The Ramsey Show - App - Submit Yourself to A New Way of Thinking (Hour 1)

Episode Date: March 28, 2019

The show about you

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave 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. This is your show. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Note to self, don't open up Twitter right before you go on the air for a new hour of the show. Because I enter the show laughing at this guy posting his bass boat for sale ad.

$56,000 or best offer, need gone as soon as possible, only 35 hours on it, covered and stored inside, Mercury 250 Pro XS engine. I'm selling it because it was purchased without the proper consent of loving wife. Apparently, do whatever the F you want to do doesn't mean what I thought. Oh, yeah, you got to learn to speak wife, son. Oh, my gosh. Oh, okay. There you go. Just in case you were wondering.

You know, that is a funny way to bring up a real solid financial principle. Here's a solid financial principle. All the data points that we have with millionaires tell us that the millionaires that are married have good communication lines and agreement agreed value systems with their spouses very few millionaires become millionaires dragging a reluctant spouse behind where the wife is super competent and confident with money but her husband doesn't care and she just drags him along. Or vice versa, where the husband's got everything together, and he's dragging this princess with him. You know, it doesn't work.

These are two grown-ups that are working together, making decisions together. That's what all the data points tell us. Of course, that's Sharon's and my experience, too. I mean, grown-ups sometimes fight. We about kill each other kill each other sometimes but you know have a good hillbilly fight right but um but we we at least communicate and we haven't we have a rule see when i went broke the first time i kind of was like the guy with the bass boat i bought a whole bunch of real estate and sharon kept saying you know i got a bad feeling about this and i'm like yeah you got a home ec degree you're home with the kids you take care

of the kids that's your job i got this business thing i got this as i was driving my car off the bridge right right and so uh i look back on it i go you know she kept saying bridge out bridge out bridge out and i was list I wasn't listening, right? And then I started learning these biblical financial principles, and here's a biblical financial principle for you. Are you ready? Proverbs 31. Who can find a virtuous wife for her worth is far above rubies.

The heart of her husband safely trusts her, and he will have no lack of gain. A financial principle, and all the data points of millionaire studies indicate this, a good financial principle is that people learn to work together with their spouse, and men, listen to your wife. Sometimes when she has a feeling, that's actually God saying, don't do it, stupid. Now, sometimes she's just, you know, had bad pizza. She's like anybody else, right?

But sometimes she's just a fraidy cat. Sometimes she's got a feeling, and it's called wisdom. And so Sharon and I do not do large purchases, make big decisions, including large gifts in our charitable giving that we're not in agreement on. If I'm really kind of got a spot for weak spot for these people in this situation, I think this is a good thing. Sharon goes, you know, I just don't feel good about those folk. Then we don't give.

And in case of a, you know, if we both have a vote in case of a tie, we don't. And so she's like, I really want to do this trip. And I'm like, you know, I don't feel good about this trip. And we don't go. When in doubt, don't. And the two of us are in agreement. When one of us violates that, it costs us money almost every time. Or sorrow.

The blessings of the Lord have no sorrow added to them you ever bought something and you were really sorry you did it you get home the next morning you go what did i do you buyer's remorse i can't believe i was a stupid i bought that thing you know well you don't do that if you're married and you have a virtuous spouse now virtue involves understanding that you're not you know you're not the holy spirit that's not your job it involves understanding and having some humility with the discussion that you could be wrong but you'd have this feeling and you speak up and you talk about the feeling so i don't feel good about. There's all kinds of data points that say that

that causes you to win. Listen, I quit doing it after I went broke. And it's not because I'm a wuss and not because my wife's in charge of me or something like that. It's because I respect her opinion that much. And I think it's a biblical principle to listen to a virtuous wife. And so she's not in charge of me. I'm not a little wimp or something like that, but when she feels strongly about something, I really sit up and listen to that big time. Every time I go against one of her feelings, it costs me at least 10 grand, so I just quit doing it. I just quit doing it, and all the data points

in these millionaire studies and stuff we're doing indicate the same thing is going on with these couples that win with money money and what's interesting is this stuff is inextricably woven into each other too because jesus said your treasure is where your heart is and so when you agree on your money you agree on your spending you're really agreeing on and combining your value system you're saying this is who we are as a unified couple. We have a marriage mission statement in our values. Our core values are on the wall, even though you didn't write them there.

