time. What do you make now? I make $25,000, maybe $1,000 now. Okay, and what does he make now? He now makes $115,000, and that could be a little bit more.

And that was a raise beyond what did he used to make before he just got this nice bump yeah he used to make like 50k and i got a 65 000 raise yeah yeah he went from being a laborer for a smaller business now so he obviously makes more so were you guys uh living on less than you made when he made 50 and you made 25? Were you living on less than you make then? Yeah, we definitely had to. So you were making it on 75? Yes, barely, though. We also moved out of my parents' house.

We lived with them until the 20s. Can you make it today on 75? Yes, we can. Okay if you want to be a hundred percent sure you could say i'm we're going to live on a budget for two months and i'm going to put what we're going to put 100 of my income into a savings account to prove to ourselves that we can live on your income and then i'm going to quit okay so don't just quit you could just quit if you want to i mean the numbers say you can quit but i'm not sure you guys are really managing money that tight it sounds like it's a loosey goosey we're not yeah it's pretty loose um it only got a little more tight when we now we moved out and we rent and our rent went up

and you can't out earn you can't make enough money to out earn disorganization and loosey-goosey okay so his raise won't cover that you guys you guys got to tighten up and be grown-ups if you're going to be at home okay tight budget okay written budget both of you agree where every dollar is going every dollar has a name before the month begins in the every dollar budget app okay both of you do that if you do that for two months you'll feel better about yourself and you'll have more peace about this decision right and then i will quit and come home yes well i get to work from home but i just i can't give my twins a hundred percent of my attention and so it's still kind of hard. I don't have my mom's help and all of that.

So, Shanley, I hear a bunch of external stories going on. Uh-huh. When you make a budget, it becomes a math problem. Let's do that. Okay. Because I don't think you're giving yourself permission to. All the promises of the past don't matter. Your mama's help doesn't matter.

All that bull crap doesn't matter. It is a little bit hectic, and I'll give you that with twins, twin one-year-olds. My God, that's enough to drive you nuts. But aside from that, the drama isn't the issue. The issue, you called me and said, can we make it? Well, prove it to yourself and then do it. Okay. It's a math thing.

Yeah, and if mom doesn't help, be sad about that. But that's not a reason to stay at home mom doesn't help be sad about that but that's not a reason to stay at home not stay at home or to stay at home or work part-time or focus fully work from home those are that really matters what matters is i don't want to work okay let's do the math prove it let's do the math yeah let's run it like it's a like like we're doing math because it is math and then what will happen is you get two things out of that you get a lot of self-confidence as a couple a lot of agreement as a couple uh and you're going to get peace about your decision right that's the second thing you're going to get or you'll also get because right now it's all kind

of and there's no you could quit but you go well i don't know i don't know how i wasn't sure it's okay well but you're sure now because it's a math problem you did you did if you do the math if you're sure right and then all those other feelings you got to deal with them mom's not helping that that breaks my heart mom and dad kicked us out that stinks rent keeps going up that stinks like you you get to feel that kind of stuff but you gotta solve the math problem first well i get because it gives you confidence in the cut and you don't you guys don't have confidence in yourselves in your ability to handle money that's exactly right when you get that then you can extend that into any other decision there you go whether it's you know move quit jobs um take a new job uh whatever i mean it gives you all kinds of

different things you can consider from that point but when you don't have when you're kind of standing on quicksand while you're trying to jump it's hard to make the call yeah and so make it solid math math math math math that's simple that's what i would drive it up to so you know there's four or five things folks you can do with money and when you do them, they work 100% of the time. Number one is live on a written plan, a budget. Number two is live on less than you make. Number three is use all of that to get out of debt and save money and invest money and be generous. When you start doing those four or five things,

you're going to build wealth. You agree on it with your spouse, get on the every dollar budget app, live on less than you make. You got a detailed plan. You're running this like you're running a business, like you're running. If you worked for a company called You Incorporated and you manage money for You Incorporated the way you manage money for you now, would you fire you? You know, that's everybody out there. That's a question for, you know, if the answer is yes, then don't ask God to bless you with more money he's not going to he says when you're faithful with the little things he's going to give you more to manage so be faithful be faithful in the little things take care of the details push the details through be a grown-up make the decision i well

he promised me when we're dating i don't give a crap he promised you a lot of stuff yeah he doesn't have those blonde tips anymore oh my gosh oh james used to have those james child used to have those he looked amazing he did no we got blonde tips and water beds we're all kinds of 90s references this hour exactly acid i was thinking 80s not 90s but you know but i um the thing is if you do that this stuff it's it's like doing grown-up things it's emotionally i'm taking control i'm taking responsibility for my today and my destiny tomorrow our family tree i'm going to change everything and and you you're grabbing life around the neck and shaking it and making it behave. And I've never seen somebody solve a problem by sitting and ruminating and ruminating and ruminating. You got to go do the next thing. Go do a thing. Go

make a budget. Go put all your expenses down. Write down all those stories about grandma kicked us out and mother's not helping. Get that out of your head so you can look and actually solve the problem right in front of you yeah and maybe it's he promised me i was gonna be able to stay at home and he doesn't make that much money so we have to figure out what's next right maybe that's the truth but man get that stuff down on a piece of paper and go do the next thing just stop sitting there ruminating about it because it's not gonna solve the problem yeah that's exactly it like good thinking, but it's a waste of your time. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it.

In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.