The Ramsey Show - App - These Are The Things Wealthy People Do (Hour 1)

Episode Date: July 17, 2024

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. George Camel, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of the book Breaking Free from Broke, host of The George Camel Show, massive YouTube property, and all-around network star here at the Ramsey Network. She's my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Steve

starts off this hour in Atlantic City. I'll get it out. Hey, Steve, what's up? Hey, thanks for taking my call. Thanks, George. I want to thank you guys for what you're doing, first of all, because not many people are financially

smart, I guess you would say. And so what you guys are doing is awesome. Well, thank you, sir. I'm 41, and I'm really not planning to work until 60-some years old to retire. And so I have retirement, and I have investments that aren't retirement. And so I'm investing heavy right now. And I feel like it's so overinflated at the moment. And being that I'm not completely out, I have significant money in right now.

Would it be wise to just collect 5% in the money market and wait for a correction? I know you're more of a slow and steady, just keep putting it in every week, but it just seems a little crazy right now. Yeah. Well, generally speaking, the reason it seems a little crazy is it's the first time you have stood on top of that mountain. If you'd stood on top of that mountain if you'd stood on top of that mountain several different times it wouldn't feel as crazy and so it's an emotion that says i've never been here

before and um and human nature i think there's something about you know there's a black side of human nature the dark side of human nature that says oh it can't stay good nothing can stay good it's like if everything's good i have to look over my shoulder something must be wrong and that's human nature but that's an emotion steve there's no data that says we're due for a correction if you had called me five years ago and i said oh yeah yeah we're getting ready to have a correction, you would have missed out on a 90% rate of return. You're in the last five years in the S&P 500, your money has doubled in the last five years.

And so, and so why do we not think it's going to do that in the next five? Well, I mean, it goes up, it goes up it goes down you know in 22 the market was down overall in 23 it was up 27 it's up 18 already this year but that doesn't mean that it has to correct because there's actual there's actual income and assets backing the the companies that create the stock price. You don't price Home Depot stock based on a wish, a dream, and a prayer. Home Depot actually makes money, and they own stuff. You don't price Apple stock based on a wish and a prayer.

They actually make stuff and make a profit, and you can use those numbers to determine the value of the company and therefore the value of the company and therefore the value of the stock. And that's where this is coming from. It's coming from the prosperity of these companies, George. And what's amazing, Steve, if you actually look at the data, if you go look at right now, the S&P 500 returns, you know, the last major dip was COVID. And guess what? March 2020 was the dip. It came back in July, back to record highs. And so you got to just, you know, the old saying, it's true. It's not about timing the market.

It's about time in the market. And the best investors out there are the average ones who just let it ride. Yeah, so please don't try to time the market is the moral of this story, and that's what you were asking about. And, you know, it's one of the reasons I tell folks to be in with a SmartVestor Pro because all the data tells us that someone who has a good broker in their corner not somebody who's a shyster but somebody's calm and data-based and they'll teach you talk you off the ledge you know talk Steve off the ledge

they tend to keep you in the market you tend to say don't get out don't get out don't get out they don't call you up and go I'll be scared no you don't get out don to say, don't get out, don't get out, don't get out. They don't call you up and go, I'll be scared. No, don't get out, don't get out, don't get out. Set it and forget it. Set it and forget it. Time in the market's more than timing of the market. That's a great phrase. I love that phrase.

And so all the data says for that reason, if no other reason, a good broker in your corner, a good smart investor pro in your corner makes you money because they keep you from, as Churchill talked about his depression, he called it the black dog, right? The black dog inside of every one of us is telling you, you know, get out of the market. It's going to crash. Get out of the market. It's going to correct. And there's nothing that indicates that. Well, what causes a lot of that is the inputs you have in your life.

