The Ramsey Show - App - Spontaneous Giving Is the Most Fun You Can Have With Money (Hour 2)

Episode Date: January 13, 2022

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, 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. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, best-selling author, and host of the Dr. John Deloney Show, is my co-host today, as we talk about your relationships, your work, your money, and you. It's a free call at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Jack's with us in San Antonio,io texas hey jack how are you i'm doing just fine dave how about you better than i deserve what's up man it's so good to talk to you i'm a huge fan well i'm honored how can we help thank you for

your service i see on my screen you're an air force officer i am i had brand new academy grad i'm a second lieutenant down here in san antonio um so i went to the academy so i've had exposure to the military for the past four years came from a military family um one of the most frustrating things to me about being a member of the military is seeing how heavily young military members are marketed debt, things like credit cards and loans. You had a midshipman the other day that was marketed the cadet loan from Navy Fed. I can't tell you how many people I know that are in the $30,000 range of debt because of that thing.

That thing sucks. But you got John with you. Yeah, it does. You know that all of you know that financial problems are one of the leading causes of depression and the leading cause of death in the military in 2022 is suicide well not 22 and 2 yet but in the last decade suicide's been one of the leading causes and depression is one of the leading causes of suicide. And financial crises are one of the leading causes of depression. And so my question to you is how, as a young military member, can I, in a way, be a disciple of Christ and a disciple of your teachings to hopefully keep my comrades from falling into that?

I mean, I've read all your books. I know where to start. I haven't done FPU yet. I need to. But it's just really challenging being in a culture of depressed people that are in a lot of debt, and I want help. I'm here to serve, and I feel like I can serve them immensely more than I might be able to even serve the country.

Well, man, first and foremost, man, I applaud your heart. And there's not a lot of hearts of service like that. And so I'm grateful for you. And I'm glad that you're looking at these problems at the 30,000-foot view, that some of these policies that sometimes are quick fixes to try to help a thing turn into long-term systemic problems. And I think you're exactly right. When I look at mental health and I back, again,

back out 30,000 foot view, one of the cornerstones of a lack of good mental health is not being in control or not having autonomy to make decisions for yourself. And when you owe somebody money, you can't do that. So, man, a couple of things come to mind. And, Dave, I'd love to get your wisdom here. I would be careful about drawing conclusions from suicide to debt.

What's going to happen is as a young officer who's just out of school, when you get on some of those uh crusades if you will without being fully informed or putting people on blast in that way saying this is causing people to die that's a good way to get tossed out of a room real quick as a young guy right i would love to see you lead by example teaching an fpu to go through the class and then lead an FPU class for your cadets. Be somebody who walks the talk. And when you see somebody hurting, you hand them a copy of the book. We'll even send you a couple of copies. You can pass out to some of the people on base with you. But what you're going to find as a young leader, people are going to watch what you do way more

than they're going to listen to the words coming out of your mouth. And the hard thing is you're going to want to talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, and be angry and be indignant. I want to see you live this out. Right, right. I appreciate that wisdom. So the stats that you're quoting are accurate. The third largest cause of dishonorable discharge from the military is financial irresponsibility. And there is a huge tie between people leaving the military and the mental health situation

and the financial situation. It's a battle readiness problem. When mama's at home about to get their car repoed, that interferes with your brain mechanism that you're supposed to be using in battle. And so it really creates a dangerous situation, and that's one of the reasons the military has, to a degree, leaned in on it. The chaplaincy program, if you didn't know, Jack, has access to Financial Peace University and teaches a military version of it.

