The Ramsey Show - App - Take Debt off the Table! (Hour 2)

Episode Date: October 7, 2019

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broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is done, 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. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

That's 888-825-5225. Starting this hour off is going to be Will in New Hampshire. Hey, Will, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Yeah, hello. How are you doing, Dave? Thank you for taking my call. My pleasure, sir. How can I help? Yeah, I called like two and a half weeks ago, and I was the guy with over $500,000 of debt. Well, you gave me the financial piece for free for a whole year, which I thank you for that. I already attended to my first class this weekend, so I actually have two questions. I'll give you the first one and the second one together, because I know the first one will be quicker for you to answer. The first one is, do you happen to have financial peace in Spanish by any chance or this material in Spanish? Because I could see myself in the future actually teaching these classes in Spanish.

And the second question that I'm calling today is, we already covered Baby Step 1 and basically is saving $1,000 for emergency fund. And my question to that is, I got about $8,000 cash money. If I were to take $7,000 out of that and pay it to roll my debt, that would only leave me with $1,000. My scary part is not to have money. I know when you have a lot of money, you feel secure. Right now, I have $8,000 and I'm secure,

but I have a lot of debt. So if I get rid of $7,000 and I just stay at $1,000, it's like I'm nervous. I understand. First question first. Yes, we have the materials in Spanish. They're taught by a gentleman named Andres Gutierrez. You can look up Andres. He does a talk radio show out of San Antonio. He does this show

in Spanish, as a matter of fact, or his version of this show. He's a great, great young man. Used to be on our team for years. And we blessed him and gave him all of the Spanish materials and all the Spanish everything. All of our books are also in Spanish. But you can contact our team here. We sell Financial Peace University in Spanish, and so does Andreas.

It's taught by him, by the way. He's the guy on the stage. It won't be me because hillbilly Spanish just doesn't work. Yep, I see. Yeah, but, yeah, it's a huge need in every group of people in America, and Hispanics are no exception. Especially us, we spend a lot of money, do you believe me? Spanish people, we in America, Syria, and the United States.

Spending a lot of money is not a Hispanic disease. It's a human disease, but we all humans are doing it. So, yeah. Now, I forget. I mean, I've slept since I talked to you, so I forget everything. You had $500,000 in debt, but wasn't that two houses? Yes, sir. You told me to sell one of them. Okay. Was it $271,000 or something?

Yep. You're correct. That's what it was, $270,000. So I'm going to probably get somewhere around, well, $70,000 out of the whole deal. I can't remember my dog's name, but I remember your numbers from two weeks ago. Okay, that's just ridiculous. All right, and how much was owed on your house your personal residence uh right now we owe about 160 000 160 and 270 so you'd be down you'd be your 500 000 would be in half and the and it includes a c3 74 so you have about 70 000 in000 in personal debt, right? Yeah.

Not counting the houses. Yeah, $55,000 in credit cards, and then we have like a $25,000 401k. Gotcha. That's okay. And your household income was what? $110,000. Okay. My wife and I.

So here's the thing. The $1,000 is not enough. That's why we call it a starter emergency fund. Yes. Unless you're kind of emotionally unstable, being without money down to $1,000 would make most people fearful. The only people that wouldn't make fearful are the ones that had no savings to start with, and they'd be cheering that they got $1,000, right? But otherwise, fear would be part of it.

