The Ramsey Show - App - The More Money You Have, the More Good You Can Do (Hour 2)

Episode Date: July 13, 2020

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Thank you. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studio, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Rob starts off this hour in Chicago.

Hey, Rob, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Good afternoon, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up in your world? Well, I've got a weird question for you. Certainly. Um, my girlfriend and I are concerned. We are putting too much towards retirement and was hoping to get some guidance on that. Um, how can you put too much towards retirement?

Well, running, running the numbers, we are contributing $60,000 annually in tax-advantaged accounts. And my concern is that, you know, in 40 years, we're looking at that rate of return conservatively of 5%. I'm seeing $10 million, and that honestly seems like just too much for two people you know okay all right well i have um a different perspective on that i mean obviously if that happened um you would have no trouble giving it away if you needed to, to maintain yourself. Certainly. I'm an evangelical Christian, and so my view, my world view, is that I don't own anything, that I manage what I have for God.

And so in that case, I'm called to manage that for him, which the first rule would be to take care of my own household. That's long past if you have $10 million. The second rule would be to take care of my retirement and to change my family tree, you know, to leave an inheritance to my children. And I'm long past that. And if you had $10 million, you'd be long past that. And then the third goal past those things, scripturally in that order, is to obviously care for others and use that money for good. And the more money you have, the more good you can do,

assuming you're managing it with that mindset. Now, if your only mindset is hedonism, is consumption, then I would agree with you that you wouldn't need that much. And it would be, it could be possibly even spiritually or emotionally dangerous to have money that that much becomes turned in on one's

self. But that's not the theology or the philosophy I live my life by. Absolutely. I should clarify, we do give charitably currently and plan to for many years. Have you heard of the Charity Unbound? No. It's actually one of our favorites.

It's sponsoring children and senior citizens internationally. It's associated with the Catholic Church. Cool. Great. I love them because they actually give 97 cents on the dollar to the actual mission, right, which you don't see with a lot of charities. Right. Well, that's probably because they're underwritten for their administrative by the Catholic Church, which is awesome.

And so you know your giving dollar is being very efficiently used, which the efficiency of the giving dollar is very, very important. But what if you could give 10 million dollars to that or what if you could do a million dollars a year just off of the interest that the 10 million creates you know or or whatever what if you just walked up and found a single mom who was struggling and bought her a car i mean you know what if you found i mean the think of the things you can do like that if you're not inwardly turned. Now, if you're only consuming like a four-year-old, you're going to be an unhappy person because, you know, stuff does not make you happy. It's okay to get you some stuff. Stuff's not evil.

Wealth is not evil. But this idea that you chase that in order to be happy is a really dangerous thing spiritually and emotionally. I wouldn't do that. So all that to say, I think it would be a wonderful problem to have. Okay. So you recommend creating a legacy sort of in terms of estate planning. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Setting up charitable giving and setting up five-month periods. Do you guys anticipate having children? Yes. Absolutely. Setting up charitable giving and setting up five-month periods. Do you guys anticipate having children? Yes. Okay. Girlfriend, the minimum of three. Okay. Fair. That's wonderful.

Yeah. And so then you start to think about, okay, what does wealth do to children? And so there are a group of people and there are stereotypes that assume that if you had 10 or 20 million or 100 million, that it would destroy your children. I have three very high-functioning adult children, and our wealth has not destroyed them. I have grandchildren that will be the same. We've taught them to work. They're in no way entitled.