And you can check in with those guys and run along beside them if you want to and begin to teach the class. I would just tell you this. Out of all the years we've worked with the military, and we work with them a lot, all the branches, one of the most often heard things that I hear most often is that someone in the military says, hey, I got my money straightened out because the chaplain or the officer led Financial Peace University. The second most often heard thing is, hey, my officer who serves me as my leader loves me and has advised me on a lot of things in my life. My officer spoke into my marriage my officer spoke into my money and i learned how to get out of debt because uh lieutenant so-and-so colonel so-and-so spoke into my life and uh but they earned the right to do that because the type of leader that they were

not their position and um some of the most most competent service-oriented leaders that are unbelievably humble that I have ever met are some of the most senior people in the military that I've ever met. I mean, I know there's some turkeys out there, too, but I'm telling you, man, I've walked into rooms where there's 8 000 people in the room i'm getting ready to speak to them and the guy comes up to me that's kind of dressed down uh but i look on his shoulder and i see what he's got there on his shoulder and he's running that whole stinking thing and i've talked to everybody else for 45 minutes before i got there and i just get to meet him for a second, and he didn't want to bother me.

That's a true servant, right? Yeah. I mean, just the whole vibe on this guy, you know? And if you're that guy, Jack, they're going to listen to you. Yeah. And you've got the chance to have influence that way by earning that influence, what John was saying. You're the right kind of dude, man. I'm so happy that you're serving the United States of America.

I'm proud to, as a taxpayer, to pay your payroll. That's right. You're a good man. And I think he called something out that's important to note. There is a suicide problem in the military. Oh, for sure. Got to take care of those folks and make care accessible to them and provide a culture where they feel okay going to get help.

And all of our servicemen and women need to know that they are predatory. Their entire industry is set up, whether it's the private student loan stuff. They know it. If you leave the base, any base in the U.S., if you leave the base, they're stupid on both sides of the road for the next two miles. Oh, my gosh. As soon as you leave the base, it's like stupid just lined up down through there. Every dumb human trick in the world is right there. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. For 18 year olds left home for the first time

with their first paycheck zeros on the end. I made my first million dollars in my 20s the wrong way and then went bankrupt. That's when I set out to learn God's ways of managing money and developed the Ramsey Baby Steps. By following these steps, I became a millionaire again, and this time the right way. After three decades of guiding millions of others through the plan, the evidence is undeniable. If you follow the Baby Step steps, you will become a millionaire and get to live and give like no one else. My new book, Baby Steps Millionaires, is now available for purchase. When you order my new book, you'll learn how ordinary people built extraordinary wealth and how you can do it too. I'll walk you through how to invest, build wealth, and bust through the barriers preventing you from becoming a millionaire.

Baby step your way to becoming a millionaire. Get your copy today at RamseySolutions.com. That's RamseySolutions.com. well everybody's talking about crypto everybody's talking about nothing down real estate everybody's talking about robin hood and gamestop and all these other ways to get rich quick. There's a lot of ways to get rich quick, but there's really only one right way to get rich fast. We're going to talk about all of it tonight, the wrong ways, the right ways, and everything else. And if you want to join us, you can do so at a free live stream this evening at 7 p.m central time there'll be about 1500 folks in the sold out event 1600 folks but if you want to watch online you'll be joining about 150 000 of your

closest friends doing so and you can watch it for free at ramsey solutions.com slash wealth and you put in your email address and allow you allow you to watch the whole thing free. RamseySolutions.com slash wealth for this evening. And it's all about launching the brand new book, Baby Steps Millionaires, where we teach you the quickest right way to become a millionaire. Sue is with us in Springfield, Illinois. Hi, Sue. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hello there.

Hi. What's up? Well, I am 75 years old. I recently retired a couple of weeks ago. Congratulations. Oh, thank you. What were you doing? I was working for the government.

Okay, cool. You didn't want to keep working for them? Really? No, I'm done with that. That's a shocker, Sue. I put some money together, though, in the deferred comp plan. It's qualified money, and I'm planning to roll it over as soon as possible, get it out of their hands. Good. And I know you say that it's good to use aggressive and aggressive growth funds,

but I was wondering, since I'm 75, should I be using such aggressive funds? Okay, how much is in your 457? About $1.2 million. Look at you, girl. Sue, I'm so proud of you i love it thank you and how much is in your other uh 401ks and other stuff um i'd say about 400 000 okay all right cool what's your house worth oh it's a small house probably at the most the most, it'd probably be $80,000 or $90,000. Okay.

Okay. Wow. But I'm debt-free. I've been debt-free for 50 years. You're just a lo-fi millionaire. That's all. 50 years? Unbelievable.

