The Ramsey Show - App - Special Replay: The Annual Giving Show from 2022 (Hour 1)

Episode Date: December 25, 2023

You're listening to a special rerun episode of our annual giving show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods Moving and Storage Studios, it's the Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. The phone number here is 888-825-5225. But before you dial the number, you need to know that this show today is dedicated to generosity so we're going to take calls from folks today that have a giving story

a generosity story they were on the receiving end or the giving end of generosity because it is the season. Tis the season. This is, well, Christmas reminds us how important generosity is. And it is live like no one else so that later you can live and give like no one else. Rachel Cruz, number one bestselling author, Ramsey Personality. And my daughter is my co-host today as we take your calls about giving. It's our annual generosity show, our annual giving show. So we want to hear from you.

If you've got a great giving story, you can jump in. The phone number, 888-825-5225. Merry Christmas to you. 888-825-5225. Kim is going to start off this hour in Canton, Ohio. Hi, Kim. Tell us your giving story. Merry Christmas.

Hello, Dave. Hello, Rachel. Thank you for having me on the show. This is my giving story. Back in February, my husband died of COVID, and I took a portion of the life insurance money and gave it towards my church's debt elimination. Wow. On November 26th, my sons were there and we all, they saw me write the check, fill out the envelope. We laid hands and prayed over the check, and the boys put it in the offering. And my husband, he was an amazing giver.

He gave to people all the time. He gave cars and trucks and vans and cash to families in need. He gave wood and fuel oil to older people that needed heat in the winter. He just gave, it was his, it was who he was. And it was such a blessing to be his wife. It's such a blessing to give in his honor and his legacy. And our church, they're down to $270,000 left on their mortgage. And 12 years ago, it was a $14 million mortgage. Wow. Wow.

That's so powerful, Kim. I'm so sorry for your loss. Thank you. Thank you. That was the motivator for this. So I'm curious for you, when you received that life insurance, obviously his legacy was one of giving, right? The way you just described him is just beautiful.

So what made you choose this specific way to give? Well, I felt that, you know, every year he gave to the legacy offering, and there's usually a project that the church is doing. And this was his life insurance money. I wanted to give a tithe of it to the legacy offering so that he would continue giving throughout all the years as a legacy. Um, I was going, he wanted me to retire. He wrote these letters about me retiring and he had me call Dave. I actually wrote a letter cause I didn't think I could get through the, um, phone call, but, um, Dave gave me a, um, uh, a coach, a financial coach. Her name is Lisa Barber, and I worked with her for the last 10 months. And throughout that process, I came to,

I didn't want to retire. I want to continue to fulfill God's will for my life, which I'm a teacher. And I love teaching children how to read. I love being at the school. I feel like I'm a teacher, and I love teaching children how to read. I love being at the school. I feel like I'm here for such a time as this. So instead of taking a portion of the life insurance and buying out so that I could retire early, instead I decided to continue working, continuing following God's will for my life, and take God's will for his life and pay, you know, give it to the legacy of my husband for God's kingdom to grow. That's how I came about that whole process.

Lisa helped me make these decisions, but I did make them myself, you know. Wow. Lisa's a precious lady. You got a hold of a good one there, so that's good stuff love her yes yes i do love her what an eventful thank you for giving me that yeah what an eventful year you've had uh unbelievable highs unbelievable lows and uh it's very poignant very beautiful great story and how old are your sons i have a 26 26-year-old, a 24-year-old, and a 23-year-old. Okay. So these young men were able to sit there and see their mom write this check from their dad's life insurance into this,

and they get to have that imprint on the rest of their life, that thumbprint on the rest of their life. That was very well played. Thank God that I was able to do that for all to see that. Amen. Thank you for sharing, Ms. Kim. God bless you, honey, and a Merry Christmas to you. That's a great story, a horrible start to the story, and a beautiful end or a beautiful next step, whatever you want to call it don't know how to say how what you say in that but uh uh without saying something dumb and awkward but

yeah but uh uh it's amazing that when people are in pain uh that generosity is something that automatically comes to mind yeah that's what i was gonna say is that there's like a lot of these stories that we hear and then we'll probably hear today, right? That there's some level of people's stories that pain is always a part of it, right? That is a part of life. And I think that that scale is different for everyone depending on their specific story.