But we're in agreement on those, and there's unity. And I see that consistently. I mean, you can't out-earn your stupidity, and you can't out-earn your spouse's stupidity. There's no budget in the world, no class in the world, that will allow you to drag somebody who's bent on spending like they're in Congress into wealth. You can't do it i mean and you know and i think this is what causes people to have such fights and divorces over money because they both feel

strongly about one of them being immature and one of them spending everything and one of them being irresponsible and then the other one is like Mr. or Mrs. Responsibility and grown-up. And it just causes unbelievable conflict. That's why it's such a good idea to deal with marriage or deal with financial issues in pre-marriage as well, pre-marriage counseling. A lot of people go through Financial Peace University as part of their pre-marriage counseling because it forces you to talk about these issues. And it's the number one thing in marriage.

And oddly enough, equality marriage is probably one of the top principles involved in being able to build wealth. See how they're inextricably woven into each other? This is real. The old boy with the bass boat is a pretty funny line, though. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. There's nothing smart about smartphones if your wireless plan is blowing your budget each month. Pure Talk USA offers smarter wireless with unlimited plans starting as low as $20 per month. You never pay data overage fees and we never turn off your data. No contracts, no hidden fees.

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That's puretalkusa.com. Catherine is with us in Los Angeles. Hi, Catherine. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. It's such a privilege to talk to you. My husband and I are such huge fans. We paid off more than $30,000 in debt in our first 15 months of marriage. So it's really great to speak with you today. Way to go. You too. How can I help? Right. So my question today is related to kind of family business and estate planning. So my in-laws own some commercial real estate, a plaza here in Southern Los Angeles,

and they both operate some small businesses out of it and also rent the space to tenants. My husband and I are in the process of buying one of those businesses. It's a coin laundry. And our long-term goal is to own the plaza as well because it's really the best kind of setup when you operate a coin laundry. And we're talking with them about revisiting their estate plans and how to set up this plaza, this piece of real estate, so that it's protected so that our future with the coin laundry can kind of go on as his parents, you know, if something were to happen. His parents are a little bit older. They're in their 70s.

Right now, they're in good health. But, you know, obviously, anything can happen at any time, and we just really want to make sure that this piece of real estate is protected both for them, but also for us as we kind of make this investment into this whole launch. Protected from what? Pardon me? Protected from what? Well, his parents are Korean. He's second generation. And there's not a lot of clarity about what their estate plans are in relation to the plaza. We've begun having conversations with them about this. And they understand why it's important.

But we're having a little – we're trying to figure out how to set up the – you know, what to put the real estate in. Like, do we put it in a living trust and make my husband the trustee? And, you know, because he has siblings, so we – you know, his parents obviously want to make sure that the... Okay, so do they have other assets that will be distributed to the siblings and you all get this? Probably not. This is the biggest asset that we'll be... Okay, so how is it that you guys end up owning it and the other siblings don't?

Well, I guess that... Is there a way to set it up so that we have, you know, kind of joint ownership between the other two siblings? Yeah, you're going to be in partnership with your brothers and sisters-in-law. That's not, well, and that's. Well, I mean, effectively, I mean, you can have it in a trust, but the trust and the trust could be, you know, the assets of the trust, the interest, the beneficial interest of the trust could be transferred from the parents to the kids upon their death. That would be a fairly normal thing in a living trust. You can do that. But then I guess, you know, it's our long-term goal to eventually for us to own the process so that we can continue.