Yeah. You are amazing. I don't like loans. I hate interest. I love you. You're awesome. I don't like loans. I hate interest. I love you. You're awesome. I'm debt-free for just 50 years is all. Oh, my gosh.

I'm just a lo-fi small-flex millionaire. Okay, so here's the thing. If you spread your investments across growth, growth in income, aggressive growth, and international, our standard for mutual funds sit down with a smart investor pro and they can show you the risk analysis on that of how many times in the past 30 years would that mix have caused you to have a down year they can chart that out for you and you can learn so you're you're a student i can tell and you study that and you learn that if that scares you if the number of times that that

that uh mountain and valley on the graph goes too low to suit you in other words you feel risky to you then take the aggressive growth out of the mix and put a balanced fund in there. Balanced, okay. And that will calm this whole portfolio way down. Okay. You want to calm it down even further, take the overseas fund, the foreign fund, the international fund completely out because you will see when you look at the data on it that it's had more down years than all the other three put together

okay so uh that that's the way to look at because all we're doing here is calming the thing down here's the thing even if you stayed with the original mix with 1.27 million dollars you're not the only thing you're going to see is just some numbers move around. It's not going to affect your life. It might go up to 1.5, and then it might go down to 1.4, and then it might go up to 1.7, and then it might go down to 1.5. And you might see it move around like that over the years while you're living out of the income on it.

It's $100,000-plus a year coming to you if you want it to, move around like that over the years while you're living out of the income on it it's a hundred plus thousand dollars a year coming to you if you want it to uh and you'll still be just fine with all of that but you may you know you're just going to have the numbers riding a bit of a roller coaster and you'll only be as emotional about it as you allow yourself to be okay so let me give you an example okay let's try this let's put the 1 million 270 000 in the middle of the kitchen table and um if i burn 200 000 of it with a lighter that that would get you really riled up yeah if i burn one dollar of you would go, that's kind of dumb, but that was weird, and it didn't bother you a bit, right? You know what I'm saying?

And so my point is, is this thing goes up and down. That's the feeling you're getting. And if you understand it's going up and down, but it's not affecting your life, it's more like burning $1 of it. Okay. If you can have the emotions as it goes up and down because it's really all you're dealing with is your emotions because the actual mathematical facts will be that you're not going to run out of this money you're not going to outlive this money not doing the stuff we're talking about anyway and not the way you've lived and not who you are

and all of that i mean if we just said you know you start at what rate of just spending it without making any money on it at all would it go i mean would you still have money at 95 over 20 years divide that by 20 and you you you know you'd still be okay and we're not even talking about something that's stupid so you're going to be just fine. You are an absolute amazing rock star of financial planning. You're a multimillionaire. You're just amazing. Thank you. At 75 years old, what was your position with the government?

What did you do for a living? I worked with insurance. What's that mean? What did you do with insurance? Were you the commissioner of insurance? Oh i was uh an examiner okay examined insurance companies you did insurance for the government yeah she did examine the companies make sure they're doing what they're supposed to be doing oh it's regulatory yeah and so you never made a huge pile of money. You just were really, really good at saving it. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't want to be called cheap. But close. Yeah. But you had a ringside seat to knucklehead business leaders over the years, didn't you? Oh, some. Yeah. Oh, some.

I can't imagine. I can't imagine getting crossways with Sue. She could pencil whip you. Oh, my gosh. Sue, you, yeah. Oh, some. I can't imagine getting crossways with Sue. She could pencil whip you. Oh, my gosh. Sue, you're great. Sit down with a smart investor pro. Let them walk you through what some of your options are and what they would have looked like for the last 40 years.

You get some historical data. Do one of your examinations that you're used to doing, but this time do it on mutual funds and get yourself a comfort level where you understand what you're doing. Don't do it because they said do it. Don't do it because I said do it. But I think you're going to be just fine if you go with the standard four. If you want to calm it down a little bit, flip that aggressive off of there,

flip in a balanced, and that will calm it down a little more. But you're going to be just fine. There's no reason you need to be dumbing this money down. You've got all kinds of margin, all kinds of wiggle room. Because of the way you've lived your life, you've lived like no one else, and now you can live and give like no one else. And I want you to find something to go spend $100,000 on. Yeah, go spend some of this.