They have the same worldview that we do. And if they don't share that worldview, there will be no inheritance to them because i'm not leaving money to them to do cocaine with or ride around on a yacht they're they're they're there to do good in the world and the wealth is a tool to do good in the world and if that's how you see it then you can raise children and not damage them with wealth as well but you could raise children that just have a reality show otherwise right yes have you have you looked into the giving pledge personally are you familiar with the yeah i'm familiar the the buffett and uh gates deal yeah yeah yes yes i think it's over 90 of your your assets you give

away to charity at upon your death i think that's a mission that's really appealing. It is appealing, but it, again, makes the assumption that your kids are going to mismanage the money and the charity will manage it better. And I don't philosophically line up with that assumption. I'm okay if that's what you want to do. It's your money. I've got no issue with it. And it's certainly a thing. But we don't want to get into this idea, see what that ties into. If you believe that you must do that in order to be spiritually and emotionally whole, then what you're really saying is, is that the money is dirty.

The money is evil and the money is really not. It's people that are. And so if you left money to your child and it hurts your child, then what parent would do that? And if you assume that 100% of the time that you do that, you damage your children, no. But I am acquainted with and have studied several wealthy families of faith, faith families that have handed the money to the next generation and continued generationally to do good works. And I think that also is a wonderful legacy.

So the idea that somehow that a charity is going to manage it better than a godly family, not necessarily true. Matter of fact, there's a lot of charities that are mismanaged. We have a family foundation. We have to study and do due diligence on them to make sure that there's something like you were talking about, 97% efficiency and not the other way around. Not a 3% efficiency efficiency you know so you can't assume that charities uh aren't going to have a glitch as well or a ministry is not going

to have a glitch as well there's money that is mishandled in any type of organization whether it be a family a church a ministry a parachurch organization the vatican doesn't matter where they're everywhere you go, there's an opportunity for money to be mishandled, misappropriated, poorly managed, stolen, because people are involved. And so you just can't get away from that idea. So it's a fun discussion, though. So no, I don't think you're saving too much if you have the right worldview and mindset

with the money. Hold on. I'll send you a copy of a book I did on this subject. It's called The Legacy Journey. It is written from my faith perspective. Fair warning. But hold on. I'll send you a copy of it as a gift.

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you can replace them for free. Plus, I like the way these guys do business. GRIP6 is determined to help build and modernize American manufacturing. To learn more and get this month's Dave Ramsey special, visit GRIP6.com. That's GRIP6.com. Thank you for joining us, America. Derek's with us in Houston, Texas. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, Derek. Hi, Dave.

Thanks for taking my call. Certainly. How can I help? Yes, Texas. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, Derek. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Certainly. How can I help? Yes, sir. So the question I have here is I owe $24,000 plus on my car right now, paying $480 a month for it. And the question I have, since we're trying to clean up stupid, is if I should double down on the car payments and just get it paid off quicker or

should i actually surrender the car and um and go get me something cash okay no we never surrender a car because they're going to sell the car at way below wholesale and sue you for the difference that's called a repossession so we don't want to do that one. But what is your household income? $40,000. $40,000. You're single? No, sir, I'm married, but stay-at-home wife.

Okay. All right. And this one car you owe $24,000 on, do you have a second car? No, no, no. I actually got rid of my second car beforehand um because i had old uh it was basically it cost me like 600 a month it was like the most expensive car that we had so i was like no we got to get rid of this thing so okay we sold that one and um and gave them the payment for that and i was just double checking to see if I should do the same with this one. Yeah, if you sell it, that's fine. Surrendering it, I would not do.

Now, what is the car worth? Do you have any idea? I don't have any idea what the car is worth, but I'm pretty sure it might be around like the $10,000 area. And you owe $24,000? I owe $24,000. How do you owe $14,000 more on it than it's worth? Do you roll negative equity from the other car into it?

I roll negative equity from a previous vehicle, not the old car that I sold off. That's what I mean. When you did a trade-in, you had negative on the trade-in. That's correct. And they put it on this, and then they jacked your interest rate and smacked you in the face. So much fun. That's why I said I'm trying to clean up stupid. Yeah.

Wow. Is this your only debt? No, no, no. I still have my student loans that I have, and then I have some outstanding credit card and other collections. Like I literally started watching your programming about maybe like a month or so ago. Yeah. How old are you? And so I made the conscious decision to start fixing things. Gotcha.