Well, then you'd have to have provisions in the trust to be able to buy out the beneficial interest of the brothers and sisters, even if they don't want you to. Yeah. And one sibling doesn't really want to be included in her parents' estate plans at all, and the other sibling is a little bit kind of off the grid that we're not really, yeah. Well, I mean, yeah need you need a living trust i mean you need to sit down with an attorney and they're probably going to tell you to put the thing into a trust now and if you if they're willing to set your husband up as the executor of that trust and then the terms of the trust can be whatever you guys dream up um it can be you know left it can be the beneficial interest

of the trust is the ownership okay that's what you mean by the ownership if you're transferring stock in a company it's the same thing okay or shares in an llc or whatever but if you used a trust as the vehicle i'm not an attorney but i think that's what the attorney will tell you then the beneficial interest uh if it were left one third each to the three siblings uh and then there are provisions under which you value the plaza in order to turn around and buy them out over time, and that that is your first right. Okay. Your husband has that right to buy them out within X number of years at X multiples of rent or whatever it is. You have to find a way to value the plaza and then buy out their two-thirds over time.

Okay. Or, you know, if they get other stuff, if there's any other assets, you could offset some of that against their two-thirds of the plaza, right? Right, right, right. And so... I mean, there is a house, but we're... You'd leave it all to the other two and take that as credit against the two-thirds in the plaza beneficial interest

because you're trying to get it to where you bought them out as soon as possible. Right, exactly. And you want that above anything else that's in the estate is what you're saying. Yes, exactly. And you want that above anything else that's in the estate is what you're saying? Yes. Yes. And, yeah, there's nothing wrong with that idea, that general concept.

And there's some other benefits to having a trust as well. And, you know, you have to look at California law on estate planning and so forth. But it sounds like they may have assets of total over $5 million. I'm not sure that it's worth quite that much. Okay. All right. If it's over $5 million, then you're starting to get into federal estate tax problems as well for them, and so moving some of this around while they're alive might help with that, maybe,

depending on how you value it and how you set it up. You may have an LLC that you put in the trust. You may transfer the property to an LLC and then put it in the trust because you can devalue family ownership in LLCs if you look at it that way. I mean, there's some things you can look at there to keep the estate tax problem away. The main thing you're looking for is an ownership structure that keeps you in control as maybe their mental capacity degrades and then as they pass away later in years to come. And that's what you're trying to protect against.

So, yeah, you need an attorney. You need an estate planning attorney that can walk you through that. It's going to cost you some money, too. The stuff we're talking about here is not cheap legal documents. Tricia is with us in Houston, Texas. Hi, Tricia. How are you through that. It's going to cost you some money, too. The stuff we're talking about here is not cheap legal documents. Tricia is with us in Houston, Texas. Hi, Tricia. How are you? Fine.

Thank you for taking my call. Sure. How can I help? I'm calling. My mother passed away in 2014. And in 2017, my father started calling my husband and I, stating he needed extra funds, that he was behind on some items. So we finally talked him into allowing me to take over his bills and try to put him on a

budget. And like a good daughter, I trusted what he told me and found out that in the last month that the 99% of the items, like his credit cards, are in collections. And I've never had anything like that, so I really don't know how to address it and how to handle that. Okay. So he's in a mess, and he handed it all to you. Yes. Okay. So he's in a mess, and he handed it all to you. Yes. Okay. And so how much debt does he have total?

He has around $10,000 in debt for credit cards, and he has a $52,000 line of credit against his home. And what's the home worth? It is worth about $120,000, and in fact, he has decided to sell it underneath us for $65,000. Sell it underneath you? He was supposed to sell the house and divide the funds. That was my mother's wishes between my sisters and i for the value of the house and he said i don't want it anymore and he's in the process of selling it for 65 why he's he's in debt and broke why is he giving it away this is a very common question between

my sisters and i why is he? Has he lost his mind? Sometimes I think yes. How old is he? 73. Yeah. I'm calling him out, okay? You want me to help you with this stuff, and you're being stupid. You'd be a little bit more gentle than that, but not much.