And I personally like to create in my own life things where I'm desiring the pleasure and I'm running from the fear. And so I'm going to create that in your life. I want some fear there. It's a healthy motivator for a short period of time how faster if we sell the rental property that was breaking even um and we make 110 000 how fast do we pay off 70 000 about two years and you'll be with a one thousand dollar emergency fund during that two years and yes you'll be uncomfortable but that's a good thing because it will make you live on beans and rice rice and beans and it will make you guys get on a tight budget if you want to wait a month or something while you're going through financial peace and you

and your spouse are kind of getting all this stuff dialed in before you actually do it, that's fine. But six months from now, be at $1,000 and let's get this debt cleaned up. And you need to have cut up the credit cards and you need to be on a budget and you need to be seeing progress. If you're seeing progress and you and your wife are working together and you throw $7,000 at these stupid credit cards and they're cut up and for the first time in our married life we got a clue

and there's a sign in the yard of the rental house, you're going to start to feel okay with this because it's a temporary thing. I'm not suggesting you take a decade and go with a thousand dollars in savings i am suggesting you go for uh you know 18 to 24 months till you get this seventy thousand dollars cleaned up and sell some other stuff look for what else you got you can sell and let's clean up the 401k and clean up the credit cards as quick as we can then you'll immediately go to baby step three and you'll rebuild but if you want to get a little track record on doing the budget and you and your wife working together, get the sign of the yard on the rental before we start dropping this

savings down, it's okay. It's not the end of the world. But the point is you're supposed to be a little bit afraid. Not debilitating fear, but motivating fear. Like I'm running from the lion so I don't get eaten. Fear is a good thing sometimes. And that's what we're doing here. Hey, man, thanks for calling in. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in. We'll talk about your life, your money. It is a free call. Jake is on Twitter.

Dave, when receiving a monetary gift over $15,000, what kind of taxes do I have to worry about? If it is a gift from, say, for instance, a relative, you don't have any taxes. The relative may have some gift taxes if it exceeds the gift tax limit, which I'm trying to remember what that is off the top of my head. I wrote it down. It used to be $12,000. It's now $15,000. That's what it is. In 2019, it's $15,000.

So my cheat sheet just revealed that to me. So for years, it was $10,000, and then it went to $12,000, and it's indexed up. So it's $15,000. So an individual can give an individual $15,000. Above that, the giver will be subject to gift tax, and it could be as much as 55% on the amount exceeding the $15,000. So if it's $25,000, that extra $10,000 could be taxed at 55% or $5,500 if you don't do it right. There is a way to do it. You just have to check into it a little bit.

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You pick your path. Go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. Zander will guide you through the whole thing, keep it simple, and find you the best rates. That's Zander.com or 800-356-4282. Today's the day we have declared war on the student loan industry. One way to put them out of business is to stop doing business with them, and that's teaching people how to go to college completely debt-free, how to get your debt-free degree. Ramsey personality and a soon-to-be number one best-selling author,

certainly best-selling author for sure. Anthony O'Neill is with us. Anthony's in New York City kicking off the debt-free degree book tour today. Great job on Fox this morning, Brian. Thanks so much, Dave. And I'm going to ride with you on that one. I will be a number one national best-selling author just like you. And I hear you're spreading our message.

And I'm really excited about this opportunity. A lot of fun. So you've had a busy day of media in New York to kick it off. Started off with Fox this morning, right? What else have you done? Yes, sir, I did. I did Fox and Friends this morning. Then we did it over the Fox Newsroom rundown.

And then we went across town and did black enterprise uh their podcast and did some social stuff for them and then we came back and did some yahoo finance which was pretty cool for me day because i grew up with the whole yahoo dot com yahoo chat so to be in that building was actually real fun today yeah that's a great crew over there too they're going great and you got got Karen Hunter at XM this afternoon, right? Sirius XM? Yes, sir. Yeah.

So if I hang up from you, I run upstairs to Karen Hunter, then we jet to the airport ahead to Chicago, and we'll be there for two days just doing a lot of media and book signings there in Chicago. And your book signing is tomorrow night, October the 8th, in Chicago. Yes. Old Orchard Center, Barnes & Noble at 6 o'clock, giving away $500. No purchase necessary.

Must be present to win, 18 or older. So when you're doing these book signings, you're doing a talk beforehand. Are you going to tell folks some of what's in the book so they can learn to go to school debt-free? Oh, yes, sir. I'm going to give them a little bit, just a little bit, because they've got to purchase the book. But I'm going to walk through three of my ways you can go to college debt-free, answer a lot of questions. So I'm encouraging people to come out, and let's talk about your situation, your child, your son, your daughter. And let me give you some advice and some encouragement along with you purchasing the book.

