The Ramsey Show - App - The Annual Giving Show: A Celebration of Radical Generosity

Episode Date: December 18, 2025

🤔 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Think you’re good with money? Take our Money in America quiz!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Dave Ramsey and George Kamel answer your questions and discuss: “Food pantry worker provided for her event though she didn’t qualify.” “Aunt provided money to her family to help them avoid bankruptcy.” “Raised money to buy Christmas gifts for people in need.” “She bought her mom’s dream car as a gift to her.” “Donated funds to organization that helps keep biological families together.” “Didn’t charge Door Dash customer for her meal and gave her $60.” “Purchased tires for a teacher at his son’s school.” “Donates gifts to children’s hospital patients and families in need.” “Family dresses up as Santa/Mrs. Clause and adopts families at Christmas.” “Donated a kidney to a stranger.” “Lost their son at childbirth and asked for donations for the NICU that cared for him.” “My company helped a single mother with cash and presents and a place to stay for her son while she goes to work” ”I was the beneficiary of a scholarship from my family, now I am paying it forward for my niece” “Gave a co-worker’s daughter a car.” “I gave my trash collector a tip and he said no one had ever thanked him before” “We were given money by a stranger when our son was in the NICU” “We have given away two cars” “Her friends furnished a house for her after a separation.” “Lent money to their pastor who was in need.” “Their friends gifted them with a much needed vehicle.” Next Steps:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ✔️⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Help us make the show better. Please take this short survey.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 weekdays from 2–5 p.m. ET or⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠send us an email⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🏠 ⁠⁠Find a Ramsey Trusted Real Estate Agent⁠⁠ 💻 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Find out where you stand with your money and get a free plan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💵 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Start your free budget today by downloading the EveryDollar app⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📘 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Preorder What No One Tells You About Money today now and get $100+ in bonus items⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Connect With Our Sponsors: Stop paying more and start shopping smarter at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ALDI⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Amazon is making it easier than ever to find top gifts at amazing prices this season in the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Holiday Shop⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Get 10% off your first month of⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ BetterHelp⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Boost Mobile⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to switch today! Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Casper Sleep⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code RAMSEY to learn more. Learn more about⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Christian Healthcare Ministries⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Get started today with⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Churchill Mortgage⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Get 20% off when you join ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠DeleteMe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ FAIRWINDS Credit Union⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for an exclusive account bundle! Debt collectors hassling you? Take back control of your life at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Guardian Litigation Group⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Find top health insurance plans at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Health Trust Financial⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Use code RAMSEY to save 20% at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mama Bear Legal Forms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ NetSuite⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ today to learn more. For more information, go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠SimpliSafe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Get started with ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YRefy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or call 844-2-RAMSEY. Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Zander Insurance⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for your free instant quote today! Explore more from Ramsey Network: 💸 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Ramsey Show Highlights⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🧠 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Dr. John Delony Show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🍸 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Smart Money Happy Hour⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💡 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Rachel Cruze Show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💰 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠George Kamel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🪑 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📈 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠EntreLeadership⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy⁠⁠⁠⁠

Normal is broken common sense is weird, so we're here to help you transform your life from the Ramsey Network and the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio. This is The Ramsey Show. George Camel Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author, is my co-host today. The Bible says that God loves a cheerful giver. Generosity is possibly one of the most important financial principles that you can bring into your life. when you give steadily regularly as a rhythm of your life it changes you it changes the attitude of your heart the positioning of your heart and you move along the spectrum from self-ish to self-less someone that has been giving for a long time and giving a lot for a long time is some of the most selfless

generous people we call them and they're the ones that hold the door for you at the grocery store they're the ones that help you pick up the cans of soup that are rolling around in the parking lot because the cheap plastic bag broke generous people are generous people and they're more attractive. We all want to hang out with those kinds of people. They do. And they tend to prosper for that reason because they're more attractive. I mean, if you think about it, who would you rather do business with, let's say your person that fixes your car? Someone that has a heart of generosity in the car in the bay next to you is a 32-year-old lady who's lost her husband in the military and he's donating the repair on her car

and she's sitting in the lobby with you telling you that this guy's taking care of her. Would you rather to have your car fixed there or the guy who is going to squeeze every dime out of everybody? And we know the difference. You don't even have to know the difference to know the difference. How many of you met with someone or you just had a conversation with someone

and you finish the conversation? You go, I think I need a shower. She feels gross after. This is a taker. This is not a giver. This is a parasite. This is not someone that adds value. And gosh, don't we all want to be that?

And we're inspired by it. And we teach people to live like no one else so that later they can live and give like no one else. And so this is our annual favorite show for George and Me to get to do. We do it as one of our last broadcasts of the year every year. We're heading up into Christmas where we celebrate God giving his only. begotten son for our sins. And those of us that are Christians, that's what we believe, and that's what we know to be true. And he gave his only begotten son.

God is a giver, and we're made in his image. And so in our very spiritual DNA, we are designed to be givers. And when you're not giving, you're not functioning in your design. When you start giving, you're more passionate, you're more creative. Opportunities come your way because you're more attractive. your marriage is better you're more empathetic you're a better dad and a better mom when you give rather than take all the time I mean the term that everybody throws around that's the opposite of giver is narcissist and ever you know it's way overused that everybody that is accused

like anything you don't like anybody I don't anytime you don't like somebody now you have to call them a narcissist that's like a rule now on social media but they're not you're just you just got your little feelings hurt but the but still That is, you know, that's the opposite and a very self-centered, self-oriented. So today we're going to take calls and emails and stories throughout the entire show all about giving. So if you have given something and you have a story that will inspire the rest of us to be better givers, bigger givers, more often givers, because we're all in agreement right now, that giving is the best thing you can do with money. it's the most fun you'll ever have with money the most fun I've ever had with money

is when we did a gift in person and you make someone cry because it blows their freaking mind that's the most fun you'll ever have and so yeah I'm known for making people cry but not for that so but you're going to cry in a good way today

and so the good Dave is here and if you make Dave cry I guess we'll give you a book so I cried an apple Beast commercial. What are you talking about, man? I cry all time. But the, so no, the, we need to hear from you. We want to hear your giving stories or your receiving stories. Inspire us to generosity today. The phone number is AAA 825-5-2-2-25. Uh, uh, try to get it. I'm going to do it. All right. Parado's with us. Hey,

Peridot, what's up. Merry Christmas, Dave. What an honor. It's an honor to be with you. Tell us your giving story. Sure. So a few years back, I was actually the recipient of outrageous generosity, and it's really changed my life. So I was a single mom without two nickels to rub together, and a lot of times by the end of the month, we were really struggling to get food on the table. A friend told me about a food pantry that was out of a local church, so I went to get some food. In line, I had to fill out a form with income information to confirm eligibility. when a church volunteer reviewed the details with me, he revealed that my income was actually above the threshold to where they could offer me an assistance. So I was literally making too much

to be that broke. The really beautiful thing is he took the time to actually talk about it with me. He asked me why I was coming for assistance when my income was so high, and I explained him that my mortgage payment was about half of my income. He did say that I could wait around to see if there's any extra food at the end or what they could scrounge up for me, kind of around the church, but I refused. And with tears in my eyes, I told him that I didn't want to take food away from the people who need it more than I do, that I was fine because I had a bag of oranges in the car, a half a bag of oranges that I was going to take back to the grocery store to get us through

the rest of the months. He paused and he said that he'd like to help me out and ask me to drive around and meet him in the parking lot. So I did as he was getting something out of his car. When I parked, he came over to my window and shoved four critical. $50 bills in my hands. And I just lost it. We cried and prayed together. With this gesture, he actually doubled my grocery budget for the entire month. And you know, Dave, it was really the catalyst that I needed for my life. I re-evaluated my finances and my living situation. And over the next two years, I got out of debt and doubled my income. And to this day, I just remember Mike

was his name and just his outrageous generosity and the Holy Spirit flowing through him as he offered me help without any hesitation or judgment. Wow. That's powerful. And you can't help but look for opportunities to do that now that you're on your feet, right? No, absolutely. I'm glad you said that because every year I like to pay forward his generosity

and I'll go and tip some hardworking wait just $200 on Christmas, all in 50s. You know, there's something about a $50 bill. Amen. Yeah. Amen. And there's something more about four of them. yes absolutely that's powerful thank you for sharing that that's good that's exactly what we need today i already got the grin on my face i think it's going to stick there for a while

going to be stuck there god's spirit moving through mike and said well they can't go by the rules i'm not going to violate the rules but i am going to go make sure that this single mom gets something more than a bag of oranges do for one what you wish you could do for many scale the unscalable and i love it very well done Well played, Mike, wherever you are. It's our annual giving show. You know, no one stops and talks about it very much, but on a given year, for instance, the year 2025,

Americans are by far, no one's even close, per capita, and in total, the most generous nation on the planet. Now, it's kind of in vogue to be hating on America, if you're in Europe and you think you're cool, or whatever bull crap that is. But the truth is, we're way more generous than you. That's the truth. That's the actual data. Last year, Americans gave over $600 billion to charities and ministries all over the world from hungry kids to St. Jude hospitals to anything you can think of where someone's hurting and someone needs some help. American dollars from Americans' pockets, not government programs, individuals privately giving, give more annually than the entire gross domestic product of a lot of countries. that's what we produce here.

That's interesting if you think about it, because we are based on a Judeo-Christian ethic, whether you all like it or not, and that's the truth. And, you know, part of the Judeo-Christian ethic, the Jewish religion and the Christian religion, is built into both of those as a steady flow of generosity, a steady flow of caring for widows and orphans,

a steady flow of having a heart for the broken. and it's pretty amazing what we do and no one really talks about it but it's still there even in spite of we might not even agree on why it's there but it's still there and the generosity is still flowing wow and is that is it was that one year that's one year wow that's pretty impressive yeah that's according to the experts at google but yeah we trust them yeah sort of the intelligence is artificial so be careful but you know but you know it is it is and here's the other thing there's a lot that's what's recorded and so if it's 600 billion recorded then we know it's a trail if you gave me $10,000 right now doesn't show up. I think we should test that theory doesn't show up yeah it's

only the if you have a 501c3 you file what's called a 990 with the IRS you file a tax return saying what you have received from others and that would be one of the places you'd gather this information but an individual helping another individual are people doing things in cash. No one ever knows that. That only comes under the lens of God's spirit. He sees it, but no one else does. No one else knows it happen. It's our annual giving show. John is in Canada. John, tell us your giving story. You bet. Thanks for having me. Sure. I was on the receiving end. So brief summary, I did something very dumb and invested in in something which turned out to be a very elaborate, very well-done investment scam. And I always thought people who fell for these things

were kind of silly, but I was the silly one in this case. So ultimately, all told, we lost a million dollars. Oh! Yeah. And that's Canadian, so it's like 40 grand American. So anyway, that's funny. But it was a big problem. So we had to sell our home. which was a big, big issue. We had about $700,000 of equity in our home, but we still owed about $300,000. So we had to move to a rental, and I thought I would die in that home and be buried in the backyard. That's what I had hoped for, and that was not to be. One day my aunt comes over, and she's a single lady, godly woman.