And I'm guessing, you know, Steve's watching some headlines and it's going, we've hit record highs, but what's around the corner? What's going to happen with this election this year? And what about the Fed and the interest rates? It's all got to come crashing down eventually. There's clickbait every day since the internet was invented. Every day there's clickbait that says economists predicting the end of the world you know quickly read my article those guys are my favorite because

whenever they're wrong they go oh we missed a calculation we're off by a few years we'll be back like okay so i guess it wasn't the end of the world we're all still here so steve please i gotta tell you what what's george doing george is gonna stay he's not looking for a correction what's dave doing we're gonna continue to invest we're not looking for a correction if someone handed me a million dollars today i i would an extra million that'd be cool i'll take it um i would put it in the stock market in good mutual funds or i buy a piece of real estate with it because I'm bullish on both. I think that America, the best is yet to come, baby.

The best is yet to come. We're not done. It didn't peak out. We missed the top. No, you didn't miss the top. Because if you go back and look 30 years since I've been doing this, I mean, 2008, the Dow went to 6,800. It's almost 40,000.

Wow. You know, I mean, golly, what would your money be worth? Oh, please, please, please don't time the market for this. I had people in my own family, they took out money when they got spooked because someone told them, hey, now's the time, take the money out, there's about to be a correction. And then the money sat in a settlement account making 0%, and then the market came back as it

always does like a roaring and they lost out on all of that growth and it's heartbreaking to see and we get calls like that where they say dave i haven't invested or i pulled my money out now what do i do i'm broke because i didn't stay on the roller coaster yeah and that was the last time we saw a major correction in the market was uh 2008 And the Dow took a dive. It took a dive off a cliff down to from, I think it was about 14, and it went down to 68. It went basically in half. Your value, what you had in your mutual fund, if you had a million dollars, it turned into

500,000. And that scared the crap out of people. And you know what I did? I scraped every dollar I could and bought more it's on sale half off that's right you're at kmart and the blue light's on any of you old people know what that means right blue light special you don't even know what kmart is much less what the blue light is but when i was a little kid a little redneck kid we would go to kmart and they had these little roller things little square cabinet with a pole and a blue light on top and they would roll it over next

to an item and put that item on a flash sale and turn the blue light on. That's pretty impressive technology for that time. It's a blue light technology. Had a little extension cord, followed it around. So you thought the police had set up shop right there in that corner of the Kmart, but all the redneck women ran over there and got their deals. I'm telling you. So if the blue light's on, it's a special.

It's a deal. It's a special. special it's a bargain it's what that means and so if it's doing well be thankful and if it's not doing well it's on sale super thankful there we go this is the ramsey show hey jump over there and get that book i want to to put it on. Oh, yeah, absolutely. So we just laid a book down as we're walking back in from inside, so I'm sending George to pick it up. So an old friend of ours, Davey Blackburn, just dropped in. Davey, many of you will remember the story. It was about six or seven years ago, I think.

He was a youth pastor, and his wife was murdered in their home in Indiana. And, um, and, uh, so the story is horrible and heart wrenching and amazing. Uh, I endorsed the new book called nothing is wasted. And it's the, the whole story of, you know, what happened in the whole process. So, um, it's, and the book, he just got a book done and the book has come out so we want to tell you guys about it nothing is wasted and he's got the nothing is wasted ministries and it's um even the murder of his wife nothing is wasted wow crazy there were a lot of redemption and healing and forgiveness and hope and all kinds of great themes yeah so um amanda and their unborn daughter i profile case slowly meandered its way through the toward legal justice david embarked on the wrenching task of

finding the strength to restore his shattered soul and broken pieces in his life yeah that's the write-up on the book so nothing is wasted um i'll tell you guys about it he's a great man and it's a horrible uh tragic story but a beautiful beautiful uh result out of a horrible situation and so um picture of amanda on the front of it so wow good stuff nothing is wasted you guys be sure i think it's apparently on the street right now it just just came out so be sure and check that out i'll definitely give that a read i know the whole story and i know davey and he's spoken here uh for our team and um you know we were behind the scenes helping him uh with all the stuff when all the things were going on and um wow what a deal looks like it's on pre-order right now oh it's on pre-order publication day pub date july 30th so coming out the end of the month you can pre-order it now okay thank you george yeah always here to help well i mean you get the

book off the chair you find out the publishing information the whole best so we make this up as we go around here all right and george george catches all my slack which apparently there's a lot of it open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five adam is with us in chicago hey adam what's up? Hi, Dave. How are you doing today? Better than I deserve. How are you?