But man, the depths of that pain in her case, I'm like, was the depths of her longing in that selflessness, right? And I think that that's a way to even combat and I'm sure helped with the grief. Like there's a level two of when you're giving and serving, you are putting your eyes elsewhere and there's just beauty in that, absolute beauty. Generosity is considerably underrated as a healing agent. It completely changes the chemistry of your body.

It completely changes the set of your emotions. It completely changes your spiritual walk. It literally will change the way you walk when you become generous. And the more outrageously generous you become the more free you are as a person you find very few people who are depressed who are outrageously generous something to think about because what happens is i mean chemicals are released in your body that you get a high from being generous i I mean, it's unbelievable. It is the most fun to have with money.

There's so much to it. It's so much more than the math, so much more than the individual person that's helped on the other end of the check. There's so many layers to this subject. This is the annual giving show on the Ramsey Show, and we want to hear from you. Rachel Cruz is with me. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Call us with your giving story or your receiving story. We're celebrating generosity. Merry Christmas. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author. My daughter is my co-host

today as we talk about giving today. This is our annual giving show. We're talking about generosity. If you have a story about generosity, giving or receiving, that is inspiring and will help everyone, all of us expand our vision for generosity. That's what this is for. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Wayne is in Lincoln, Nebraska. Hi, Wayne.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, thanks for having me. Sure. So after my first deployment, I came home in 2009 and was out running around eating all the food that I'd missed and stopped at a burger joint. There was a homeless man walking along the sidewalk. So I just offered to have one offered for him to come have lunch with me. And we ended up talking for several hours, but he had gotten married in 1966. In 67, he was sent over to Vietnam where he was shot in the head and suffered some severe brain damage. He was unable to take care of himself. And true to their vows, his wife took care of him until

the day that she died. And so for three years, he was completely homeless, had no idea what to do. We had lunch and I ended up working with some of my unit leadership and some local veterans organizations and this guy ended up getting a full va disability and now has a place to stay in a va veterans home in uh in the dallas area wow man you took Man, you took it up. You took it up and ran with it. Way to go, dude. It doesn't take a huge act of money to completely change somebody's life, and I think sometimes people get overwhelmed with that thought. Yeah, it often takes more time than it does money.

In your case, that's for sure. Time and effort. Yeah. And a lot of caring yeah and that still is a um an act of generosity in a maybe even in a greater way because so many people don't have any time they don't take any time they don't have any margin in their lives to stop and concentrate on someone else for a few minutes they They're so busy doing themselves. What's his name, Wayne? Jared. Jared. Okay. So for you, as you know, you obviously have completely changed the course of his life, which is just absolutely incredible. And like you said, I love that it's more on that time and effort standpoint, not just money, right? You walked with him

to be able to do that. So you changed his life. What ways has he impacted you on, you know, even a day-to-day basis? How has your life been shifted because of him? Prior to that event happening, I'd kind of grown up with this belief that homeless people were, you know, lazy and drug addicts. The stereotype that's not always true. And after this, I started slowing down and really thinking, well, everybody's got a story. Everybody's really got problems. And it's never what it looks like on the surface. That's for sure.

That's for sure. Everybody's got a story. Wow. Powerful, dude. Powerful. Well done, sir. Thank you for calling with your story. Wow. Powerful, dude. Powerful. Well done, sir. Thank you for calling with your story. Merry Christmas to you, Wayne.

Hey, everyone that is calling in with their giving story today, and the phone number here is 888-825-5225, will receive the Live and Give bundle, the Live and Give box. It has in it a one-year membership to Financial Peace University. It has in it a total money makeover book. It has in it a Baby Steps Millionaires book. And that is on sale for $99, which is about 50, 60 bucks off of retail right now at RamseySolutions.com. But each of these callers will be getting that Live and Give box as they call in today. And, of course, you know, if you've got somebody that's just getting started

with this stuff, you hand them the Total Money Makeover book. Maybe you're down the road a little ways, and you're ready to start really doing your investing, and you're going to read the Baby Steps Millionaires book. Maybe you've got someone that needs to go through Financial Peace University, or maybe it's you. So there's three different things there that apply to different situations, different places people are in their money journey. And so the live and give box, be sure to check that out.