You have a $120,000 asset here. I don't need your money, but I don't need you calling me looking for money every month. And you don't sell a $120,000 asset when you're broke for $65,000. Let's sell it for $120,000, pay off your stupid credit cards, and get you in a place where you can live off the rest of that money, Dad. I don't need your money, but I do need you to plug your brain back in. What in the devil are you thinking? Yeah. That'd be my conversation with him and if you if you're not going to allow me to speak into this i'm not going to help you

clean up this other mess either so no you don't sell i mean there's something really whacked here going on and you need to dig into it and get to the bottom of it i'm sorry you're facing this but be strong with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Great. Doing great, Dave. Welcome. Where do you guys live?

Brookings, South Dakota. Brookings, South Dakota. What's that near? About an hour north of Sioux Falls. Okay, cool. Well, welcome to Nashville. Good to have you guys. Good to be here. Well done. So you're here to do a debt-free scream? Yes, sir. All the way from South Dakota. How much did you pay off? A little over $131,000. Yay! How long did that take you? About 39 months. Good. And your range of income during that time? We started at $105,000, down to $90,000, and back up to $100,000. Good for you.

What do you all do for a living? I'm a collegiate track and field coach. And I'm a school counselor. Oh, very good. Both of you are around education then. Yep. Very good. Fun, fun.

So what kind of debt was this $131,000? Basically anything you can think of. You were normal, huh? Yeah. Very normal. Okay. Break it down for me a little bit. Student loans, credit cards, car loan, personal loan, unsecured credit, medical loan.

You guys were just doing everything. Anything we could do wrong, we did, basically. Yeah. How long have you guys been married? A little over six years. Okay, cool. So a couple of years into the marriage, you look up, and we got $131,000 of stupid laying around, and something happened, and the switch flipped.

Tell me what happened. One day, Eric came home to our brand new house and our brand new car to our brand new baby. And it was like, where did our money go? And I said, well, honey, you spent it. And then he brought up Dave Ramsey and he brought home this big workbook for us to do for nine weeks. And, you know, I was okay with it because I wanted us to have our money figured out because we wanted to be able to not live paycheck to paycheck, but live the right life. And it was really hard to go through the program because every week we learned something else stupid that we were doing. So then it was, we just had to stay the course and stick with a path.

And every single year we have done the program to remind us what we were doing. Now we're leading our own course oh thank you thank you for doing that you know but what's interesting about your all's uh careers is as a coach and a counselor i mean you're used to running with talking to people that are you have to course correct them and if they'll do what you tell them to do then they get a better life right in both cases you know and so you already kind of knew that in both of the way your brains work. And so when you sat down, it's like, ah, I've got to do this. And that part kind of, in a sense, the grasping, intellectual grasping of it had to be easier for you all.

Yes. Yep. We were really good students. I bet. I bet. You just go, nope, not doing that anymore. Nope, not doing that anymore. You know, a good friend of mine, he said, you have to submit yourself to a new way of thinking.

Yep. And in any area that you want to transform, you know, and the stuff where you're working with these students, it's the same thing. They have to submit themselves to doing something different than they've done before to get something they've never gotten before, right? Right. Nailed it. Way to go, you guys. This is so fun. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is now that you've done it?

Have a budget and stick to it. Commit to it. Be okay to say no when other people are doing things. I know we had to say no a lot just because we knew our goals. And then to make sure to call each other out when we're spending money we shouldn't be. What's the biggest budget fight you ever had during this 39 months? Probably saying no to go visit friends on a vacation. Yeah.

Yeah. That was probably the biggest one. Yeah. And who was wanting to go and who was the one that said no? I said no. Ah, there it is right there. I'm the nerd spender. The nerd spender.