I don't know whether it's a trip around the world after COVID calms down or whatever i don't know what it is but there's something you've always wanted to do and and i want you to get some joy from this money that you've done such a good job with and i wouldn't hurt to have a little generosity mix in i suspect you're already a generous person though wow that's powerful i was just saying that's that that's the reason we do this right that's an everyday millionaire a baby steps type millionaire she didn't do it because we taught her so we're not technically a baby steps millionaire but she started from nothing worked for the government as an examiner in the insurance department 50 years with no debt right and this is where you

end up 1.6 million plus her house incredible this is where you end up, $1.6 million plus or house. Incredible. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll see you next time. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the Debt Free Stage. Daryl is with us. Hi, Daryl. How are you? How are you doing, Dave? Better than I deserve, man. Welcome. Where do you live?

I'm from Bloomington, Indiana. Cool. Welcome to Nashville. And here to do a Debt Free Scream, how much did you pay off? I paid off $136,950. Good for you. And how long did this take? 56 months and 24 days. Good for you. And how long did this take? 56 months and 24 days.

Good for you. And your range of income during that time? 68 to 79. Cool. What do you do for a living? I'm an engineer. Work for a company called Cook Medical, a medical device company. Very cool.

What kind of debt was this $137? A little bit of everything. A cell phone, a couple credit cards, 401k loan, personal loans, a legal bill, and the biggest one was an IRS bill also, and a Parent PLUS loan is the biggest. Ah, okay. All right. How much of the 137 was Parent PLUS? $64,000.

Okay. So half of it. Yeah. All right. So you had a little bit, you had quite a collection there. You were pretty normal. Very normal, yes. Yeah. All right. All right. So you had quite a collection there. You were pretty normal. Very normal, yes. Yeah.

All right. And so what happened five years ago that blew this normal up? Well, I became single, and that kind of shook me up a little bit. There's the legal bill. Yeah. So I got, exactly, I had debt before, and then after I became single, I had my own debt on to that, too. So that kind of accumulated.

And I started listening to your show, if I remember correctly, probably in the spring of 2018. And went to an FU class in the fall of 2018. And then I started dialing into budget and all that kind of stuff. So in classic engineer fashion, you go, there's got to be a formula

and I don't know it. I've got to go find the formula. Exactly, yes. Yep, follow the process. Yep, yeah, engineers. Number one career category of the millionaires that we study. Yeah. They follow processes, and this process is pretty clean

and pretty simple to understand, but just getting the human beings to actually do a clean and simple thing is the trick, And you did it. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Very, very, very well done. All right.

So you go into the Financial Peace University class, and here we stand five years later. Voila. Not really. But, I mean, that's a long run, right? It was a grind. Yeah, it was hard. How did you stay with it? Well, being an engineer, I'm very consistent.

I'm pretty self-motivated, but it was tough. It was a grind. I had my kids that ride in me, turn me on and help me out. But you were grinding and healing at the same time, too. That's doubly hard, right? Yeah, yeah. It was tough. Yep, yep.

What kept you going? My faith, for sure. My faith. That was a big part of it. And just praying, being with my kids when I could. So it was tough, but a grind. But it was worth it. I've never been debt-free since I got out of college

and started working back in 1985. Wow. And now you're free. Yeah. Wow. Yep, working on my debt, looking on Babyset 3. I should have had that done in March. Yeah, yeah.

How does it feel to be free? It feels great. You've got a whole bunch of crap in your rearview mirror, don't you? I do, I do, yeah. It really feels nice to finally put money in the bank for myself. Going forward, yeah. Amen. Okay, so you're a Financial Peace University graduate, an engineer that understands processes.