Cool. Well, it's just a few hours for sale. It's sitting at this moment, number 133 on Amazon. So I'm very, very proud of you. You're cooking, man. It's going well. Everything is moving really well. The Amazon reviews are coming in. Our sales on our site are hot.

It's a really good launch day, Anthony. You've done a great job. Thank you so much, Dave. Standing with some good sellers and with a great team. I'm just excited. I'm excited to be out here providing hope and support for these families. If you had to tell somebody one thing, and you can only tell them one thing, what is the most important thing you need to know if you're going to try to go to college debt-free?

Number one thing is take debt off the table, Dave. And remember that the caliber of your future is determined by making that one choice today. What's that mean, take debt off the table? What do you mean? Don't even consider student loans. Don't even consider private loans. Don't even consider credit cards. Just take debt off the table and start looking at different alternative options, whether that's community college, whether that's working through it and cash flowing it, whether that's maybe taking a gap year. No matter what, we're just not even going to consider student loans, Sally Mae, parent plus loans, none of that. Yeah, no borrowing. Because once you take it off the table, once you say it's not an option, then you start, you change your choices, you change some of the things, you start

asking yourself what has to be true that's not true today. I have to get some money. I have to go to work. I have to get some scholarships. I have to choose a school that's going to be cheaper. I'm going to have to be very careful about what I choose to study. All those things start happening once you take debt off the table, right? Yes, sir.

And once you take those things off the table, you'll see that it's going to require hard work, but you've also now taken control of your future. Yes, sir. And once you take those things off the table, you'll see that it's going to require hard work. But you've also now taken control of your future. You'll be graduating debt-free when the average person, you know, this day is going to graduate with $35,000. And several hundreds, thousands of individuals are graduating with $100,000 plus in student loans. So when you take that off the table, force yourself to look at the different options, you've just taken back your future, and you're controlling where you're going going. It's going to be a bright future for you down the road. You know, that's a really good point. When you take debt off the table, it means you have to do two things. One is it's going to be very, very hard. And two is you're going to

have to make some tough choices. Guess what? If you don't take debt off the table and you have $100,000 in student loan debt, you're going to have to make some different choices and it's going to be very, very hard. So you're going to do this one way or the other. You're either going to do it in mediocrity or you're going to do it with excellence. Yeah, you're right, Dave. And if you do not take that off the table, you're failing. You got to make some different choices. And some of those choices that we're seeing with these young people right now is they're not getting married. They're saying they're not purchasing homes that they're saying that they're not going into their dream careers because they got to go out there and just get a regular job just to start paying back these

student loans. So think about your decision and think about the consequences that will come from them. If you avoid student loans, what's the good consequences? You have no payments. If you take out student loans, what's the consequence? It's going to be a large debt, large payments, and you're taking away from your future. So Chris Hogan talks about it all the time. If you can just invest 15% of your income, then you can retire a millionaire. So if you are making these large payments from $393 to $1,000 a month towards student loans, you're robbing from your retirement. And I do not want to see young people doing that. I want to see them graduating debt-free, and they're investing into their future. They're starting businesses.

They're helping out the economy and not drowning in debt. Yeah. Well, you're going to have four tough years, or you're going to have ten tough years. Ten tough years repaying the student loan debt, four tough years getting through school with no debt. You get to choose. Which one do you want? Yeah, technically, Dave, it's 20 tough years. The average person is taking them 20 years to pay back their student loans. And I've met people who's been out of school for 30 years and still paying back their student loans.

So I'll take the four years over 20, 30, 40 years all day long. Yeah, it's just not a good trade. It's not a good trade. You give up too much of your future, too much of your life. And when you could have done it if you chose differently on the school, you chose this set of activities and the decision-making process differently. And moms and dads, this book is for you because, you know, it starts at the whole process that Anthony has laid out begins at the seventh grade.