That's what I am. Okay. Good. Very good. Cool, you guys. Very good. And thanks for leading the class now. Did you have people cheering you on or did you have people saying you were crazy?

A little bit of both, I would say. Some nice crazy. Hey, we like what you're doing, but we'll do it our way. Yeah. Yeah. It's like we think you're nuts, but you're kind of cute. Yeah. Exactly. And we knew we were doing it right when we got made fun of for what we were driving now. And that's okay because we just needed something to get us where we needed to go. And in the future, we can buy something that looks a little bit nicer. Okay. So you moved down in car in the process? Yeah.

We sold our vehicle. What'd you sell? We sold a pretty new Ford Escape. And then you're driving a what? PT Cruiser.? PT Cruiser. A PT Cruiser. How old is that? It's an 04.

04. Okay. An old PT Cruiser. Yep. I don't know if there are any new ones. I don't even know if they make them anymore. Yeah. Okay.

But it's a point A to point B car. Right. You got it. And later on, if you drive like no one else, later you can drive like no one else, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Congratulations, you guys. Thank you.

Proud of you. Well done. Well done. Well done. We've got a copy of Chris Hogan's retire-inspired book for you. We want that to be the next chapter in your story where you become millionaires and outrageously generous along the way. And you'll be in a position to do that.

You make good money. You know how to handle money now. And you're working together and smiling about it. Life is good. Well done, you guys. Good job. Eric and Morgan, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, $131,000 of normal paid off in 39 months, making $105,000 to $90,000 to $100,000.

Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Ready? Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yes! Woo-free! Yeah! Woo-hoo! And the crowd goes wild.

I love it. I love it. And so does anybody else walking. Oh, that's so fun. Congratulations. Tony is with us in Quincy, Illinois. Hi, Tony. How are you? Just fine, Dave. How are you? Just fine, Dave. How are you?

Better than I deserved. What's up? I have a quick question. My mother is 67 years old. There's no retirement that'll be left or any kind of investments that'll be left over to me. I'm the only child. She's wanting to pre-plan her funeral by investing into something or maybe an idea that you can give me on where to put her money. She can afford about $250 a month. That's money that's after everything's paid.

What should we put that towards? How should we go about doing that? Okay, that's $3,000 a year. An inexpensive funeral is in the $7,000 range. How healthy is she? She's pretty healthy. She's got a little diabetes, but her heart's good. You know, her brain, she's really functional. I mean, she gets around really well. Okay, so what if we don't necessarily call this the funeral fund and just call it an investing plan? Okay.

And she just starts investing $250 a month. If she does that for a couple of years, she's going to have enough for her funeral and everything beyond that, you know, a nicer funeral or maybe a little bit of some investment starting to build. I mean, if she lives 20 years and does this, it turns out to be a lot of money. Okay. So we can just go to an ELP in our area and just set up some kind of a mutual funds or something. Yeah, exactly. And then have that left to me as the beneficiary if something would happen to her.

Yeah, and you pay the funeral out of it. And if she wants to go a step further on this, I am not against pre-planning a funeral. I'm against prepaid funerals. Yeah, my grandfather and mother had done that, and when my grandmother passed away, they wanted $1,700 from Quincy to Godfrey, Illinois, to ship her down there for them to come get her. And the funeral director up here had stated, hey, they've already prepaid everything years ago. I think you at least owe them that.

And they did. They afforded her to ship her down there. So I don't want to prepay nothing. I just want to prepay. Yeah, but if she wants to go over and pick out everything and have it all selected, so you know it may get more expensive over the next 10 years or 20 years or whatever her lifespan is, right? But at least you kind of have, if she really wants to get into the detail of it, some people are concerned about that so that she kind of knows, okay,

then everything above that number or whatever that number grows to as funerals get more expensive in this mutual fund is going to be left to you guys, or she's got it to go on a trip with or something if she wants, right? Yeah. Yeah, I can take care of her for that. So thank you for your information. I'll definitely do that. Thanks.