How old are you? I'm 32. Okay. All right. Yeah, you've got a mess. What we look at on how quickly someone can turn their mess around is what we call what i call the shovel to hole ratio the hole you're in is the pile of debt the shovel is your income and so it sounds like you have a lot of debt compared to your income agreed that is correct

yeah i don't think you want to turn this car in, but I do think we need to get it paid down as rapidly as possible, paid off. So let's try again. 24 on the car. How much is owed on the student loans? 25. And how much on the credit card?

The total of everything ends up being right at $71 gotcha okay all right and so what we've got to do and do you have anything else you can sell nothing else that i can actually sell as of right now because i'm renting i don't own my home right um so i i don't have anything else that I can really sell. Okay. How many kids do you have? I have two, a two-year-old and a 10-month-old. Okay. All right.

Well, if you pay off $10,000 a year, it takes you seven years. You see how I did that? Yes, sir. If you pay off $20,000 a year, $25,000 a year takes you three years. $24,000 is $2,000 a month, which means you would need to increase your income with an extra job during that three years that paid pretty well, delivering pizzas, mowing grass. I don't care what it is, but you need to get an extra fifteen hundred dollars a month coming into your house that and another 500 out of your budget goes towards these debts and you're debt free in three

years uh selling the car doesn't help if it only brings 10 of the 70 and 10 of the 24 you follow me if it would bring a lot more than 10 i'd sell it in a heartbeat so i want you to look up on kelly blue book kbb.com and see what it's worth number one number two you're going to be working an extra job that pays well and you're gonna be working a lot because you gotta clean this mess up number three you guys are going to get on a written budget that scorched earth meaning you have no life you're not eating out you guys are going to get on a written budget that scorched earth, meaning you have no life. You're not eating out. You're not going on vacation. You don't see the inside of a restaurant unless you're working there.

You have a mess to clean up, sir, and it's going to require a level of intensity, a level of healthy, righteous anger at the mess to get the mess cleaned up. You can wander into this kind of debt. You cannot wander out. You've got to get mad mess cleaned up. You can wander into this kind of debt. You cannot wander out. You've got to get mad and go to war. You following what I'm saying? I got that message about a month ago when I watched you the first time, which is why I'm in contact with you right now. Awesome.

So I want you to go through Financial Peace University, our nine-week class. I'm going to give it to you for free because I've been where you are, broken, scared, and didn't know what to do. But I'm going to give it to you for free because I've been where you are, broke and scared and didn't know what to do. But I'm going to show you how to get out. If you'll go to that class, I'll give it to you, okay? Yes, sir. All right, and that includes the one-year membership to the online everything. So you can do your every dollar plus budget.

You and your spouse do not miss a class. And then stay with the online budget. Go back over the lessons during the year. Take the other classes in the online during the year, but go to the class, the Financial Peace University class, for the nine weeks. And then Financial Peace, the membership, goes with it. I'm going to throw all of that in together, and I want you to take care of your family and turn this around. And you be the guy that changed your family tree. You're the last broke guy in your family.

You change this, Nick. You can do it. And I'll help you. If you get scared or you don't know what to do while you're walking through this, it's going to be three years you and me are together, brother. And then from then on, we're going to be together because I'm going to help you be an everyday millionaire. But you call me if I can help you.

And you hold on. Kelly's going to pick up, and we'll get you started. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in. We'll talk about your life, your money. It is a free call, 888-825-5225. Nick is in Baltimore. Wait a minute.

That was Nick I was talking to. Who was I talking to? Oh, it was Derek. I'm calling him Nick. I had the wrong guy. There's Nick. Hi, Nick. How are you? I'm doing well, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve.

Sorry about that. How can I help? No worries. No worries. Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I've been following you since last year, and I've paid off at this point probably about $45,000. Woo-hoo! Yes. And I have about $10,000 left in student loans. And I wanted to see the best way to pay those offsets or group in miniature different groups.