Doing quite well. So I've got a bit of a question for you. I'm currently baby step two. I've already made quite a bit of progress, but my girlfriend and I are looking to get hopefully married in the next couple years, and I'm just looking for some guidance on what's the proper way to go about doing that while we're still actively kind of in the midst of debt uh there's not a we do not tell people to wait to be out of debt to get married

as a matter of fact we tell them go and get married if you're going to get married get married period that's simple um we do tell you not spend seventy thousand dollars on a wedding when you've got sixty thousand dollars in debt you know i would tell you that right but um but the getting married part getting married does not hold you back for getting out of debt now what i will tell you and you probably have already based on the way you formed your sentences and the way you brought this to the table you're probably already doing this but i will tell you uh that you don't want to get married to someone who doesn't share your hatred of debt right because that's going to be a long life long miserable life yeah so but so but if you're both saying hey this sucks we're going to lean in be gazelle intense and get out of it that you know but we're going to wait

till we're out of debt to get married i wouldn't say that i wouldn't i'd go ahead and get i'd go and get married and okay um you know george that's that's consistent with what we teach well what's how much debt are we talking here? Because you said a few years. To where it tells me, are you waiting a few years because of the financial situation, or are you saying that's a natural sort of progression of this relationship? Mostly because of the financial situation. So currently, I'll just lay out our debts because it's pretty simple.

It's just I've got about $11,000 left on a car loan. That's my last thing to pay off. And then she's got about $50,000 in student loans. Okay. And what is her income? Her income, unfortunately, she just lost her job, but she was at about $50,000 a year. Okay. So probably get something around that range again.

And what do you make? This year I'm making $47,000, but I'm up in line for promotion next year, so hopefully a bump up from there. Okay. So you're going to be in the $100,000, $110,000 range, I'm guessing, if you were married. And how old are you two? We are 27.

Okay. Is there any reason not to go ahead and get married? No, other than just saving up to make sure we pay for it in cash. Sure, sure. Okay. Is there any reason not to go ahead and get married? No, other than just saving up to make sure we pay for it in cash. Sure, sure. Okay. How long have you been dating? I've been dating about eight years now. Okay.

Time to paint or get off the ladder, dude. It is high time, my friend. Seriously. Oh, my gosh. You've got to get engaged first. Yeah. But let's not make this another five-year engagement after that. No.

And then one day. I mean, I got my patience with this personally. I mean, I'm just speaking for Dave because, you know, just. I think Sharon would have been long gone if Dave waited eight years. Yeah, she'd be going, what's that country song? Get me to the church or something. I don't know. But anyway, that little big town had a song.

But yeah, that's it. Whatever. Paint the church white. Whatever the thing is. Yeah. No, get married. Get married as fast as you can. The best case scenario is you naturally both become debt free before the wedding.

Worst case, you get together and you make a hundred something thousand and you knock out the debt quickly. That's a worst case scenario. Yeah. If you're, you know, you've had a lengthy time to get to know each other and you're you're ready and you're 27 you're not 20 you're not 18 and 17 you know you're not that so um did have that call at this point you know if i want to spend my life with this person because you've already spent a good chunk of your life with this person at eight years yeah so yes i would get married as soon as possible

and reasonable and i would not wait on clearing debt to do that, as long as you're both aligned on how we're going to handle money. And it sounds like you are. So, good question. Thank you, Adam. Appreciate you calling in. Mitchell is in Edmonton, Alberta. Hey, Mitchell, what's up with you?

Hey, guys, not too much. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? Yeah, so, Dave, George, I'm just trying to navigate the baby steps a little bit here. Uh, right now we're just working on paying off our mortgage, which obviously like everyone, we hate monthly payments, mortgage included.

So we kind of just want that gone. Uh, the deal is myself and my wife, we both work full time debt free other than the mortgage, uh, with about 400 K remaining on that. Where it gets a little bit different, on top of our jobs, we also started, this was four years ago, we started an event rental business. So we ran that throughout the summers. At this point, though, it's just kind of gotten to be a little bit too much for us to manage, especially now we've got a two-year-old.