Thanks, Tony. We appreciate you calling. That's how it's done, folks. Common sense. Stop and think. Be intentional. That changes the equation when you do that. This is the Dave Ramsey Show, Connecticut.

Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, Tracy. Thank you so much for taking my call. Sure, what's up? My question is, I work for a hospital, and the pension plan where I work has come to an end. So it's terminated in February of this year, and I received a letter in the mail, and they're asking me whether I want to take the pension as an annuity when I retire,

in which I'd be getting about $800 a month, or whether I wanted to take it as a lump sum payment of $68,000 and roll it over into my 403. I would take it as a lump sum and roll it to your 403 or to an IRA if you can. But the lump sum will be better. And here's why. Okay, let me help you with this. The $68,000 will grow to enough by the time you retire to provide you with $800 a month at about 7%, 6%. Okay.

That's how the pensions are calculated. If instead you took the $68,000 and invested it into good mutual funds and made 10% or 12%, you would have a lot more, and therefore the income off of it would be more than $800, right? Okay, yes. Okay. Second thing is when you die with a pension money's gone dies with you when you die with uh 68 000 having turned how old are you

50 50 okay so 15 years if 68 000 uh turns into000, which it probably will, and you die, and that's in your IRA. Guess what? There's $300,000 for your heirs in your IRA. It doesn't die with you. So you're better off alive to take the lump sum, and you're better off dead to take the lump sum. Okay. So we take the lump sum, and you roll it to an IRA into good growth stock mutual funds with long track records. Get with a SmartVestor Pro to help you do that if you can.

If they're requiring you to put it into the 403B, you can put it in there. You can probably move it out. A 401K, you're not allowed to roll out while you work there, but a 403B, you can roll out while you work there. So you may have to do it as a two-step procedure. It may have to roll into the 403B and then on out to an IRA. But I think you can get it out to an IRA. And I always personally invest and suggest people to invest evenly, 25% in each of four types of growth stock mutual funds,

growth, growth and income, aggressive growth, and international, all with long track records, 5, 10, 15-year or longer track records where they've been out there a while and you can look and see how they've done in up markets, how they've done in down markets, and what your average annual return would have, would have been, had you been in those particular funds. And it's very interesting to study a little bit. And so if you need some help with that, if you don't have a mutual fund broker to help you, an advisor to help you, jump on DaveRamsey.com, click SmartVestor, put in your stuff,

your information, and it will drop down a list of SmartVestor pros to choose from in your area. They do not work for me. They pay us an endorsement fee and we vet them very carefully to be the right kind of people that we send people to. So SmartVestor pros

at DaveRamsey.com by clicking SmartVestor if you need some help with that. Portland, Oregon, Casey's next. Hi, Casey, how are you? I'm good, and how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

So I bought a car last year for a little over $13,000, and I didn't know what I was doing. And long story short, I agreed to like a 19% APR. So in the last year, I paid like $4,000 in interest and only about $1,000 worth of my loan. So I'm wondering what you guys do. I'm sorry, I didn't hear the last part of your question. Say it again. I'm just wondering, am I at the point where I'm like ready to give my car back to the

bank, and I'm wondering if you think that's a good idea or a bad idea? Voluntary reposition is never a good idea, because they're going to take that car and sell it and sue you for whatever it doesn't bring. What is the car worth today, do you know? It's worth about $11,000, and if I'm going to pay it off, I still have to pay over $12,000. Right, okay. Right. Okay. And what do you make a year?