Okay. Smallest to largest, doesn't matter, because you're paying this stuff off so fast it's all going to be gone so fast it doesn't matter. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I was taking a look at it. The different loans are linked as few as like $878,000 and then as much as like $4,000. Yeah, just list them smallest to largest. Work your debt snowball. Knock them out in that order.

Fair enough. Because you're going to be – I mean, think about how fast you paid off $45,000. Yeah. This is only 10. A fast you paid off 45. Yeah. This is only 10. A lot of changes last year. Yeah, this is only 10. So this is walking a park for you, man. You've proven you can do it.

You've already ridden the bicycle. You know what balance feels like. Yeah, you're ready to go to town, man. Congratulations. Well done. Very well done. Lauren is on Facebook. Is it better to get life insurance coverage through work as payroll deduction or have a freestanding policy?

I'm changing jobs, and I need to know what to sign up for. You're better off to have a freestanding policy because if you became uninsurable due to a cancer scare, a heart scare, diabetes, or something while you're at work, and you leave that job, your life insurance doesn't go with you. And so since it doesn't go with you, you've lost your insurance since you became uninsurable. So a freestanding policy is much safer for you. And by the way, generally, it costs less once you understand the differences in the kinds of insurance that are offered, and you're buying the right kind of 15- to 20-year level term insurance, which is seldom offered at work.

It's usually an ART at work, an annual renewable term, which goes up every year. Cheaper to buy it when you buy a 15- to 20-year level term. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. To find me Thank you for joining us. We're glad you're here. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Alexis is in Philadelphia. Hi, Alexis. How are you? Hi, Dave. How are you? Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Oh, my goodness. It's such an honor to talk to you. I'm sorry. It's all good. How can I help? Okay. What's kind of prompting this question is that 1 a.m. this morning, I was on my way home from work, and I collided with a tire on the highway. And so kind of just dealing with my insurance agency and trying to figure out everything from that, it wanted me to ask you how much insurance should you be carrying on your food fee while you're getting out of debt? The car in question is worth somewhere around $4,500, maybe $5,000 on a good day.

And the insurance on it is, of course, the liability that you're mandated to have by the state for medical things if you're involved in an accident. But the collision was set at $1,000 deductible because I had to have some sort of collision insurance on it because when we purchased the vehicle, please don't be mad, we financed it, and we paid it off before the first payment was due because we needed a second vehicle for my new job, and we had been a one-car family for a year and a half since then,

or before that. So how much insurance, if any, did you have on your vehicle while you're getting out of debt? I would have just exactly what you've got. I would have collision on it with a $1,000 deductible. Okay, to be the emergency fund. Our second vehicle is worth $2,300. Did we have a $1,000 collision on that as well?

Maybe. It shouldn't cost hardly anything because you really only have a net of $1,300 worth of insurance. So the cost for the collision insurance should be a joke. Here's the thing. You don't have any money to buy a car if you wreck the car and it's your fault. And you need the money to replace the car if you wreck the car and it's your fault. Now, if you wreck a $2,300 car with a $1,000 deductible, it's a $1,300 swing. You could take that risk if you want to, you know, and just go, well, if that one goes in the ditch, we're just going to have to sell it for salvage and, you know, scrape together some money and buy another hoopty until we get on out of debt.