So we really just want some more time to do family stuff. So we decided to sell the business. We have a sale lined up actually. And after the sale, we figure we should have about $300,000 in cash and liquid investments that we can put towards the mortgage. Yay! Just wondering, hey, there we go. Yeah, just kind of wondering if the best thing to do is just to put that lump sum straight towards that.

Yes. Or maybe leave a portion straight, yes? Yes, absolutely. You're out of debt. You have an emergency fund, right? Yeah, you bet. Your household income is what? I'm just over $100.

She's right at $75. Okay, $175. And you owe $400. you're going to get 300 um yeah you're you know baby step six four five and six is what we would be putting 15 of your income away already in towards retirement and baby step four or five is kids college if you want to throw something towards kids college or something you can if you're not already doing that and then i'm gonna throw the rest of it at the house i will take something out of it and just go on some kind of celebration you know let's take 20 grand and you know go buy a thingy or go on a cruise or whatever it is you want to do i don't

care this is some way to kind of enjoy the success enjoy the success and then i'm throw the rest of it at the house and then reach over my 175 income5,000 income and knock out a house out in, what, two years? You're going to be debt-free? That's pretty cool, dude. Yeah, yeah, no, it's good. So I guess the reason I was really asking, like I mentioned, I hate the mortgage payments. And I had this idea, and don't rip me apart too much, but the idea I had was just basically to have it sitting in in some kind of

mutual fund or something like that and to just draw that month by month to to pay for the house uh basically allowing it to produce returns yeah or is that just i just we don't find any millionaires that do that we find them just paying off their mortgage all the data indicates that wealthy people don't do that stuff. They just hate mortgages, get rid of their mortgage, and they dump money in their retirement. And that's the first level of wealth, the first million to $5 million. That's where it comes from.

So I just don't find people doing it. And the reason is it adds risk to the situation. George Camel, Ramsey personality, is my co-host. Thank you for joining us, America. I am Dave Ramsey. The Ramsey Summer Black Friday sale ends tonight. This is Wednesday, for those of you, the 17th. Tonight it ends at midnight. This is the best deals we've had. This is prime, for those of you, the 17th. Tonight it ends at midnight.

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Amber's on the line. Amber's in Detroit. Hi, Amber. How are you? Hi. How are you doing, Dave Amber's on the line. Amber's in Detroit. Hi, Amber. How are you? Hi, how are you doing, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay, so basically I went to court yesterday as I was sentenced to court by Capital One

on behalf of the lawyers based on Capital One, so they directly sued me. The lawyer approached me in court to settle out, but the settlement was poor. Well, the debt overall is $7,000 with the court fees. And so they pretty much told me I could settle out for $6,000 with interest that would incur if I was on a monthly payment. I was trying to do a lump sum, but I can't afford that. I'm in economic hardship, and I explained that to the lawyer and they're not they're playing hardball and I'm trying to find out how can I go about settling for a lower amount. Well um wow so so in most states uh Michigan I think is, is one of them. They can garnish your wages,

but it'll take them a while if you don't do anything, okay? So what happens is the lawsuit, they've offered you a settlement, and in the meantime, they're going to take a judgment, okay? The court is going to rule that you owe the money and didn't pay the money, judgment. So when the judgment becomes final, at least 30 days will go by, if not more, before they can execute on the judgment. Executing on the judgment means that they would scarf money out of a bank account or garnish you a wage if your state allows those things okay uh texas for instance does not allow that but i'm pretty sure michigan does i'm not an attorney in michigan so not an attorney anywhere so but that's that's the type of thing

you're facing so there's nothing on fire nothing's going to happen bad to you in the next 10 minutes it's going to be a month or two or six or a year okay does that make sense see what one of the things i found is if i can get the panic off then i can get my edge back in this negotiation you went down to court which is so unusual i'm really shocked that this moron only offered you a six grand settlement on a seven thousand dollar balance i i would have guessed they would have offered 50 cents on the dollar hoping you would offer a quarter on the dollar we generally can get most of these bad credit card debts to settle for somewhere around, you know, 15 to 20 cents on the dollar. All we do is just call them up and yell at them. Okay?