I never knew what her financial state was because she's not advertising, it and whatever. But I think she saved her money through her life. Anyway, super conservative. And she shows her love by like acts of service. So she was like, I want to come over, bring a meal for you guys because we have young twin boys that we had adopted through this process or at the beginning of the process. And at dinner one day, she just says, hey, how bad are things like financially? I know I know something's happened. That's why you've sold your home. like how bad is it? And I told her. And I said, like, I don't know how I'm going to get through Thursday. And it's Tuesday because we, I borrowed and there was these massive business loans that

were $15,000 a month was the payment on them. And, uh, that was going to happen for about six more months. So she said, well, I want to help. And I said, really? Like I was not expecting this at all. Never received anything. Um, and, uh, and she's like, yeah, how many months do you think you need. And I'm like, I don't know, maybe three would be amazing, right? And, and she said, okay, I'm going to write you a check for $5,000 for three months. Every month, five grand. And she ended up changing that to four months. So she ended up giving us a total of $20,000. This was at the absolute lowest point where I was very, very seriously considering bankruptcy. And from her generosity and the grace of God, we were able to just grape and claw our way

day by day through this mess. And yeah, anyway, now we're in a much better place and we will be debt-free sometime in the next six or seven months. Way to go. Wow. She was huge. She was unbelievable. Just the silent, generous, kind-hearted lady never judged what was, you know.

You had enough shame without anybody shaming you, right? Correct. That's where I was. I remember that. I looked in the mirror and I saw stupid tattooed on my forehead. You don't need anybody pile on to that, right? And she just wrote you a check and smiled and brought a casserole. Yeah, I mean, my gosh.

Yeah, and she's done that like many times. Like, keeps bringing over food, keeps doing things. And she's showing up for every one of my daughter's volleyball games. And, like, she's just there. She's just a presence. And her name's Louise. And she would hate me saying that because she's very much like, keep it quiet but um anyway whatever everybody needs to be more like louise that's a moral

of the story john good quite good good good story thank you for sharing love that it's a good reminder that a lot of times that generosity is invisible and it's from the the people who are the quietest they're not it's not the loud showy people they generally have nothing that's why they're loud and showy but yeah that's how it works zoeys in omaha nebraska merry christmas zoe Tell us your giving story. Merry Christmas. Huge fan. I've been listening to you since I was 16.

Wow. Thank you. How 17 treating you? I'm 27 now. Hey. No, my story, I was 19, and I had a job way out of my league, but I tried it and I got it. And part of my job was to interact with the elderly people. And for Christmas, I picked people who didn't have family around in my company bought hats, mittens puzzles for those people who didn't have family around to celebrate Christmas with.

Moral of the story, I was dropping off one of my gifts to one of my people, and it was actually a younger person, probably 60s. They had kids at home. I walked into their home. I could see daylight through their house. and the pair of gloves and hat and other gift that I gave them I knew wasn't enough. So I felt, and they were so grateful just for that, but I felt called to go and get them more. So I went and spent my own money around $500 on snow pants and snow boots and warm stuff and some Christmas toys for the kids and toothbrushes.

and stuff like that. While I was at the store, I ran into two people who I told what I was doing. They also gave me $100 each, so that was like $700. I got of stuff for them. I brought it back to them. We all had tears in her eyes. And you were 19 years old. I was 19, and $500 was a lot of money for me.

It's a lot of money, yeah. But I just felt like it was right. and the feeling that I felt giving it to them, I think, felt better than how they felt, but it felt so amazing, and it's like something I will cherish forever. Amen. Well done, Zoe. Proud of you. Wow.

The impact that has on the giver, just as powerful if not more than on their feelings. Changes you. Changes you permanently. If you're working the baby steps, the best and fastest way to do it is by using every dollar. It's more than just our budgeting app. Now, the plan is built right in. You track your progress. You get personalized recommendations, coaching for your situation, help you free up more money, work the plan even faster.

It's like having one of us walking with you every. day showing you the next right step and holding you accountable start every dollar for free by downloading it in the app store or at google play it's our annual giving show crystals in arizona i keep a stash of 20 dollar bills in my wallet just for restaurant birthday emergencies the second i hear the happy birthday song i'm already across the room handing the bewildered birthday person a 20 dollar bill announcing it's a family tradition they don't know if i'm generous unhinged or both but the act has created an incredible amount of surprising joy. I love that.

You know, why not be both? Why not? Unhinged generosity is a fun category. Why not? This stranger just had to be at 20 just because somebody sung happy birthday. And then you found out they were singing happy birthday just to get the free cake and it were under their birthday. But anyway, yeah. And free $5 bill along with not a bad deal. Love it.

Angela is in Wichita, Kansas. Hey, Angela. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas days. What's up? Not too much. I'm blessed and want to share a story with you. It's something crazy I did.

Okay. Do it. So when I was a kid in the 90s, my mom saw Mazda Miata's, and she loved the Mazda Miata. It's a little two-seater convertible. Yeah, I remember. But she never would buy anything like that because it wasn't practical and they didn't have money for things like that. But when I was like seven, I promised her that I would buy her one someday.

And so fast forward 20 years and a few years. and a few years ago, I saw one for sale, and we had just finished harvesting, and so we had a little bit of extra money, and I bought it for her with my husband, and we left the for sale tag in the window, but we changed the phone number. And so a few days later, we met up with my mom, and we parked it in the parking lot down a few stalls from us, and when she pulled up, she saw that it was for sale and she said I might be able to buy that my miata and when she called we told her it's yours mom and so she was super excited because she had just heard the song how do miracles just happen like that on the radio and then she got her dream car so it was a

I like the way you gave the gift as much as the gift that's pretty fun so creative very creative it's out of a movie I mean you had to know her well enough to know she would act on that right instead of just seeing the sign and going, well, I'll never and never call. And then you'd be screwed. You'd have to figure out some other way to do it. But you knew she'd call that number. That's great. Oh, yeah.

That's so cool. How old was she when she got it? Boy, she's 74 now. Well, she'll be 74. So 72, probably. She's still driving it? She is. She loves that car.

I won't say how fast she goes in it, but that's kind of. Gary. But she loves to drive that around. She still calls it G.G. for God's gift. And she remembers the day she got it and everything. She'll remember that anniversary every year probably for the rest of her life. Wow. That's a great car nickname too. Yeah, that's great. Well done, Angela. Well played. That's how you do it. You know, the creative methodology. So we did a video, and I'm trying to think if it's posted on YouTube on our massive YouTube channel that has eight bazillion videos on it, but a friend of mine, we probably did this video, our team did the video with him, a friend of mine found his, when he was a kid, his dad sold a antique car

that he had had to a friend who collected cars because he needed money. His dad was a pastor, and then he didn't have the money to keep the car. So he got rid of the car, to feed the kids, and 25 years later, that guy that was the collector still had the car. And my friend went and bought it from him and gave it to his dad. Wow. And you talk about eyes leaking everywhere. It was pretty cool.

And the guy gave him a good deal because he figured out what he was doing. He didn't, he didn't, you know. So he liked the fact that it was a generosity surprise. Yeah, so he made a better deal on it. And, you know, but he still. And I'm trying to remember the model of the car, but it's like a 1930s, 1940s vehicle. Wow.

And it had been restored and everything. and it was kind of a cool street rod type thing. And anyway, this collector still had the car. He was in the same town that they all grew up in. And he found him and found out he still had it and bought it and gave it back to his dad. It was a pretty cool video. That fits almost with a Gigi story right there with Angela. Well done, Angela.

That's well played. Savannah's in Florida. Hey, Savannah. Merry Christmas. What's your giving story? Merry Christmas, Dave and George. Thank you for having me. Sure.

My husband and I have been on Baby Steps 4 through 6 for several years, and we listen to your show every day. We've been inspired by your encouragement to be more generous, and we've heard your suggestions to provide necessities like groceries and gas and tires for the single mom. And we were completely sold on the idea, but we just weren't sure where to find these neighbors in need. So fast forward to summer of 2022, and we learn about a website called care portal.org. and this is a national care sharing technology that connects a family in crisis with a local church through the professional support of an agency worker. The agency worker vets the needs of the family and then enters the request on care portal for someone like me or any of your listeners to respond to.

And the site allows you to filter by state and county so that you can keep your support local to your own community. Yeah, cool. And the goal is to keep the biological family together and prevent the kids from entering. foster care because there's a clear correlation between those kids and an increased risk for incarceration and homelessness and becoming a trafficking victim as an adult. Sure, absolutely. So the personal story I wanted to share is that the very first request we responded to

was for a 16-year-old girl whose mother had just died unexpectedly and her mom was her only parent. So now on the worst day of her life, she has to move from Indiana down to Florida to live with her aunt. So she has no community around. found her in her time of immense grief, and her aunt did not have the ability to provide a bed for her, so she's sleeping on a rented air mattress with a hole in it. And as God would have it, our son had just been born several months before, and our guestroom turned nursery, had a full set of furniture with nowhere to go until now. So a volunteer from a local church picked up the bed from my house and delivered it and assembled it for her. And this story really spoke to me

because I lost my dad at that same age of 16. Oh, wow. And I can just instantly take myself back to that first morning. Well, that's how you know this is a God assignment. This is not random. No, not at all. This is straight up. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah.

So I remember, you know, the comfort that my bed provided me in those sad times, and I just pray that our gift did the same for this young lady. And after that, we were hooked. So three and a half years later, we've responded to dozens of requests for all kinds of things. diapers and wipes, sheets and pillows, car seats, groceries, and even washers and dryers. It sounds like you're having fun. We are. You are very right.

It's the most fun we've ever had with money. Yeah. That's cool. That is very cool. I'm proud of you. And it starts with the goddess' sentiment that lines up with your personal story. That's so neat. That was fun. Let's do that again.

Yeah. And then it becomes a rhythm in your life and in your budget to go, hey, we're going to set money aside just to cover needs like this. Yeah, it does not get old either. It does not get old. Savannah, way to go. Well done. Well done.

Thank you so much. So how long ago was the bad deal? Three and a half years? Three and a half years, yes. Okay. And so then you've just dozens and dozens of times since then. You see the individual requests come through. What was the name of that portal again?

I don't know anything about it, but we'll put it out there again. CarePortle.org. Okay, cool. Absolutely. Can't argue with that. That's good stuff. It looks like a real dialed in kind of GoFundMe. Because sometimes you're like, I don't know if this is real.

I don't know the people behind this. And this seems like they've done all the vetting for you to provide, hey, there's an exact need here that we know is legit. Do you want to help? That's cool. I'm not really mad about it, but I don't put any money in GoFund me. Not mad. Unless it's someone I know, you know, and they post it. If I know them, I'm just going to give them the money.