You pay off $137,000 in five years, basically, a little less than five years. What do you tell people the key is to getting out of debt? It's definitely the budget. It's definitely the budget. I used to track my expenses, but that's different than budgeting. So a lot of times you track your expenses and at the end the months. Like, wow, where'd all my money go? But I didn't really have a plan and I didn't budget. And when I first started budgeting, when I went to the FBU class,

you said how many times about when you do a budget, and Rachel said this too, that it's like you get a raise. It was like, wow, I got extra money here once I paid attention to where things were going. If I make it behave before it leaves instead of looking at it after it leaves exactly yeah tracking the expenses is too late right yeah you've got you've got to make it behave before it leaves and that's make it make it do what it's supposed to do work towards the goal and crack the whip on it yeah yeah good for you so the budget anything else well you gotta, you've got to be consistent. And, of course, the process works.

The baby steps work. The plan works. And being an engineer, I love processes. So it was pretty easy. I wouldn't say easy for me, but as far as staying on track. It was simple, but not easy. Right. Exactly, yeah.

Can I ask you a hard question? Sure. You can just say ahead. I don't want to answer that question. One of the biggest challenges of somebody in your situation is you can be grinding on something and look around, and it's pretty lonely. Who walked alongside you in this process? God, for sure. One of the things I do every morning is I read three chapters out of the Bible, which you can get through the Bible in one year if you do that.

And I'm on my 10th year, by the way, of doing that. Wow. So that's a big part of it. out of the Bible, which you can get through the Bible in one year if you do that. And I'm on my 10th year, by the way, of doing that, so I'm really happy with that. That's a big part of it. My kids, I have some very close friends that help me get through it. Fantastic. The minister's at my church. I talk to him a lot about it. That's fantastic. Kudos to you for understanding I've got to have people walk alongside me.

Too many men bury their head in that deal, and you did, and I'm proud of you, man. Yeah, especially the last couple years with COVID and all that yeah it's hard i didn't go anywhere basically i would go to work come home and um i went through got my mba during that time frame last couple years but why not why not right yeah well you're a hero man you're incredible i'm proud of you thank you very very well done i'm sure your kids are proud of you they are and they're all debt free and they're walking the plan, too. I love it.

I love it. And they all came with you to cheer you on. They're here, yeah. All right. And so how old are they? And we're not going to pull them up because they're not kids. They're grown-ups. But how old are they?

I'm sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. How old are their names? Samantha's 28. She's the oldest. My son, James, the bearded wonder, he's 25. And my youngest son, Jonathan, is 21, and he's currently in school at Purdue as an engineer.

Ah, okay. And you get the legacy change here, right? Yeah, they're fantastic kids. No, no, no. You put in the work. Five years, they got to watch their old man grind and grind and grind. And they're going to live a different life because of work you did yeah yeah my daughter just told me this morning that she paid off her debt her student loan debt yesterday yeah love it love it love it this is

way it's supposed to be very cool man well done daryl thank you very well done we've got a copy of the brand new book baby steps millionaires for you you will be one very very soon if you're not already and you're on your way get that house paid off next and keep filling up the 401k it is as he said five times a process it's a process yeah i love it and also a copy total money makeover for you to give away and disturb someone with that's our goal to create a holy ruckus out there man so hey thank you thank you thank you well thank you, Dr. John. So proud of you. All right. Daryl from Indiana. $137,000 paid off in 56 months, making $68,000 to $79,000. Count it down.

Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. I'm debt-free. Yeah. Yeah. Woo. Yeah! Woo! So the interesting thing about this is we discovered early on at Ramsey that personal finance is 80% behavior. It's only 20% of knowledge.

That's why the work that you do works so well with the work that we were already doing here. It's a natural overlay, a natural discussion that we always have here. And having said that, you know, Darrell just reminded us several times that this is math. Just follow the plan. If you just do the math, the bridge will not fall down. Just follow the plan. If you're an engineer, you know, if you just do the math, bridge will not fall down just fall to play if you're an engineer you know if you just do the math you will get the result and it is it is it is math and math is not racist and math is not sexist and math does not have ptsd it's math and math works in Tennessee, and math works in Texas.