And that's what you're facing there. But for instance, let's say that you're sitting in a $8,000 car or a $10,000 car. Writing those checks while you're getting out of debt is very, very difficult. So I carried a large deductible, like we're talking about, a $1,000 deductible, because that keeps the collision premiums down to almost nothing. When you're insuring a $10,000 car or less with a $1,000 deductible, your collision, the cost of the insurance is not very high at all for the collision portion of the insurance. It's ridiculously low. So in most cases,

now sometimes you've got a particular car that's expensive to insure, and you may not want to do that. But most of the time, the reason you buy insurance of any kind is to cover something you can't afford to cover. If your television breaks, you can afford to get another television or do without a television until you do. So you don't buy extended warranties on television. But if your $10,000 car goes away, most people can't write that check while they're getting out of debt. You shouldn't be able to write that check if you're following our steps while you get out of debt, because all the money that you could have written the check with should have already gone to the debt. So, you know, you should be in a pinch if that's the case, if you run out of that. So that's what Sharon and I did. We ran a $1,000

deductible on our cars while we were in that situation. Rachel's with us in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Hi, Rachel. How are you? I'm doing great. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I had a question about the $1,000 emergency fund. It doesn't seem to be working so great for us because we have a 100-year-old house that's a fixer-upper and anything could go wrong at any moment so we just are not gaining traction on the snowball because little things keep happening how long has how long has this been going on well we bought the house two years ago that wasn't what i asked how long have you been more operating with a one thousand dollar emergency

fund um about about two years okay so you've been getting out of debt for two years? Right. Okay, and during that two years, what have you had to spend on the house that has popped up and caused your emergency fund pain? We had to redo some of the sewage system. No, what's the total dollars? I don't want to hear the story. What's the total dollars you spent on the house during the two years? About five grand. Okay. And so basically we're talking about $150, $200 a month.

Right. So just put that in your budget. You live in a crappy house, and it takes $150 to $200 a month to repair it constantly. Okay. That's what it does. $200 a month to repair it constantly. Okay. That's what it does. $200 a month is $2,400 a year. It's $5,000 a year in two years, okay? That's what we're doing.

And so, yeah, the emergency fund, you've got a recurring repair. You've got a recurring event that's fairly predictable because of the age of the house. And so let's just put that in the budget because the emergency fund is not meant to cover. A small starter emergency fund, for sure, while you're getting out of debt, is not designed to cover recurring events like that. Like let's say you had a child who was suffering with an ongoing chronic medical thing and it was killing the emergency fund. Well, we just look back two or three years and go, what are we having to spend on this ongoing chronic medical thing, and it was killing the emergency fund. Well, we just look back two or three years and go,

what are we having to spend on this ongoing chronic medical thing? And we just make that a budget line item then because it's not really an emergency. It's fairly expected. We know this is happening. If you're driving an older car and you're having to do some extra car repairs right now until you get out of debt to buy a newer car, then you would budget more for car repairs instead of going, oh, the emergency fund keeps getting tagged because it's fairly predictable.

But that's how you push through. And then, of course, get your income up, get your outgo down, attack the debt snowball with a vengeance, keep after it, tear into this thing, and let's get this debt knocked out so we can get above this. Because the $1,000 starter emergency fund is not meant to be a long-term financial plan. It's just until you can get these debts paid off. You know that part, too, because it's not enough as a good emergency fund. It's enough to get you by while you're, you know, gazelle intense

and knocking out your debts as fast as you possibly can. So good question. Folks, it's interesting to think about. Here's the thing that goes through people's minds. And it went through my mind. It went through Sharon's mind. When you're driving a crappy car, you live in a crappy house while you're getting out of debt. You're living like no one else so that later you can live and give like no one else. It feels like you're the only

one that's driving a hoopty. You think when you're sitting at the stoplight that everyone is staring at your trashy car. They're not. They're in their own little narcissistic world. They're actually looking at their phone, checking Facebook to see who liked their last post. They're not looking at your car. They're not looking at your car. They don't care about your car. Not nearly as much as you care about it, and not nearly as much as you think they care about it or your house and here's the thing it's temporary how many of you out there

everybody raise your hand how many of you have driven a car that was so bad that if you put tires on it it doubled its value how many have driven a car that is so bad that you had to give it a name? Old Blue. The Green Monster. The Swamp Thing. I mean, Babe. The Blue Ox. Right? I mean, how many of you had a car that was so bad you had to give it a name?