And like I say, we're giving everybody that calls in today one. Mary is with us. Mary is in Atlanta, Georgia. Hi, Mary. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. Hi, Dave. Hi, Rachel. with us Mary's in Atlanta Georgia hi Mary welcome to the Ramsey show hi hi Dave hi Rachel um thank y'all so much for having me on the show to share um our story a small gift but one that I hope has been having a big positive impact on my niece and nephew love it tell us about it so just a little

bit of brief background during COVID lockdown my niece and nephew really started to struggle they were both in middle school at the time. Their social life evaporated, their mental health plummeted, and they unfortunately started failing classes in virtual school. So at the time, my husband and I had just had our first baby. I was actually laid off in 2020 at seven months pregnant. So we were living off of just his income and our budget was pretty tight. But we decided initially just to host each kid for a special weekend once a month to get them out of the house, make them do very fun, cheap things in our neighborhood, and generally just love on them. My husband's sister actually joined us in this, and so it

became this really fun family affair. Later, the three of us decided to offer a grade bounty. It was pretty generous, $20 for each A, $10 for each B. And I am unbelievably happy to say that my niece has made a healthy return on the time she's invested in studying for about two years now. She just started high school this fall and earned a 4.0 her first semester. We're really, really proud of her. And so this is especially important because her parents do not have any money to pay for her college, but the state of Georgia will cover all of her tuition through the Hope Scholarship if she has at least a 3.0 GPA at the end of high school. So we've talked to her about student loan and how she could avoid them, and she is really eager to keep those out of her life.

So we're very much encouraging her to do that. My nephew's also gotten himself a part-time job and his grades started to improve too. So I did want to just say thank you to y'all for the teaching and encouragement that you offer around financial generosity because I struggle with the scarcity mindset sometimes. So it's hard to do for me on occasion, but I really like the idea of living with an open hand and just practicing generosity like a muscle until you're good at it amen well done good job mary that's fun hey be sure to walk those kids uh the borrowed future documentary is free to watch on youtube now i know we usually watch a movie when they come over for weekends and i keep telling my husband let's watch borrowed

future and there's fun stuff on disney plus that'll seal in the uh no uh no debt to college idea if you watch that you see how horrible the whole student loan system is yeah that'll seal that in for sure hey uh let me ask you something you said scarcity mindset and you're practicing a new muscle um what does it do to the scarcity mindset? My theory is that it moves you from scarcity towards abundance the more you're generous. Or maybe it's the other way around. Maybe you're, after you move more towards abundance, you're willing to be more generous. I don't know which is the cause, which is the effect, which is the chicken and the egg. What do you think, Mary? I really think it's about perspective because, you know, I'm sitting in my little house in Atlanta that my husband and I own thinking, oh then deciding like that you want to share what you have

with people that you really love or just people in your community. And I mean, once we started doing it, it really has gotten so much easier and so much more joyful to do. I'm not going to lie, like the first few times we did this, we started like giving money away. I was like, oh God, how are we going to make the grocery budget this month? But really, it's been absolutely fine. You hadn't missed a meal? No. Well, Mary, what I love about your story is I'm like, you were so, you took the needs very specifically of what they needed in the time, right? So like during the lockdown, it's like they just needed to get out of the house. And that's what you provided. And then as they were starting to not do great in school,

then you're like, okay, well, let's plug in here. So it's like whether it's the time, the money, all of it. But being so intentional, Mary, which you really are in their lives to see what do they need and what can you do to maybe help fill that gap. And so I think that's amazing. So really, really well done. Yeah, extremely well done, Mary. Merry Christmas to you.

Excellent, excellent job it is um you know that that kind of intentionality comes from real love and that that's tied into real generosity this is the ramsey show merry christmas america rachel cruz ramsey personality number one best-selling author my daughter is my co-host today. This is our annual giving show where we celebrate generosity, where you have been able to do something for someone or for something, and you want to celebrate that generosity.

Or maybe you're celebrating someone did something for you. It's okay. Either way, we all love these stories. Generous people make us smile. Generous people make our eyes leak. We love generous people, and all of us do. All humans do. I mean, you've got to be a real weirdo to hate somebody that's generous.