It's math. So do the freaking math. Do the behaviors that cause the math to occur. That's the process. That's the whole process. And when you do that, you not only get out of debt, but you put yourself in a position that you've changed your family tree. And, oh, by the way, you've got three beautiful grown children watching you, hero, watching you, watching your character, watching the kind of man you are, and you are forming their adult patterns as they're young adults.

And that will form their kids and their kids. You are changing your family tree. Exactly. This is The Ramsey Show. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today here on The Ramsey Show. Liz is with us in Chicago. Hi, Liz. How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay. So I am on Baby Step 2 and I'm listening to currently the Baby Step Millionaires. And I guess I have been focusing on Baby Step 2 for so long,

but I never really focused on 4 through 7. And in it, 15% of your income should be going towards retirement. And I was just doing the math and 15% of my income should be going towards retirement. And I was just doing the math, and 15% of my income now is going towards Baby Step 2, so I can't wrap my head around how I'll have extra when I start investing for college and paying off the mortgage. Well, you may not have a lot extra. What's your income? Combined, $75,000. Okay.

How much is your house payment? $1759. How much? $1759. Okay. Including our escrow and everything. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

All right. I think you're going to be okay. So no, we're a little above. Yeah, I think you're going to be okay. So no real amounts? Yeah, I think you're going to be okay. I mean, on the budget you just gave me, you should be able to – we're talking about investing about $10,000 a year, about $800 a month, and on $75,000 a year without any payments but a $1,700 house payment, I think you can do that. I feel like we're just really tight well you're not supposed to be

doing it right now you have to get rid of the debt no i know i know i'm just kind of thinking ahead and you just started i'm the nurse i know well unfortunately that start had a lot i've actually spoke with you before we had um we had a lot of lot a lot of debt going into baby step two so i have i'm like 83 of the way done yeah i think you need to worry about baby step four when you get there okay let's just worry about getting out of debt right now okay you're super you're super nerding yourself into worrying. I am. You're worrying about something that's not happened yet. Yeah, you're going to be okay.

That's what I do all the time. I know. You're going to be okay. Okay. Live for today. Live in this. I don't say live for today. You don't plan ahead, but be present in this moment right here.

Emotionally, you have paid off a big pile of debt already. Yes. You're going to finish that. You're going to breathe deeper than you breathe right now. Nothing's standing on your lungs anymore. And you'll be able to. And it just so when you get to baby step four, it's a different your body feels different. So let's let's unpack that.

She's been terrified. Her body has been on red alert knowing they are not safe. Well, you borrow or slave to the lender. That's exactly right. And this was a nasty butt master. And so now she's realizing, oh, we're about to get close, and her brain goes to search for the next problem to solve and to defend from. And when you get this thing paid off, you go, okay.

And then your brain can realize, we're safe. Your body realizes we're safe. And then we've got an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. We're really safe. And then the big bad wolf comes outside your brick house. That's right. And you go, oh, little puppy, what's your problem? Well, you're not running for your life.

You may look in the mirror and say, I think I want to make more than $35,000 a year. I think I'm going to huff and I'm going to puff and you're going to do what? I'm in a brick house. Shut up. Let me get another job or whatever. yeah get through this process first yeah you're gonna be okay you're gonna be just fine as a matter of fact you you really are because of the way you've described the situation and john talks about this a lot with stress and anxiety and other things you in your case are really going to physically feel different yes now different

people do different things but you can there's a i don't know a tightness across your back or whatever it is and i i've experienced it and when it's gone it feels like a 300 pound you know monkey got off your back hit and send on that draft on monday i'm feeling it over the course of this week come off right and i know it's happening and yeah sheila pats me on the back and says uh is it still coming off like yeah it'll it'll get there it's okay yeah okay we're done now we're done right it's okay it's okay no tigers no tigers no tigers calm down calm down it's okay no tiger going to eat you yeah that's that but your body it does i mean you get amped up man you stay in this constant amped up i'm gonna kill something you move to the next thing to worry that's the gazelle intensity and i told you to do that right you know it's important it's the best way to get out of the

thing is to run for your freaking life but then when you get to the other side you take a breath and you go from intense to intentional and that's a different place to be brian is with us in chattanooga hey brian what's up hi dave how's How's it going? Better than I deserve. How can I help? All right. I got some questions about giving. Currently, I'm babysat four, five, and six. Good. And we're budgeting what we give to the church. Have been for a while now.