Right, Anthony? Yes, sir. Seventh grade. And we walk them through the entire process, seventh grade and eighth grade. That's really more so about the mentality and just start having the conversation just to set them up. So that way, when they get into the ninth grade, we dive into it, Dave, in this book. And it's a step-by-step process to what classes should you be taking, when should you start applying for scholarships and grants.

We even give them some backdoor secrets to how to really be successful with the ACT and SAT, when to start prepping for that, when to start seeking for counselors for that, and how to negotiate with your ACT and your SAT scores and their GPA with other colleges. So it's literally the step-by-step guide. This is not just an inspirational book, but we give them the game plan on how to do this every step of the way. Yeah, it's absolutely vital, absolutely vital. It changes everything when you have a plan.

I know, and your parents are having the conversation. I remember one of our kids was a junior in high school and sent off and got approved without permission of their dad, me, to go to an out-of-state SEC school that is not the University of Tennessee. I mean, this is blaspheming in the Ramsey household. Not only are you not going to the University of Tennessee, but you are going across state lines and paying three times as much for an education that is essentially the same. And just because you went across the state line. And so they're like, but dad, I got approved.

And I'm like, no, it's not Dave approved. You understand? I'm the one who's got the freaking checkbook. And so how are you going to pay for this? Because I'm not giving you a dime. You're going to be what's known as on your own. You know, it didn't take long. They figured out the economics of the situation, and then their heart was changed.

So, you know, I mean, it's just simple. It's just simple. You know, you're going to go to an in-state school unless you have a legitimate reason and the money to do otherwise. And those are two things that are very important. Very, very important. And what you did was you did not allow your children to take a kid's approach to an adult decision. You came in, asked the parents, saying, no, this is two things are wrong here. You're not going to this school and you're going to Crosslines. That's not happening. And that's what we need more parents doing. Stepping up and saying, hey, I know this may be a popular school, you

may want to go to it, but one, it's not the school we talked about, or two, it's going to go across the state line. So we need a lot more parents doing that. Going to a famous school does not make you famous. Ah, there's an idea. Anthony O'Neill, debt-free degree!

On sale today, man! On sale today. Congrats, Anthony. Very proud of today, man! On sale today. Congrats, Anthony. Very proud of you, man. Keep it up. Good work. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you're here.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com, the number one online retailer of custom window coverings. Free samples, free shipping, and with new promos they run every month, you'll save even more. Use the promo code Ramsey. Michelle is in Ohio. Dave, my husband is a sole proprietor.

Being a sole proprietor, my husband does not pay himself. For taxes, we have a program in which we log and track expenses and income and when tax time comes around we have reports which separate the personal and business categories should we continue to have a separate personal and business account and pay ourselves or should we combine accounts since no money would be going into the personal account, and should we pay ourselves through the business? Okay. The first thing you do when you open a business, a sole proprietorship is just simply a business that is opened in your personal name.

It's running under your Social Security number. That's all it is. And you file your taxes on Schedule C, add on a basic tax filing. It's really not complicated. The very first thing you do when you open a business is you open a separate checking account for the business. When you make money in the business, you never put the money in your personal account. You always put the money into the business account.

When you pay expenses for the business, you only pay expenses out of the business account. That's it. You never pay business expenses out of your personal account, and you never pay groceries out of your business account. That is paid out of your personal account, personal expenses. So you treat the business funds as if you were running the business for someone else. If you didn't put all the money into the account or you used the money for something other than business, that would be stealing. It would be embezzlement.

And if you treat it that hardcore, then you have an accurate picture of your taxes. So if only business money is going into the account, business income, and only business expenses are coming out of the account, by definition, what is left in the account on cash basis accounting is called profit. Revenue minus expenses equals profit. That's how you do a profit and loss statement, a P&L. So in a sense, your checkbook register becomes your P&L. Now, so if you have money in the account, then you can bring money home.