Yeah. I don't run it through GoFund me. That helps, too. Avoid all the fees. If I know what's going on, then I really know what's going on. I don't need Go fund me. So, but yeah. anyway that's a cool

way to go Savannah yeah way to go I love it I like that it's it becomes almost addictive you go where's the next time I'll tell you who uses GoFundMe well is Jimmy Darts oh yeah he does a great job using go fund me he does a great job you want to see some generosity stuff look that guy up really cool

that'll make your eyes late The Ramsey Show Question of the day is brought to you by Why Refi. If you've been turned down by other lenders, because your private student loans are in default. Why refi is for you? They help borrowers restart with dignity, a clear direction, help get you out. Check out Y-Refi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey, not in all states. And today we're switching it up with a giving story from Van in Nebraska.

Said I drive her door dash as a side hustle and some deliveries require us to collect the cash in person. Recently, I had a pizza order I delivered to a subsidized apartment complex to a single mom. When she opened the door to the apartment, she had six young kids running around. Her apartment had no furniture, just a mattress in the middle of the room. When she gave me the $40 in cash for her order, I gave the $40 back to her and gave her $16 in cash out of my pocket and told her Merry Christmas. Earlier that day, I had just watched an interview with Jimmy Darts on The Ramsey Show, which inspired me to give that lady her money back along with a little extra. Now, that's cool. That's fun.

So he refunded her to the amount of $60 plus the $40. She got $100 bucks in her pocket and a pizza. Wow. Yeah. Very cool. Jimmy will like that. Oh, yeah. We'll send him this clip.

He'll be inspired by that. Yeah. If you want to learn about generosity and just be following Jimmy on his YouTube show and he's got a new book out as well about it. It's a good recommendation. He's a friend of ours and proud of that young man and how he's inspired generosity. It's his full-time gig. It's all he does. And he's really, really good at it.

So check him out. Hey, way to go. that's up paying it forward and stuff happening because Jimmy's out there moving around. He doesn't even know what happened, had nothing to do with him directly, just him on here talking about it. Yeah. So, way to go. Never know who you can inspire with your own generosity story. Tim is in Syracuse, New York.

Hey, Tim. Merry Christmas. What's your giving story? Merry Christmas to both of you. You too. Yes, I was picking my son up at his school about a year ago, late October, and I parked in a spot next to the faculty lot. and I noticed a minivan and it's been there, it parked there virtually every day that I picked them up for weeks. And this one particular time, I just looked over the car. I was bored. And I noticed

the tires were virtually bald. I looked inside just to examine it. I didn't know which teacher it was or faculty member. And I saw two baby seats as well. So I go home, talk to my wife, because I was thinking of buying for brand new tires for this individual, and it would have been about $500, which is about $100 over our giving budget and every dollar. So my wife immediately agreed. We called up to principal, arranged for a exchange, so I'd give him the cash, and told him to please give it to the individual that owned the light blue's silver minivan. did so two weeks later i come back and there were four brand new tires on the vehicle thankfully

um i wanted that to be anonymous and it was certainly anonymous to add an addendum um i do know that i received my wife reminded me i received a bonus january of the following year so three months later, I received a $750 bonus from work, minus tax is approximately $500. So I was blessed to give that young teacher with two young children for new snow tires. And by the way, we got blasted with snow last year. It was a record snowfall, so she certainly needed it. Well, I like that God goes ahead and gives you a Holy Spirit wink with giving you the money right back.

I like that. And he goes, let's do that again. It's like, okay, I've got to go. Let's try this again. how this works yeah i like it i'm going again for that yeah very cool good for you good for you and this you you do know who the teacher is though right yes i i found out later on and uh it wasn't my son's teacher but a young single teacher nonetheless and uh definitely in need of that gift yeah way to go man that's awesome all you got to do is keep your antennas up and

stuff will step right in front of you and wave at you and go hello and you go, oh, well, that must be my assignment. Ooh, that's how that works. It's not accidental, and it's not coincidental. There's no such thing. Way to go, Tim. Proud of you. Good work.

Dennis is in Columbus, Ohio. Dennis, tell us your giving story. Merry Christmas. Hey, Merry Christmas to you guys. Hey, so we've been out of Baby Step 7 since 2017, and initially we had somebody going through some issues at one of the children's hospitals here in town, and for Christmas, we decided to donate a thousand. thousand dollars worth of gifts to kind of springboard our baby step seven journey and ever since we

got that bug every holiday we would find a local family to ultimately adopt and then one month time my wife found a church that was helping with foster kids so we've done that for the last three years and every year we've upped it we started off with five kids three years ago we did 10 kids last year and this year we've done 15 kids ultimately through the foster program probably spending upwards of $2,000 to $3,000 on behalf of these kids. And the best part about it is it's no more fun going through a toy store shopping for these kids. And we probably spend four to five times more on these kids than we do our own nieces

and nephews, which is kind of ironic, but it's a blast to be able to do it for them. Well, and as it should be. That's awesome, man. Well done. Yeah. I mean, these kids want for nothing in our family, and we're happy to provide obviously wonderful Christmas for them. but these other kids, we make sure to get everything on their list.

And it is awesome to go to the register with multiple buggies full of stuff and be able to drop this stuff at the wonderful church here in Columbus. Man, that's well done. Good for you, guys. Proud of you. Good work, good work, good work. Yeah, our Ramsey Family Foundation works with our team. Our team gets, after they've been with us a year,

they get an extra week off of time off to do ministry work. and they can take it by the day or by the week, however they want to take it. And so our foundation, our family foundation, arranges things where they can go help, you know, some ministry somewhere if they want to do, if they want to use their time that way. And just the other day, we had a whole bunch of our team members in the parking lot doing shopping for kids' toys and cars lined up with trunks up. And, you know, the people would come back had bought the ones and they put them in the trunks and know that people go deliver them. and so people using their ministry time, and we were funding the kids' toys and all that, and they were in and out of here, in and out of it. It looked like a little flea market thing going on down there in the parking lot, but it was pretty cool.

I love watching them load it into the giant trailer. It was all the gifts from all the team members getting loaded up to go give to the kids. That's special to see. Yep, yeah. This year it was going into individual cars, but one year there was a flood in the area, and we were going to that county and dropping it off, and we had a big trailer. That was fun. Yeah, the trailer just kept getting stacked and stacked and stacked and stacked, and stacked,

and then we're afraid we're not going to be able to get it all in that trailer because people just keep bringing stuff. Hey, it's contagious. It's contagious. And you almost want to like up your up what happened last year. You're like, hey, let's see if we can do 15 this year. Let's do 20 next year. I don't like it. Amy's in Dallas, Texas.

Hey, Amy, how are you? I'm better than I deserve, Mr. Ramsey. I hear you. Tell us your giving story. All right. So, you know, we've always strived to teach our children the true spirit of Christmas, remembering that we are undeserving of our many blessings. things and that everything we have is truly not ours, but rather a responsibility

entrusted to us by God to manage wisely. So this beautiful mission began with my daughter back in October. We were just driving somewhere on us. We don't even remember where. And she just said, Mommy, aren't we supposed to always try to be like Jesus and do the things he would do? Of course we are. We are replied.

And so then she just said, I have a good idea for Christmas this year. Naturally, I'm like, oh, yeah, what is it? then she shared something that honestly nearly brought me to tears and I might start right now but well Jesus teaches us to give first then save then spent maybe partially you too mr. Ramsey but in that order so maybe that's where I got first yeah and uh and Christmas is the perfect time to do that so we can help Santa by delivering gifts to families who don't get that as much at Christmas time you and daddy can wear Santa hats and me and her younger brother can be elves and I just Of course, tears are on and down, just to see the pure heart and tender spirit of, in a nine-year-old, right?

How much did you do? How much, how many dollars you put out? We gave about $6,000 worth of gift. Whoa. Yeah, and so she just said, you have a lot of me. And, of course, I'm like, absolutely we can. Yes, let's do it. And I actually live in the Dallas area, but my hometown is Middleville, Michigan, which is a small city, about 30 minutes south of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

and so fortunately we have four close friends there who connected me with some contacts helped us identify and adopt four families to blessed it's Christmas that's so perfect those elves are working hard well done sometimes kids are the best example of pure generosity I mean they don't have that's cool well done welcome back to the ramsie show in the fair winds credit union studio this This is our annual giving show, where we take calls from you, and you tell a giving or a receiving story to inspire us to be better and bigger givers, because the most fun you'll ever have with money is to learn to give it. You will enjoy yourself a lot more in this life if you learn to do that. George Camel, Ramsey Personality, number one, bestselling author, is my co-host today.

Catherine in Texas says, after listening to your show, have become more acutely aware of the people who need to. take short-term jobs to make ends meet. You often suggest door that dash or delivering pizzas or when I'm out and about and I see someone working by picking up or making a delivery, I quietly slide whatever bills I may have in my wallet into their hand and say, just in case, one of the deliveries forgets to tip you. Oh, I love that. By the way, we haven't covered this in a while, but we probably make neat. It's a perfect time to do it is if you are having someone deliver

food or something to your house, you know, DoorDash or whatever, you know, certainly pizza, that kind of thing. I want you to ask the person how they're doing. And if they say better than I deserve, that means they're working that job to get out of debt, and you have to double their tip. That's the rule. We didn't make it up. It's a federal law.

It's constitutional. It's a constitutional amendment. occurred. And so just double their tip if they say better than I deserve because you're trying to help them get out of debt. They're out there bringing you your poor little hungry, malnourished person. They brought you some food. And I don't know, you probably wouldn't have made it if they didn't come by. You're down to your last calorie. And then they come in and they bless you. And you say, how are you doing better than I deserve is code for. I'm working this job to get out of debt. And it's a signal for you to double their tip. To cry for help.

Give me more tips so I can get out of that faster, please. Now, here's what's going to happen, okay? Word is going to spread among delivery drivers that have no idea about Ramsey. You say this, you get a bigger tip. You just have to use this hack, this code. So always say this phrase. And they're like, what? You say it, trust me, say it.

And, you know, it'll get around. It'll get around. That's okay. That's fine. Still, they're out there earning some extra money and still, I'm fine with the. They're still hustling. If the Ramsey hack for tipping drivers gets out there, worse things could have happened.

We could have inspired worse movements, George. It could have happened. So tell us your giving story, triple 8-8-25-5-2-2-2-5. Sue is in New York City. Hi, Sue. Merry Christmas. Tell us your giving story. Merry Christmas.

So a few years ago, I had gotten the opportunity to donate a kidney to a stranger. Wow. Wait, minute. Wait, man, wait, wait, man. This is not an opportunity that I've run into. So how do you run into this opportunity? So, I mean, I have to go back. My parents have modeled amazing generosity and love to people.