And your financial hardship really doesn't matter to any of them. They don't give a crap about you. The lawyer, Capital One, the judge, none of them do. Okay? So your story holds no water whatsoever. Cry me a river as far as they're concerned, okay? Now, I understand what it does. It pinches your emotions, and it keeps you terrorized,

and it makes you have things in your throat that gulp, gulp, gulp. I've been there. I remember these little sweat in the palm of your hands. You had some pretty big courage to walk into that courtroom, Amber. Way to go. Thank you. I'm very nervous, actually. I bet.

I bet. But it's kind of funny, though, isn't it? I mean, it's like the first time I ever got a speeding ticket, and it's the first of many um but i went to traffic court and traffic court is like nothing i mean i was more scared of my sixth grade teacher than i was traffic court traffic court's a joke you go in there and they go oh you showed up okay we'll wave the ticket right your first one most places they do that right you bother to show up and did you kind of have that experience it's like you were all scared up and did you kind of have that experience

it's like you were all scared and you thought you were going down there there's going to be like a trial and they were going to you know have a jury and matt lock was going to come out or perry mason or somebody and it's just like nothing you're just like a you know you're down there in the middle of a grinder and they're just making hamburger meat taking a number at the deli our next did you notice that yes there's really no drama is there no yeah so not what i imagine yeah so not like your brain had told you for the three days before you went down there so the same thing is true now of settling this okay they at they put this out there as if it's their only thing they are they're going to do

their chances of actually collecting anything from you statistically is zero 98 of the people in your situation end up filing bankruptcy or just disappearing and they can't find them they all they collect almost none of these judgments. And they know that. And they were so shocked that an actual human being showed up. They didn't know what to do. It never happens. So all that to say is this. You owe $7,000.

You could probably settle that for $2,000. And I want you to scrape together $2,000 really, really fast. What do you make? I have $2,000. all that for two grand and i want you to scrape together two grand really really fast what do you make um i have two grand um so actually i'm an independent contractor you do have two thousand i can i yeah i tried to set so i ended up calling them back yesterday after the court hearing because i had to do another motion to say payment installments of i could afford a hundred no don't do any payment no payment installments no I could afford $100. No, don't do any payment. No payment installments. No, do not give them any payments. No, I already have the motion put in file day,

so I don't know what to do with that. Like I had to do another motion for them, you know. For payments? You took an installment plan as a motion? Yeah. Okay, call the judge and tell him you can't do it. Okay. Just tell him to pull that out because it's just saying, I looked at my budget, Your Honor. I'm sorry him you can't do it. Okay. Just tell him to pull that out.

Because it's just saying, I looked at my budget, Your Honor. I'm sorry, I can't do it. I can settle with them for $2,000, and that's all I can do. I don't have room in the budget to do this. I was just scared, and I shouldn't have filed that. I'm sorry. And just tell the court clerk that and tell them to pull the motion off the docket. Okay?

Okay. They'll do it and then call up capital one boy and tell him that you talked to your financial advisor and your financial advisor told you to file bankruptcy if he won't take the two grand because i just told you to do that i really don't want you to do that by the way but i did just tell you that so you can tell him i said that i mean yeah i i honestly was my next option because... No, you're not bankrupt. You don't need to file bankruptcy. You need to bluff.

Okay, okay. Just walk away. Just go, all I got is two grand. If you want some money, Bubba, here's some money. If you don't want some money, we got nothing else to talk about because I'm not paying you payments. And if you come after me and start messing with my paycheck, i'm gonna file bankruptcy on you so you're gonna get nothing i'm a chapter seven tell him this tell him my financial advisor said i'm a chapter seven

looking for a place to happen okay they all know what it means yeah because you because you are. And he knows the same statistics I know, that as soon as he pushes you to the wall and garnishes your wedges, you're going to file and he's going to get nothing. Now, I am not saying you're bankrupt. You're not, Amber, because you're going to scrape together $2,000. Now, here's what we're going to do. He's not going to take it today, but if you keep pestering them, they might take it.