Sharon and I started this company that way. We had a separate checking account for this company. Only when there was money in the account after the expenses were paid did we have money to take home. When you take that money home, set aside one-fourth of everything you pull out to take home for taxes. Unless you're making over $100,000 a year, then you're going to have to set aside more. But 25% will do it. It's 15.3% for self-employment tax, which is both sides of FICA, and then it'll be about another 10% on your effective rate on your income tax,

up to $60,000. I know it's not the tax rate, but you're not tax bracket, but the bracket does not apply to your whole income. It's about 10% on $60,000. So if you're making $60,000 profit on your business, 25% will suffice. Now, so let's say in our scenario, you put business money in the account, you pay business expenses out of the business account, there's money left in there, you're getting ready to bring it home, you're going to bring home $1,000. You write two checks, one for $750 to come home,

one for $250, 25% of the $1,000. That goes into a savings account for your taxes. You are supposed to pay your taxes when you are self-employed, your federal income taxes, once a quarter after you've been open a year. They're called quarterly estimates. And a quarterly estimate is based on your revenue minus your expenses times your tax rate. And that will be magically right around 25%. And so it's a very simple form to fill out, but you can get with an ELP at DaveRamsey.com for taxes, and they can help you set up a basic set of books.

They can help you run your books for your small business if you want. But you need to set aside a fourth of everything you take out of the business in profits to take home and pay your quarterly taxes on that, your quarterly estimates on that. Then your tax bill, when it comes around the following year by April 15th, should be fairly low. I mean, the only exception would be if you held a bunch of money in that business account to year end, all of that money is taxable. Whether it's an LLC, a sub-S, or a sole proprietorship, 100% of your profits are taxable going into the next year, plus or minus normal small business write-offs.

Now, we've got some small business write-offs that have come in in the last tax law that was passed under this administration that are actually the best small business write-offs we've had in years. Prior to that, small businesses got hammered. Washington sat around and said, oh, we love small businesses, so what we're going to do is give you another tax. Instead, they actually reduced our taxes last year for the first time in my memory ever. So anyway, that's how you do it. You set aside a fourth, and this is what we teach folks in Entrez Leadership. You set aside a fourth and keep your business accounts completely separate.

Do not buy groceries or car gas out of the business account, and do not pay business expenses out of your personal account. And there's tons of information on that at entreleadership.com. And All Access, it's if you want to learn how to run a business, All Access is our online coaching and class thing that we walk you through together where you hang out together and get to do everything and learn about running a business. It's all from the book Entree Leadership, which was the number one bestseller. Tara is with us in Kansas.

Hi, Tara. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I'm 32. I have three kids, almost two, three, and four. My husband stays home with them, and he has had a woodworking

business. He put it on hold because we're moving to Puerto Rico. Through my work, we had the opportunity to take a job in Puerto Rico. We just completed baby step three. When we sold our house, we paid off all of our debt. We chunked aside $25,000 in our emergency fund and then set aside the rest for a general savings and a down payment savings. We've got $11,000 in the down payment savings, and $1,700 is kind of our flow of expenses. What's your emergency fund? $25,000.

Oh, $25,000 plus $11,000 for a down payment plus $1,700, just miscellaneous. Correct. Okay, I'm with you. That's gone from about $4,000 down to $17,000 with all of the things that we're having to do. My question is, we're getting a budget from my work to pay for some of the move, but it's not going to cover all of it. We're going to have to cover about between $6,000 to $8,000. Should we, I mean, we've got 15% set aside going into my 401K. My thought was to reduce that down to 6% so we get a little extra that we can kind of add to that general saving. What do you make?

We bring home about $65,000. Well, I mean, he doesn't work, right? Right. Well, he does Uber and Benz. So what do you make at your job? $59,000. Okay, so you make $60,000 a year, and you're going to move to Puerto Rico. Why?