So that kind of went into my portfolio. And then they also gifted me with amazing DNA. So when my sister-in-law's sister had needed a kidney, I had started to test for her, you know, quietly. But I didn't match her. And her hospital said, thanks for trying, but she has matches. and so it kind of, you know, ended. And I was a little disappointed because in my mind I had already kind of done it. And so when I get my eyes open, kept praying,

and when another story came across my Facebook feed of a retired police officer from my hometown, I thought, hmm, this is interesting. So I called his hospital, and I said, listen, I know I don't blood match him, but is there a way I can help this guy? And they said, actually, we participate in a voucher program where you can donate to a stranger, and then he gets a voucher for the next living kidney that matches him. So I said, hey, let's go for it. So I started testing.

I didn't tell anybody because I wanted to make sure I was going to pass. And so started testing and passed, obviously. And then once I passed all the tests, they said, can we tell him? And I thought, you know, I was uncomfortable. I didn't want him to feel like beholden to me for anything. But I said, sure. And he has been nothing but gracious. But the amazing part of all of it was I didn't know.

He was attending my church. Like, it's just so crazy. His daughter worked at my husband's school. Like, the way our lives kind of intertwined, it was just very, very strange. I didn't know him before this. But I get to watch his journey. He did get his kidney six months after I donated mine to someone. I don't know who got that.

And I get to see him, you know, living his best life. It's amazing. Wow. That's incredible. That's pretty generous. Okay. So what's the recovery time? So it was two days in the hospital, about 10 days, and I'm just going to say it was discomfort. Like, I've always, you know, worked out hard and stuff, so it just felt like I had probably did too hard at the gym. So I was used to that kind of discomfort, so I don't feel like it

was pain. So maybe 10 days of that. And then by day 10, we were down at the boardwalk, walking at the beach. By six weeks, I was back on, I'm a cyclist, so I was back on my bus. bike. And then actually, five months after that, my friend and I decided to do a hundred mile bike ride. And so, like, it really hasn't changed my life at all. I just want to inspire people. I mean, you can do crazy things. It's amazing. That's very cool. Very cool. That's legit. Very inspiring. So, Sue, that's something else. That's, well, like you said, it's DNA. It's the generosity. Your parents planted in you, so. Yeah. There's layers of sacrificial generosity. that's up there.

An organ, that's a different one. Yeah. With that kind of recovery time, all to be generous, wow. While still living? I didn't know about this pay-it-forward kidney voucher program. That's fascinating. I've never heard of that before. Pretty cool.

Yeah, wow. Lynn's in Sacramento. Hey, Lynn, tell us your giving story. You better start again because all I heard was you dropping the phone. Are you there? Three, two. You're on hold until we get you straightened out, kiddo. Stephanie's in Chicago.

Tell us your giving story, Stephanie. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, Dave. Well, first of all, this is a real gift to me because I get to talk about my son. So my giving story begins with God, as all the best stories do. My husband and I are blessed with three beautiful daughters, and in 2024 we prayed on whether or not we should have a fourth child and felt like God answered our prayer,

and we became pregnant with the son. But he was diagnosed with Trisomy 18 early in my pregnancy. And that was a very difficult walk. And I'll tell you, God was paving the way for us because we found a really amazing church before all this happened. And those people just surrounded us with prayer through everything. We received a miracle when my son was born alive at full term. and he lived one week before he died.

I mean, I don't need to say this is the most difficult thing a parent can experience. Absolutely. But the generosity that flooded in around us just took my breath away. My husband's boss and coworkers showed up with cash and DoorDash gift cards and the small groups we belong to at church sent money and gift cards just so we wouldn't have to think about meals. It wasn't the money we needed. It was just the peace. Yeah, of the margin.

And his work also submitted a claim for life insurance that we didn't even remember we would have. So we were able to donate a percentage of that to the NICU that took care of him at Lori Children's Hospital to try and support other families that are going through the worst days of their lives. Amen. Wow. That's a tough one. But people step up when they see their friends hurting. they step up and they're generous nobody talks about this enough you're out there boys and girls

I know you're out there we talk about you and two of you all the time George Camel Ramsey personality is my co-host today we're taking calls from people who gave or received something to inspire more generosity Outrageous generosity.

If you live like no one else later, you can live and give like no one else. It's not unusual for someone to do their debt-free scream on the debt-free stage, and we asked them, why, what was your why? What was it that drove you to do this? They said, we wanted to be in a position to give more. Giving has always been fun for us, and we want to do more of it. We hear that all the time on the debt-free stage. Kevin's in Springfield, Missouri.

Hey, Kevin, Merry Christmas. Tell us your giving story. Hey, Merry Christmas, guys. So a real, long story short, we're watching a young boy overnight, a girl that we're watching him for works overnight and has nowhere to take him. My company I worked for called Keep Supply. The director of sales heard about the story, and my company decided to give her a whole entire Christmas and her son and give her a bunch of cash, and it's unbelievable. wow that's cool that's cool does she know this yet uh yeah so so far we've we furnished her whole entire house um with donations from people i work with because she had nothing um and so yeah so she knows that part she doesn't know about christmas for her and her son yet but i'm sure she will after today it's the gift that keeps on giving she shows up from work every time there's more stuff that's awesome yeah how did you get everyone in

involved at work. Was it kind of like once word spread, everyone was like, I want in. Yeah. So my wife works for Life Church, and so she just gave in her life to Christ a few weeks ago. And I told the story to our director of sales. And we're also a smart dollar company, by the way, Dave. But I told her, yeah, so I told the story to our director of sales. And he said, I have an idea. And he came back. And next thing I know, we have a team called People and Culture, and they decided to do everything. So, the washer and dryer, a brand-new washer and dryer, $500 gift card, $100 gift card from Aldi, like, just crazy stuff.

Man, that's off the chain. Wow. Very cool, Kevin. Well done, and you get to be right at the epicenter of the whole thing, right? Absolutely, yeah, it's so fun. Yeah, very cool. And we'll see some big smiles, and that lady, there's no telling where she'll be in 20 years because somebody gave her a boost, right?

absolutely yep sure yeah she's a warrior princess fighting working nights just to keep her head above water right yes sir yeah man you're a good man Kevin your company's good people well done that's how it's done when we the people take care of we the people it's an amazingly efficient process as opposed to extracting taxes from someone and two percent of it actually ends up going to help someone and 82 percent is lost somewhere down a toilet in Washington. So, I mean, what would happen if we the people took care of we the people completely and you made Washington irrelevant?

That'd be pretty cool. That would be like awesome. Some of those people could get like a different job. That's true. Think about how many St. Jude's you could build. You know, it's pretty wild. It's crazy what you could do. Vanessa's in Toronto.

Hi, Vanessa. Merry Christmas. Tell us your giving story. Hi, Dave. Merry Christmas. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. I have a story, a story about receiving money for school and then paying it forward, giving money for school as well. So, yeah, so when I was young, my grandparents' birthday Christmas money would give to my parents for school. They saved it over the years and invested it for me. And then when I was 15, my grandma passed away in 2001, so she didn't quite. see me go to school, but two years later, I did go to university.

So the money they had given me, along with $1,000 that I received from a family friend, were both a huge blessing. They helped me to pay for my first year of tuition, which was amazing. Very cool. Yeah, so then after university, got married, bought a house, started a family. Fast forward to 2017, and we found the Ramsey plan. we read the total money makeover and started paying off debts. We had just a couple of car loans to pay off. But we were working on that.

At the end of that year, my mom passed away unexpectedly. Yeah, so it was a hard time, but we had some generous family who instead of donations gave us money to put into my kids' education funds because my mom was big on education for her grandkids. So we received some generous. money there to put in my kids' education funds, and it will grow because they were five and under at the time, so it will grow over the years and be quite a bit for them when they go to school.

Yeah. So in 2018, we had our debt-free except the mortgage milestone, and then so because we were debt-free, we were able to be more generous. So I really wanted to pay it forward to other family to help them go to school. So I decided to just do kind of an informal scholarship for family members. My grandma's name was Rose. My mom's middle name was Rose. My middle name is Rose and my daughter's middle name is Rose. Got a feeling this is the Rose Scholarship. The Rose Scholarship, yes, in honor of the four generations. So in 2021, when my niece on my husband's side went to college, we were able to give her the first Rose Scholarship of $1,000. Oh, very nice. Yeah, so when we presented it to her. We wrote a little letter with the meeting behind it. Her mom read it out loud at her

graduation party and as she was reading it, a butterfly appeared and was flying around while she was reading it out loud. So it was a really beautiful moment that kind of signaled our loved ones were with us during that time. So it was really beautiful. And then yeah, we plan on doing it in the future with more nieces and nephews and then maybe down the road outside the family too, just to keep paying that forward for education. Amen. Well done. Very well played.

I like it. I like it. It's often how we learn to, or we often give in a place where someone has helped us in the past. And so to flip it over and, you know, Larry Krabb says a wounded healer. Sometimes the very wound that you got is a place you can bring healing to someone else. The very time that you received something is the very time you, the very way you turn around able to give something in that same area. Sometimes that's just an assignment, just a God assignment. And sometimes it's just a place in your heart, you know, and probably the same thing.

So that's a cool thing to think about is where are those wounds for you, where you can help someone else heal in your life? Because that's where it's going to be the most impactful. Yeah, when did somebody do something from you that made a big difference and so forth? I mean, it's amazing to me that if you look around, like on Craigslist or at a garage sale or something, that you can, the kind of car you can find for $3,000 to $5,000. And if you give a car to someone, say a single mom that doesn't have a car and enable her to get a job, enable her to get her dignity and able to get moving again, it changes her life. And if that $5,000 car does that for one, that means it's only $50,000 to do it for 10. That's all it is.

The ripple effect of that is mind-blowing. It's incredible. Lots of churches now have started. Larry Burkett started this many, many years ago. and it's he would be he's passed on he's in heaven but I'm sure he's pleased from his perspective the number of churches that have followed through on what he talked them into doing and they have a car ministry and people donate their cars by the way if you donate a car you can take a tax deduction for the market value of the car and so if you got a car that you know needs a little bit

of work and the church has a ministry they'll fix it up for somebody and give it to somebody but you can donate it at full price, it's pretty cool. And so if you got a, you know, maybe you bought a car this year. And if your church has a car program or you know of a church that has a car program, that's a good way to do it. When you are donating something of any kind, a piece of real estate, a stock, a car, anything like that, what you paid for it does not matter in terms of the write-off. if you're donating it to a qualified 501c3 where you can take a write off a ministry or charity whatever then you get to write off full market value so i was talking to a guy the other day that

you know he had some exon stock that he had nothing for but you know he probably had his basis in it was probably less than 50,000 dollars and it was worth a million dollars wow but it's so if he sold it he's got gains on every bit of that but by donating and he gets to write-off a million dollars. And so he donated it. And be generous in the process. That's a win-win. Yeah, you get market value right-off on whatever it is you donate.