So that's what we're celebrating this hour and this day on our annual giving show. The phone number here is 888-825-5225. 225 and part of this giving show tradition is we always bring in one of our or some of our 1100 members of Ramsey Solutions our team members and Jess is on the stage Jessica's with us and uh got a great giving story hey Jess how are you doing good how are y'all doing great great Merry Christmas Merry Christmas well tell everybody about your story. It's fabulous. Yes. So you talk about people giving to you and you being able to give to other people. This story is a little bit of both. So about four and a half, actually five and a half years now, years ago now, we actually met the sweetest, most adorable little baby girl. And she was a family member to some of our church

members there. And she couldn't be with her family. And so she needed a family member to some of our church members there, and she couldn't be with her family, and so she needed a home. She needed parents. And I'm not a super cautious person, but my husband is ultra cautious and normally has to think through things, especially something very serious. It's usually weeks, sometimes months. Yeah, parents is like serious. Parenting is pretty serious. Way up there on the serious scale, yeah. Yes.

So, but we just kind of made eye contact at church as the request was being given to find a home for this little girl and she's just adorable. And so we kind of make eye contact and didn't even have to talk about it. We came together after that and said, are you in?

Yep, I'm in. Are you in? My husband said, yeah, I'm in. And so we, at that point- That's a long conversation. Very, you know, 30 seconds long, maybe, tops. And so after that, we decided to get custody of our Gabby girl. And it was about a four and a half year long process to actually solidify the adoption. And so a long process i learned a lot of things about the legal system some things i didn't really care to know about but i feel like

i'm kind of a lawyer at this point after all of that yeah i know um and so the legal system is enough to uh well we'll just move on yeah yeah yeah and so but one of the interesting things through that is when we met Gabby, we actually were still in debt and we were working our way out of that. And one of the opportunities with that was not only getting out of debt, but finances was one of my biggest concerns going through this adoption. I was thinking we got to get out of debt so that we can adopt this child. Well, finances was the least of my concerns. God provided. People were generous to us. We had the funds to pay for it. The emotional side was the hard part. And one of the stories with that was we were actually, we didn't have, we had custody of Gabby, but we hadn't adopted her

yet. At her one-year birthday party at our house, we had actually had all of our friends, all of our family at our house just hanging out. And we had some medical debt that was standing out there from my husband had had a medical emergency. And so we're working through that. We were going to get that paid off, but we had been served. We had been served at collections. And so we had hear this knock on the door during this birthday party and all our friends and family are there. And I'm thinking, oh, is somebody late? You know, are they arriving late? So they knock on the door and then my husband gets to the door and he says, there's a police officer out here.

And I was like, why in the world would there be a police officer? And he was trying to be kind to us, but I was like, what in the world's going on? And he said, you've been served. Your dad's going to collections. And my pride just dropped. I was like, what in the world?

We're fine, we're okay. But that's the moment where I was like, I've got to get out of debt and I've got to give this child a home and so we were able to do both and not only were we able to be generous to her she's been so generous to us oh she just everybody she's amazing yeah he's an amazing kid yeah she's a she's a great kid so very cool so she's been with you how long now um she just turned six this past weekend and she's been with us since she was almost a year old yeah all right yeah long time that year oh yes okay so there's been a lot of you know a lot of people that listen have adopted foster they're

kind of in that in that space as well with that parental role so so talk to the parents out there that maybe have adopted or are fostering, and you guys have walked through this over years. So what encouragements do you have for those parents? Because I know that there's really hard days through it all, like you were talking about, even just the emotional side, but man, how that giving and consistency and opening your home and your heart, I'm like, oh, just that encouragement to parents that may feel discouraged this holiday season. Absolutely, yes.

Hold your kids close. That quality of time, it can still be yours even if you don't have the title. We were parents before we even had the title. If we left it up to the government, we may never be parents. So that's one of the things that we're like, you know what, we're gonna be parents to this child.