In the meantime, pile it up to $3,000 and up your offer. And keep uering them they might take it in the meantime pile it up to 3k and up your offer and keep upping it until you get it settled and settle it for a lump sum for pennies on the dollar 50 cents on the dollar max 3500 is max until then just beat the snot out of them just worry them call them every day y'all ready to take some money i got money y'all want the money when are y'all gonna take my money i'm begging you to take my. Y'all ready to take some money? I got money. Y'all want the money? When are y'all going to take my money? I'm begging you to take my money. I'm calling you to take my money. You don't have to call me. I'm calling you. And just have fun with this. This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Our question of the day comes from Ethan in Minnesota.

Ethan says, my wife and I would be best described as baby step-ish up until the beginning of this year. Unfortunately, we always seem to slip back into debt and I can't figure out why. We just completed Financial Peace University at our church, but I need help with prioritizing. While we're still in baby step two, trying to pay off our consumer debt, we've been putting 12% into our 401k because of my company's 100% match. We also have $7,000 in a Robinhood account and $10,000 in savings. Together, our income is approximately $150,000 a year. My question, should I pull the Robinhood 5k and stop our 401k contributions temporarily i honestly don't want to touch the 10 000 in savings with five children an aging furnace

and a second vehicle murphy is bound to stop by soon ethan i don't think we can help you you've decided to do ethan's plan yeah and he said he's going to keep doing ethan's plan so i mean you know exactly what you're supposed to do and what we teach you to do. And millions of people have followed exactly what we told you to do. But for some reason, you, the broke guy, don't think you need to do it. I don't think we can help you. You're not willing to be helped. And they've already been through the financial piece.

If I hire a personal trainer who has a six-pack or an eight-pack, is ripped like a Greek god, and I go down there in the gym with my keg and he's got a six-pack my belly sticking out in front of me and I go I don't think I agree with your nutrition plan I don't think I'm going to do those exercises the way you think they ought to be done you know what that is Ethan dumber than crap that's what that is and that's what this email is it's dumber than crap it's unbelievable well he's wasting his own time and he's wasting everyone else's time because clearly you like your plan even though your plan is not working even though it's essentially what you said and you're the the results suck and you're

financially upside down and sideways and you've been all around this you know what we're going to say and yet you tell you tell us what the guidelines are that you will go along with give me a break dude go do something else quit wasting your time with our stuff because if you're half butt going to do it you're going to get a half butt result or a worse result even you know so no i don't think we can help you all right that was easy don's with us in austin texas hey don how are you hi game hi george thanks for taking my call sure how can we help well um we were wondering my husband and i we think we're in baby step seven um we think we've maxed out this29s from where our kids are going to school and wanted to know if we want to continue to contribute on their behalf,

where is the best place to place those investments now that they're going to be withdrawing for the 529 plan? You're not going to put any more in the 529, right? Well, they're going to end state college tuition. It's about $120, and we've got $150 in there end state college tuition it's about 120 and we got 150 in there okay so you're good to identify yeah i mean you could cover housing and books out of that too so you're fine but yeah so you want to put more money aside just for your kids just for life or in case you wanted to upgrade something at the school right and we um you know we're already

in the rhythm of doing so so we wanted to continue okay cool i just i wouldn't i would just put it in your name and gift and gift it to them later okay well i appreciate it so if you got an extra four or five hundred thousand dollars laying around you want to give a kid a couple hundred for their first house or something that'd be cool all right i appreciate it yeah and you can look into it you know it's not going to hit there's an estate gift limit but you're not gonna it's millions and millions and millions 27 million this year so it'll go against that but you're not even going to go near touching that so don't be worried about that but what a cool way to bless the kids yeah very neat parents of the year right

there very neat that's the kind of stuff you can do when you do the baby steps. Well, baby step seven, she's brilliant. I mean, well done, Dawn. Way to go. I mean, you killed it. Quite the opposite of our emailer. And the thing is, like, I've run into people now that have been doing the Ramsey stuff so long, George, that they did this. They had a wedding fund fully funded. They have their education fund fully funded. They have their education fund fully funded.