It's pretty cool. On the debt-free stage in the Ramsey Solutions Lobby on our annual giving show, One of our own team members, Nicole O'Hern, a product manager with Ramsey Plus team, which means she works on every dollar, among other things these days. Her husband Perry, and you've been with us. How long, Nicole? Two years. Two years on the Ramsey team.

Yes. All right. And we hear a rumor that you have a great giving story. Yeah. So actually two years right before I started, we were on the stage and we did our debt-free scream. And then a couple months, you know, being on the team, one of our staff meetings, I heard a story of a co-worker giving away a car. And I had said to Perry, I'd be like, that would be really cool to do that one day.

So fast forward, we found out I was pregnant. And, you know, we know the story. Just because you're having a baby, doesn't mean you need to get a new car. But we found out we were pregnant with twins. Oh! So we had one already. And we tried a bunch of different variations of, like, car seats. How could we fit three car seats in the back row of our car.

and we just couldn't figure out a way to make that work. So we're like, okay, we got to upgrade cars. We need a car that can fit all the kids. And so we started looking for cars. We had our beta car. And so we were like, we could sell it. It had like 200,000 miles on it. We could sell it for $1,000, $2,000.

And then I heard one of our coworkers, his daughter was looking for a car. And she was her first car, and she had a small budget. And I heard the stories of some of the cars that they were like coming across. And so I said to Perry, I was like, why don't we give our car to his daughter? And so we were like, it was an easy decision. I don't think there was much discussion. It was just timing of when we want to get the new car and all that jazz. So once we decided we wanted to do it and when we could do it,

Perry came up with a great idea of how we wanted to gift it to her. Yeah, so basically what we did was we had him have a kind of dad. daughter meeting talking outside about budget and college and everything like that. And we parked around the corner. I had bought a key chain with her name on it. And the plan was we were going to be walking with our kids around the corner. And then essentially I acted like I found a pair of keys in front of their house. And so I just said, oh, excuse me, did you guys drop some keys? And she looked at her dad and she came out. No. And I go, are you sure there's a name? I don't know whose name this is. And then she looked and kind of looked at her dad and was like, what's happening right now?

And so then we got to break it to her that was her car and we were giving it to her. That's so fun. That's great. So what kind of car is this? It was a Hyundai Santa Fe. Oh, that's a great teenager car. Yeah, it's still working. It's still driving.

She's had some good road trips in it. So we're happy. Yeah, good. That is so cool. Well played, y'all. Yeah. It felt just so great to be able to be in a place. that we were able to just give it and not have like yeah does that money with that money be great sure we have twins there's a lot of expenses but it was so much more worth it to be able to gift that and be in a place in our life now thanks to getting out of debt that it's like it's it was an easy decision so it's great amen well it's fun that in this environment at ramsay that kind of stuff happens all the time and so you've kind of got that in front of you to prompt you and go oh we can do that

instead of like where it's never going on you know there's stuff like that happens around here every day and it's uh just this place is very weird but um weird as normal around here weird in a good way but yeah um it's it's um yeah that's fun way to go y'all and what did you guys get yeah what kind of cards you buy for the twins well she wanted a minivan and i fought it really really hard so i did everything i can to kind of you got three kids dude you're in the minivan zone so i somehow won and we got a really good deal on a Volkswagen Atlas. Oh, that's got up.

Yeah, beautiful. So it has the three, the two rows. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've explained to him it would be so much easy if we had a minivan to get to that back row, but he'll give in eventually. Eventually we all succumb to the minivan. That's so fun. It's just a phase.

You don't have to live there forever. It's just a phase of minivan phase and then you can move on to other stuff. Very good. Congratulations, y'all. Well done. Hey, thanks for telling us that story. That's absolutely very, very well done. Close to home in these walls.

Good stuff, good stuff. The number of times, the first time we ever gave a car, it was a disaster. We did it at the Christmas party. The lady has now passed away. Her name was Joy. And she'd gone through a nasty mess of life, a nasty divorce, and she was broke. And I'm like, we're going to give her this car. And so I bought this, you know, car.

And it wasn't super like eight or ten thousand. thousand dollars and uh at the ramsay christmas party we always do some bizarre giving and stuff and so we bring the thing inside the building where we were doing the christmas party and uh they said you can do that but you have to unhook the battery because they're afraid it's going to blow up or something in the building right so we unhook the battery when we hooked the battery back up gave it to her and it wouldn't start oh boy so all the guys end up pushing this car outside and we get the cables out of my truck and jump off. It kind of took the edge off the gift, you know?

Yeah. It's just like, this is a, you know, it's like, okay, this is such a piece of crap. It won't start, and we just gave it to you. Good luck with that, right? And it's like, are all the team members now watching this occur? Oh, yeah, yeah, it's like, well, we get in the car, turn it on. So you got a car, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, it won't start.

It's just like, it was so anticlimactic, it was so awful. Yours was a lot better. Yeah. There's was a lot better. Walk around the corner and give them the keys. That's just perfect. You should have just had better. is not included. You've got to get your own.

Yeah. No, it was just, I was just mortified. Oh, gosh. You know, have you have all these plans, all this. The way you see this in your head, it's going to be glorious. And it's it, it won't start. Oh, my God. Oh, man. It was awful. It was horrible. Lynn is in Sacramento. Merry Christmas, Lynn. Tell us your giving story. Well, first of all, thank you very much for reinforcing the generosity piece. I really have taken it to heart. Good.

And I really believe in being generous with words of gratitude and praise with people. So this past Thanksgiving, when I was doing my Thanksgiving cards, I decided to think of someone that I know who has a hard job and is really dedicated to it. And not only that, this person smiles and waves and is cheerful. And I don't really know this person personally. I'm just slightly acquainted with him. and he is our trash collector. And because we live in a wooded area,

there are times when the bears get into our neighbor's trash, and he gets out. War zone duty for being a trash collector. Yeah, yeah. And some of these neighbors have not kind of gotten into the program about how to alleviate this issue. But anyway, he just doesn't. He doesn't complain.

He smiles, and I've asked to help, and he kindly dismisses. me and he just goes about the task without complaint and so one morning before thanksgiving he arrived at the bottom of our driveway and I greeted him and through the window of his truck I handed him a Thanksgiving card and um anyhow he I told him yeah go ahead open it and he opened it he read it and he saw like the $10 or $20 I put in and then surprise he got down out of his truck and he's in his 50s, he gave me a big hug, and with tears in his eyes, he told me that no one had ever

thanked him like that in his 20-plus years of service. Wow. And I just thought, well, you know, it really goes to show how a thank you and a small gesture for someone who does a seemingly minor job day in and day out. It's not minor if it doesn't get done. Exactly. Exactly. And I just think of all these folks who do a lot of the job.

dirty work, and they need to be remembered and recognized and thanks at any time of the year. And anyway, and then in my email, I had also added that, there's a message that I play in my head from time to time, and it's from Abraham Lincoln, and he said, whatever you are, be a good one. Yeah. And that certainly applied to our beloved trash collector, so. Very cool. Well done, Lynn. score. Yeah, I got to say my wife, she never misses the postman this time of year and never misses the trash collector. She's watching. Yeah, she takes good care of them. They know they're liked

and Lynn's the same way. Way to go, Lynn. It's a good reminder, folks. Good reminder. Yeah, that's good. Very good. Our annual giving show here on the Ramsey show. If you feel like you're starting from scratch with your money, well, trust me, you're not and you're not alone. It's because you're not, it's not because you're not managing your money well. It's emotional survival mode. And you need a path through the emotions of changing the way you look at. and handle money. Jade Walshaw gives you that path in her new book,

What No One Tells You About Money. It's on sale now. It comes out in January. The pre-sales going on. And what we do at Ramsey on our books when we're pre-selling them is we bribe you into buying it early because it helps us with the marketing and it pushes the book on the bestseller list and so forth. And thank you for the number of you that have responded. But if you want this book and you do want this book, what no one tells you about money,

It's only 2499 right now, and we're going to throw in $100 worth of bonus items, including the enhanced audiobook. Now, this is not your mother's audio book. This is great production. You'll love it. Early access to the e-book as well. You'll get instant access to an exclusive video, your financial checkup with Jade, and exclusive three-week online book club, and live Q&A with Jade.

All of that, if you pre-order right now at ramsysolutions.com slash store. what no one tells you about money. Abby is in Atlanta. Abby, tell us your giving story. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, Dave. So my giving story really started almost 11 years ago, believe it or not. I had a little girl.

Me and my husband have been very blessed with two children, but unfortunately we had some major complications. When our little girl was born, she was born at 25 weeks gestation, and she weighed one pound and 11 ounces. We were in the NICU for over 110-odd days, but she thrived and did amazing. I really had no complications except she was born early and she had to hang out in the NICU for some time.

So whenever we consulted with our doctors about four years later to try to add to our family, they thought, you know, yes, that was a fluke, that won't happen again. Four years after that, our little boy came along, but he was born even earlier at 23 weeks gestation, weighing 1 pound and 8 ounces. But this time, he was born with a grade 4 brain bleed, which typically leads to some major complications as far as the inability to walk or talk. And while we were going through that, just during his time in the hospital, one month,

we just had more months than we had money. And we could have asked a family member to help us, but instead we just decided to pray. And we just said, God, you know, please provide for us for this month. We were able to cover all of our bills, but we had just one bill that was left. And so we had prayed about it a few days go by. And our father-in-law actually visits a local auto parts store here in our hometown. And the man doesn't know us directly, but he knows our service. story. So he asked how we're doing. And he pulls out $200 to give to our father-in-law. And our

father-in-law, of course, gives us that money. And then shares with us, you know, he wanted to just to bless us in our story. But, you know, I think the key here is that we were blessed through a man who was obedient to God. And that's really kind of what I want to focus on as far as this story that, you know, our bills were covered because someone decided to show some gratitude and be giving. Wow. And while that is kind of the highlight and the peak of the story, kind of to wrap the story up, even though our little boy had a grade four brain bleed, he's a walking and talking miracle today. We have both of our children have no signs of prematurity or Nicky's Day,

and they are both thriving and living perfectly normal lives, and enjoy listening. into the Ransy show. Praise God. That's awesome. What a miracle. That's amazing. Absolutely. Good, good, good.

Wow. Right when you're at the peak of stress and someone steps in and says, well, we'll cover, you know, we'll cover a little bit of it for you. They don't understand that it's like everything. Absolutely. It's life-changing, and, you know, we were just able to, again, see that God will provide for you. Yeah, amen, amen.