Good. And a situation came up where we have an opportunity to give outside of the church and i'm wondering should i take that money away from the church that i had budgeted or how am i supposed to work this together you know not just for this situation from here on out how much are we talking if that makes sense um it's like five hundred dollars six hundred dollars. Okay. My buddy got kicked out of a house, and I'm trying to get him a hotel. I got him a job, and I'm really just trying to help him, just show him love. I suspect you got $500. Yeah.

I do. Okay, then give him $500. Okay. This ain't rocket science, man. Yeah. I just didn't know about like budget now if you want to if you want to talk philosophically and step back and go tactically i want to be prepared for this ongoing i'll answer your other question but in this guy's case just just give him before you got the money you shut up and do it now the uh uh we budget sharon and i do

in our family foundation and in our personal budget for a certain amount of pocket money just when we see something and god says that's yours to take care of i just put you here for this and you just kind of have that feeling run down the back of your neck and you go yeah that lady i'm supposed to do that right there i'm supposed to buy that those groceries and you just do it and you don't think anything about it because you've got an extra little bit of pocket money. So I carry a little bit of extra just slush money for that just because it's stinking fun. We actually budgeted my fund money. Okay.

And my spend money in my house, me and my wife, I put it in. She puts it in the you can go buy something with it or you can pick up somebody's groceries. Yeah. And we just do stuff. I mean, that way you're just in a position to do that. And we put another zero on it we keep a little extra over in the family foundation budget to do some stuff like that as well but in your case the other question is you know give to the church uh i'm an evangelical that believes in tithing i give a tenth of my income to my local

church and i don't that's really not part of this equation that's just a baseline i do that and then everything else i do in addition to that and uh so you know you would have for instance a spontaneous giving line in your budget and you would have your tithe line in your budget if you were doing it the way i do and that's fine if you're not a tither and you don't believe in tithing to your local church, then that's a thing. But the way you said, I give to my church, I'm anticipating that that's what you were doing or that's the type of thing you were doing. But, no, I wouldn't take it out of – I don't take it out of my tithe. I don't go, well, I gave some money to this single mom who bought her a car, and so we don't have to put it in the tithe.

No, I don't do that. That's the church. If the church can do that with the money, I tithe if they want. But if we're going to do it over here that's separate i've got this baseline rhythm in my life this groove in my behavior pattern that's consistent that just it baselines the generosity and then from there there's you know other kinds of generosity that shoots out of that but we don't i don't dip down into that to keep from having to do other does that make sense oh that's absolutely and you said it man when you if

you keep a little extra money in your wallet i don't there's not a lot of things more fun than just grabbing somebody's gas at a gas station or i mean it's just out of the blue and you just watch people's eyes what get wide i don't know that i that makes me feel good man it's one of my favorite things to do it's it's about the most fun you'll ever have with money and you just watch people's eyes get wide. I don't know. That makes me feel good, man. It's one of my favorite things to do. It's about the most fun you'll ever have with money. I mean, like, go bananas on a tip or something. Like, make the tip six times the bill or something.

Just to be messing with somebody. Just because you had a feeling that that needed to be done right there. That's right. I pay attention to those feelings. I like that. That's why, you know, it's not our money. We're managing it for God. Yeah. And I think he smiles a lot when we do stuff like that.

That's awesome. And so do the rest of us. So it's fun. It's fun. So you're a good man. You're a good man, Brian. Thanks for taking care of your buddy. Give him 500 bucks, dude.

Yeah, in the next 20 minutes. Do it right now. Yeah. Thanks for the call. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the next 20 minutes do it right now yeah thanks for the call that puts us our of the ramsey show in the books thanks to john deloney to ben and to kelly and to james in the booth i am dave ramsey your host and we will be back Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for The Ramsey Show. If you would like to do your debt-free scream live on the show, make sure you visit theramseyshow.com and register.

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