And I would encourage all the potential parents out there love those kids hug those kids give those kids everything that you can because they don't know they're going to be grateful for whatever you can give them and they're going to give back to you tenfold yeah jess you've been with us how long almost 10 years i thought so and tell everybody what you do i'm a senior customer success agent on ramsey trusted all right there it is senior customer that's how that works hey i'd claim that too absolutely absolutely you do a great job and we're honored to have you as part of this family and uh honored to uh honor miss gabby and uh your whole family is cat are you bringing her over for the camera good good yeah absolutely she'll love this yeah she's coming up here we go there's miss gabby all right And your whole family is. Kat, are you bringing her over for the camera? Good. Good. Yeah, absolutely.

She'll love this. Yeah, she's coming up. Here we go. There's Miss Gabby. All right. That way everybody can meet her on YouTube. Very cool. Good stuff.

Hey, Jessica, thank you very much. Very well done. Proud of you. Thank you. Merry Christmas, Miss Gabby. Thank you. All right. Very good stuff.

The adoption and the foster system is a, there's such a need, but it's never an easy process. It's always difficult. Yeah. I mean, that's, you know, even when Scripture talks about widows and orphans, and you're just like, oh, like as a mom with three little ones, like anytime there's stories like that, like what just talk through or you, you know, we have families that we know that foster and you just hear that. I mean, there's a level like the ultimate selflessness. I mean, you are giving your life away for a child that didn't choose that story.

You know, you make me cry. I don't know so i think it's just it's just beautiful so i just commend her and her husband so much because it's it's hard being a parent's hard let alone you know having that other dynamic in there but then the redemption and the beauty of you know these kids and just even with gabby i'm like you know how her story is completely different because someone chose to do something in a really radical, a radical way. Yeah, very cool. Neat people, neat people. That's what this is about. Open phones. If you want to talk giving, this is your day. It is our annual giving show. The phone number here is 888-825-5225. Rachel, you and I

first wrote about this a long, long time ago in your first number one bestseller, Smart Money, Smart Kids. And you've talked about it even more since then. The idea that contentment, generosity, and gratitude are all intertwined and they're all choices and they all end up affecting your wealth building. They all end up affecting your money. Yeah. I mean, I think it's people sometimes are like, you know, it makes no sense when you guys encourage us to be giving even while we're getting out of debt or while we're saving up for the emergency fund. Like as we're going through our process to get a solid financial foundation under us, you're wanting us to like let money

not go towards the debt and get it paid off faster, but to actually give. And, you know, so like we'll hear those conversations sometimes or those questions with people. And the answer always is yes, because not only what it changes in you, but creating that habit of generosity and the change of your heart of what ends up happening.

And suddenly, you know, when you're generous, gratitude flows through. When you're generous, you realize, gosh, all the stuff I thought I needed, I really don't. I don't need to be fulfilled by that. You know, there's a joy out of living with that open hand that really does bring a level of contentment that I think in turn allows you to get out of debt even faster and save even more. That's the weirdest thing. And it's a beautiful formula that I kind of feel like we've cracked in a great way. So it's wonderful.

The triad of generosity, contentment, and gratitude. The triad. Yeah. And all of these are things you can just choose to practice. And they build on each other, and they take you where you want to go with this money stuff. This is the annual giving hour, or giving show, here on The Ramsey Show. Thank you for joining us, America.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. This is your last day to enter the Ramsey Christmas Cash Giveaway. The giveaway ends tonight at 1159 p.m. Central Time. So if you haven't yet, go to RamseySolutions.com slash giveaway. Enter for your chance to win the $5,000 grand prize. Of course, no purchase necessary. And of course, you have to be 18 or chance to win the $5,000 grand prize. Of course, no purchase necessary. And of course, you have to be 18 or older to win. That's ramseysolutions.com slash giveaway.