Another faith builder, if you will, yeah. absolutely good story well shared abbey well done well done i'm so glad the kids are great that's a great great part of the story as well robin's with us in vermont merry christmas robin oh merry christmas to you so tell us your giving story sure sure so um we've been on the able to be generous side and also been recipients of generosity so we've been able to give away two cars. So in both cases, we were at a situation where we had two cars, but we didn't need the second car. So in the first one, we were seminary students. And there was a family from Kazakhstan that had come to the seminary in the state. And they only had a bicycle to run all

their errands. And so we were like, that can't happen. So we were able to give them one of our cars. And then a few years later, we were in another situation where we had two cars and we didn't need two cars. So there was another family. They had just had their third child and needed a larger vehicle. So we were able to give them our van so that they could get started off great on that. But what I'd really like to focus on is where we were recipients. When we moved to, we were moving to the mission field in Vermont and realized how much more expensive it is to live here than it is in Alabama, where we're from. And we couldn't do Christmas for. our family that year. And a Sunday school class in a church in Birmingham, Alabama, adopted us

as their project. And they just overwhelmed us with their generosity with these amazing Christmas gifts that year. And we are just so thankful. And to this day, still remember it. And that was almost 20 years ago. Amen. Amen. That's cool. It's very cool. And there's something weird back on the car thing, there's something weird about giving away cars. I've done it several times. and, you know, you get away $3,000 or $4,000 is one thing. You've got to weigh $3,000 a car. It just seems like a big thing because it's a big thing. You know, the thing is big.

And so physically, and so you're just like, it's a different feeling. It's a different feeling for the recipient, for the giver, for everyone involved. And pretty cool stuff, yeah. So that's neat that you were able to do that and then turn around and the Sunday school class takes care of you. And you ended up after the, are you still on, are you still missionaries? Yeah, not technically anymore. We're still up here in Vermont. Yeah, that's what I meant. We ended up taking an established church after planting two churches.

So now we're just in the regular. Okay. All right. So your husband's a pastor? He is, yes. Oh, okay. Very cool. Very cool. Well, it's easy to spread the word then with that and let people know about generosity and you did a good job sharing it today. Congratulations. Very well done. Very well done. I love that. I feel like there's two parts. hearts to these stories. One is you have to have the ability to see the opportunity, to look up and out, and you need to do that from a place of strength. Because when you're stressed out

about your own money problems, you're sort of forced to look inward. So you've got to see the opportunity and then have the means to do something about it. That's part two. When you're worried about your own food, it's hard to worry about somebody else's. And technically, you really shouldn't. Yeah. By the way, you should take care of your own household first. That's a biblical standard. So feed your kids, and don't let your kids be hungry while you're feeding some of the else's kids. That's weird. That's backwards. It's not what the Bible calls for. And so, but, but, you know, work, live, give like no one else, right? And put yourself in a position, as we say, when you get to Baby Step 7, where you're 100% debt free, house and

everything, then you can be just outrageously generous. And what by then what feels like a little bit of money to you will be a lot of money to somebody else or a little bit of help to someone else be a lot of help to someone else. It feels different because the ratios are different in your life. Yeah. And I love that these stories, I mean, it ranges from $40 to $4,000 and it was never the amount. And so that's it. I want to encourage people. It's an awareness. Yeah, I want to encourage people if you think, well, I don't have $4,000 to give. I only have $40. Hey, give a little until you can give a lot. And you don't know how it's going to affect the other person. Yeah. If you're walking through, you know, a store, you're standing pumping gas, you're doing whatever, and a thought comes to you that that person over there needs help, that was not a thought. That was God's voice saying, go help them. So be aware, be looking up, be keep your, you know, keep a little extra cash in your pocket, be thinking about this stuff. Generosity is everywhere. Opportunities are everywhere.

So be ready when it comes. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Wins Credit Union Studio. It's our annual giving show. George Camel Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author, is my co-host today. We're taking calls from you where you tell us your giving stories to inspire generosity. We would love to hear from you. So many years ago, we started doing this show. I mean, I've been on the air for 35 years.

So we started doing a giving show at the Christmas time. And Blake Thompson in those days was our producer. Blake's been working at Ramsey for 30 years. And so he was the producer in those days. And he was from Kansas City originally, grew up in Kansas City. So he brought up, he goes, you need to know about this guy named Secret Santa. And there was a guy between the years 1979 and 2006 that would dress. up and nobody could figure out who he was. He dressed up to Santa Claus. And he would go to an area

where there had been a tragedy, New Orleans after Katrina, or something like that, right? Where maybe he went to Columbine after the school shooting there in the infamous school shooting and so forth. And he went around to Santa Claus and handed out $1,000 to somebody and then to somebody else. And he'd give out $10,000, $30,000 walking around. know, $500 or $1,000 at a time. He just walked into a store, look at somebody and go, this person needs some help, and Jesus loves you, and gives them some money. Well, it got to be where people kind of knew what he was doing, so he had to get his buddies

from Kansas City to come as they were on the police force and escort him so that, you know, no one tackled him and try to get money. Get $30,000 out of the guy, you know, whatever. But he ended up giving away over $2 million as Secret Santa over the years, 79 through 06 so the Kansas City Star kept trying to figure it out and finally he came out and told us who he was because he was dying of cancer and he passed away in 08 but before that we got to meet Larry Stewart and Blake got in touch with him we had Larry come on the air and tell the whole story on Secret Santa and he kind of there's a secret Santa I think dot com or whatever

he kind of wanted to franchises he wanted a movement he wanted everybody to go get a Santa costume him and give away $10,000 all over America. He wanted to, you know, give away $20 million where he only gave way $2 million. And it all started, he was a beautiful man, just a neat guy. But it all started. He was in Alabama and he was broke and he was homeless and he was hungry. And he went into a diner and old-fashioned diner and went up to the bar, you know, the diner with the round stools kind of thing, right? sat the diner, ordered food, ate the food, and then acted like he forgot his wallet.

And he was just basically, he wasn't dining and dashing, but he was just telling the guy, you know, ran the thing. He said, I'm so sorry I forgot my wallet. And the guy running the diner to save Larry's dignity reached down under the stool and said, hey, I think you dropped this and had him 20 bucks. and he let him keep his dignity, and he gave him the meal, in other words. And Larry never forgot that. And he said, if I ever make any money, I'm going to do stuff like that, my whole life. And so we had him on there, and he was telling all these stories. It was fabulous.

And so he was in the cable TV business and became very wealthy, obviously. And he always remembered that time that guy reached under the stool and magically found a $20 bill that wasn't there a few minutes ago, right? And to take care of him. And so he's dressed up as Secret Santa and gave away over $2 million, $1,500 at a time. That is wild. What a cool. This is before the advent of social media. Yeah, and he kept it.

He's like the original Jimmy Tarts. Nobody knew where he was. And I mean, Kansas City Star tried to follow him around. They tried to figure out where he was going. He went to New York City after the Twin Towers came down with the terrorists and all that, right? So he's walking around in New York City and giving away money. And people are like, who is this guy? Well, you stand out in a crowd.

people want to know who is this guy you know i mean well you're santa and you're giving away thousand dollar pops people want to know and they never could figure it out until he decided he was going to come out and tell who it was and uh then they did this blast that everybody started doing stories on him then and we got in touch with him he came on he came on here uh i think he came on here two or three times before he passed away he lived a while with his cancer but uh he was pretty incredible pretty incredible looking up larry stewart in kansas city secret santa by the way, y'all could go do that. Yeah, some of you all, the lady called in a while ago.

Her kid wanted to be the elf and her, Mr. Mrs. Claus, right? And they were, they did it, kind of did it. Gets me T.m. Cash. They weren't real secret about it. They weren't completely dressed up with the full. That's up to you if you want to be in full costume or not. No, Dave prefers to be in costume most of the time.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, definitely. I'm big on costumes, George. But the, what in the world? Yeah, but the, uh, but the thing is, you could do this. You could just, you could have been on a little santa. I'll be your elf. That's all I'm saying. If you want to be Santa, I'll volunteer to be the elf. It's your call. Or we can just be in plain clothing and give money away. That's fun too. George, you're just messing up this whole thing. Well, it reminds me last year we went to Waffle House and I got to give $10,000 away two different houses. And that was about the most fun I had. So thank you for the gift of that. We got with the Ramsey team and they said, let's do this. We got video and got the crew out and snuck in. And you gave way how many people, different people got the 10,000? Well, we eventually, we gave it to a certain employee at Waffle House. We knew that there was a story there, and it was... The whole $10,000 for one person? Well, we gave her, I think, $2,000, just to her.

We covered everybody's meal inside of the Waffle House, which was like $47. It's amazing. Waffle House is like a time capsule. And then we just gave it to a few different employees, and it was a really special time. Now, we got that's probably sitting on YouTube, isn't it? Oh, yeah, that's on our Ramsey Show, Highlight YouTube channel, just search Waffle House on there. And it's in your neck of the woods in Antioch Where you grew up

Oh, yeah, okay That's a good Waffle House Solid No, there's no bad ones I was tempted to eat But we were on the clock So I thought, all right, we'll get out of here There's no bad ones

There's no bad ones Yeah, the And another fun one we did around here Was we figured out Because we weren't getting people out of debt That the people that When a debt goes bad And it's in collections

They will sell that debt For somewhere around Three to five cents on the dollar So 50 bucks will buy a thousand dollar debt in other words and uh debt buyers buy that and then they go try to collect it and make that 95 cent 97 profit 97 cent swing right on the ones they can collect and the reasons they can't collect they can't collect and so we got in touch with one of the brokers of the debt buying stuff three or four years ago I guess I remember

what you're 22 23 somewhere in there and I told them that we wanted to buy it to forgive it we were going to just forgive the debt and he got all excited and helped and we were able to buy $10 million worth of debt for $259,000, $2.5.5 cents on the dollar. So for $250,000 we got $10 million worth of $8,000 accounts. And we have 1,000 people. So we gave each of our 1,000 people, 10 people to call and tell that their debt had been forgiven in Jesus' name.

And that was our team's Christmas present. I made a few of those calls. And people didn't even believe you. They're like, what? This is some kind of scam. send me an email. That was the best part. I want to prove.

Well, we had to make a website to send them to say, no, this is legitimate. Go to this website. We will prove it. People, I mean, when you get down, you've been kicked, and you've had those collectors calling you, it's hard to, it's been seven years. Yeah. But it's like your medical debt, your car repo debt, your credit card debt that you hadn't paid in six years or whatever, it's forgiven.

Zero. You don't know a thing in Jesus' name. And, man, the stories were great. People working here love making their eight phone calls each, that's for sure. It was a lot of fun. You can do all kinds of fun stuff once you get this thing moving. Generosity is a big deal, boys and girls.