Why not? I can think of a lot of reasons. My husband's from South America. It's a Spanish-speaking country. Our kids will grow up bilingual. It's just kind of, we kind of said, why not? Let's take the opportunity and do it. And you're going to be making what there?

My income will actually go up. It's gone up a few thousand already, and it'll bump up next year to probably around 70. Okay. So a $10,000 raise, and it's where you want to raise your kids. I'm cool. Correct. All right. So what's the question?

Just go. My question is, should we drop down? I have $25,000 in your emergency fund. Do we use that for it? You can use some of it. I mean, that's easily over six months of your household expenses. And if you use a little bit of it, and then if you want to stop your 401K for six months when you get moved and rebuild that because you feel like it's a little bit low, that's fine.

But you've got the cash. And just make the move. Sounds fun. Hey, thanks for the call. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. i've just about sworn off of twitter i used to check twitter back in the day every 20 seconds and i'd jump in and add stuff and and it's just got to where it's all crazy and a bunch of trolls and stuff i just about sworn off of it i've gone over to instagram we got about a million seven on instagram about a million on twitter and i made a mistake a while ago during the commercial break i opened up twitter this is a mistake i knew this

when i did it it's just like a moth to a flame i i knew you know it's like being drawn to that car wreck you know so nick says dave my father owns a home for 17 years, and he just got married. He keeps telling me when he dies that the house is mine and I should fight for it, but I know legally that the house belongs to his current wife. So your dad gets married, and his best idea of an estate plan is to cause his current wife, who he supposedly loves, to be in a fight with his son, who he supposedly loves. Your dad is a piece of work, dude. You know, what I would do is I would tell your dad that he should give that house to his wife.

And I'm not going to fight for nothing. If you want me to have the house, you need to go get what's known as a will and leave the house to me in the will. I'm not going to fight with anybody. And actually in this situation in most states he can see an attorney to be sure in your state but in this situation he could leave the house that he had prior to marrying this lady two heirs that are not this lady however he should have some concern for this woman that he married. Man, your dad's a piece of work, dude.

That's it. See, that's what happens when you open Twitter. All right, number line three. Steve's with us in Washington, D.C. What's up, Steve? I'm doing pretty well, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve, man.

How can I help? Well, I have another inheritance question. My wife and I are on baby step number six, and we just inherited a bunch of private stocks from her grandfather. It was held in a trust previously. And our question is, should we sell those private stocks and pay off our house, or should we hold on to those stocks because they're currently giving dividends every month? Okay. And so what is the total value of the private stocks?

Total value of the private stock is a little north of $250,000. Okay. And if I understand, you just received this as an inheritance. We received this as an inheritance earlier this year. The basis hasn't changed, but the basis is actually from the death of her grandmother. So that was 20-plus years ago because they were held in a trust. Yeah, so you don't get a stepped-up basis because of that. Right.

So we'd have to still pay taxes on the full amount if we were to sell it. Well, not the full amount, but the basis wouldn't be zero. Well, no, it's not. It's like $400 compared to like $8,100 per share. Oh, almost zero. Okay. Yeah. All right.

And so, again, it's 270 000 right yeah approximately piled in the middle of your kitchen table and hundred dollar bills plus or minus the tax issue would you go buy private stock with it or would you pay off your home uh i i i would not my my wife is more on the steps i think about this uh she she likes she has the emotional security of not of seeing the money come into her bank account you know ask one want to ask ask your wife if we had 270 000 piled in the middle of the kitchen table uncle benjamin franklin stacked really high. Okay? Would you go buy private stock or would you pay off the house?