Wedding fund is in their personal name, but they're able to then pay for their kid's wedding, right? And their first house, pay cash for it. Pay cash for the couple's first house. And the guy said, I just make my kids sign a little one-page letter that promises that they will never go into debt for anything if I give them a free house. So that I'm the last person with my last name to ever have any debt in this branch of the family tree. Wow. Completely break the cycle forever. That's legacy. That's the definition right there. It's fun. That's fun. That's pretty cool. And Dawn, she's approaching being able to do that. Yeah. Well, I wanted to ask you about that. I was going to do it off air. I'll ask on now

because this is good teaching. For those of us that are following the baby steps, I got about one-year-old little girl now, and I'm thinking about these things. Hey, I'd love to help cover. I want to cover the wedding, help maybe the 401 Dave plan for her first car. I pitch in half. She gets some skin in the game, pitches in the other half. Maybe pay, obviously pay for college. Make sure we cash flow that. Maybe cover her first house.

Maybe with her spouse one day. Are those wise things to do? It's sort of like getting an inheritance early in a way. Yeah, it is very wise to do, but the wisdom is contingent upon the kid, you know, buying into the value system. And so if the kid's off the ranch, obviously, you know, they're out there going crazy and whatever.

We're not going to, you know, we're doing heroin. I'm not buying them a house, right? I mean, you're not, obviously, your child's not going to be doing that. But dear God, I hope. But the, you know what I'm saying? Or if they, you know, they marry somebody who's got a screw loose or something, then, you know, we're not going to do it. But if the two of you are sane and you buy into, you know, George and, you know, George's family values,

and this is what we, you know, espouse at our house, and if you're going to do that, then sign a note here, just a simple letter. It's not a contract, but I just want your name written down here. I want you to say out loud, not just verbally because you forget. I want you to write it down. I'll bring this back out later if i need to and says i we will never borrow money again because my dream is that my children my grandchildren my great-grandchildren will never have any debt because of the hard work that i did and the teaching that i did teaching them so

but it won't work if you haven't invested into your child's work ethic their ability to be generous their ability to save their ability to live on less they make their ability to understand a budget their ability to you know uh you know hate debt if they're doing all of those things and then you give them a house and their spouse is willing their new spouse is willing to go in on that then boom you know you got the deal right that's impressive so that's uh that you you can change everything and you're exactly i mean you got a one-year-old so you can do this you'll be able to do it but you know it is well that's controlling you're being a control because it has the string attached of never going to debt but the is, why would you ever need to go into debt at that point?

Well, because some idiot on Instagram told them to. To go leverage some real estate or write off a car. Tic-tac told them it was a good idea to get passive income. But the thing is this. Yes, it is controlling. It's my freaking money. Want my money? Do my plan freaking money. Want my money? Do my plan.

Don't want my money? Do your plan. That's how this works. It's simple. And it's, you know, that's the way that my kids were raised and the way, you know, so yeah, it is controlling. But guess what? Good parenting is controlling.

Don't play in the street. You will get hit by a car. That's controlling. You know, we're not raising wild animals we're raising humans they're supposed to have boundaries they're supposed to have guidelines they're supposed to have values and yeah so that this is just one of those things so of course it's controlling all good parents are controlling brush your teeth because you'll want some later you know i mean this mean, this is controlling, right?

This is, yeah, there we go. That's timeless wisdom. It's a good thing to have some. Now, I get questions about this. The UTMA, the UGMA, the Unified Transfer to Minors Act. The problem with that is that when they're 18, they automatically get the money if it's in their name. Exactly.

Which can be very dangerous to your point. Exactly. What if there's misbehavior? We don't know what your kid's going to be like at 18. Exactly. So to have $150 150 000 could be detrimental exactly so i put it in my name and then gift it to them later now in the old days there was no 529 so our children actually had utmost and utmost that was their college funds but i told them if you're misbehaving i'll just hide the account you won't be able to find it i'll steal it from you so good luck with that because I'm not going to fund your heroin addiction.

So, you know, we're going to have to keep this on the line here. But that's not a suggested strategy. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you.