Our annual giving show, thanks for hanging out with us and telling your giving stories. Roses in Colorado Springs. Merry Christmas. Rose. Tell us your giving story. Thank you for taking my call and let me tell my story, Dave. Sure. Last year, two days after my husband and I decided to divorce, I fell at work and I tore my ACL and a bunch of other ligaments in my knee. I needed, yeah, I needed a massive surgery and this was one week before Thanksgiving. I was set to have my surgery the day after Christmas, and four

days before Christmas, my ex-husband emptied my house of furniture, basically took everything except for the dining room table of the bed and the Christmas tree. One of my friends decided to take me away for a night, and while we were gone, another friend of mine refurnished my entire house for me. Wow. So I came home, and I had couches and chairs and a recliner for my knee surgery, uh, rugs, throw blankets, everything. She completely redid my whole house so that when I came home from surgery, I came home to furniture. Well, you pick better friends than husbands.

Well done. Absolutely. Oh, wow. That was a happy ending to a sad story. Wow. How are you doing today? I got my first night away and then I got a new house. So it was awesome.

I'm doing really good. my knees healed up and life's going on. Good for you. As it always does. Good for you. This will be a merrier Christmas, hopefully. So you'll have the opportunity to do that for someone someday, won't you? I will.

And I'm looking forward to it. Amen. Amen. Great story. I like it. That's cool. Hey, friends got your back when you're down. Yeah.

I mean, you got your knee busted and the husband takes off. I mean, this is like a country song, right? Yeah. But your friends got your back and. And apparently a key to the house. That's the other thing they needed. They got in there somehow. It's impressive.

For real. Very cool. Lydia is in Pittsburgh. Merry Christmas, Lydia. Tell us your giving story, please. Merry Christmas. So this all started about two months ago for us. My one-year-old daughter was having respiratory issues, so we took her to her pediatrician.

From there, we went to the ER, and then from there, she got a helicopter ride because they saw a tumor in her chest. So once they did further scans, they saw the tumor. tumor was basically taking up half of her chest. It was almost completely compressing her one lung and pushing her heart to the wrong side of her body. And by the end of the day, we had met with every doctor, and there was a plan for surgery to remove the tumor the next day. Wow.

So, yeah. So the next day, she ended up having surgery. Well, so she had surgery the day before her birthday, her first birthday. Oh, my goodness. It's a baby. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, tiny little thing. She weighed, yeah, 16 pounds, that was all. So the next day she had surgery, and thank God everything went as well as it possibly could have. The tumor ended up weighing a pound of those 16 pounds, and we were told it had about a coat can of fluid in it, but they were able to remove it all with no issues. And about a week later, we found out the tumor was completely benign, which was the biggest blessing. Amen. So the next day we celebrate her first birthday in the hospital, and now she's doing better than ever,

except for a little bit of fear around doctors. But during that time, there were hundreds to thousands of people praying for her. Her nurses made her birthday very special, and it was really inspiring to see the community that came around us. So while we were in the hospital, our old pastor actually came to visit with his wife to pray for her. And after talking to them for a bit, we actually learned they had a hectic year themselves. They had been in the hospital with one of their kids almost every month. Their house needed numerous repairs, and not the cheap ones. And they weren't sure how their bills were going to be paid that month.

So we set aside money forgiving each month. We had some saved up, and my husband felt we should give them $1,500, so we did. And this stressed me out a little bit, just with the unknown of our own medical bills. And we're also having our second child in about three weeks, so we got that coming up. But we had no doubt it was the right thing to do. It felt like one of those God nudges and just trust me in this. So we did it anyway. Yeah.

So God is really faithful, and he didn't even let a week go by before we were blessed with that money in return. Of course. We had many people bless our family, and most of them we didn't even know personally or had many of their own struggles. So I've always loved giving, but I've never been in a situation where the blessing came back to us so quickly, especially in our time of need. but God's grace and provision has amazed us, and that's never been more clear than the past two months of our life. Amen. Amen.

You all have had your boat full, that's for sure. Yeah, just a little bit. And what special people you are. You're in the middle of a huge crisis with a little baby, and yet you can lift your eyes up and look over and see someone else's need. Well, I can put that on my husband. He's the one who caught on to it. I was a little preoccupied, but.

Yeah, amen. You're both people of high, character and integrity and generosity. That's a beautiful trade. Thank you. Thank you so much. Well done, Lydia. Well done.

Good story and good, obviously, powerful gift. So very, very well done. Kelsey and Georgia says recently our daughter came home and said she noticed a boy in her class couldn't eat lunch because his lunch account wasn't paid. Each day my daughter or one of her friends would get an extra tray to give him. After hearing this, we decided to call. contact the school and paid off his lunch debt and even added some extra funds to his account so he could eat lunch at school. There we go. That's cool. That's a good reminder. You can

cover, I mean, lunch debt is a crazy thing that even exists in schools, but if you can just contact the school and say, hey, I want to cover everyone's lunch debt. How much is on the tab? I'll cover it. That's a cool thing to do. It wouldn't be, you know, it's not going to, it's not going to be $100,000. No. So that's a not a bad one. But it's a stressor for that person's life going, oh my gosh, I owe the school money so my kid can eat. That's just wild. Yeah. And I've watched people many times find a young couple that were struggling. They're behind on their utilities and things and just go pay their electricity a year in advance.

Just, you know, again, four or five, six thousand bucks in most cases, right? And you can pay the whole year out and just go, this is the whole year and put enough on file with that, with the utility that a year or a plus or minus. But somewhere, and people's, hey, that changes. It's a big deal. it moves the needle with people. There's all kinds of stuff you can do, guys. All kinds of giving that's out there that's possible and probable. So we jumped on our Ramsey Facebook page.

If you didn't know, there's a Baby Steps Facebook page and the Baby Steps Community Facebook group. And we polled them, said, which type of giving feels the most meaningful to you? Financial was 13%. Helping someone directly, whether it's with money or time, 72% Just volunteering time was 11% So that's good response Have you ever

Regifted a Christmas gift You didn't like 100% I would Yeah 87% said they had No is 13% They were just too nice Yeah So I left a bottle of wine

At my friend's house About a month and a half ago On purpose? Yeah I mean we took We took wine over there to have dinner And I left an extra bottle It was a nice bottle And so he came to my house

This week for dinner And brought me my bowl The same bottle? Yes. Wow. He knew it was a re-gift. He knew it was a re-gift, gift, gift, gift, gift, re-gift. It's just going to keep making it around.

It's pretty fun, though, yeah. What motivates you most to give? I desire to help someone in need. 37% my faith or my personal values. 48% seeing the impact, 7%. It makes me feel good. 8%. Do you tip at kiosk screens and non-sit-down restaurants or coffee shops?

64% never, 31% no or me sometimes George 100% no Those just here's the thing Here's the tip off that bothers me They start being nice to me as soon as they flip the screen around Until then they weren't Their attitude changes

Until then they weren't nice Until then there was just a transaction to them But all of a sudden it's I like those glasses Hey how's your day going And I go this is clearly a ruse to get me to give you a tip I'm going to spin the old iPad around here and yeah Because you want generosity. It's a matter of the heart. I want to be inspired to give, not forced, like, an obligation. And so that's a good example there. But I love this one. My faith or personal value. So half of people were motivated because it was a value in their life. And guess what? You get to choose the values you have. That's pretty cool. Yeah. And if you don't like them, you can choose another one.

I would choose generosity. So try that out. Make it of value. And then make it practical. Put it in the budget and say we're going to give this month. If you're a person of faith, this should be a part of the rhythm of your life. life already. Absolutely. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Will and Madison are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Hey, great to see you guys. You too. Merry Christmas.

Where do y'all live? Merry Christmas. We cruised with y'all in March, so we're so good. Glad to see y'all again. I love that. Very fun. Where do you live? Salemburg, North Carolina.

It's about 30 minutes outside of Fort Bragg. Oh, yeah, fun. Very cool. All right. And how much debt have you guys paid off? Right at $336,000. I love it. And how long did this take?

Right at nine and a half years. There you go. I like it. And your range of income during that time? So at the start, we were just under $100,000 at $98. and then at the end we were right at 185K. Okay, cool. What do y'all do for a living?

So I'm an Army veteran, and I actually just recently took a promotion to a training manager at the world's largest dialysis provider. Oh, very cool. Thanks for your service. So I was in IT for 20 years. I was a web developer and then production systems engineer, but recently I just started my own sports cards business.

I like it. Cool. All right. And so I'm guessing nine and a half years, $330,000 in North Carolina, you paid off your mortgage. It's the house. Yeah. Looking at weird people. Way to go, you guys. Way to go. All right. So tell us the story. How did you get connected to Ramsey and decide to pay off your home? So the connection to Ramsey started about 20 years ago, actually. My brother Elliot, he works here at Ramsey. Ah, okay. I wondered why half the crew was out here.

That's right. So when Elliot was in the Marine Corps, he introduced our entire family to the total money makeover. And it transformed all of our lives. And while I was in the Army, I actually paid off my student loans, $60,000. And I wanted to come and do my debt-free scream with y'all then. But Army life is a little hard to get time away sometimes. So this is a huge bucket list thing for me to get to be here with my husband doing this together. When we met and were dating, Of course, we had the typical money conversations because I needed to feel that out. And when he started talking to me about how he budgets and how he lived on the dollar menu at McDonald's when that existed, and he only had this much to get through the week, I said, oh my gosh, do you do the Dave Ramsey plan? And he said, I have no idea who that is, but I do the Bible's plan. And I said, that is totally the same thing. We can continue dating. That's amazing.

No offense. Big fan now. I think you Jesus Trump. I got Jesus Trump. That's what happened. I saw that. Trump card. That's great.

What a flex. That's definite flex. And then nine and a half years ago, what happened? So nine and a half years ago, I found my dream home. And my dream man here gives me pretty much anything I want. So as soon as I laid eyes on it with a porch that Scarlett O'Hara would die for. That's beautiful. if you're watching on YouTube.

Oh, yeah, she would. It's an American Four Square built in 1917. It is gorgeous. It needed a few things when we moved in. So it's the mortgage, a ton of renovations that it needed, and also a minivan to fit those three little ones in. I lost that battle. I know the guy earlier, he won his, and I lost mine. Yeah, that's okay.

It's okay. You won overall. Yes. That's good. Wow. So you got the high. house and then nine and but you got a plan and you guys together immediately say all right how fast so 10 years you pay off your house yeah the goal was to get it all done by the time we were 40 years old old are you

we're both 39 yeah you did it he is two weeks older than me i always said i wanted to marry an older man there you go he's two weeks older than me and we made that final payment on our mortgage on my 39th birthday i like it you made it well congratulations thank you so much very very well done all right so what's the house worth today it's right at like 450 grand okay we live in a very small town so it's hard to get comps but yeah but that's probably close that's it's a beautiful home and the um and your nest egg and your retirement accounts how much have you got in there so with with everything where it's like 250k okay all right so you're about 800 so you're bumping up towards a million dollar net worth already and you're not even 40 way to go y'all proud of

you good work you guys very good work how's it feel to be completely debt-free i was telling her earlier on the way up here that it just feels like a weight off our chest um you know we still grind like said a open you know start my own new business but it just able to be more present with the kids and just there at every you know every ball game and and and there for everything just really like I said just to wait off our chest yeah way to go we got the kids here too right we do now how old are they because I'm curious that where bring them up and introduce them let's know it learn their names and ages so we have three kids so that means I stopped keeping track of all of this after the first one or two so 11 sergeant is 11 Pemberley is 9 and royal is 8 very cool

and yet you cash flowed the three of them along with this journey oh yes we have the house and the We absolutely did. And I see sergeant's got the straight out of Baby Step 2 shirt on, which is fantastic. Debt free and $1,000. He helps dad with the sports card business. They do that together. That's awesome. Way to go, you guys.