And she needs to answer that question too. I asked her that and she said she would not buy it. Well, then you disagree with her and so do I. I would never go borrow on my home to buy private stock. And effectively, from a balance sheet perspective, that's what you all have done. You've traded the freedom and the – she is trading the freedom and the stability of a debt-free house and the cash flow as a result of a debt-free house for a dividend income on a private stock on a company you have absolutely no control over so i think she's making a really bad choice personally um you know so usually when i ask people the question and the way i asked it the answer is very apparent

and in my case it is very apparent in your case it is is. It's not to her. So I can't make her do it. I'm not going to make her do it. I wouldn't if I could. But if I woke up in your shoes, there's no chance I would go take a paid-for house and go borrow this private stock, go borrow a mortgage to buy this private stock. And by not paying it off, it's the same exact thing. And so that stuff's gone. It's in my book.

It's served its purpose. And then I'm going to use the increased cash flow to if you want dividend paying stocks to buy some uh growth and income mutual funds or some balanced mutual funds and you'll create you'll get all kinds of dividend paying stocks blue chip stocks in those and you'll be in a great great situation so hey thanks for the call open phones at 888-825-5225 marissa is with us in new jersey hi marissa how are you hi dave how are you good how can i help um i'll try to be quick my husband and i are both 31 we have two little boys four and three years old um ever since they've been born we've been able to save the birthday money and events and we've've got up to $30,000.

$30,000 in three years? Yes. These kids have some nice birthdays. Well, our only debt is our car loan, and the balance right now is $32,000. So I had this brilliant idea today of just using their money, which is just sitting in an account doing nothing and applying it towards this car loan, but I have this skill. What's your household income? I do over $150,000.

Okay. And I'm still a little bit confused. The math doesn't work for me. A 3-year-old and a 4-year-old are up to $30,000 in birthday money. Where'd that money come from? It's Christmas. Well, where'd it come from? Family members.

$10,000 a year? No, we give birthday parties at restaurants, and pretty much what we put into the restaurant we get back in gifts. Baptism parties, birthdays, Christmas. We're very blessed, I could say, I guess. Yeah, it's just an unusually large amount for birthday gifts and Christmas gifts for a three-year-old. It just doesn't, it's just.

I mean, just the baptisms alone, they both got $5,000. We spent $5,000. They got back $5,000 in gifts. Okay, so you spent $5,000 on what? It was just the restaurant money and all that. So you broke even on this deal, so to speak. Yeah, pretty much, yeah. Okay, all right. Well, I would stop that. So you broke even on this deal, so to speak. Yeah, pretty much, yeah. Okay, all right.

Well, I would stop that, spending $5,000 on a kid event. Yeah, that's only, yeah. Yeah, I think you're done with that. Yeah, you're broken in debt now, so you can't do that. No, I wouldn't clean this out. I mean, it is really your money because you spent $5,000 in order to put $5,000 into their account. So it's almost as if you put the money into the account. But, you know, I probably would just leave it alone, and I would roll up my sleeves and get on a real tight budget and pay off your car.

You only owe $30,000 on it, and you make $150,000. Tighten up your budget. All right. Yep. Real tight. All right. Real, real, real, real, real tight. Yeah. And that includes no more $5,000 baptisms or birthdays.

Yes. For three-year-olds. Okay? Yeah. You can do it. You can do it. It'll work for you. I promise. Hey, thanks for the call. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Technically speaking, morally speaking, that's her money.

It's not her kids. And she can pull it out. The problem is when you clean out your kid's account, the money that you've earmarked for your kids, it just makes you feel like such a dog. It's hard to succeed after that. You know? Morally, you're not wrong. Ethically, you're not wrong., ethically you're not wrong,

legally you're not wrong. It just makes you feel like crap. And so I just wouldn't do it for that reason. It's that simple. But don't be adding anything else to it. It's an exorbitant amount.

Yeah. That puts this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. Hey guys, it's Blake Thompson, Senior Executive Producer for The Dave Ramsey Show. This hour's over, but you can find more great content on our YouTube channel. Catch the most watched Dave Rants, Deathly Screams, and the very popular Everyday Millionaire segment. Go to the Dave Ranty Show YouTube channel

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