I've done every bit of that. I drove a car. Some of you people don't even know what this is. I'm so redneck. Here's what I did. I drove a car for several years, and I never had any new tires. I bought retreads. Do any of you even know what retreads are?

That's used tires that they sort of put new treads around, but they would fly off sometimes if they got hot and blow the tire. So you always had to have a good spare if you're driving with retreads. I went to college on retreads. Yeah. So been there, done that. But the point is, do that with a purpose. Do that so you never have to do it again.

Drive like no one else so later you can drive like no one else. Baby, I'm telling you, I ain't getting retreads now. Yeah. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Erica is in Chicago. Hi, Erica. Welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Can you hear me okay? I sure can. How can I help? Awesome. Well, I want to start off by just saying thank you because of you about, I want to say,

five years ago. I started listening to you four years ago. I became debt-free. So I got married two years ago, came into the marriage obviously debt-free, like I said. Initially, we were on the same page. To make the long story short, I ended up selling a Civic that I had to purchase two cars because my husband moved here from South America. So we bought two used cars. One of them works awesome. The second one, we basically were told it had like 80,000 miles.

It ended up having like 200,000 miles. We ended up paying like 200,000 miles. We ended up paying like five times more than what it was. And it died a couple of months ago. So now my husband wants to finance a new car. And as you can imagine, I am freaking out. I don't know what to do. I don't want it to become an argument, but I don't know how to convince him that that's just not a good idea.

Okay. Why are you convinced it's not a good idea? Well, because it follows your principles. I don't want to go in debt. Why? Why? Because of the goals we have long term. I mean, we were pretty much done with our emergency fund.

We wanted the next of group to buy a house. The car itself is going to lose so much value when we take it out of the place and we're going to get it from. I feel like we could get another car that's used. I feel we just had bad luck with the one that we got ripped off on. And when you say all of that to him, what does he say? He says that it's just a huge risk um that we we can probably we're probably going to get ripped off again and that he doesn't want to do that then we need a car

and why would you not get ripped off if you bought a new car trust me i've tried to say everything i can't i just don't know like we it even got to so bad to a point where he's saying that I'm just so close-minded with the way that I think about money that maybe we should go separate ways type of thing. So we've gone to that point, and then I'm thinking of the wife side of me, trying to be a good Christian wife. It's like, okay, should I continue? So is your definition of a good Christian wife going along with misbehavior? Not at all, and that's where I'm getting stuck.

So you just use the phrase good Christian wife in order to give yourself permission to cave to a wrong decision. So that was going to be my question. Like, do I let him make a mistake and him realize that it's a mistake in the long run, or do I just put my foot down and say, no, we're not doing this? Yeah. Well, here's the thing. Hardhead, that's your husband's name, he is unwilling to take his wife's input. That's a problem in a relationship.

You shouldn't be running over him, and he shouldn't be running over you. The Bible says submit yourselves one to another. And if your husband is wanting to do cocaine and he thinks that's a wonderful thing, are you a good Christian wife if you go along with it? No. Of course not. And buying a car on a car payment is financial cocaine it's stupid as a matter of fact we know it's stupid and it's

not that you're not willing to bend it's like i understand the law of gravity i'm unwilling to jump off the building i get it there's a law in force here and here. And I'm not a lawbreaker. I'm not jumping off the building. I don't care if you think you can fly. I'm not jumping off the building. You know? And that's all you're saying is this is an illogical, bad decision. It's an unwise decision.

Here's how we know it's unwise. All the things that you just said earlier when I asked you why you didn't want to do it. A car payment keeps you from your goals. A car payment is financing a large asset that goes down in value. A car payment is the signal you want to be middle class the rest of your life because all the data points of millionaires tell us they don't borrow money to buy cars and haven't in several decades. When I asked millionaires what the biggest financial mistake they ever made was,

they said, well, we bought a new car on payments one time when we were stupid. And we quit doing that kind of stuff, and that's when we became millionaires. When we studied 10,000 of them, that's what they said, as opposed to hardhead, in his opinion. So what do you do? I don't know. I don't know how you deal with a hardhead exactly, Except possibly if he's threatening that you need to go your separate ways because you won't go along with financing a car, then that says that your relationship comes down to him controlling your decisions.