I make about $40,000. And you're single? Yes. And how old are you? 22. Okay. All right. Now, I would suggest you work your butt off and get on a really tight budget and save up the difference

so that you've got a couple thousand bucks to write a check for the difference and let's sell the car, and that gets you out of it without them chasing you. If you hand them the keys back, that's called a voluntary reposition, and like with a regular repo, then they take the car and sell it, and they want the difference anyway. The problem is, what does a repo sell for? A lot less than you're going to sell it for. So if the car is worth $11, they're going to sell that car for $7,

and you're going to put yourself $4 in the hole instead of $1 or $2 in the hole. And so you do not want to do a voluntary reposition. On top of that, it destroys your credit, of course. But that's a side issue. The big issue is you lose control of the transaction, and so you want to sell the car, pay the difference out of a pocket that you've saved up some money into, and then go get you a beater for a couple thousand dollars. And with the payments you've been paying, kiddo, you can save up money to buy a better car real fast, right?

Yeah. My payments are like $334 every month. Yeah. I mean, you start saving $500 a month in 10 months, that's $5,000. Yeah. That'd be pretty cool. And you could do that once you get... Yeah, that would be pretty cool.

So let's get you about a $1,000 or $2,000 car, write a check and get rid of this one and not get dinged, and then start saving $500 a month while you're driving that $2,000 car for about 10 months, and then you'll move up to about a $7,000, $8,000 car. You're about back up where you are now. Yeah, and that's only a year away from now. But you're going to have to get on a really, really tight budget.

I don't know where your money's been going, but you're making $40,000. And if that's your only bill, I want you on beans and rice, rice and beans, no partying no eating out no money's being spent we got to get out of this mess we made and the bad news is you did a really dumb thing signed up for a 19 car loan the good news is you're 22 and you have the rest of your life to live never doing that dumb thing again you learned that lesson early and my thing i don't mind doing something stupid i don't really want to do something stupid but i try not to do something stupid twice that's my thing so the good

news is you got that one out of the way that's one less thing for you to do stupid you've done you fixed it now impulse a car buy a car with bad credit let a bank rip you off because you weren't thinking and you had the fever. I need this car. And you talked yourself into stupid. And you'll never do that again after this pain. So that's great news, Casey. You've learned that lesson. You've graduated from that class.

Chelsea is with us in Dallas. Hi, Chelsea. How are you? Hi, Dave. Thanks so much for talking to me. Sure. My husband and I, we are looking to grow our family. I'm sure there's a lot of couples in our situation.

We both work full-time, but child care costs in this area run about $1,000 per child. So with a combined income of about $5,000 a month, if we add another child, we're looking at $2,000 in child care every month, and I just don't see how we make that work. And I know this is one of those things, oh, if you wait until you have the money, you'll never have another child. But we don't want to be foolish either. I agree with the last part. What do you make? I bring home about $2,000 a month.

My husband brings home about $3,000. So if I were to stay home uh you break even then it would be pretty tight yeah well you actually make money over a two thousand dollar child care bill you make money because um you know uh your costs are less when the kids are at home you don't have to you know the cost you have associated with working driving to work buying clothes for work buying food while you're at work all that kind of stuff goes away. And so, yeah, if your child care is truly going to be $2,000 a month and you're making $2,000, it doesn't make sense. You'll have to learn to live on his income,

which really only is $1,000 difference than you are now. It's not $2,000 different. Well, actually, our child now, she goes across the street to our neighbor. She's in her 70s. She only charges us $10 a day to watch her. But she's let us know, you know, in the next year or two, that's not going to be able to work. Well, the other option is to find someone like that that will watch two children. And there are those out there.

I mean, you found this lady, and so, you know, but if your only reasonable method of analyzing this is $2,000 versus your $2,000 income, then, you know, you're right. You're just going to have to run your budget out where you live on his income and figure out what we can do that you can make money from home, like a business boutique idea or something, you know, a Christy Wright idea. Or the third option, of course, is that that's not the only way to analyze it. You could find the equivalent of your 70-year-old that watches two children and you move them in that direction. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Blake Thompson, Senior Executive Producer for the show. You know, you can listen or watch anywhere with the Dave Ramsey Show app on your smartphone.

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