Don't forget that our $10 sale is still going on, and you can get our number one best-selling books, like all of Rachel's, number one best-selling books. There's three of them. And a couple of mine, the Total Money Makeover, number one, $10. Baby Steps Millionaire is myover number one ten dollars baby steps millionaire is my latest number one ten dollars and speaking of total money makeover when you get the book we often tell people to flip through and read the stories first because that's where the hope is

it's in the stories of people who got free from debt change their family tree because they finally dealt with the person in the mirror these stories stories are powerful. This stuff works. Be weird. Head on over to RamseySolutions.com and check the $10 sale out. This is our annual giving show, and we're talking to you about your giving story or your receiving story that is inspiring. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. Leslie is in Fort Worth, Texas. Hi, Leslie. Merry Christmas. Hey, Dave. Merry Christmas, and thank you so much for letting me talk to you today about my story. Well, tell us. We'd love to

hear it. About seven years ago, my son Jackson was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma. He was eight years old at the time, and we were very blessed. He went through treatment pretty quickly and was pronounced good to go after about nine months. Well, at the end of his journey through that, the hospital referred us to an organization called A Wish With Wings, and they're a wish-gr granting organization here in Texas. And any kid who goes through a situation like Jackson, where they face a life threatening condition can be granted a wish. And they granted his wish and he got to meet Dude Perfect and we got to go to Disney. But that wasn't the most important part. Like you are, Dave, they are dealers in hope. And they gave

our family hope. They were just such a sweet organization full of loving people. And when you've got a kid with cancer, even family members and friends don't always know how to help you and how to be there for you. And this organization of people did. And we fell in love with them. So about a year after Jackson finished chemotherapy, he wanted to do something special. So Jackson and I did a 200-mile hike and raised $25,000 from family and friends who pledged to wish with wings for him doing this hike. How old was he then? He was nine years old.

Oh, my gosh. You did a 200-mile hike one year after chemo with was nine years old oh my god you did a 200 mile hike one year after chemo with a nine-year-old and he did it in 14 days this kid is a tough tough little man well now he's a tough bigger man but still nothing to stop this guy wow yeah yeah and uh so but still our family wanted to do more uh because we just love these people, and we started volunteering. And when they had events, we would go volunteer for those events. I launched a business not long after that, and the business has started doing well.

So in the last few years, our family has been able to donate $65,000 to Wish With Wings, and that's enough to grant eight wishes. And then my wonderful children have gotten their friends involved. Every time my kid has a birthday party, he's collecting gifts for other kids who are sick, who have cancer. Every time their school has some kind of fundraising opportunity, they plug this organization because they care about them. So you talk a lot, Dave, about changing your family tree. And to me, this changed our family tree because someone gave us hope and taught us that our

number one goal should be helping other people have hope. So we are just totally sold out on helping this organization that is for kids with cancer. What's the name of it one more time? A Wish With Wings. A Wish With Wings. Very cool. Yeah, this whole situation was a force multiplier. One plus one doesn't equal two in this deal.

One plus one ended up equaling 100. Well, and you can take a bad situation and you can let it gnaw at you or pretend it didn't happen, or you can decide you're going to make it into something better. And while I'll never be grateful that my kid went through cancer, I am so grateful that now we understand what it's like to be the people who are the recipient of bad situations that are not their doing. And it's taught everyone in our family, including both our kids, compassion and love. And we really now in our family budget, we put giving as a top line item. There are so many things we just don't need. And we thought we did.

We would much rather give back. I know that sounds so cheesy and over the top, but it's true because when we see these other families, they don't have it easy like we did. Well, yeah. And when you face something, Leslie, like that, when your child is sick and, you know, and I'm sure you got the fear of what, you know, the ultimate fear of what, what if we of what if we lose him? I mean, I'm sure you go through all those emotions. I can't even imagine. And I think, too, it's that perspective that when you realize, wow, he came out of this.

And life is so short. And all the stuff that we think is going to make us happy in this life that we go out and try to purchase and experience all this stuff that we're just like, go, go, go, go, go in the consumeristic aspect of our world that we think is going to give us joy. You know, you in turn are like, you know, you realize, oh my gosh, no, like it truly is this giving back out of this pain and this story that you guys went through. But it's this perspective that you have that you're like, okay, it's, you you know we could go buy a bunch of stuff with this money or we can give it and in your life like you are you are putting true value um on where value should be so leslie that's absolutely incredible well done leslie merry christmas to you what a great giving story what a great giving story yeah so it turns out pushing buy now buy now buy now filling your cart is probably not what life's

about yeah who knew sorry amazon but there we go it's a giving show today here on the ramsey show rachel cruz is my co-host you hang with us we'll be here