That ain't much of a relationship, and that says that you need to be in marriage counseling to me. Okay. I think that's what I needed to hear. Yeah, because hardhead is, you know He's pretty much going to be his way or the highway It says what he's saying You're going to go along with my stupidity

And if you don't go along with that I'm the man of the house Then you're not a good Christian wife And we need to go our separate ways That's what's floating in the air in this conversation Am I missing something? Okay, no, and I think I needed to hear it That's what I was thinking as well.

I was just not sure at what point do I just, you know, think all the way. Well, I'm not suggesting you end your marriage over a car payment, but this is really not about a car payment. This is about control. Okay. This is about who's going to control things, and he's going to. It's my way or the highway. So what's next?

If you go along with this one, what's the next thing you have to go along with? And the next thing you have to go along with? And the next thing you have to go along with against wisdom. See, this is not how a proper relationship functions. And so I can guarantee you that if Sharon Ramsey pulls that same kind of crap, she and I are going toe to toe and she can fight. She's a hillbilly woman. She knows how to fight and vice versa. If I'm doing something, you know, that she doesn't go along with, we go toe-to-toe. Now, we don't do it very often.

We've been married a long time. We figured out how to not act that way. But we do not make major decisions in our lives unless both of us are in agreement. Now, there's some things that she wants to do. She goes and does them. And I'm okay with that. And we talk about that. I have no desire to do that.

You want to do that? Head off. Go do it. That's fine. But it's not borrowing money on a car. It's, you know, who you're going to lunch with or who you want to go to dinner with or whatever. I'm happy to not do that. You head on.

And that works out fine, but major decisions like buying a piece of real estate, making a major charitable contribution, a decision like that, if both of us are not in agreement, we just don't do it. Until we have agreement about it, we do not move forward proactively on financial and life decisions of size. And I've learned I make a lot more money that way. Proverbs 31 says, who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely trusts her.

And wait for the financial part. Here's what it says. And he will have no lack of gain. So men, if you're married to a virtuous woman, and if you're married to a virtuous woman, usually she doesn't have to tell you she's virtuous. That's part of being virtuous.

She doesn't think she's the Holy Spirit. That's part of being virtuous. But if you're married to a virtuous woman that has an opinion, you will have no lack of gain when you go along with that. And that's not caving, and that's not being a along with that and that's not caving and that's not being a wuss and that's not not being a man that's not you know being henpecked or whatever that's just getting along in relationships properly and listening to each other the preacher said and now you are one and so if you make decisions by yourself, you're using half your brain. Because together you're one. But one of you is the half.

And so that's how this works. And I made a lot of decisions with half my brain. I ran the car off the road in the ditch. Meanwhile, my wife was going, I think I saw a bridge out sign. I think I saw flashing lights here. Yeah, well, well, I'm driving the car okay right not a good idea so we learned to work together and we have had no lack of gain ever since it slows us down it gets unity in the household it creates relationships by the, another issue is when we study these millionaires, none of them said, I did this in spite of my spouse. Out of 10,000 millionaires, some were single, some were divorced.

But none of them said, I built wealth in spite of my spouse's bad decisions. Never happened once. It's always, we work together to hit our household goals. We sacrifice together to hit our household goals. 100% of the time, that's what they said. Never said, I drugged the princess along, kicking and screaming. Never came up in the research, not once. So, low probability of prince or hardhead or princesses

that won't work together leading to wealth. Very low probability. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for The Dave Ramsey Show. This episode is over, but if you heard about a product or service and didn't have a chance to write it down, don't worry. We list everything that is mentioned during this episode in the post.