What do you tell people the secret to getting out of debt is being 40 years old, 100% debt-free? I think a huge part of it is that age-old principle, stop buying things you don't need with money you don't have to impress people you don't even like. Amen. Amen. Well, you guys have managed to work together very well, too. Yes, thank you. We're doing our giving show today. You have any comments on generosity while you've been going through this process? We actually would love to share a story with y'all. I'll intro it and I'll let him finish it. My husband has been for a long time a huge basketball fan and a basketball coach, and he coaches at a place called Falcon Christian Academy, where the players are all from Falcon Children. home. And they all come from really rough backgrounds. They don't have parents or their parents aren't fit to raise them or their parents are in prison. And that is his ministry. And that is where he

gives back. And I'll let him take it from here kind of what we've done and what we're going to do going forward. Yeah. So just we, I run a church basketball league and we raise, we have a charity game where we raise between 1,500 to 2,500 every year. And I just say, you know, hey, here's the money that the children's home can do with it, whatever they may. We, um, the kind of the thing that started, uh, a fire in my heart about it was, um, I live on paydays, you know, um, on the road, the candy bar, sorry, the payday candy bar. Um, and I, I just was eating one day on the, on the driving the van to an away game.

And, um, the rustling of the, the candy bar just. All the kids were like, what did you got there? And I was like, oh, they were like, are you going to eat that? I was like, no. Apparently not. Yeah, not anymore. And just one of them took one payday bar and they like, it was like almost like breaking bread. And they shared it with each other.

And I just, I went home, told her that story and tried not to get choked up. No, that'll get it going for sure. take care, you know, good care of all their needs and everything, but there's just, you know, they don't have any luxuries. They have wants. And so actually on the way up here, we were organizing to get a shoe drive, to get all the kids. They didn't have proper, not all of them have proper basketball shoes. So, and, you know, one kid in particular is having to wear size nine and he's actually in 11 because I gave him a pair of my shoes and he fit them perfectly. I used to work at a shoe store

a long time ago I was like oh that works but just we just do different things with Falcon Christian Academy and now you don't have a house payment so you can do whatever you want yes yes amen all right congratulations you guys very proud of y'all

well done well done will and Madison Sergeant Pemberley and Royal right outside of Fort Bragg 336000 paid off in nine and a half years making 100 to 185 house and everything they're weird they're debt free count it down let's hear a debt free scream got it in three two one we're debt free

yeah whoop whoop whoop whoop whoop whoop whoop I love it it's like some kids are getting some new shoes this Christmas along with some payday bars in Jesus name I love it well done well Well done. Our scripture of the day, Luke 2, 7 through 9, and she gave birth to her firstborn son. And she wrapped him in clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the end. And there were shepherds out in the field keeping watch by night and an angel of the Lord.

appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shown around them. Billy Graham said the very purpose of Christ coming into the world was that he might offer up his life as a sacrifice for the sins of men. He came to die. This is the heart of Christmas. They just handed me our debt-free screams for the year. This year we had 84 people do a debt-free scream in the lobby here on the debt-free stage totaling $20,363,762, $363,762.

Wow. 363,762. So 20,0. $20.3 million. And that's a lot. That's just right here on the stage. That's just the ones we actually had come stand on the stage. We know there's many more out there who became debt free this year following the

principles. And I'm inspired by it. In every dollar, we had $3.5 billion in dollars. saved and dollars paid, money saved and debt paid, just the people using every dollar, $3.5 billion changing position this year. That is wild. It's hard to rack your brain or we actually failed. We were trying to get $4 billion and we didn't make it, but we'll make it next year, so it's okay. I hate it when we fail like that. Well, if everyone used every dollar and used it accurately reported the numbers, we'd be there. Oh, easy. Enter your numbers in every

dollar so we can track it. It's really fun. Yeah, come on people. We want to celebrate you. It's our annual giving show. Brittany's in Wisconsin. Hi, Brittany. Merry Christmas. Tell us your giving story. Hi, Dave, George. Thanks for taking my call.

I'm excited to tell you this story. Sure. So earlier this year, we had some changes in our financial situation. You're breaking up. You had some changes in your financial situation, and then what? Yep. And then all of our side hustling was just to kind of. kind of break even. So we were, we were in the red for expenses to income ratio. And so at that

time, cash slowing a vehicle just wasn't possible. So one of our friends who is now pre-mobe to go serve our country, he gifted us his truck. And technically, it was just for whatever we were able to sell our broken down beater for. So it was a very, very, very, very generous trade. It's a very nice truck. We're driving it down to Chicago this weekend and we have no worries in the world. It's very reliable. It's got heated seats. It's awesome. Wow. Yeah, very, very thankful for that. And then shortly after that, my car completely totaled itself. It broke down. And so my father-in-law, my husband's father, he retired. And so he had his daily driver left over and he gifted us that as well.

So now we are a two vehicle family, and just a couple nights ago here in Wisconsin, it was negative 15 in the morning, and I started it up. That car ripped on the first try, so we're very thankful to have two working vehicles. Amen. Amen. Yeah, that's a big deal. And I'm thankful that people are in your life that looked up and saw it and said, hey, we can help.

Yep. Yeah, that's a big deal. That's awesome. Amen. Brittany, thanks for sharing. sharing that. That's a big, that's awesome. Very, very cool. It's amazing how a car can change your life. Get you from A to B reliably. What a cool gift. It's come up a lot today. Yeah. Sometimes we have more car stories than others, but today's a lot of cars stories. Forget how life changing that can be.

Carrie is in Delaware. Hi, Carrie. Merry Christmas. Tell us your giving story. Merry Christmas. Dave and George, thank you so much for having me. My husband and I, we have followed your plan since 2012, and we are debt-free. And over the years, we've tried to model. generosity for our daughters. We have three girls. A couple weeks ago, our youngest daughter, who is 16, who's a junior in high school, started telling us about how one of the band members in her marching band, her sister, who's 20, was just recently diagnosed with cancer,

and that there's an upcoming band trip to which they have every year, and the students in the leadership of the marching band were kind of putting together, scraping money together to help with the next installment of the band payment that was due. And so I was really impressed. My husband, I are listening. I look at my husband. I'm like, I asked how much the next payment was. And she said, $300.

And I said, what if we just paid it and made it like a secret Santa? And you could just pick it in. And my daughter was like happy, but not shocked. She was like, that would be so amazing. And I was like, yeah. So a couple days I'm by, my husband came home from work. He had stopped at a local hardware store. And while he was at the register, the cashier was putting a collection bucket out for the sister

who was sick. And it kind of, like, reminded my husband. and he came home and he told my daughter and myself and he was like telling and my daughter said yeah actually the girl's parent had just lost their job and it was like one of those things and I gracious like when I know when the storm hits right and I I thought back to all the times that I've listened to you when somebody calls in and they're stressed about like your debt and then somebody's sick and you always say to them like focus on you know getting better the debt don't worry about that And it always rang in my head.

And so I looked at my husband and I was like, you think we should just like take care of the balance of the trip. And like it was only $600. And I was like, absolutely. So my daughter was excited. She'd actually used some of her own money and paid for, made a donation to the go fund me for the sister that's sick. So long story short,

I emailed you guys, told you about the story. I was really impressed by all these kids and like my daughter just the spirit of, you know, giving. And then Monday, after I emailed the show, my daughter called me from school. she had gone in to go pay the balance and the band teacher was so impressed and then he said actually it's been taken care of with all the generosity of the kids coming up with their money

and my daughter was like she said to me it's already been taken care of could we just donate for groceries for a month and I said absolutely so they're going to do a little Christmas party tomorrow night for the her friend and the marching man and they're going she's going she's going to give her like a still a secret Santa thing but this way groceries will be taken care of. So the girl can go on the trip. She has spending money and the family will be able to not have to worry about, you know, the cost of the trip, but also groceries for a month.

And I said, this is the whole point of like doing this is that like, because after the first time my daughter said it to us, my husband's like, this is why we're following this. So that when we're not here someday, our kids can continue to be generous, you know, and it doesn't have to be always like a monetary thing. You talk about holding the door for people and just smiling and being kind. And that's why, you know, that's our goal. as parents is that we're not here anymore.

Our parents are, you know, kids will, like, continue the legacy. Just be good people, so. Absolutely. They'll pay it forward. Way to go, Carrie. Well played. Kurt is in Venice, Italy. Wow.

Merry Christmas. Tell us your giving story. Hey, guys. Hi, guys. Dave, George. I'll be real quick. Another grocery story. I'm over in Italy.

My wife's always wanted to be here. So here we are. We're at the grocery store. We go to checkout. There's a gentleman in front of us. You could tell he had just come from work. you know he was all decked out went to pay for his groceries didn't have any luck his debit card didn't work he pulled out another one didn't work got real nervous asked if he could run outside real

quick to find his wife so he did and we're kind of all watching them and everybody's kind of accumulating at the checkout and everybody's getting nervous so my wife and are like we'll just pay for his groceries let's just take care of that so we did then we took care of ours and we ran his groceries out to him all right obviously the guy was very appreciative everybody in line was appreciative. Here's where it gets really good. A couple days later, we get a call from my daughter. She's in Park City, Utah, just came out of a Walmart. She had a new use phone that she got from her father-in-law. And she went to pay for her groceries, two little kiddos in tow. Her Apple pay hadn't been entered in her phone yet, okay? This is like two days later, Dave and George,

didn't work. She didn't have her debit card on her. She didn't have enough cash. The guy in back of her insisted on paying for her groceries. We paid 22 euros for the gentleman's groceries. This gentleman behind my daughter, two days later, $160. My daughter was absolutely in tears, but can you believe we do it here, didn't tell a soul. Two days later, my daughter has the exact same experience and the guy behind her steps up and purchases her groceries. Like, What a great story. I absolutely can believe that. That's so cool.

I absolutely can believe that. Wow, way to go. Very cool. Just a little God nod there. Amen. That's really neat. Well, guys, remember, the greatest gift of all was Christmas when God's sin is only begotten son.

Yeah, he came to die for our sins. Remember that. That puts this hour of the Ramsey showing the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily. with the Prince of Peace Christ Jesus.